Anatomy of the Revolution and Illusions of Breaking with the Past. Traditionalist Criticism of Pitirim Sorokin

Abstract

The article offers an analytical review of the Russian revolution. The author considers the concept of the outstanding Russian and American traditionalist Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin. The subject of Sorokin’s research is the knowledge of the integral image of the revolution (its cultural alienness) and the reconstruction of its anatomical structures. The author of “Sociology of revolution” uses the methodological principle according to which cultural and social phenomena are considered by direct analogy with the phenomena of nature. Sorokin as a representative of the traditionalist movement emphasized the importance of the past and was aware of the crisis of modern Western culture. Traditionalists discovered the crisis and offered a constructive solution, including a construction system: a return to the past. According to Sorokin, the participants of the revolution come to the realization that much of what they previously considered a prejudice and what they tried to get rid of, in fact, is the conditions necessary for lifefor the existence and quiet development of society (the illusion of a break with the past).