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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After the cruelty and rage, which sounded in Stalin’s speech when he spoke about them, both the speakers seemed to be defendants taking the final plea and pleading no guilty in all the points, but could hardly hope for a change in their fate, which had been determined by Stalin. I had a strange feeling, which I remembered then: they were speaking and it seemed to me that they were not the people whom I had seen so often not very far from me, but white masks put on their faces and which looked very much alike with the faces, and at the same time they were somehow absolutely different, lifeless[335]. I don’t know whether I’ve expressed myself precisely enough, but I had this very feeling, and I don’t exaggerate it antedate.
I don’t know why Stalin in his final speech at the Central Committee plenary session chose Molotov and Mikoyan as the two main objects for distrust. It was doubtless that he obviously wanted to compromise both of them, humble them, bereave ones of the most important historic figures after him of aureole. He wanted to make them small; especially he wanted to humble Molotov, to bring to nothing the aureole Molotov had[336], in spite of the fact that in the recent years he had been removed from the work to a great extent, in spite of the fact that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was already run by Vyshinsky, in spite of the fact that his wife was in prison[337], – in spite of all this many-many people said or remembered Molotov’s name right after Stalin’s one. This was probably what Stalin didn’t want. This he tried to bring home to everyone who had gathered at the plenary session, to all the old and young Central Committee members and candidates, to all the old and new members of the Central Committee executive office, which was to be elected yet. But for some reason he didn’t want Molotov to stay after him the first figure in the state and the party. And his speech excluded such an opportunity.
(…)
And there’s one more thing. I don’t remember exactly whether in this speech before giving the floor to Molotov and Mikoyan, or after it, in another his speech, which preceded the elections of the Central Committee executive office – I’m even afraid to affirm that the second speech took place, probably everything was said in different parts of the first one, – standing at the rostrum and looking into the hall Stalin began talking about his old age and that he was unable to fulfill all the duties he is entrusted with. He could act as the chairman of Council of Ministers; he could also hold Politburo sessions as he had used to; but he was unable to hold Central Committee sessions as the Secretary General. That’s why he asked to exempt him from the latter post, comply with his request. I reproduce it almost in the way it was said. But this is not the matter of the words he said. Saying them Stalin was looking into the hall, and behind him the Politburo was sitting, and Malenkov, who hold the session while Stalin was speaking, was standing at the table. And I saw a horrible expression at Malenkov’s face – that was not fright, but such an expression that showed that the man had realized the mortal danger, which threatened everyone, and which the others hadn’t realized yet: one mustn’t agree with comrade Stalin’s request, one mustn’t let him resign from the last of his three commissions. Malenkov’s face, his gestures, his significantly raised hands were an outspoken entreaty to all the present to refuse Stalin’s request immediately and decidedly[338]. And then the words: «No, please, stay!» (or something like that), which sounded behind Stalin, were drowned by the buzz in the hall: «No! No! Please, stay! We beg you to withdraw your request!» I don’t presume to cite all the words and cries, but on the whole the people understood something, and probably, most of them had understood it before I did. In the first moment[339] all this seemed quite natural to me: Stalin would be the politburo chairman and the chairman of the council of Ministers, and somebody else would act as the Central Committee Secretary General, the way it had been under Lenin[340]. But what I didn’t understand at once, many others understood immediately or almost immediately, and Malenkov, who was responsible more than others as he was presiding at that moment, realized right away that Stalin wasn’t going to resign the post of the Secretary General, that it was a test, reconnaissance of the attitude to the problem posed by him – whether they, the sitting behind him in the presidium and in front of him in the hall, were ready to let him, Stalin, resign the post of the Secretary General because he was old, tired and wasn’t able to fulfill this third duty of his.
When the hall began buzzing and crying that Stalin had to stay at the post of the Secretary General and hold the Central Committee Office, Malenkov’s face (I remember it very well) was the face of a man who had escaped a direct, real mortal danger, as this was he who had made the summary report at the party Congress, who had been holding almost all the Central Committee Office sessions and who was presiding at this plenary session. This was he who in case of another reaction to Stalin’s request would have been the only candidate[341] to the third post of comrade Stalin, who said he wanted to resign from it because of his old age and fatigue. And in case Stalin had felt that behind his back or in front of his eyes there were people who could agree with his request, I think, Malenkov would have been the first to pay for it with his life. It’s difficult to imagine what it would come to» (K. Simonov, «With the Eyes of a Man of My Generation. Reflections on J. Stalin», Moscow, News Agencies publishers, 1988, p. 239 – 246 minus the parts of the text, the sites of which are marked with omission points in brackets).
In fact, this episode shows that J. Stalin’s initiative – to delegate his commission of the party Central Committee Secretary General to a successor on the basis of open nomination of candidates, their discussions at the plenary session and election of a new Secretary General in a quite democratic way,– was carelessly and irresponsibly rejected by the Central Committee members, who had been elected at the 19th Congress, and who let one of the state machine leaders – G. Malenkov, who was presiding the plenary session, – push themselves around. This is uncontradicted evidence that even 13 years after that crowd-“elitist” 18th Congress, the crowd-“elitist” character of the party and its Central Committee members still remained[342]. Though as K. Simonov wrote in 1953, he understood that the Congress and the plenary session were summoned for work and not for their participants to express their feelings to J.V. Stalin (this confession of his we set off in bold type when citing).
Anti-Stalinists, whose impudent resourcefulness of their “astuteness” and “intellectual might” has no limits, affirm in their commentaries to this episode (as well as K. Simonov) that the plenary session presidium members sitting behind J.V. Stalin and the Central Committee members sitting in the hall suspected at once that guileful Stalin was looking for the next «party favorite», who could take his place with time – the place of the «mundane god» (i.e. as if immortal) – the post of the leader of the state and the party. And what’s more, anti-Stalinists affirm that Stalin was looking for that «party favorite» in order to begin a new wave of «unjustified» repressions.
We believe that everything was simpler: J.V. Stalin was the only Bolshevik in the hall, the rest were cowardly, self-seeking, and thus shameless and careless frightened time-servers, lackeys by their psychology, who after the Great October Socialistic Revolution formed a new haughty class and considered themselves the true “elite” of the soviet society.
This lackey-careless attitude to the Motherland with claims on haughtiness is not only seen in K. Simonov’s description of the plenary session, but is also obvious from his personal attitude to life during the post-Stalin period. In fact we have cited such a huge extract in order make our assertion not unfounded, and for readers to feel the spirit of the frightened party-nomenclature servility conveyed by K. Simonov, which became apparent at that plenary session.
What J.V. Stalin thought about the results of the plenary session only he and God could know. The intra-system mafia members frightened of Stalin’s first illegitimate (as they thought) attempt to delegate his commission of the Central Committee Secretary General, decided not to wait for further initiative demonstration of Stalin and the party in this course and «eliminated» J.V. Stalin in less than half a year, carrying out «coup d’etat».
But as a result of such a conduct of the plenary session – of its every participant-bolshevism deserted the CPSU organizational structures during the next decade, the way it had deserted the hierarchy structures of the Russian Orthodox biblical church before.
Bolshevism really deserted the CPSU organizational structures, but didn’t disappear from the society. And it won’t appear in the organizational structures of any other party, construction organizational principles of which prevent personal development of a man.
J. Stalin’s speech at the Central Committee plenary session in October 1952 was published neither when he was alive, nor after his death. Due to this fact in many respects the myth about J. Stalin’s dictatorial absolute power and about his thirst for power for the sake of power could exist. Someone may think that J.V. Stalin didn’t want to publish his speech himself. But such a supposition would mean that J.V. Stalin was a defeatist, coward himself, i.e. it’s controversial to K. Simonov’s evidence concerning the events at the plenary session.
Many things indicate that during all his activity as the party and the state leader J.V. Stalin was surrounded by the system mafia, which used his name and Socialism and Communism slogans as a cover for its self-seeking activity[343]. This situation still remained in 1952, that’s why the speech without any prepared text delivered at the Central Committee plenary session was unexpected for the State machinery and the «guardians» present at it. This speech was nearly the only opportunity for J.V. Stalin to run the informational blockade and let the rest of the society[344] know (through the Central Committee members and candidates) his true opinion, which he expressed directly and not with the help of hints or by implication.
But as for opportunities to publish his speeches, there existed a multilevel system of self-censorship of the crowd-“elitist” society: from direct official bans and direct collusion of the «world backstage» periphery to the pressure upon the minds of individuals and gregarious effects begotten in the society by the cult of Marxism and cult of J.V. Stalin’s personality, owing to which false ideas about him were developed. J.V. Stalin had no power over this multilevel censorship system, thus he had to adapt himself to it and evade it, as well as all other ones in his public activity.
The difference in this timeserving between J.V. Stalin and the majority of other time-servers to the system was in the fact that J.V. Stalin adapted himself to it directing his efforts to the strategy of transformation of the global civilization life on the basis of the ideals of the righteous liberal society – communism. And the majority of time-servers pursued their selfish ends of the present day and near-term outlook: their minimum aims were to survive in the system and the maximum ones – to join to the system “elite” by way of repressing other people’s lives[345].
The story concerning the cessation of the edition of his collected works also confirms the fact that J.V. Stalin had no opportunity to be published. From 1941 through 1951 the first 13 volumes including his books, articles and speeches up to 1934 inclusive were published. But the edition of the 14th – 16th volumes took so much time that it can be considered that edition of J.V. Stalin’s collected works was actually ceased in 1951 – when the supposedly «all-powerful dictator» was still alive. There were no announcements about the cessation of the editions of the works of the soviet people leader. There was just an inexplicable delay in the edition of the regular volumes of the subscription publication[346]. The only explanation of the delay is that the work at the edition was ceased by retardation and corrective action as though to improve it[347].
J.V. Stalin impeded the «world backstage», because he was an authoritative politician-Bolshevik who acted conceptually beginning from the after-war years[348]. After the Great Patriotic War the course of political life in the USSR acquired a stable trend toward irreversible liberation from the power of the «world backstage» internazism. Thus the «world backstage» had to begin curbing the USSR and solving the problem of minimization of the damage caused by J. Stalin’s bolshevist activity during several decades. One more hindrance for the «world backstage» to carry out its political scenarios would be further publication of his works, which were to be included into the 14th – 16th volumes of the collected works. They could bring Stalin’s view of the flow of events in 1934 – 1952 home to contemporaries and descendants in a concentrated form[349]. Publication of J. Stalin’s speeches, articles and letters referring to these years would have essentially impeded and even made neo-Trotskyite policy of N. Khrushchev’s regime impossible, in case the edition had been published in 1951 – 1953 and included 14th – 16th volumes of the collected works.
Correspondingly, having taken the decision to annihilate J. Stalin[350], the «world backstage» gave the instruction to slow down the edition of his works, having assumed that if it had established under its control a new regime in the USSR after his removal, the crowd wouldn’t have dared to demand to continue edition of his collected works. They believed that as far as the crowd would have been conceptually powerless, it wouldn’t have been able to assure the continuation of Stalin’s political course. Indeed it happened so: the composed type of the 14th – 16th volumes and sample copies were destroyed when the new N. Khrushchev’s psycho-Trotskyist anti-Bolshevist regime came to power in the USSR. And as it’s well known the question of continuation of edition of J. Stalin’s works never arose at plenary sessions and Congresses of the defeatist party of Socialism self-destruction, and was never raised by the broad «masses»[351]: in the USSR only «dissidents» of probourgeois-individualistic trend belonging to the class of grovellers to the West were active.
That’s why nothing really says that in 1952 omitting the hierarchical multilevel self-censorship of crowd-“elitism”, which was beyond his control, J.V. Stalin could say directly to the society through the USSR mass media and scientific press what he thought. Nothing really says he could give instructions to publish his speech at the October Central Committee plenary session or any other one, which would overstep the limits of the society’s capacity for perceiving its meaning adequately[352]. Discussions concerning different problems, which were held in the press during after-war years, letters, which were addressed to the Central Committee, to the Government and to his name, gave a good idea of the society’s worldview and ideology, of what it could accept and understand, and what it would reject taking no trouble to re-comprehend the life and the said. This is clearly seen in the “The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR”.
Judging from the reconstruction of the algorithmic model of the soviet society’s collective mentality of that time (including the analyses of the contemporaries’ evidences), only his single works and speeches could escape the censorship (which was beyond J. Stalin’s control) in the press and in other mass media. These works and speeches were to be done in such a linguistic style, that even formally according to the Marxism linguistic culture dominating in the USSR, they were not apprehended as a danger by the State machinery mafia. And even if the «world backstage» could understand the danger of the said to its policy, its periphery just had no time to respond to separate «leakages» of conceptually alien information (for it) into the society.
In such conditions succession of the Bolshevism conceptual power was ensured: “Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.” is J. Stalin’s report about achievements during his leadership of the party and the state; it’s a report about unsolved problems and a farewell speech to Bolsheviks. These collected works were published in 1952 as a separate edition.
And though after J. Stalin’s death his works were withdrawn from library stocks of common access, and from school and college curricula of philosophical and social sciences, still copies of the small brochure outlived Khrushchevism and the depression on the shelves of family libraries and were called for by successors-continuers, who belonged to new generations of Bolsheviks.
«Stalin hasn’t become a thing of the past, he has dissolved in our future»[353] – however sad it may be for many people, who are lackeys at heart, even if they pretend to be slave-owners and masters.
6.8. Stalin’s Directions for the Future to Bolsheviks
6.8.1. Refuse Marxism
The contents of the book “The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” also suggest that this Stalin’s work became the common property of the people; and it managed to escape the motley self-censorship of the crowd-“elitist” society. Thoughtless and industrious functionaries (of the State machinery) didn’t understand and let it be published1; and more thoughtful «world backstage» acting through its periphery didn’t manage to prevent publication and distribution of the work in the society.
The characteristic feature of the work is that ideas of the book are beyond one’s comprehension without understanding of the global history course. In other words, understanding of the global history course influences the reader’s understanding of “The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR”.2
There are many people who dream about Communism, but haven’t released from power of Marxism over their worldview. They make reference to “The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” as to an example of the Marxist theory development by Stalin, which is directed toward Communism building. They don’t realize that this work is capital sentence for Marxism, which is though expressed by linguistic means of Marxism itself. They don’t realize this fact as well as Stalin’s «guardians» from the State machinery mafia and from the «world backstage» didn’t realize it in 1952, and thus let the collected articles and reply letters to the economic discussion participants be published.
Such a faulty opinion arises from two circumstances: first – people’s unwillingness and inability to realize the course of life on their own; second – in “The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” there are many phrases, which make the impression that Stalin is Marxism’s man Friday. Here is one of the most impressive phrases of the kind:
«To describe Comrade Yaroshenko's opinion in a couple of words, it should be said that it is un-Marxist – and, hence, profoundly erroneous». (“Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”, “Concerning the Errors of Comrade L.D. Yaroshenko”, part 1. “Comrade Yaroshenko’s Chief Error”).
In other words, only Marxist approach to emerging problems leads to their solution, and thus enriches the Marxist study:
«Marxism regards laws of science – whether they be laws of natural science or laws of political economy – as the reflection of objective processes which take place independently of the will of man. Man may discover these laws, get to know them, study them, reckon with them in his activities and utilize them in the interests of society, but he cannot change or abolish them. Still less can he form or create new laws of science» (“Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”, “Remarks on Economics Questions Connected with the November 1951 Discussion”, part 1, “Character of Economic Laws under Socialism”).
And of course, in order to succeed in Communism building it’s necessary to bring up the young generation in the spirit of Marxism-Leninism:
«Hence, the laws of political economy under socialism are objective laws, which reflect the fact that the processes of economic life are law-governed and operate independently of our will. People who deny this postulate are in point of fact denying science, and, by denying science, they are denying all possibility of prognostication – and, consequently, are denying the possibility of directing economic activity.
It may be said that all this is correct and generally known; but that there is nothing new in it, and that it is therefore not worth spending time reiterating generally-known truths. Of course, there really is nothing new in this; but it would be a mistake to think that it is not worth spending time reiterating certain truths that are well known to us. The fact is that we, the leading core, are joined every year by thousands of new and young forces who are ardently desirous of assisting us and ardently desirous of proving their worth, but who do not possess an adequate Marxist education, are unfamiliar with many truths that are well known to us, and are therefore compelled to grope in the darkness. They are staggered by the colossal achievements of Soviet government[356], they are dazzled by the extraordinary successes of the Soviet system, and they begin to imagine that Soviet government can «do anything», that «nothing is beyond it», that it can abolish scientific laws and form new ones. What are we to do with these comrades? How are we to educate them in Marxism-Leninism? I think that systematic reiteration and patient explanation of so-called "generally-known" truths is one of the best methods of educating these comrades in Marxism». (“Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”, “Remarks on Economics Questions Connected with the November 1951 Discussion”, part 1, “Character of Economic Laws under Socialism”).
Reading the given extracts from “The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” – without going into the sense of some details – we get the impression that this is a type of agitation for Marxism study and propaganda for Marxism as for the theoretical basis of Communism building.
But what is shown in the extracts cited above is a model of perception palmed off by the Marxism believers who don’t know it and who don’t understand Life. This model of perception lets them easily place Stalin among Marxists and thus allow this work be distributed in the society where cult of Marxism dominates. And there are even more such models of perception, which unambiguously characterize “Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.” as a Marxian work. That’s why everyone who wants to believe in it, but doesn’t want to think or be responsible – do believe that Stalin is «a genuine Marxist who constructively develops the Marxian heritage with reference to the new historical conditions», or is «stupid, as all Marxists are, and that’s why he tried to solve emerging problems on the basis of Marxism without going outside its scope».
But if we, being acquainted at least with the main Marxism principles, try to realize the «details» dispersed in “The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR”, we’ll see that this work by its matter is nothing but relentless antimarxism, which penetrated on the sly into authoritative classical Marxism literature of that time and used its common language.
Its anti-Marxist essence is one of the reasons why the book is neither criticized nor praised by Marxists of the following generation. If they don’t realize, then they feel that: discussion of it in public is Marxism’s public death penalty.
Indeed, as Marxism teaches, every problem of every philosophy is «the problem of relation of consciousness to existence, thinking to substance or nature; and the problem has two aspects: first, what is primarily – spirit or nature[357], substance or consciousness – second, how knowledge about universe relates to universe itself, or, in other words, whether consciousness agrees with existence, whether it can correctly reflect universe» (“Philosophical Dictionary” edited by academician I.T. Frolov, Moscow, «Politizdat», 1981, p. 266).
These problems can be raised to the rank of «the main issue» only by customers of the philosophy aimed at tearing people away from life and making them dependant on life events flow interpreters, which are guided by some other philosophy, concealed by them from the rest of the society.
Such is the case, as without any mental tricks and logical proves and historical-philosophical erudition most people, who have to solve everyday big and small problems in their life, instinctively know the following:
Independently of the answer on the first aspect of the question: either «spirit (i.e. God) is primarily, nature – fruit of spirit (God) is secondary»; or «nature is primarily – human consciousness is secondary», – the man can’t change the existing reality. And answer on the question: which of the two opinions agrees with the objective truth? – lies out of any logics proof area. This is confirmed by the millennial interminable dispute of logical and quotation-dogmatic philosophical schools of “scientific” materialism and occultism – “scientific” idealism.
As for the second aspect of «the main issue» of the Marxist-Leninist philosophy, one doesn’t need any logical tricks to understand instinctively that knowledge about universe may agree with universe itself or not. When people act according to the knowledge that agrees with universe, they are success. If they act according to the knowledge or pseudo-knowledge (false notions), which doesn’t agree with the living conditions, they get worse results than they expected down to a complete failure, what may entail many human victims and natural disasters.
And that’s why only the philosophy, which can answer questions in the real life, such as: whether the results of work will be worse than expected; or they won’t be worse (i.e. they will be just like they are expected or even better) – has practical value in everyday life of most people.
In other words, the main issue of practically useful wisdom is the problem of detailed consequence predictability, which can assist people in their activities (including circumstances control) both by oneself and collectively in real living conditions.
And according to this practically useful worldly wisdom that has nothing in common with far-fetched logical and schizophrenic constructions of Marxism, which considers problems of control neither on the whole, nor in particular aspects. J.V. Stalin undermines domination of Marxism and its philosophy’s «main issue» over people’s mind in the given extract:
«… the laws of political economy under socialism are objective laws, which reflect the fact that the processes of economic life are law-governed and operate independently of our will. People who deny this postulate are in point of fact denying science, and, by denying science, they are denying all possibility of prognostication – and, consequently, are denying the possibility of directing economic activity».
Since Marxism doesn’t handle the problems of foresight as well as different processes control and their self-management organization, and Marxian philosophy and Political Economy are formed to prevent understanding management processes on the basis of foresight as a whole, and in economics particularly, – this extract concerns neither Marxism nor its so-called «creative development as applied to new historical conditions».
Still, it’s well known, that it’s possible to grub up a lot of quotations from a big text touching upon a wide range of different problems; put the quotations in a definite order, comment upon them and thus prove practically any predetermined conclusion. Nevertheless the demonstrated Stalin’s non-Marxian approach to the problem of the society economic life control is not the result of such a fact selection and understanding abuse.
In accordance with our target setting concerning the society economic life control, Stalin shows his aversion to Marxian Political Economy, as one can organize the society economical activity control on its basis neither practically nor theoretically[358]. This was mentioned in many works beginning from 1994. But the corresponding extract from “Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.” was reduced in them to a great extent. Here we cite it in full:
«Absolutely mistaken, therefore, are those comrades who allege that, since socialist society has not abolished commodity forms of production, we are bound to have the reappearance of all the economic categories characteristic of capitalism: labour power as a commodity, surplus value, capital, capitalist profit, the average rate of profit, etc. These comrades confuse commodity production with capitalist production, and believe that once there is commodity production there must also be capitalist production. They do not realize that our commodity production radically differs from commodity production under capitalism (put in bold type by the authors).
Further, I think that we must also discard certain other concepts taken from Marx's Capital – where Marx was concerned with an analysis of capitalism – and artificially applied to our socialist relations. I am referring to such concepts, among others, as «necessary» and «surplus» labour, «necessary» and «surplus» product, «necessary» and «surplus» time (put in bold type by the authors). Marx analyzed capitalism in order to elucidate the source of exploitation of the working class – surplus value – and to arm the working class, which was bereft of means of production, with an intellectual weapon for the overthrow of capitalism. It is natural that Marx used concepts (categories) which fully corresponded to capitalist relations. But it is strange, to say the least, to use these concepts now, when the working class is not only not bereft of power and means of production, but, on the contrary, is in possession of the power and controls the means of production. Talk of labour power being a commodity, and of «hiring» of workers sounds rather absurd now, under our system: as though the working class, which possesses means of production, hires itself and sells its labour power to itself. It is just as strange to speak now of «necessary» and «surplus» labour: as though, under our conditions, the labour contributed by the workers to society for the extension of production, the promotion of education and public health, the organization of defence, etc., is not just as necessary to the working class, now in power, as the labour expended to supply the personal needs of the worker and his family.
