The article treats the topical problem of Russian modernization. It considers the sociological aspect of this process, presented in it in connection with the appearance of the book entitled: Gotovo li rossiyskoye obshchestvo k modernizatsii? (“Is Russian Society Ready for Modernization?”) issued recently by the Institute of Sociology, RAS (ed. by M.Gorshkov, R.Krumm and N.Tikhonova). The authors of the present article are agreed with the interpretation of modernization as process embracing not only the technico-economic, but also all the other spheres of society. Yet they offer their amendments associated with the changing of theories of modernization and with the analysis of periods and versions of its history.