History of the Mendeleev Institute of socio-economic forecasting.

In 1990, a scientist-physicist and a manufacturing practitioner met. They talked about the fate of the country (then the USSR), about the ways of its economic and political development.

The time was vague: perestroika, glasnost, violent debates in the press. Cooperatives of all stripes were increasingly winning their place under the economic sun. Labor collectives were chosen by contest Directors, they took a lease of the shops and the whole enterprises.

All this verbiage and "economic foam" served as a smoke screen for the collapse of the system in the interests of the highest party elites of the former Soviet republics.

Calls for transparency and democracy often precede the overthrow of the existing government - this is the conclusion of a physicist and a manufacturer. And there was an idea- to build a model of Soviet society. Thus was born the famous "two-humped camel" (article by D. S. Chernavsky "the camel has two humps, because life is a struggle", newspaper "Solidarity" №9-10, M. 1991). Thus was born our group, United by the idea of mathematical modeling of social and economic processes in society, under the leadership of D. S. Chernavsky.

Unfortunately, the forecasts of the imminent collapse of the USSR came true and in 1991 we found ourselves in a completely different country.

At this time, there was a lively discussion among economists about the necessary price liberalization. Our group opposed liberalisation, because the model of the now Russian society showed that it would lead to a tenfold increase in prices over a short period and impoverishment of the main mass of the population. This is exactly what happened in 1992 as a result of the "Gaidar reforms".

Since 1992, our group has been organized as a Laboratory of economic synergetics. We actively cooperate with a number of commercial and industrial structures, and have also made analytical reviews for the Ministry of economy, the Ministry of labor, the Ministry of defense and other departments.

We consider our main achievement to be the ability to predict the development of socio-economic processes, on the basis of building a mathematical model, including the moment of occurrence of "catastrophic" phenomena both at the level of the country's economy as a whole and at the level of an individual enterprise.

Examples of such forecasting are, the collapse of the firm "MMM", which we calculated four months before the collapse of the Mavrodi pyramid. The second example-in the fall of 1997 in the journal "politics" # 3(5) in the article Chernavsky D. S. and Shcherbakov A.V. "the Russian Economy: stabilization or stagnation" was predicted, with an accuracy of up to a month, the default of 1998.

Since 1999, the Russian economy has been stabilizing and growing somewhat. This growth was perceived by a number of economists as the beginning of an" economic miracle", and even the thesis of doubling GDP in the near future was proclaimed. Our analysis has shown that only targeted government regulation can lead to real economic growth. Otherwise, growth will stop and will be replaced by stagnation of the real economy. This process will take 4-5 years. Indeed, after 2003, growth in the real sector slowed significantly and many industries began to decline.

The recession of the early 2000s turned into another crisis in 2008. The crisis itself was predicted by us before six months (in April 2008), and its causes and consequences were described in a number of analytical papers in 2009-10.

By 2014, our group had grown beyond the laboratory. It was decided to organize the Mendeleev center for socio-economic forecasting. Currently, the Center employs several dozen prominent Russian scientists-specialists in the field of Economics, sociology, and analysis of complex dynamic systems.

By 2017, a core of co-authors and like-minded people was formed, whose works can be found in the materials of the site. The subject of the center's work has significantly expanded and enriched with philosophical and worldview concepts, effective methodology for forecasting historical processes and socio-humanitarian sphere, research on the topic of network society and the problems of the digital economy, anthropological risks and geopolitical problems. In this regard, at the beginning of 2019, it was decided to turn the Center into an Institute of socio-economic forecasting headed by the Director of the Institute and the Chairman of the Council of the Institute, A.V. Shcherbakov, the founders and members of the Council of the Institute, V. G. Budanov, L. A. Kolesova, S. Y. Malkov, A.V. Oleskin, A.V. Shcherbakov.

Here it is appropriate to say a few words about D. I. Mendeleev, whose name our Center bears. Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev (1834-1907)-the great Russian scientist-encyclopedist, chemist, physicist, technologist, geologist and even meteorologist, known to all as the Creator of the Periodic table of elements, was also a remarkable philosopher and economist. In his work "Cherished thoughts", 1905, he was one of the first to draw attention to the fact that excessive export of raw materials can adversely affect the domestic producer. This topic remains relevant for modern Russia.

In our opinion, Dmitry Ivanovich is an example of a real Russian Scientist, his views are close to us even after a century. We would like to see his words about freedom combined with work and fulfillment of duty on the facade of our Russian statehood. This spiritual closeness has prompted us to use the name of the great Russian scientist in the name of our Institute.