The concept of Christian socialism as a reconstruction of the social ideal in the works of S.N. Bulgakov

In several modern philosophic and socio-philosophic publications one can see the renewed tendency to somehow connect secular and religious approaches to the analysis of social reality that also prevailed in Russian philosophy. The necessity of re-thinking of the established value system, particularly moral ideals, in accordance with the changes in the social medium justifies the relevancy of adverting to the history of Russian philosophy. The study of Russian spiritual and intellectual heritage plays a substantial role in the process. The subject of the article analysis is the religious and philosophic views of S.N. Bulgakov on the issue of the social ideal in the context of the concept of Christian socialism. S.N. Bulgakov was one of the few representatives of the religious philosophic thought of the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries who tried to combine socialism as a socio-economic doctrine with the religious and moral sense of the society on the basis of Christian social ethics. As part of the study the author examined the works of S.N. Bulgakov based on the idea of Christian socialism, such as A Pressing Task (1905), Karl Marx as a Religious Type (1906), Christianity and the Social Issue (1906), Two Cities (1911), Light Unfading (1917), The Soul of Socialism (1937) and several other works. The uniqueness of Bulgakov's philosophic viewpoint is that the central idea of his concept is the religious focus. S.N. Bulgakov considered Christian socialism as a derivative of the spirit of Orthodoxy, and tried to address the social issues of his time from the Christian point of view. S.N. Bulgakov strongly believed that Christian socialism can and should bring the gospel to the modern society, that it is designed to create a new dimension in the public conscience based on exceptional freedom and acceptance of human rights. The philosopher regards Christian socialism as a globally valid public ideal with a universal philosophic and ethical doctrine preaching moral responsibility of a person not only for oneself, but for all the society at large. The analysis of the ideological legacy of S.N. Bulgakov can be explained by the assonance of the problems he addresses in his works with the problems that are now being discussed in the modern science and philosophy with new acuteness. This problem assonance is defined by the significant similarity of the socio-political and spiritual-cultural state at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries and the present.

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