Social Policy Of Russia: Yesterday And Today

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problems of social policy of Russia. A significant place in the article is engaged in providing state of citizens' constitutional rights, like the right to housing, education, health care, old-age pensions, etc. The authors note that success in the economic field allowed the former socialist state to solve many social problems. One of the most acute problems of modern Russia is the poverty of the Russians. Even according to official statistics of the poor today, there are more than 20 000 000 Russians living in poverty ( more 20 million, 2018 ). Moreover, the Russian laws established a subsistence minimum for a grocery set so meager that the amount of calories it contains does not reach 30% of the ration of a German captive officer during the Great Patriotic War. In analyzing the problems of social policy in modern capitalist Russia, the authors of the article concentrated mainly on an analysis of the causes that led to social stratification and the growth of poverty. Considerable attention is paid to social policy during the period of permanent economic crises that have become a characteristic phenomenon for post-Soviet Russia.

Keywords: Social policystandard of livingpoverty of the Russians

Introduction

In Russia, the officially appointed minimum subsistence level is adopted as the poverty threshold. Accepted in our country poverty assessment for the subsistence minimum and, above all, the concept of the subsistence minimum do not correspond to the current circumstances and lead to distortion of reality.

The Basic Law of the Russian Federation proclaimed our country in 1993 a social state. Article 7 of the Constitution claims: "The Russian Federation is a social state whose policy is aimed at creating conditions for a dignified life ... " (The Constitution of the Russian Federation, 2012). The amount of the subsistence minimum for the three main categories of the population of the Russian Federation (able-bodied citizens, pensioners and children) was established by people's deputies by the Federal Law of October 24, 1997 (No. 134-FZ). The amount of the subsistence minimum is established by the Government in the whole of the Russian Federation and by the laws of the subjects of the Russian Federation, which are to be published quarterly (The Federal Law, 1997). If a family gets their income below the poverty-stricken subsistence level, the state pays the difference when submitting the relevant package of documents to the local authorities. The legislation developed on the basis of the Constitution guarantees social protection to citizens, unemployment benefits (including in times of crisis), pensions and other benefits to low-income Russians. Federal government bodies form the main directions of social policy in both normal and critical times, focusing on financial support for planned activities. The Russian Federation protects labor and people's health, guarantees a minimum wage, provides state support for the family, motherhood and childhood, disabled people and older citizens, develops a system of social services and establishes state pensions, benefits and other guarantees for social protection.

The main achievements of the social policy of the last decade are the growth of real incomes of individual groups in comparison with the Soviet period as well as in the reduction of poverty from 42.3 (under B. Yeltsin) to 24.5 million people (under V. Putin). For comparison, in 1990, that is, on the eve of the Yeltsin reforms, only 2.3 million people or only 1.6% were officially considered poor. Consequently, in the social state, as modern Russia positions itself, the number of poor with the onset of market reforms has increased twenty-fold, despite the operation of Article 7 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation.

As practice shows, after twenty-five years of permanent reforms, our country, in fact, has never become a social state. Russia's social policy continues to be characterized by low wages (compared to developed countries it is 10-15 times less), modest pensions which are barely enough to survive. Therefore, it cannot be unequivocally asserted that state social policy is at present ideal and that it has no visible shortcomings. It can be noted that due to gaps in this sphere, Russia has a meager financial support for such an important indicator as life expectancy, it has the 157th place in the world at the level of African states: almost every second man does not live to the retirement age. One of the reasons for the high death rate of Russians (only 1.6 million people die from cardiovascular diseases each year in our country) is still a low level of domestic health care. Its modernization is allocated a minimum of financial resources, no more than 4% of GDP which is ten times less than in the USA allocating up to 15% of GDP for these purposes, almost the same in developed European countries - Germany, France and the United Kingdom. Even by education, our country has fallen to the 30th position. The demographic situation is alarming, as during the period of reforms our country missed almost 9 million Russians. Russian leaders understand that the financing of social policy and its effectiveness largely depends on the state of the economy and the availability of free resources. This understanding becomes especially clear in the population during the crisis, when the possibilities of the state are limited.

The Soviet state, the successor of which is the Russian Federation, was born at the beginning of the twentieth century and its first steps were directed toward improving the material and social situation of the working class. Among the first decrees of the new government, which were adopted immediately after the October Revolution of 1917, there were those that directly improved the life of workers, eliminated the exploitation of man by other people. Thus, the Decree on Land, adopted by the Second Congress of Soviets on October 26 (Nov. 8, New Style), 1917, not only eliminated the feudal property of the land but also turned its mineral wealth, all natural resources into a national property. The Soviet government provided the peasants with land (more than 150 million hectares were handed over to laborers for free), as well as implements, and at the same time relieved of the million-strong debts (a result of the Stolypin agrarian reform the peasants owed from 1.5 billion to 3 billion rubles only to the peasant land bank), annual lease payments which on the Russian scale reached 700 million rubles in gold (Moiseev, 2017).

The Russian peasantry which received the above-mentioned wealth from the new government, began to selflessly defend their new prosperous life, their future from the troops of Kolchak, Yudenich, Denikin, Kaledin, Alekseev, Krasnov and other counterrevolutionaries who tried to return the old order by force of arms, including landed property on the ground, corporal punishment and forced labor for little money. But the peasants and workers won, despite their poor military training, the lack of weapons, ammunition and food that the White Guards had in abundance, thanks to foreign aid and support from the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan and a number of other capitalist powers in the world. The new owners survived and won, proving their right to a happy life.

It cannot be said that their lives immediately became full and carefree. After the 7 years of the war (1914-1920) the state of Soviet Russia was more like a wounded soldier, barely able to move on crutches. After the end of the civil war, agricultural production decreased by 40% in comparison with 1913. Grain collection in 1921 was slightly more than half of the harvest in 1913. The number of livestock decreased significantly. In the country, there was not enough bread, meat, milk, sugar or other food.

The peasants, indignant at the actions of the food detachments, not only stopped surrendering their bread at the surplus-purchase but also rose to an armed struggle against Soviet power. According to the estimates of the authors, about 200 thousand rural residents with weapons in their hands opposed the Soviet authorities. To suppress these speeches, parts of the Red Army and internal troops had to take action (Moiseev, 2017).

Only a radical change in the policy pursued could save the power of the Bolsheviks. The policy of "military communism" had to be urgently changed to a new economic policy. In fact, it was an anti-crisis program, the essence of which was the rejection of the principles of "military communism", the introduction of market principles, the revival of private enterprise, the use of the experience of deposed capitalists while maintaining the "commanding heights" in the hands of the state. The main economic task of Lenin's new policy was to get out of the crisis, to prevent further devastation and restore the national economy destroyed by the long war, to create conditions for a decent life for citizens creating a new society free from exploitation. Let us cite some results that indicate the undoubted successes of the new economic policy: in 5 years, by 1926, in industry, the level of 1913 was reached, and the yield of grain exceeded the best indicators by 20.7% (Moiseev, 2014).

In the complex history of Russia, including its social policy, the role of the individual proved to be very great. This was clearly demonstrated not only by Lenin and Stalin, but also by Khrushchev and Brezhnev, Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev. Almost for each of them a whole era in which the citizens of a huge country lived differently.

In the era of Khrushchev, social policy, though having acquired new features, adhered to the fundamental principle of socialism: take from each according to his ability, give to each according to his work. At the initiative of N.S. Khrushchev writing off debts to collective farms and state farms over the past years, a law on agricultural tax was adopted which significantly reduced the tax burden of collective farms, state farms and personal subsidiary plots. At the same time the state raised the purchase prices for grain, milk, meat and other agricultural products which, of course, positively affected the economic condition of the agricultural sector. The arable land of the country had increased due to the development of virgin and fallow lands. Meanwhile, the principles of labor payment in collective farms were changed: a monthly advance pay and a monetary form of payment for collective farmers were introduced. All these reforms undoubtedly improved the lives of the village laborers, led to the provision of people with food products of their own production. There was no talk of any import substitution at that time.

Thanks to Khrushchev's "thaw", the working day on Saturday and on holidays was reduced by 2 hours; for working sub-shoots, a 6-hour day was set; the duration of the pregnancy and maternity leave had increased. The trade union committees were responsible for monitoring the fulfillment by the administration of the enterprise of labor legislation and safety regulations, also for the work of trade and public catering enterprises and for the correct payment of labor, etc. The dismissal of workers on the initiative of the administration could be carried out only with the consent of the trade unions.

In July 1956, the law on state pension was adopted which established unified criteria for the appointment of pensions. The retirement age for men was defined at 60 years, for women at 55 years, and this rule has been in effect for almost 60 years now, and only recently the government's proposals for its change to a greater extent began to be heard. The general labor experience of the citizen became important for the purpose of assigning a labor pension. For men it was set at 25 years, for women it amounted to 20 years. When assigning disability pensions as a result of a labor injury or in case of an occupational disease, the age and length of service were not taken into account. The law established a minimum and maximum pension benefits. For categories of low-paid workers, pension rates have been increased by 2 times or more. The fees for schools and universities were abolished. The scale of housing construction had increased. Acceleration of its pace contributed to the industrialization of construction works, the use of prefabricated reinforced concrete, panel houses with small-sized apartments. At the same time, new principles were developed for the construction of residential microdistricts, similar to the famous Cheryomushki microdistrict in Moscow where residential buildings were combined with institutions of cultural and non-domestic use: schools, hospitals, kindergartens, shops, hairdressers etc.

The housing program was developed and implemented in the Soviet Union with the active participation of N.S. Khrushchev. Аlmost a quarter of the country's population could move into new comfortable apartments in the second half of the 50's already. It significantly reduced the severity of the housing problem. Moreover, warrants for moving into "Khrushchev" panel houses were issued free of charge to needy citizens of the USSR. And this was only one decade after the end of the devastating Great Patriotic War which had destroyed almost a third of the entire economic potential of a huge country, when almost 2,000 cities and 70,000 villages and villages lay in ruins (Moiseev, 2017).

During the epoch of Khrushchev's reforms, science-intensive branches of industry were rapidly developing: electronics, aircraft building, space exploration and others. Under Khrushchev, the world's first artificial satellite was launched (October 4, 1957) and the world's first manned space flight took place (April 12, 1961), which became the triumph of advanced Soviet science and technology. Success in the economic field enabled the former socialist state to solve many social problems.

During L.I. Brezhnev’s rule, education in higher and other educational institutions was free. In the Brezhnev period, due attention was paid to the quality of education, to the high level of training of specialists. The quality of the professional training of that time can be judged at least by the fact that the current leaders of the Russian state, regional authorities and management, rectors of leading universities (the list can be continued) were educated under L.I. Brezhnev. Health care allowed one to successfully combat child mortality, epidemics and other diseases. Operations, even the most complex ones, would be free for people. Pension provision in general met the needs of people who had gone on a well-deserved rest. Pensions for miners, workers of ferrous metallurgy or other categories of workers with difficult conditions of labor activity had been raised. Additions were made for continuous work experience at one single enterprise, in an institution or organization. Pensions for disabled people and participants of the Great Patriotic War, families of soldiers who had died at the front were noticeably worn out. The maximum pension for ordinary citizens (teachers, doctors, engineers, etc.) was 132 rubles and allowed one to live comfortably. A loaf of bread cost slightly more than 10 kopecks, a sausage - 2 rubles 20 kopecks per 1 kg, meat - no more than 2 rubles per kg, 1 kWh of electricity - 4 kopecks, gasoline - 7 kopecks per 1 liter, rent was charged no more than 10-15 rubles a month, etc. At such prices, the cost of living was not high, and pensioners could afford to save something "for a rainy day" (Moiseev, 2017).

Soviet people in the Brezhnev period of state leadership had other social guarantees, including housing. The current housing legislation at that time determined the procedure for free provision of housing to citizens. It should be emphasized that the housing legislation of that period also provided for the improvement of housing conditions for citizens at the expense of the state. The law established categories of citizens who had privileges in providing housing. Such categories included disabled people and participants of the Great Patriotic War, Heroes of the Soviet Union and Heroes of Socialist Labor, Knights of the Order of Glory of three degrees, etc. Citizens who lived in cramped conditions (less than 12 square meters of living space per person) also had the right to free improvement of living conditions.

During the reign of Brezhnev, a five-day working week was introduced with two days off. The wages of the main categories of working people grew. Women were entitled to partially paid leave to care for a child under one year of age. The rights of pregnant women were protected: no one could deprive them of their work and earnings, refuse maternity leave, and so on.

In the Brezhnev period, the supply of food and consumer goods to the population reached the highest level in comparison with other periods of the socialist development of the country. And the prices for goods and services were relatively low, being available to the average consumer. For example, with a salary of 200 rubles a month, one could buy four trips to a sanatorium on the Black Sea (with treatment, meals and living in furnished rooms) for a period of 24 days. Perhaps, for this reason, the 100th anniversary of the birth of L.I. Brezhnev in Russia "was held under a friendly nostalgic sigh: many people remembered the stagnation as a "golden age ", - the most influential Russian newspaper “Komsomolskaya Pravda” published in January 2007. Reflecting on this phenomenon, the newspaper cites the words of A. Inin which contain the answer to the question why the former Soviet citizens liked the Brezhnev era so much.

"I do not dream about anything as if I woke up in a" golden stagnation, "- claimed the famous satirist. - There was stability, confidence in the future, security, care for people, respect for veterans, pensions that could allow one not just to live but also to rest in the Crimea, the absence of a cult of money... And most importantly, there was respect for worth of a human being" (Moiseev, 2014).

Modern capitalist Russia, despite the "Housing" program approved in 2002 and the national priority project "Affordable and Comfortable Housing for the Citizens of Russia" has not been able to implement the constitutional right of citizens for housing. According to the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin, more than 60% of Russians need better housing.

It cannot be unequivocally asserted that the state social policy is ideal at present and that it has no visible shortcomings. It should be mentioned that due to gaps in this sphere Russia has a meager financial support for measures such as life expectancy, it is on the 157th place in the world, at the level of African states: almost every second man does not survive to an old-age pension. One of the reasons for the high death rate of Russians (only 1.6 million people die from cardiovascular diseases each year in our country) is still a low level of domestic health care. A minimum of financial resources is allocated for its modernization, not more than 4% of GDP which is ten times less than in the US, allocating up to 15% of GDP for these purposes, almost the same in developed European countries - Germany, France, and the United Kingdom. Even by education, our country has fallen to the 30th position. The demographic situation is alarming as during the period of reforms our country missed almost 9 million Russians. Leaders of modern Russia understand that the financing of social policy, its effectiveness largely depends on the state of the economy and the availability of free resources. Funds are rather scarce - a quarter of a percentage of the available financial capacity failed to solve not only the acute housing problem but also the problem of Russian poverty.

The Scandinavian countries, such as Sweden, Norway, Finland, can serve as an example for Russia in solving social problems. In these social states today, there are high salaries and decent pensions, minimal unemployment, modern education and health care, providing a higher standard of living than in Russia. No wonder there was such a concept as "Swedish socialism". Scandinavian states have practically made a difference in what Russia still cannot achieve - social protection and social justice. The basis of Scandinavian society is the middle class. In such a society, there will never be global social conflicts and "color" revolutions.

Unlike the developed countries in the world, very low salaries are practiced in Russia which are hardly sufficient to survive. A significant proportion of working Russians receive incomes below the subsistence level.

The attitude of the Russian state to ordinary people can be judged by the salaries that it pays to state employees. In Russia, the average salary of a teacher does not exceed 20 thousand rubles and the salary of a professor in a state university is less than 40 thousand rubles which is equivalent to only 600 US dollars. For comparison: in the US and Singapore university professors receive 48-54 thousand dollars a year, and the most highly paid have 90-100 thousand dollars annually or more than 500,000 rubles a month. The highest paid the teacher is in Luxembourg, his average annual income is from 80 to 100 000 euros or more than 600 thousand rubles a month (State policy, 2018).

In official documents of the company, the annual basic salary of the chairman of board of JSC Gazprom Alexey Miller is $1.4 million. Half as much is the salary of the chairman of the board, $700 thousand a year, there are also six vice-chairmen of the board, the chief of staff of board and the chief accountant of Gazprom who earn similar sums. The basic salary of eight board members and CEOs of twenty largest subsidiaries with the exception of Sibneft is $500 thousand a year. Other managers who are CEOs of 20 more "subsidiaries", five deputy heads of the office of board, three advisers to the chairman of the board, the head of the secretariat of board of directors and the chairman of tender committee get paid the sum of $400 thousand annually. In 2016 the salary of the chairman of board of Gazprom Alexey Miller, according to Forbes, increased from $25 million to $27 million, and he took the first rating place among the highest paid heads of state corporations. We get to know a lot through comparison and if the salary of a teacher is compared to that of the head of a state corporation, it can be seen that the difference will be several hundreds of times more.

The difference between the incomes of teachers, doctors, cultural workers, engineers, employees, workers and incomes of their employers, the capitalists or the so-called oligarchs are huge. They exceed all reasonable limits. If the annual income of an average teacher or professor does not exceed 4-10 thousand dollars, for some capitalists the income has increased by $ 100,000,000 only during one month of 2018. The richest of the Russians by March 1, 2018 became the owner of Severstal Alexei Mordashov. His fortune for two months grew by 239 million dollars and amounted to 19.9 billion dollars. On the second place is the president of “Norilsk Nickel”, Vladimir Potanin, whose assets increased in value by $ 613 million and amounted to $ 19.6 billion. The third position belongs to the owner of NLMK Vladimir Lisin (18.9 billion dollars) (Russian oligarchs, 2018).

Such a situation in which the incomes of some categories are hundreds and thousands of times different from the incomes of other categories of Russians has developed as a result of the incorrect social policy of the Russian leadership. The state does not fulfill one of its main functions - the redistribution of revenues from the sale of oil, gas, diamonds, metals, other types of raw materials and goods in favor of poor citizens. Some missteps are seen in the tax policy: both oligarchs and ordinary employees pay their income tax at the same rate of 13% since Russia does not have a progressive taxation scale.

Problem Statement

In analyzing the problems of social policy in modern capitalist Russia, the authors mainly focused on an analysis of the causes that led to social stratification and the growth of poverty during President V. Putin's rule.

First of all, the state's financing of such important spheres of social policy as education and healthcare was analyzed. Public health financing is not increasing, says G. Ulumbekova, Chairwoman of the Board of the Association of Medical Quality Societies. As a consequence, the basic problems in health care are growing and among them the main indicator of the state of domestic medicine is the death rate. According to the scientist, it will grow. For example, in 2013 it amounted to 13 cases per 1000 population per year and in the first half of 2014 this indicator rose to 13.3 cases per 1000 population. The increase in the death rate is due to the actual reduction in the funding of medical care. And this is half a million additional deaths of Russian citizens. This is the price of public underfunding of health care from 2013 to 2017 (Expert, 2017). The well-known authority in the field of health, the president of the Scientific Research Institute of Emergency Children's Surgery and Traumatology, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor Leonid Roshal bitterly stated that only 3.4% of GDP is allocated to health care in Russia, and these figures are decreasing year by year. In countries with which we want to compare by the level of health care, allocate 9-10% each year and increase the share every year. We get three times less. If we want to develop proper health care, we need at least a half of these figures - 5% (Roshal, 2018).

As a result of the so-called optimization of health care the goal of which is to reduce government spending on traditional medicine, the number of hospitals has declined. In 2000, there were 10,700 hospitals in the country. In 2015, their number has significantly decreased - to 5.4 thousand. Experts stressed that if the closure of hospitals continues at the same pace, then by 2022 the Russian Federation will have the same number of hospitals as the Russian Empire did according to data for 1913, the empire had 3,000 hospitals. At the same time, the remaining hospitals can accept a smaller number of patients because of the lack of beds which became less by 27.5% during 15 years, and if we look at the data in rural areas only - it is 40%. The amount of polyclinics also decreased by 12.7% (it was 21.3 thousand but declined to 18, 6 thousand), and the burden on each of them increased by 20% (from 166 to 208 people per day) (In Russia, 2018). From 2000 to 2015, the number of hospitals in Russia fell by half: from 10.7 thousand to 5.4 thousand. Experts of the Center for Economic and Political Reforms came to such conclusions on the basis of Rosstat data. In the report "Health. Optimization of the Russian health care system in action ", experts warn: if hospitals continue to shut down at this rate, by 2021-2022 there will be only about three thousands of them in the country – just as many as in tsarist Russia in 1913. This conclusion was reached by specialists of the Center for Economic and Political Reforms on the basis of Rosstat data (For 15 years, 2018).

As the facts show, significant reduction in medical institutions in some regions of the Russian Federation led to the death rate increasing by more than 6-8% (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District, the Republic of Karelia, the Sakhalin Region, the Republic of Khakassia, the Kostroma Region, etc.), while the death rate for such groups of diseases as those of the respiratory system, indigestion, infectious diseases, tuberculosis. In some regions of the country, the mortality rate for these groups of causes has increased from 36% to 74% in six months, which requires urgent analysis and appropriate actions. This issue is now debatable from the point of view of the methodology of calculations, however, in the end of 2014 and beginning of 2015, people died really more. In April 2015, the Public Opinion Foundation conducted a large-scale study of public health problems in 85 regions of Russia. The results of this study showed that both patients and representatives of the medical community expressed concerns because of the following issues: rising prices for medicine, shortage of medical workers, an increase in the share of paid medicine, a long waiting time for medical care and poor reception of people in polyclinics (People's perspective, 2018). The mistakes of V. Putin and D. Medvedev as well as of the party "United Russia", which had passed laws on the financing of health in 2000-2018, include numerous publications in the Russian mass media that contain requests for help in the treatment of children, including options abroad. There are also many queues of sick Russians to obtain quotas for complex, high-tech operations. According to the media, a large part of the seriously ill Russian citizens die and never live to undergo organ transplantation surgery. This testifies to the growing acuteness of the key problems in the field of health care and the growing alarming symptoms in the health care system.

These and other facts indicate that the promises of the state to improve medical care for Russians are not being met. The implementation of both the "Strategy for the Socio-Economic Development of the Russian Federation until 2020”, approved by the government, and the May Decrees of President V.V. Putin has been disrupted. This conclusion equally applies to another important area of social policy - education.

The evidence suggests a reduction in public funding for education. This can be seen in the reduction of allocations from the state budget for the needs of educational institutions and in reducing their total number in the country as well as in a decline in budgetary places in state universities and increase in the number of paid services in education. In 2016, the share of spending on education declined to 3.7% of GDP and by 2019 it will probably fall to 3.5% of GDP. This is due to both the decline in the cost of oil and to the increasing priority of defense spending and pensions (RBC study, 2016). Over the past four years, according to Rosstat data, about 12,000 schools have been closed in the country. At the same time, experts note another stable trend - growing costs for parents to educate and bring up children. Almost half of Russian families pay for school lessons, private classes, workshops, hobby groups and gifts for teachers. From 1995 to 2009, the number of preschool institutions in the country decreased from 68,600 to 45,300, and from daytime general education institutions from 68,900 to 52,400. Among schools, small rural schools. Over the past decade, the number of state and municipal schools in cities has decreased by 19%, and in rural areas - by 24%. In 1995 there were 83 pupils in 100 preschool institutions and in 2007 there were already 105. In other words, there was a shortage of seats in pre-school institutions. In recent years, sociologists have recorded the fact that, despite social slogans, the Russian state is steadily reducing the number of budgetary institutions in the sphere of education, shifting more and more expenses to the shoulders of parents (The state, 2018).

Insufficient financing of educational institutions affects the remuneration of teachers: teachers, university professors, associate professors. As to teachers' salaries, Russia lags behind not only the United States of America but also behind the developing countries of Asia and Africa which were formerly considered to be the "third world". According to the rector of the North Caucasus Academy of Public Service, Prof. V.G. Ignatova, the salary of teachers in Russia in 2004 (under V.V. Putin) was 9 times lower than in Turkey and 16 times lower than in Tunis (North Africa). But the most unfortunate comparison for Putin's Russia will be a comparison to South Korea where the salaries of teachers are 38 times higher (Why do Russian, 2017). A young teacher in a public school after graduation before the crisis of 2008-2009 received only $100 a month. This is below the officially established subsistence level for working citizens of Russia. Such salaries left the young school teacher at the poverty line, that is, on the verge of physiological survival. Such a miserable, humiliating salary which school teachers receive in the Russian Federation is not found in any European country. Why is Teacher highly appreciated on the Teachers' Day only, and not on the day of salary?

According to the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation V.V. Putin of 07/05/2012, No. 597 "On Measures to Implement State Social Policy" by 2018, the government was instructed to bring the average salary of teachers of higher education to 200% by 2018 compared to an average salary in the region. And if the current amount of 27,280 rubles (the average salary in the Belgorod region) gets doubled, then by 2018 the salary of teachers in the university should be at least 54,000 rubles. And according to the statement of employees of the higher school, the salary of the professor in the state university does not exceed 35 thousand rubles a month today (Glagolev, 2016).

In the state "Strategy 2020", teachers and professors approved by the government were promised an average salary of 2,700 US dollars by 2020. Russian Prime Minister D. Medvedev, speaking at the plenary session of the All-Russian August Teachers Meeting, said that the teachers' salaries have recently been raised to the average level in the region but there are still declines. He promised that the government and he himself would do everything to struggle against this kind of problem. The Prime Minister and the chairman of the ruling party honestly summed up the results of many years of work in August 2016: there is no money in the country, teachers need to earn money or go into business. It turns out that the head of government openly offers enterprising young people not to complain about beggarly salaries in schools and universities but to go into business (We must, 2016). But if everyone goes into business and becomes an entrepreneur, then who will remain in schools and universities transferring knowledge to the new generation? These and other facts show that the state allows mistakes and miscalculations in the field of education.

Research Questions

Having set a goal to investigate the state of social policy in modern Russia, the authors attempted to analyze the state's concern for the development of such important areas of social policy as education and health. To show the true picture, not only the dry figures of official statistics were given but also numerous examples showing that the country's leadership does not allocate enough financial and other resources for these purposes. In addition, the article contains statements on these issues by respected scientists and public figures. All this data allows the authors to make a substantiated conclusion that in 2000-2018 neither education, nor health care, nor other fields of social policy received the necessary development in Russia.

Purpose of the Study

The aim of the study is to analyze the state of Russian social policy, to identify its main problems, mistakes and miscalculations in implementation, to show what kind of legacy we have abandoned and to determine further ways of improving social policy to overcome poverty and achieve a decent standard of living for Russian citizens.

Research Methods

The following methods are used in this study. Firstly, the comparative method that allows the authors to compare Russia's social policy and the level and quality of life of its citizens with advanced European and even Asian states. This method, together with the method of historicism, makes it possible to show a significant difference in social policy that was conducted under Soviet power, that is, under socialism, and under modern Russian capitalism.

Systemic and structural-functional approaches allow forming a holistic view of the social policy implemented by President Vladimir Putin, its achievements and shortcomings, mistakes and miscalculations made in 2000-2018.

Institutional approach allows analyzing the influence of various state institutions on the formation of social policy in Russia, eliminating the causes that generate social inequality and growing poverty which now is the case for tens of millions of citizens.

Findings

Thus, as a result of many reasons, the main constitutional principle of the social state - the creation of conditions that ensure a dignified life for all citizens - has not yet been implemented. One of the contradictions of the Russian reality that emerged during the restoration of capitalism is that the welfare of the overwhelming majority of Russians does not directly depend on high prices for oil and other energy carriers. In fact, oil and gas prices rose before the crisis, and tens of millions of people were still languishing in poverty, receiving incomes below the subsistence level. Therefore, social policy needs to be modernized in order to sharply reduce poverty and the large gap in income between the poor and the rich ones as well as to create conditions for free and all-round development of an individual, no matter what social group he may belong to. Today, it is necessary to change the strategy of social policy, its priorities and funding, so that Russia could rightly be called a social state.

Conclusion

 Summing up the results of the implementation of the basic documents in the social sphere, President V. Putin stated at the meeting of the State Council in May2017: "Over the past years, we have been able to give some new dynamics to positive changes in the most sensitive spheres of public life, such as health care, education, culture, housing and utilities. Of course, there are still a lot of problems and unresolved issues more than what we managed to do." ("May Decrees", 2017).

While speaking at the annual press conference on December 14, 2017, Russian President V. Putin described healthcare, education and infrastructure development as priority areas for Russia and promised that the salary indicators of health workers announced in the May Decrees would be achieved. At the same time, the president noted that the May Decrees on increasing salaries for doctors, teachers and public sector employees would be fully implemented by 2018, despite the fact that many said that it was impossible to fulfill them because of the heavy burden on the economy. Recall that in assuming the office of the President of the Russian Federation in May 2012, V. Putin defined 218 instructions to the Government until 2020, the so-called May Decrees (More, 2017). Among them were indicators of the level of salaries of health workers - the subject of special attention of regional authorities the effectiveness of which has since been measured, including the level of achievement of these targets.

The achievement of the May Decrees regarding the level of salaries everywhere has failed. According to the plans of the Government of the Russian Federation, in 2017 the salaries of doctors were to increase first by 7.5%, then, before October 1, to 180% of the average for the region. According to V. Putin, by early 2018, the doctors' salaries should be 200% of the national average, and those of junior and mid-level personnel - 100%. In Karelia, for example, a shortage of funds to raise salaries for doctors had already been announced in 2017. In this regard, the region's authorities turned to the Prime Minister D. Medvedev and the Russian Finance Ministry for help.

According to the Federal State Statistics Service for January-September of 2017, the average salary of Russian doctors was 53.1 thousand rubles, and the average one of medical personnel amounted to 29.2 thousand rubles. However, according to a survey of the Health Foundation, only 8% of doctors receive salaries over 50 thousand rubles.

According to the survey data, the real situation is as follows: 58% of doctors working for one rate earn less than 25 thousand rubles, and more than a third of them (21% of the total number of respondents) - less than 15 thousand rubles a month. Interrogation of the average medical staff showed that three quarters of them (79%) earn up to 25 thousand rubles per rate and only 6% - above 35 thousand rubles. More than half (55%) of them work for more than one rate of pay (V. Putin, 2017).

   The same situation with the fulfilment of May Decrees is in the field of education. The president did not insist on it and the government ignored the Decree of the head of state regarding bringing teachers' salaries up to the average level by 2018. The same situation applies to the payment of labor of professors and teachers of higher educational institutions. One of the authors of this article testifies that as of March 1, 2018 his official salary is only 38,700 rubles, whereas, according to President V. Putin's Decree, a professor should receive almost twice as much - 200% of the average salaries in the region. Because of low pay, some of the teachers leave the higher school while the other part, searching for the lucrative share, leaves for abroad where working citizens with high qualifications receive several times more than in Russia.

Thus, research shows that in modern capitalist Russia the constitutional principle of a decent life of citizens is not fully implemented. Due to a rapid drop in incomes and to a growing social stratification, there is an accelerating process of emigration. An increasing number of our fellow citizens come to the conclusion that they have nothing to do in modern Russia. The most dangerous thing in this situation is that half of the young people are morally ready to leave the country. According to the forecast of the analytical center Stratfor, soon Russia may face another wave of mass emigration, which will be "perhaps the biggest in the last 20 years." The opinion of foreign experts is confirmed by Rosstat's data in an indirect way which fixes the increase in the number of departing people for six years already. And the dynamics can seriously upset the patriotically minded public: in 2010, 35 thousand people went abroad, in 2015 - almost 350 thousand. Russian Deputy Prime Minister O. Golodets, who is responsible for the social block, recently reported that "according to various estimates, more than 1.5 million Russians with Russian passports, well-trained, highly competitive personnel work outside the Russian Federation. Today it is difficult to find a university in the world, a company where Russians are not present, where Russians do not work, and this is a dangerous tendency". According to the vice-premier, the brain drain abroad is due to low salaries in Russia. "If we are underpaid at work and the market is open, then we encourage our young people, the most creative and mobile workforce, to leave Russia," she said, urging the business to create high-performance jobs so that highly qualified specialists could develop and realize themselves (Russia, 2018). These figures indicate that hundreds of thousands, millions of citizens simply do not see any prospects for themselves in Russia. They are not satisfied with the low level of wages, combined with the need to constantly earn extra money, unstable economic conditions, increasing risks to personal and business security, lack of opportunities for promotion on the social ladder and failure to fulfill the promises of the country's leadership in social policy, etc.

To remedy the situation it is necessary to modernize the social policy of the state. Finally, in our opinion, it is necessary to reduce defense expenses (out of the 20,000,000,000,000 rubles allocated for the preparation for war), the maintenance of a huge bureaucratic apparatus, law enforcement structures, the budget maneuver announced by the president and part of the funds for the full realization of the social policy, including the "Strategy for the Socio-Economic Development of the Russian Federation until 2020," the May Decrees and other election promises of V. Putin, set out in a message to the Federal Assembly on March 1, 2018 (The President's Address, 2018). In this case, the Russians will have confidence that the state cares about them not only in words but also in deeds.

Thus, the numerous arguments and facts stated in the article indicate that the Russian state cannot rightly be called a social state. Therefore, social policy should be radically changed to create conditions for a dignified life for all citizens in a rich country so that every Russian can be proud of the fact that he lives and works in a great power that cares about his safety and well-being.

Acknowledgments

The work is realized in the framework of Belgorod State Technological University named after V.G. Shoukhov.

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