The ideology of statehood in relations between the countries of the East and the West

The article examines the political, ideological, socio- economic, cultural factors, that demonstrate the differences and similarities between two groups of countries – the group of the «collective West» and a group of countries, ready to resist the expansion of the West and its claims to global hegemony (the leaders are China and Russia). An analysis of the processes of formation of these groups and their confrontation shows that one of the most important factors determining these processes are ideological priorities and attitudes. For a group of the West, this is individualistic liberalism and the ideology of a unipolar world, for an alternative grouping – the ideology of statehood and the emerging ideology of a multipolar world. The article analyzes the ideological and materialistic factors that gave rise to the separation of a number of countries from the entire set of Western European countries with their transformation into a capitalist system (a process closely related to the formation and affirmation of the ideology of liberalism). As a result, the confrontation between the countries of liberalism and statehood, which today is usually attributed only to the grouping of all Western countries as a whole and the association of countries of non-Western civilizations, for a long time was the basis of multidimensional differences and confrontation between different countries of Western Europe. This confrontation is illustrated by «portraits» of the social structure of typical representatives of both groups of countries – Great Britain and Germany. An analysis of the processes of formation of groupings and their confrontation shows that they are not only the West response to the growing influence of communist ideas in the world and the creation of a socialist state in 1917, but are the result of long development of Western and Eastern civilizations and their divergence. Such a civilizational divergence was for long a characteristic feature of the Western European countries. The influence of these civilizational factors must be taken into account when developing political and economic strategies.