Re: Russia today
Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2022 3:30 pm
Gorbachev and freedom
No. 9/73.IX.2022
On August 30, a man who was hated by the entire Russian people and millions more people of the former USSR died. On September 3, the body of the former Soviet leader, who outdid the ancient Herostratus, was interred. Although the Kremlin stated that the mourning events would not have a state character, in fact it was the funeral of an honored statesman - the guard of honor accompanied the motorcade, the coffin was lowered into the ground to the anthem, after which the guard fired a triple volley of weapons.
The color of the liberal opposition crowd came to say goodbye to his former benefactor: paid and free spies, provocateurs and simply misanthropes. The editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta led the funeral procession, carrying a portrait of the deceased in his arms. Chubais' brother arrived at the event, complaining that the authorities had specially given little time for farewell. There was also such a figure as Rachinsky, the chairman of Memorial, an organization officially recognized as a foreign agent, or, more simply, a network of agents of influence.
A US embassy car was seen at the entrance to the cemetery. The head of the diplomatic mission, Sullivan, had previously attended the farewell. Also at the cemetery was an adviser to Ronald Reagan, Suzanne Massey.
Yavlinsky, who was also present, told reporters with surprise: “Mikhail Sergeevich had absolutely unlimited power - and he did not steal anything!” For him, this is amazing philanthropy, bordering on idiocy - to have power and not have a bribe from it! Judas sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver, Gorbachev betrayed an entire country and people for free. Judas repented and strangled himself, Gorbachev did not repent and died at a ripe old age, regretting only that he did not have time to complete perestroika ...
In addition to the leaders of the demshiza and their curators from the American embassy, there was a handful of urban lunatics who came to say goodbye to the "greatest historical figure" and "great man" (as these alternatively gifted people put it). They laid flowers on a granite slab. Above, above the rest, a wreath in the colors of the Russian flag with a black ribbon and the inscription: "Thank you for freedom."
It was for her, freedom, that all those present thanked the deceased. The fact that the result of this “freedom” caused more damage to the country than the invasion of the fascist hordes in 1941 did not, obviously, bother the mourners. And, by the way, the war that is now going on between the once fraternal republics, like all wars and conflicts on the territory of the former USSR, is the result of this “freedom”…
What kind of "freedom" is this? The latest philosophical dictionary gives the following definition of freedom in general:
"The universal culture of the subjective series, fixing the possibility of activity and behavior in the absence of external goal-setting."
Translating from philosophical into human language: "Freedom is what I want, then I turn back." True, the author of the dictionary entry in the middle of the text makes a clarification that
“The absence of external goal-setting is not yet a guarantor of true freedom, because it does not remove the binding of activity by the conditions of its flow.”
But he did not develop this idea in any way, but went to highlight the views of the medieval scholastic John Duns Scotus, which, in the author's opinion, are very important in elucidating the issue of freedom. The article about freedom consists of almost a thousand words, but does not contain any scientific explanation.
And here is another definition of freedom that I accidentally came across on the Internet:
“Freedom is the state of a person in which he himself determines how to act, regardless of many factors, other people's opinions, stereotypes and the environment.”
By and large, the same idea is expressed here, but more elegantly, without the need for translation from Russian into Russian. It turns out that the one who acts as he pleases, without regard to external factors, is considered free. The definition is clearly deficient, because, for example, a drunkard easily falls under it: he behaves as he wants, “without external goal-setting”, he doesn’t give a damn about other people’s opinions, and when he drinks heavily, then on objective reality (“the sea is knee-deep "). Nevertheless, such a definition is very attractive to the layman, and in his reasoning he operates with precisely this understanding of freedom - I will act as I want, and do not dare interfere with me in this. Hence the popularity of all sorts of "spiritual practices" and "trainings", when a person inspires himself, that all you have to do is “allow yourself” to be rich, and money will rain down on your head. And if the average person is reluctantly forced to recognize the laws of nature, then the average person categorically does not want to recognize the social laws discovered by Marxism and perceives it as an encroachment on his freedom.
So, bourgeois-philistine thought defines freedom through action without "external goal-setting" - a person does only what he wants. But you still have to decide what to do, make a choice. Thus, we get the formula: freedom = choice. If you can make a choice, you are free, and if you do not have a choice, then you are not free. Well, choice, through the efforts of all advertisers, is identified mainly with goods, with consumption.
Now it’s clear why, when anti-Soviet people talk about lack of freedom in the USSR, they first of all remember “queues for sausage” and the lack of toilet paper. Gorbachev liked to talk about how he assembled a Central Committee commission under the leadership of Kapitonov to solve the problems of the "deficiency" of female claws. Well, now stores are littered with pantyhose and other junk, but, firstly, finding a really good, high-quality, safe product among the “abundance” of the market is an extremely difficult task. Secondly, the working masses simply do not have enough money, the people live from their wages, saving on everything ... However, the people themselves have long appreciated Gorbachev's freedom.
The scientific solution of the question of freedom must proceed from the epistemological recognition of the primacy of objective reality and the secondary nature of the will and consciousness of man. If the mind of a person is secondary in relation to the material world around him, then it is obvious that he cannot but obey its laws. Following the objective laws of nature and society we call necessity.
The anti-scientific, idealistic approach opposes freedom and external necessity, declaring the latter unfreedom. This is not true. Freedom is a conscious necessity. What does it mean? Man, being unable to penetrate the secrets of nature, is a slave to the unknown necessity of its objective circumstances. Having learned the objective laws of the motion of inanimate matter, a person learns to organize his activity in such a way as to turn them for his own good or reduce their destructive impact, thereby becoming freer. Thus, it turns out that the deeper the essence of various natural phenomena is known, the more productive is the production practice of a person. In addition to nature, free will is limited by society itself - the laws of development of the social form of matter and the way it is organized, that is, those objectively necessary connections between people that arise in the process of reproduction of the very life of society at a given stage of development. The layman does not like the word "public law", it seems to him that they are trying to drive his unique personality into certain limits, similar to how the state limits him with legal laws. Although in fact his personality is only generated by the action of objective social laws, both universal, such as the need for collective labor and reproduction, and specific laws of social formation.
The problem is that the objective laws of capitalism (capital, wage labor, exploitation) operate because people enter into production relations unconsciously, spontaneously, without understanding their essence. As soon as a person starts doing it consciously, i.e. not spontaneously, then their sphere of action will narrow and in the end society will overcome the abomination of capitalism. But the realization that capitalist production relations are deceit, oppression, squalor, chaos and war is not enough. What is needed is a constructive, creation of conditions for the formation of more perfect production relations based on accurate consideration of all factors of production activity and the needs of social development. When all such conditions are created, the sphere of production relations of communism will objectively expand to the scale of the whole society.
Thus, freedom is, in the apt expression of Engels, the ability to make decisions with knowledge of the matter.
If you look at freedom from a scientific point of view, it is clear how absurd the statements about the abstract freedom that Gorbachev supposedly gave the people. The “freedom” that perestroika has given is only the “freedom” to exploit a person as an entrepreneur. That's why the liberals praise him, that's why they mourn this "outstanding reformer." With these, everything is clear. But journalists of federal channels, all sorts of political and public figures, knowing full well that the majority of the people consider "Humpbacked" an unequivocal traitor, are trying their best to portray him as an "ambiguous personality." It would seem, why try to wash a black dog? A dog whose shit the Putin government has to clean up now, including the conflict with Ukraine. But no, they wash it, but with what diligence! I won’t be surprised if some Gorbachev Center is opened soon,
It seems to me that the most significant, so to speak, the most “convex” statement of the vice-speaker of the Federation Council Kosachev, he unashamedly asserts:
“The departure of Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a tragedy for the country and for all those of us whose lives he managed to change for the better. That's right - for the better, despite the collapse of the USSR and huge trials for its former citizens. Yes, in the days of the Soviet Union there were many great achievements, among them, first of all, Victory and Space. But if these victories were systemic, then thanks to the people, and not to the system of Soviet power. Gorbachev blazed a path that our people could not have otherwise traveled in the last three and a half decades - a difficult path, but, unlike the previous 70 years, finally in the right direction. And for all the inconsistency of the results, Gorbachev deserves respect, and he deserves to be remembered. Everlasting memory".
He said, almost in plain text, for which Gorbachev eternal memory - for destroying communism , turning the country in the "right direction", i.e. restored capitalism. And thanks him on behalf of the oligarchy, "whose life he managed to change for the better." Oligarchs are generally ungrateful creatures by nature, but this is a special case. That is why the mental lackeys of capital are trying so hard: journalists, TV presenters, and so on.
In general, to say that Gorbachev destroyed the USSR, socialism (the lower phase of communism) is wrong. One person and even a group of conspirators is not capable of breaking such a huge mass as the Union was. It's funny to think about it. The USSR was destroyed by the general degradation of the theory and practice of communism, expressed in the rebirth of the top of the CPSU. It was a process of class struggle in which the working class of the USSR suffered a temporary defeat.
Our Left blockheads interpret the collapse of the USSR in a Trotskyist vein: that the bureaucracy, without people's control, has turned into a class of exploiters and wanted to restore capitalism. Those. the focus shifts to the notorious "privileges of the nomenklatura", where democracy is seen as a cure or prevention against the degeneration of "bureaucrats". The left diligently bypasses the historical fact that, EXACTLY USING DEMOCRACY , Gorbachev's people destroyed communism. I had a separate article , where the question was sorted out, does party democracy protect against bureaucracy, in it I pointed out:
“The assertion that the leadership of the party snickered to such an extent that the members of the Central Committee did not need socialism and they wanted to become capitalists is erroneous and does not correspond to historical facts. How many people from the Central Committee became oligarchs? Chubais and Gaidar, like the last philanthropists, handed out state property right and left, instead of appropriating all of it for themselves, and Gorbachev even went to advertise pizza.
If they were guided not by their anti-communist convictions, but by purely mercantile interests, then they would be interested in preserving "developed socialism." Market reforms were beneficial primarily to the underground guild workers and speculators - the underground bourgeoisie, and not to the bureaucrats.
Of course, the greed of Soviet officials and Komsomol leaders took place and played a role in the restoration of capitalism. But it was not the middle stratum of the party members who removed the CPSU from power, destroyed the USSR and restored capitalism. This rotten layer only allowed it to be done, did nothing, and then betrayed the Soviet people.
It would be superficial to say that the restoration of capitalism in the USSR occurred only because of the betrayal of the top of the party. This is only a consequence, and the real reason lies in the fundamental Marxist incompetence of the members of the CPSU in matters of the practical construction of communism. After Stalin's death, with the help of apparatus intrigues and the levers of democratic centralism, the leadership was seized by hard-core opportunists and demagogues. After the obliging fool Khrushchev and the illiterate Brezhnev, the party was headed by frank enemies who, as they later confessed in their memoirs, went to the party with the goal of “destroy the damned Bolshevism from within.” By that time, the mindless CPSU had completely mired in opportunism, so the market reforms did not arouse the necessary protest. The means for opportunistic disintegration was not bureaucracy in itself, not privileges,
Of course, in 1985 there were people in the party who immediately saw through Gorbachev with his “new thinking”. But under conditions of democentralism, they were powerless. The overwhelming majority of the congress delegates supported the course towards "socialism with a human face", supported the path to the restoration of capitalism, like millions of ordinary people with party cards. They may object: “A communist must be able to convince the masses!” People who argue in this manner forget that the Bolsheviks, as a matter of fact, were never in the majority and were forced to constantly waste their time and energy on persuading not even the masses, but a few congress delegates, exposing the tricks of the opportunists. If the scientific nature of the position had the ability to win the minds of its impeccable rightness, then immediately after the mass distribution of the “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, capitalism would fall. But capitalism is still holding on
So, the reason for the decay of the CPSU is that its ranks - especially the leadership - by the 1980s. were littered with frankly non-Marxist and anti-Marxist cadres. Only outcasts and outright dissidents were not accepted into the party. The opportunist idea prevailed that the more members could be recruited into the party, the more "popular" it would be. As a result, we get the formula: mass ignorance of the party activists + democracy, when opportunists and renegades vote for each other, = decay and death of the party, and with it the proletarian state .
And this is the task that the Communists face today in full growth: to build a party on such principles that such characters as Gorbachev, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES , could reach the leading positions and in general penetrate into the party. After all, Gorbachev was not some kind of Mephistopheles, diabolically disguised as a communist. If you read and listen to what Gorbachev was saying during perestroika and after, it will become clear that he is a banal idiot who did not know Marxism even at the level of quotation. Actually, he was promoted as a business executive, as "the owner of Stavropol."
It is precisely democentralism, and specifically the principle of sufficient recognition of the program, work in the party cell and a couple of recommendations, that serves as the master key with which opportunists and careerists, money-grubbers and scoundrels, enemies and spies unlock the doors of the leading bodies of the party. And as long as this master key works, as long as any bastard can creep into the leadership, there can be no talk of the victory of communism in a single country, not to mention the world. Conscious proletarians are asking the left: “Where is the guarantee that the new Gorbachevs won’t ruin everything to hell?” And our left is essentially NOTHINGto object to this, in addition to the standard mantras about democracy and control from below. Can these naive arguments about “control by the masses from below” be taken seriously? This very control did not stop Gorbachev, on the contrary, the masses willingly supported him. Just like before, the party masses supported Khrushchev's blockhead with his "catch up and overtake."
In an article dedicated to the 60th anniversary of Stalin, A. Shcherbakov wrote:
“The CPSU(b) is a monolithic party, a fortress party, the doors of which are opened only for the most deserving people who give themselves entirely to the cause of the party and the working class, and from which everyone who proves unworthy of bearing the high title of communist is thrown out.”
Today, these words about a fortress party should sound more true than ever. But by what criteria to determine the most worthy people? Historical practice has made its clarifications. One cannot be accepted into the party for military and labor feats alone, for being a “good person”. It is necessary to take only those who have enriched their heads with Marxist science, i.e. the criterion for admission to the party should be competence in Marxism. If all members of the party are competent, then the Gorbachevs and Yeltsins will not have a chance to get into such a party, just as there is no chance for a loser to win the Mathematics Olympiad. This does not mean that in order to join the party it will be necessary to pass an exam in Marxism, this is a formalist approach, on which, among other things, the CPSU burned out. Marxist competence is not determined by examinations, but by real practice. What is the practice? Propaganda, campaigning and organizational work. The editors of Proryv and Proryvist proved the effectiveness of this approach through their practice. Among the authors of the magazine and newspaper there was not a single one who would demonstrate a brilliant understanding of Marxism, its creative development, and then suddenly turned out to be an opportunist. The opportunists in the work of publications were always disguised, and their removal took place instantly.
The leftists, ardent admirers of democracy, accuse us that we, scientific centralists, want to turn the party into an authoritarian sect, where everyone obeys the "infallible leader" and no one has the right to vote. These are just ridiculous ideas. The sect is built on FAITH , and we propose to build a party on KNOWLEDGE. In the NC party, discipline does not tolerate either faith or animal motives, such as fear and self-interest, because its members REALIZE AND RECOGNIZEthat the decisions of leaders, leadership are competent. At the same time, only those who have actually proved their competence and won authority with their personal moral and ethical qualities become leaders of the party. The leftists are indignant that we are repelling the masses with “etatism”. One might think that with their ostentatious "democratism" the leftists have strongly attracted the masses to themselves ... Here, the members of the RPR are almost persuading the factory proletarians to join their "workers' party", promising the right to a decisive vote.
No, only that political force can win influence among the masses today, which proves that it KNOWS how to lead the working people to prosperity, and is really capable of doing it.
Thus, the future party should be built on the principles of precisely scientific, and not democratic centralism, so that ALL members of the party are precisely communists, and not mimic the townsfolk, then Khrushchev and Gorbachev will not have a single chance for revival.
R. Ogienko
26/09/2022
https://prorivists.org/73_gorb/
Google Translator
Bolding added.
No. 9/73.IX.2022
On August 30, a man who was hated by the entire Russian people and millions more people of the former USSR died. On September 3, the body of the former Soviet leader, who outdid the ancient Herostratus, was interred. Although the Kremlin stated that the mourning events would not have a state character, in fact it was the funeral of an honored statesman - the guard of honor accompanied the motorcade, the coffin was lowered into the ground to the anthem, after which the guard fired a triple volley of weapons.
The color of the liberal opposition crowd came to say goodbye to his former benefactor: paid and free spies, provocateurs and simply misanthropes. The editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta led the funeral procession, carrying a portrait of the deceased in his arms. Chubais' brother arrived at the event, complaining that the authorities had specially given little time for farewell. There was also such a figure as Rachinsky, the chairman of Memorial, an organization officially recognized as a foreign agent, or, more simply, a network of agents of influence.
A US embassy car was seen at the entrance to the cemetery. The head of the diplomatic mission, Sullivan, had previously attended the farewell. Also at the cemetery was an adviser to Ronald Reagan, Suzanne Massey.
Yavlinsky, who was also present, told reporters with surprise: “Mikhail Sergeevich had absolutely unlimited power - and he did not steal anything!” For him, this is amazing philanthropy, bordering on idiocy - to have power and not have a bribe from it! Judas sold Christ for 30 pieces of silver, Gorbachev betrayed an entire country and people for free. Judas repented and strangled himself, Gorbachev did not repent and died at a ripe old age, regretting only that he did not have time to complete perestroika ...
In addition to the leaders of the demshiza and their curators from the American embassy, there was a handful of urban lunatics who came to say goodbye to the "greatest historical figure" and "great man" (as these alternatively gifted people put it). They laid flowers on a granite slab. Above, above the rest, a wreath in the colors of the Russian flag with a black ribbon and the inscription: "Thank you for freedom."
It was for her, freedom, that all those present thanked the deceased. The fact that the result of this “freedom” caused more damage to the country than the invasion of the fascist hordes in 1941 did not, obviously, bother the mourners. And, by the way, the war that is now going on between the once fraternal republics, like all wars and conflicts on the territory of the former USSR, is the result of this “freedom”…
What kind of "freedom" is this? The latest philosophical dictionary gives the following definition of freedom in general:
"The universal culture of the subjective series, fixing the possibility of activity and behavior in the absence of external goal-setting."
Translating from philosophical into human language: "Freedom is what I want, then I turn back." True, the author of the dictionary entry in the middle of the text makes a clarification that
“The absence of external goal-setting is not yet a guarantor of true freedom, because it does not remove the binding of activity by the conditions of its flow.”
But he did not develop this idea in any way, but went to highlight the views of the medieval scholastic John Duns Scotus, which, in the author's opinion, are very important in elucidating the issue of freedom. The article about freedom consists of almost a thousand words, but does not contain any scientific explanation.
And here is another definition of freedom that I accidentally came across on the Internet:
“Freedom is the state of a person in which he himself determines how to act, regardless of many factors, other people's opinions, stereotypes and the environment.”
By and large, the same idea is expressed here, but more elegantly, without the need for translation from Russian into Russian. It turns out that the one who acts as he pleases, without regard to external factors, is considered free. The definition is clearly deficient, because, for example, a drunkard easily falls under it: he behaves as he wants, “without external goal-setting”, he doesn’t give a damn about other people’s opinions, and when he drinks heavily, then on objective reality (“the sea is knee-deep "). Nevertheless, such a definition is very attractive to the layman, and in his reasoning he operates with precisely this understanding of freedom - I will act as I want, and do not dare interfere with me in this. Hence the popularity of all sorts of "spiritual practices" and "trainings", when a person inspires himself, that all you have to do is “allow yourself” to be rich, and money will rain down on your head. And if the average person is reluctantly forced to recognize the laws of nature, then the average person categorically does not want to recognize the social laws discovered by Marxism and perceives it as an encroachment on his freedom.
So, bourgeois-philistine thought defines freedom through action without "external goal-setting" - a person does only what he wants. But you still have to decide what to do, make a choice. Thus, we get the formula: freedom = choice. If you can make a choice, you are free, and if you do not have a choice, then you are not free. Well, choice, through the efforts of all advertisers, is identified mainly with goods, with consumption.
Now it’s clear why, when anti-Soviet people talk about lack of freedom in the USSR, they first of all remember “queues for sausage” and the lack of toilet paper. Gorbachev liked to talk about how he assembled a Central Committee commission under the leadership of Kapitonov to solve the problems of the "deficiency" of female claws. Well, now stores are littered with pantyhose and other junk, but, firstly, finding a really good, high-quality, safe product among the “abundance” of the market is an extremely difficult task. Secondly, the working masses simply do not have enough money, the people live from their wages, saving on everything ... However, the people themselves have long appreciated Gorbachev's freedom.
The scientific solution of the question of freedom must proceed from the epistemological recognition of the primacy of objective reality and the secondary nature of the will and consciousness of man. If the mind of a person is secondary in relation to the material world around him, then it is obvious that he cannot but obey its laws. Following the objective laws of nature and society we call necessity.
The anti-scientific, idealistic approach opposes freedom and external necessity, declaring the latter unfreedom. This is not true. Freedom is a conscious necessity. What does it mean? Man, being unable to penetrate the secrets of nature, is a slave to the unknown necessity of its objective circumstances. Having learned the objective laws of the motion of inanimate matter, a person learns to organize his activity in such a way as to turn them for his own good or reduce their destructive impact, thereby becoming freer. Thus, it turns out that the deeper the essence of various natural phenomena is known, the more productive is the production practice of a person. In addition to nature, free will is limited by society itself - the laws of development of the social form of matter and the way it is organized, that is, those objectively necessary connections between people that arise in the process of reproduction of the very life of society at a given stage of development. The layman does not like the word "public law", it seems to him that they are trying to drive his unique personality into certain limits, similar to how the state limits him with legal laws. Although in fact his personality is only generated by the action of objective social laws, both universal, such as the need for collective labor and reproduction, and specific laws of social formation.
The problem is that the objective laws of capitalism (capital, wage labor, exploitation) operate because people enter into production relations unconsciously, spontaneously, without understanding their essence. As soon as a person starts doing it consciously, i.e. not spontaneously, then their sphere of action will narrow and in the end society will overcome the abomination of capitalism. But the realization that capitalist production relations are deceit, oppression, squalor, chaos and war is not enough. What is needed is a constructive, creation of conditions for the formation of more perfect production relations based on accurate consideration of all factors of production activity and the needs of social development. When all such conditions are created, the sphere of production relations of communism will objectively expand to the scale of the whole society.
Thus, freedom is, in the apt expression of Engels, the ability to make decisions with knowledge of the matter.
If you look at freedom from a scientific point of view, it is clear how absurd the statements about the abstract freedom that Gorbachev supposedly gave the people. The “freedom” that perestroika has given is only the “freedom” to exploit a person as an entrepreneur. That's why the liberals praise him, that's why they mourn this "outstanding reformer." With these, everything is clear. But journalists of federal channels, all sorts of political and public figures, knowing full well that the majority of the people consider "Humpbacked" an unequivocal traitor, are trying their best to portray him as an "ambiguous personality." It would seem, why try to wash a black dog? A dog whose shit the Putin government has to clean up now, including the conflict with Ukraine. But no, they wash it, but with what diligence! I won’t be surprised if some Gorbachev Center is opened soon,
It seems to me that the most significant, so to speak, the most “convex” statement of the vice-speaker of the Federation Council Kosachev, he unashamedly asserts:
“The departure of Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev is a tragedy for the country and for all those of us whose lives he managed to change for the better. That's right - for the better, despite the collapse of the USSR and huge trials for its former citizens. Yes, in the days of the Soviet Union there were many great achievements, among them, first of all, Victory and Space. But if these victories were systemic, then thanks to the people, and not to the system of Soviet power. Gorbachev blazed a path that our people could not have otherwise traveled in the last three and a half decades - a difficult path, but, unlike the previous 70 years, finally in the right direction. And for all the inconsistency of the results, Gorbachev deserves respect, and he deserves to be remembered. Everlasting memory".
He said, almost in plain text, for which Gorbachev eternal memory - for destroying communism , turning the country in the "right direction", i.e. restored capitalism. And thanks him on behalf of the oligarchy, "whose life he managed to change for the better." Oligarchs are generally ungrateful creatures by nature, but this is a special case. That is why the mental lackeys of capital are trying so hard: journalists, TV presenters, and so on.
In general, to say that Gorbachev destroyed the USSR, socialism (the lower phase of communism) is wrong. One person and even a group of conspirators is not capable of breaking such a huge mass as the Union was. It's funny to think about it. The USSR was destroyed by the general degradation of the theory and practice of communism, expressed in the rebirth of the top of the CPSU. It was a process of class struggle in which the working class of the USSR suffered a temporary defeat.
Our Left blockheads interpret the collapse of the USSR in a Trotskyist vein: that the bureaucracy, without people's control, has turned into a class of exploiters and wanted to restore capitalism. Those. the focus shifts to the notorious "privileges of the nomenklatura", where democracy is seen as a cure or prevention against the degeneration of "bureaucrats". The left diligently bypasses the historical fact that, EXACTLY USING DEMOCRACY , Gorbachev's people destroyed communism. I had a separate article , where the question was sorted out, does party democracy protect against bureaucracy, in it I pointed out:
“The assertion that the leadership of the party snickered to such an extent that the members of the Central Committee did not need socialism and they wanted to become capitalists is erroneous and does not correspond to historical facts. How many people from the Central Committee became oligarchs? Chubais and Gaidar, like the last philanthropists, handed out state property right and left, instead of appropriating all of it for themselves, and Gorbachev even went to advertise pizza.
If they were guided not by their anti-communist convictions, but by purely mercantile interests, then they would be interested in preserving "developed socialism." Market reforms were beneficial primarily to the underground guild workers and speculators - the underground bourgeoisie, and not to the bureaucrats.
Of course, the greed of Soviet officials and Komsomol leaders took place and played a role in the restoration of capitalism. But it was not the middle stratum of the party members who removed the CPSU from power, destroyed the USSR and restored capitalism. This rotten layer only allowed it to be done, did nothing, and then betrayed the Soviet people.
It would be superficial to say that the restoration of capitalism in the USSR occurred only because of the betrayal of the top of the party. This is only a consequence, and the real reason lies in the fundamental Marxist incompetence of the members of the CPSU in matters of the practical construction of communism. After Stalin's death, with the help of apparatus intrigues and the levers of democratic centralism, the leadership was seized by hard-core opportunists and demagogues. After the obliging fool Khrushchev and the illiterate Brezhnev, the party was headed by frank enemies who, as they later confessed in their memoirs, went to the party with the goal of “destroy the damned Bolshevism from within.” By that time, the mindless CPSU had completely mired in opportunism, so the market reforms did not arouse the necessary protest. The means for opportunistic disintegration was not bureaucracy in itself, not privileges,
Of course, in 1985 there were people in the party who immediately saw through Gorbachev with his “new thinking”. But under conditions of democentralism, they were powerless. The overwhelming majority of the congress delegates supported the course towards "socialism with a human face", supported the path to the restoration of capitalism, like millions of ordinary people with party cards. They may object: “A communist must be able to convince the masses!” People who argue in this manner forget that the Bolsheviks, as a matter of fact, were never in the majority and were forced to constantly waste their time and energy on persuading not even the masses, but a few congress delegates, exposing the tricks of the opportunists. If the scientific nature of the position had the ability to win the minds of its impeccable rightness, then immediately after the mass distribution of the “Manifesto of the Communist Party”, capitalism would fall. But capitalism is still holding on
So, the reason for the decay of the CPSU is that its ranks - especially the leadership - by the 1980s. were littered with frankly non-Marxist and anti-Marxist cadres. Only outcasts and outright dissidents were not accepted into the party. The opportunist idea prevailed that the more members could be recruited into the party, the more "popular" it would be. As a result, we get the formula: mass ignorance of the party activists + democracy, when opportunists and renegades vote for each other, = decay and death of the party, and with it the proletarian state .
And this is the task that the Communists face today in full growth: to build a party on such principles that such characters as Gorbachev, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES , could reach the leading positions and in general penetrate into the party. After all, Gorbachev was not some kind of Mephistopheles, diabolically disguised as a communist. If you read and listen to what Gorbachev was saying during perestroika and after, it will become clear that he is a banal idiot who did not know Marxism even at the level of quotation. Actually, he was promoted as a business executive, as "the owner of Stavropol."
It is precisely democentralism, and specifically the principle of sufficient recognition of the program, work in the party cell and a couple of recommendations, that serves as the master key with which opportunists and careerists, money-grubbers and scoundrels, enemies and spies unlock the doors of the leading bodies of the party. And as long as this master key works, as long as any bastard can creep into the leadership, there can be no talk of the victory of communism in a single country, not to mention the world. Conscious proletarians are asking the left: “Where is the guarantee that the new Gorbachevs won’t ruin everything to hell?” And our left is essentially NOTHINGto object to this, in addition to the standard mantras about democracy and control from below. Can these naive arguments about “control by the masses from below” be taken seriously? This very control did not stop Gorbachev, on the contrary, the masses willingly supported him. Just like before, the party masses supported Khrushchev's blockhead with his "catch up and overtake."
In an article dedicated to the 60th anniversary of Stalin, A. Shcherbakov wrote:
“The CPSU(b) is a monolithic party, a fortress party, the doors of which are opened only for the most deserving people who give themselves entirely to the cause of the party and the working class, and from which everyone who proves unworthy of bearing the high title of communist is thrown out.”
Today, these words about a fortress party should sound more true than ever. But by what criteria to determine the most worthy people? Historical practice has made its clarifications. One cannot be accepted into the party for military and labor feats alone, for being a “good person”. It is necessary to take only those who have enriched their heads with Marxist science, i.e. the criterion for admission to the party should be competence in Marxism. If all members of the party are competent, then the Gorbachevs and Yeltsins will not have a chance to get into such a party, just as there is no chance for a loser to win the Mathematics Olympiad. This does not mean that in order to join the party it will be necessary to pass an exam in Marxism, this is a formalist approach, on which, among other things, the CPSU burned out. Marxist competence is not determined by examinations, but by real practice. What is the practice? Propaganda, campaigning and organizational work. The editors of Proryv and Proryvist proved the effectiveness of this approach through their practice. Among the authors of the magazine and newspaper there was not a single one who would demonstrate a brilliant understanding of Marxism, its creative development, and then suddenly turned out to be an opportunist. The opportunists in the work of publications were always disguised, and their removal took place instantly.
The leftists, ardent admirers of democracy, accuse us that we, scientific centralists, want to turn the party into an authoritarian sect, where everyone obeys the "infallible leader" and no one has the right to vote. These are just ridiculous ideas. The sect is built on FAITH , and we propose to build a party on KNOWLEDGE. In the NC party, discipline does not tolerate either faith or animal motives, such as fear and self-interest, because its members REALIZE AND RECOGNIZEthat the decisions of leaders, leadership are competent. At the same time, only those who have actually proved their competence and won authority with their personal moral and ethical qualities become leaders of the party. The leftists are indignant that we are repelling the masses with “etatism”. One might think that with their ostentatious "democratism" the leftists have strongly attracted the masses to themselves ... Here, the members of the RPR are almost persuading the factory proletarians to join their "workers' party", promising the right to a decisive vote.
No, only that political force can win influence among the masses today, which proves that it KNOWS how to lead the working people to prosperity, and is really capable of doing it.
Thus, the future party should be built on the principles of precisely scientific, and not democratic centralism, so that ALL members of the party are precisely communists, and not mimic the townsfolk, then Khrushchev and Gorbachev will not have a single chance for revival.
R. Ogienko
26/09/2022
https://prorivists.org/73_gorb/
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Bolding added.