The word "crisis" is translated from Greek as "change", a certain difficult transitional situation. However it does not mean that in social sense crisis always the phenomenon negative. During crisis there is not only a destruction old social (political, economic) systems, but also new solutions and ways of development open.
Main characteristics of crisis
Certain lines are inherent in any crisis situation. First of all it is the expressed reaction of society. Some changes caused by crisis are unexpected, respectively society is not prepared for them. From there is a reactivity. If crisis is rather deep and involves significant changes, its development, as a rule, happens falteringly. It is connected with the fact that to different functionalities of society the crisis comes at different times. At the same time recovery from the crisis not always means its end, the separate phenomena can periodically repeat, thus opening the elements which remained incomplete, weakened at the previous stage of development of crisis.
The problematical character of crisis is that, as a rule, the tasks set by this phenomenon for society can be mutually exclusive. If to delay with finding solutions to such tasks, crisis can escalate. Any crisis – first of all destruction. And than crisis is more global, especially consequences of these destructions are serious. Even the societies of structure, vital for development, and social institutes can be exposed to deformation and even elimination. Usually it happens because of a lack of the basic resources providing normal functioning of a system.
Nevertheless crisis has not only the destructive, but also constructive beginning. As a result crisis is intended to find the factors interfering stable development of society and to define tasks for the future. Besides, whatever one may do, any society, any structure does not develop without crises. Therefore this phenomenon is quite natural.
Ways of recovery from the crisis
During crisis there is some kind of natural selection which allows to modify or reconstruct some public structures, at the same time keeping a society essence. Options of recovery from the crisis three. The first – disintegration of a system. Alas, as a result of crisis the society can die. There is a loss of ability to replicate. On the verge of similar "death" of a system there was France during the Great French revolution of the 18th century. The second option – reform. It is softer way to solve the tasks set by crisis as the genotype of society reconstructs gradually, without sharp changes. The third option – revolution. The revolutionary way of recovery from the crisis represents sharp jump from one state in another which can be rather catastrophic, thus society can suffer significant losses.