Our main result is a combinatorial lower bounds criterion for a general model of monotone circuits, where we allow as gates: (i) arbitrary monotone Boolean functions whose minterms or maxterms (or both) have length 6 d, and (ii) arbitrary real-valued non-decreasing functions on 6 d variables. This resolves a problem, raised by Razborov in 1986, and yields, in a uniform and easy way, non-trivial lower bounds for circuits computing explicit functions even when d !1. The proof is relatively simple and direct, and combines the bottlenecks counting method of Haken with the idea of finite limit due to Sipser. We demonstrate the criterion by super-polynomial lower bounds for explicit Boolean functions, associated with bipartite Paley graphs and partial t-designs. We then derive exponential lower bounds for clique-like graph functions of Tardos, thus establishing an exponential gap between the monotone real and non-monotone Boolean circuit complexities. Since we allow real gates, the criterion...