Translated material
XX century and peace. 1990. #12. Expert's opinion
Expert's opinionIlya Kudryavtsev
Ideological okroshka
Classic schemes of political classification, such as “right -handed”, “conservative - progressive” and others are untenable in relation to the modern alignment of forces in the USSR; They are not able to adequately describe the complex range of political forces, such as "memory", the CPSU, and the democratic movement.
The non -triviality of the situation is that, along with the classical choice between the “left” (socialist, communist) and “right” (liberal and others, up to monarchical) ideologies, in Soviet political practice, another choice is also important - “preservation of order” (statehood, domestic and foreign imperial policy) or “change, destruction of order” (this may mean specifically this (specifically this may mean and specifically means this The struggle for the destruction of the existing administrative-bureaucratic system, and the transformation of the Unitary Empire of the USSR into an union of independent states, etc.).
It is very significant that these two choices can apply differently on each other so that their combinations are very bizarre. Supporters of the strengthening of the empire can choose which state system is more suitable for them: the monarchy, which was until the 17th year - or the Stalinist totalitarian state. On the other hand, people who call themselves communists choose one of the two diametrically opposite interpretations of their ideology: the early, dating back to 1917, “Communism = Death of Bureaucracy + Internationalism, or later,“ Bureaucratic System + Great Power Covinism. ” We note that supporters of both views on the essence of communism have sufficient historical grounds for this.
A very interesting object is anti -communism, which has now acquired in the USSR simply an astronomical number of supporters. Being the opposite communism, he also has two interpretations, but both of them are coinciding with the interpretations of communism. It is the conversion of communism (see above) that we will receive "anti -communism = bureaucracy + chauvinism" and "anti -communism = death of bureaucracy + internationalism." Thus, anti -communism is a mirror communism. The proximity of these two ideologies has recently been recognized by many Soviet intellectuals.
Two -digit policy. Patriots
It is difficult to be a traditionalist in a "country with an unpredictable past" ... The historical development of Russia - the USSR is torn. In which of the continuous areas to look for traditions? In fact, for traditionalism, the beginning is not even the continuity of historical development, but the continuity of public consciousness - but it was it that has undergone just unimaginable changes over the past hundred years.
So where to look for the soil ? In the existing centuries of the "strong" Russian Empire or in the last 70 years (but 70) no less strong communist totalitarian state? Depending on the answer to this question, patriotic organizations, playing for solid state power, choose various ideological orientations. One of them is monarchism, the other is called National Bolshevism.
A bunch of patriotic associations, which usually appear under the general name "memory", became (chronologically) the first independent political force, which manifested during the period of perestroika; Today it has become an integral part of the political life of the USSR. It should be immediately noted that there are at least five specific organizations calling themselves “memory”, however, even all together they do not exhaust the Russian patriotic spectrum.
The most common principles, which brought together patriots, are personal (individual) traditionalism, imperial consciousness, general concern for the now strut, focus on strengthening them. Here, however, the question arises: "Strengthening which foundations?" The history of Russia knows various models of the "solid state".
In addition to the leaders of the CPSU, some current pillars of "memory", such as, for example, M.F., played a large role in creating the theory of National Bolshevism Antonov, chairman of the officially registered organization "Union of the Spiritual Renaissance of the Fatherland". This is what he writes in the comments to the charter of the "Union":
"The USSR, a great power, for the first time in its history does not have a clearly set national goal." "Perhaps the deepest mistake of the vast majority of our old leading personnel is to misunderstand the role of religion and church." "Socialism ... showed his huge creative and attractive power." "In Russia, with its centuries -old traditions of communal and artel life, we can only talk about purifying the idea of socialism." The union is distinguished by the recognition of the values of the renewed, spiritualized socialism ”(highlighted by me - I.K. )“ The system of civilized cooperators, bequeathed to us by V. I. Lenin and requiring the spiritual revival of society and each person, is quite achievable in the near future, and in it - the condition for the salvation of mankind from global disasters ”.
The Union states that he was for a strong army and the Navy, aimed at the same time at the defense of the country and at active participation in the creative work of the people ... "For a solid law and order."
"The calling of Soviet Russia is to become the spiritual leader of mankind again." "The Union ... puts forward the concept of the development of Moscow as the spiritual center of the world."
We can say that the monarchism calling to return to Russia until February 1917 and the National Bolshevism, dreaming of building Orthodox communism, are born of a conservative type of consciousness. However, they differ in the choice of ideological templates (this, by the way, determines a different attitude to the current regime now). Essentially, National Bolshevism is adaptation of imperial aspirations common to both trends to communist reality, which monarchism completely rejects for itself.
The ideology of National Bolshevism inevitably pushes its supporters to search for support in the ranks of the CPSU. And she managed to find it at the conservative hardware wing of the party. Of course, the union with representatives of the authorities allowed a number of patriotic organizations to gain a certain psychological stability, and gave completeness to their positions. On the other hand, he aggravated the relationship between the National Bolsheviks and the monarchists within the patriotic movement. Initially, there was no striking between the two currents. Some patriotic organizations gravators to one, some to the other, but both tried not to notice this. However, the direct union of the National Bolsheviks with the Communists caused a fierce reaction of hostility among the patriots-monarchists. Here is what V. Sadovnikov and I. Tverskov write in the newspaper Voice of Russia # 5/90 (organ of the People’s Party of Russia):
"The conclusion suggests itself: the concept of" National Bolshevism ", initially unpromising, has now turned into a brake for the revival national movement, it is possible to discredit any idea with it, it is impossible to win with it."
"... It is necessary to resolutely striking with the conservative communist partyocracy."
From the same material we can conclude that such decisive calls for a break have purely practical, tactical reasons:
"... to political organizations defending the ideas of state and national revival, in the future there is no need to go to any Alliance with the Communists. He who cannot or does not want to help himself will hardly help another. The Communist Party, in the traditional sense, is dead today ..."
The problem of the national revival of the Russian people is apparently one of the most acute political problems of the USSR. Attempts have been made repeatedly attempts to combine a democratic movement with the patriotic, which, however, had no success. It seems that democratic values are not at all compatible with national-patriotic traditionalism, based on the Russian , that is, the imperial idea that has developed at least the last 400 years, which was immensely tightened by the Russian state, and then led it to the collapse, which corrupted the national identity of the Russian people. This tradition has no future, it has exhausted herself.
To find Russian national traditions, compatible with democratism, it is apparently necessary to turn to earlier (domo) layers of Russian history, now almost wiped out later than the latest layers: industrial and trade traditions of Kyiv and Novgorod, democratic traditions of Novgorod and Pskov. It is characteristic that for "memory" they remain unnoticed, despite the fact that in search of the origins of the Empire, "patriots" reach pagan roots (Emelyanovskaya "memory").
The ideological watershed in the national movement of the Russian people should be the self -boundary between the Russian (that is, national) and the Russian (that is, imperial) type of revival. Unfortunately, this issue is practically not developed at present.
Democrats: from communism to capitalism
The second force, organized a little later than the "memory", but currently exceeding the last in number of supporters, was a democratic movement.
As the most general properties of participants in the democratic movement, one can name the distrust of the past (which sometimes goes into total rejection), a vague faith in a bright future. The "Democrats" are distinguished by the desire to change the order and to shake the empire, the distrust of the firm power in general and, in particular, in the historical and modern forms of Russian statehood.
The first organizational structure of the democratic movement was the Democratic Union, born in May 1988 very weak, and therefore - extremely radical. (There is also a reverse pattern: “moderate” try to look strong, and the radicals are weak. Even a kind of radical complex arose: “I am struggling with a snake Gorynych.”) The DS was born so radical that moderate, “centrist” views in it were completely unpopular, and therefore the organization consisted of radical -right (“ultraliberal” and ”) and Radical -left ("neocommunistic") wings, which, however, quite calmly found a common language in their daily activities - in organizing protests and demonstrations.
Absolutely the same peaceful relations are common among patriots who declare commitment to completely incompatible ideologies. Ideology really cannot be combined. However, which is indicative - this is often not required in practical activities.
Separate groups of more moderate orientation appeared in the summer of 1988, a wear "center" in a democratic movement arose in the spring of 1989 in the election wave. You can indicate the Society for the Memory of the Victims of Repression "Memorial", regional popular fronts (Baltic fronts have nothing to do with this), clubs and voter associations (for example, mine - the Moscow association of voters). A pack of microscopic parties gives a certain piquancy to the movement, among which it is distinguished by the activity of the Liberal Democratic Party of Zhirinovsky, the formation of which became known on April 1, 1990.
The contradictions between the liberal and socialist wings were aggravated with the formation of the Socialist Party, which openly contrasting themselves with the liberals. Here, for example, said at the Constituent Congress Oleg Voronin, who was later elected member of the executive committee:
"We must concentrate on exposing and absolute contrasting ourselves with the liberal bastard, which now has been in the Soviets. We must conduct an uncompromising political struggle with it." This statement was met by the applause of delegates.
CPSU - from guards to renovationists
In the uniform, the uniform is ideology (which is largely the subject of faith and is almost completely divorced from reality), while the real attitude of individual "Communists" may vary significantly. Today in the ranks of the CPSU there are both guardians (from ordinary bureaucrats to chauvinists and imperialists), as well as renovationists (wrestlers with bureaucracy), cosmopolitans and supporters of the complete collapse of the USSR.
The renewal movement has two wings: liberal and socialist. Representatives of both are quite quite converged in the fact that the existing order of things is not suitable, but see various ways of its substitution.
Most prefers the "Western" liberal path, appealing to the fact that they are now following all developed countries. At the same time, the first stage of the path - and so the majority thinks - will be extremely painful. This moment inspires the minds of socialists, suggest that they will find supporters, without even having a serious economic program, but constantly appealing to working self -government and promising protection from "horrors of capitalism."
The development of socialist ideology within the framework of the democratic movement has a long and peculiar history. For decades - after the era of Stalin and to the era of Gorbachev - here and here, the country arose underground Marxist circles. Many future anti-communist dissidents then began with attempts to cleanse Marxism. In the context of the strict suppression of dissent, it was the socialist alternative to official ideology - the closest to it - seemed the most promising.
The same process, only more intensively, took place in the first years of perestroika. As long as the official ideology retained power over public opinion, until then the socialist idea was an indispensable transshipment point "from communism - to dissent"; The ranks of its supporters were constantly replenished.
An illusion of continuity of mass political consciousness arose. Society, moving from the dominance of one ideology to the dominance of another, should consistently go through all the intermediate stages: if a year ago people believed the Communists, then a year later they will believe the socialists, social democrats, and then - and others ...
The practice of the USSR, and moreover, the countries of Eastern Europe showed the fallacy of this hypothesis. Tired public consciousness is characterized by breakdowns. The continuity of changing the political position is characteristic of society, whose consciousness is controlled by the mind, that is, a free society. In the same case, when the consciousness of society obeys faith , and not to the mind, and this is characteristic of totalitarian states - there is no continuity of change.
The ratio of faith is significantly unilateral; Consciousness, determined by the object of faith (for example, by Marxism-Leninism), cannot affect this object itself, somehow change it. With a change in consciousness, worship of the object of faith can not “inherit” to the object to a loved one (“democratic socialism”). The most interesting thing is that the object of faith itself is more durable than worshiping it. So, the most anti -communists are found among people who have recently left the CPSU. Communism is still a reality for them, but now they hate it. A coup of consciousness based on faith can occur almost instantly, because it is not burdened with any thoughts.
Since the summer of 1989, Marxism and Communism, who had owned a mass consciousness for so long, began to reject them. Society turned away from the socialists - in general, from everything that smelled "red". So the once abundant socialist branch of the democratic movement has become marginal in it. Today it becomes clear that socialist ideas within the framework of Soviet society exist only thanks to the influence of the CPSU. Links to the experience of Western socialists and social democrats in the USSR are meaningless. The Western socialist movement exists only as a counterweight to an industrial society that we have only yet to create. In the USSR, the ideas of Western Social Democracy are indescribable , do not have an application object. Therefore, the literal embodiment of socialism in the USSR can only be Stalin. Attempts to cross this socialism with democracy are no better than an attempt to “take memory” of Bolshevism with Orthodoxy.
During the pre-election campaign in the spring of 1990, the CPSU hardware wing and the Bolshevik wing “Memory” created a “block of socio-patriotic movements”, which published its election lists of candidates; Blok did not have success in the election. The Union of Socialists and Radicals from the CPSU did not receive official registration, at the same time there is a strong intersection of these structures at the level of personal membership.
The XXVIII Congress showed that there was no serious split into the CPSU and the giant carcass would probably ezeen its shaky, somnambulic state, unable to get to your feet, nor move, or split into viable parts - until it disappears at all, breaking into dust. Recently, serious competition for the “gradual” erosion of the Communist Party has begun to compile “instant” transitions from the ranks of the Communists - immediately to anti -communists. So N. Travkin just three months after leaving the CPSU organized a party that he proclaimed anti -communist.
EMIGRATION
Another political object, however, is somewhat remote, is Russian emigration in the West. For a long time she built her political position, based on the ideological (sequentially anti -communist) approach. Emigration has a traditionalist, “soil” wing, the recognized leader of which is A. Solzhenitsyn, and the rationalist, “Western”, liberal, moral leader of which was (and in some matters - he is still) A. Sakharov.
Center and National Republics
The maps of the political world of the national administrative regions of the USSR (and above all, the national republics) have their own specifics compared to those that were given above (and concerned, first of all, the political world that developed in Russia).
The political maps of the national republics are quite characteristic, in which the indigenous population is approximately no more than two thirds. The main political determinant in these republics is the choice: "for independence" - "against independence." In essence, it is a type of choice "for the collapse of the empire" - "for its strengthening." Other political factors are back into the background. As a result, on the political map of the republic, as a rule, the warning pair of the "Popular Front" (the movement of the national revival) - the "International Front" appears. The conflict between them acquires the character of the interethnic, popular fronts take under their influence a significant majority of indigenous nationality. Interfronts are trying to gather visitors-migrants of other nationalities.
Neither interfixes, nor even the “Renaissance movements” are internally homogeneous. The interfront, as a rule, has a “perestroika” wing (Russian -speaking technical intelligentsia), the views of which can be characterized as an alloy of national nihilism with economic and political liberalism, as well as the “non -stopped” wing (respectively, Stalinism + chauvinism).
The radical national movement usually departs from the Popular Front (without separating); Over time, parties are created among the front. Essentially, both within the interview and inside the movement of the national revival, there is a demarcation on the right and left. In this case, the worldview already unambiguously determines the choice of ideology.
In such unions there is a certain element of comic. The shaggy soils from the "memory" suddenly turn out to be friends of the internationalists completely opposite to them in the warehouse! If these people (both Russians) met in their native territory, they would undoubtedly become enemies, but the border makes them allies. On the contrary, the cosmopolitan Russian intelligentsia, deep down, considers all national manifestations to prejudice, is trying to delve into the intricacies of interethnic intrigues.
More logical and strong are the connections of conservatives from the CPSU (in particular - representatives of the OFT) with international movements (especially with their non -stop). On this path, it was possible to achieve organizational unity: interventions were included in collective members in the All -Union OFT.
The connections of democrats and nationals have a “foreign policy” character (so great power can help even bandits in Nicaragua) and do not develop into organizational ones. Such contacts are obtained by natural completion with the exit of the parties to the parliamentary level.
In the ring of history
Among other patterns of the development of mankind, there are certain rules of compliance between the development of society and the structure of the state.
The 1917 crisis in Russia was associated with the transition from a state system based on non-economic forced, to the democratic and legal structure of relations. The construction of states of any other type was doomed to failure in advance, it was “prohibited” by the level of development of the then society. The Bolsheviks, who took up the construction of communism, quickly found that their efforts were opposed by society and its laws, and here an important role was played by the Moral Code of the builders of the new society, which allowed all the contradictions extremely simply: "interferes - kill." Society interfered, and it became a victim of the construction of communism.
The ideological slogans of this construction were exclusively left, but their literal embodiment was impossible and, following the "communist code", it remained only to kill. The murders led to the degradation of society, returning it back to the feudal (and even primitive) orders.
The process turned out to be worse than the most bloody revolution, which nevertheless ceases with the withdrawal of society from the interval of instability, with the achievement of the adequacy of the state and society. But the construction of communism, accompanied by an actual advance to the Stone Age, could not end in anything.
At some point, finally, the state of society dictated its laws, which became higher than the desires of the dictators: they determined the dictators themselves. The strongest degradation of society demanded a return far back and in the state structure. The only opportunity for maintaining the ultra- left Bolshevik regime was the transition to the ultra- right , feudal management standards.
In the CPSU, the feudal and communist dualism was reflected in the form of dualism of the party mass and party apparatus; The first was sick with Bolshevik ideology, the second version of the feudal management. The "new" state was born by the synthesis of the old bureaucratic monarchy and the left, the Bolshevik phrase. At the same time, the "neoconservative" ideology imbued with "left traditionalism" is introduced into the public consciousness.
A decisive step in creating "neoconservative" ideology was made in the 30s - 40 years; At this time, individual moments of the "glorious history" of the Russian Empire, the identity of some of its rulers and generals are restored. New names (Lenin, Stalin, their associates) and new events (the 1905 revolution, the October Revolution of 1917, the civil, and then the Patriotic War) are added to this canonical series, thus combining the history of the new and old empire. The national-colonial policy, which was the political core of the Romanov Empire, continues to unprecedented sizes.
The transition to feudal management was the only way to save the regime; He gave a "unique" opportunity to maintain further construction of the absurd.
A miserable state needed a miserable society. Society was constantly restrained in its development. Initially, permanent terror was used for this, then more peaceful methods. When they also exhausted themselves, society again began to unbend the back. And so, having made a giant loop, we again return to a broken trough. The circular path seriously confused the picture of today's political spectrum.
70 years of “struggle” gathered in the apparatus (that is, the leading organizational structure of the CPSU) of people of the right worldview, because the main concern of the CPSU as the organization was preservation, delay in the development of society, and a constant return of it back. At the same time, this conservation has always been a condition for preserving the left ideology.
The range of political organizations and political thought, which is characterized by the anti -parallelism of ideology and worldview, will be further called the "public spectrum" (unlike the normal spectrum on which both axes are parallel). The CPSU itself laid the beginning of the appeal, combining the "right" policy (worldview) with the "left" ideology. In the conditions of the CPSU totalitarian system, it became a monopoly (and at the same time as a false) landmark for the political life of society, regarding which all other positions were evaluated. Even the opponents of the CPSU were deeply dependent on her (and this is the essence of totalitarianism). They were forced to deny the CPSU in all its manifestations and, therefore, take the position "as opposite as possible", that is, equally false.
Today, the CPSU quickly loses its monopoly position. Practically, the case is not limited to the expansion of the old political world rotating around the "party". A new , alternative to the old, political world with its property, new infrastructure appears.
With the transition from the orientation "to the CPSU" to orientation to a large (at least European) political world, the "converted spectrum" is disappeared. And so we observe the appearance of a new (in essence, old), normal political spectrum.