This publication is a sequel to polemics that took place between me and S.G. Kirdina-Chandler in the journal “Socis” in 2016 about the concept of “civil society”. The essence of the polemics was that S.G. Kirdina-Chandler recognizes civil society not as a universal or general scientific concept, but as an “ideologeme” formed by Western European civilization, based on the Y-matrix, and imposed on other societies and peoples as a model of self-evaluation and imitation. My position consisted in the recognition of civil society as a universal notion, which presupposes the advancement of all mankind from socio-economic independence to the highest degrees of freedom – political, moral, religious and creative. S.G. Kirdina-Chandler argued that, empirically, the “law of stability of the dominant matrix institutions” was found to prevent the replacement of the basic institutions by the dominant matrix, and that in Russia “collectivism” rather than “individualism”, “redistributiveness” rather than competition, the value of “order” rather than freedom, orientation to some common good rather than to the private interest of citizens will always predominate. The material-natural environment is recognized as the fundamental basis of this dominance. The latest historical events allow us to recognize the historical correctness of S.G. Kirdina-Chandler’s institutional-matrix approach, namely, the return of Russian society to the dominating role of X-matrix institutions – distributive economy, centralized management and communitarian ideology. The institutional-matrix approach allows to assume that in several decades the potential of X-matrix institutions may be exhausted, and then the Russian society will start to activate the institutions of private property, market economy, real federalism, political pluralism and competitiveness, spiritual freedom and civil society. In 2022 we must, however, recognize that the bid for global geopolitical and military-political competition from Russia has been made, and active mobilization of all X-institutions has begun.