This book addresses issues that characterize Russia's specific path to civilization: Russia's attitude towards the West; the confrontation between archaic and civilization-forming elements; the national mentality type; Russia's origins in the steppe as an obstacle to establishing a rule of law; the factor of violence that provoked Russia's civilizational derailments; the peculiar Russian democratism that leads to tyranny; the paradox of a lack of genuine bureaucracy alongside the overwhelming power of the civil service; the development of the ideas of enlightenment and freedom in Russia. The book is divided into the following sections: On the national myth of misunderstanding. Freedom or arbitrariness: On the Russian mentality. Democracy as a historical problem in Russia. Can there be a bureaucracy in Russia? Russian Orthodoxy.