Establishing the Best Practice in Business in Network Society – the Case of “Natura Siberica”, 2017.

The aim of this paper is the situation analysis or case study of the conflict between the cosmetics manufacturer "NATURA SIBERICA" (Russia) and its consumers. This conflict took place in 2017 as an interaction of the users of social networks. The importance of this study is that its object is the ongoing process of increasing the role that network society plays in discussing the value problems of contemporary society. This study shows the relevance of J. van Dyck's statement that digitalization promotes the transfer of communication about values in media network, and this constitutes the novelty of the paper. Accordingly, the objectives of the study were formulated as a description of the conflict situation and the definition of the subject of research as a manifestation of the complex interaction in contemporary network society; identifying the groups of irreducible values that caused the conceptual conflict; the analysis of these values from the perspective of law, as well as contemporary business ethics. The methodological approach that was chosen followed the complex nature of the subject of the study. As a general methodological approach the systematic method was used, which allows to determine the essence and key properties of the investigated phenomenon. The method of case analysis or case-study gave us the tools to implement this approach, taking into account the specifics of the object, as well as to connect the study to the practical task of finding the best solution in a situation of conflict of values. To analyze the unfolding of the conflict in conditions of virtual reality the structural-functional method was applied, which allowed conceptualizing the relationship between social phenomena of different levels. Using the method of ethical-philosophical analysis we revealed the content of the positions expressed by the participants of the conflict. The method of categorical analysis of legal texts was also applied. As a result of the study it was revealed that in a case of the gap in legal regulation it were the animal rights values and values of responsible consumption that provided the conceptual background for the positions articulated by the conflict participants. Next, we show that in this case the unfair advertising led to a crisis of consumers’ trust and caused the need to strengthen the ethical image of the company. Finally, this case of the company's reaction to the conflict could be conceptualized as an example of “best practice” for business ethics today.

Soviet Heavy and Super-Heavy Artillery During the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945

The article is dedicated to the usage and types of Red Army heavy and super heavy artillery during the Great Patriotic War. The purpose of the article is to define the exact reasons of low intensity use of Soviet heavy and super-heavy artillery during the war: virtually retreat during 1941-1943 and slow increase of usage during 1944-1945. High intensity of heavy artillery service took place just in 1945. This question has several answers: Red Army high command concerns about expensive guns lost in combat, specific conditions on the Eastern front, incompetence of command is all invalid. Research is based on comparison of archival materials in the field of ordnance production and expenditure. By the use of statistics it described the ordnance production and inventory. The materials show that ordnance production for heavy and super-heavy artillery in USSR was inadequate before the war. Due to the defeat of the Red Army in 1941 the situation worsened. The exact cases were analyzed on the basis of technical and managerial decisions. Ordnance prices and plants involved in ordnance production have also been considered by the research. Exact samples of heavy artillery usage are described with necessary statistics about it: Rzhew battles in 1942, Volkhov battles in 1943. Red Army statistics is compared with Wehrmacht statistics and US statistics of ordnance expenditure. In conclusions it has been shown the interconnection between intensity of use and ordnance provided by war economy.

Deserters, Spies and Kumanists»: Some Episodes from the Peasants’ Everyday Life in Perm Province in the Second Half of 1919

The article is devoted to the history of the peasants’ everyday life in 1919. The basis is archival documents presenting four criminal cases: two murders, torture and malfeasance. Using comparative historical and typological methods the author showed how peasants from different districts of Perm province reacted to the events in the village. A causal analysis of the links between historical events made it possible to identify the general patterns of the considered social phenomena and processes among the peasantry. The history of everyday life is relevant to this day. It is impossible to study historical facts without addressing this topic. The peasantry constituted the majority of the country's population, and therefore was a kind of indicator of the ongoing internal political changes in the country. The life of the peasants in each region of the country had its own characteristics. It depended on the natural and climatic conditions, the standard of living, and the social composition of the population. The civil war showed that interference in the life of peasants could change their social appearance. The war imbalanced the life of the village for a long time, destroyed social ties, and led to senseless human casualties. The cited archival documents, in a way, are the episodes from peasants’ life in a certain period of time. As long as the author's goal was to convey the era of war the documents are given in the form in which they have survived to this day: with the preservation of spelling, punctuation and style. Due to the absence of editorial revision in them a picture of complex relationship in the village opens up the tragic events unfold with the forced participation of peasants. It becomes clear what the norm was for them and what was the main thing in their life - justice or legality. The peasants’ attitude towards life and death had been changed during the Civil War. Life lost its value, and death began to be perceived as something ordinary and inevitable.

Repressive Policy of the Ussr Towards Certain Peoples in the Years of the Great Patriotic War (in Particular, the Bulgarians in the Urals)

The article is devoted to studying Russian Bulgarians living in the Urals in the 1940s with the help of archive materials of the Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk regions as well as Perm Krai. During the Great Patriotic War the USS Rcitizens of Bulgarian origin, like many other peoples, were subject to repressions which meant enrollment in labour army and deporting every single Bulgarian of the Crimea. As a result of the semeasures, a significant number of Bulgarians were moved to the territory of the modern Urals. The deported Bulgarians settled in areas of logging (forest exploitation) in the north of Molotov and Sverdlovsk regions, and members of the labour army were employed in the trust organization «Chelyabmetallurgstroi». The Bulgarians were deported along with other peoples of the Crimea. They did not form compact settlement in the new areas but managed to preserve their traditional culture. Some families were even able to organize permanent lodging in the Urals, pursue a career and contribute to the development of the region. The author is convinced that the judicial legal documents kept in archives as well as field trip research results may serve as a significant but not sufficiently appreciated source of investigating the history of deporting Russian Bulgarians. The topicality of the sources grew after the year 2020 when the 75-years’ period of storing documents of the year 1945 expired. Autobiographies, biographic information, interrogation protocols enable to obtain a detailed reconstruction of deportation circumstances and the process of enrollment into labour army, and to see these events through the prism of the repressed people themselves. Researching the history of repression, inparticular – repression of the Bulgarians – has revealed how complex and controversial the policy of the soviet state towards certain peoples during the Great Patriotic War was.

The Normative-Ethical Context of the Golden Rule

According tocommonunderstanding, the Golden Rule exists in a form of maxims and various proverbs. However, in many cultural traditions, this rule is present as part of institutionalized texts and has a specific normative context. The article proposes an account of the Golden Rule within a particular example of the Judeo-Christian tradition (based on a study of the Bible books), in relation to the Lex Talionis and the Commandment of Love, in respect to what the Golden Rule is contextualized, in three stages. Firstly, the main passages, in which these principles are compared and contrasted have been selected in the books of the Bible. Such are the following: Lev. 19.18, 33–34, Matt. 6.37–38; 7.12; 22.40. Secondly, it has been taken into account that the normative content of these principles, although they are expressed in strict formulations, is internally dynamic. When clarifying both the normative context of the Golden Rule and the content of each of the principles, it is necessary to take into account their internal normative dynamism. Thus, Talion, which historically arose as a principle of retribution, limiting the amount of punishment to the degree of harm caused, eventually transformed into a principle of compensation, primarily monetary, and in a later era, early Christian authors reinterpreted it as a principle that admonishes against causing harm to anyone. The Commandment of Love for one’s neighbor covers the spectrum of demands from love for one’s neighbor as a close one through love for one’s neighbor, who is considered a stranger, to love for a neighbor, who is actually a foe. The normative dynamics of the Golden Rule can be traced in its two formulas – negative and positive. At the same time, it is necessary to take into account the examples of thinking in the spirit of the Golden Rule, which are found in the oldest Bible books. Thirdly, the three principles are compared in their imperative characteristics by a number of parameters, regarding which similarities and differences between them are presented in different configurations.

"Jewish Myths" in the National History: Jews in Ancient Russia

This article is devoted to the consideration, formation and development of two historical myths in Russian Jewish studies: the "Khazar myth" and the "Kenaanites myth." The key works of A.Ya. Garkavi devoted to the statement of "Jewish myths" in Jewish studies have been discussed in the article. The author reveals the background of this problem appearance in Jewish studies and prerequisites which determined its father’s interest in this topic. The need to turn to the consideration of "Jewish myths" in the historiography of the problem "the history of Jews of Ancient Russia" is dictated primarily by the actualization of scientific interest in the beginning of the history of Jewish diasporas in Russia. Discussions between historians and researchers of Jewish studies have obtained the characteristic of the "modern historical paradox," as far modern researchers turn to the long-forgotten hypotheses of historians of the 19th century with the aim of proving them today on the basis of relevant material. The purpose of this article is to consider two forms of historical representation on the example of studies of two Jewish myths (the Khazar myth and the later Kenaanites myth). We pose a problem to analyze the process of myth formation, its interpretation during this formation and the growth of its thematic content. The theoretical basis of the article is P. Ricoeur's ideas about the "historiographic process." Although the philosopher recognizes strict methodological operations and methods he nevertheless attributes the decisive importance to the historical intentionality of the researcher and the skill of representing the historical narrative. At the end of the article the author makes a conclusion about the difference between the forms of representation of the Khazar myth and the myth of Kenaanites in the works of modern Russian researchers in Jewish studies.

Fragments of the Soviet Past: Evolution of Contemporary Russian Pentecostals

Soviet and modern Pentecostal practices of participation/non-participation in public life have been analyzed in this article. The author has formulated a question of research: does the Soviet experience influence the formation of norms and practices among conservative Pentecostals? In this article the author used field materials collected in urban and rural communities of the European Russia, the Urals, Siberia and the Republic of Kazakhstan in the 2010s. The main method of data collection is the Biographical Narrative Interview Method. These narratives were supplemented and verified by documents of government authorities from central and regional archives and ego-documents of believers (testimonies, memoirs, and letters). Soviet Pentecostals created their own internal space with specific ways of communication, regulation of community life. Soviet Pentecostals in the Evangelical community were distinguished by specific religious practices. They were characterized by social isolationism. They created their own meaning of participation/non-participation in the everyday life of secular society and Soviet practices. Pentecostals developed a strategy of passive participation in military service, had their own ideas about the possibility of obtaining higher education. They had their own view of Soviet social and cultural life. Pentecostals were subjected to social exclusion due to ideological reasons, but they were able to integrate into Soviet everyday life. In the post-Soviet period, most restrictions ceased to exist and believers were able to adapt to the current situation. At the same time, they retained restrictions based on theological and doctrinal principles. Until now, Pentecostal churches still maintain rules of conduct in everyday life, including those based on the Soviet experience.

Justification of Morality: Clarifying One of the Tasks of the Ethical Theory

The paper deals with borders between different tasks of the ethical theory such as defining, explaining, justifying morality, and clarifying its normative content. The focus of the study is justification of morality, i.e. developing the argumentation that can persuade a rational agent to accept moral requirements and to carry them out. The justification of morality uses as its premise some universal human needs or traits and establishesthe essential tie between them and theprincipled fulfillment of moral duty. The fact that everyone has these needs or traits should convince a rational moral skeptic to abandon her skepticism. The immediate subjects of the analysis are 1) precedents of the unreflecting confusion of justification and three other tasks of ethics and 2) conscious efforts to make the scientific explanation of morality a basis of justification. The author supposes that definitions of morality and its evolutionary, psychological, sociological explanations, no matter how neat and sophisticated they are, can not provide a ‘grip’ on a rational agent. At the same time, clarifications of the general normative content of morality also can not justify it because they presuppose that this ‘grip’ is already in place. In this regard, such conceptions of justification as ‘evolutionary’, ‘psychological’, ‘sociological’, ‘utilitarian’, and even ‘contractual’ are impossible. The author also shows that efforts of some theoreticians to base their justifications on the fact that human beings are constituted to be altruistic by evolution (R. Richards) or carrying out moral norms has an enormous beneficial effect on society (R. Campbell, A.V. Rasin) are not very successful. The real justuficatory work in these cases is done not by the appeal to biological or sociological facts but by traditional arguments – the benefit of an agent or the self-evidence of intuitions

Towards the Ethics of Revolutionary Violence and Practice of its Implementation in the Urals in FebruaryOctober 1917.

The article focuses on the revolutionary ethics of the Russian intelligentsia based on the idea of the service to the people, sacrifice and the possibility of using violence in the struggle for a future happy society. The revolutionary ethics based on violence was expressed in the fact that the very idea of revolution became absolute. Inherent in the revolutionary movement was a fanatical readiness to sacrifice themselves and others to the abstract idea of revolutionary victory for the sake of abstract human happiness. Revolutionary ethics subverted the religious values that preserved the moral health of society. To be sure, the idea of revolutionary violence was primarily shaped by the subversive activities of the revolutionary Russian intelligentsia. But this process was also shaped by other events of world history. Researchers have noted the great influence of the First World War, in which Russia was drawn by the ruling elite. Maintaining the stability of society on the basis of empathy and respect for human life was also one of the tendencies of the era which the revolutionary intelligentsia ignored. This tendency was expressed in Tolstoy's doctrine of non-violence (non-resistance to evil with violence) and also in collections of articles “Problems of Idealism” (1902), “Milestones” (1909), and “From Depth” (1918), which expressed religious and ethical values. The practices of embodying revolutionary ethics from February to October 1917 in the Urals on the basis of archival historical sources have also been considered in the article. The February Revolution of 1917 intensified the politicization of public consciousness which was largely tragic (including intelligentsia) in conditions of the general low level of culture of the masses. The author concludes that the democratization of the political life of the Russian society in February - October 1917 was accompanied by the implementation of the ideas of revolutionary overthrow of the existing foundations, developed by the revolutionary intelligentsia. This process was complemented by the destructive instincts of the masses, and the Bolsheviks’ coming to power in October 1917 was a visible embodiment of the violent seizure of power.

About the Work of Leningrad Industrial Enterprises in 1941

Before the Great Patriotic War (GPW) at least 1/3 of cumulative total yield of Leningrad factories was the products of ―defense‖ or ―special‖ function, i.e. military ones. A significant proportion of civilian products could also be used for the army, navy or the NKVD troop’s demands. Pre-war production planning provided for the all-round increase in the output of military products.In this regard, the city's enterprises experienced an acute shortage of production and office premises, electricity and personnel. Plants and factories operated with external raw materials and fuel which made them critically dependent on the functioning of the logistics chains connecting Leningrad with the regions of the USSR. The main criterion of evaluating the work of an industrial enterprise was the amount of output and the mandatory fulfillment or over-fulfillment of production plan. At the factories the problems of quality were ignored and this led to the necessity of conducting periodic campaigns of "struggle for quality" by senior management. However, such campaigns turned to be useless and did not result in the required demands due to the initially defective system of goal-setting in industry. The peculiarities of conducting economic activities in wartime, on the one hand, deepened the previous problems, on the other hand, made the processes of deploying new industries more dynamicby reducing the number of management links and lengthening work shifts,. The main role in setting production tasks to the enterprises was transferred from the specialized People's Commissariats to the City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party and the Military Council of the Front; factories were often forced to execute three parallel production plans. The establishment of the blockade regime focused the industry of Leningrad almost exclusively on the interests of the Leningrad Front. Mobilization into the army and recruitment into the people's militia deprived enterprises of the number of qualified personnel; at first, the replacement of experienced workers by housewives and adolescents could not be considered complete and equivalent. In September – October 1941 the reserves of fuelwere exhausted in the city and this led to a fuel and energy crisis in November – December 1941 and an almost complete shutdown of heavy and light industry enterprises in the first quarter of 1942. The factors which influenced the manufacturing processes of Leningrad industrial enterprises in the pre-war, war and blockade periods of 1941 have been considered in the present article.