From party maximum to the list of Forbes magazine. Who was smarter: the leader of the world proletariat and the creator of the world's first workers' and peasants' state, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, or "the head of the subdepartment for cleaning the city of Moscow from stray animals (cats, etc.) in the M.K.Kh." Polygraph Poligrafovich Sharikov?
In the summer and early autumn of 1917, having moved from a hut in Razliv to Finland, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin wrote his famous book The State and Revolution, which, as we were taught, became an outstanding contribution to Marxist theory. It was not an abstract theory - a direct guide to action. Even when he lived in his famous hut, Sergo Ordzhonikidze visited him. With amazement and delight, Sergo later recalled that during this short visit, Ilyich confidently told him that in a few months there would be a new government in Russia, headed by him, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. True, there was another option: in a note addressed to his closer comrades-in-arms, Lenin wrote that if he was, as he put it, “killed”, they should at all costs keep the notes “On the State” and at the first opportunity publish them.
Based on all this, we can assert with full confidence that Lenin's book The State and Revolution was not written for any propaganda or tactical purposes. It reflected Lenin's true ideas about what the state he was going to create would be (in any case, should be). And the most important, perhaps even the most important, in this system of his ideas was the point according to which the salary of the highest state official should not exceed the average salary of an ordinary worker or employee.
Part maximum
This conviction was formed by Lenin long ago. Compositionist Vladimirov, who left memories of Lenin's life in exile, testifies: “Comrade. Lenin always said that compositors should be paid more than an editor, and I personally received three francs more than Comrade. Lenin" 1 .
Another memoirist, Alin, who in 1911 was in charge of the printing house and expedition of the party organ, slightly differing from Vladimirov in numbers, confirms the strict observance of this principle: “Members of the Central Committee received a salary of 50 francs a week, and workers of the printing house 57 francs” 2 .
The same principle, as it seemed to Lenin, had to be strictly observed even after the Bolshevik Party became the ruling party, and the members of its Central Committee occupied the highest government posts in the state. Secretary of the Revolution Life has shown that Lenin, with all his extraordinary intelligence, turned out to be more stupid than Bulgakov's Sharikov. Because the problem was not what salary the highest, or average, or even the smallest government official would receive, but whether he would live with his secretary. Bulgakovsky Sharikov, barely made him “the head of the subdepartment for cleaning the city of Moscow from stray animals (cats, etc.) in the department of M.K.Kh.”, immediately brought “a thin young lady in cream stockings with painted eyes” to Philipp Filippovich’s luxurious apartment and announced: "This is our typist, she will live with me."
In this position of his “head of a subdepartment”, Sharikov received a salary, probably, no more than the party maximum. And maybe not even more than this same typist. The question arises: why, in this case, a thin young lady with painted eyes so quickly and easily succumbed to the harassment of Polygraph Poligrafovich? As another character of the same Bulgakov put it on a somewhat different occasion: just think, Newton's binomial!
The boss is everything
Yes, because Poligraf Poligrafovich was her boss. And the boss is the boss. And it does not matter at all what his "salary" is and whether he wears the uniform of a collegiate registrar or the sweatshirt of the "head of the cleaning department." At all times, under all regimes, the secretary has always lived and will live with her boss, and no party maximum will protect her from this.
Vladimir Ilyich was, of course, a man of genius. But I didn't think of such a simple thing. Sharikov realized this instantly, from which it follows that he understood the very foundations of life much better than Lenin.
In fairness, it should be noted here that Lenin, of course, did not rule out the possibility of such a turn of events either. In his language it was called the danger of rebirth. But the essence of the matter lies in the fact that this is not a rebirth, but an inevitable manifestation of the eternal properties of human nature: no matter how hard you try to establish universal equality, no matter how you proclaim it, no matter what laws you protect, all the same among equals there will be found those who want to become (according to Orwell) more equal. And they certainly will.
In the guise of modern Sharikov (better to say, descendants of Sharikov), there seems to be nothing left that would remind of this Bulgakov character. They look different and speak in a completely different style, often even in several foreign languages. And they have only one thing in common with their ancestor: the ability to quickly and easily convert the power they inherited (what - no matter how lucky anyone) into something completely material. They didn't get it right away.
Stages of a long journey
It was said that the mother of Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan considered this wonderful son of hers a failure. If one of her children achieved something in life, she said, it was another son - Artyom (a famous aircraft designer). He, they say, has both a car and a dacha. And Anastas is a beggar! “Excuse me,” they objected to her, “doesn’t Anastas Ivanovich have a car and a dacha?” - Uh, it's all state-owned! she replied contemptuously.
In those early days, her answer seemed the height of naivety. But now we see that at least eighty percent the old woman was right. At the end of his political career, Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan held the highest state post in the country: he was the chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, that is, the current president. And he died, as he had lived all his life, "poor."
Our current state officials, having acquired some kind of power, immediately become owners of such proportions that not only Anastas Ivanovich Mikoyan, but even Marshakov’s Mr. Twister (“owner of factories, newspapers, steamboats”) and he will seem a beggar.
Now decide who was smarter: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin or Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov.
