A. V. RYASOV. POLITICAL CONCEPT OF M. GADDAFI IN THE SPECTRUM OF "LEFT VIEWS", MOSCOW: IV RAS, 2008, 328 p.

The reviewed monograph is a comprehensive fundamental study of the genesis and ideological transformation of the "Libyan people's power" in the context of the" left " political tradition. A multidimensional analysis of the official ideology of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (SNLAD), which was based on the theses of the" third world theory "of Muammar Gaddafi, the study of the real mechanisms of the Jamahiriya political system, as well as the identification of the main trends in the historical transformation of the spectrum of" left-wing views " create conditions for a comprehensive understanding of the features of the evolution of ideological doctrines patterns of mythologization of everyday consciousness in the XX century.

The paper consists of an introduction, four chapters, a conclusion, and a bibliography.

In the introduction, the author formulates the starting points of his original research and outlines the theoretical paths along which it will take place. First of all, it defines the scope of the very concept of "left-wing views", which is necessary for revealing the entire topic of the monograph. He states that the content of this concept, which unites a wide range of trends in political thought, and at the time of its emergence did not have a fixed content, and later it was repeatedly transformed and revised. Even if the views of individual" left-wing " philosophers were significantly modified during their lifetime, identical changes were natural for the development of a whole layer of political thought, which once again emphasized its dynamism in the context of the changing socio-political situation, which required a reassessment of many values that began to seem obsolete.

Thus, the lack of a clear definition of the concept of "left-wing views" gives grounds for researchers of different times and different countries to interpret it in their own way and very freely and insert very different characteristics into the specified framework. Thus, in the Arab East, anti-colonialism and nationalism became the core elements of "left-wing thought" and the practice of political action based on it. And in Libya, as part of the Arab world, they became anti-imperialism, anti-Sovietism and orientation towards the values of tribal society.

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The author defines "leftist views" not as a well-established term, but as a "single tradition" that includes a whole complex of ideas, concepts and ideas. Many of them are widely known and do not cause any doubts. However, the position on the criticism of wage labor as the main obstacle to social equality raises various kinds of doubts and requires a more thorough scientific justification.

Almost a third of the reviewed monograph is devoted to chapter I "Left-wing Views in Political and Philosophical Doctrines of the 19th and 20th Centuries: Genesis, Evolution, and delegitimization". It serves as the background of the presented research and prepares the reader for the perception of its main content. The immediate background and starting point of the actual subject of the study is chapter II, "Leftist Views in Libya: prerequisites for the emergence". Here the author notes that the concept of "Libyan democracy" as one of the formal variants of the Libyan "left-wing thought" appeared during the" heyday "in the Arab East of the theories of"state socialism of the national type". This concept had its own specifics related to the peculiarities of traditional Libyan social institutions.

Based on this, the author conducts a detailed analysis of the prerequisites for the emergence of "left-wing views" in Libya against the background of socio-political changes that occurred in the country in the first half of the XX century, and then after 1969. He traces the centuries-old evolution of the formation of tribes as the central link of the Libyan society and comes to important conclusions that " by the middle of the XIX century, only on the Mediterranean coast there were structures that resembled the state in its modern sense, and tribal social relations continued to dominate in most of the territories of the Libyan Desert. Tribal formations in the north-east of the country, in Cyrenaica, had the greatest integrity. Most of the Libyan tribes were Arab, but there were also Berber (including Tuaregs), as well as tribes from neighboring countries of the African continent" (p.138).

In the next section, the author examines the processes of formation of the Senussi elite and the ideology of the Senussi, noting that in the second half of the XIX century. they enjoyed considerable political influence in the interior of the Ottoman provinces. These processes began to differ significantly in the colonial period of Libya's history and during the Second World War. The situation is fundamentally changing after the country has achieved state independence and discovered huge oil reserves in its bowels. The author very appropriately cites the statement from the monograph of S. A. Tovmasyan, who worked in Libya for a long time, "Libya on the path of independence and social progress" (Moscow, 1980), that "the discovery of deposits and the rapid growth of oil production changed the face of social classes and strata, accelerated the processes of social differentiation" (p.149).

This was largely due to the penetration into Libya of the socializing ideas of G. A. Nasser and the Baathists, who are classified as "left-wing views". These ideas were sown on the fertile soil of the army environment, in which the intellectual elite of Libya found a base. In 1964, the First Congress of the illegal organization "Free Officers Unionists-Socialists" (OSOYUS) was held, which was founded by cadets of the Benghazi Military College headed by Muammar Gaddafi. This organization adopted the slogan of the Egyptian revolution of 1952 - "unity, freedom, socialism", and the work of G. A. Nasser "Philosophy of Revolution" strengthened their beliefs in the need to achieve political goals through armed struggle. In the course of 1967 - 1968, OSOYUS developed its own organizational structure, which significantly influenced the activation of underground anti-monarchist propaganda in the army.

A. V. Ryasov notes that "in 1969, when a significant number of young officers of large garrisons joined the OSOYUS, the leaders of the underground movement apparently realized that they had a certain power to begin concrete preparations for an armed uprising with the aim of seizing political power" (p.156). Such a seizure took place on September 1, 1969: "The revolution had the Blanquist character of an armed conspiracy, an isolated act of the counter-elite to seize power: the overthrow of the monarchy was prepared and carried out by a narrow group of officers with the support of a number of military garrisons without the direct participation of the "revolutionary masses" and with the actual absence of organized resistance from the royal regime " (p. 157).

Having thoroughly analyzed the multi-complex processes of the formation of the republican regime and the formation of the ideological platform of the so-called democracy, the author makes an intermediate conclusion of the first years of the new regime's functioning: "What happened in the Soviet Union?

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In general, it fit into the practice of" state socialism " and in many ways resembled the processes that took place in Egypt under Nasser. However, the bureaucratization of the Libyan ASS (Arab Socialist Union) led to a crisis of the republican form of government, the way out of which the Libyan leader saw not in the" open door policy "of A. Sadat, but in the establishment of a system of "people's power" - the Jamahiriya, which made it possible to further strengthen the Gaddafi regime and turn Libya into a national state" (p. 173).

A. V. Ryasov turns to the stated subject of research in chapter III - "Gaddafi's" Third World Theory "as a variant of "left thought": essence and evolution". He believes that the concept of "Libyan democracy" is one of the Arab socialist doctrines, and "left-wing views" as a spectrum of political thought were represented exclusively in the ideological developments of the revolutionary elite.

In the early 1970s, mass publications appeared in Libya, which for the first time called Gaddafi's views "the third world theory". In 1973, a pamphlet entitled "The Third World Theory: The Sacred Concept of Islam and the Popular Revolution in Libya"was published. According to the author, at the stage of formation of the new ideology, it was based on Islamic values, but in addition to religious postulates, nationalism and "Libyan socialism" gradually began to play a significant role in the "third world theory". This theory declared a certain "special path" of political development in Libya. At the same time, the concept of "Libyan democracy "was presented not in the form of an" abstract "social theory, but in the form of" ideological weapons directed against the West and the USSR.

Later, Gaddafi formulated some principles of the "third world theory", which he developed in the "Green Book" and several other works. The main ones are reduced to the following provisions: the rejection of representative democracy and the dictatorship of one class, the proclamation of "people's power", the need to create new political institutions -people's committees. In reality, however, the implementation of these and other principles of" people's power " ended in failure. This was due to the fact that the theory was formulated hastily, and many of its formulations were vague and allowed for diverse interpretations.

During 1976-1979, three parts of the Green Book were published. In the first of them - "Solving the problem of democracy (power of the people)" - M. Gaddafi critically analyzed the main components of the liberal and Marxist models and, as an alternative to them, put forward a modified version of his concept of "direct people's power", implemented on the basis of people's congresses and people's committees. In the second part - "Solving the economic problem (socialism)" - he presented in his understanding the economic foundations of the" Libyan people's power", which allegedly lacks the shortcomings inherent in both the capitalist and communist systems, and which will replace them. In the third part - "The social aspect of the Third World Theory" - M. Gaddafi presents his views on such social concepts as the individual, family, tribe, nation, and puts forward his models for organizing education and social leisure systems.

A. V. Ryasov quite rightly, in my opinion, notes: "Despite M. Gaddafi's attempts to present the concept of "Libyan democracy" as a universal model of social development, the" third world theory", of course, was designed primarily for consumption within Libya. M. Gaddafi tried to correlate his own theoretical developments, his model of modernization "left-wing type " with the tribal mentality of Libyans... The elite (the new, post - monarchical one-V. G.) needed to create a teaching that was understandable to the general population, but at the same time sanctified by the authority of science. Therefore, ignoring the deliberate primitivism of the "third world theory", which does not take into account the socio-cultural conditions in which this concept developed, does not seem entirely justified" (p.184). I think A.V. Ryasov is right when he asserts that "... the concept of 'Libyan democracy' has become an 'exotic' variant of 'left-wing' modernization among the numerous non-Marxist theories of 'Arab socialism '" (p.185). In order to be objective, I will say that the search for the" place "of the model of" Libyan democracy "in the spectrum of" left-wing views " seems quite acceptable.

The author makes a thorough comparative analysis of various aspects of Gaddafi's concept with similar theoretical positions of Arab, European and Russian "left" theorists. The scope of the review does not allow us to elaborate on at least some of these issues-

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nenii. I will give just such an example. After critically analyzing the existing political systems, Gaddafi came to the conclusion that liberal democracy is "the most rigid and merciless form of a dictatorial regime." In the conditions of the beginning of the XXI century, such maxims can be considered as utter nonsense and gibberish. Below, Gaddafi moves from rejecting the practice of referendums to rejecting any form of" representative democracy", thereby showing in practice his dictatorial nature.

As a radical alternative to "representative democracy", Gaddafi put forward his own concept - "direct democracy", implemented through a system of popular committees and congresses... However, the presentation of the principles of "direct democracy "did not differ in integrity: in fact, the Libyan leader did not provide a systematic and exhaustive description of it - the Jamahiriya model of organizing society in the pages of the Green Book and other ideological publications was dispersed into different sections" (pp. 195-196).

In this section of the monograph, the author, not without reason, assigns a large place to the activities of the so - called revolutionary committees, whose members could only become individuals devoted to the Jamahiri ideology (read-employees of the special services). "In practice, the revolutionary committees in Libya, united under the auspices of the Central Revolutionary Committee, became not only an important means of ideologizing the masses, but also the main political and social support of the regime and initiated the identification of "traitors to the people", having received unlimited power in the fight against potential opposition, " writes A.V. Ryasov and continues:" ...it was the revolutionary committees that became the main "tool" of the jamahirization of Libya, the main builder of a new socialist society, essentially fulfilling the same role as the Bolshevik party in the model of Soviet power " (pp. 201-202).

Further, the author analyzes in detail such aspects of Gaddafi's concept as law, religion, army, police, mass media, education and culture, the concepts of "socialism" and "freedom", property, state, nation. Thus, in the section on mass media, A.V. Ryasov notes Gaddafi's denial of such fundamental principles of democratic development as" freedom of speech "and" freedom of the press", which are inherent in all totalitarian states: "in practice, any reasoned criticism of Gaddafi's system of "people's power" in official publications (as well as television and radio programs) turned out to be impossible." (p. 217). When analyzing the section on the concepts of "socialism" and "freedom" in the theoretical views of M. Gaddafi, the author comes to the conclusion that these concepts " actually duplicated (albeit in a vulgarized form) a number of propositions of the classics of "left thought", including K. Marx" (p.231).

A deep reading and insight into the subject under study gave Ryasov the opportunity to identify other contradictions in the works of Gaddafi. In particular, he writes: "having argued in the first part of the Green Book that ' the state administration is disappearing and replaced by people's committees', in the third part of his main ideological work M. Gaddafi came to the conclusion that 'the existence of the state is dictated by political necessity' (p.241).

The author devotes a whole section of the third chapter to criticizing the apologetics of "Libyan democracy". He emphasizes that as the Jamahiriya regime strengthened, the political elite of Libya "increasingly began to claim the role of the vanguard not only of the Arab "left forces", but of the " left movement "as a whole, presenting the concept of" Libyan people's power" as the only and faultless model of socialist modernization " (p.243).

The analysis of Gaddafi's political concept is completed in chapter IV - "The evolution of the ideological paradigm of the Jamahiriya: from "blanquism" to liberalization", which clearly states the constant discrepancies between the theory and practice of Jamahiri construction, between the word and deed of the Libyan leadership: "Having developed a political strategy and outlined the tactics of actions, the members of the Revolutionary Command Council (SRC) Nevertheless, we did not always imagine the possible practical difficulties of its implementation. The development of ideological principles and their implementation developed in parallel, and it is quite natural that in these conditions there was a disproportion between the slogans of "Libyan democracy" and their implementation in practice. However, most of the provisions of the Green Book were formulated extremely abstractly and allowed for a wide variety of interpretations" (p. 249).

These contradictions between theory and practice were evident, in particular, in Gaddafi's foreign policy. So, despite the sharp anti-imperialist course, the Libyan leadership preferred to develop trade and economic cooperation with the developed countries of Western Europe. "Libyan socialism" was not understood even in the Arab world.

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It appealed to the majority of political elites as an ideological basis for national consolidation of the Arabs, which predetermined the dead-end finish of M. Gaddafi's aspirations " (p. 276).

Tracing the process of evolution of the Libyan regime, the author makes a fundamental conclusion that in the 1990s it was in a state of international isolation: "A sharp anti-Western course could not but provoke opposition from neoliberals, and the ambitions of the spiritual leader of all the revolutionary movements of the world made Gaddafi an odious figure in the eyes of the majority of the "left". After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the confrontation between the two political systems in the international arena, Libya also lost its potential communist allies, which dealt a serious blow to the ongoing adjustment of the ideological course aimed at reconciliation with Marxism in the 1980s and 1990s. In addition, the collapse of the communist regimes simultaneously resulted in the actual collapse of the ideology of national development, which also dealt a blow to a number of provisions of the "third world theory"" (pp. 285-286).

Under the pressure of these circumstances and many other factors, Gaddafi was forced to finally abandon all kinds of"left-wing views". In June 2003, he announced a new course in the country towards "people's capitalism", under which oil as a national property was to be privatized. Moreover, the Libyan leader allowed the possibility of involving foreign experts in the management of oil companies and European capital in the development of the country's economy. The abolition of state ownership, according to Gaddafi's plan, was supposed to cover all areas of the economy, including oil production, transport, and banks.

The call for economic reforms aimed at building "popular capitalism" and completely eliminating the public sector in the economy was followed by real practical measures: a large-scale campaign to privatize enterprises was launched in Libya. In addition, Gaddafi called for the development of free trade, attracting investment in the service sector and creating an extensive tourism industry as the main alternative to oil revenues. During 2004, businessmen from the United States, Great Britain, France, Belgium and other European countries visited Libya. The main purpose of these visits was to expand the prospects for cooperation in the areas of infrastructure, electricity, oil, water supply, communications, education and tourism.

Decisive steps to privatize hundreds of State-owned enterprises followed immediately. Secretary of the Government Sh. Ghanem stated: "Libya has realized that perhaps the price to pay for economic development will be a small degree of social injustice... However, if a person wants economic development, he will have to sacrifice a small part of social justice" (p. 298). Of course, these economic reforms largely represented a redistribution of privileges within the ruling elite, which continued to control export-import quotas and major industrial facilities.

And in the field of ideology, as the author rightly notes, cardinal changes have taken place, suggesting a complete rejection of the previous attitudes. "The word' popular ' in the title of the new political course was only an important ideological rudiment, apparently designed to smooth out the turn in the strategy of the Libyan leadership. In fact, under the new conditions, the very name "third world theory" became not quite appropriate for the state ideology of Libya, as well as the word socialist in the official "list of titles" of the Jamahiriya state" (p.299).

Having repeatedly visited Libya in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, the reviewer was able to observe firsthand how, under the influence of the above-described Jamahiriya experiments, the socio-economic situation in the country was constantly deteriorating. If before September 1, 1969, and in the first period after that date, economic life literally raged in all its manifestations, then by the end of the 1980s it actually stalled, and the full abundance of goods and services ended with empty and dusty counters. Despite the existing world experience of the negative impact of the application of "prohibition", it was introduced in Libya, and representatives of different social strata have made great efforts to circumvent it.

The analysis of the experiments of the Libyan leadership boils down to approximately the same conclusions. Any deviation from the universal law of value, supply and demand, no matter how ideologically sophisticated, is bound to fail. It can be postponed, delayed for a longer or shorter period, but it will inevitably come, which is clearly shown by A.V. Ryasov.

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