In order not to fall into abstract speculation on the subject of Russia and the West, the authors of this volume define general problems facing two cultures or peoples and consider various solutions to these problems among thinkers in whom the national-cultural values being compared are personified. The problems discussed include ethics, which Max Weber articulated through the thesis of two ethics; political freedom, which appears in two variants in Max Weber; the educated as a class; the perspective of capitalism; and the issues of bureaucracy and bureaucratization.