What are we from the point of view of our social-psychological state? Are we capable to be a single whole and to make a decisive influence on the choice of the further historical development?

The masses of people who produce material wealth has got a decisive role in historical process, in economic sphere in particular, as they are the most important and powerful element of productive forces.

Tolstoy underlined the role of working masses while reading “The history of Russia” by V.Solovyov : “ on reading that ones robbed, ruled, made war, ruined (only this is spoken about in history) one can unwittingly ask: what was robbed and ruined? And another question: who produced that what was being ruined? Who and how fed with bread the entire people? Who made brocades, broadcloths, dresses and coats in which tsars and boards made parade? Who caught black foxes and sables that ambassadors were presented; who extracted

gold and iron; who selected horses, bulls and sheep; who built houses, churches and palaces; who transported goods?”

That are working people who every day improve implements of labor aimed to perfect the effectiveness of their labor activity and this way they constantly prepare changes in technological mode of production and in social system as a whole.

The masses of people play a great and significant role in the social-political sphere. The dominant classes had always to take into consideration people’s attitude to their policy at all stages of the definite system development. All reforms and democratic liberties were established under the demands of working people; their role is particularly powerful in the epochs of social revolutions, for the radical changes in society are impossible without masses of people active intervention. The character of these changes depends on the level

of culture of masses, political culture in particular.

Intellectual-spiritual sphere of society’s life is also dependent of masses of people, though the history of spiritual life is always personified: there is no nameless philosophy or science but we know philosophical systems of Plato, Socrates, Bacon, Kant, Marx, Husserl etc. and scientific theories of Copernicus, Einstein, Darwin and Pavlov. The same situation is in art. Nevertheless masses of people play a significant role in the intellectual-spiritual culture: 1) the people is the creator and the keeper of the language that is the prime base of spiritual culture; 2) folk art was and still continues to be the source of professional art; M.Gorky stated: “The people does not only produce all material wealth, he is a single and unexhausted source of spiritual values; he is the first in time, beauty and greatness philosopher and poet who created all great poems, all world tragedies including the greatest among them – the history of world culture”; 3) all great philosophers, scientists, artistic men were inseparably linked with their people; their masterpieces remained deathless only if they reflected people’s needs, interests and hopes; 4) despite severe exploitation and suppression of people’s creative potential a great number of outstanding men were ordinary people by origin, among them were Lomonosov, Polzunov, Skovoroda, Faraday, Fulton, Shchepkin, Shevchenko, Berlioz, Haydn, Beethoven, Shopen, Gorky and many others.

Throughout human history social philosophers often exaggerated personality’s role in history, statesmen in particular, regarding them to determine historical process, as if they could govern the course of history like a puppet theatre. Each historical personality was set forth to the scene of historical development by certain definite social forces.

Hegel regarded world historical personalities or heroes those not numerous outstanding people who possess some substantial element which is the will of World Spirit or Reason of History. These people don’t belong to themselves; they are like ordinary people, only the World Spirit tools, though great tools with the help of whom historical process is carried out. These people intuitively

grasp historical necessity; they are wise spiritual leaders who guide masses of people. As usual they are not happy for as soon as they have accomplished their mission they “fall off like an empty seed-coat” as Hegel said.

N.Machiavelli considered that the happiness of great historical personalities was the occasion due to which they got some material, that they formed according to their principles and goals; without such occasion their merits could become extinct: Mousey found out Israel people who were suffering in slavery

and oppression in Egypt; their desire to get free stimulated them follow him. For Romulus became the founder and the ruler of Rome it was necessary that he was sent away from Alba and left alone at his birth. Teseus could hardly manifest his entire valor, if he had not found Athenians weak and separate. Really an occasion was the starting point of all those people’s fame but each of them was talented to give the chance development for the sake of their peoples.

Analyzing the personality of Napoleon J.Goethe stated that “Anyhow his

personality towered above all the rest, but the most important was that people, though were subjected to him, aimed to achieve their own goals; that is exactly why they followed him like one follows anybody who inspires with such confidence in the future”.

Russian historian and writer N.M.Karamzin said of Peter the Great: “The people was going to take the field, they expected a leader and the leader appeared!” The fact that precisely that man was born in that country in that definite time is of course contingent. Sometimes history gives chance to more or less worthy people; if they appear to be incapable to guide people the results are very poor for them. Democritus was wise when he noted: “Fool citizens less deserving high honorable posts become careless, stupid and impertinent”.

History is carried out by people in accordance with objective laws of development. The people is a great separate and dispersed number of individuals, while the force and energy of his being and self-assertion needs some certain unity. The unity of people is embodied in a single spiritual-volitional centre that is the person who possesses great intellect and experience

which reflects will and civil spirit of the entire people. Plato said that “the world will become happy when sage men become rulers, and rulers become sage men”.

In the process of historical activity the personality vividly reveals all his advantages and disadvantages that gets a great social meaning and influences life of nations, peoples and even mankind as a whole.

For in human history the people but not the individual is the decisive force, the initial point of development; personalities depend on the people like a tree depends on the soil where it grows. If legendary Anthey’s strength consisted in his ties with native land, personality’s social strength is in his connection with his people. At the same time only a genius is capable to intuitively understand the people’s sole.

Whatever genius a historical personality might be in his activity he is determined by the aggregate of social relations; personality by making

decisions can either accelerate historical process or slow it down. The leader’s activity supposes deep theoretical generalization of social practice, a dialectical flexibility of thought, an acute perceptiveness for various nuances of social life,

the ability for timely and adequate evaluation of favorable and unfavorable tendencies, enabling to reject obstructions and to encourage progress. Outstanding historical personalities are characterized by their ability to derive

benefit from any necessity and even to turn fatal coincidence of circumstances for the good of society and people; they should take into consideration both the general line and all the subtlest possibilities of development; they should choose a correct way to transform a mature historical possibility into reality. Great historical leaders are much more than ordinary people responsible for their decisions and activity.

Confucius wrote that “man who does not peer into remote future is expected to get into trouble in the nearest future”. “Everybody who is given much will be required much” is said in the Bible (Luc. 12, 48).

Classic conceptions of personality’s role and significance in history were based on the contradiction: reason or passions are determining factors that make person a leader; but in actual fact neither blind gust of passion nor cold rationality but their harmonious unity defines person as integrity, underlines his powerfulness. In his “Philosophy of history” Hegel wrote that “nothing great in history was created without passion” and French writer Honore de Balzac puzzling over the problem of outstanding people noted “All great people are born in a definite century womb but inside their body mankind’s heart is beating”. Other classic approaches to clear understanding the role of personality in history were based either on fatalism (the form of determinism that predestines each one’s place in life and history) or on voluntarism (that relies on personality’ subjective will while ignores objective circumstances of his possibilities).