Текст книги "Ford and Stalin. How to Live in Humaneness"
Автор книги: (IP of the USSR) Internal Predictor of the USSR
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This is true because cultural development means that there appears something new and socially useful in it – useful in terms of failing to support degraded parasitic processes or prompt people to support them. At that development of culture is a way of expressing personal development and creativity in the course of God’s Will available to all the people of the actively living generations. And production and consumption activity, principles on which it is organized and the means which those principles are realized by (including the relations between people in terms of production and consumption) are a part of cultural development.[250]
In any multinational or national culture, as well as in subcultures of individual social groups, three more or less developed movements can be discovered (meaning that culture on the whole is something like a vector in multidimensional space which is defined through movements which cannot be expressed through each other):
conservative – objectively aimed at reproducing the existing life-style in future generations without changes and innovations;
nihilistic – putting up the slogan of «everything’s bad! We can’t live a life like this!» yet providing no alternative (or the means to work out an alternative and realize its ideals);
aspiring to the future – aiming at implementing a certain ideal of how people should live within society and how society should live within the biosphere of the Earth in the future.
The number of representatives of each of the above-mentioned movements and their contents in terms of ideas define the society’s prospects.
Thus, in 19th century Russia the ruling classes consisted mainly of people representing the conservative movement who paid no heed to the problems of their era and the need to resolve them. More or less educated young people who were psychically unstable or emotionally over-excited represented nihilism. The void created by the absence of those aspiring to realize in future a certain original Russian ideal[251] was filled up by Marxism. As it gained more popularity, Marxism encouraged thoughtless nihilists to join the internazi revolutionary movement. It offered the socialist ideal to those people who were unhappy with living in the conditions of contemporary Russia while limiting their control over themselves and over social processes by means of Marxist philosophy, conception of global historic process[252] and political economy.
Along with the above-mentioned movements there are subcultures existing in societies. They can be called «relic» movements. Their bearers who are statistically small in number live their lives following a motto «it used to be better before!» and act politically under the slogan «back to the past!» They go as far as trying to impose the stone age of modern global civilization or even the customs of Atlantis which led to its downfall on the future (during the entire history of the Biblical civilization sjid-masonry has been working to achieve it).
Most of the «relics» existing today used to be fairly widely spread some time in the past, but they have given up their position and became the lot of social minority as a result of a long-term gradual evolution of culture on the whole and as a result of short-term changes in life which occurred in the course of revolutions, reforms, conquests, peaceful integration into other cultures, etc. Yet it would be wrong to say that such relics have had their last day.[253] They exist due to mistakes committed by society in the course of its past cultural development and disclose through all or some of their aspects the defectiveness (incompleteness) and viciousness of the society’s culture and subcultures which succeeded in domination to the ones that became «relics».
«Relics» disappear and cease to be a living reproach for two reasons. Both the subcultures and culture on the whole dominating in the society take from them everything viable that they had previously rejected; or, because people have creatively developed the dominating subcultures and culture on the whole, they get over the defectiveness and viciousness characteristic of them at some historic stages independently.[254]
In the periods of transition from one culture dominating the crowd-“elitist” society to another, the former dominating culture does not yet take up the position of a «relic» because its bearers are yet the representatives of the conservative movement of the former dominating culture, large in number, including many the former nihilists scared by the changes which are taking place (or have taken place). In other words, in the period preceding short-term changes in the life of a crowd-“elitist” society, the conservative cultural movement and partially the nihilistic cultural movement, become the reactionary cultural movement. Its political activity is determined both by the nature of the subculture that has become a reactionary one, and the way it is influenced by bearers of other subcultures. When the period of transition comes to an end, the reactionary movement either disappears completely, having given everything valuable to the new dominating culture on the whole and to the subculture prevailing in it, or turns into one of the «relics».
But it is typical of transition periods to have their own «conservative» and «nihilistic» movements. Conservatism of a transition period acts according to the slogan «the goal in itself is nothing! Moving towards it is everything!», though this slogan is not always proclaimed in public. This movement in the culture of a transition period is supported by a part of former nihilists, as well as by those for whom the «era of endless changes» creates an opportunity of «fishing in troubled waters». Conservatives of a transition period are not interested in the goals of the reforms and the means of accomplishing them. They approve of any reform which does not endanger (in their opinion) their personal welfare and security and which provides a cover to conceal their shady dealings and frauds. Unlike them, nihilists of a transition period tend to be sincere in claiming their faithfulness to the goals of reforms, yet they do not always accept the means and methods of accomplishing the goals of reforms, the individuals who are in charge of reforms and who carry out reforms. It could also well be that they are not capable of doing anything practical and have to pretend to criticize out of principles – for the sake of fighting for the truth – simply because they are incapable of doing anything well.
Most conservatives of a transition period and most nihilists of a transition period deliberately or unknowingly put on a mask of advocating the movement of aspiring to the future whose true representatives are really bent on realizing the ideals proclaimed as goals of social life transformation.
Beside the above-mentioned movements in the transition period culture there is a smaller or a greater number of confused people. Some of them perish because they lost their purpose in life, though the ways leading to their death can vary; some of them form a «personnel reserve» for active movements of the transition period culture. After they get over the initial confusion, they join the reactionaries, conservatives or nihilists of the transition period or the sincere advocates of the goals proclaimed for the reforms being carried out in the society who aspire to the future. Many confused people become a sort of nomads traveling from one movement to another or support different movements of the transition period culture by different aspects of their activities.
There is no national culture that is devoid of arts. In the life of any society civilized enough artistic work, arts are closely connected with philosophy, history and social science which in their turn influence creative work and arts to the extent that their accomplishments are mastered by the men of arts due to the general development of the society’s culture or in the course of self-education. There are several important circumstances in the interaction of arts and sciences.
In the crowd-“elitist” society arts in most cases surpass philosophy and social sciences in the capability to reveal the problems of today and the perspective of the society’s life and development.
The works of philosophy and social science address almost exclusively the intellectual level of psyche of those who encounter them, their direct impact on the emotional component of psyche is at a minimum – emotions arise as a secondary reaction of subconscious levels to the meaning of a scientific work, which the consciousness has grasped. And grasping the meaning of a scientific work in any case requires a sufficient level of preliminary education, both in terms of knowing certain data and possessing the skill of concentrating one’s attention and intellect on the subject of a scientific work. Hence many are incapable of understanding scientific treatises of no matter what subject they pursue or how high the level of research described in them is.
As to works of art, they appeal directly both to the level of consciousness and to the subconscious levels of human psyche. Because works of art appeal directly to the subconscious levels of psyche, they turn out to produce a more or less strong effect on anyone who encounters them voluntarily or involuntarily, requiring virtually no preliminary knowledge.[255]
The time between the end of the Civil War in 1920 and the mu r der of J.V. Stalin in 1953 is the transition period.
Therefore any cultural conceptions which do not distinguish between the above-mentioned cultural movements existing in the pre-revolutionary era and in the time of socialist building and the essence of each one of them; the conceptions which do not perceive the nature of transition of said cultural movements past the borderline of the revolution and the Civil War; the conceptions which do not perceive their nature and interaction in the time of building socialism in an individual country led by J.V. Stalin when that country was in a hostile capitalist surrounding; the conceptions which do not see the differences in the nature of scientific philosophical and social works and the works of art, as well as the difference in the ways they are perceived by people – such conceptions are useless and contribute nothing but factual knowledge for our understanding of that era.
Moreover, nowadays many analysts expressing their opinion on that era, as well as the public which believes those condemnations, tend to forget that our generations are the product and heirs of that era. Consequently we perceive things which had not been usual for social life before that era and which had been introduced exactly due to its coming as natural and customary. The customary nature of what has been passed over to us and what we have become familiar with in our childhood and adolescence as readily available is the reason why nowadays many active politicians, philosophy and social science scholars, men of arts thoughtlessly continue the above-mentioned movements of the transition period culture. Because they thoughtlessly and mechanically reproduce the cultural movements of those years and of even earlier times under new historical circumstances, fifty years after J.V. Stalin was assassinated our society has not managed to pass the next borderline of re-defining its understanding of the past and of working out plans for the future. In other words, to use the slang of computer engineers, the process of transition is buzzing. Therefore it is necessary to compare what is customary and natural for us with what was customary and natural in the era preceding the transition period.
It is natural for us to know how to read and write, though many people have learned that skill without ever learning to feel Life and think about its sense independently. For 1917 Russia it was natural that 85 % of the population could not read or write for which reason they were entirely denied access to written culture. As a consequence, they were limited in acquiring any new knowledge or skill to taking them over by way of demonstration and oral explanation of those who possessed that knowledge or skill. Under such circumstances the society was incapable either of a moral and ethic or spiritual development or scientific and technological progress. To be more precise, the speed at which the society could master and process information was so low that it was doomed to perish under the burden of various problems it itself created and could not resolve in time.
In the very first decade after the end of the Civil War illiteracy among the adult population was eliminated[256]. Also, homeless children who lost their parents during the revolution and the Civil War were provided for. At the same time, the system of popular schooling was being developed. Every year more students were taken in, and the quality of universal compulsory education was gradually improved reaching a standard that allowed people to enter universities and technical schools. At that time many young people had no opportunity to get an education while being fully provided for by their family or society and had to start working while still in their teens. But many of them dreamed of getting a job, which required a specialized secondary or higher education. The Soviet government helped them make that dream come true, creating a system of «rabfaks» (workers’ faculties, many of which were established at universities), where young workers and country people could prepare themselves for entering a college. At some of rabfaks students were freed from work and received state scholarships. At other rabfaks students continued to work and used their spare time for studying. Also, a system of evening schools, technical schools, night and correspondence education at universities was developed for those who had started to work before acquiring the education desired.
Thanks to the opportunities of getting a specialized secondary (a technical school) or higher professional education created by the Soviet government, a large number of young people entered the field of science, technology and art. Prior to 1917 they were denied this opportunity[257] due to the order of castes and classes where the hierarchy of unrighteously made fortunes prevailed. On this basis new schools of science, design and engineering started to spring up and old ones began developing in the USSR as early as the 1920-s. It was the support of scientific and RD schools that outstanding Russian scientists and inventors lacked in the pre-revolutionary years, because starting from the middle of the 19th century science and engineering were becoming the field for collective activity where a man of genius having no support of highly qualified and educated associates was going to accomplish nothing on his own.
As a result of this policy, as far back as the early 1950-s the educational level of the USSR’s population (i.e. of workers and farmers – the most numerous classes of that era) came to be the highest in the world. The USSR was also leading in the number of university students per one thousand of population, by far exceeding advanced capitalist countries in terms of this characteristic. One should also keep in mind, that in the early 1950-s our secondary education (which became compulsory at the end of the USSR’s existence) and higher education conformed to the highest standards on the world scale when educational system of different states were compared.[258]
Owing to the accomplishments of scientific and engineering design schools developing on the basis of the immense personnel resource encompassing the entire people, by the early 1950s the Soviet Union became independent from foreign science and technology in the sense that our science and industry became capable of developing and producing on their own everything that was necessary for the state which in many aspects worked for the interests of the majority of workers. One has to admit though that the share of pioneering developments (ones which are first in the world) was small in that period, because in the 1920-s – 1940-s the Soviet Union was mostly assimilating foreign accomplishments in order to bridge the educational gap between Russia and advanced countries and to break free from the dependence of almost all the branches of industry and science on them inherited from the Russian empire.
All these factors combined created objective prerequisites for the USSR to continue developing culturally, scientifically and technically at a faster pace than advanced capitalist states. Yet the educational system created at the time had one fundamental flaw:
The Marxist cult existing in the society perverted the entire complex of philosophic and social sciences and psychology, impeded the proper development of biology and medicine which is based on general biology.[259]
Owing to the perverted nature of the complex of sciences on man and society, a discord between sciences, first of all philosophy and social science, and creative work in all arts was unavoidable in the USSR.[260] Yet given the dominant position of Marxism within the educational system this discord was beneficial for the society and its future perspective, because in a crowd-“elitist” society arts and creative work in most cases surpass philosophy and social science in revealing the society’s current problems and future life and development prospects.[261] Of course, this statement holds true in respect of not every work of art and not every scientific work. It holds true in respect of heterogeneous creative work on the whole as a type of activity and of science as a type of activity.
Therefore, without understanding that there existed a discord between artistic work and philosophy and social science it is impossible to understand the essence of that artistic style which was later termed «socialist realism». And it is equally impossible to understand the essence and role of the so-called «avant-gardism and modernism» in all of its manifestations, which were inherited by the transition period era from the pre-revolutionary times.
First of all, after the Soviet state was established, a revision of the Empire’s artistic heritage was begun. The works of pre-revolutionary conservative and reactionary movements were no longer being published (literature, art) or reproduced (music, plays). Some were banned, part of them destroyed, part hidden in the depositories of museums, archives and libraries. In our era the works of the pre-revolutionary nihilistic movement are known as works of «critical realism» [262] and the works of all sorts of «avant-gardism» in literature, theatre, art and music.
One should also keep in mind, that in every era «avant-gardism and modernism» is not a homogeneous phenomenon. Along with pursuit of new forms and ways to express a meaning in works of art, there is the morally and psychically unhealthy constituent in it which either reflects the delirium of mentally ill people, or the demonically unhealthy ambition of a person who has nothing to say or show people yet is awfully keen on asserting him or herself by becoming known as a great artist, actor, poet or musician. And in the times of social crisis «avant-gardism» is represented mostly by works of art reflecting moral and psychic morbidity or aggressive striving for self-assertion or the demonic ambition of fame. This applies to the overwhelming majority of «avant-garde» “masterpieces” of the pre-revolutionary and post-revolutionary times.
It was the course of history that by the time of the revolution the authors of «critical realism» works were either dead or managed to join the consuming “elite” of the empire.
Those of the men of arts belonging to this movement who had survived the revolution refused to accept the new regime not only because they were afraid of repressions. To a large extent the reason was their unwillingness to lose that hard-won “elite” status. As a result, many of them left for foreign countries (I. Bunin, I. Repin, A. Gorky). When life in the USSR became stable, some of them agreed to return to their motherland. Here those who returned continued working but performed different roles (A. Tolstoy and A. Gorky: A. Tolstoy was an active socialist realist writer, while A. Gorky was considered to be the founder and personification of socialist realism, though he was rather a devoted nihilist than a realist aspiring to the future).
The others died abroad (I. Repin, I. Bunin), refusing to return to their homeland and thereby to «serve the regime» which would employ their creative work or authority (so they thought), the regime where national bolshevism and anti-national Marxist psychic Trotskyism – equally alien to them – were intertwined. Yet actually they refused to serve not the regime but their people because they refused to contribute their artistic work to the cause of separating bolshevism and psychic Trotskyism in all fields of people’s life, and thereby they refused to contribute to the cause of liberating the country and people from the power of psychic Trotskyism.
The conservative cultural movement existing in the USSR of the period of transition to socialism consists of permanent revolutionary Marxist psychic Trotskyites from the ideological point of view, and from the artistic style point of view – of all sorts of abstractionist avant-gardism which is the expression of psychic Trotskyism. In other words, in psychic Trotskyism there was no conflict between its social science and art. But there was a conflict between psychic Trotskyism and life. That is why many who genuinely searched for new forms and ways to express the sense of Life in art and aspired to the future could not survive in that environment. One of them was V. Mayakovsky who became known as an avant-garde futurist[263] poet as far back as the pre-revolutionary years. There were also many others who were hunted down by the members of RAPP[264] and of other associations of r-r-revolutionary artists.
The bolshevist leadership of the USSR headed by J.V. Stalin was not mistaken[265] in equating the political fraction of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) led by L. Bronstein (Trotsky) which formed the opposition to bolshevists and the avant-gardism in the post-revolutionary art, though many men of arts did not understand then and do not understand now the reasons for the bolshevists to reject avant-gardism and the goals of suppressing it.
The reality is that most of mentally ill people are not aware of their illness. It is mainly schizophrenic people and dopers who applaud to schizophrenia and ravings stimulated by dopes (from cigarettes and alcohol to heavier drugs) expressed in artistic work. What schizophrenic and delirious art, especially the one produced by men of great talent, evokes from mentally healthy people is mainly pity. But apart from complete mental cases – those who have a more or less acute mental disease, there are quite a lot of people in a crowd-“elitist” society whose psychic stability and self-control leave much to be desired. And such people, depending on what circumstances they find themselves in, what kind of art (above all, music, art, cinema and in future computer interactive[266] games and virtual plays) they are influenced by, can either become mentally ill or escape this unfortunate lot which is dangerous both for themselves and their fellow citizens.
Therefore one must distinguish suppressing nihilistic avant-gardism, which does not care about the people’s future destiny from oppressing a creative search of novel artistic forms and means of expressing the sense of Life in art. Suppressing nihilistic avant-gardism is objectively the means of protecting teenagers whose psyche is still being molded, as well as many adult mentally unstable people, preventing them from becoming more or less mad owing to the influence of avant-garde art. This is a means of protecting the society’s moral and psychic health[267], though since it cannot substitute the rest of such means it isn’t self-sufficient.
During the last two decades of the USSR’s existence the intelligentsia (mostly people with I-centric individualist or individualist-corporate cast of psyche) has been making lots of fun over «socialist realism». It has been the custom to accuse it of creative barrenness, servility towards the ruling regime which caused socialist realist artists do nothing but embellish, decorate and create a false impression of the «foul socialist» reality.
Everyone got their share: M. Sholohov for “Virgin Soil Upturned” and for the alleged plagiarism of “The Quiet Don”[268], A. Gorky for being at the head of the team of authors who wrote the book “The Stalin Channel”[269] about how the White sea – Baltic sea channel was designed and built between 1929 and 1932 by prisoners of the NKVD’s GULAG (special prisoner servitude camps). But it was the cinema that received the largest share of condemnation, as cinema in the USSR was a state monopoly serving the state’s policy from the very beginning. Due to the exclusively state nature of cinema in the USSR it must be considered the most prominent manifestation of socialist realism both at its best and at its worst.
Let us therefore turn to cinema. “The Kuban Cossacks” movie alone suffered hundreds of attacks and accusations from the democratisers for its false bombast (affluence in a kolkhoz in the days of crops failure and famine of the 1949), for embellishing and «embroidering» the reality. Yet at the time this film had many fans, including people in Kuban. The critics of the democratic wing explain such examples of socialist realist arts’ popularity by saying that people escaped from the dreadful Soviet reality into a world of dreams.
They seem to be sure that Bolsheviks, the advocates of socialism and communism, have nothing to disprove that assumption with. But those who think so actually enter an intellectual blind alley, because that assumption leads to a very simple question:
What was it that people returned with back to the world of Soviet reality from the world of dreams created in socialist realist movies and other arts?
The most general answer would be that they returned from the world of Soviet movie-dreams with something completely different from what modern teenagers come back with from the world of Hollywood movie-dreams and what drunkards and other drug addicts of all times including the times of bourgeois reforms in Russia come back with from their drug-dreams.
Of course, socialist realism altogether was not a homogeneous phenomenon. It did have servility to the regime amounting to vindication of all abuses committed by officials and attempts to prove them non-existent, as well as claiming any accusations directed against those officials to be calumny. But there was also something else, something which makes the answer to the question about the way of coming back from the world of dreams evoked by socialist realism to the social and historic reality to be the answer to the question about the true nature of socialist realism and its historic momentum which is very much different from the opinions of the dissident intelligentsia. This statement cannot be proven logically. But art speaks for itself, not depending on the manner in which it is presented by the critics and what terms they use to define its styles and genres. Let us then turn to facts.
A film festival showing 37 Soviet films, beginning from the times of Stalin and ending with the early 1960-s, took place in 2000 in New-York. All the local critics who had by that time no reasons to be afraid of the military and economic might of the «superstate № 2» and to perform the order of their country’s authorities, declared unanimously and rapturously: «This is some kind of a different civilization!»
And this was the essentially correct assessment of true socialist realism. In order to understand the reasons why the Americans having a huge experience in film industry responded so rapturously to old films of the Soviet era (which also had technical drawbacks in comparison to Hollywood technical masterpieces of the late 20th century), we should turn to another occurrence which has a thematic relationship to that film festival.
In the middle 1990-s an exhibition of art and sculpture of the Stalin’s bolshevism era was held in Europe with triumphant success. The show also visited Russia: it was exhibited in the Russian museum (St. Petersburg) under the title “The Campaign for Happiness”. This aspiration for the bright and happy future for all laborers is the core essence of true socialist realism of the Stalin bolshevism era preserved by the leading artists of all the Soviet republics in the later years.
Having watched the 37 Soviet movies, Americans responded not just to propaganda of strange ideas, they responded to the campaign for the happiness of each and every member of society organized on different moral and ethic principles. While they were scared of the USSR earlier, those principles expressed in the behavior of film characters not only frightened them no more, they became attractive for many of them when its might ceased to pose a threat.[270] Hence the rapturous and essentially correct response: «This is some kind of a different civilization».
Yes, it is a different – new global civilization, which is to come. Its moral and ethics were demonstrated in the best works of socialist realist arts which utilized the means of the techno sphere of the 20th century’s 1st half. And this essence – the campaign for happiness which is really possible, which is to be achieved in life through the labor of people themselves, through their moral and ethics – is what is beyond the comprehension of the morally perverted people who denounce socialist realism of the Soviet era on the whole and of the Stalin bolshevist era in particular.
