Reform is changes controlled and planned by the ruling elite. They usually cover the most important social parameters. Reform is a process that affects the political, cultural, social, economic sphere of a country. Changes are usually aimed at increasing social energy through modernization, reducing disorganization, overcoming the state of discomfort. Reform is an activity that results in a deeper (new) consensus. As a result, as a rule, catastrophe is avoided. It is very important! Reform is an attempt to eliminate sociocultural contradictions, the effectiveness of which is achieved through the introduction of new ideas and relevant relationships.
Features of the reform process in Russia
These or other changes in the country are carried out, as was noted, by the ruling elite. Transformations can affect private areas. So, for example, the government can carry out the reform of health care, the court, the army, education and other areas. As a rule, changes are perceived by the government as the need for modernization and economic development. The forces of traditionalism see transformation as a shift of the center of power down, some kind of equalization, a source of increasing goods of various kinds. As historical practice shows, people expect miracles from changes. So, for example, land reform and other transformations of 1861 as a result led to the restoration of serfdom in full and large-scale terror. The liberality in the changes provoked a certain discomfort, which, in turn, gave impetus to the establishment of statehood, capable of equalizing everything.
Factors Provoking Reform in Russia
One of the main prerequisites for the beginning of the transformation is the country's identity, the specifics of its historical development. These factors in one or another period of the state’s existence provoked a split in the system of power. This inevitably entailed destruction within the culture, disruption in social relations. The split begins to take on infinite cultural and social forms. Destruction is present in the very activity of people. This is reflected in the mixing of the desire to keep social relations and culture unchanged and change them at the same time. In this regard, it becomes necessary to evaluate the reform using a dual position: to reduce the split by increasing it. The driving force behind the transformation is an increase in the mass state of discomfort. In other words, the notion that previously comfortable, acceptable, familiar "native" social relations, socio-cultural environment is becoming dangerous, hostile, alien is increasing. This poses the reform the task of reducing, weakening this process, which could threaten to increase dissatisfaction, developing into mass disorganization and, probably, into a social catastrophe. In this case, the evaluation of the transformations is carried out through the dual opposition: through strengthening the state of comfort.
