To the page “Social philosophy”
Dr. Sergey Zagraevsky
Arts
and the loss of Soviet power
Published in
Russian: Ñåðãåé Çàãðàåâñêèé. Èñêóññòâî è ãèáåëü
ñîâåòñêîé âëàñòè.  ñïðàâî÷íèêå «Åäèíûé õóäîæåñòâåííûé ðåéòèíã», âûï.
Attention!
The following text
was translated from the Russian original by the computer program
and has not
yet been edited.
So it can be used
only for general introduction.
1.
What ruined the Soviet regime?
In order to understand this, it is necessary to start from afar.
First, as expected, agree on terms.
Let the Soviets generally called the economic, political and ideological system
that existed with the
Of course, everything that we talked about political information about a
global, research-based differences between the Soviet authorities against
"imperialism"and the socialist economy of capitalism - a complete
lie. All was much simpler: the Communist dictatorship of ideas covered targeted
to conquer the world. These goals and did not hide, but declared the
possibility of achieving a peaceful way, knowing the unreality of the latter.
However, the famous postulate military dictatorships "if you want
peace - prepare for war" and no one has repealed. Hence, all the
specific "dictature" features of the socialist economy - distribution
system, the global charging direction of almost all of the profits at the
disposal of the state, state ownership of all businesses and others. In fact,
the whole country turned into one giant Corporation,
to which the Western-type monsters "British Petroleum" or "General
Motors" was very far away.
And as you know, the bigger the Corporation, the more difficult it
becomes to manage and the lower right hand knows what the left is doing. It is
fair to say that excessive centralization is more or less able to work in
wartime, and perhaps precisely because of this system, Stalin was able to win
the war.
But then the war ended for all but the
And in terms of actual war is absolutely no
surprise vicious persecution Pasternak, Brodsky, Sinyavsky and Daniel,
Solzhenitsyn, Rabin, and the heroes of the civil rights movement. The instinct
to suppress dissent is present in any dictatorship. In war as
in war, even if it is "cold"...
2.
Our generation sees the time since the death of Stalin until the early
nineties, as many eras - "early" Khrushchev (1953-1956),
"thaw" (1956-1964), "early" Brezhnev (1965-1970), the
Brezhnev "stagnation" (1970-1982), Andropov attempts to make hard
power (1983-1984), chernigovskogo "return to stagnation" (1984-1985),
Gorbachev's "perestroika" (1985-1991), the beginning of the Gaidar
reforms (1991-1993).
Perhaps in the very near future historians will describe all of the
above periods as one - the transition from the Stalinist dictatorship to a
democratic state (if we still manage to finally go to him).
Undoubtedly, historians will say that collapse of Soviet power was
caused by the fact that if in the late thirties Stalin managed to split the
Western world and incite Hitler in
You may be concluded that in the
end of the Soviet Union destroyed the invention suicidal nuclear weapons:
Stalin used it couldn (the Americans were much more), Khrushchev and Brezhnev,
thank God, did not dare, and without it the global war against the
Force is to recognize only found
Gorbachev, and before that all attempts of his predecessors something
"twist" of the militia of the Soviet economy ended in failure. The
political and economic dictatorship theoretically allows the
All this for our descendants to not
just analyze, and, of course, the underlying macroeconomic and political causes
of the collapse of the Soviet regime will be discussed.
3.
But a reasonable question arises:
why did the Soviet regime collapsed almost imperceptibly, without any political
upheaval?
Indeed, on 7 November 1987 workers even went to a demonstration
dedicated to the 70-th anniversary of the great October Socialist revolution. And
the coup (State emergency Committee) in August 1991 was the attempt of
restoration of Soviet power. Hence, the collapse of the Soviet political
and economic system took place between these two dates.
In fact, the time range can be further narrowed. At the end of 1989, the
In 1990 came the law "On
property", ascertains the existence of private ownership of the means of
production. As we remember, during the Soviet time the property was only the
state and co-operative", and "personal" could be at best a car. Even
housing the Soviet people in the property does not have, and in 1990 has
already started mass privatization of apartments...
Then, in 1990, the Soviet government in the political and economic
understanding, which we have "agreed" at the beginning of this
article, was not.
So what happened between 1987 and
1990? Like, thank God, no world war, no hunger, no catastrophic crop failure,
neither plague, nor mass uprisings, or "Palace coup"...
4.
Have to remember classic Leninist definition of a revolutionary
situation: "the upper classes can not, and the lower classes do not want
to live in the old way".
Maybe "the upper classes could not"?
They could, and still as he could. Gorbachev began as an ordinary Soviet
General Secretary, and for a long time kept the appropriate mindset, and the
first loud "campaign" was not new - for sobriety tried to fight
Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and even...
Not once I heard the following
opinion: Mikhail Sergeevich, at the head of the country from 1985 to 1991,
deliberately made a series of subtle political actions aimed at the collapse of
the Soviet political system and the economy is behind it "stretched".
This option does not pass. The fact that Gorbachev in the early nineties
was a great chance to restore its authority in the political arena and to stay
forever in the memory of descendants of the Savior of Fatherland" is to
declare that the destruction of the USSR was conceived, planned and
implemented, and the Soviet government he hated, even working as the assistant
to combine operator in the Stavropol region and looking at the things which
Stalin brought agriculture. If Gorbachev had not said, even run for President
of Russia - then still in the late eighties, he simply "missed" the
situation.
It worked "progressive" environment Gorbachev? This Ligachev, Ryzhkov, Yazov and Lukyanov -
"progressives"? And can be, Chairman of the Presidium of the
Supreme Soviet of the USSR Andrei Gromyko (1909-1989)? Hardly...
People like Yeltsin, and Yakovlev, and especially metodipaketti"
Popov and Sobchak, moved a little later and the "General line of the
party" never formed. But senior party leaders have always tried to justify
the "Communist" party name. Remember the persecution of Sakharov party
a majority of the Congress of people's deputies in 1989, remember, as in the
XIX party conference was curse Yeltsin...
So the upper classes "would"and "could" be still for
a long time.
Hence, the "lower classes did not want"?
Since the third option so far nobody has imagined, is this. But most of
the Soviet people are not particularly "like" and in the seventies,
and the Soviet government at that behaved quite well. What happened in the late
eighties? Why are "not wanted" turned into "not wanted very much"?
Maybe Soviet people hunting for party meetings and political information
repelled this in 1987-88 the possibility of a more or
less civilized making money?
Not like. First, in August 1991, the area in front of the White House
was blocked not only the "new Russians", but also those whose
financial situation with the collapse of Soviet power has deteriorated. And
such was the overwhelming majority. Remember the empty shelves, full of goods
only in 1992? Remember the "business card of the buyer"? Remember
Secondly, the global privatization and development of private ownership
of the means of production" began only in the nineties, and in the years
1987-
And maybe people would believe Gorbachevsky declarations and the
television program "Spotlight adjustment"?
How do! As they say, and not so heard. All this rhetoric was seen merely
as another campaign, for a rapprochement with the West (such attempts have been
made and Khrushchev and Eisenhower in the late fifties, and Brezhnev and Nixon
in the early seventies). Everyone knew that the
So after all, what ruined the Soviet power? Why in 1987, we were still
living with her, and in 1990-91 - without it?
5.
Have to remember another Gorbachev's term -"glasnost". Of
course, he was perceived as another demagogy. Remember, there was such popular
"people's" poem:
Now we have the era of glasnost,
Comrade, believe - will take it
And the KGB
Remember our names!
But in 1986,
abolished censorship. No, not formal in
the USSR as it had not been, and why should he, if all editorial, publishing
and printing are in the hands of the state? Censorship in fact - have stopped
planting (at least, be excluded from the party and dismissed from job) for the
"forbidden" books of the "vanguard" of the painting, for
political anecdotes. And, most importantly, abolished the
state monopoly on publishing houses and mass media.
This, in fact, "glasnost"
and was. In Soviet times because they did not print even James Joyce and
Heinrich Boll! At last, for example, Soviet ideologists of the
"offended"when he is in 1961 spoke about the
And then, besides cheap booklets such as "How to be happy in
bed,"
The books came out, and all hurry to buy them. And suddenly disappear?
Published then it all some cooperative publishing house, expensive, lousy, softcover, at some terrible yellow offset - so what? This
book is the book. For the "samizdat" and could sit, and here is
official!
Tell as a historical anecdote: a poem Mandelstam about Stalin "We
live by themselves, not feeling the country in 1988 has published some
"local" newspaper (whether
And the underground exhibition on Malaya
Gruzinskaya and in the hall on the street of academician millionschikova? And
the appearance in the Newspapers and magazines free of critical articles? ...
List the parameters of the so-called "public" can be long. The
most important thing: during these two years there was a huge shift in the
spiritual life of people who got the opportunity to come into contact with
original art and to receive objective information about the events in the
country and in the world. These "discoveries" within a very short
time almost completely replaced the ideological chaff type "triune task of
building communism" or "from each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs".
Apparently, party ideology, opening "a narrow crack" for
freedom of speech and the press, not imagined, what a mighty stream through it
rain down and how quickly he will sweep away and the cause they serve, and
themselves.
Note that a free
and unbiased information about events in the country in this powerful stream is
not played a leading role. In one way or another she Soviet people was almost
always - radio "Freedom", "German wave" and "voice of
America", plus "samizdat", plus the rumors, plus the political
jokes that Brezhnev assumed the character of national property of Russia...
most Likely, the party ideologues in 1987 knowingly "allowed" to talk
openly about all issues - environmental, Chernobyl, Afghanistan, poverty, child
mortality... to reduce the pressure in the boiler, normally open valve.
But art - basically, this "stream of freedom" from it and was,
and that ideology could not foresee. They underestimated, first, the huge
impact of art works on the mind and the subconscious mind, and secondly, the
factor of the forbidden fruit, which is known to be sweet. It is now
(unfortunately) most people when reading, the detective, and erotic novels, if
it goes to the gallery, by Shilov, and if the cinema, in the halls with
"Dolby sound" to the militants. And then, in the years 1987-90,
respectively, people in the subway read Pasternak, thronged by crowds at the
exhibition modern artists and stood in queues at the Tengiz Abuladze film
"Repentance".
6.
It would seem, so what?
And the fact that the mighty Soviet system, has
the largest army in the world and the most established penal machine, unable to
endure this.
However, the true art in the subconscious of people penetrated
something, not allowing to perceive the false
propaganda moves of Soviet ideology. What could be, for example, dreams of
"bright Communist future" after reading the brilliant dystopia -
"Chevengur" Platonov, "We" Zamyatin, "1984" by
George Orwell? How could relate to the KGB - the stronghold of the socialist
system - after "the Gulag Archipelago" Solzhenitsyn or "
And so on - even "harmless" book "Moskva-Petushki"
Erofeev inflicted on Soviet ideology terrible blow. Because any reader made the
inevitable conclusion: it turns out that not only we Vasya laugh at the foreman
and the higher authorities, not only we drink instead of working, and not only
we understand that no communism in the USSR is not built...
And art exhibitions? And it's not a huge promotional power of
"Soviet-type" grotesque Komar, Melamid, Boris
Orlov... Any "informal art", without any political context,
made a bombshell. Looking at the "apolitical" abstraktsionistskih or
conceptual work, the audience thought only the following: "wow, we are all
forbidden and what is there in this? Because we can, it appears, to live, as in
the West, and that's okay"... but with such thoughts go on Komsomol
meeting somehow it is not wanted.
And let in the years 1987-89, it
seemed that the foundations of all this is not touched. Actually it was
affected much more - the subconscious of people. Even if the materialist
pragmatist Stalin called writers "engineers of human souls, then what can
I say?
And from the unconscious to the
conscious awareness is not so far.
The fact that the Communist
ideology collapsed, we knew already in 1990. And that, along with the ideology
of pulped and other components of Soviet power - economy and politics - we
realized later, in August 1991. Paradoxically, with the coup.
In essence, the famous
"resolution" of the Vice-President of the USSR Yanayev "with
friends" was drawn up only in the normal "Soviet" style, but wow
- it sounded so out of tune with the already far removed reality that half of
So what ruined the Soviet power? The answer is: it has ruined many
factors, but it was a crucial art.
The Soviet state system was based not on the economy, and ideology, and
all the false ideological layers were in 1988-89 swept away by the stream of
truth. The real art is not a liar - as they say, by definition. And the person who came in contact with him, learns the truth. Let
this truth grams or milligrams, but lie to pounds this man already is far less
receptive. But when the scale of the country have merged in a ton of these
milligrams of truth, before scattered in a whisper, political jokes and
"samizdat", false unable to resist them.
And let the dialectics teaches us that after every revolution there
comes a reaction. Let the skeptics say that for every ton of truth there kilotonne lies. But the Soviet ideological, political and
economic dictatorship of
God grant that
© Sergey
Zagraevsky
To the page “Social philosophy”