The book analyzes the views of the writer L.N. Tolstogo and the philosopher Vl.S. Solovyov in the late XIX - early XX centuries, as well as the position of ideologists of bourgeois social thought: supporter of bourgeois law and order in Russia B.N. Chicherin and theorist of Russian university autonomy S.N. Trubetskoy. The positions of professors and students on the transformation of Russian universities are also considered.