The article presents the results of a study of alternative versions of modernization. Along with the widespread identification of the modernization process with the Westernization of non-Western societies, the concept of multiple modernization by Shmuel Eisenstadt is analyzed. Russian religious philosophy, being in opposition to the processes that constitute the essence of the Western type of modernization, in particular the transformation of technology from a means of human existence into the goal of his existence, contains examples of a positive reaction to the transformative labor activity of people. Ivan Ilyin in his work “Praise to Labor” demonstrates a special way of demonstrating the value of everyday work as the realization of “God’s idea”.