Analyzed is the book by a well-known St. Petersburg historian B.N.Mironov, contesting the wide-spread opinion that the revolutions of the early 20th century in Russia were caused by a systemic crisis of Russian society and by deterioration of wide masses’ well-being. V.G.Khoros expresses his own point of view as to this theme, reflecting on problems of modernization, on their relationship with the revolution and on other theoretical subjects.