Стаття почесного професора Національного університету "Києво-Могилянська академія", українського філософа і громадського діяча Мирослава Поповича, опублікована після його смерті.
Since the age of Enlightenment, the idea of progress obtains the highest level of legitimacy.
This idea is based on the belief that everything in the life is changing for the better.
Therefore, the notion that there is some global purpose of historical process which we follow up, seems groundless. The author points that the development of civilization is not
directional. The process of evolution may include lapses, like the decline of moral values
while scientific and technical problems are being successfully solved. This may cause disastrous consequences. One of the examples of catastrophic deviation was the dictatorship
of Stalin and the communist party on the territory of Ukraine in 1920-1950. The author
investigates, how the metamorphosis of the organization of the formal revolutionaries occurred in cultural and historical contexts. Thus, the most violent conflicts arise at the intersection of several cultural traditions and are caused by the incompatibility of historical
background of different communities.