Russia at the beginning of the 20th century.

The history of the 20th century was full of events of a very different nature - there were great discoveries and great catastrophes in it. States were created and destroyed, and revolutions and civil wars forced people to leave their native places in order to go to foreign lands, but at the same time save their lives. In art, the twentieth century also left an indelible mark, completely renewing it and creating completely new trends and schools. There were great achievements in science as well.

World history of the 20th century

The 20th century began for Europe with very sad events - the Russo-Japanese war broke out, and in Russia in 1905 the first, albeit ended in failure, revolution took place. This was the first war in the history of the 20th century, during which such weapons as destroyers, battleships and heavy long-range artillery were used.

The Russian Empire lost this war and suffered colossal human, financial and territorial losses. However, the Russian government decided to enter into peace negotiations only when more than two billion gold rubles were spent from the treasury for the war - an amount that is fantastic today, but simply unthinkable in those days.

In the context of world history, this war was just another clash of colonial powers in the struggle for the territory of a weakened neighbor, and the role of the victim fell to the weakening Chinese empire.

Russian Revolution and its aftermath

One of the most significant events of the 20th century, of course, was the February and October revolutions. The fall of the monarchy in Russia caused a whole series of unexpected and incredibly powerful events. The liquidation of the empire was followed by the defeat of Russia in the First World War, the separation from it of such countries as Poland, Finland, Ukraine and the countries of the Caucasus.

For Europe, the revolution and the ensuing Civil War also did not go unnoticed. The Ottoman Empire, liquidated in 1922, and the German Empire in 1918 also ceased to exist. The Austro-Hungarian Empire lasted until 1918 and broke up into several independent states.

However, even within Russia, calm after the revolution did not come immediately. The civil war continued until 1922 and ended with the creation of the USSR, the collapse of which in 1991 will be another important event.

World War I

This war was the first so-called trench war, in which a huge amount of time was spent not so much on moving troops forward and capturing cities, but on pointless waiting in the trenches.

In addition, artillery was used en masse, chemical weapons were used for the first time, and gas masks were invented. Another important feature was the use of combat aviation, the formation of which actually took place during the hostilities, although aviator schools were created a few years before it began. Together with aviation, forces were created that were supposed to fight it. This is how the air defense forces appeared.

The development of information and communication technologies has also been reflected on the battlefield. Information began to be transmitted from headquarters to the front ten times faster thanks to the construction of telegraph lines.

But not only in development material culture and technology was affected by this terrible war. She found a place in art. The 20th century was a turning point for culture, when many old forms were rejected and replaced by new ones.

Art and literature

Culture on the eve of the First World War experienced an unprecedented rise, which resulted in the creation of a variety of trends in literature, as well as in painting, sculpture and cinema.

Perhaps the most striking and one of the most well-known artistic trends in art was futurism. Under this name, it is customary to unite a number of movements in literature, painting, sculpture and cinema, which trace their genealogy to the famous manifesto of futurism, written by the Italian poet Marinetti.

Along with Italy, futurism was most widespread in Russia, where such literary communities of futurists as Gilea and OBERIU appeared, the largest representatives of which were Khlebnikov, Mayakovsky, Kharms, Severyanin and Zabolotsky.

Concerning visual arts, then pictorial futurism had Fauvism in its foundation, while borrowing a lot from the then popular cubism, which was born in France at the beginning of the century. In the 20th century, the history of art and politics are inextricably linked, as many avant-garde writers, painters and filmmakers drew up their own plans for the reconstruction of the society of the future.

The Second World War

The history of the 20th century cannot be complete without a story about the most catastrophic event - World War II, which began a year and lasted until September 2, 1945. All the horrors that accompanied the war left an indelible mark on the memory of mankind.

Russia in the 20th century, like other European countries, experienced many terrible events, but none of them can be compared in its consequences with the Great Patriotic War, which was part of the Second World War. According to various sources, the number of victims of the war in the USSR reached twenty million people. This number includes both military and civilian residents of the country, as well as numerous victims of the blockade of Leningrad.

Cold war with former allies

Sixty-two sovereign states out of the seventy-three that existed at that time were drawn into the fighting on the fronts of the World War. fighting were conducted in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the Caucasus and Atlantic Ocean and beyond the Arctic Circle.

World War II and the Cold War followed one after the other. Yesterday's allies became first rivals, and later enemies. Crises and conflicts followed one after another for several decades, until the Soviet Union ceased to exist, thereby putting an end to the competition between the two systems - capitalist and socialist.

Cultural Revolution in China

If one tells the history of the twentieth century in terms of state history, it may sound like a long list of wars, revolutions and endless violence, often applied to completely random people.

By the mid-sixties, when the world had not yet fully comprehended the consequences of the October Revolution and the civil war in Russia, another revolution unfolded on the other side of the continent, which went down in history under the name of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

The cause of the Cultural Revolution in the PRC is considered to be an intra-party split and Mao's fears of losing his dominant position within the party hierarchy. As a result, it was decided to start an active struggle against those representatives of the party who were supporters of small property and private initiative. All of them were accused of counter-revolutionary propaganda and either shot or sent to prison. Thus began the mass terror, which lasted more than ten years, and the cult of personality of Mao Zedong.

space race

Space exploration was one of the most popular areas in the twentieth century. Although today people have already become accustomed to international cooperation in the field of high technologies and space exploration, at that time space was an arena of intense confrontation and fierce competition.

The first frontier for which the two superpowers fought was near-Earth orbit. By the beginning of the fifties, both the USA and the USSR had samples of rocket technology, which served as prototypes for launch vehicles of a later time.

Despite all the speed with which American scientists worked, Soviet rocket scientists were the first to put the cargo into orbit, and on October 4, 1957, the first man-made satellite was in Earth orbit, which made 1440 turns around the planet, and then burned out in dense layers of the atmosphere.

Also, Soviet engineers were the first to launch the first creature- a dog, and later a man. In April 1961, a rocket was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in the cargo compartment of which was the Vostok-1 spacecraft, in which Yuri Gagarin was. Taking the first man into space was risky.

In the conditions of the race, space exploration could cost the cosmonaut his life, as in a hurry to get ahead of the Americans, Russian engineers made a number of rather risky decisions from a technical point of view. However, both takeoff and landing were successful. So the USSR won the next stage of the competition, called the Space Race.

Flights to the Moon

Having lost the first few stages in space exploration, American politicians and scientists decided to set themselves a more ambitious and difficult task, for which the Soviet Union could simply not have enough resources and technical developments.

The next frontier that had to be taken was the flight to the Moon, the natural satellite of the Earth. The project, called "Apollo", was initiated in 1961 and aimed at carrying out a manned expedition to the moon and landing a man on its surface.

As ambitious as this task may have seemed by the time the project began, it was accomplished in 1969 with the landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. In total, within the framework of the program, six manned flights to the Earth's satellite were made.

Defeat of the socialist camp

The Cold War, as you know, ended in defeat socialist countries not only in the arms race, but also in economic competition. There is a consensus among most leading economists that the main reasons for the collapse of the USSR and the entire socialist camp were economic.

Despite the fact that in some countries there is widespread resentment regarding the events of the late eighties and early nineties, for most countries of Eastern and Central Europe, liberation from Soviet domination turned out to be extremely favorable.

The list of the most important events of the 20th century invariably contains a line mentioning the fall of the Berlin Wall, which served as a physical symbol of the division of the world into two hostile camps. November 9, 1989 is considered the date of the collapse of this symbol of totalitarianism.

Technological progress in the 20th century

The 20th century was rich in inventions, never before had technological progress progressed at such a speed. Hundreds of very significant inventions and discoveries have been made over a hundred years, but some of them deserve special mention because of their extreme importance for the development of human civilization.

The aircraft is certainly one of the inventions without which modern life is unthinkable. Despite the fact that people have dreamed of flying for many millennia, the first flight in the history of mankind was only possible in 1903. This achievement, fantastic in its consequences, belongs to the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Another important invention related to aviation was the backpack parachute, designed by the St. Petersburg engineer Gleb Kotelnikov. It was Kotelnikov who received a patent for his invention in 1912. Also in 1910, the first seaplane was designed.

But perhaps the most terrible invention of the twentieth century was the nuclear bomb, a single use of which plunged mankind into a horror that has not passed to this day.

Medicine in the 20th century

Technology is also considered one of the main inventions of the 20th century. artificial production penicillin, thanks to which mankind was able to get rid of many infectious diseases. The scientist who discovered the bactericidal properties of the fungus was Alexander Fleming.

All the achievements of medicine in the twentieth century were inextricably linked with the development of such areas of knowledge as physics and chemistry. Indeed, without the achievements of fundamental physics, chemistry or biology, the invention of the X-ray machine, chemotherapy, radiation and vitamin therapy would have been impossible.

In the 21st century, medicine is even more closely connected with high-tech branches of science and industry, which opens up truly fascinating prospects in the fight against diseases such as cancer, HIV and many other intractable diseases. It is worth noting that the discovery of the DNA helix and its subsequent decoding also give hope for the possibility of curing inherited diseases.

After the USSR

Russia in the 20th century experienced many catastrophes, among which were wars, including civil wars, the collapse of the country and revolutions. At the end of the century, another extremely important event happened - the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and sovereign states were formed in its place, some of which plunged into a civil war or a war with their neighbors, and some, like the Baltic countries, rather quickly joined the European Union and started building an effective democratic state.

In 1903 Wilbur and Orville Wright built the Flyer airplane. The aircraft was equipped with a gasoline engine, and its first flight was made to a height of 3m and lasted for 12 seconds. In 1919 the first air line from Paris to London was opened. The maximum allowable number of passengers was , and the duration of the flight was 4 hours.

Radio broadcast

In 1906, the first radio broadcast went on the air. Canadian Regenald Fessenden played the violin on the radio, and his performance was received on ships thousands of miles away. By the beginning of the 1960s. the first pocket radios powered by batteries appeared.

World War I

In 1914, in which 38 countries took part. The Quadruple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Turkey and Bulgaria) and the Entente bloc (Russia, England, France, Italy, etc.) participated in the hostilities. The conflict occurred between Austria and Serbia due to the assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne. The war is more than 4 years old, and more than 10 million soldiers died in the battles. The Entente bloc won, but the economies of the countries fell into decay during the hostilities.

Russian Revolution

In 1917, the Great October Revolution began in Russia. The tsarist regime was overthrown and the imperial family of the Romanovs was shot. Tsarist power and capitalism were replaced by the socialist system, which offered to create equality for all working people. The dictatorship of the proletariat was established in the country, and the class society was liquidated. A new totalitarian state appeared - the Russian Socialist Federative Republic.

TV

In 1926, John Baird received a television image, and in 1933, Vladimir Zworykin achieved better reproduction quality. Electronic images were updated on the screen 25 times per second, resulting in moving images.

The Second World War

In 1939, the Second World War began, in which 61 states took part. The initiator of hostilities was Germany, which attacked first Poland and later the USSR. The war lasted 6 years and claimed 65 million lives. The greatest losses during the war fell on the lot of the USSR, but thanks to the indestructible spirit, the Red Army defeated the fascist invaders.

Nuclear weapon

In 1945, it was used for the first time: American armed forces dropped nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Herashima and Nagasaki. Thus, the United States sought to hasten the end of the Second World War with Japan. Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants died, and the results of the bombing had disastrous consequences.

Computers and Internet

In 1945, two American engineers John Eckert and John Moakley created the first electronic computer (computer), which weighed about 30 tons. In 1952, the first display was connected to a computer, and the first personal computer was created by Apple in 1983. The Internet has become a worldwide network.

Space flight

In 1961, a Soviet rocket overcame gravity and made the first flight into space with a man on board. The three-stage rocket was built under the leadership of Sergei Korolev, and the spacecraft was piloted by Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.

The collapse of the USSR

In 1985, “Perestroika” began in the Soviet Union: a system appeared, rigid censorship was replaced by glasnost and democracy. But many reforms led to an economic crisis and exacerbation of national contradictions. In 1991, a coup took place in the Soviet Union, and the USSR broke up into 17 separate independent states. The territory of the country was reduced by a quarter, and the United States became the only superpower in the world.

The absolute prerogatives of the king were limited to only two conditions, indicated in the main legal document of the empire; he was charged with:

1) strictly observe the law of succession to the throne; and 2) profess the Orthodox faith.

As the successor and heir of the Byzantine emperor, the autocratic king, according to the SZRI, received power directly from God. Therefore, any attempt on the supreme power of the emperor or his renunciation of at least part of his prerogatives was considered sacrilege. Of course, the autocracy could carry out reforms from above, but its intentions never included the creation of any constitutional body, because. it would inevitably become a stronghold of organized opposition. In governing the country, the tsar relied on a centralized and strictly hierarchized bureaucracy. The State Council was a legislative body, and its members, high-ranking officials, were appointed for life. The opinions expressed by the members of the Council when considering laws did not in any way limit the sovereign's freedom of decision. The executive body of the autocratic state - the Council of Ministers - also had advisory functions. As for the Senate, by the period under review, it actually turned into a body that performs the functions of the Supreme Court. Senators, appointed almost always for life by the sovereign himself, had to promulgate laws, explain them, monitor their implementation and control the legality of the actions of local authorities. As in the past, the highest government officials were overwhelmingly hereditary nobles. The noble aristocracy also occupied key positions in the province, and above all the post of governor. The nobility's assemblies also retained their influence locally, representing at the same time an elected body of the nobility's self-government and the main link in the administrative system.

The only significant change in this institution affected its composition, steadily falling specific gravity representatives of the landowners and, in parallel, the representation of the nobility, who chose the path of public service or entrepreneurship, increased. The landowners remained a very conservative and still influential (although steadily losing influence) force. Mutual hostility was observed between them and the top officials. In the opinion of the landowners, the bureaucracy (most of whose representatives belonged to the nobility) degenerated "into a class of non-class intellectuals", becoming "an insurmountable wall that separated the monarch and his people." Even the timid attempts of the top bureaucracy to carry out the necessary modernization of Russia (not least for the purpose of self-preservation of the nobility as a class) were invariably met with a sharp rebuff from the conservative and short-sighted landlord environment. The Russian bourgeoisie, which was gaining strength, was completely removed from political power. The death of the hardline conservative Alexander III and the accession to the throne of Nicholas II (1894-1917) awakened the hopes of those who still sought reforms such as the separation of religion from the state, guarantees of fundamental freedoms, and the existence of elected governments. Petitions were sent to the tsar, in which the zemstvos expressed their hope for the resumption and continuation of the reforms of the 1960s and 1970s. However, on January 29, 1895, Nicholas II, in his speech to representatives of the zemstvos, categorically refused to make any concessions and, calling them "meaningless dreams", declared: "Let everyone know that I, devoting all My strength to the good of the people, I will guard the beginning of autocracy as firmly and unswervingly as My unforgettable, late Parent guarded it. At the turn of the century, the tsarist government had only one urgent political task - to preserve autocracy at all costs. The social base of the autocracy was slowly but steadily declining. However, Nicholas II did not understand this.

Features of economic development. Activities of S.Yu. Witte

Similar to politic system The Russian Empire was significantly different from the Western one; the development of capitalism also had its own specifics. Realizing that the development of industry is necessary to maintain the proper level of combat readiness of the army, the government looked at social consequences industrialization - the growing role of the bourgeoisie and the emergence of the proletariat. Rivalry with the European powers forced the Russian autocracy to create a wide network of railways and finance heavy industry. Thus, railway construction (in the period from 1861 to 1900 alone, 51,600 km of railways were built and put into operation, and 22 thousand of them were put into operation within one decade, from 1890 to 1900) gave a significant the impetus to the development of the entire economy as a whole and has become the driving force behind the industrialization of Russia. However, during the three decades that followed the emancipation of the peasants, the growth of industry remained on the whole relatively modest (2.5 - 3% per year). The economic backwardness of the country was a serious obstacle to industrialization. Until 1880, the country had to import raw materials and equipment for the construction of railways. Two main obstacles stood in the way of real change: first, the weakness and instability of the internal market, due to the extremely low purchasing power of the masses, especially the peasantry; the second was the instability of the financial market and the weakness of the banking system, which ruled out the possibility of serious capital investments. To overcome these obstacles, significant and consistent assistance from the state was required. It took concrete forms in the 1880s, and fully manifested itself in the 1890s. Continuing the work begun by his predecessors Mikhail H. Reitern, Nikolai H. Bunge and Ivan A. Vyshnegradsky, Sergei Yulievich Witte, Minister of Finance from 1892 to 1901, managed to convince Nicholas II of the need for a consistent industrial development program. This program assumed a sharp increase in the role of the state in the economy, significant support for national industry (both state-owned and, above all, private) and consisted of four main points:

1) a tough tax policy, which, being very favorable for industry, required significant sacrifices from the urban, and especially the rural population. The heavy taxation of the peasantry, the ever-increasing indirect taxes on consumer goods (primarily the state wine monopoly - 1894) and other measures guaranteed budget surpluses for 12 years and made it possible to release the necessary capital for investment in industrial production and placement of state orders at industrial enterprises (thus, the main payers of taxes were not entrepreneurs, but the population);

2) strict protectionism, which protected the sectors of domestic industry that had begun to develop from foreign competition;

3) monetary reform (1897), which guaranteed stability financial system and solvency of the ruble. A system of unified backing of the ruble with gold was introduced, its free convertibility, strict ordering of the issue right - as a result, the gold ruble at the turn of the century turned into one of the most stable European currencies. The reform also influenced the expansion of foreign investment, which was greatly facilitated by the development of banking, with some banks becoming of paramount importance (for example, the Russian Bank for foreign trade, Northern Bank, Russian-Asian Bank).

4) attraction of foreign capital. It was made either in the form of direct investments in enterprises (foreign firms in Russia, mixed enterprises, placement of Russian securities on European stock exchanges, etc.), or in the form of state op! loans distributed in the British, German, Belgian, but mainly in the French securities markets. Share of foreign capital in joint-stock companies, according to various sources, varies from 15 to 29% of the total capital. In fact, the amounts of capital investment by industry and country for the decade from 1890 to 1900 seem to be more revealing. foreign investment went into the coal industry and metallurgy, and among foreign investors the French and Belgians made up the majority, they owned 58% of investments, while the Germans owned only 24%, and the British - 15%. By the end of the XX century. the influx of foreign capital has become a mass phenomenon.

This situation naturally led to serious political controversy, especially in 1898-1899, between Witte and those business circles that successfully cooperated with foreign firms, on the one hand, and on the other hand, such ministers as Mikhail N. Muravyov (Ministry of Foreign Affairs ) and Alexey N. Kuropatkin ( War Department) supported by the landowners. Witte sought to accelerate the process of industrialization, which would allow the Russian Empire to catch up with the West. Witte's opponents believed that reliance on foreign countries inevitably placed Russia in a subordinate position to foreign investors, and this, in turn, created a threat to national security. In March 1899, Nicholas II decided the dispute in favor of Witte. The latter convinced the tsar that the stability of political power in Russia guaranteed its economic independence. ("Only decaying nations can fear being enslaved by incoming foreigners. Russia is not China!").

The influx of foreign capital played a significant role in the industrial development of the 1890s. However, problems associated with it were soon discovered: in the last months of 1899 it cost. there was a curtailment of foreign investment in connection with the global economic crisis, as immediately there were difficulties in obtaining new loans in Russian banks and their rise in price. As a result, a crisis occurred in the mining, metallurgical and machine-building industries, which are controlled to a large extent by foreign capital or fulfill state orders. Yet the results of Witte's economic policy were impressive. For thirteen years (1887 - 1900), employment in industry increased by an average of 4.6% per year. The total length of the railway network doubled over a twelve-year period (1892-1904). Over the years, the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, which greatly simplified the further development of the region, new railway lines were laid, which were of more strategic than economic importance. Thus, for example, the construction of the Orenburg-Tashkent branch, planned by agreement with the French government at a time when relations between France and Britain deteriorated as a result of the incident in Fashoda (Sudan), had the sole purpose of providing a connection between the European part of Russia and Central Asia in anticipation of possible joint military action against the British colonies.

"Railway fever" contributed to the development of a reliable modern metallurgical industry with a high concentration of production (13 industrial workers were employed by 2% of enterprises). For 10 years, the production of pig iron, rolled products and steel has tripled. Oil production increased five times, and the Baku region, the development of which began in 1880, by the end of 1900 provided half of the world's oil production. Industrial takeoff in the 1890s completely transformed many areas of the empire, causing the development of urban centers and the emergence of new large modern factories. He determined the face of the industrial map of Russia for thirty years ahead. central region around Moscow acquired more greater value, as well as the area around St. Petersburg, where such industrial giants as the Putilov Plants, which numbered more than 12 thousand workers, metallurgical and chemical enterprises, were concentrated. The Urals, on the contrary, had by that time fallen into final decline due to its social and technological backwardness. The place of the Urals was taken by Novorossiya. Reserve development iron ore Krivoy Rog and coal in the Donbass allowed her to reach one of the first places in the empire in terms of economic development. In the Łódź region (Poland), heavy and processing industries were represented in approximately equal proportions. In the port cities of the Baltic (Riga, Revel, St. Petersburg), industries developed that required work force higher qualifications, such as precision mechanics, electrical equipment, military industry. In the ports of the Black Sea region, the chemical and especially the food industry developed. The industry of Moscow has become diversified. As before, textile production in the region of the upper reaches of the Volga remained the leading one. Unprecedented growth of the economy in late XIX in. contributed to the accumulation of capital, but at the same time, the emergence of new social strata with their problems and demands, alien to the autocratic society. He thus gave rise to a serious destabilizing factor in this rigid and immobile political system.

The further development of the country was hampered by the low level of industrial consumption of the rural population, and the undeveloped consumer market in the city. The development of industry largely depended on state orders and was not sufficiently stimulated by the domestic market. The main contradiction in the development of the country's economy was the colossal gap between agriculture, with its archaic methods of production, and industry, based on advanced technology. Russia has become a country with a diversified economy. One of the consequences of the economic development of the 1890s. was the formation of an industrial proletariat. Lenin believed that the proletarian and semi-proletarian population of the city and countryside reached 63.7 million people, but this is a clear exaggeration. In fact, the number of workers employed in various industries agriculture, industry and trade, did not exceed 9 million. As for the workers in the strict (European) sense of the word,! there were only 3 million of them. However, extremely high level industrial concentration contributed to the emergence of a genuine working class. The Russian proletariat was young, with a pronounced division between a small core of skilled workers and the vast majority of recent immigrants from the countryside, who did not have high professional skills and had not lost touch with their native village. This division was clearly felt by the workers themselves and prevented them from uniting to fight for their rights. A distinctive feature of the Russian proletariat was the low proportion of the so-called. "working aristocracy", set up quite moderately. About a third of the workers lived outside the traditional industrial centers: around isolated factories, along communication lines, or close to sources of energy supply.

As is known, even in the reign of Alexander III in Russia, the beginnings of labor legislation appeared, but in general, the working and living conditions of the workers remained extremely difficult. The unresolved and acuteness of the labor issue was manifested in a series of strikes, the most significant of which was the strike in May-June 1896. 35 thousand workers textile industry St. Petersburg. They put forward purely economic and social demands. The government, frightened by the scope and duration of the strike, made concessions, in June 1897 the working day was limited to 11.5 hours, Sunday was declared a mandatory day off. However, like the previous ones, this law was poorly observed, and the government did not have sufficient forces and opportunities to control entrepreneurs who categorically opposed any interference of the authorities in their relations with the workers. In principle, all types of workers' associations and trade unions were banned. However, in order to prevent possible contacts between workers and agitators, the authorities decided to create official trade unions, which were called Zubatov's by the name of Sergei V. Zubatov, who, like many former revolutionaries, went to the service of the tsar! Okhrana, and since 1896 headed the Moscow security department. Zubatov's idea was simple and fully consistent with the autocratic ideology, according to which the tsar-father was the natural defender of the working people. Since strikes and all other forms of labor movement were not permitted, the government itself had to take care of the "legitimate" (ie economic) interests of the working people.

Thus, the authorities sought to strengthen the traditional loyalist sentiments in the working environment and avoid the gradual development of the workers' struggle for their rights into a revolutionary struggle against the existing system, directing their discontent against private entrepreneurs. The existence of the Zubatov trade unions (especially influential in Moscow, where they almost completely monopolized influence on the workers) became the cause of an acute conflict between the Ministry of Finance (S.Yu. Witte) and the Ministry of Internal Affairs (V.K. Plehve). economic growth Witte categorically protested against state support for workers' organizations in any form. Plehve, in turn, seeing his task primarily in the eradication of revolutionary sentiments, for a long time saw in "Zubatovism" almost a panacea. In fact, organizations of this kind turned out to be a double-edged weapon, because on the one hand they set the industrialists against the government, and on the other, they instilled in the working class the rudiments of organization, so that in a critical situation, the workers united in the "Zubatov" trade union could get out of control of the authorities and use the organizational form of the official trade union to fight the authorities. Such cases were noted, in particular in Ukraine in 1903. The insufficient effectiveness of the Zubatov organizations caused a conflict between their founder and the Minister of the Interior Plehve, and in the same 1903 Zubatov resigned. However, his organizations were not dissolved. In the working environment by the beginning of the 20th century. a huge potential for dissatisfaction with the status quo has accumulated.

However, until 1905, contacts between the working environment and professional revolutionaries were very limited. The reform of 1861 freed the peasants only from a legal point of view, without giving them economic independence. Legal measures of subordination disappeared, but the economic dependence of the peasants on the landowner remained and even intensified. Due to a significant increase in the peasant population (by 65% ​​over 40 years), the lack of land became more and more acute (although even at that time the land allotments of Russian peasants were larger than those of their counterparts in Europe!). 30% of the peasants constituted the "surplus" of the population, economically unnecessary and deprived of employment. By 1900, the average allotment of a peasant family had fallen to two acres, which was much less than what it had in 1861 (then it was almost the minimum possible allotment). The situation was aggravated by the backwardness of agricultural machinery. 13 peasant households were horseless, another 13 had only one horse. It is not surprising that the Russian peasant received the lowest grain yields in Europe (5-6 centners per hectare, while in Western Europe the average is 20-25 centners). The impoverishment of the peasant population was exacerbated by increased tax oppression. Taxes, which largely contributed to the development of industry, were a heavy burden on the peasantry. With grain prices falling (halving between 1851 and 1900) and land and rent prices rising, the need for cash to pay taxes forced the peasant to sell part of the agricultural produce needed for his own consumption. "We will eat less, but we will export more," Vyshnegradsky, Minister of Finance, declared in 1887.

Four years later, a terrible famine broke out in the overpopulated black earth provinces of the country, claiming tens of thousands of lives. He revealed the full depth of the agrarian crisis. The famine aroused the indignation of the intelligentsia, contributed to the mobilization of public opinion, shocked by the inability of the authorities to prevent this catastrophe, while the country annually exported the fifth! part of giving birth to cereals. Being dependent on outdated agricultural machinery, on the power of the landowners, to whom they continued to pay high rents and were forced to sell their labor cheaply, the peasants for the most part also endured the petty care of the community. The community established the rules and conditions for the periodic redistribution of land (in strict dependence on the number of eaters in each family), calendar terms rural work and the order of alternation of cultures, assumed collective responsibility (until 1903, abolished at the initiative of Witte) for the payment of taxes and redemption payments of each of its members. The community decided whether or not to issue a passport to the peasant so that he could leave his village permanently or temporarily and look for work elsewhere. In order to become a full owner, a peasant had not only to fully pay for the land, but also to obtain the consent of at least two-thirds of the members of his community. The existence of the community almost completely slowed down the economic development of the village, however, it persisted, since it was considered the guarantor of political stability among the peasantry.

The preservation of communal traditions also had other consequences - it delayed the process of social stratification in the countryside. The feeling of solidarity, belonging to the community prevented the emergence of class consciousness among the peasants, thereby slowing down the process of proletarianization of the most disadvantaged. Even after moving to the city, the poor peasants who became workers did not completely lose their connection with the countryside, at least for one generation. The communal allotment was kept behind them and they could return to the village for the time of field work. (However, starting from 1900, this practice was noticeably reduced, especially among St. Petersburg and Moscow workers, who managed to transport their families to the city.) In contrast, communal traditions slowed down the economic emancipation of the richest rural population, the kulaks, although, of course, the kulaks began to buy land, take inventory to the arena, use farm laborers for seasonal work,! lend them money.

The expansion of the railway network was supposed to intensify the exchange of goods, which would lead to a significant increase in urban consumer market. However, most Russian cities were still too underdeveloped in economic terms and consequently poor. Therefore, rural producers (kulaks) often simply had no one to sell their products to. At the turn of the century in Russia, in essence, there was no stratum of society that could be called the rural bourgeoisie. In the village there was a very special attitude to land ownership, which was explained by the communal way of life. They were firmly convinced that the earth should not belong to anyone, being not a property, but rather a primordial given of their environment, like, for example, the sun. Such ideas pushed the peasants to seize the master's lands, forests, landowners' pastures, etc. The legacy of the past was also felt in the conservative thinking of the landowners. The landowner did not seek to introduce technical improvements that would increase labor productivity: labor was available in abundance and almost free, since the peasant population was constantly growing; in addition, the landowner could use the primitive inventory of the peasants themselves, accustomed to corvee. There were, of course, some exceptions, mainly in the outskirts - in the Baltic, the Black Sea, in the steppe regions of the southeast, in those areas where the pressure of the communal way of life and the remnants of serfdom were weaker. The landed nobility gradually declined due to unproductive spending, which eventually led to the transfer of land into the hands of other social strata. However, the process was rather slow and did not solve the most acute problem of peasant land shortages.

MODERN MEDICINE

1. Characteristics of the era of the XX century, the beginning of the XXI century.

2. Specialization and integrity of medicine.

3. Technologization and humanitarization of medicine.

Medicine during the Second World War.

5. 6. Discoveries in the field of medicine and related sciences awarded the Nobel Prize.

7. International cooperation in the field of health in the XX - early XXI century. The history of the creation of the WHO.

8. Bioethics: history, problems, prospects.

Characteristics of the era of the XX century.

The development of medicine in the twentieth century was decisively influenced by geopolitical events: two world wars and their consequences, the national liberation movement, the collapse of colonialism, the formation of new independent states, the collapse of the socialist system. At the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. influenced by achievements natural sciences and technological progress made the most important discoveries in medicine.

The historical changes that took place in 1917 as a result of the February and October revolutions had a negative impact on the political and economic life of the country.

In the early years of Soviet power, epidemics of typhus, cholera, typhoid fever and other infectious diseases raged in Russia. Everywhere there was an extreme shortage of qualified medical personnel, medical institutions, and medicines. The civil war and military operations throughout the country intensified the devastation in industry and agriculture. The people of the country were starving. There was not enough fuel. Transport, water supply and purification systems of cities and villages were in a very neglected state, which created a dangerous epidemiological situation.

The fight against epidemics and diseases on the scale of such a huge country as Russia required the organizational unity of the healthcare system and the elimination of departmental disunity, the creation of a network of public hospitals and pharmacies, and overcoming the acute shortage of medical personnel.

All-Russian Congress The medical and sanitary departments of the Soviets, which took place in Moscow on June 16-19, 1918, discussed a number of issues important for that period: “On the organization and tasks of Soviet medicine in the field” (report by N.A. Semashko).

The main provisions of the report of N.A. Semashko:

1. The urgent organizational task of local Soviet medicine is the elimination of the former interdepartmental framework and its unification;

2. Medical medicine should be based on the following principles: a) general accessibility and b) free of charge;

3. Immediate attention must be paid to improving the quality of medical care (special appointments, special outpatient clinics, special hospitals) ...

4. The next medical and sanitary tasks of Soviet medicine, in addition to general and ordinary ones, are the fight against social diseases (tuberculosis, venereal diseases), the fight against infant mortality, etc.;

5. Only Soviet sanitation is capable of fighting radically and effectively against the housing needs of the poorest population;

6. In view of the far insufficiently conscious attitude of the masses of the population, especially in the provinces, towards health issues, it is necessary to immediately develop the widest sanitary educational activities (conversations, lectures, exhibitions, etc.);

7. It is necessary to involve workers' organizations in the cities and the rural poor in the villages in the current activities.

The resolution of the congress noted: “Proceeding from the unity state power, it should be recognized as necessary to create a single central body - the Commissariat of Health, in charge of all medical and sanitary affairs.

The implementation of these tasks on such a vast territory in the conditions of war, famine and devastation was possible only with the presence of a state health care system.

On July 11, 1918, a decree "On the establishment of the People's Commissariat of Health of the RSFSR" was adopted. N.A. Semashko was appointed the first People's Commissar of Health of the RSFSR (in 1946 the People's Commissariat of Health of the USSR was transformed into the Ministry of Health of the USSR).

Nikolai Alexandrovich Semashko (1874-1949) headed the People's Commissariat of Health until 1930. He participated in the creation of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR (1944). Under his leadership, the Institute for the Organization of Public Health and the History of Medicine of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences (now the National Research Institute public health RAMN).

First Deputy People's Commissar of Health of the RSFSR Zinovy ​​Petrovich Solovyov (1876-1928). In 1919, ZP Soloviev was elected chairman of the Executive Committee of the Russian Red Cross Society. In 1923, Z.P. Soloviev organized and headed the second department of social hygiene in the country at the medical faculty of the 2nd Moscow State University.

In order to ensure continuity in the provision of medical care to the population and improve its quality, hospitals began to be merged with outpatient clinics (the negative aspects of this merger were insufficient funding and some organizational miscalculations). The dispensary method (systematic observation of patients with chronic diseases) is being introduced into outpatient practice.

Introduced into medical practice new medicinal products : sulfonamides, antibiotics, vitamins (in particular, B2), hormones (cortisone, insulin), anticoagulants, cytostatic agents, etc. Wide introduction of electrocardiography significantly increased the diagnostic capabilities of clinicians.

expanded specialized medical care . In connection with the increase in the incidence of tuberculosis in the post-war years, prophylactic anti-tuberculosis vaccination was carried out, and in 1948 compulsory vaccination of children against tuberculosis was established. In 1946, a fluorographic examination of the population began in Moscow. At all republican and regional dispensaries, mobile X-ray fluorography stations were deployed. New effective antibacterial drugs (streptomycin, ftivazid, tibon, etc.) were introduced into the practice of treating tuberculosis.

In the 1950s the network of tuberculosis dispensaries was steadily expanding (in 1950 - 709, in 1955 - 1104). By the end of the 1950s. the number of anti-tuberculosis institutions in the country as a whole has more than doubled since 1940, and seven times in rural areas.

During these years, work was completed to eliminate malaria as a mass disease.

By the beginning of the second half of the XX century. highly qualified medical care has become available to every citizen of our country, regardless of social status, place and time of applying for this help.

Academy of Medical Sciences in the 1950s strengthened as the highest scientific medical institution of the country. Its research centers expanded, new research institutes were opened: the Research Institute of Virology (1946), the Research Institute of Experimental Pathology and Cancer Therapy (1951), the Research Institute of Poliomyelitis and Viral Encephalitis (1955).

In the early 1960s the construction of large hospitals for 300-600 or more beds began. The construction of large multidisciplinary specialized centers contributed to the development specialized medical care. Rural health care is increasingly approaching health care in cities.

In the pediatric service, new multidisciplinary hospitals for children, ambulances for children and children's sanatoriums were created. New effective drugs and vaccines (against poliomyelitis, measles, etc.) were included in public health practice.

Independent specialties (cardiology, pulmonology, nephrology, gastoenterology, rheumatology) were distinguished from the therapeutic service. One of the founders of cardiology in the USSR was an academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences Alexander Leonidovich Myasnikov (1899-1965) . In 1965, A. L. Myasnikov was awarded the prize of the International Society of Cardiology - "Golden Stethoscope" - for his work on the study of atherosclerosis.

In the field of surgery, quality new stage opened with the development of microsurgery (techniques of operations using a microscope, special optics and specially designed instruments). This technique opened wide opportunities for the development of transplantology. The first successful kidney transplant in Russia (from a living donor) was performed in 1965 by Academician Boris Vasilyevich Petrovsky (1908-2004).

Since 1966, intensive research has been carried out on the problem of "Artificial Heart" (under the direction of V.I. Shumakov, State Prize of the USSR in 1971).

Intensive development of specialized medical care in the mid-1960s. required a major restructuring of higher medical education - from the training of general practitioners to the training of specialists in individual branches of medicine.

In the late 1960s the text of the “Oath of the Doctor of the Soviet Union” was prepared, which was supposed to be taken by citizens of the USSR who graduated from medical universities.

Insufficient funding and excessive centralization of management created tangible problems for the development of the medical industry as a whole.

In the 1970s specialized medical care continued to improve, the construction of large outpatient clinics for 500 or more visits per shift began. On the basis of large multidisciplinary hospitals, well-equipped diagnostic centers were created (oncological, cardiological, obstetric-gynecological, allergological, gastroenterological, pulmonological, chronic hemodialysis, etc.).

In 1975, the All-Union Cardiology Research Center was opened.

The priority direction remained the protection of motherhood and childhood, children's surgery, orthopedics, traumatology, otolaryngology, ophthalmology, nephrology, etc. were actively developing; specialized maternity hospitals were opened for the treatment of pregnant women with various pathologies.

Started in the mid 1970s. The deteriorating health outcomes of the population were a clear signal of the need for Health System Reform.

In the 1980s the priority of development of the specialized help was kept. The country developed and implemented state targeted programs to combat cardiovascular diseases, malignant neoplasms, leukemia, diseases of mother and child; methods of reconstructive plastic surgery were developed and introduced into clinical practice; devices were created that performed the functions of individual organs.

The system of organizing ambulance and emergency medical care was successfully developed and improved. Automated control systems were introduced - ACS "Ambulance", ACS "hospital".

In 1983, a grandiose medical and social task was set before the domestic health care system: to cover the entire population of the country with dispensary observation (with an emphasis on specialized care).

1990s were a period of radical socio-economic transformations, accompanied by a decrease in the standard of living and the main indicators of the health of large groups of the population. There has been a dramatic transition in health care from over-centralization to a liberal federal system. The role of federal authorities in providing state guarantees for the provision of preventive and curative care to all categories of the population has unjustifiably decreased.

Public health is in deep crisis. Financing according to the "residual principle" led to the deterioration of the material and technical base of health care. The quality of medical care has declined. Weakened preventive work. Reduced scientific and medical research.

The crisis of public confidence in medical care, the discrepancy between the population's needs for medical care and the ability to meet them urgently required reform of the healthcare system.

Health care reform in the 1990s declared the following principles: decentralization of management, demonopolization of the public health sector, multistructural nature of the health care system, multi-channel financing, introduction of market mechanisms.

The negative phenomena of this period include: a decrease in the volume and quality of medical care, the actual reduction of guarantees for affordable and free medical care, the development of medical medicine at the expense of preventive tasks, the commercialization of medical care and corruption. Detailed central planning lost its importance and was replaced by the development of public health policies with an emphasis on government regulation of health care.

At the present stage, the development of medical science and health care practice is more than ever based on the activities of all sectors of the national economy and is in close relationship with the achievements of technical and natural sciences.

Scientific and technological progress has greatly expanded the possibilities of diagnosing, treating and preventing diseases. New technologies for functional diagnostics (endoscopy, angiocardiography, ultrasound, computed magnetic resonance imaging, radio-pharmacological methods, etc.) are being introduced into medical practice, and new technologies for treating diseases are being developed. The 20th century was truly the "golden age" of surgery, which has come a fantastic way from the first vascular suture to endoscopic surgery and the most complex reconstructive plastic surgeries.

Modern technology, and especially computer technology, not only ensured the development of a number of technologies in medicine, but also created the necessary conditions for the unprecedented development of informatics in our industry. The 20th century is rightly called the century of information technologies, which made it possible to collect, process, and concentrate almost 80% of all information known in medicine. The introduction of informatics based on personal computers has made it possible to create and widely use medical Internet sites, the Intermed, Med-line programs, etc., which automatically read and reproduce information from more than 17 thousand medical periodicals and thousands of medical books.

Particularly significant are the achievements of the 20th century in the field of life sciences and related fields of knowledge. It is no coincidence that the vast majority of the most prestigious prizes, including the Nobel Prizes, are awarded for discoveries in this area (almost 300 prizes). It was in the 20th century that I. P. Pavlov's conviction in the correctness of the doctrine of a single, integral organism in the totality of its connections with the outside world was confirmed.

The 20th century made it possible to materialize ideas coming from the past about the so-called protective forces of the body.

The advances in microbiology, virology, immunology and other branches of medicine of the 20th century made it possible to reveal the nature of many, including new, mainly infectious and parasitic diseases (AIDS, various fevers, especially tropical ones), as well as a number of non-epidemic diseases, for example peptic ulcer stomach and duodenum, the bacterial nature of which is no longer a sensation today.

The discoveries of protective forces are directly related to the achievements of hygiene and sanitation. The main one is the establishment of a whole world of substances in external environment adversely affecting human health and entire populations. There are at least 7 million of them, and another 6-7 thousand are determined annually. Rules and methods have been developed to prevent their impact on humans. Sanitary methods and appropriate protective structures are aimed at this.

The greatest discovery of the 20th century is, of course, deciphering the gene-chromosomal structure of organisms and determining the chemical composition of their elements (DNA, RNA), establishing the triplet code. This discovery was a breakthrough in the theory of heredity, the defects of which are found in almost a third of all diseases. It became possible to materialize, to see violations of the structure of chromosomes and the order of genes. Most importantly, it was possible to establish the nature of many previously unexplained lesions and pathological processes and thereby open the way to their treatment and prevention. This also made it possible to differentiate the concept of "hereditary predisposition", which is inherent in many, mainly chronic, diseases.

The apogee of the development of genetics was the possibility of creating genetic engineering, i.e., a technology for directed, targeted changes in the hereditary properties of organisms, including microorganisms, which created the conditions for the production of genetically engineered therapeutic and preventive drugs, primarily to combat infectious diseases.

We owe new technologies in the development of a whole world of drugs - natural and artificially synthesized, organic, inorganic, genetically engineered, chemical, physical and many others that affect almost all conditions of the body, including those that are especially difficult to cure - malignant tumors, mental illness (psychopharmacology), blood diseases, endocrine system, etc.

The 20th century brought unconditional achievements and discoveries in the field of public health and healthcare, social medicine and hygiene in the broad sense of the word. Computer technology has made it possible to quickly and on an unprecedented scale to study and evaluate changes in the health of the population, in particular, to substantiate the concept of the evolution of types or profiles of pathology in different countries, depending on the socio-economic conditions and lifestyle of the population.

An important discovery was the definition of a model of health. The leading factor in health and, accordingly, pathology is lifestyle, which affects 50-55% of diseases, especially chronic non-epidemic ones. On the 20th of her pollution; 15-20% it depends on genetic factors (genetic risk factors) and only 8-10% - on the state of health services.

For more than 10 years we have been living in the twenty-first century, and almost no one thinks about why we are equipped with everything that makes our life easier and more comfortable. Why is the current science and society so developed, where did all this come from? The answer to this question is very simple - the whole revolution and the construction of modern society, the discoveries that made it possible to soar almost to the heights of science, took place in a whole hundred years.

One hundred years of the 20th century, a rather long and sometimes terrible time. Sometimes, not knowing, people ask: 20th century, what years is it? But when ignorant people answer: the 20th century began in 1900 and ended in 1999, they are mistaken. In fact, the 20th century began on January 1, 1901, and ended on December 31, 2000. Let's start with the classification of the main concepts and events of the 20th century.

Chronology

• Industrialization is the development of new technologies in the production process. The quality and efficiency of enterprises, the quantity of raw materials produced are improving, there are fewer accidents and accidents at work, and the abandonment of manufactories. Enterprises are starting to work at a completely new level, increasing not only the quality of life of the population, but also the amount of profits of states.
• World War I - (1914 - 1918). One of the largest military conflicts in the history of mankind. The result of the war was the cessation of the existence of four empires - the Austro-Hungarian, German, Russian and Ottoman. The countries participating in the battles lost over 22 million people.
• The creation of the USSR took place in 1922, when one of the most majestic powers that ever existed was born, which covered the vast territory of 15 modern states.
• The Great Depression is a worldwide economic crisis that began in 1929 and ended in 1939. Industrial cities suffered the most, in some countries construction almost stopped.
• Building authoritarian and totalitarian regimes- the construction by some states of regimes leading to complete totalitarian control over the population, the truncation of human rights, genocide.
• The world saw revolutionary drugs - penicillin and sulfonamides, antibiotics, vaccines against poliomyelitis, typhoid, whooping cough, diphtheria were invented. All these drugs have dramatically reduced the number of deaths from various infectious diseases.
• The Holodomor of 1932-1933 is an artificial genocide of the Ukrainian people, which was provoked by Joseph Stalin with his repressions. It claimed the lives of about 4 million people.
• Asking any person what the 20th century was like, you can quickly get the answer - a century of wars and bloodshed. In 1939 the Second World War, which became the largest war in the history of mankind. More than 60 states, about 80% of the world's population, took part in it. 65 million people died.
• The creation of the UN - an organization that strengthens peace and prevents wars, to this day
• Decolonization - the liberation of a number of countries from colonial invaders, at that time powerful countries, weakened by the Second World War.
• The scientific and technological revolution is the transformation of science into a productive force, during which the role of information in society has grown.
• Atomic age - began to apply nuclear weapon, nuclear reactions as a source of electricity.
• Space exploration - flights to Mars, Venus, the Moon.
• Mass motorization and the use of jet aircraft as civilians.
• Mass use of antidepressants and contraceptives.
• The Cold War between the giant countries - the USA and the USSR.
• Creation of the NATO bloc.
• The collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw bloc.
• The spread of international terrorism.
• The development of communication and information technologies, radio, telephones, the Internet and television are widely used.
• Creation of the European Union.

What are the most famous writers of the 20th century

What are the most impressive achievements of the 20th century

Definitely, revolutionary inventions can be called achievements, among which the most impressive were:

• Airplane (1903).
• Steam turbine (1904).
• Superconductivity (1912).
• Television (1925).
• Antibiotics (1940).
• Computer (1941).
• Nuclear power plant (1954).
• Sputnik (1957).
• Internet (1969).
• Mobile Phone (1983).
• Cloning (1997).

XX, what century is it? First of all, this is the age of scientific progress, the formation of many states, the destruction of Nazism, and everything that helps us to move forward into the future, not forgetting the past, which has become a determining factor in our development.