Читать книгу Sources ecosociology. Series: «Ecosociology» - I. P. Kulyasov - Страница 12

In Russia, just like in the West, environmental theories were used by authors who included the natural context into their studies of social phenomena, who spoke of the mutual influence between humans and the natural environment and made interesting unusual conclusions. In doing so, they made a significant contribution in the development of sociology and the rise and development of ecosociology.

The specifics of Russian history make possible to split this scientific reflection into three periods – pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet. All Russian authors could be classified into those who represented the organic (sociological naturalism) and geographic school (social evolutionism), as it was done for non-Russian authors. However, for Russian authors, a division between these schools and principles would be quite notional.

Nikolay Dmitrievich Nozhin (1841—1866) had a considerable influence on his contemporaries, including sociologists. His views and publications are a good example showing the notional character of classification into scientific schools. As a biologist and a sociologist, he recognized Darwin’s biological evolution; however, he opposed Malthusianism and racism typical for some social-Darwinists. He was the first to propose an organic approach and formulated its main principles.

The main postulate goes that biological laws apply to human communities just as they do in animal species communities. Therefore, known biological laws could be used for explaining social phenomena and processes. A good example would be collective organizations – free associations of people based on the principles of solidarity and mutual assistance39.

He criticized political experts and economists for seeing contradiction where, from the biology’s point of view, they did not exist. In biology, multi-functionality does more for survival of specie than functional development within the specie. This provision is analogous to the multi-functionality of peasants and artisans and division of labor in the course of industrial production. Therefore, crises and creative regress of participants are inevitable for industrial production. He believed that his conclusions and their propagation would serve the practical purpose of science – helping people to avoid mistakes in choosing their path of development. In his opinion, dividing science into social and natural disciplines was one of these mistakes.

Aleksandr Ivanovich Stronin (1826—1889) in 1869—1885, published a three-volume edition titled “History and method” (on evolution of research methods and approaches taken by social sciences), “Politics as a science” (on social structures – groups, statuses) and “History of the public” (on evolution of society). His works show the desire to link the methodology for social and natural sciences. He believed that, as the natural and social environments are a whole, analogy could become the basic unifying method. The laws discovered in natural sciences can apply to social sciences. Realizing that scientific experiments cannot and should not be made on humans, he used the philosophic method of separating particulars from universals to construct an ideal particular model of a social phenomenon40.

This ideal social model, that was analogous to reality, could already be used for experimenting, theoretically placed in a modified environment, to obtain new knowledge, which could be subsequently verified in another analogous place and situation. This method, in different variations, was widely used at that time and is still used in sociology as Max Weber’s method for forming ideal types.

Pavel Feodorovich Lilienfeld-Toal’ (1829—1903) conducted sociological research adhering to the position that society is a real organism. In his works “Thoughts on the social science of the future” and “La pathologiе sociale” he maintained that social interactions and interrelations are in essence physiological. Just as any organism consisting of cells, intercellular substance and the nervous system, society consists of people, the natural environment and a system that manages the social processes41.

Lilienfeld believed that human society is a biological organism, living by the same laws and in the same ways as the other biological organisms. He assumed that society and nature are no different. Society is alive and thus is a direct extension of nature. Preferring such general scientific methods as comparison and analogy, he suggested an original socio-embryological law, under which society and the individual, just as any specific living organism, go through the phases of birth, maturity, senility and death (transition into a non-organic form).

The social structure suggested by Lilienfeld is similar to Stronin’s, with the addition to the natural environment, which plays the roles of an intercellular substance, of implements and spiritual achievements. He provided several historical examples of societies that were born, flourished, got old and died in various locations over time. In his opinion, a younger society could absorb some civility from an old or dead society. This indicates that he proposed a scheme of multi-vector social development long before the neo-evolutionists.

Structurally, the three laws of progress govern social development:

1) Greater political freedom strengthens the government;

2) Greater economic freedom leads to larger possessions;

3) Greater legal freedom leads to improvement in laws. As for revolutions, riots and struggle, he viewed them as a social pathology. Another social pathology is a political, economic and legal parasitism. Parasites are social structures that became detached from the social organism and act to its detriment.

In today’s encyclopedias and sociology textbooks, Russian sociologists of the organic school are mentioned only cursorily. It is normally said that their ideas are part of the history and can be interesting only for focused experts.

At present, the organic school in sociology is studied and developed by Galina Pavlovna Kuzmina. She has published more than a hundred works on the subject, prepared a training course and, one can say, revived the Russian organic school42.

Nikolay Yakovlevich Danilevsky (1822—1885), due to his work “On migration of population in Russia”, is viewed by historians of sociology as a founding father of Russian sociology and a representative of the geographic school. Studying the Russian society in the historical perspective, he compared it with Europe and interpreted within the framework of sociology43.

He did extensive research on the influence of climatic factors on local communities and urban population of the Vologda region44 and studied fishery on the Volga, in the Caspian and White Seas and the Arctic Ocean. Based on the existing social practices and fishery technologies as well as on the evaluated stock of selected fish species, he developed efficient fishery legislation for European Russia. As a result, depletion of the fishery resources began only in the 1960s with the start of commercial fishing by large fishing vessels.

Danilevsky could be viewed as one of the first ecosociologists as he used sociological methods for studying natural resource use and nature management. This statement can radically change the current opinion in the history of ecosociology that Russian ecosociologists “descend” from the Chicago ecosociologists. It appears that, at this stage of development of Russian ecosociology, we could conduct a more in-depth study of the domestic scientific heritage, doing a “test fit” for works written by the fathers of sociology, where they tested interaction of humans and natural sites, from the ecosociology standpoint. Sadly, historians of sociology often keep silence about these works or mention them cursorily, paying more attention to the historical aspect.

Interestingly, Danilevsky, reckoned as a follower of the geographic school due to the research and analytical methods used, sharply criticized evolutionism in his work “Darwinism”45. Truly speaking, that criticism was aimed at the advocates of social Darwinism, also followers of the geographical school, along with the supporters of social biologism, rather than Darwin himself. Danilevsky argued that social inequality is radically different from biological one and cannot be a subject of studies for natural sciences.

This means that fishermen should be studied by sociologists and social sciences while fish – by biologists and natural sciences. This position helped to separate sociology from other sciences and authors writing in the interdisciplinary domain. It also contributed to sociology’s drift towards sociologism, where people interact only with people and all this happens in a non-material social space (social environment).

Danilevsky criticized social evolutionism for the belief in the existence of planetary humankind with a common history of evolution. He wrote that this view was not supported by any geographical, archeological, culturological or anthropological research. He distinguished a number of geographically isolated cultural-historical society types, in particular, ten old types – Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, Chaldean, Persian, Hebrew, Arab, Greek, Roman, and Germanic, also mentioning two immature types – Incas and Mayas – that had been forcibly destroyed, leaving a question mark about the status of the New World in North America. As for the Russian society, he viewed it as a new cultural-historical type.

Lev Il’ich Mechnikov (1838—1888) was another representative of the geographical school. In his book “Civilization and great historical rivers”, he classifies cultures into riverside, seaside and ocean-side types, associating ancient civilizations with big rivers, antique civilizations – with seas and modern ones – with oceans. This division is based on the social fabric, which influences the level of the geographical environment’s exploration46.

He leant towards scientific materialism, supporting the idea of universal global development from non-organic (mechanisms) to organic (organisms) and further to intelligent nature (society). The social structure is based on solidarity, which can be compulsory, subordinate and free. These three forms of social structure correspond to three types of civilizations and three types of biogenous water bodies. Solidarity is necessary for survival in adverse conditions of the surrounding physical-geographical environment. It is expressed through teamwork and leads to progress. Progress results in the emergence of free people (anarchists), whose life is associated with the world ocean. For this reason, Mechnikov is regarded as the founder of Russian geopolitics and an ideologist of anarchism.

The Russian specifics led to a situation when, in the beginning of the 20^th century, the interdisciplinary area between sociology and medicine and statistics became the most promising sociological subject (as related to further development of environmentalism). Theoretical constructions and conclusions were gradually replaced by scientific experiments. The important thing was to obtain, from natural sciences, an exhaustive reply to the questions: Who exactly are humans? How and why do they act (interact with other people and nature)?

Ivan Mihaylovich Sechenov (1829—1905) turned social science about humans into an exact science. Based on extensive experiments and data, he offered a rational explanation for all nervous and mental signs, including consciousness and its manifestation in the form of an act of will. Leaving the holistic approach to the organism as a whole, he divided acts into subconscious and conscious. He substantiated this view suggesting that all mental signs are also physiological (reflexive), and that acts and interactions of cells, organisms (individuals) and populations (society) with their inner and external environment could be studied using objective methods47.

He shared and developed the views of Russian cosmists. Together with his wife, he was the first to translate Darwin’s “The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex”48 into Russian, becoming a popularizer of the evolutionary theory, arguing in its favor in terms of physiology and psychology. He is the founding father of the synthetic evolution theory, currently comprising data from paleontology, molecular biology, genetics and systematics.

Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849—1936) was the first to formulate the physiological principles of higher nervous activity, based on investigation of dogs49, making clear the difference between involuntary and conditional reflexes and the role of the reinforcement mechanism in the conditioning of reflexes. It was now clear that, unlike reinforcement, incentives or punishments fail to form conditional reflexes (habits) among humans as they take effect over time rather than during an act itself.

Also of interest is Pavlov’s participation in the debate on native temperaments and their influence on behavior and emotional state. This postulate was largely rejected. Experimenting, Pavlov identified three dynamic parameters – intensity, tranquility and agility of the excitative and inhibitory processes, prevalence and various combinations of which influence intra-specie and external interaction. It was discovered that these parameters were conditioned during interaction with various environments, i.e., they were not native, and they influenced behavior (higher nervous activity) after conditioning50. However, supporters of the “ancient knowledge” continue to cling to the transcendental argument that Pavlov’s dogs were doomed to make it to the environment, which developed the qualities later identified by Pavlov.

Pavlov’s research was used by practicing psychiatrists and psychotherapists. Sociologists extrapolated the results of Pavlov’s experiments to humans and society. Politicians and businessmen received a better understanding of how they could manage, subordinate, interest prospective buyers and sell their products. Western science on behavior (the behaviorist approach to sociology) and neurolinguistics received a momentum for development and by now have taken the form of studies, using quantitative and qualitative methods, of practices and discourses, including ecological ones.

Vladimir Mihaylovich Bekhterev (1857—1927) extended the objective knowledge about physiology and pathology of human psyche. He also studied certain form of group behavior, for example, mass hysteria when a crowd behaves more stupidly than an individual behaves and ceases to be an assemblage of rational beings51. In 1907, with the support of colleagues and donors, he organized the Saint-Petersburg Psycho-neurological Institute, establishing Russia’s first sociological research and educational institution – the chair of sociology.

This chair of sociology was headed by Maksim Maksimovich Kovalevsky (1851—1916) and Evgeny Valentinovich De Roberti (1843—1915), who elaborated a prospective research program based on research in physiology and psychology, individual and collective behavior. This institution had pragmatic tasks in the field of pedagogics, law and health care and, as related to reflexology, was to establish a foundation for scientific management of living beings, including humans, behavior.

In 1908, the institute admitted its first 900 students, with more than a half of them being women. Structurally, the institute consisted of the main faculty, with classes being compulsory for all students for two years, after which they were to choose a major discipline. Aside from sociology, during the first year at the main faculty students were lectured in physics, non-organic chemistry, geology, general biology, anatomy, physiology, general and experimental psychology, logics, history of philosophy, general history, history of Russian literature and theology. At the second year, the curriculum comprised higher mathematics, statistics, physical geography, organic chemistry, general biology, anatomy and histology of the nervous system, physiology, psychophysiology of sensory organs, comparative psychology, history of philosophy, history of economic theories, general history, history of world literature, history of arts and history of culture.

It should be noted that Kovalevsky and De Roberti were high-ranking masons. Accordingly, those familiar with the subject might assume that their efforts were aiming to develop physiology and psychology, establish the corresponding institutions and, on that base, organize regular training of sociologists. These sociologists, who were quite competent, now regularly and reflectively generated a lot of specialized knowledge about interaction of humans, social groups, organizations, structures and institutes, which were easily understandable by corresponding experts. Followers of the historical approach would say that this event was inspired by the course of history. Other people would offer another opinion, for example, saying that this was the result of a public, non-commercial effort of Russian intellectuals. One way or another, it was obvious that this was a key event in the history of Russian sociology.

In Kovalevsky’s view, population growth is the main biosocial factor that directly impacts the economy as it results in economic change that brings about changes in politics, which, in turn, change social and private life. His theory of genetic (evolutionary) sociology describes and emphasizes the simultaneous interaction of individuals, groups and society in the natural physical environment and in the spiritual, cultural-historic and symbolic domains. He believed that prominent individuals had a mystical ability to control nature, resulting in recognition of power brokers by the general public. He examined and compared specific cases of historical development of nations and activities of social groups within these nations, trying to identify the reasons for the resulting social progress or for failure to achieve such progress52. This method can be used in sociological analysis of ecological and anti-ecological practices, sustainable and non-sustainable economic development, ecological and anti-ecological polities, etc.

Believing that social change was now identified purely with psychological processes, De Roberti combined biology, sociology and psychology. He maintained that mental activity was manifested in the four basic methods of obtaining knowledge about oneself and the world, namely, science, philosophy, religion and arts, which determine practical activities, including productive ones. While admitting the importance of economic relations at a certain historical stage, he believed that psychological interaction played a key role.

Paying special attention to social progress and social evolution, interaction in small groups, and influence of social factors on the personality, he advocated the idea that all social interaction is a consequence of interactions between personalities, and therefore it is basically psychological. Hence, biology, or, more precisely, physiology and psychology are capable of explaining all social phenomena. At the same time, an individual’s activities are not dominated by biological characteristics. De Roberti’s biosocial theory emphasizes that human society has evolved from three forms of universal energy – non-organic, organic and supra-organic or psychic.

Paying special attention to social progress and social evolution, interaction in small groups, and influence of social factors on the personality, he advocated the idea that all social interaction is a consequence of interactions between personalities, and therefore it is basically psychological. Hence, biology, or, more precisely, physiology and psychology are capable of explaining all social phenomena. At the same time, an individual’s activities are not dominated by biological characteristics. De Roberti’s biosocial theory emphasizes that human society has evolved from three forms of universal energy – non-organic, organic and supra-organic or psychic53.

Kovalevsky and De Roberti became Russia’s first professional sociologists. They saw their task as providing insights on all theories, approaches and methods used in sociology. Lectures in sociology relied on factual material, supported by physiological and psychological data as well as by statistics, born as an exact science and dating back much earlier than the history of Russian sociology.

The first censuses of population and inventories of extracted natural resources started in Novgorod and Kiev in the 10^th century for the purposes of duty levying.

Ivan Kirillovich Kirillov (1689—1737) used the data from the 1710 census of peasant households and the first audit conducted in 1718, which provided the basis for his work “The flourishing state of the Russian land…", published in 1727. In 1734, he prepared the first statistical-economic survey in the form of a historical, ethnographic and economic atlas of Russia54.

In 1737, Vasily Nikitich Tatishchev (1686—1750) compiles the first questionnaire with guidelines for land surveyors, featuring questions in geography, geology, soil science, archeology, natural resource use, agriculture, industrial and backyard production, residential communities and residents, their culture and language. He dispatched the questionnaires himself and used the answers received in his work “Introduction to the historical and geographical description of Russian Empire” sending copies of the answers to the Russian Academy of Sciences.

In 1747, he wrote a scientific work on organization of census registration titled “The reasoning for the audit of the polls…", where he proposed to introduce a uniform census document, reduce census timeframes and improve qualifications of census takers55.

In 1760, Mikhail Vasilyevich Lomonosov (1711—1765) presented his work “Academic questionnaire” containing 30 questions, some of which related to physical and economic geography and the rest – to culture, ways and methods of natural resource use. Unlike Tatishchev’s work, this questionnaire was dispatched to governors and regional academics by the government.

Academics then used the poll data for compiling a new “Russian Atlas”56 and Lomonosov – in his treatise “On preservation and reproduction of the Russian people”, where he suggested legislative and public measures aimed at increasing Russia’s population (increase in the birthrate, retention of those already born and measures to encourage foreigners to take Russian citizenship)57.

In parallel with that, Feodor Ivanovich Miller (1705—1783) compiled “Economic questions”, another questionnaire that was similar to Lomonosov’s in its goals. It comprised 65 questions on the population structure, agriculture, industry and trade. This questionnaire was dispatched to governors, officials and major landowners. As a result, he wrote a number of works comprising historical, geographical and ethnographical materials58.

Statistical efforts made by the government since 1764 included the general inventory of MaloRossia, general land surveying and topographic descriptions of provinces, which comprised descriptions containing cultural-historical, geographical, administrative and economic characteristics. These new methodologies for gathering, processing and analysis of diverse data using a single question structure were important for development of sciences in general and for ecosociology. The emergence of economic statistics in the 18^th century and its further development provides retrospective research material for analyzing social dynamics and interaction with natural resources.

Aleksandr Nikolaevich Radishchev (1749—1802) was instrumental in further development of Russian statistics, using both the Academy of Sciences and his own data obtained in the course of, one can say, an ecosociological research in his estate59. This data was later used for substantiating expert proposals.

In his work “On legal provisions”, he writes that the government is complaining that the huge Russian territories are scantily populated. With 12—20 children born to a typical peasant family, less than a quarter reach adult age. The government does not know the causes of child mortality and the cause probably lies in the arduous economic conditions of peasant’s life. Many landlords reside outside their land holdings and, totally unaware of the working conditions of their peasants, levy a rent of 1—2 rubles, and some – even 5 rubles. However, this rent should be levied based, as a minimum, on soil fertility. He proposed to exempt the peasants living in areas characterized by infertile soil, harsh climatic conditions and the absence of abundant hunting acreage from the state duty and rent to the landlord.

Further, he suggests establishing a nationwide system of taxes on production and trade based on such poll data from provincial censuses as the number and quality of population (composition and standard of living), land (fertility and capability), local industries (plants and factories) and crafts (product types and output, number of workers, including seasonal ones). The next category of questions relates to various types of duties, landowners, recruitment, road maintenance, prisoners, issue of money and police maintenance costs60.

In the end of the 18^th century, Lyudvig Wolfgang Krafft (1743—1814) formulated the need and suggested a statistical methodology for population accounting using mortality and birth rates, deriving a formula for calculating the population doubling time61. In doing this, he strengthened the statistical approach to sociology as a method used in exact sciences, giving momentum to development of quantitative methods in international sociology.

Russia’s first statistical branch, affiliated to the Police Ministry, was then established on 20 March 1811.

Karl Feodorovich German (1767—1838), the first director of this statistical office, specialized in the subject as a researcher and lectured in the state educational institutions62. Other ministries also conducted statistical surveys and published their results. However, they were more interested in departmental data, frequently – about their numerous officials, official buildings and bureaucratic routine conducted in towns and provinces.

After a series of state-initiated reforms and internal reorganization of statistical institutions, the Russian Empire’s first general census of the population was taken in 1897. The results were published in 1899 in 89 volumes featuring data by province. Subsequent editions, containing analytical statistical materials in figures and diagrams, were then published regularly until the year 190563.

The county councils (or “zemstvo” – Russian sound), established by the 1864 reform, conducted their own local social and statistical surveys studying the social structure of the population, social categories, economic activity of peasants and factory workers, their living conditions, education and sanitary culture. In the beginning of the 20^th century, a systematic research of this kind covered 17 provinces of the Russian Empire.

This statistical activity has provided and continues to provide ample material for retrospective sociological analysis and theorizing. The professionalism of researchers and census takers, statistical techniques and methods for data processing have been improving all the time, including the Soviet period. And, as some statistical points dealt with interaction between humans and the natural environment, this material and research approach remain relevant for ecosociologists until today.

In the Soviet period, beginning with the 1920s, Russian science was dominated by the Marxist-Leninist ideology; therefore, all ecological ideas, theories and concepts proposed by foreign colleagues were criticized for a “bourgeois” approach. The state funded and strictly controlled scientific research, especially works of authorship. The same control was exercised over ideas inspiring public initiatives, with the only objective being construction of a socialist and, afterwards, a communist society. Everyone was supposed to comply with the resolutions issued by the communist party congresses that were aimed at industrialization, economic growth and extensive use of natural resources.

At the same time, love for nature and proper ecological behavior (ecologism) were taught at schools and propagandized by books for children and young people. For example, school curriculums included such subjects as nature study and studies of local history, books about nature written by Russian and Soviet writers. These provided basic knowledge about environmental links and systems, proper attitude and interaction with natural sites, methods of their conservation, beneficial use and restoration.

This field of Russian teacher’s activity, lasting for two centuries of the pre-Soviet period, seven decades of the Soviet era and until today, is largely overlooked and little known by Russian ecosociologists. In the post-Soviet period, it has taken the form of continuous ecological education and mass ecological movement supported by a huge number of peaceful, positive-minded high school- and college-based ecological groups uniting many lecturers (both in natural and social sciences), students and their parents64.

I can name another three fields of activity in the Soviet period, also aimed at ecologization, which are little known by ecosociologists. Ecosociological researchers view the Russian ecological movement as one of the main study subjects of ecosociology. However, they only attend to public organizations and some prominent environmental activists, somehow leaving aside the lines of activity listed below. I hope the situation will change in the future.

The second line of activity relates to the movement of inventors and innovators. Many suggestions made by inventors and innovators were aimed at saving and restoration of natural resources, ensuring their more efficient use and recycling, and elimination of waste toxicity. Some suggestions intended to improve the conditions of communal living, health protection, disease treatment and safety. This activity also needs to be studied in the industries associated with natural resource use – agriculture, forestry and fisheries, tourism and so on.

The third line of activity is probably the oldest, and much of it falls within the pre-Soviet period. It relates to national cultural traditions of environmental friendliness and nature conservation. These traditions are absorbed with “mother’s milk” via nurturing and education in the skills of a traditional natural resource use within the family and the local community. Methods for transmission include linguistic terms, folklore, and lifestyle. Our Russian predecessors, apart from giving birth to us, did preserve the natural wealth in its entirety for us to use.

The third line is tourism, sport, medicine, maternity and everything else associated with health and human reproductivity because, in the Soviet period, unpolluted environment was perceived as a healthy environment. Individuals and society in general have always shown great concern for nature conservation and for being able to use its healing power.

The firth is arts – poetry, painting, sculpture and music. The pre-Soviet, Soviet and post-Soviet poets, painters, sculptors and composers have made an invaluable contribution to propagation of love for nature. Their perception of nature’s beauty, power and importance indicates a special sense of beauty that complements the five senses.

However, this love for nature was somewhat ambiguous because, ideologically, the state cultivated the notion of humans as conquerors of nature on the planetary and, in the long term, on the galactic scale. As an example, scientists, engineers and politicians earnestly discussed projects, which were to divert great Siberian Rivers to the south. As a result, the Intergovernmental Conference on Environmental Education, initiated by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and giving momentum for specialized training of Russian experts and lecturers, took place only in 1977 in Tbilisi. The First All-Union Conference on environmental education, held in Minsk in 1979, prepared recommendations for the ministries of education, culture, justice, nature protection societies and “nature protection squads”, thus shifting the focus of attention from love for nature to its protection.

The significance and relevance of the public environmental initiatives of the 1980s and 1990s was so high that some authors deny the existence of the ecological movement until the emergence of college-based “nature protection squads” in the early 1970s. The All-Russian Society for Nature Conservation, which began its activities in 1924, and local eco-groups are discarded as they never opposed the idea of extensive economic development. However, if we recall the structure and history of Western environmentalism described above, we will see that the nature conservation initiative is only a part of the ecological movement.

The Third All-Union Conference on Environmental Education, held in Kazan’ in 1990, formulated the task of establishing a system of continuous ecological education. The conference prepared the document titled “Environmental program for the 13^th five year period and until the year 2005”, elaborated pursuant to the USSR Supreme Soviet resolution “On urgent measures relating to the country’s ecological recovery” (№829—1 of 27.11.1989). It provided for introduction of universal ecological training, organization of systematic environmental education for various population categories, establishing environmental information-support centers at universities and research institutes. That marked the end of the Soviet period of the ecological movement.

A strong momentum for further development of Russian ecosociology in the 1980s was given by the Chernobyl’ accident and the increasingly frequent local ecological disasters, which intensified ecological concern and then grew into protests staged by the environmental movement with the support of the public. The greatest concern was voiced by experts who were able to draw the authority’s attention to the discovered ecological problems and risks via ecological councils, simultaneously raising public awareness through publications in the media.

The population and all other participants of the process, satisfying themselves, though direct perception of ecological problems, that the experts were right, were then trying to influence decision-makers to change the situation for the better. In this, they were hampered by the state system and social institutes. In response, they initiated a program of collective action comprising protest rallies, demonstrations, actions of resistance, protest letters, denunciatory publications and public speeches, establishing of new parties and eco-political movements. In parallel with that, another part of the environmental movement was peacefully clearing streets from garbage in spring, planting trees and flowers and teaching children to love nature. A study of the ideas, values, discourse and practices promulgated by these movements provides a good opportunity for extending the understanding of the ecosocial reality.