The article examines evolution and content of the resentment phenomenon. According to the theory of F. Nietzsche, resentment is the feeling experienced by a person towards his enemy or towards the one whom he considers guilty of his failures, which causes his aggression towards another. L. Fishman traces various historical forms of resentment, drawing attention to the fact that the main subject of resentment actions is often not the plebeian, but bearers of the values of the ruling class. Under these conditions, resentment becomes the most important instrument of political struggle, the subject of appeal from one social force to another. Thus, the author studied the phenomenon of resentment from another perspective than the founders of this concept, F. Nietzsche and M. Scheler. Нe treats it as a type of false consciousness, and the concept of resentment in its original form as its criticism from the right. In the modern world, the phenomenon of resentment is embodied in a wide variety of forms – from the precariat to confrontation between states. And as long as there is a division of society into the strong and the weak in the world, social inequality, double standards, resentment will find favorable soil.