Agdas Burganov

RUSSIA – “MESSIAH”?

THE NON-COMMUNIST MANIFESTO OF A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD OR A DREAM OF AN IDIOT

Mankind is not damned forever. The World is not hopeless. Mankind can save itself. There IS a way out!

Second edition (English), revised and corrected Edited by Dr. Vadim Krakovich, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow Translation from Russian: Mikhail Gorbachov

MOSCOW 2008

1 ВВК 66.3(2) 1 Б90

Agdas Husainovich Burganov

THE NON-COMMUNIST MANIFESTO OF A CITIZEN OF THE WORLD, OR A DREAM OF AN IDIOT

ИИКЦ «Эльф-З», 2008– 2с. ISBN 5-88982-032-X

The book deals with the topic of world's disorder as seen in the light of Russian realities. The facts stated in it concern the particularly discordant position of Russia literally in all spheres of state and society. A theoretical analysis is made of the cause of the catastrophe of Soviet Communism. The author offers the way out of the deadlock, explaining its implementation on the inter- regional, inter-state, and even global level. He stands for cooperation of nations and states, for levelling in all parameters of the well-being of all the peoples of the world on the basis of co-ownership in the world’s wealth. The style of the book presents a mixture of genres; it is a synthesis of scientific research interwoven with description of events that actually took place in the life of the author and the people he knows.

2nd edition, sponsored by Dr. Konstatin Konstantinov, the son of the author

ВВК 66.3(2) 1

ISBN 5-88982-032- X Б90

© Agdas Husainovich Burganov

2 CONTENTS

The world of Professor Agdas Burganov. Rethinking the philosophy of social justice…………………………………..

To the reader ……………………………………………………

PART I. BIG AND SMALL SORES OF THE PRESENT-DAY WORLD ORDER (THE RUSSIAN DIMENSION) ……………………... Chapter 1. Initial message. Russia – an evil or a Messiah? A) The global powder keg ………………………. B) Is the State a demiurge of history?……………………. C) The “lesser evil” concept…………….. D) A Messiah?………………………………………………...

Chapter 2. Why Communism? Why Russia?……….….…… A) Pseudo-science…………………………………………… B) The source of revolution in a state………………………

Chapter 3. On euphemisms and the pseudo-cheerful ………………… A) Overcoming the shame …………………………….……… B) The ones that make us laugh………………………………... C) “Russo-phobia”, “Tatar-phobia”? . ……………. D) Let’s be semi-serious………………………………….……

Chapter 4. Intellect: philosophical and moral aspect …...... A) Intellect in science ………………………………………... B) Intellect and victory …………………….……………….. C) Subjective-negative aspect of intellect ...... ……. D) Society’s main resource ……………………………

PART II . CURING THE WORLD’S SORES. A CIVIL SOCIETY OF NATIONAL WEALTH CO-OWNERS …

Chapter 5. Russian experience of “popular (people's) capitalism”.….…… A) Stating the question …...... B) Heritage of Lenin ………………………... C) Relevance of Lenin's heritage………………………………...

3 Chapter 6. Distribution of property among the people……………... A) Preliminary notes ...... … B) Stating the problem…………………………………….... C) Advantages of the concept ………………………..

Chapter 7. Formula of public production ………………….

PART III. GLOBAL CO-OWNERSHIP OF CITIZENS……

Chapter 8. The globe – our common home...... ………. A) Inter-regional and inter-state co-ownership ………………….. B) To the question of the “unified theory” of society……… …………...

EPILOGUE …………………………………………………

BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………………

INDEX…………………………………………………

4 The world of Professor Agdas Burganov. Rethinking the philosophy of social justice

Lawyer by education, economist by thinking, philosopher by spirit, Dr. Agdas Burganov has chosen political sociology as the object of his research. It is an interdisciplinary science, which in the not-so-distant past was forcibly deformed in Russia by the Communist sociology. The main conclusion of his thoughts can be formulated in the following way: as pure social justice is nowhere to be found in the modern world, the only tangible manifestations are the variants of this important category of philosophy, the fact that has been a theoretical stumbling stone ever since philosophy itself was created.

Philosophy as an integral science whose object is natural and human development, is currently experiencing a systemic crisis as it so far has not been able to summarize and draw general conclusions from the cardinal and dynamic changes that took place in the XX century: from nuclear physics to the discovery of “dark energy” and “dark matter” which constitute almost 94% of the Universe, leaving the atoms we know a mere 6%. It is not surprising that many seemingly unshakable centuries-old pillars of philosophy have died out as obsolete. All this requires of the leading minds of the scientific community to rethink the fundamentals of philosophy, keeping it on par with the modern science.

Professor Agdar Burganov has made an original attempt to do just this when researching the socio-economic disarray of the modern world in light of Russian realities. The concept that he has spent 20 years developing is unified socio- cooperation based on the creation of Association of Producers’ Cooperatives. This concept has all the features of a reasonable and attractive theoretical postulate.

Dr. Burganov is basing his concept on distribution of property among the people and equal property shares for everybody on all levels. He even created a mathematical “formula of people’s production”. All this would facilitate the creation of an economy of co-ownership on the state, regional and global level.

Practical implementation is, of course, quite another question. Too many times an idea has never seen the light of realization, discarded as yet another idyllic utopia. The most convincing example was the failure of the thoroughly “perfected” and “tested” Communist idea.

5 Dr. Burganov, an author of a dozen popular scientific books, has himself witnessed and participated in many large-scale events and cataclysms in the USSR and Russia. As a result, the inclusion of his personal observations of a memoir style in his book looks very natural. This “know thyself” thread, weaving its way through the labyrinth of intricate and sometimes contradictory elaborations, imparts a certain warmth, especially when the reader gets bogged down in long paragraphs written by a specialist.

Another important observation. In order to fully understand the essence of Dr. Burganov’s political and sociological works, one is expected to have a certain knowledge of history, including modern history, of Russia. The books deal with the reasons of failure of Communism seen from within as the author himself used to teach Marxism-Leninism at a university and was a member of the Communist Party of the regional level.

Very symbolic are the titles of his works: “Who is to blame?” “What to do?” “Who should be doing it?” It is questions like these that the minds of such geniuses as Chernyshevky and Lenin sought answers for when developing ideas of revolutionary transformation in Russia. In 2007 one of the leading minds of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Robert Nigmatullin, published a fundamental monography on the subject. Its main postulate is achieving balanced economy with solvent population.

Dr. Burganov is relentless in his criticism of the Bolshevik and Communist ideology, he even calls for it being officially banned via the system of the UN or the International Court. He opines that Marxism directly contradicts the scientific approach to history and has perpetuated the bureaucratic state. Moreover, he concludes that the current post-Communist regime in Russia is but a continuation of the same bureaucratic system under the rule of pseudo-capitalist oligarchs under the guise of controlled democracy.

It is very curious that the icons of the author are Lenin, Churchill, Pope John Paul II, which, while undoubtedly being prominent figures of the past century, are diametrically opposed as regards their world views, moral, ethical, political and sociological beliefs.

Dr. Burganov is positive that the creator of “people’s capitalism” in Russia was Lenin. As a result, he considers it extremely useful to turn to Lenin’s theoretical heritage, namely his articles on cooperation. Agdas Burganos says that “Lenin’s

6 works of the last years of his life cannot be overestimated. Had we lived according to his legacy, Russia would be one of the most advanced countries in the world now”.

As regards the part that the activities of Churchill played during World War II and afterwards, the author admires his intellect when talking about Churchill’s defense strategy and his ability to make the US and the USSR British allies. Another great achievement of Churchill’s was manifested, according to Burganov, in his declaring the cold war to Russian Stalinism.

Here let me digress a little. The best monument that the West has of Churchill is, in my opinion, that unusual central London museum near the Exchequer building. I visited it upon the advice of my friend Gayaz Islamov and was amazed by the efficiency with which Churchill lived and commanded from his underground bunker. The museum has had it recreated with the help of 13 charity funds, most of them American. You can’t help admiring the way the British can immortalize their great people. An unusual monument to Sir Walter Scott in the center of Edinburgh is another example.

According to Dr. Burganov, social justice is a condition sine qua non for any country. It is a complex and multi-dimensional category. It bears upon all facets of existence: human and social, material and spiritual, legal and ethical. The author opines that in order to carry out the global socio-equal cooperation of productive forces, it is necessary to turn to the most harmonious scheme, which is the synergetic system of self-organization, where the co-ownership of citizens in the national wealth becomes a dominant structure.

Such political trend of democratic capitalism can be clearly seen in the most developed countries of the European Union, most notably in the North European region – Norway, Sweden and Finland. There you can see the triumph of the socially-oriented market economy, the class structure of society is balanced with a lot less contrasts than, say, in the US or Italy.

I’d like to conclude by saying a few words about the style and the manner of material presentation, which are further complicated by frequent digressions. The genre that he chose is a medley of the academic and the artistic, the book is filled with Russian proverbs, saying and jokes, which do not always render themselves to translation. To this you can add a plethora of names, mostly unfamiliar to a foreign reader. All this inevitably leads to the question: how it will all look to an English reader?

7 This is how I imagine the process of artistic creation. A gray-haired man is clicking away at the computer. He consults his books and books of other writers, he reworks and polishes. Suddenly his train of thought gets rerouted onto another track, some episodes from personal experience demand to be included, worked, or sometimes forced in. Then the author returns to his topic – the one of social justice, he writes away, and then his memories resurge again…

The result is a mix of a scientific monograph and a memoir. In Russian it reads well. After all, you can easily skip some parts and some are worth rereading. The charm of this book lies precisely in this, it’s too bad there are no elements of poetry that could have animated even further this intricate scientific-popular style, full of metaphors and hard-to-translate sayings.

Yulduz Khaliullin corresponding member of International Economic Academy of Eurasia, Ambassador in retirement

8 TO THE READER

Dear reader! Please, make an effort to read what you are offered. If possible, drop me a line on how to improve it so as to make it understandable to everyone, to those who are concerned about the eternal question: to be or not to be for our Earth. The Earth is our home, in which some are masters (and they are the minority, both in people’s communities (national or ethnic) and on the inter-state or international level), and others (the overwhelming majority, of course) are “lodgers”, whose rent for the right to live is inadequate to their natural right to life.

After the publication of the first edition some new materials came into my view. They have supplemented the present edition, especially in connection with the activities of Sir Winston Churchill as the Prime Minister of Great Britain. His actions showed that we are not hopeless, that the Nature had endowed the man with an intellect capable of keeping him in extreme situations from any form of evil, which not infrequently camouflaged itself as a “lesser evil” so as to become great and almost ineradicable later on. In the history of mankind there have been, so far, only two ne plus ultra intellectuals – Churchill and Lenin. Their foresight and their activities raise hopes in us: not all is lost, mayhap, we shall survive in the present time of troubles, too…

Besides, I made some changes and additions. Also, two photographs have been attached. The first depicts the author on the borderline between the Greek and Turkish communities in Nicosia running through a house). At the beginning of 2008 a photo from the French mass media appeared all over the world with the outrageous title: “France: the War of the Aliens” (second picture in the book). That photo shows one of the episodes of the revolt of young immigrants in France, a country that had attracted their fathers and has not given their sons and daughters really equal rights, welfare and confidence of the future.

On the border of Russia and Ukraine there is a village called “Melovoye” with a population of 17 thousand, 3 thousand of them Russians. The borderline passes through houses and gardens. We cannot exclude the possibility that with time the borderline will be reinforced with barbed wire and sandbags. It will be done so as to make the shame more conspicuous, more “exhibitional”. Maybe, this shameful sight will make people sick some day.

9

This book is about how to do away with such phenomena, and how to arrange our Blue Planet in such a way that there are no borders between the children of Adam, neither in indirect, nor in physical, nor in figurative senses, so that everything belongs to everybody on the principles that do not separate people and countries dividing them into the rich and the poor, into the natives and the aliens, but on the contrary, uniting them.

The main reason of the world's troubles is the inadequacy of technical and technological to social progress. Closely connected with it is the moral progress, which fatally lags far behind the technology, which is full of glitches for that very reason, paving the road to a precipice with no chance of return. The question is: either social justice, or death of mankind! Such backwardness is typical of Russia; it was aggravated by the deviation from the development of world civilisation caused by an attempt to accomplish the Communist utopia. The tragic experience of Russia is considered in this book as an objective process of the realisation of Russian “messianism”. It is a negative that in modern conditions could be transformed into a positive.

There are numberless works devoted to the problem of how to better life in Russia and considering all kinds of measures on the improvement of technology, know-how, the perfection of economic management and other spheres of life in this country. As far as this book is concerned, I give priority to the problem of relations of ownership, without a proper organisation of which other measures, which are of secondary importance, are either unrealisable or their realisation does not lead society out of the deadlock.

The main problem is caused by our intellect. We are not burdened with morality, we act with equal intensity both for the good and for the evil. Therefore the question is: is it not time for mankind to cut off the possibilities of human intellect that serves the selfish interests of the few and direct its mighty powers to serve the interests of all people instead? Is it possible to underpin the subjective wish of progressive man-loving public figures of all times and nations with some objective source, which would streamline its practical application in real life? I think that such a means exists. The philosophy of social justice is to be reconsidered.

The philosophy of social justice is to be reconsidered. I think that if, according to Einstein, nature has “internal perfection”, human society, as another aspect

10 of Nature must also become “socially perfect”. If Nature develops in accordance with the “unified field theory” of sorts, so does mankind progress according to its own “unified theory”, which may be the all-sociological theory of co-operation carried out it sequentially towards globalisation.

Dear colleague! Forgive my aggressiveness. It is not for my own sake. I feel vexed for all mankind, and I am sorry for the Blue Planet. Has it truly been given to hopeless fools?! Is life itself given to people, as Pushkin once said, “as a gift accidental, a gift in vain”?

The validity of the chosen method of presentation is justified by the fact that a mass reader does not read scientific literature because it lacks individual traits, examples, and indeed does not ever deviate from the subject investigated. Nevertheless, such deviations show the details of the subject matter’s existence, compelling the author, if only casually, to probe even deeper into theoretical and philosophic questions, into the natural and social characteristics of man. In a word, the story gets enriched with new colours. Only then does the reader begin to feel that the subject of investigation is woven into life, and not suspended in midair (I have sent the abridged version, without artistic distractions, to the UN Secretary General).

My concept has to be digested by the mass reader (I hope that the ranks of “dreaming idiots” will grow geometrically). Bureaucracy and criminal monopolistic “bourgeoisie” will not understand it as it is contrary to their very nature, for the principle of their life is “after us the flood.”

Naturally, not all public figures always expressed their approval of the book. Some of them were downright angry. I am well aware that my attempt to characterise objectively the leading worship figures of Orthodoxy and Islam, who have slowed down the development of the ideologies, has been met with sharp disapproval by their most obstinate and ignorant adepts. What’s more, they are trying to accuse me of an attempt to disavow the merits of Islam to mankind, despite the fact that I am only speaking about the backwardness in social and economic (not religious!) development of the Islamic nations. So, you just have to remember that you cannot shut another person’s mouth, following Leo Tolstoy’s principle of “do what you are to do, and be what may.” As for the other world’s religions, my approach to them is as follows: they are all extremely important and necessary for mankind as a moral and ethical factor; not a single religion teaches people evil (which does not mean

11 there are no bad pastors or bad church, a caveat that goes for any other field of service, state service, for example).

*** Somebody said that there is no harm in dreaming. It's OK if you look a fool or an idiot to your readers. Sometimes I was doubting my mental facilities myself, when I was theoretically applying my “funny” concept to the whole world. But it is not a ha-ha funny thing. That is the reason why I did not use the manuscript of this book as kindling (in the bathhouse of my dacha, as I did with many of my earlier writings).

12 PART I

BIG AND SMALL SORES OF THE PRESENT-DAY WORLD ORDER (THE RUSSIAN DIMENSION)

Chapter 1. Initial message. Russia – an evil or a Messiah?

A) The global powder keg

Mankind is sitting on a social, inter-ethnic, inter-state and environmental powder keg. It is ready to go off any minute. As a matter of fact, it has already exploded several times.

Mankind is split into two species – the rich and the poor: the first are the so- called “golden billion” (Western Europe, North America, Australia, Japan) and the remaining five sixths of mankind lead a dog’s life in poor, or very poor conditions with the ever-threatening famine.

Not a single day passes without a terrorist act resulting in many deaths and injuries. Environmental problems are becoming more and more acute. It’s scary when you come to think of consequences of future territorial claims of the states to one another in conditions of the notorious principles of territorial self-determination of nations and inviolability of the borders. And then such a conflagration will burst out that all previous wars will pale before it. Looking ahead, I will say that the solution of this problem lies in no less than making the whole world a place without a single political border, with all of its territory and all of its wealth turned into a property of each and every one of its inhabitants, irrespective of where they live.

I doubt that there is a single correctly drawn borderline in Africa, Asia or Latin America. The borders could not have been right by definition, because profit is a bad and unwise guide, prompting colonists to kill and eat the goose that laid golden eggs.

But the trouble did not go away with the disappearance of colonists. No, their heritage left bleeding sores on the planet, and some of them have already

13 turned malignant. They cannot be removed by surgical intervention alone, yet the world does not currently possess any other method of treatment.

The biggest sores are the ones you have definitely heard of: the problem of Kurds in Turkey and Iraq, Jews and Arabs in Palestine, Israel and Lebanon, Jordan etc., Hindus and Pakistanis of Kashmir in India and Pakistan, the Irish and the English in Ulster.

The situation of Russia is especially dangerous. Her international frontier collisions are: the Tatars of Crimea, the Ukrainians vs. the Russians in Crimea (Ukraine), the Russians vs. the Japanese (Kurile Isles), Finns vs. the Russians, the Germans vs. the Russians (Konigsberg-Kaliningrad), the South Ossetians (patronised by Russia) vs. the Georgians, the Abkhases vs. the Georgians, the Armenians vs. the Azerbaijanians in Nagorny Karabakh, the Russians vs. the Ukrainians vs. the Moldavians (the Dniester Republic), Tatars with Bashkirs, Balkars with Kabardines, the Armenians vs. the Russians in Russia. It so happened that the status of Russia in the present-day world has been that of a great power. It continues to be so for Russia’s possession of nuclear arms, a power sufficient to annihilate life on all the Earth. And the country's completely corrupted, intellectually feeble ruling class can make an attempt to exercise this option. It is with their help that the communo-fascist regime of North Korea and aggressive-Islamic regime of Iran became nuclear states. And there is no force within the country capable of opposing the bureaucracy. Russian people have come into the stage of physical and moral degradation. Back in the 19th century the great Russian lawyer-democrat F. Koni described the Russian people as “intoxicated and robbed”. Today he would be able to add that during the 20th century it has been robbed and poisoned twice (today in many subjects of the Russian Federation the situation is very grave in connection with the cases of mass poisoning by illegally produced vodka and other alcohol surrogates. The political and nouveau riche elite is in the state of absolute corruption for they are guided by the bureaucratic code, whose core idea is: “Rob the state and the people while you are in power, keep your loot in foreign banks and in real estate abroad, and educate your children there, too.” The policy of the state-run genocide pursued in the time of Stalin is still in action. Russian people themselves have led a wretched existence for a long time: for 60 years in the 19th century Russia had been conquering the Chechen people, and is still killing them in 21st, following the motto “ice them in the outhouse”, formulated by the Commander-in-Chief .

14 You would not wish anyone to have Russia as a neighbour. You cannot expect any material aid from it, because its own people live in poverty. Russia is very good at organising devastating famines (in Kazakhstan and Ukraine in 1932- 33, a genocide in Kazakhstan and Ukraine, millions of deaths because of the Stalin-approved, artificially organized famine). Lengthy contacts with the Russians guarantee other people unavoidable adoption of the Russian mode of life, in the core of which there lies “merriment”, that is, “drinking”. Russia takes first place in Europe in the number of holidays. Some of them, for example, the newest one, dedicated to the unity of the Russian people (November 4) are explicitly provocative, prompting extremists to organise “a Russian march”, directed against the non-Russians. Because of drinking, dozens of nationalities of the north and the east, devoid of natural immunity to alcohol, have sunk into non-existence. The Tatars, who earlier had no idea of drinking, are not much different now from their “elder brothers”, and some of them would win a drinking bout against any Russian.

Let us turn to the border problems. A good neighbour brings wealth, Russians themselves have a saying: “Before buying a house, choose a neighbour”. But the Russian State has preferred to draw in foreign lands and nations by force, imposing on them its mode of life, changing their millennial literature, blotting out their written history. And it is still going on.

Let us start from the top of the political map of Europe. Here’s Finland, from which in 1940 Russia chopped off a vast area of well-kept, improved territory with highly developed dairy farming and fish industry. Since then that territory has been hopelessly deserted and unwanted by all. Russian people who settled there, live in poverty, and are looking forward to the time when they can emigrate to the prosperous Finland. Novaya Gazeta asserts that about 30 % of the inhabitants of the borderline districts of Leningrad Region would gladly go to Finland for permanent residence or would give the whole territory back to Finland, if demanded, the very next Sunday.

Let us go down the map, to the Baltic people, whose economic and territorial claims to us are innumerable. We are settling accounts with them the Putin way: “give them a sweet ol’zero”. Then, Moldavia with its Dniester Region, populated with citizens hurriedly turned into passport-holding official Russians. A thorn in Russia’s side is the Crimea that had been given to Ukraine by Khrushchev. The land of the Crimean Tatars and Sevastopol, the historical glory of the Russian spirit, has become and will stay a centre of restlessness for centuries.

15 Abkhasia and Southern Ossetia have “Russian citizens” of the same kind. Regions, being non-Russian by origin, that have been put under Georgia’s jurisdiction either by mistake or with criminal intention, have been bleeding for over a decade. There is no end to it, there never will be, unless the clever idea of Solzhenitsyn is carried out. He said that if Russia gives all the smaller nations, which have been made our satellites by force, real freedom to decide on their own destiny, only then will our repentance to them be true.

There was a recent attempt to turn Afghanistan into a springboard for a jump into the Indian Ocean, in which Zhirinovskys et al. wanted to wash their bloody boots. They just killed a million of innocent and friendly Afghanis and over ten thousand of our fellows. What for?

Quite absurd was the situation round the capture by Russia of Karelian Isthmus, Prussia and the Kuril Isles. In relation to this Solzhenitsyn assesses the diplomacy of Stalin at the end of World War II as very successful: when Stalin, who had always got the better of Roosevelt without any difficulty, outplayed Churchill as well, taking everything he wanted in Europe and Asia. I think things are somewhat different. Knowing very well the “grabby” nature of the Russian State, the Western leaders allowed Stalin to grab to eventually get choked. They played such a dirty trick on Russia’s future that cleaning out will take centuries. Ashamed of what their ancestors did, our descendants will have to face the consequences of Stalin’s “victory” for a long time, not daring to look in the eyes of Finns, the Japanese and the Germans. The Russian nation had too many “victories” in their history. We are repaying for them today in defeats.

The psychological state of a part of the Tatars proves my point. A new movement of “Bulgarists” has appeared among the Tatars today, whose aim is to abandon the ethnicon “Tatar”, replacing it by “Bulgar”. Is it not the result of our fathers’ sins? I am specifically talking about the process of turning Tatars into artificial Turks, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kirghizes, and now, right under our nose – into Bashkirs, to say nothing of the centuries-old process of Russification, started by the “loyal” and “faithful” Tatar elite back in the early post-Golden Horde times.

Solzhenitsyn, who in my opinion, is the conscience of the Russian nation of the Soviet time, mentions that the expression for fathers’ sins has been known for millenniums. It didn’t appear out of nowhere, and we have often seen how

16 children have to pay for their fathers’ errors. For Russia the pendulum began to swing back at the end of the 20th century: the first payment was losing half of its territory. We do not know what is coming next, but other debts are sure to come due, and a default on payment is punished severely, especially where swindlers are concerned.

I think, Russia’s position, particularly in light of the current national and social discrepancies, is quite hopeless, with no good end in sight. The country is wasting its natural wealth without stopping. I also have to add that the role of Russia’s natural resources is actually negative, it is a “resource damnation” of sorts. They slow down the progress of economy in general and that of human capital in particular. The state has gotten used to parasitic consumption of natural resources, but they are not the property of the present generation only. They also belong to the generations to come and consequently to all mankind. I do not know whether it is because of stupidity, or because of need that we keep the money received from the sales of raw materials in the banks of the buyers whereby further enriching the wealthy. And what about the development of the richest lands? Bitterly complaining of the folly of both the tsarist and the Soviet administration, Solzhenitsyn wrote in 1973 that Russia is the North-east of the planet, and “ours is the Arctic (not the Indian) Ocean, we are not the Mediterranean Sea and not Africa, and we have nothing to do there!” (And where will Zhirinovsky wash his boots then? – A.B.). These boundless spaces that were thoughtlessly abandoned for four centuries are waiting for a touch of our hands, for our sacrifices, and for our love. But only two or three decades are left to do this work; otherwise the world’s demographic explosion will take these lands away from us. Solzhenitsyn goes on to say that the North-east is the clue to the solution of many intricate Russian problems, being a clean, untouched, spacious house preserved by history for us. If Russia stops meddling into foreign affairs overseas, gives up seizing the neighbours who want to live freely and by themselves, we will be able to turn to the virgin spaces of the North-east, whose openness is already intolerable for the neighbours because of their demographic density. Sooner or later the world will have to adopt an Energy Charter and stop allowing the states with rich natural resources to dictate their will to the nations deprived of their share in order to diminish imperial and xenophobic tendencies. The problem, though, is to what extent such limitations and prohibitions will be efficient.

For over four centuries Russia has been playing the part of a dog in the manger. Stalin developed some lands by means of GULAG, it was necessary for his militarist aims, by mercilessly exploiting prisoners. According to stories, every

17 fortnight a train with prisoners would come to Vorkuta. The prisoners were not even outfitted – they were just sent down the mines, and basically left to die. Soon after yet another train would come to replace those who were dead. So it went on up to the moment when the tyrant himself croaked with the help of his nearest “faithful people”. Solzhenitsyn was quite right saying that the North- east could not be revived by concentration camps, shouts of guards and barking of man-eating dogs. Only free people with free understanding of the national task can bring to life, wake up, heal and civilise these spaces. Of course, the problem is how to grow in our people the qualities required by the writer. I am afraid that it is all in vain. The entire democratic part of mankind has succeeded in development due not so much to the understanding of the national task, but rather to the Adam Smith’s “invisible hand of the market”. And the clue to the solution of the Russian problems lies in that hand as well. By involving it, the North-east and all the other lands of Russia can be developed by our people, and in rather a short time.

Generally speaking, dear Alexander Isaevich, placing the “national”, or, as we call them in this country, “public” interests above the personal interests of the people, comes from the unwillingness of the ruling officials to improve life of their people. At the same time, their own life is improved to the max. By the way, it is the complex of personal interests of citizens that makes up the public interest; therefore the solution of the personal must be prior to the public. Take the fundamental problems of existence – economic problems. Not a single subject of the market thinks about the public interest, because market has its own laws – in order to exist one must conduct a profitable business. To sell the goods you have to, in the first place, make them of high quality; in the second, you ought to make tham available to the mass consumer. You do not go bankrupt in competitive surroundings only if you produce cheap available goods of high quality. In this way the market, due to the “invisible hand” serves the society, i.e. the common interest, although nobody says anything about it! It is only in a bad society that the state tries to persuade businessmen not to raise prices and sell high-quality goods. But all is in vain… The “invisible hand” does not work in state systems similar to Russia.

I will repeat myself. Russia is entangled in hopeless contradictions. The State power has been irremovably in charge here since the reign of Peter the Great till today, for three centuries. Nothing ever changes in it, except the clans of bureaucrats. The last possibility and attempt of a change was supposed to take place in 1917, but it was only bargaining of one trouble for another: the tsarist bureaucracy was replaced by the proletarian system whose intellectually poor

18 descendants, having graduated from the “proletarian dictatorship” school of the worst KGB-Mafia type, are still ruling today. But Bolshevik bureaucracy has been very wise in the solution of one very important problem for itself. It has created the conditions allowing it to remain in power forever, until Russia disappears from the political map of the world. This condition was the abolition of private property for the people.

The heart of the matter is that revolutions are organised by classes of proprietors, not because they are not only politically or culturally mature or better educated, but because they are able to organise and mobilise themselves and others. They are able to feed and arm their combatants for a relatively long time. The impoverished people are deprived of that, and their destiny is to walk about and beg, with their hand stretched towards the all-powerful state. Therefore, our electorate is not an electorate at all. It is a robot that votes for those who hand round packets of buckwheat (or sugar, etc.) on the day of election and who in self-admiration throw copper coins into the crowds on their way to church. And the “electors” tear the coins from one another.

The old headache is the problem of the North-east, and not only that. What about Central Asia (not ours now, thank heaven!), the non-Black Earthy Belt, which is now overgrown with weeds? And what part of the Russian land is being developed in a proper way? Russia occupied foreign lands not to develop them but to confirm its power, for which there were still many other territories and nations ahead: they captured one land, called it their own and went on to appropriate others. What has been mastered, seems to have been done in a backassward way, as if somebody had been poking the master’s bottom with a sharp stick, just like a donkey driver does to make the animal move. It is natural in case of the donkey, which is reputed to be a stubborn animal. Russian people are different. A well-known Russian philosopher Berdyaev maintained that the Russian nation is of feminine nature, characterised by thoroughness, deliberateness and tolerance, without which it is impossible to be the keeper of the home fire. Therefore, the problem is not with the people but with the state, that is, with bureaucracy at the head. It is the pseudo-subject of development, a parasitic class sucking blood from the people and leading them to degeneration. The intellectual impotence of Russia’s ruling stratum from the earliest days of its formation is like an ugly birthmark on its body. This is what we say of ourselves: “Our land is plentiful, but there is no order in it. So, come and rule us”. A characteristic feature of our ruling class behaviour is the following reaction to a criticism from its clever enemies: “You’re a fool

19 yourself!” We have had a lot of experience of proclaiming our internal critics insane and isolating them in madhouses for psychotropic “feeding”.

The problems I have mentioned would be solved if the state observed just one important condition – not to stand in the way of people’s self-development and not to prevent them from becoming self-sufficient. Why not give undeveloped lands to citizens with capital so that they could increase it by developing them? Remember how it was at the end of the 80s of the past 20th century, when the lowest grade vodka, bad cigarettes and white bread were rationed, and people had to stand in 24-hour queues, ready to kill one another. And when Gaidar- Chubaises abolished the state monopoly on consumer goods trade and price policy, everything appeared on the market as if by magic, and in a couple of years the “shuttles” (enterprising traders who bought goods abroad and sold them in Russia) fed and clad the whole country. So, the experience of the NEP (New Economic Policy) of the 20s of the 20th century repeated itself.

Another tumour, one of many others, on the body of Russian society, is the terror initiated by the power, which organised the genocide of the Chechen people. They still continue that genocide, doing it with the hands of the Chechens themselves, or rather, some of them (“the fifth column”). All despotic regimes organised in their own nations by a foreign state are the so- called “fifth columns” consisting of parasites, who betray their own people for the sake of enrichment. It was people like them that joined the Russian tsar’s service and were given high positions. They gave rise to a whole army of snitches among their own people, “secret workers”, Drozdovs in long robes and imamahs. Part of the clergy of all confessions have on their conscience millions of deaths of the people who died in GULAG, exiles, emigration, etc.

Not all goes as planned though. The Chechen fighters supplemented their resistance by terror in the heart of Russia. And the state thieves turned it to their advantage and started using the cover of terrorism to off their enemies, political and financial. After all, he who grabbed too much of people’s wealth, does not usually wish to share it with their crime partners. In the years of perestroika the Russia’s Minister of Finance A. Lifshitz in some interview urged them “to spread the wealth”. I did not detect any signs that the call was heard.

The “terrorists” started shooting all those who were unwanted, including the prominent democrats and the state officials who somehow turned out to be honest. The latest example is the assassination of the Chairman of the Central

20 Bank of Russia A. Kozlov, who was in charge of bank licensing. They killed many journalists who revealed the crimes of officials. Recently they murdered the political observer of the only true democratic paper in this country (Novaya Gazeta) A. Politkovskaya, who, by telling the truth about the Chechen War became a stumbling block for the Ministries of Defense, Home Affairs and FSB.

It is not accidental that I have mentioned Kozlov and Politkovskaya in the same context. State bureaucracy feeds on crime and both people disturbed the welfare of the corrupted regime. Punitive organs have many methods of avoiding direct responsibility for the assassination of unwanted subjects. But there is no means of avoiding responsibility for the image of the State, which they are supposed to guard and in which disgracing things take place. No, gentlemen from the mentioned departments, it is YOU who are responsible for the death of Politkovskaya and many other enemies of yours (saying “it is on your conscience” would be wrong for total lack thereof).

The present orientation of the ruling bureaucracy is the revival of the military- industrial complex. They spend billions on it instead of making the funds available to the people who can hardly make ends meet.

The state is irredeemably indebted, above all, to all the people of Russia because, in the first place, it keeps them in a state of poverty, not allowing most of them to be transformed into the middle class of owners. In developing countries the economy represented by this class forms up to 80% of the total production, and its part in the countries with highly developed economies is high, too. In our country it is only 20%; what is more, the state finance, tax and other kinds of policy seem to have been specifically created to block progress. In retaliation to every sign of economic independence of the people the state “treats” them with defaults. Putin has not allowed it, well, Medvedev might. As for Vladimir Vladimirovich, he will come to power in 2012 and will be elected a semi-monarch. I shall be glad to be mistaken.

You can’t buy people off by minuscule salary rises, little pensions and small aids. The only thing bureaucracy can do to survive, not as a ruling class, but as state officials, is to repent to the people and to address them as bureaucracy at one time addressed the Roriks: “Your Majesty People, come to power and rule your own fortune”.

B) Is the state a demiurge of history?

21 The dialectics of correlation between the political superstructure (state) and the economic basis determines the place and role of revolution (reform) in their interaction. When the political system is adequate to the economic basis, they strengthen each other, both developing in the direction needed by the society. Whenever a bourgeois revolution took place as an historically objective law of the transition of feudal society to capitalism, it was a consequence of the changes in the relations of ownership (basis), taking place in the depths of the given society and demanding changes of the superstructure (state power) which tried to protect the outdated status quo. But, having established the post- October Revolution political system, Russia fancied itself to be a Demiurge of History. Instead of strengthening the new capitalist relations born within the previous society, it created new economy, different from both the feudal and the bourgeois economies. At the basis of it was state ownership of the main means of production (property, nationalised and confiscated from citizens). It was an economy denying the relations of private property. Thus, the link between the basis and the superstructure was reversed. The State violated a natural process, dooming itself to failure because it could not create new economic laws. They simply do not exist for state ownership. For this reason the state economy, living through artificial support, quickly gets into stagnation. The absurdity and artificiality of the “socialist” orientation taken by the leaders of the October revolution of 1917, very soon manifested themselves. Creating a new political system for transformation of society and its economy, the Bolsheviks could not make it a truly determining force. The political system can turn out to be “higher” than the economic system for a very short time, necessary for a quick transformation. A delay in the process may lead to failure and the fall of the given political regime. It happened to the tsar’s autocracy, which delayed the abolishment of serfdom, to the reformers of the beginning of the century, and also to the Provisional Government (1917) that restrained the abolishment of squire land ownership. Similar tendency took place in the first years of Soviet power (I will observe, by the way, that the same happened to the regime of the perestroika makers of the 80s, and the same is about to happen to the “reformers” of the Yeltsin type for the same reason).

Thanks to Lenin, the Soviet power had to retreat and introduce the New Economic Policy (NEP). Very shortly it yielded brilliant results, but proved to be incompatible with the idea of the supremacy of the state in economy. What did NEP correspond to? How was NEP able to save the country from ruin, famine, cold, devastation and poverty? It could do so because it spoke directly

22 to the individual household of a farmer, the production and trade of a craftsman, to a private owner of production, trade and the like, and also to self- organising associations. It confirmed the objective law, according to which a human community ought to consist of master-citizens for whom the state must create the necessary conditions of life, also functioning as internal and external security, but not more than that, there should not be any interference into the economy and the private life. The Stalin state acted against the natural process of the country’s development. For the state, it was fatal.

The age-old habit of mass-conscience of associating all people’s joys and sorrows with the state is strengthened in the people’s minds by the ruling bureaucracy with the idea of building an allegedly “social” state. That idea may be one of the most dangerous ideas of all. The world’s public mind also seems unaware of its danger, in spite of some corrective amendments that the President Reagan and Margaret Thatcher managed to make in this regard.

Indeed, one cannot help wondering and agreeing that history teaches nothing. The Western democracy has not profited by the sad experiment of the Soviet Union to create a “social justice”, which ended in creation of an historically unique totalitarian state. The West is making an attempt to approach the problem from the other end, hoping to obtain results opposite to the Soviet ones. They claim they do not rob people, but rather oblige the rich to spread the wealth. The democrats have not taken into account the fact that a “social state”, a distributor, is attractive not so much to those who need help (it would be more preferable to give them a “fishing pole, not fish”), as to bureaucracy. The Roman Club has already expressed its anxiety about the bureaucratisation of European states, which call themselves “social” and in which there is a lot to dispense, naturally, by taking away from their working classes (middle owners, for example), who earn each penny by the sweat of their brow (parents and children of all possible ages). Herewith the number of receivers grows in geometric progression: some of them have never worked and never will. The number of officials necessary for the distribution of material goods grows in the same progression. Officials are humans, too, and they multiply, and their children need cushy jobs where “distribution” is the largest, and such jobs are created. The latter are not subject to personnel reduction by definition. The state becomes bureaucratic, but not of the type where an official is an employee of the state, but of the type where he is its master, the ruling class, like in Russia through the ages. If it is possible to struggle with a bureaucrat-employee by democratic means, there are no methods of doing it with a bureaucrat-master (except the revolutionary ones, which cannot be organised, not in Russia, either). This phenomenon (a social state) has one more

23 disadvantage for society. It is an outflow of capital to offshore zones, where the taxes are the lowest or there are no taxes at all, with all the ensuing consequences.

We must distinguish between bureaucratisation and bureaucratisation. The first type is an unavoidable category of mankind’s existence, as long as there is necessity for man to govern man, and it has to be taken into account as an inevitable evil as long as it is possible to neutralise its most dangerous manifestations. The second one produces supreme rulers that you cannot struggle with, and there is only one prospect of existence with it, a downfall. For over two centuries Russia has been a negative example of such an outcome.

Building a social state will bring disastrous results. Salvation lies in the formation of a society with self-developing people who are capable of becoming self-sufficient. It is the only proper way: take it or leave it.

According to our present Constitution, we are building a “social state”, too. The more pauperised the masses are, the easier the idea of a “social state” is driven home into their minds with all ensuing social and moral consequences. Russians, in addition to their devotion to alcohol, are socially ill with an anti- ownership psychology, which stands in the way of their finding freedom and independence, i.e. their self-sufficiency. Meanwhile, the people live with a hand outstretched towards the state, which puts in it what is left of the immeasurable expenses on wars (started by the state itself), on punitive functions against its own people and on keeping its numberless officials fat and merry. What is put in a citizen’s hand is something miserable, keeping a human barely alive, making his life 20 or 30 years shorter compared to that of the Europeans, the North-Americans and the Japanese. Well, people work according to how they are fed. “Milk is on the cow’s tongue”, in other words, the quality of milk depends on how the cow is fed. It is simply amazing: if the Russians lived in accordance with their wittiest proverbs, which are numberless, there would not be people happier than they!

The saddest of all things is that a citizen of Russia has reconciled himself not only with the fact that his life is too short, but he makes it shorter still by heavy drinking. In the future this might very well be the cause of Russia’s extinction. And what about the demographic crisis? It would be wrong to think that it is the result of bad medicine, unsatisfactory nutrition and the low level of well- being on the whole. Like mass alcoholism, it is, above all, the consequence of the degraded position of man, and of the fact that he is not a subject of

24 development, not a creator and not a self-sufficient person, but a beggar. The absurdity of what is happening in Russia is conditioned by the fact that the State has taken upon itself the function of the creator of people’s life. That function is alien to it and is beyond its strength. At best, it would only be able to provide internal and external security of the people, somehow favour the normal and check the deviant processes, and not more than that. The organisation of production is not its function. The State may be entrusted with the control over the processes in economy and the market, but only on one essential condition: the state itself must be produced by the market, and be controlled by society. That is only possible if the State is not the owner of national wealth; in short, if the State is of the same type as that in the democratic part of the world.

Russia cannot break away from the vicious circle of its pre-set political conditions. There has never been a full-blooded multi-million “subject of development” in the country, represented by a productive middle class of owners.

Not a single nation has ever spent so much time and resource on overcoming a crisis. All fascist and militarist states after their defeat or the death/resignation of the dictator, in some 3–5 years returned to normal civilised development, and some of them, after a short time played first fiddle in it to all mankind (Germany, Japan), or to their region (Chile). And we are still where we were, and there is no progress. What is the cause of our failure and, on the other hand, the success of such countries as Germany and Chile? Communism, even more consistently than the pre-Revolutionary Russian State, eliminated the “subjects of development” – owners of all ranks. It resulted in stable indifference of the masses to political, state and national problems. Even fascism, produced by the gross financial capital, does not eliminate the foundation of capitalist development – private ownership and does not allow the upper middle class to monopolise the economy to the extent of removal of middle class and small holders from the market. The middle class later restores democracy and normal capitalist development.

So who is to blame for the Russian situation? Russian liberation movement always tried to solve the social and economic problems by changing the type of Russian nationhood. The most effective method was suggested and implemented by the October Revolution. But, having entrusted the state with the function of the owner of national wealth, the revolution made it hyper- absolutist. It is from that time that the history of the downfall began, in spite of

25 the seeming prosperity after the process of industrialisation. The surface might have appeared shiny but the inside was rotten, which was the cause of an extraordinarily rapid collapse. Modern social thought (except for the toadies of the ruling regime) realises the necessity of depriving the state of the right to own national wealth and bargain it away. If a society has no power to solve the problems of the transitional period in a democratic way, then such power should be cultivated, armed with the idea of citizens’ ownership of the wealth of the country.

So, the whole problem of Russia amounts to the acquisition or creation of the source of self-movement. Otherwise, we will again witness the irreversible downfall, to which Russia is moving for the third time (“God loves Trinity”). The first stage was revealed in the second half of the 19th century by the Crimean war, the second – by the Russian-Japanese war, the third by World War I, and in all those wars Russia suffered a defeat. At the second stage there were attempts to escape from the crisis of autocracy: (1) The Revolution of 1905–1907 and the February Revolution (1917); (2) the October Revolution, bringing the age-old Russian slavery to perfection in the Communist variant, (3) participation in World War II. The last one was a seemingly “victorious” event, but in fact it was the eve of the collapse. Such a “victory” lead to defeat, because it involved almost a third of the world into a process of artificial development. The third stage: attempts to break the Communist deadlock: (1) Khrushchev’s “thaw”, the 20th Congress of the CPSU; (2) Gorbachov’s “perestroika”; (3) Yeltsin’s “reform” and Putin’s stagnation. We are coming to the conclusion of the third part of the third stage. All attempts of the bureaucracy to “reform” the state and society were carried out according to the principle “leaving yet staying”, preserving, in fact, the age-old slavery. Therefore, there is practically no chance for recovery.

The thought that Russia is desperately in need of a genius leader (or “super- leader”) came to me back in the 90s of the past century when I was working on the book “Where from and where to, Russia?” Then, in my talks about Lenin without Leninism at the 2nd International Scientific Conference (Russia, prospects and tendencies of development) in 2001, and at inter-university scientific readings devoted to the memory of Prof. V. F. Mamonov (Chelyabinsk, March 2002), I tried to apply to our realities the law formulated by Hegel: The life of a nation, which is rapidly approaching a collapse, can only be saved by a genius. I returned to this problem in 2007. This problem also became the subject of discussion initiated by the “Liberal mission” fund,

26 uniting the leading Russian political analysts of different ideological schools on the question of the peculiarity of Russian statehood.

The capital article by M. Krasnov (“Is the Personalist Regime in Russia Fatal?”) that started the discussion asserts that “it is not the patriarchal views of the society that demand a personalist regime, but it’s personalism that preserves patriarchal relations in society and patriarchal views in the power structure”. According to the author, the way out of this trap lies in the method of “annihilation”. It means that personalism can be overcome only with the help of another personalism. In other words, in our present circumstances it is only by having the presidential post and high popularity that the leader can initiate the changes of the institutional conditions that produce a personalist regime, i.e. to organize public power in such a way that it would take into account the historical inertia in the sense of neutralization of feudal stereotypes”. This thesis provoked a lot of responses, some positive, some negative. (Most of the discussion, if not all of it, was about institutions and their disadvantages, and how they should be improved, etc.). One of the participants (L. Gudkov) noted, quite correctly, that the analysis of the factual characteristics of state power in Russia was substituted by the expression of belief or obligation, by speeches on how everything should be done and what Putin must do if he wanted to. But why he or his surrounding must want to do what they have not ever done? Why have they done the opposite of what they were supposed to do in the opinion of the highly learned experts? Now, these questions were not raised in the discussion; the subject of people and society were only slightly touched upon and no more than that. The presenters were mainly talking about the governing bureaucracy that has “privatized” political institutes. In short, as I. Yakovenko said, the style was set by the “elitist political analysts”. The position of the Kremlin analysts was as follows: the present political regime possesses a potential that has not been fully realized, yet it is able to modernise Russia, making it a modern country, developed in all respects. One of them, A. Migranyan, even declared that he had lost all hopes both in intelligentsia and the people in general a long time ago.

I referred to this article not because I agree with the author’s angle on the problem concerning the cause-effect relations between the institutions and the regime. On the contrary, I do not accept it at all, as, in my opinion, the author reversed the cause and the effect. But I was quite interested in his thesis about the decisive role of the “super-leader” in the modernization of our society. Even I admit the importance of this role. I even go so far as thinking it is the only real one, with two conditions. First: if we become positive that the world

27 processes (environmental, economic, natural and legal) will not give us even a quarter of the time given by History earlier to Western European countries, America and some other nations for the creation of civil society. Second: if such a personality appears at all, either within or without the political elite. Unfortunately, we cannot see such a personality at present.

The trouble of Russia is not in the scarcity of competent freely thinking people (there are quite a number of them). The problem is that, according to Alexander Pushkin’s formula, “a genius and villainy” are incompatible. Competent and freely thinking people cannot be a part of the governing elite. The rulers do not listen to them, they reject them, because they “were not born yesterday” and they know what they are doing. And the saddest of all things is the fact that the situation cannot be improved by conventional means: there is no proper social structure, there is no domineering middle class of owners, capable of supporting the activists whose ideas correspond to the interests of the country.

According to the opinion of Prof. V. Lysenko, an effective limitation of power and authority of our bureaucracy is only possible from the outside, when Russia is politically subjected to a bigger community, extending its legal norms in such a way that the Russian powers will not be able to distort or change them. In other words, if the power cannot dispose of the sovereignty of the country to the good of her people, it must have courage to abandon it all, or part of it. This is where I see the historical role of the “educated head of the personalist regime”. The big mistake of Gorbachov, and to a larger extent of his partners in the West became the fact that they “satisfied” themselves with the democratization and the destruction of the USSR, but did not integrate the country into the Western structures, such as European Union, which act would have guaranteed the disappearance of autocratic governing methods.

28 C) The “lesser evil” concept

It is a very difficult issue; life is an omphalos of the Good together with the Evil. To me it is the main characteristic of any action or inaction: is it the Good, or the Evil? I do not know whether there is a similar maxim in any other country besides ours: “Why is he (she) harming me? What good have I done to him (her)?” In other words, do not do any good to anyone, then you will at least be secured against villainy towards you, especially from your debtor. Therefore, no help or no good act towards another person is lesser evil. Here is an upside-down mentality!

As far as a separate person, the character of his behaviour is determined by morality. If he is a villain and can do a good act only as an exception, accidentally, in passing, or at the moment of an epiphany of sorts, remembering for a second that he is a human being. An honest person can do a bad act only by mistake, i.e. as an exception. As far as political subjects, the criterion, to my mind, is the political essence of the author of the action, that is, whether it is democratic or antidemocratic.

A state, which is bureaucratic in its essence, can do something good for its people or in its external affairs only under the pressure of circumstances, or under the threat of losing something important for its ruling class, or if it is not disadvantageous for the State, but never because it is in love with its own unfortunate people, or with humankind in general. No way! It refers to an even greater extent to fascist, communo-fascist and other kinds of totalitarian states.

For example, the war between Iraq and Iran was a struggle of two reactionary regimes for the hegemony in the region. The genocide of the Kurdish people, waged by the totalitarian Iraq, an attempt to occupy Kuwait, the genocide of the Moslems in Kosovo and the Catholics of Croatia carried out by the com- muno-fascist regime of Serbia - it goes without saying that all of it were acts of aggression. The squalid communo-fascist regime of North Korea is reaching for nuclear arms for the purpose of swallowing the prosperous democratic South Korea. The totalitarian Syria kept occupational troops in Lebanon. The ruling regimes of Russia have always maintained friendship with those ag- gressors, and our values created by sweat and blood of the half-starved people were thrown away and went into the gluttonous bellies of those states. Thanks to our help they now have all possible weapons including those of mass de- struction.

29 The centuries-old history of Russia is that of a totalitarian country rightly called “a prison of nations” (the Russian people among them) and an “Empire of Evil”. Nations that gravitated to it, including those that did it willingly, but later on found themselves under the cruellest colonial yoke, used the geographical factor at the very first opportunity (instability in the USSR and favourable international situation) to fall away from Russia. A speedy escape was made by the blood brothers - the Slavonic nations, both the nearest nations that started the disintegration of the USSR, and the farthest ones. For example, the Chechens, locked inside Russia, were subjected to a new genocide at first attempt to free themselves. The ruling clique is raging because for over two centuries of genocide they have not been able to turn this proud-hearted nation into slaves of the same type as the rest of Russia’s population. During the process of partial restoration of the downtrodden rights of the Tatar people (native language, native schools, etc.) Moscow began drawing troops closer to the Republic, and from the tribune of the Federal “Parliament” threats sounded to bring the President of Tatarstan to Moscow in an iron cage (like Pugachov!). The Republic was piled with propagandist trash (tons of it were brought in lorries, etc.). «Nord-Ost», «Beslan», and many others continued the list of actions against people.

Is it not the evidence of the fact that terrorist number one on a national scale is the Russian state itself? It is not for Russia to proclaim itself a fighter against international terrorism, a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.

The tolerant and, as a matter of fact, incentive attitude of international democracy to the genocide of Chechen people carried out by Russia is a crime against mankind. The West proceeds from the notorious “theory of the lesser evil”, so to speak, for the sake of the extinction of the “greater evil” – the international terrorism. The Chechen people, too, became hostages of the concept, and that assuming that international terrorism exists at all. Is it not too much honour for Ben Laden to call him the “organiser of international terrorism”, whereas in fact he is the head of a pack of reactionaries, whose “religion” is gangsterism under the Islam guise, a religion they have nothing in common with?

The position of the former President of Poland Kvasnevski concerning the Russia-Ukraine tandem is justified: they will both do better without each other. It proceeds from the traditional experience of the attitude of Russia to its neighbours, as he explained answering the question of one of the reporters. There is not a single nation, which Russia has not offended in this or that way,

30 did not conquer or try to conquer. Considerable territories were seized by it, lands which were later left undeveloped. Russia will most likely have to return them to their legitimate owners sooner or later, and it would be good if it were done on Russia’s initiative so as to avoid shame. It is high time the Russian state tamed its ambitions and paid attention to its unfortunate people, their well-being and their future.

It is as clear as day: only a proper level of material well-being is the determining condition of the democratisation of the state. A conclusive evidence of that is the history of the nations that have freed themselves from the Russian yoke, for example, Finland, Poland, Ukraine and some others that have just escaped from Russian guardianship.

World experience shows that the attempts of democratisation in the countries with annual income not reaching $1600 per capita have failed for the last eight years. In the countries with $3000 per capita, the process stretched for 18 years. In the countries with the annual income exceeding $6000 per capita the danger of failure of democratic transformations is expressed in proportion of 1:500 (Internationale Politik).

The wretched Russian tradition owes its inception and continuation to state bureaucracy. Having absorbed the part of nobility which was more or less fit for service, as well as members of other strata of society, this class usurped power and did not admit any power separation. All the reforms imposed by bureaucracy led to the impoverishment of people. The peasant reform of 1861, which was supposed to start capitalist development in Russia, liberated the peasants in such a way that by the beginning of the 20th century they were dirt poor, and the society had no middle class of owners of the proper quantity and quality as subjects of development. Instead, it had revolts and confusion. The communist leaders’ taking power in 1917 was completed by a full robbery of the people. They were turned into proletarians of physical and mental labour without any property, devoid of any rights. Hired peasants, slaves of the state for all practical purposes, were forcibly attached to collective farms.

The material standing of the people did not change in spite of the “reforms” of the last twenty years. If anything it has deteriorated even further. Why? Today, under the non-Bolshevik leadership the situation is identical to the previous one with the Bolshevik government, when the “worst shortage was not that of sausage or refrigerators, but heads” (G.Popov). We are ruled by fools who are turning the country into a madhouse. They were not born fools, but they have

31 become them because of their unrighteous, illegitimate ascendant position, whose sole purpose is profit, profit and nothing more. The ruling class status is not natural for bureaucracy, because they are temporary rulers (the power is not hereditary). These words speak for themselves. The class, which is not an owner, has only one all-consuming passion, produced by the prehensile instinct, which is to grab while you can. The source of ownership in Rus is power. All Russia’s multi-millionaires became such in some 3–5 years of being in power or near it (“big and small families” of state thieves!).

To be “normal” Russia has always needed an enemy, preferably an enemy from without (for want of that, an enemy from within will do). Hence the new attempts to unleash a cold war upon the USA (as well as other democracies). It would mean being entangled in an arms race and opening an inexhaustible source of embezzlement of the state property, creating at the same time a background for unbridled jingoism. “We are ready for a battle, especially with the westerners”, declared Yeltsin at the meeting with the Chinese leader in Bishkek (August, 1999). In response to the statement by the US President that Russia would pay a heavy price for the war against the Chechen people, the very same Yeltsin said in Peking in December 1999 that Clinton had forgotten that “Russia possessed a full arsenal of nuclear weapons” (as if the USA had none!). And remember him flexing Russian muscle in Yugoslavia (our military in Yugoslavia marching to the airport). Today, when every fifth person in our country is officially below the poverty level and the majority of the others can hardly make ends meet, the state increases expenses on military and sport (professional sport, mind you!). The policy and practice of interference into internal affairs of neighbouring (post-Soviet) states is still going on. To say that such strategy is criminal is to say nothing. It is vicious and elementary wrong as it only leads to deterioration of relations with those nations. Common sense dictates that if the governing system in Russia does not radically change, the country will not be strong enough, both materially and intellectually, to attain parity with the highly developed states which guard international law today. The intellectual poverty is particularly dangerous yet very real as, on the one hand, the endless efforts of the state made brain drain a normal occurrence, and on the other, those intellectuals who stay, no longer believe in the messianic role of Russia. For working in the shady concerns of today, there are no Korolyovs, Tupolevs and Timofeyev-Resovskys and thousands of the like, who used to firmly believe in Communism (and Russia), but not in the fact that they had become the slaves of a misanthropic “socialist” state. Everything has its limits. The ruling regime can buy many things, but it can never buy Einsteins and Sakharovs. Such people can move mountains for an idea, but not for the

32 society of murderers and thieves who have robbed the people and drained the country dry. They have ruined the state and spat into the souls of those who created the nation’s culture, literature, art, science, technology, in other words, everything that allows the country to occupy its proper place in the world. A state, neglecting the intelligentsia in the age of inevitable intellectualisation, is doomed to extinction. To serve such country is both useless and criminal, for it only accepts such knowledge and culture that serve the purpose of its maintenance and exaltation, to the detriment of its own people and the rest of the world.

The world’s democracy is still trying to tame the Russian imperial beast by kindness (the carrot strategy). They invited Russia to the council of the Seven, turning Seven into Eight – the Assembly of the world’s leaders. Naturally, participation in it lays certain obligations on its members, and discrediting it by antidemocratic actions of one of the members cannot be tolerable. The West began to make subtle hints to the Russian leadership lately, concerning the inadmissibility of curbing democracy, reducing freedom of speech, oppression of business, the continuation of war in Chechnya, the assistance to some countries in the acquisition of nuclear weapons, etc. Our President showed a truly “Russian” attitude to democracy at the Russian-American summit in Bratislava on February 24, 2005. He said that Russia supported democracy in the panhuman meaning. But he also added that Russia had its own traditions and history, to which we must “adequately correspond”. He must have meant it in the sense of a hybrid of a hedgehog and a grass snake. As it is known, our traditions are not democratic, but totalitarian. If the enemies of the United States and those individuals who violate human rights are punished in that country, genocide of whole nations is encouraged in Russia. We rescue our own terrorists who killed the President of Ichkeria from Katar, where they were sentenced to for long terms of imprisonment; we transported them by special flights, allegedly for serving a term in our own country. But nobody has seen them in any Russian prison so far. So, our democratic values are not panhuman. We have our own totalitarian-authoritarian controlled understanding of “adequate”, i.e. “sovereign democracy”.

History is ironic sometimes. During World War II and especially after it, the goal of preservation of life on Earth was realised through a dialectical synthesis of incompatible subjects of history. It was a clear case of “historic irony”, in which blossomed the notorious concept of “the lesser evil”. World democracy, still largely imperialistic in its psychology, had encouraged German fascism by its policy of non-interference, considering it a ”lesser evil” against a “larger

33 evil”, i.e. the USSR as the vanguard of Communism. Communism tried to side with fascism, its alter ego, for the sake of redistribution of the world. Germany in revenge-seeking euphoria attacked the states of democracy and Communism. The “lesser evil” was thus transformed into a “larger evil”, and a “larger evil” (Russia) became a “lesser evil” with which a temporary agreement became possible. Such a metamorphosis prompted the world’s democracy and the totalitarian Soviet Union to make an alliance against the German-Italian coalition, which they finally defeated. One type of fascism took an active, if not a decisive, part in defeating the other type. But on its way to victory over its competitor it spread Communist over almost a third of mankind, and a threat of world Communism became obvious. The evil that had been the lesser was becoming the greater. World democracy had to take steps to stop the advance of Communism in the world. A “hot” war had already been tested against the newly born Communist state – Russia, but with no success, to say nothing of that fact that is would have been ethically unjustified to fight against your recent ally. (Had a war with the USA possessing an A-bomb and the USSR not having it actually taken place, tragic consequences would have been unavoidable for our country). So the West chose to compete with Russia in building the Paradise on Earth, the right to do which the Communism had claimed from the moment of its emergence. Of course, both sides had to keep their armed forces on a constant par with each other. That was the essence of the “cold war”. Naturally, the “real socialism” with inefficient economy and totalitarian system in all spheres, in spite of the all-out effort, could not win the competition with the states of prospering economy and democracy. It overstrained itself and croaked in a very short time. Thus we can see the irony of history at work, and it went on playing jokes on those who try to develop the predatory sides of capitalism, as well as those who try from time to time to test the utopia of socialism. Among them are the communists in a number of communist parties of Russia. If they were true followers of Lenin, they would base their views on his latest works (because Lenin before October 1917 and Lenin after it were two different things. Lenin changed his views greatly after the policy of military communism). They could increase considerably their electorate and turn the country into a democracy on the basis of Lenin’s idea of “people’s capitalism”. But unfortunately, they do not need a living Lenin, for they have clutched at the mummy in the same way as the Evil One clutches at a sinful soul. They need a living Stalin with “real socialism”.

Hopefully, this time History will do without sarcasm. But who knows? There are a lot of “lesser evils”, and there are many “greater evils”… The world is arranged so badly that it still compels us to choose the lesser of two evils,

34 which, if unsuppressed, inevitably becomes great with time. Russia seems to be about to face it yet again… in accordance with the laws of dialectics.

Ladies and gentlemen! Dear democrats of the West! Russians have a proverb: “Let a swine sit down AT the table, and it will put its feet ON the table”. So, “we have stumbled against what we fought for” (another Russian proverb). There is a danger of your having to change from the “carrot” to the “stick” methods. You can start by using the practice common among honest people: not to shake hands with dishonest people. The sooner you start this practice, the less harmful it will be for all the others. Now is not the time for the carrot…

Remember your unforgettable teacher. Sir Winston Churchill experienced the transformation of a “lesser evil” into a “greater evil” twice. The first time was when he supported the policy of non-interference in the aggressive actions of Germany, considering it a lesser evil, with the purpose of directing it against a greater evil – the USSR. The second time was supporting the USSR as the lesser evil against the greater evil – Germany. Each time he did it, a big MONSTER was created out of the lesser evil. His third experience in eliminating the greater evil in the name of the USSR began with the cold war, during which the mistake of the second experience, which had led to the strengthening of the USSR, was corrected. As it was impossible to remove the other claimants for the role of a greater evil from the international scene during the cold war, when the main efforts were pointed against the Soviet Union, a great burden lay on the United States. The task was to suppress those claimants, and the most important part of the solution was the war against the communo-fascist Yugoslavia and the totalitarian-racist Iraq. It is erroneous to play at giveaway with the ruling regime of Russia; the defeat of the Soviet Communism in the cold war does not mean the defeat of the dangerous Russian messianism. The essence of power in Russia did not change during perestroika and the “reforms” of the 90s: the State remained as bureaucratic as it had been. It is only the plans of bureaucracy that have changed. The present clan consists mostly of ex-KGB security men, (or CheKa, as KGB was called after the revolution of 1917). It has served communism, if not in good faith and fidelity, then always by vow, exterminating all those who simply expressed their doubts in the idea. They annihilated not even those who were ready to fight against Communism (beginning from the 30s there were practically no such people in the USSR). The members of this clan, by word and by deed are openly missing Stalin, and they have already restored something from his practice. Those people are all tied together in one knot and their hands are dripping with blood of the people they killed. The main

35 principle of their action is vendetta. So, this clan of bureaucracy is dangerous both to Russia and to the whole world. The third experience of the world’s democracy in suppression of evil (no matter what form it took) has not been completed. It is still going on. It is too early to sum up the results of the cold war. As it enters its conclusive stage, it is very important not to repeat the mistakes of the past made by the world’s democracy before World War II. Is it not time to stop all these games with the Evil? You can’t look for an ally again under the guise of a lesser evil as it will inevitably turn into a greater evil in future with the same tragic, or even more tragic consequences! Allow the evil to triumph, and the same vicious circle will be repeated.

The experience of Churchill is so significant that I want to dwell on it. It is necessary, too, as from the Soviet days his name has always been mentioned in an automatically negative context, and there have been attempts to insult his memory from the ethical point of view. Such things happen to many people – even to those whose morality is above any suspicion.

An honest and factually rich book by A.N. Osokin was published recently. Its title is “The Great Mystery of the Great Patriotic War”. It is written masterfully, with plenty of facts subjected to clear logical analysis. The author completely discredits the official view about the defeat of our troops at the beginning of the war because of the suddenness of the German attack. I must say that it is true, the beginning of the war was sudden. But for whom? Only for the “colleague” of Hitler, Stalin, who deliberately paralysed all attempts of the military to organise resistance. He did it because he believed Hitler, not the facts. But Hitler just cheated him, took him in, played him for a simpleton, the simplest and the most primitive one in the world. I am somehow embarrassed though at the negative estimation given to Churchill by Osokin for outwitting Hitler and making the USSR suffer great losses. Osokin writes that all three leaders of the warring countries bear personal responsibility for the terrible losses of the USSR: the greatest responsibility lies with Hitler; then comes the ruthless dictator Stalin, and, finally the artful politico (Osokin’s term, boldface mine) Churchill, who won that terrible high-stakes game for England, but who could not keep his white gloves clean.

Let us turn to the facts, abundant in Osokin’s book, according to which Hitler and Stalin agreed in 1940 about joint air delivery of troops to Britain. The author quotes the letter of Hitler to Stalin of May 14, 1941. It read that there would be no peace in Europe without the full destruction of England as a state. As far as the concentration of German troops at the Russian border, he asked

36 Stalin not to respond to acts of provocation, if they took place, but to report such incidents using the secure communication channel. Churchill knew about it. Moreover, on February 20-27, 1942 when the cruellest fighting was going on, in the town of Mtsensk, occupied by the Germans, a meeting of Soviet and German high-ranking intelligence officers took place by order of Stalin regarding immediate armistice. For this meeting Stalin personally drafted the Soviet proposals. In particular, he wrote that after redeployment by the end of 1943, the Armed Forces of the USSR would be prepared to begin joint operations with German Armed Forces against England and the USA.

So, the two great totalitarian powers, which did not know any restraint of moral quality, were preparing for a decisive battle against the great democracies. Churchill was well informed about it by both the Secret Service and his own logic. Naturally, the best way out of this pre-catastrophic state for England was to create a discord in the relations of those two claimants for world supremacy (one through fascism, the other through communism). Having kidnapped Hitler’s closest brother-in-arms Rudolf Hess, he used him as a head figure for a fictitious agreement with Hitler on a joint warfare against the USSR. He pitted the two world bandits against each other. So, what was so bad about it, especially for us Russians?

It is not difficult to understand Englishmen, who follow the English Gentleman’s Code. So, Attlee (the assistant of Churchill, Labour Party leader) when explaining the reason why Churchill was not elected to Parliament before the end of the war, said that Churchill had violated the Gentleman’s Code twice. The first time was when he started negotiations with Hitler, in spite of his earlier statements that he would never negotiate with a criminal regime. The second time was June 22, 1941, when he did not fulfil the promise given earlier to Hitler to fight with him against the USSR. Osokin calls the business of kidnapping and using Hess indecorous. Well, first of all, Churchill’s actions just confirm the old “never say never” adage because life is much more complicated than our promises. Sometimes it places us in situations in which it is unwise or stupid to stick to old opinions, expressed earlier under different conditions or in hot blood. Secondly, we are talking about the relations with a criminal of global scale, who aimed at converting mankind to fascism, subjecting it to artificial selection. To swindle a swindler is not sinful. Churchill did it beautifully with the help of Hess in the context of the “lesser evil” philosophy. Yes, generally speaking, deception is wicked. “Honesty is the best policy”, said one of the famous people. Not today, though. The time will come when the world will be

37 better. Meanwhile, we sometimes have to resort to lies as the lesser evil to avoid the greater evil. C’est la vie!

It is natural that Churchill, being the leader of England, cared above all for his own country. And it was he who saved both England and democracy. In Hitler’s opinion he was a liar (again, the pot calling the kettle black). For mankind he is “cunningly clever, cleverly cunning” (as Suvorov defined Kutuzov). Speaking about the merits of that titan of thought before mankind, I would like to point out that by his policy and work he demonstrated to the world the tragic consequences of following the “lesser evil” concept. He showed that the lesser evil becomes great afterwards and compels to seek the means of overcoming it, among which a new “lesser evil” inevitably appears. It can go on like this forever, if we do not manage to improve the order of things in the world, bringing it nearer to perfection! Of course, the nations of the fascist and communo-fascist countries and their neighbours suffered, too: it was impossible to avoid those sacrifices, and it was the same “lesser evil” compared to what could have happened in case fascism or Communism won. Let us for a moment imagine mankind beneath the feet of one of them: the rivers are red with the blood of the non-Arians (or “enemies of the people”). It would be beyond appalling! Mankind was under the threat of extermination by the two main kinds of fascism: the Nazi and the communist, one worse than the other. However, there is some difference between them. German fascism raised its weapons above all against other nations, yet trying to save its own. The Stalin fascism killed Russians, guided by the “beat your own so that the others are afraid!” principle, exterminating no less than one hundred million innocent people.

The author also speaks negatively about Churchill's famous Fulton speech. In Osokin’s opinion, Churchill only mentioned the “iron curtain” and “dictatorship” in the USSR (but is it not sufficient?! – A.B.), but there was not a single other fact or statement that encouraged such a hard opposition unless you admit that the publishers took out some part of the text where the real cause of England’s alliance with the USSR in the war was explained as an alternative to the developing alliance of Germany and the USSR, which was very dangerous to England. To suspect Churchill of simply wanting revenge is out of place. Churchill is too great a personality: he was concerned about the destiny of mankind. In his address to the people in connection with the German attack on Russia he mentioned some indecorous actions of the Russian leadership who rendered all kinds of assistance to Germany. He commented upon Russia supplying Germany with food and valuable raw materials, he

38 talked about the complacency with which the USSR observed the collapse of the front in France in 1940 and the unsuccessful attempts to build up a front in the Balkans. And still, Churchill went on to say that the West had not allowed these sad and shameful facts to influence its way of thinking, that the Allies tried to see only the human sacrifices of the Russian people that they had to make as a result of calamities incurred on them by their Government, and their unparalleled struggle for their native land. This compensated for everything while the war was going on. Osokin gives an excellent comment: “Churchill the politician (not “politico”, as the author put it before – A.B.) was able not only to separate the responsibility of the Russian people, primarily for the friendship with the fascist Germany, from the responsibility of their ruthless and unprincipled leader, but he was also able to understand that the Russians were victims, not enemies”.

Thus clashed the two giants. One had a great intellect and a noble aim of affirming democracy, not willing to admit the triumph of fascism of either kinds. The other possessed fifth columns (Communist Parties) in many countries, commanded one third of mankind and a victorious army with the aim of enslaving the world. Churchill could not say openly about the aims of the cold war, because nobody would have understood him at the time, as the English did not understand (did not accept!) the motives of his behaviour in his relations with the leadership of the Nazi Germany.

After the victory over the fascism of Hitler, mankind faced the danger of communo-fascism, which had strengthened itself extraordinarily due to the union with the world’s democracy. The author himself writes that Churchill had to play the card of anti-communism again. This is probably what does not suit Osokin, well, to each his own. Some like communism, others like democracy. Before the war Stalin himself was saying that in time of peace it is impossible to have a Communist movement in Europe strong enough for the Bolshevik party to seize power. The dictatorship of this party becomes possible only as a result of a big war, therefore, observing neutrality and biding time, the USSR would render assistance to Germany, supplying it with raw materials and food. Osokin went on to add that it was in the interests of the USSR that a war should break out between the Reich and the capitalist Anglo-French alliance and that it was necessary to do everything to make that war as long as possible in order to exhaust both sides.

We cannot agree with the author here. His position can be explained by the marvellous phenomenon peculiar to Russians and quite alien to other nations.

39 This strange phenomenon can be illustrated by a line from a verse: “I only wish my country to be alive”. You can understand people’s aspiration to defeat the enemy that has attacked the country, say, in the patriotic wars in the time of serfdom. But during the war of 1941-1945 the generals, the intelligentsia that had escaped or had been expelled from Russia wished by word and by deed the victory over Nazi Germany. But the fact that in Russia millions of people died of starvation and diseases, that it was a country where a cannibal State had shot the best people from opposing camps and starved to death the elite of the nation – the would-be subjects of development, namely Russian and Ukrainian peasants, thus depleting the gene pool, – all that was not important to the patriots. Whatever state Russia is in, no matter who it fights with, Russia must win! That’s all! Such is the philosophy and the psychology of the Russian people, democrats, and the author (no offence, Mr. Osokin, I beg pardon). I have thought much about it: why do Russians love their country so, the country which has never in its history given its people happiness? I am well aware that I may get reproached by my Russian friends who respect me. And nevertheless, I will say: is it not the same as the excessive love of parents for their sick child, on whom they have spent so much strength and resources? Russia is a country of hardships, and all the amenities necessary for life are earned by hard labour, and the people of Russia, ill, mangled by hard work and wars, value everything which is obtained by hard work. Is it not the great truth?

So, Alexander Nikolayevich, your negative estimation of Churchill is, at the very least, not very well reasoned. And it is basically Communist in its essence, following the Soviet-made cliché, stamping people’s mentality with an anti- West orientation. That orientation was produced by the envy of the Western rulers, who have managed to achieve welfare and progress in all and everything for their nations.

In a badly arranged world justice can too be wished for, but only as something abstract and unreal (or with a sort of irony, the way the twofaced unjust leaders of the Just Russia Party speak). As we can't make justice triumph, the Evil runs ever rampant, and people have to choose the lesser evil in order to avoid the greater one. The situation is wicked but unavoidable. This is the essence of the problem at the moment. In ideal future mankind will rid itself of such a nasty thing as the inevitability of choice between a lesser and a greater evil, and the need to support a lesser evil will disappear. So, right now the question of everyday life is: why do villains win, and honest people lose? Because the former use effective dishonest means of struggle against the latter and they have no limits and no taboos, and honest people can only use the means allowed by

40 their morality (and law) that are inefficient when applied to villains. Hence the moral: against villains use their own methods of struggle, because desperate times call for desperate measures!

D) A Messiah?

Let me repeat: our anti-western orientation is produced, on the whole, by envy and the notorious Russian “greatness”. It is based on the thesis of Russia being the third Rome, and that there won't be the fourth. Not a single European power, least of all the US, can be Great, God forbid, because this place is taken. It is the idea of “Greatness” that strokes the vanity of the rulers and gives to ordinary people nothing but trouble. This very «Greatness» gave birth to a phenomenon, which is surprising not only to Europeans, but also to us (it was mentioned in the preceding section, but in a different context). It is the phenomenon of the Russian patriotism, the mysterious love of the people for their Motherland. This love can to some measure be explained by the fact that in the time of feudalism, when Russia was not united, and the formation of the Russian State was delayed, the Russians were subjected to many attempts of colonisation from all parts – east, west, south and north-west. One of the attempts (the Tartar one) was successful. The colonisation continued for over two centuries. It was bound to strengthen the sense of patriotism even in serfs (later on – in collective farmers, which were semi-serfs), who succeeded in defending the independence of their Motherland at least four times: from Tartars, the Polish, the French and the Germans.

It is from the idea of “Greatness” that the “messianic ideology” arises. Leaping ahead, I will say that Russian messianism, however strange it may seem to someone, can be put into practice.

Using Solzhenitsyn’s words, said in a different situation, but quite relevant in this context, I will say that the idea of THE THIRD ROME, which is rooted in the Russian soul, did not come from nothing, although it was expressed by an “unwashed monk”, as Alexander Isaevich calls Filofey.

Four centuries later it grew into the idea of THE THIRD INTERNATIONAL, created for the sake of the world revolution and the world Communism, penned by Marx and picked up by Lenin, but not only by Lenin (it is not nice to put all the blame on Lenin, he has quite a sufficient number of sins of his own!).

41 I think that the Russian soul is arranged by nature in such a way that a Russian person, although he himself has trouble upon trouble, is worried about other people, and not infrequently about those who do not suffer at all. In Bulgakov’s “The Heart of a Dog” there was an episode when a woman dressed as a man tried to sell Prof. Preobrazhenskiy some magazines to help distressed German children, whereas millions of homeless children in Russia were starving. The Russian soul is ready to give the life of its owner for a song, not even necessarily fighting on the side of the Good (the Afghan war, the Chechen war. And many lives were given in defense of African, Latin American and other God knows what other socialisms!).

I had an idea, too, in this connection, just after reading a statement by O. Morozov, one of the leaders of the United Russia Party and accordingly, of State Duma, and my countryman into the bargain. He said, that “from now on Russia refuses to make bombs and missiles for God knows whom, and help anyone at the expense of its own pauperised people. The time has come for the government to think of the people, solve their problems and improve their life”. Yes, it must be exactly so! Most likely, the high-ranking official said it as a witticism though. United Russia, trying to become a worthy successor of the CPSU, only without its long experience of cheating the masses, is generous with promises, because it makes it easier to rob the people. But in itself the idea is good, and someone may want to put it into practice…

It may so happen that Russia can solve the problem Morozov is talking about by using a method, which is principally different from the historical way of other nations that have achieved welfare having passed during 200–300 years from the periods of original accumulation of capital and state monopolist (predatory) capitalism to modern democratic capitalism. Russia could show the world the way of development, not in the Third Rome/Third International sense, but in the sense of welfare for all mankind. We are going through the time when mankind, in fact, is already facing a catastrophe in all aspects of historical existence: social, international, inter-state, in issues of energy and ecology. We are walking on a tight rope over a precipice.

Up to this day, Russia has been constantly giving the world lessons of how people should not live. This can actually be considered an objectively Messianic service to mankind. The great merit of the “real socialism” of the Soviet Union is the fact that it stimulated the creation of prospering, almost “socialist” states in the West. But it was not the matter of taking something good from Soviet socialism, just the opposite, it was developing nations in direct opposite to what was going on in the

42 “socialist” camp (GULAG). Every Russian cloud, so to speak, has a silver lining in the West. Having incredibly strengthened in a military and political way as a result of World War II, the socialism compelled the democratically minded governing elite of the non-Communist world to give up everything in their policy that could breed supporters of socialism and fighters for its victory. In economics the democracies restricted monopolies and distributed ownership among the people, strengthened the social basis of the civil society, increased the ranks of the middle class, and expanded democratic principles in politics. If it had not been for Communism gathering momentum, the West would have been bogged down in the monopolist stage of existence, which could have had but one tendency – the next re-division of the world.

At the same time Russia has always dreamed of serving mankind by doing Good, by positive moral effort. And it can accomplish this dream today. The way of “predator capitalism” that has unfortunately been chosen by Chubais- Gaidar, was traveled by other countries long ago. Therefore, refusing to go down that disastrous way, we would be able to start building “people’s capitalism”. Full steam ahead, comrades-gentlemen! My theory will be glad to serve you!

I am sure that the other nations will turn their face towards us. Maybe with time they will even make use of our experience in something. No doubt about it!

And then Russia, exclaiming, “ACCOMPLISHED!” will bask in the triumph of its age-old messianic ideology of making mankind happy.

43 Chapter 2. Why communism? Why Russia?

A) Pseudo-science

G. Vodolazov, the author of the fundamental “Ideals and Idols”, writes that Stalinism was not entirely “on the other side of Marxism”, it grew out of its limitations, errors, and wrong moves. So the task is to “investigate” if there is something in Marx’s theory that under certain conditions can turn into Stalinism. The microbes of Stalinism are present in Marx’s and all the more so, in Lenin’s teaching. The question, I think, is wrongly put. It is “possible” to make anything out of a wrong theory, and this anything is sure to be a wrong thing, too. Stalinism is a semiliterate Marxism – the pre-NEP Leninism, which is non-scientific on top of all.

The most difficult and most essential thing for understanding the whole process of Russian development in the 20th century, the author continues, is the birth of Stalinism from the Marxist project. It is an unprecedented social structure. The most important thing is to understand the moment of birth of the new social quality (never predicted and not even guessed at in the classic project). In the first place, any project may have and as a rule has, a logical consequence unforeseen by the author and therefore objective. (The logic of action is

44 stronger than the logic of conception. Were it not so, we would not know what a mistake is!). Secondly, it was Bakunin who predicted the anti-popular essence of the State created by Communists (for details see below). Third, I will remind you about the modern understanding of Communism as the alter ego of fascism, which in opposition to “international communism” called itself “national socialism”. It is noteworthy that the latter name attracted supporters from among intellectuals and people of creative professions. There is no reason to assert that fascism in either of its main forms is a new social structure. The first form is the utter degree of the imperialist stage of capitalism, the second – a pathological reaction of the leftist totalitarians of the revolutionary movement to imperialism, who attempted to turn the civilised development of mankind from the natural capitalist way to an artificial “socialist” one. Stalinism is not a new state structure either, it is a “communist” continuation of the bureaucratic pattern of existence of the Russian State. Such pattern means absorption of the society by the State, in which the officials belong to a dominant class and the people are regarded as disposable trash.

Bureaucracy as a system of State control of the people comes to life under one of the two conditions: 1) in economies dominated by monopolist capital; 2) in an absolutist, totalitarian, capitalist-feudal state, called “socialist” by its mas- ters, in which the people are deprived of any profit-giving ownership; the only type of ownership being State ownership, called insincerely “public property”. Stalinism (communo-fascism) represents this latter form. Consequently, to as- sert that Stalinism grows out of the drawbacks of Marxism is the same as to say, for example, that the cholera grows from the bottlenecks of public health service, from its mistakes, whereas in fact the disease is the effect of the cholera vibrio, which the public health services could not defeat. Marxism as a teaching was supposed to mobilize the masses for building a new society suit- able for working people. When Marxism won, it could not do it; moreover, it encouraged the development of an ordinary bureaucratic, absolutely totalitarian state by its postulates and the false idea of “the people’s power”. Let us not for- get the main provision of Marxism: its idea of the hegemony of proletariat con- tains the radical fallacy of the teaching.

The essence of the mistake that ended in Stalinism. It is known that the capitalist way of production in the initial stage of its development was formed by absorption of petty proprietors (direct manufacturers), by more powerful capitalists. It was carried out by centralisation of capitals. Constant reduction in the number of magnates of capital, (as Marx and Engels wrote) who usurp and monopolise all the advantages of this transformational process, enhances

45 poverty, oppression, slavery, degradation and exploitation, and with them grows the indignation of the working class. The monopoly of the capital becomes shackles for the way of production that has grown with it. The centralisation of the means of production and socialisation of labour reach the point when they become incompatible with their capitalist cover. Then the hour strikes for capitalist private property. Expropriators are expropriated.

Marxism has traced the process of expropriation of direct manufacturers, petty proprietors by larger ones. Also, according to Marxism, the same was supposed to happen to gross proprietors. Meanwhile, the conditions for the negation of negation in both cases are not identical at all, in particular, in the degree of the development of democracy. It was tiny in the period of transition from feudalism to capitalism; the civil society was at the initial stage of formation. As far as the monopolist stage, the society was already formed, there was a powerful labour movement, and liberalism was gathering momentum within the dominating class and intelligentsia, etc. As a result, the State that had played the role of the defender of the capitalist class was increasingly becoming the defender of the people, the regulator of life in general, and not only that of capitalists.

It is extremely important to understand what is to be the subject of negation in the process of development. According to Engels, to negate in dialectics does not mean just to say “no”, or to declare a thing non-existent, or to destroy it by any means. A thing or phenomenon can be negated only when there is a possibility to cancel that negation. Consequently, the first negation should be done in such a way, that the possibility of the second negation remained or became possible. Such a negation involves development. Development can only take place when the subject of development inherits something essential from its preceding stage, and digests it. How remarkably wise were the words of Ortega y Gasset, when he said that it is impossible to struggle with the past by just destroying it. There is only one method of overcoming it - by swallowing. A revolution that will not do so shall be a failure.

Only the form of existence of a given thing (phenomenon) can be subjected to negation. It is clearly exemplified by nature (seed – stalk – seed). It is not as clear in history. Marx and Engels assert that a slave liberates himself by destroying only the slave-owning relations and only then does he become a proletarian; serfs, freeing themselves from serfdom, were able to join the class of owners because feudal relations of production enabled them to accumulate property, and the runaway serfs were half-bourgeois. But within his class a

46 proletarian has no chance of reaching conditions giving him a passage to another class. According to Marxism, which in this case contradicts its own earlier statements, they can only liberate themselves by abolishing private ownership in general. If a slave and a serf liberate themselves, casting off their previous form of existence, personal dependence, becoming partially free or completely independent, then why a proletarian, being a slave, too, (a hired slave, though) has to liberate himself from dependence not by abolishing the capitalist form of exploitation, but by abolishing private ownership in general? What is the logic of that? In fact, private ownership is not a form, but a condition (basis) of existence of society in general, not only of proletariat alone. It is the possession of private property by any social group that conditions its freedom and domination over the other groups that are devoid of private property. The anomaly of man’s social existence probably consists in the fact that his freedom is a subsidiary phenomenon, derived from the condition of ownership: if it is free, people are free; if it is not free, i.e. it is in the hands of a monopoly (no matter whether capitalist or “state – socialist”), then people are not free.

It appears that Marx’s mistake originates in the fact that the formation of capitalism took place at the time when the development of productive forces demanded a large-scale industry with the transformation of instruments of labour into those which allowed only collective use, thus economising the means of production of joint social labour. Marx made a conclusion that the centralisation of the means of production and socialisation of labour reach a point where they become incompatible with their capitalist superstructure. Marx considered the development of stock capital to be the sign of eventual disappearance of private ownership. Thus, “private property” is regarded only as individual, non-united with the property of other people. Why cannot wealth of all kinds, including national wealth, consist of private property of many people? Why must socialisation of labour inevitably lead to abolition of private ownership and turning private property into public, i.e. nobody’s property? The cause of mistake seems to be in the overestimation of the significance of the human factor, the fatal belief in “the dictatorship of the proletariat” as the humane and highly moral state power.

The modern experience of capitalist development in highly civilised countries shows that it is not the development of productive forces that gives rise to private ownership and consequently abolishes it, as Marx and his followers thought. The problem is not in private ownership itself, but in its monopolistic form, in its natural “aspiration” to monopolisation through private interest, the

47 boundless greediness of its master. Marxism believed that this tendency of private ownership could be suppressed by its abolishment, by throwing the baby out with the water, so to speak. It would be an easy solution, and easy solutions do not exist. As for a difficult solution, it consists in a taboo to monopolise property both in capitalist and in socialist formations under the general private ownership of the State. And socialism is not the necessary result of the development of productive forces in modern society, as Lenin wrote. Like any other social-economic structure it (if it is to be viable at all) will be the result of the development of relations of ownership, as observed nowadays in a number of highly developed countries. In those countries much has been achieved what socialists were dreaming of (for which reason some people wrongly call such countries “socialist”).

The Marxist principle of absolute human emancipation was reduced to liberation of all people from property, which resulted in their enslavement.

Why didn’t state ownership (collective, “public” property, according to Leninism) become the basis of freedom and well-being of the working people? I shall limit myself to pointing out the principal impossibility of basing human happiness and well-being on the so-called “collective” ownership. An individual, embodying the whole world with all its contradictions, is a microcosm incompatible with anybody in particular, or with any group of people, and even with himself: the person is not equal to himself, he is not final; continuing to live, he constantly chooses himself anew. Therefore, any human being is alone. He is absolutely unable to merge into his environment because his existence is not limited by his social life. His own individual life dominates. On the basis of this, it is impossible to subdue the interests of a person to society. Having subdued yourself today, you will soon find yourself in a conflict with society, because your interests are always developing. The primacy of society leads to slavery. The beginning and the end of the harmonious state of a person are in the person itself, in his continuation, i.e. his family. The well-being of man may be based on material values, belonging to him personally, on his inalienable private property. If he has none, he has to ask for it in this or that form, from another person or from society, thus becoming dependent, which rules out any possibility of happiness. Hence, where a person is given primacy, where he/she can develop on the basis of his/her material base, the society prospers. And vice versa, where the society (the social group, the state) is of higher priority, there is stagnation, depravity and degradation. Because in the first case, it is the free citizens that determine

48 the life principles of a free society, in the second – the State mistreats the constrained people, turning them into speaking animals.

The quality of a society is determined by the quality of the people composing it, social progress is connected with the development of the personality, and consequently ensues from its tasks.

The historical process of a working man’s liberation is a process of removal of human self-alienation: 1) self-alienation of a person from himself (slavery, serfdom or wage slavery) and 2) self-alienation from ownership. There is no other way of liberating man from the state of a hireling.

It is absolutely impossible to agree with the Marxist assertion that private ownership entails self-alienation, and that its abolishment is a real resolution of the conflict between man and nature, man and man. The puzzle of the history of class societies consisting in the inevitability of the society’s splitting into antagonist classes with the subsequent negation of each successive domineering class, is resolved in a socially equitable society of owners, which combines all kinds of ownership including public one, but in majority consists of different individualised forms. If Marxism has been successful in something concerning the matter in hand (alongside with utopian socialism), it is in foreseeing the future of mankind as classless, devoid of any social antagonism between man and man, man and nature. To these assertions we shall add the idea of Engels that the proletarian state should preserve its ownership of the means of production only for the initial period. The question now arises, who is this right to be transferred to? It was presumed that the proletarian revolution annihilated the economic basis of the existence of classes by socialisation of the economy, i.e. by placing it at the disposal of the state machinery, consisting of ex-workers. According to Marx, the proletarian background of the state officials was supposed to guarantee them from transformation into an exploitative class. Bakunin objected, saying that it would be impossible for the dictatorship of the proletariat to be implemented by workers because coming to power they cease to be workers. To which Marx replied saying that an industrialist did not cease to be a capitalist when becoming member of a municipal council. The analogy is beyond understanding. Indeed, the radical, essential and determining quality of any capitalist is his property, whereas the determining characteristic of a proletarian is his lack thereof, which compels him to be a hireling of an owner. In a bourgeois state, which is not the owner of the national wealth, neither a capitalist nor a worker change their status when they become members of municipal council. When a worker becomes a state

49 official, his status changes in principle. He turns into a property manager, becoming a member of the “new class” of executive dictators, who are nowadays successfully forming, due to the grab-privatisation of the state property, a class of real owners. A common possession of property (without individualisation) – that is the root of the mistakes of Marxism.

Property does not allow depersonalised ownership. It can stay in this condition for some time, and then it is inevitably privatised by those who control it.

The insight of Marx was seemingly confirmed by the Revolution of 1917. At least, by its first results, when “the hour of capitalist ownership struck”. But the revolution took place not because capitalism was overripe and intertwined with remnants of feudalism, but because the unsuccessful imperialist war and the pauperisation of people ultimately sharpened all social contradictions, and tension reached its revolutionary climax. The victory of the Revolution immediately yielded some democratic fruit, but in the summer of 1918 it grew into a counter-revolution as far as the democratic gains of its own initial stage. The idea of proletarian dictatorship did not take shape – it was only used as a fig leaf for His Hideousness – the bureaucratic Bolshevik State.

Marxism that claims the status of the only consistently dialectic world outlook, shows surprising dogmatism, above all, in forgetting the principle of historicism in the cognition of social development, which has affected detrimentally the designation of the place and role of proletariat in historical perspective.

“The historical mission of the proletariat” in the transformation of capitalist society into a communist one was explained in the following way. Proletariat as the most exploited class, is easily imbued with class hatred toward bourgeoisie, which constantly extends the ranks of proletariat, its future executioners. They concentrate in large masses in the towns - industrial centres. Each proletarian acquires a strong feeling of fellowship (collectivism) because of the unity of life’s interests; he is more literate compared to other groups of people of physical labour, because he has to deal with equipment and complex technologies. That is why it is comparatively easy to plant socialist ideas in their minds and organise them for struggle against capitalism. It goes without saying that these qualities of the proletariat are invaluable for overthrowing the hateful state power. But are they sufficient to build of a new society, based on a different economy and culture, where everything is

50 supposed to become the property of the masses? The events of the “socialist camp” have proved that they are by no means sufficient.

The rise and formation of the proletariat as a social class is one of the transitional, but inevitably immoral (in view of the imperfection of human nature and society) stages of transition of man from absolute slavery (the state of speaking animal) to a relatively free position. A proletarian is a subject who is personally free. Unfortunately, he is free not only from personal dependence, but also from ownership and therefore has to sell himself (officially, his labour!) to the owner of the means of production, thus becoming, according to the correct Marxist definition, a wage slave. The next natural and historical stage of liberation was supposed to be the liberation from wage slavery. A proletarian is only nominally hired, he is enslaved because he cannot help being hired, for he has to earn his living. Marxism presumed that a proletarian was a potential socialist by his social status. From its very conception, Marxism set a task of bringing up proletariat as a liberator of the whole society from the yoke of exploiters. But the presumption turned out to be wrong. Proletariat is not socialist by its nature. The ideas of socialism are brought into its conscience from without by educated representatives of capitalist classes who are keen on the idea of social justice. Not being innate, such ideas take roots in proletariat as long as proletariat grows poorer, and live only in the poor part of it. As the well-being grows, socialist ideas are rejected as an alien body.

Proletarians had no idea of how to organise economy. They were uneducated. The intellectual forces that headed them in the revolution were not enough to govern the whole country. Some people were promoted from proletariat to occupy leading positions, making state management incompetent. Or worse than that: quite often, a militantly illiterate boor would come to power, whose absolute incompetence compelled him to govern using the only method available for him – command (dictatorship) and ochlocratic methods. Engaging bourgeois specialists for governing in the national economy and even in the State did not help. Not because there were no volunteers to help the Soviets, but because the proletarians’ attitude to them was unfriendly and suspicious. Unlike, for example, the bourgeoisie which, coming to power in the West, had to attract highly educated representatives of the overthrown aristocracy to work in the military and diplomacy, for a good pay, and establishing proper relations with them, because the bourgeoisie had no specialists of its own. The bourgeoisie, being more or less educated and cultured, valued the knowledge of competent people, understanding that its wealth could only grow thanks to the growth of the culture in general and the

51 scientific knowledge in particular. The uncultured, uneducated proletariat did not feel any need for knowledge and culture, thus despising knowledgeable and cultured people, giving them foul nicknames. In the first place, because they were “gloved and bespectacled”, “egg-headed”, like “former masters”. Second, the proletarian leaders in power instilled into the conscience of proletarians of all kinds and ages political nonsense, sometimes blatant absurdity. For example, they told them about proletarians being “hegemons”, and that all the others were led by them, and that Communist Party officials and other deputies were “servants of the people”, etc. (Today, the policy pursued by the regime towards science, culture and intelligentsia does not depend directly on proletarians, and the ruling circles rightly calculate that proletarians will not, and the yellow-bellied intelligentsia cannot oppose them).

It goes without saying that the degree of culture of the dominant class is of great importance. But this quality depends on the level of well-being and understanding the necessity of taking care of culture and increasing it. Although the very bourgeoisie that succeeded the feudal lords was not as highly educated and cultured as its predecessor (aristocracy), it understood the inevitability of mastering culture and had all the necessary conditions for it. The bourgeoisie had a possibility to invite specialists from the former dominant class (who continued to be owners) for different kinds of state-related and other activities requiring the level of culture that the bourgeoisie did not have. But what people could the proletariat, or rather, the bureaucracy representing it, attract? Not many: they were mainly the people who were frightened to death by the revolution, people who found themselves in distress because they lost everything. All those are not very good stimuli for creativeness! Proletariat had nothing essential to compensate for the services of the specialists. It apparently had no special desire to do it, either. The rulers built their relations with the classes that found themselves under their dictatorship, in a plebeian way, and naturally, in direct contradiction with the principal dialectical law of negation of negation. They neglected the inalterability of the principal of succession in the development of everything under the sun. Firstly, aristocrats of spirit, which had been formed by many generations were either exterminated in Stalin’s repressions, and we are talking about not just the pre-Revolutionary aristocrats, but also the new ones, that grew up as singular rarities after the Revolution, or emigrated and are emigrating still. As a matter of fact, they are never many: nature and History (society) are not kind to them, and were especially violent under Communist dictatorship. As a result, the power ends up in the hands of incompetent people. They are still there, and just as incompetent. Secondly, the recruitment of intellectuals by proletariat from

52 other strata of society, even producing intellectuals from its own ranks, does not lead to the dissolving of intellectuals as class because of the great difference in thinking and interests. And thirdly, the culture is neither the only nor the main cause for such a situation. In order to become cultured and to be able to govern the society, a high degree of motivation should be present, which would not allow others to claim power, or allow the accomplices to act according to the principle “I do what I want to do”, as is common in the activities of our bureaucracy. Such a motivation can only be formed by those who have a purpose, something to govern and to develop. Absence of ownership does not form this motivation. The dictatorship of the class sooner or later degenerates into the dictatorship of those on whose behalf it is effected. In our case it degenerated into the dictatorship of the Communist party which transformed the society after the image and likeness of its social support group (and of itself, too!), turning all the citizens capable of working, into hirelings, similar to proletarians.

Let us consider this question: to what extent is proletariat able to effect the dictatorship of its class? According to Lenin’s provision about “the power of the working people” at the beginning the dictatorship of the proletariat is effected by a very thin layer of the “old party guards”. Is it not strange that the dictatorship of a class is not performed by the class itself, but by the people's alleged representatives, the communists. What other class besides proletariat has ever put its dictatorship into practice through nominees? It never could and never did happen. Bourgeoisie effects its dictatorship itself.

The inconsistency (both theoretical and political) of the basic Marxist thesis of the dictatorship of proletariat was proved by Bakunin. He asked whether the proletariat itself would be the ruling body. The Marxists answered no, as, according to Marxism, the chosen representatives will govern. Naturally, they will be the minority of the people, but they will be working people. Yes, Bakunin retorted, but they will be former working people, who, as soon as they become governors or representatives of the people, will cease to be working people and begin looking at the labourers’ world down from the State height. Therefore, they will not represent people, but only themselves and their claims to govern people. He who doubts that, is not acquainted with the nature of man. It would not have been difficult to suppose that the State (its apparatus) would not be formed by representatives of the proletariat, but by the people from higher, elite strata, bourgeois specialists, and the whole policy would be determined by them, the bureaucrats. Let us imagine for a second that the whole apparatus is formed entirely of proletarians. But, being in power, they

53 will be former proletarians, having become ruling functionaries, no more and no less. They will be guided by the interests of their functions, but not those of proletarians. In this connection I would like to make a comment concerning reproaches to many deputies today for not fulfilling their pre–election promises. Let us imagine an honest popularly elected deputy who is eager to fulfil what he has promised. He finds himself in a definite administrative surrounding with traditions and “laws” of their own. When in Rome, so to speak. The slightest attempt of deviation from the accepted norms ends in the “black sheep” being squeezed out of the power structures. No laws intended to improve the work of the state structures and exercise control over the officials can help or at least show the way out of the deadlock.

A way out exists, though, and it lies in the accountability of the elected to their electors. The constituency would have to have the right to inspect, which can only be done if they have a source of income independent of the state structures, which can satisfy part of their needs and make them upstanding citizens. Only then will the relations between the elector and the deputy be somewhat akin to the relation between a master and a workman with the role of the former played by the citizen (elector), and the latter – by the deputy (official). Otherwise, it would happen like it did in the time when Stalin’s “servants of the people” hired their “masters” for service. Social life is not mathematics, and by just changing a minus for a plus sign, or by giving a new State the name “proletarian”, you will not change the heart of the matter. According to Bakunin, the main obstacle on the way of mankind to life of happiness and prosperity is the State, no matter what guise it takes (of course, it is impossible to do without it today, but that is a different matter). In this connection I would like to stress the following: the State always attempts, sooner or later, to suppress the class it represents. The Russian State regarded all of its people as slaves, including the nobility, which it did not want to make an absolute land-owner: the process of transformation of manorial land- ownership into patrimonial was delayed practically until the October Revolution. The power is an absolutely all-sufficient and egocentric phenomenon. The people participating in it are guided by their personal interests only. A reformer, even a great one, when implementing a reform, is concerned with one thing - the consolidation of power. A reform, no matter how radical it might be, is carried out only for that, not more. The more powerful the State is, the more conservative and antidemocratic it becomes. Not in the sense that its cherished dream is to do as much harm to its people as possible, but its own interests, not the interests of the people, are ever of the

54 highest priority. It is possible to make it serve the society only when it is a rule- of-law state, and it can only be such if the society is dominated by owners.

Marxism reassured those who doubted the expediency of the dictatorship, asserting that it will be only temporary. (At that time mankind had not yet been enriched by the Bolshevik experience, which has proved to the whole world that nothing is so constant for a long time as what was established for a short time). Marxists maintained that the new state would die off as soon as it had fulfilled its functions of transformation of society and become unnecessary. They did not take into account one thing though, and that is whether the governors-bureaucrats would want to become obsolete, i.e. lose their power. Practice shows that no such fools have been found so far.

The logic, proceeding from the thesis that the liberation of people is preceded by their enslavement, is inconsistent from the outset. Bakunin noticed in this connection that no dictatorship could have any other purpose except to perpetuate itself, and it could only generate slaves from the people tolerating it. According to Bakunin, an attempt to liberate the people by means of a new State will only lead to a situation of people being placed at the disposal of administrators and instructors represented by the Communist Party bosses, who will create the single State Bank, concentrating all the industry, trade, agriculture and even science in their hands, and divide the mass of people into two armies: industrial and agricultural, under the immediate control of state engineers who will constitute a new privileged political-scientific class. Bakunin called the society planned and programmed by communists a “state communism”, with whose adepts, he said, he will fight to the death.

Let us once again turn to Einstein, who was concerned with similar problems. He was discouraged by the insoluble, from the position of Marxism, problem of the combination of centralism and democracy (perhaps already having in mind the Russian experience?) He asked himself: how was it possible, considering the far-reaching centralisation of political and economic power, to prevent the transformation of bureaucracy into a force possessing all the power? How was it possible to defend the rights of a person and guarantee a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy?

Bakunin was close to answering these questions. He affirmed that the solution of the problem can consist only in formation of workmen’s teams and co- operative lending, consumer, and (predominantly) productive societies which will reach the aim more directly than the others, the aim being the liberation of

55 labour from the power of bourgeois capital. The time will come, he wrote, when, organising themselves quite freely from top to bottom, on the ruins of the political states, a free brotherly union of industrial associations, communes, regional federations, comprising people of all nationalities and languages, will be formed. The italicised words show the quintessence of Bakunin’s idea of the relation between the central power and regions, when the latter willingly delegate to the centre only a part of their rights. In this case the absurdity of the opposition between the domineering centre and the submissive regions is solved. The interests of the centre will be the total of the interests of the regions, and if this relationship is compromised, the regions will no longer deal with the centre, and that’s all there is to it! The process of winning sovereignty by our nations that almost began with perestroika (but suppressed by today’s regime!) shows the fruitfulness of Bakunin’s idea. And even if that were the only heritage he has left us, let his memory be eternal!

Our contemporary, philosopher and futurologist E. Toffler says that the industrial stage of human development, when mankind had to put up with the bureaucratic form of power, is over. Today, in the information age, bureaucracy becomes not only inefficient, but it grows into something diametrically opposite of what it was created for. And field of human activity produces conflicts within its own self and is doomed to failure if it is based on bureaucracy. The time of the “vertical power” has come to an end, and the time of the “horizontal power” has begun. It is the time of the “federation” of the subjects of power, the time of civil structures.

Unfortunately, bureaucracy today is a self-sustaining class, standing above the people, and it is impossible to create any democratic counter-balance. World practice has shown: 1) there is no economic bureaucracy (that is the main type of all bureaucracy) if there is no state ownership, or if it exists, it is not influential, 2) bureaucracy cannot be cured “therapeutically”, as Lenin wrote, nor can it be cured “surgically”, as Stalin practised.

Communists promised, that he who has been nothing will be everything. But the Communist revolutions have shown, that “he who has been nothing has not become everything, but has become a support for those who have gone from rags to riches” (I. Kokhanovski). The bureaucracy of the State, which is the owner of the national wealth, becomes a new exploitative class. It became so soon after the October Revolution. It is becoming so today in the activities of yesterday’s democrats, that have come to power, and there is no difference now between a deputy of bureaucratic origin and an insurgent deputy, a deputy with

56 pronounced anti-bureaucratic sentiments, concluded the authors of the investigation of the political physiognomy of the Congress of People’s Deputies. Unforgettable is the statement of the former Mayor of Moscow G. Popov about bribery in his apparatus, who said that they were not bribes, but payments for services rendered.

As soon as the Communist Party became the ruling party, it merged with the State that got the society under it. A new mighty Communist state arose, an owner State, a Leviathan, that could not grow into “the power of working classes”, as it had been proclaimed (history does not know any cases of voluntary resignation of power).

The attempt of joining dictatorship with proletariat gave birth to a bastard state, as it happens in nature when interbreeding of seemingly kindred yet distant animals takes place. In our case, it was a cannibal, devouring everything life- giving and creative, be it man or nature, and absolutely incapable of yielding fruit. That is a “proletarian State”, in fact, a bureaucratic State. The history of mankind does not know a state more bureaucratic than ours. The Marxist idea of the dictatorship of proletariat has been employed to cover the dictatorship of bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is the absolute owner of durable means of production. The strength and inviolability of our bureaucracy lies mainly in the strength of the State the owner, and not only in the ignorance of the masses.

Having proclaimed proletariat the owner of the national wealth, Bolshevism made such an owner the State. The country became private property of the State apparatus and Party officials. The latter became in fact, the disposer of the national endowment.

Where does that unreasonable faith of Marxism in the messianism of the proletariat come from? One might think that Marx & Co. fell prisoners to the logic of history or, to be exact, to their erroneous interpretation of the role of a class, which was not the subject of history and therefore had no future (the future might be either of the two: 1) eternal being in the role of trash 2) turning into lumpen-proletarians, 3) for the best representatives of this class - moving up to the ranks of the upper classes, which becomes possible in a democratic welfare-society). The class itself is “stark naked” and it cannot become anything viable, like a class of owners by definition. How did the history go before capitalism? Feudal society produced from enterprising and the most viable elements of the oppressed social groups (peasantry, etc.), the so-called “Third Estate”, from which bourgeoisie emerged. Later on became a dominant

57 class transforming the society after its own image. We should think that proletariat was supposed to do the same. Meantime, not having developed “before”, it is impossible to develop “after”, because a link of succession is missing. Without that link any progress is impossible. Identification of two unidentifiable things took place: proletariat is principally different both from preceding and succeeding classes by its origin and social status: it was formed from representatives of all classes, which were failures and therefore had descended to the bottom of society. Bourgeoisie was a class of owners, they were the organisers of production and of all economic life in general, and accordingly, were connoisseurs of economics and culture, dominating also in the spiritual sphere. Possessing the commanding heights and the never-before- seen force, money, the bourgeoisie, which was in power de facto, was consolidated in it by a revolution de jure. Proletariat, as it was mentioned above, from times immemorial was formed from declassed, broke marginal elements of society and together with lumpen-proletarians constituted its underworld. And therefore, according to the witty remark of Camus, Marxism considered proletarians, relegated to the inhuman level by extreme poverty, capable of political maturity and genuine self-affirmation, affirming all the others at the same time. Proletariat did not and could not have a culture of its own. Culture is a panhuman phenomenon, and it is created and developed by the talented, educated representatives of all classes of society with the sponsorship of wealthy classes. Culture is created by well-being, not by poverty. Therefore, in the basis of the Marxist mistake ultimately lies the biased view on ownership and the relations formed by it as a negative factor producing the exploitation of man by man. Marxism ignores its decisive role in the formation of a free, self-sufficient and dynamically developing society.

Here’s the conclusion. Declaring the aspiration to move away from the “dammed” bourgeois social structure for the sake of creating an paradise on earth, Communism has inherited the worst and the most wretched from the previous social structures, aggravating them tenfold. It was the country that sentenced to death 12 year-old children; serfdom, its collective farmers were but wage slaves with their fictitious trade unions, State monopoly was on everything economics. And all that was not just deviations or perversions carried out by Stalin: it is the very essence of Communism. As legacy of Communism rests to this day partly on misunderstanding of its essence by some people, and partly on selfish interests of communist bureaucracy, it would be right to help the world understand, declaring Communist ideology by a UN or International Court document to be criminal: firstly – terrorist, secondly – antihuman, an ideology perpetuating the bureaucratic state.

58 B) The source of revolution in a state

The social-economic situation that has formed in Russia during the last four or five centuries is the consequence of a certain state policy, which is a Russian- specific phenomenon of statehood. Both in the past and nowadays the policy of the Russian State has been a catalyst of distemper, revolts, uprisings and revolutions. But the State is just a reflection of its people at any given moment. The cause of the age-old ill-being of the Russian society also lies in people. With one essential reservation, though: it's not the people that create the State, but vice versa, the State forces the people to conform to itself, to a certain national character. It goes on like this until there arises “the critical mass” of people’s discontent with the order of things. It led the people to victory twice (in February and October of 1917). But the revolutionaries, who were guided by the false theory of social development and enthralled the people with it, took advantage of the victory. As a result, it ended up to be the dead strangling the living. The old Russian statehood prevailed, the very statehood that had earlier delayed the beginning of the civilised development of the country, and by now has completely thrown it off the road of civilisation. The nation was put on the brink of a catastrophe. What had happened in all the other revolutions, happened in Russia: they all began as moderate, continued as extreme, and finally devoured themselves. Now the revolution has ended in the restoration, or rather, in an attempt to return to the starting point, to the “wild” capitalism.

The source of trouble for the people of Russia is not in Communism, which was established formally in Russia, but in the Russian form of statehood, in the traditions of the Russian State, inevitably producing “communism”. The first time it was some bastard Leviathan, and the second a miscarriage in the form of the current “democratic” post-perestroika regime.

The main cause of Russia’s revolutions, beginning from the second half of the 19th century (the smartest people of the ruling class understood it, Count Vitte, for example) was in the underestimation by the State of the principle of private property for the people.

Such underestimation is the main cause of the failure of all economic formations of the societies preceding capitalism. In Russia it continued even at the time of the transition to capitalism. It became the main cause of the social tension from the very beginning of the modernisation of Russian society: the

59 agrarian reform of 1861 which cut off the peasants’ land for the benefit of the landowners. Stolypin's attempt to transform the decayed power with its semi- serfdom into a civilised capitalist one, keeping the feudal class untouched at the expense of communal, i.e. peasants’ lands, thus creating the “rags-to- riches” landlords, also failed for the same reason. All Russian revolutions and today’s misery of the people are the consequences of the blind policy of the ruling classes. The formation of the industrial proletariat, completely deprived of property, with an extremely low standard of living, the desolation of the most part of peasantry (up to two thirds), turning it into a virtually declassified mass, served as the social basis for the degradation of the democratic February Revolution into the so-called “socialist” October Revolution of 1917, which in fact became a counter-revolution.

Since the time of Peter the Great the State has played a great, if not a decisive role in economics, particularly in the most important spheres of it (military, industrial, etc.). Reasons for that were of both external and internal character. There is an important circumstance that paved the path for the State control over the economy; it is the development of private monopolies and their transformation into a mighty power, with a tendency for consolidation and weakening of competitive mechanisms. Alongside with the deeply rooted Russian historical reforms-from-above preference, the popularity of socialist ideology grew as its demands of socialisation and nationalisation were reflecting the objective tendencies of the development of productive forces. An extraordinary “brotherhood” of oppositions was forming: the birth and development of capitalism and the position of proletariat in it gave rise to Marxism. Leninism is an offspring of the monopolist stage of capitalism. It is that stage that the appearance of Lenin’s idea of state economy owes it birth to. The question that arises, though, is why the centuries-long history of Russian embezzlement of state property did not prevent the triumph of Lenin’s idea. The post-October State, as the owner, the source of life of the people, their only employer, was sovereign and stood above the society. It could not develop in a democratic direction. The belief of Marxism-Leninism that it would be possible to cut off the worst of the state as a “parasitic growth” inherited by proletariat, turned out to be akin to the dream of the girl, a character by Gogol: she wanted to have a fiancée with the chin of one man, nose of another, etc. It does not matter who is in power, a state can only function normally in its own, clearly defined sphere. As for the control over economics, or the creation of it, it is not part of this sphere. The “proletarian”, i.e. Communist state, or “Party- led State” brought the country to disaster because it meddled into business that

60 wasn’t theirs, having deprived the people of their property, turning them into hirelings.

The main cause of the failure of socialism and the establishment of the dominance of new exploiters should not be seen as a sign of cultural backwardness and absolute absence of business experience of proletariat, as some still think. As long as people are hirelings, they cannot exist in any other quality. An attempt to mix the scientific and technical intelligentsia in with proletariat will not help. Even imagining for a second that proletariat became a highly cultured, educated and learned class, it would not be able to solve the problems of power. As Bakunin wrote, God forbid scientists would come to be in power, for they would treat people as guinea pigs, presumably out of pure investigative interest, as we observed in the activities of Gaidar government consisting of scientists and experts experimenting on us in a most cruel way.

The problem is not the fact that all socialist teachings opposed Bolshevism, saying that Russia and its proletariat were not prepared for socialism, that they should be given time to mature. The problem is that proletariat cannot make itself into a class-creator, a leading and directing force. The explanation lies in the psychology of a hireling. They are concerned with one thing only – maximal consumption with minimal work for the master (not for himself), for they are not sure that tomorrow they will have something to consume, unlike the bourgeois owner who tries to retain and multiply his property because it may be of use tomorrow. A proletarian needs state “socialism” which guarantees him some minimum of lodging, food, clothes and “merriment”. It is not accidental that the enlightened thinkers at the dawn of capitalism were horrified observing the rise of this class, calling it “the sore of proletariatship”, the healing of which successfully began only in the second half of the 20th century, when capitalism reached the democratic stage of its development. It was quite unlike the Bolshevik type of communism that turned that wound into a cancerous growth on the body of all humanity.

In totalitarian economy, the inevitable consequence of which is total proletarisation of the people, control over society is only possible through dictatorship, completely ruling out any democracy. State economy which is neither self-organising nor self-developing, needs its command and administration system, and that circumstance was the main reason of the creation of GULAG, the Draconian laws on labour, semi-serfdom for collective farmers, etc. The abolition of those attributes of dictatorship has been the main cause of today’s chaos in state economy. Only for this reason, not having even

61 completely liberating itself from communist dictatorship, did the society find itself under the threat of falling under the dictatorship of new State bureaucracy (today it is more than just a threat). It has already happened twice during the previous attempts of “perestroika” (Lenin’s and Khrushchev’s, disrupted by Party and state bureaucracy). A hireling proper, that is, a person deprived of any kind of property, stands outside democracy; hired labour is in its essence a basic prerequisite for any form of dictatorship.

The role of the word “democracy” (not for home consumption, but for external one) exists to please the socialist-minded foreign intelligentsia and proletariat, making them allies of “the world socialist revolution”. Its fig leaf was Soviet Constitution and various demagogic Party and State resolutions. Those Soviet citizens who took the Constitutional norms seriously and tried to demand that the state adhere to them were sent to prison camps, declared insane and put into prison madhouses (a purely Bolshevik innovation). Sometimes it was done with the help of co-workers and in general by class brothers and sisters, not infrequently by blood relatives. It is not difficult to divide and rule hirelings. He who pays the piper orders the music.

According to the Marxist concept, proletariat in a proletarian State becomes master of its labour and its product. But in order to achieve this, it is not enough not to be indentured and enslaved. One must also have an opportunity to sell oneself to whoever one wants, at a profit. But such a thing is only possible if the workman has a secure legal base, enabling him to have democratic relations with his boss. A hireling is at best a “consumer” of democracy, but never its “producer”, nor an accomplice in its implementation; at worst, he is an accomplice of totalitarianism.

Democracy and humane society are inseparable. Where there is no democracy, there cannot be any humanism. Non-democratic humanism does not exist. The October Revolution created a society which has been without democracy from its beginning to this day. Democracy was deprived of its social soil, owners, and this is the Achilles’ heel of our society. Democracy’s only social base is the market and private owners functioning in it. The market needs democracy as a condition of existence. It develops on the principle of competition of legally equal producers. When they are present, they naturally interact with each other. But the market, as the basic phenomenon for democracy is at the same time relatively independent from it (under the State monopoly it functions as black market). Under a dictatorship, the market exists too, but in a constrained variety. Therefore, ultimately, without democracy, the market

62 proper is impossible. Thus dictatorship of any kind is short-lived under capitalism (worst-case scenario – it ends with the death of the dictator). When the economy cannot bear the dictator’s rule any longer, the class that brought the dictator to power compels him to give up his dictatorship. The period of prosperity follows. The possibilities of democracy in the absence of market economy are much worse.

Violence, according to Marxism, is like the midwife of history, when it is pregnant with something new. But a midwife does not force a woman in labour, but helps her to give birth normally. Only when the childbearing is abnormal, the midwife resorts to surgery (violence). This analogy suggests that Marxism involuntarily equalled the birth of socialist society not to a natural historical process, but to an artificial one. Violence was regarded as a means of making mankind happy forcibly, an idea faulty in itself, as violence begets violence from those capable of resistance, and slavery on the part of those who are not. We are the latter case: in the correlation of dictatorship and socialism, the aim was negated by the means.

But the saddest thing that happened to proletarians after establishing “their” dictatorship was the fact that they did not get free from wage slavery. It was worse than that, they fell into a more cruel slavery under the Communist bureaucracy.

It is wrong to assert that Stalinism itself created the bureaucratic State system. It had been invented way before Stalin. He just made it absolute to the point of absurdity, having imposing on the state a function that absolutely contradicted its nature. It was an economy-organising and cultural-educational function. The downfall was inevitable. Stalinism was the first form of fascism produced by the state monopoly on the national wealth. Neither type of fascism – of bourgeois-imperialist and of communist-proletarian origin – is a new social structure. They are distortions and deviations from the natural capitalist social order.

There is no reason to speak of a “new, unprecedented social structure” created by Stalin. Vodolazov, quoting the thought of Mayakovsky about October, in which “the sunrise was burning like a hundred and forty suns”, points out a perplexing fact that those suns rose not by virtue of the eternal and objective laws of nature, but (as it seemed) at the will of bold and brave proletarian revolutionaries, that had gone through prisons, exiles and emigration. Indeed, in the depths of the social system that was being overthrown, neither the new

63 relations of ownership nor the new classes had yet ripened. The revolution needed the bourgeois classes, capable of running the show. Yet Russia was a feudal semi-bourgeois country with the monopolist upper middle class, dependent on the tsar (feudal lords), and almost devoid of the middle class of owners (it was represented by semi-pauperised peasantry and financially approximately similar petty bourgeoisie in towns). The tsarist regime had practised for centuries putting the people into a state of rage and bringing them to desperation. The revolutionaries used that situation, for they were very experienced and mature organisationally and tactically, they could find means for the activities of their organisations and preparation for a revolution, working amidst utterly exacerbated peasantry and proletariat. Revolutionary intelligentsia in the name of social-democratic and social-revolutionary organisations, having in fact become the agents of a bourgeois revolution (for lack of legitimate leaders), headed the peasant war (revolution) against the feudal social structure. As long as they carried on a bourgeois revolution, everything went well, but as soon as they went on to “socialist” experiments, they had failure after failure, because the October coup was not “socialist” and could never have been, and it was not and could not be naturally programmed in the civilised development of mankind.

Nothing new can come from nothing, and nothing does. It can only be a consequence of something (which it succeeds) being ripe with it, something which will be the foundation for this new order. It is called succession, and there is no development without it. It is firmly established by the dialectical law of negation of negation. The so-called “socialism” did away with this law by denying the role of private ownership. It had the aim of building a new society from scratch, a stillborn baby of dreamers guided by false non- scientific teachings. “Socialism” negates the eternal tendency in the development of mankind in accordance with which, era after era, the relations of ownership broadened the ranks of their subjects as owners of property, and increased their number to two-thirds of society in the democratic part of the world. In prospect, the remaining (proletarian) part will also become proprietary because it keeps sending proprietors into the middle class from its own ranks thanks to their high-earned income. Socialist ideology, produced by the negative consequences of the spontaneous movement of property that had split the society into rich and poor, is vicious because instead of solving the problem of the proper movement of property, it set the task of destroying it (the method that was later on used by Stalin: no person – no problem). It was a method that led to property becoming the force of state bureaucracy, turning the rulers into an invincible Mafia-like exploitative force. Depriving the people

64 of their property, “socialism” drives the society into a state of devastation and stagnation, and then into perdition.

From the point of view of the socio-political position of the masses, October, in fact, did not change anything, unless you call a change the official renaming of black into white, evil into good, to which the masses were gradually getting accustomed, and the brainwashing of the people that was carried out on the subconscious level. We can call the USSR and its satellites “a new social structure” only in the sense of it being based on nobody’s property, belonging to the State and to nobody else, and entirely under the control and at the disposal of bureaucracy. There was simply no one else to control the national wealth of the civil society, because there was no civil society as such. But bureaucracy has always been able to govern using an administrative vertical method (there is no horizontal!). There is no other way of keeping people under control with the bureaucratic pattern of existence. The conclusion to which I am coming is sad, because the absurd state in which the society is now is inevitable. Power is a prisoner of the logic of the State system, which it has created (inherited) in accordance with its concept. Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachov and Yeltsin could not have acted in any other (non- bureaucratic) way, for they were the chief bureaucrats themselves. To do otherwise one ought to be different; one ought to be able to deny that which yesterday seemed right, to glance at the root and to see the evil in it. Other variants of struggle with bureaucracy in a bureaucratic State are useless. At best they let off steam, but not more.

The social thought of Russia has for a long time been asking a question to which it has not yet found a worthy answer: why was it Russia that accepted and tried to implement the Marxist ideology born in the West? Klyamkin in his book makes an attempt (a pretty good one, I think) to answer it. He considers insufficient the explanation of the “Russian case” by the peculiarity of the political culture of Russian population. In his opinion, the culture was a pre- state authoritarian-military construct that allowed building the life in the time of peace according to a military model. If it is so, then why has it been like that until now? Because it has been made like that by the state which has gone along the road of colonisation of neighbouring nations and territories. The State needed a nation ready to go to war at first whistle, and the people could only be in such a (dynamic) quality in the absence of property, especially real estate. That is the reason why, being pressed to go on to the capitalist way of development (reform of 1861), the State preserved communal ownership of land and the community itself to take care of the families whose men have

65 gone to war. The Communist “collective farms” aggravated and strengthened the former traditions. Klyamkin explains it, and I fully agree with him, by the fundamental delusion of Marx and Lenin: they considered democracy compatible with abolition of private ownership. With this assumption, the realisation of this idea could not but turn into Stalinism, Maoism and the like, which are its continuations, consistent developments of Marxism to its logical end. Yes, private ownership and democracy are inseparable categories, and without each other they are dead.

Reasoning about Stalin’s “counter-revolution”, Vodolazov identifies it with Jacobin and Cromwell’s dictatorships. In his opinion, the Marxist project was not the only one that turned an ideal into an idol; the same happened to the liberal maxims of Robespierre, Rousseau, Hobbs and Weber. It seems so in form and appearance, but was not in essence as both the French and the earlier English revolutions fell within the civilised development of mankind, and the extremes of terror exercised by them (in revolutions, hardly anything happens without something extreme!) were directed against the reactionary forces that hampered the social reforms or tried to get ahead of the realities. But the terror of Stalinists was a crime against the people for the sake of whom the coup had been allegedly made. The people were robbed and turned into slaves without any property and therefore entirely dependent on the State and its bureaucracy. The above-mentioned revolutionary extreme measures did not ruin France and England. Two countries started on the irreversible road of capitalist development, and they have been successfully going along this path on democratic principles until now. But Stalin's criminal policy planted a bomb under the state; and even worse than that - under the whole world, yet eventually killing off only its own self.

Vodolazov writes that all the eras of great transformations are painted in colours of “irony”, and that there are probably some fundamental defects in our thoughts, theories, practical acts, accompanying all the large, “great social transformations” that lead to “deadlocks and traps”. Yes, it is so. Because, in the first place, the cognition of this world does not come out of the blue, but from hard, dangerous, and sometimes bloody experience. In the second, man is endowed with intellect not bonded by morality.

The trouble is that Russia has for a long time been caught in a trap from which there doesn’t seem to be a way out. It consists in the objective laws of bureaucratic existence of the ruling class surrounded on all sides by toadies of both sexes.

66 The males present the governors coins (today it is dollars/euros) on plates with golden edges, greyhound puppies (now it may be a car like Mercedes-Benz); nowadays they discover an “inner gay” within themselves. As for the females, well, they present themselves - well-groomed, with shapely figures and cleanly-shaven in all the right places, in a word, beautiful, you could just eat them. This is what I saw with my own eyes back in 1945. It was late autumn in North Korea, and I was there among the guerrillas, helping Kim Il Sung to “be born” in Korea, to “fight” against the “Japanese invaders” and for those feats become the leader of the Korean people. In fact, he was a Captain of the Soviet Army brought to Korea and put on the throne. I cannot remember if they found the village where he “was born” or not. I should think they did, because Communists are like that, - they achieve their goal at all costs, even if they have to annihilate a whole nation for it. One day a circus came to our garrison to entertain us the liberators of the Korean people, and there was a clown in the company, a Tatar with a Chaplin moustache, Musin, I think his last name was. He was very good, and we were laughing our heads off. His key performance was touching some interesting place of his beautiful girl-partner, and then licking his finger. You understand that not a single bureaucrat would deny himself the above-mentioned golden platter, or a new model of a modern “greyhound”, or an opportunity to enjoy the earthly pleasures of a kind that makes you lick your fingers, and all of that for free! So, they will have to be thrown out, like that louse in a scene I witnessed. I was travelling in a railway carriage, when one of the passengers caught a louse, and with the words “You’re gorged on proletarian blood, and you go on sucking it! If you don’t want to ride, walk!” Bureaucracy is a parasitic, non-productive, but absolutely necessary class in any society. It can and must be tolerated as managing employees, but not in the status of a dominant class, claiming to be the master and the subject of development, yet being unable to become it by definition. This is the whole problem that has proved to be insoluble in Russia.

I am telling you this not because it is a fundamental truth, but because I want to turn the attention of the ruling class (hoping that an activist, clever and devoted to the native land, would turn up) to the Lenin’s unrealised (or rather, interrupted in its realisation) concept of transformation of “military Communism” into “people’s capitalism”.

Judging by the fact, that our modernity is not much different from the earlier periods, I admit that a “new Lenin” may appear in the present ruling elite, a person who can bring about a firm power, respected by the people. This new

67 power will be able to convince its “sons of bitches” that there is no point in destroying Russia. The new leader will convince them that the end of Russia would mean their own end, too, and they will have to lead the country out of the deadlock using the methods tested long ago by other advanced nations, with amendments necessitated by our own experience. The Russian way of “people’s capitalism” initiated by Lenin in the 1920s (the term was not known then), was rather successful. It was the way of NEP + co-operation (comprising all the population of the country without exception. Each person was a private owner). The solution of all our problems by the State (from above, that is) is traditional, and therefore it is understood and accepted by the people, and this is an invaluable advantage over other programs, it will rule out chaos, there will be order, the yearning for which is expressed today by the general desire to strengthen the State, although we all know its absurdity and corruption. Because the order established by bandits is a kind of “order”, too.

One more point. It is the thought that has been pursuing me for a long time in a kind of unison with Berdyaev’s assertion about the State’s priority in Russian psychology (related to the vast spaces of Russia); it seems to have become complete after my reading the book “Daniel Stein, the translator” by L. Ulitskaya. I literally gasped when I read what the Pope (the deceased John Paul II) said when he talked about the similarity of Judaism and Christianity: “You know, Daniel, this big ship is very hard to turn around. There is a habit of thinking in a certain way about Jews and about many other things. It is necessary to change the direction, but care must be taken not to capsize the ship”. Russia is quite a ship, too! And it capsized more than once; I believe, it was three times (according to my concept, based on the wise popular saying “God loves the Trinity”). The latest shipwreck happened at the end of the 1980s – beginning of the 1990s. Each time the ship keeled over, a bloody birth was given to a bastard State, much worse than the previous one. Everything went back to its unending circle, losing much of what had been gained through the ages by seas of people’s blood. There was one successful (Lenin’s first try was made in 1917, second – in 1921–23) attempt to change the course, not only keeping the State afloat, but actually strengthening it. But it ended with the leader’s death. Maybe, good ol' Hegel was right when he formulated his law: “The awful fate of a nation, which is rapidly coming to a political fall, can only be prevented by a genius”.

As long as Russian mentality considers statehood to be one of the first- priority values, this fact cannot be ignored. The state does much evil, but it also does much good, so we cannot yet do without a state. Guided by the

68 principle “desperate diseases need desperate cures”, it would not be bad to remove the obstacles to progress with the help of the State. Hasn’t the time come, Mr. Society (by which I mean the alliance of intellectuals and honest businessmen representing), following Peter I and February-October 191, to make the third (and the last) attempt to change the bearing of the Russian ship, for which purpose it would be nice to seek and find a common language with the best people of the State? They must be there! (The thought was induced by a Russian proverb, “I will help other people in their trouble easily, but I have no idea what to do with my own”. In the language of my people it is expressed by one word aptyrau (aptyragan), the meaning of which is as follows: a man is in a foolish situation, he does not know what should be done, yet something has to be done right away).

But such a situation can play into the hands of the ruling clique and entails the apprehension, about which Kara-Murza says: “anywhere, but away from disaster”. This adage has become a traditional carte blanche of the powers for any improvisation. This apology of power in Russia has a long history, beginning, as a matter of fact, with the invitation of Rorick to rule in “the country great and rich”, but in which “there is no order”. Pushkin’s apology of Peter the Great in the poem “The Copper Horseman” amounted to the same: “He reared Russia with a bridle of iron, but right in front of an abyss! So, according to S. Markov, the most important thing was to drag the country away from the abyss of defeat, ant the power was supposed to and had an indulgence for any of its mistakes and even crimes. That is, even at the price of the defeat of international democracy by the united forces of Stalin and Hitler, and at the price of establishing fascism or communo-fascism over mankind? In order to prevent it, the leaders and theoreticians of the alliance of intellectuals and businessmen I mentioned above must work out a proper strategy and tactics of “enveloping” the power, finding the “best statesmen” (with democratic views) and, turn the state ship about not allowing any extremists (including those in power) to rock the boat it. It is by no means an easy matter. Take it or leave it, because there is no other variant so far.

There is one reservation, though: the variant of strategy and tactics that I suggest, on the surface looks like Markov’s idea of democracy in Russia cultivated by the State. Answering the question, in what way can the State cultivate democracy, he says, “by a well-known method, i.e. the method by which Franco and Juan-Carlos cultivated the democracy in Spain. It is the method by which Brazilian military removed the threat of a Communist coup by organising two controllable parties, which were called “Sí” and “Sí, señor”.

69 By the way, we also have two parties in Russia: “United Russia” and “Just Russia”. Then, after many years the political whirlpool of free political struggle will burst outside, and a consolidation of a democratic regime will take place. In Germany and Japan democracy was built under the occupational regime, which was super-authoritarian. But it also cultivated democracy. Thus spake Markov. That talk of a Kremlin political analyst, member of the Public Chamber (and I think, of State Duma) sounds like an incredible childish babble. In the first place, Russia, from the point of view of its modernisation problems cannot be compared with any other country, including the ones mentioned by the author, because their societies are socially structured and civil. In the second, their state structure differs from ours. That is the reason why in the countries occupied by Russia, it was communo-fascist regimes that were cultivated. The present Russian State is not very different from the Soviet one, and is increasingly trying to return to its principles entirely. As one of the most active Kremlin political analysts A. Migranyan rightly (I do not know why) noted that our political system is unique. We are constantly reproducing the same arch-typical structure of power. No matter what kind of regime we have (tsarist, Communist, anti-Communist or any other) we always have the chief executive who takes all the political decisions and never bears any responsibility for them.

Another question is, that if the “super-leader” appears, then it will be possible to talk about democratisation of the society with the help of the State. A bureaucratic State cannot democratise the society, even if it wanted to. Markov’s recommendation is to spend 100-150 billion dollars on the formation of civil society (instructing the subjects in the art of citizenship, etc. – A.B.), because money earned by the people would be used to their advantage. However, the problem is, nobody can build a civil society except people themselves, and nobody will present civil society to people on a silver platter. Some can assist, yes, but none can build! Paternalistic approach does not work here. But in order to be able to create civil society, people should become owners, not dependants, fed from the hands of the State (barin). The State will not do it, because with all its mental deficiency it will never create its own gravedigger. Markov has many other super-clever suggestions; I shall be satisfied with quoting just one more: “All rich people in Russia should live modestly”. One thing is not quite clear though: what will they do with the image of a “rich man”, with the “I am so different and better” image? Give it up, or what? But that is not the Russian way. No, that will not work, good Sir. By no means! It is not interesting to enjoy good life in secret…

70 ***

The paradox of today’s socio-political situation in Russia consists in the fact that an attempt to democratise the State is being made by the State itself, and it is not interested in any democratisation in principle. Perestroika was initiated by those representatives of party bureaucracy who were able to catch a glimpse of the near future. There is no civil society; there are only a few dozens of political parties and movements. They do not represent anyone but themselves. There is no multi-million class of owners (the majority of today’s owners are of criminal or semi-criminal origin, and they do not form a class. They are Mafia-like structures, warring with one another for the right to plunder the country), there is no demos without which there can be no civil society. Hence the inconsistency, backslides and intention to reform the state so they can “stay, while leaving”. Russia has been and is a country characterized by bureaucratic guardianship and imperial interference into economies of others. According to the witticism unwillingly made by the Russian Prime Minister Chernomyrdin (in the 1990s), the State wants things “to be better”, but it turns out to be “as usual” which means “bad”. In this connection it is difficult to predict even a more or less well-ordered way of life in the foreseeable future, to say nothing of the “happy tomorrow”.

71 Chapter 3. On euphemisms and the pseudo-cheerful

A) Overcoming the shame

Let us talk about the phenomenon that has rather recently come into being, a phenomenon born out by the age-old need – the practical insolubility of the problems of everyday life.

It began with trifles – linguistic exercises for using some foreign terms. Earlier, if a word that could not be openly pronounced in the presence of women or children had to be used in written speech, it was usually substituted by three dots. Nowadays, such words are pronounced in the same way as they came into this world, or they are substituted by their Latin or English analogues and people pronounce and write them wherever and however they want. And that's that.

These words have now been lawfully brought into literary use. They occur, sometimes in public press, alongside with some other words that were earlier considered to be taboo. Take, for example, one of the stories by Viktor Erofeev, from which I do not remember a single indecent word. But it’s OK, he enjoys immense authority, and he is the presenter of a great TV-program Apokrif. But that’s Erofeev and he may do it, for he is clever and talented. But what about me, and people like me? What can we do? I once wanted to meet him and learn something from him: I made him a present of my books (granted, with the help of a woman who works with him, could not do it otherwise), but apparently he has no time for trifles… No, better not expose myself because I am a learned man, not as in “wise”, but in the sense of experienced in communicating with the powers that be, which have been teaching me for over 23 years by not allowing my publications and firing me twice. Once they tried to expel me from the Party, and for three years dragged me from office to office of the Head Political Bureau of the Soviet Army and Party Supervisory Committee of the CPSU Central Committee. The latter annulled the admonishment slapped on me for the criticism of a boss who was a military knucklehead and an anti-Semite to boot, published in the CPSU Central Committee paper “Sovetskaya Rossiya”. The verdict was: “As to his work Burganov may be characterised positively. At present he is retired and it would be inexpedient to punish him”. So, thankee! As for decorations, prizes of different sorts and so on, I cannot say I was not ever awarded anything. I was. When everybody was decorated, I was on the lists, too, and I have about 15 medals, like “For Victory Over Germany”, “For Victory Over Japan”, “For

72 Defence of Smolensk”, “For Defence of Polar Region”, etc. (Quite recently my breast could have been decorated with the 16th medal in honour of the 1000th Anniversary of Kazan, the medal which was given pretty much to everybody. Some of those people have never been to Kazan, to say nothing of doing something good to the city. But I was not given one; it just shows how “principled” our Tatar leaders are!) So selective approach was very much there. One of the earlier examples of this kind was 1945, the year of the war against Japan. At that time I was the only junior officer (senior lieutenant) of the agency I was serving in, which was parachuted into a North Korean port with a squad of marines. I spent several months there (I will return to this story later on) and was decorated with the above-mentioned medal. But some women-typists, who served in the central apparatus (in the deep rear), were decorated with medals on their beautiful heroic breasts. It is only fair to say that I (unlike some others) never accomplished any fighting feats, I did not even kill a single enemy (there was no one to kill). At the same time, they, without even notifying me, made me a regular cadre officer! Having overcome great obstacles, appealing to the supreme authorities, I managed to get demobilised (from Port Arthur Sea base) two years after the end of the war. Whenever I go to Kazan to visit some people (my pupils among them), I can proudly say (and I do do it – in my mind), “I am the only Non-Honoured Scientist here (all the others, including my pupils have long been (and more than once) Honoured, they are laureates of all kinds, etc.). The Russian singer of the Soviet time Leonid Utyosov, addressing his audience from the stage, used to say, “Now, here's Utyosov, - the only non-Honoured Artist of the Republic”.

One more deviation from the topic. I once had a colleague, almost a friend. I say “almost” meaning that some people cannot be more that friendly acquaintances and will never become friends to anyone, and not because of any animosity. It is simply beyond them, like some people who cannot become, for example, writers because one is supposed to have talent for it. And an “ability” to be a friend is a special kind of talent. I put the word “ability” in commas because I do not have any adequate term in my vocabulary corresponding to what I mean to say; it is some charisma which you cannot learn. It is either there or not, and if it is there, it is there genetically, given from birth. And the object of friendship (in reality, it is the subject, but in this context I mean it as in “object of love”) is a gift of chance. If you meet such a person, you are a lucky man, if not – well, there is no one to blame, unless you exclude the possibility of your being deprived of this talent by Nature (or by God, if you like).

73 There is little subjective in friendship, only culture, the culture of the two participants. When broken, it is impossible to restore, even if both sides take proper efforts initiated by reason, because it is not correct to say that something “breaks” here. Rather, it comes to the surface, something missing in the relations – elective affinity. Therefore, friends are never many. If you have (or had) two or three friends at the same time, you may consider yourself to be the richest and happiest man in the world! The overwhelming majority of the people are devoid of this happiness. It may be so because the inhuman conditions of our existence do not allow this potential gift of friendship, which is established in every mortal, to awaken and blossom. And here, like anywhere else, the acting social history is to blame, for it moves without sails or rudder, ever outbound from the right world order.

Friendship is akin to love, but differs from it in principle: it is the consequence of the harmony of two souls, attracted to each other by mutual good feelings, completely devoid of any profit-led motivation. Material relations between friends are possible, but not necessary, as they are more likely to interfere with friendship, because in our improperly designed world it is sometimes possible not to observe decorum, and it sometimes happens that one has to violate the accepted norms, destroying friendship as a result. Love, as we know, is good for the continuation and satisfaction of physical attraction, the result of which are children who continue the race and assert the parents’ own selves. It is impossible to do without material relations here, not necessarily in the negative sense. Therefore, due to this or to other reasons, love may disappear. But friendship, having connected two equivalent talents, is eternal and will not be bothered with material trifles. There was no such friendship between me and the acquaintance I have mentioned, although we had known each other for 45 years, 30 years of those closely. Friendship is not determined by duration. I can prove it, referring to my friendship with another Moscow Tatar (he is dead now, too) Muhammat Abdrahmanov, who, by the way, was initially a childhood friend of the colleague about whom I am writing. I knew Muhammat only 15 years, and our friendship was at its peak and would have continued had he not passed away. Another case in point: friendship with a man, who had just been an acquaintance of mine for rather a long time, but we have been close friends for the last 8 – 10 years (but I will tell about him later on, in a more appropriate place of my story).

Back to the story. So, my colleague and I – we were friendly. We had co- authored two articles, he’d often come to my place, we would have drinks, and

74 he was the best man at my wedding. He was a highly qualified specialist in his field, although he was never promoted to full professorship. Nor did he write a book. It was a rare case that he was not invited by one or other committee in Moscow on Tatar problems (probably also because he was on friendly terms with the director of one of the Institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR). But the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan never invited him, not because it could turn to other, more qualified specialists. It was a clear case of no man being a prophet in his own country (or, as the case may be, in his own Republic, in his own nationality) for the Tatar scientific “elite”. The passionarity so peculiar of the Tatar nationality has degenerated into a kind of jealousy that blinds them. Therefore they will prefer, first of all, a pleaser from their own inner circle, no matter if he is not too wise (which fact gracelessly revealed itself when the Academy of Sciences of the Republic was formed). It will be someone with the last name of “Okolotochny” from St. Petersburg or from abroad with “-Ogly” in his last name. They do so in spite of the fact that a little beyond their own circle, but still within reach, there may be some “Fahri” who is a first-class specialist, but who is looking at some of his colleagues with contempt, thus branded “not easy to deal with”. It is not a secret that the powers do not favour some local specialists, but they have to resort to their knowledge in need, because those specialists are without equal, neither in their own region, nor beyond. Of course, they are constricted in many ways, materially, too, so that they do not get too fat (God forbid!), and the powers do not get lean. But the oppressed ones were not born yesterday. I know a couple of highly qualified scientists (they used to be good friends), who have not grown successors equal to them. Most probably, it was because those who were supposed to help, didn’t. One of them tried to complain through a highbrow newspaper, and not only about the system, but also about the businessmen who did not want to share by giving him just a small bit of the wealth they pinched from the State.

Since I am talking about Kazan Tatars, I must say a few words about myself, for I am a Kazan Tatar, too, although I was born and grew up 300 kilometres from Kazan. Our dynast was Mavla Koliy (I am his agnate in the 10th generation), who lived and worked somewhere not far from Kazan, from where he was forced to move east, to the village of Old Ishteryak (now in Leninogorsk District of the Republic of Tatarstan). A Sufi and a poet, he wrote poems that the Russian authorities did not like much (I read those published by the fellow of Bashkir State University K. Davletshin, who had found more than 100 of his poems written at the end of the 17th – beginning of the 18th century). His son Dusay became a mullah in the village of Sarabikkulovo, where my

75 father was born by one of his great-great grandsons, and where I was born, too. I am related to Kazan Tatars not only by birth, but also by culture and language which I do not know well, according to Fauziya Bairamova. She is a talented fighter-liberator of the Tatar people. A poetess, not a bad one, they say. Can’t say much here, I have not read her poems. She is interesting to me for her selfless devotion to the struggle for the liberation of the Tatar people.

While still on the subject, I cannot help mentioning my pupil (he was one of my graduate students) Marat Mulyukov – a talented champion for the liberation of the Tatar nation in the perestroika years. The present-day ones aren’t even in the same league. As a scientist he was, as he himself said, compared to others, a B+ mediocre, but as the Chairman of the All-Tatar Public Centre he was a straight-A+ specialist. Without betraying the interests of the national movement, he got on well with the authorities of the Republic. He has the ear of President Shaimiev. By his recommendation the President received me with my concept of socio-economic reforming. I was granted a dialogue and my concept was accepted for further study. Swimming with enemy sharks, I’ll tell you, is a skill. And what skill it was! It is leaders of this character and quality that can deliver. Such people as Bairamova, and there was another person equal to her, a male in the town of Naberezhniye Chelny, who got docile after serving a prison term, such people are needed, so that those in Moscow know: there are people in Tatarstan who are able to open another Chechnya. It will never actually happen, there are no people, no resources, and maybe no need. We’ll just wait and see. The demographic crisis is working, but it is not yet clear: for whom? All the same, the fact that Fauziya dislikes me notwithstanding, may she live and act and I say to her “Good luck to you, dear Bairamova!” As for her dislike of me, well, it’s not that we’ll ever, oh, I almost said, “baptise children together”. It is absolutely impossible not only because she is the leader of some Moslem Party, but due to some other reasons. A pity…

I have mentioned a newspaper above. I will tell you about it and especially its owner. Its master and chief quill-driver is, as I have already said about another, a far more outstanding public figure, “cleverly cunning”. He is engaged in a skilled rearguard action, saving his paper, repelling the attacks by the city executive board (the paper’s former owner was the Mayor) that did not give the paper a suitable shelter; the paper had to dwell in such a place where an intellectual (the paper was intended for intellectuals) could not find the editor’s office. But the boss is an enduring man, and without any losses worth talking about he lived to the day when he reached the rank on the great Putin’s vertical

76 far from Kazan. He bought a three-room apartment to serve as the editorial office where he is flourishing like a rose, and continues making an idol, that is, The Idol, for himself. I did not advise him to do it, though, from experience of a friend who was creating the aforementioned Idol without the support of the Idol’s assistant “khalifs”, with sad consequences. It is true though, that the boss I am speaking about is flirting with two people from the Idol’s inner circle, just in case. I have to hand it to him, he is doing it in an absolutely unexpected way, using their names for his own, sometimes rather clever thoughts allegedly expressed by them earlier (which had never happened and could not have happened by definition). But they do not mind that. There is a real danger that they will get accustomed to them, adopt them, i.e. understand their content and “privatise” them… And then, if somebody ever tries to quote them (it may be the author himself) without a reference to them, they will immediately enforce their “copyright”. And that may crack a jackpot for them, and their previous income of the Idol’s assistants will look like nothing at all.

Well, where was I? Oh yes, talking about my chum who is no longer with us. It would happen at conferences, at round tables that ended in drinking parties: he'd be given the (long-awaited!) floor, and waste no time in reminding everybody that he was the only “honoured scientist of Tatarstan” in Moscow, among hundreds of other “non-honoured” Tatar-Muscovite scientists. Why not? He had the right to say this. I, for one, didn't. Last year (a big anniversary for me) my boss suggested that I should be recommended to be given this title on the level of the Russian Federation. I advised him not to do it. Not because they would not have conferred it on me, for I could have slipped through the cracks of the bureaucratic system, as Putin once said (I think, answering the question of some newsman, if he could become the tsar of Russia), “everything is possible in Russia”. Just because, in the first place, I hate the present regime from the bottom of my heart, just as much as I hated the Soviet regime, and asking it for a reward would be a clear case of eating the cake and having it too. This isn't nice. Also, I do not deserve this title. The same case was with the poet Evtushenko when he refused to accept the medal that President Yeltsin was giving to him, because he “did not deserve it”. That's all there is to it. I said to my boss that what I thought I did deserve was having the book of my selected works published. He agreed. We got down to work, but the editor he had appointed rejected my manuscript as subversive. He said that if it were published, the University, which was not very orthodox as it was, would be closed down. The book was published by another publishing house; the university was not undermined, maybe because it had nothing to do with the publishing. And for the fact that the author was the professor of that

77 university, so what? There are quite a few fools in it, like in any other institution, those who do not understand the good they have for serving the regime. So, why should we close the university because of one fool?

No, “excuse me, comrade-gentlemen-professors”, thinks a Kremlin big-wig, “of course, we are fools, but not to such an extent as that editor is. No, we are cleverer, and we shall leave you in peace until another suitable occasion, and it will shortly present itself. Where do you live? Aha, in Russia… That’s just it”.

Before I started talking about my chum, I had mentioned that I was dismissed twice: the first time I was out of work for only 3 months, and I was paid for them on the recommendation of the Ministry of Higher Education. The second time I was unemployed for over 3 years (I could have taken a job at another university, but out of mere principle I made up my mind to be restored in the old place with the help of the Party Control Committee of the CPSU Central Committee). In this connection I would like to say a good word about our Znanie (“Knowledge”) society. It sent me on trips all over the country to give public lectures thus letting me earn the daily bread for my family.

I must say a few words about this field, too, and about public lectures, which were rather dangerous for the lecturers in those Soviet days (“nostalgic” for some people now); you could always blurt out something for which you could easily be sent away to some distant place. They say it happened once, the whole thing starting with a joke. A person asked what the difference was between capitalism and socialism. In Soviet propaganda there was a strict method regarding capitalism description, which was developed to the level of categorical imperative: “What is asserted in capitalism is negated in socialism”. Guided by it, an Armenian lecturer answered: “In capitalism one man exploits (others), but in socialism, it’s the other way round”. The consequence of this wisdom was exile to Kolyma.

Armenians historically have had brains but no money. This makes them different from Georgians, who had quite a lot of money in the Soviet time, but had no wits to create such lecturers. Today they (their rulers, of course, I mean) have neither money nor brains. Things have changed, now they have to pay for everything: taxes and whatever comes from Russia, and there is a lot of it. They have no money of their own, and Uncle Sam gives them money only for conflicts that the Georgian administration needs so badly. And, I must say, they have rather succeeded in that. In that manner they have at last managed to provoke the Russian administration to show its imperial-chauvinist essence

78 deporting people of Georgian nationality from Russia. Among them there was a sick elderly Georgian woman (a citizen of Russia, by the way), who was practically killed by the police, as they refused to give her medical aid. Such a “clever” act is qualified in Russia as “to sit down in a puddle and fart loudly”, splashing dirty water and stench around, i.e. all over the world.

I would recommend the Georgian administration to bid adieu to Abkhases and Osseties, wishing them good luck in their political voyage, and gently say (not aloud, of course), “break your leg!” to compensate for the unrealised evil. The trouble of all nations that have ever found themselves in the position of “beneficiaries” for other nations is that in the first place they would like to meddle in their internal affairs, and only in the remaining time – to mind their own business. But they never have time for the latter, nor do they have any resources, which have already been plundered. And the Georgian people are desperately in need of attention from their leaders. Very much so! But why, the leaders have more important things to do! The elite of the Georgian nation is on the verge of losing the title of “great”… Restore the Greatness! And that’s all there is to it! And what is the Russian leadership busy with? Also this and nothing else.

For some reason, the world’s experience is not taken into account: the smaller the state, the happier it is, and the people in it are clothed, fed and entertained. In front of our eyes all smaller European states are prospering (Luxembourg, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, San Marino, Monaco, Liechtenstein and others). They forget that the larger the state, the worse off its people are. Obviously, with the increase of the population, territory and other things, the ambitions grow to the degree of “big, but stupid”. It seems better to be “small, but smart”, right? But no, it is always something big and great that attracts the most! And what's surprising, this principle works even in anything meanest, routine, physiological and anatomical (look, what they are doing with the breasts and the phallus! It is beyond normal reason, or, should I say, “Thy ways are mysterious, oh Lord!”).

I have not told everything about that Armenian lecturer joke yet. I also told it when giving a lecture in Nagorny Karabakh, and obviously in a suitable situation. It struck home, and the audience laughed for a long time. It is important for people to laugh: it was important in the time of Soviets, and it is important now. People can barely make ends meet, many of them die in all kinds of scrapes caused by the rulers. For example, every year 42,000 people in our country die from drinking unlicensed alcohol beverages (and how many

79 become disabled for life?). So people simply must laugh. It reassures the powers greatly, in spite of the fact that it is the foolishness, villainy or some such quality of the actions of the powers that causes this laughter.

But we, the people are the most laughable: now that I am writing these lines, all the mass media are discussing the problem of alcoholism, addressing the population with the question “what is to be done?” People suggest the usual Russian package: punitive and prohibitive measures, and those who have to do with the power suggest the introduction of State monopoly on alcohol in order to broaden the possibilities of embezzlement for officials, for they have somewhat diminished in recent years. As if the main reason of the people increasingly drinking themselves to death from century to century were not clear! It lies in the social structure of the people. Comrades-gentlemen, it is necessary to change the lumpen-proletarian structure of society for such a structure in which the majority would be the class of owners, i.e. middle class instead of the present “pantless”, as the unforgettable Academician Amosov would say, proletarians of physical and mental work. Then the problem would solve itself. When people are busy working for themselves and not for state spongers or capitalist monopolists, who manage the market together with officials as they see fit, they have no time to drink. Owners/businessmen do not have any fixed working hours, they work as much as is necessary for the business, and with all members of their families alongside, young and old. Even Russian peasants, while they were peasants (and they could be called owners only with some reservation), drank, sometimes heavily, but only on holidays (unfortunately, there are too many of those in Russia, especially religious ones, when everybody drinks together with priests and other “servants” of God). At other times people who were more or less financially secure, did not have time to drink. Poor people, such as agricultural labourers in the country and workers in industrial centres drank, moonshine, of course, no matter what day it was. Firstly, because they had (and have) no other kind of fun, secondly, they have more than enough time for it. Having finished his working day, the man splits a bottle with his two drinking buddies, comes home, puts everything “in order” by beating his wife and children black and blue for their complaints of half-starved existence, and then – to bed till the next round of misfortunes. There is no need for him to look after or to improve anything. That is where the core of the problem is, gentlemen. But it cannot be solved today, because the solution has to do with the existence of bureaucracy, that is, their removal from power, because the class of owners prefers to solve the state problems itself and to have officials only as executives, under strict control. When a class producing nothing and knowing nothing controls the

80 economy of the whole country, being the manager and the executor at the same time, it is impossible to thinks that anything worth talking about will come out of it. The funny thing about Russia is just this. You laugh till you cry.

B) The ones that make us laugh

In the old days Arkadiy Raikin (a famous stand-up comedian) used to make people laugh half to death, exposing the ugliness of the powers. But it affected neither the powers, nor him. Today it is Zhvanetsky that makes us laugh. We probably need to thank the Jewish God: he had no sooner called Raikin than he gave us Zhvanetsky. But when we laughed at Raikin's shows, sketches and parables (he could do many things), we sort of laughed with joy. It was probably because we were laughing at ourselves, the people who were befooled by the “clever” high Communist-Soviet officials. Now we laugh at the satire of Zhvanetskiy, when we have already been robbed by the same snobbish Communist bounders, who disguise themselves in the toga of democrats, which becomes them as a saddle becomes a cow. Speaking of cows, we used to laugh at the fact that our neighbour’s cow died. Now that cows are becoming increasingly rare (collective farms have kicked the bucket, our peasants no longer exist, not wanting to become farmers, and there are no neighbours in the old sense of the word and they have no cows), we laugh joyfully when someone rolls in shit, physically or, in most cases, figuratively. As for the latter, we can all, or almost all, do it (this must be the main reason why the powers do not want to reveal the mysteries of the KGB; it may happen like it did in that old joke of the Soviet days when part of the population is in the GULAG, the other – expecting to be sent there, but meanwhile happy to be living in the great country which is the best country in the world). So if you have no crap of your own, we can always spare you some of ours.

It is a good thing that we have Zhvanetsky. True, Israel has probably long been waiting for him, safe and sound. But he does not want to leave Russia, because he criticises and loves it very much. We always look forward to the moment when he opens his shabby yellow case and begins to read to the continuous laughter of the audience. I have been wondering: why hasn't anybody thought of stealing his case with its valuable contents? No, our thieves chose his Mercedes instead. One of the two main troubles of Russia – there are fools among thieves, too… But it’s OK, because he will buy a new Mercedes, or even a better chariot, and if he does not have enough money, people like Kobzon, Rozenbaum, and some other tribesmen of his will help him. Because

81 there are such people among them, who help one another, unlike ourselves. There aren't many, of course, but they still exist for not all of them have left the country; some have even returned. Oh, I have forgotten to mention Abramovich, who could have helped, too, because it is not all the soccer- players in the world that he wants to buy on the people’s billions of dollars given to him by the state. Not roubles, ladies and gentlemen, not roubles, for you cannot buy anything for them outside of Russia, not even a glass of our beloved vodka. I experienced it myself when I recently was in Montreal, and a little earlier in Germany, where Putin worked for several years and apparently failed to talk his shop-pals into abolishing such discrimination.

There are other stand-up comedians: Koklyushkin, for one... and once there was one among them, a true-blue Russian with a beautiful beard and authentic Russian speech, who himself laughed so voluptuously that he became a Governor, upon which he was killed, with no one going to prison as a result. There is no Demyan (whose pen-name was “Poor”) among those comedians. Poor thing, he was a Kremlin courtier, lived in a luxurious house on the best street of Moscow, and even after his death, managed to secure a very rich memorial plate. If he were alive now, he would compose a song with the words, “you should not go and be a Governor, brother, they will do without you” (the original song being “you should not join the Red Army, son, the Bolsheviks will do without you”). Yes, we need a Demyan very much, only Demyan the Rich this time, otherwise the song will not be sung, the showbiz mafia will not allow it. Unless, of course, Josef Kobzon puts his word in, for he himself is on the way to the Governor’s chair (his own millions aren't enough for him any longer).

The present-day jokers (they have multiplied to obscenely large quantities: some of them are couples, there are even skirts, although pants prevail so far) are all necessary to someone. Absolutely necessary. Only I do not know to whom. I would like to ask Mikhail Zadornov, for he is for sure informed by those who know about his anti-Americanism: “Well, how stu-u-u-pid those Americans are”, suggesting to us clever people, that we are clever, even cleverer than… They are probably necessary, comedians like him, because they cause people’s harmless and peaceful laughter. The snitch sitting in the hall will inform his master: people laughed for pleasure. “Well and good”, his boss and guardian will say in reply.

Here’s more on the laugh-or-die phenomenon. I have been trying to find for over half a century how to improve our Russian structure of life (and now, this

82 book is an attempt to find the way of changing life in the whole world). Yet the Russian practice has already found its own way to perfection. The Russians have known since times immemorial that they have something that goes like this: thou will not have a forbidden fruit... but if you want it so very much, you may have it. Orthodox Christianity forbids eating meat during Lent. But what if you want it? What does a Russian sly do? He baptises the pig into a fish and eats it. He gets what he wants: he observes the ritual (Orthodoxy), and has his meat. (Don’t our bigwigs do the same? Being downright godless both at heart and in their acts, they make the sign of the cross when they know people and archbishops and other priests are watching).

First I shall consider prostitution, illegal in our country. Some clever people, with some influential dirty-minded ones among them, have long been suggest- ing legalising it. This way they’d be able to not just visit a brothel without having to look over their shoulder, not just give prostitutes a legal job, but also to increase the stabilisation fund by 100% or 200% in a short time by means of the taxes garnered from the girls instead of police bribes, as is usually the case. It is no joke that we have about 10 million available women who cannot get married because of lack of acceptable men. Not all of them will start turning tricks as for that profession they need to be beautiful and slender. The problem is that so many women would actually consider becoming prostitutes, particu- larly those who sleep with truck-drivers and all kinds of street sleaze basically for food. Today we are supplying these women to practically the whole world, because the females of Western Europe and America do not normally special- ise in this ancient profession. Granted, a few of them do - not out of need but because of love of this kind of art. And art it is; in Japan, for instance, they are specially trained, and they have a special beautiful name, and they are dressed beautifully to stress that they are not prostitutes but spiritual girlfriends of real millionaire men. And there are no brothels at all in Canada, but there are some institutions where the time of girls is sold. It costs some 100 Canadian dollars (they’d take US dollars, too. Won’t take our roubles, the bastards, no respect for our money). It is also interesting that in that country the aforementioned girl is free to decide how to use her time; she may even refuse to go further than first base if she does not like the client or due to some other reason. In that case the client can ask for his money back, and the owner of this institution will ob- lige. Generally speaking, they have very strange ways in that blessed country of theirs, from the Russian point of view. See for yourselves; can you go travel- ling for several hours being as sober as a judge, because not a single café or snack-bar would serve you alcohol (you can only drink in restaurants)? Once I was travelling to Niagara with my son and, hoping to wet my whistle, went into

83 a restaurant. My son shook his head, “Oh, no, you can’t have alcohol here. I cannot give it to you even in my car, because it is parked in the street, which is a public place. Drinking alcohol in public places is strictly prohibited”. Then he told me what had happened to a Russian who had just moved to Canada. The man came home with his friend in a car, pulled up and then decided to share a bottle of some alcohol with his friend. At that moment a policeman appeared as if from nowhere, came up and fined them. Their arguments that they were sit- ting in their car next to their house had no effect on the policeman. He kept on saying, “You have broken the law forbidding drinking alcohol in public places”. And that was all. I am afraid that the above-mentioned institution selling the time of the girls is of the same type. If it were different, any tipsy Russian (or Russian-speaking) man in response to a girl’s refusal would beat her up against the floor and the wall in such a way that nothing would remain of her beauty.

So, what is the situation with prostitution in our country? Now it is called leisure – and for some unknown reason it is tax-free. I state with regret that there is no modern Arkadiy Raikin to comment on prostitutes, their pimps and their guardians (some influential people, from you know where), or on tax authorities. He would advise them on how to make profit for the State from this sort of business. Remember the unrealised idea of Arkadiy Raikin to tie an electric power generator to the feet of each soccer player so that they did not waste energy. “How much power would be churned out!” exclaimed Raikin. And what if the suggested device were attached to the body movements of the prostitutes and their partners! Can you imagine? Then the idea of Putin of our country becoming the guarantor of energy safety not only of Europe but also of the whole world would be realised! Then there’d be no need for Putin to create a gas cartel together with Iran and other states like Venezuela. That would only be in addition to other tax revenues, immeasurably increasing the stabilisation fund, i.e. the fund stabilising the economy of the USA and other countries that cannot be stabilised without our help.

The absence of a Raikin now is as disastrous for us as the absence of a Stalin for bureaucrats. According to a joke of the Brezhnev era, there was enough fur hats for all bureaucrats of the middle and higher rank in the time of Stalin. There was a tradition in those days: when delegates came to participate in a Communist Party Congress, wearing their humble rabbit-skin hats, they’d be given hats of a much better quality. So they left the Palace of Congresses (both men and women) wearing luxurious furs on their heads. But in the time of Brezhnev there was a hat shortage. Why? Because Stalin observed the

84 proportion between the quantity of the fur-bearing animals and the number of higher officials, and in Brezhnev time the balance was disrupted. It happened because Brezhnev did not possess a very strong character (they say that on the whole he was not an evil person, and he loved women; those who love women are kind by definition. Take me for example). As a matter of fact, the quality of socialist economy could in the best of years develop in arithmetic progression (and not infrequently it went downward), but the quantity of officials increased geometrically. The class of higher officials consists of people who are apt to multiply; so every offspring of a boss had to be provided with a high position and a cushy job, and creating such positions was easy for the CPSU, it was their job. Hence the result of that creation: the proportion between their quantity and the quantity of fur was disrupted. Stalin did not allow that, and he systematically shot part of his assistants at all levels of power. So, everything was OK. Well, I do not want to be a Jonah, but for today’s bureaucracy, that has multiplied to a great degree and continues to multiply (now their number is almost three times as big than there was in the whole of USSR, although even then their number was more than sufficient), there is no Stalin. But it would be good to have one (exclusively for them!).

Pages and pages of periodicals are dedicated to “leisure”. They offer girls of ages 16 to 60, brunettes and blondes, sultry and cool, your place or hers, cheap or expensive (a temptation for moneybags, who presume that the more expensive a girl is, the sweeter she’ll be) and all that sort of thing. In a word – none will leave you disappointed.

In the same context I want to refer to the F word. In Russian the use of this word is so universal, that it goes together with such words as “mouth”, “ass” and even “mother” (not one’s own, though, but somebody else’s, thank God for small favours). They say that recently one high-ranking cretin showed great proficiency in this kind of “art”, the kind that hardly ever occurs among common people. Now this extremely rude word has been replaced by the euphonious “sex”. And – there you are! If earlier you’d hear it from some drunken rowdy or your boss, now you can hear it in any place from a respectable citizen (man or woman) and in any line of print, no matter what the subject is, just read and enjoy!

President of Chechnya Alkhanov suggested that the frightening ethnic name of “Chechen” should be replaced by some other neutral name. I should think that he

85 decided to give up the name “Chechen” not because everybody is fed up with it. The ethnic name of “German” was at one time no less frightening, but never has it occurred to Germans to even think about giving up their name, because it is part of their history. It is not the name that frightens, but the abhorrent deed. I do not exclude the possibility that it was Yuri Luzhkov who prompted Alkhanov to do it with his definition of “people of Caucasian nationality”. Luzhkov chose this wording because he had found himself in a situation similar to that of the heroine of Kuprin’s story “The Pit” (I forget her name; I only remember that she was beautiful and clever). The author asked her how they (the priestesses of love), such young and beautiful women, can admit monsters (people who are physically ugly, psychos and drunkards) and lecherous old men, to their beautiful bodies. To which she answered, “We are priestesses, therefore we do not make any difference between handsome and ugly, young and old. All men look the same to us”. So it is to Luzhkov: all the people who come to Moscow to crap and to harm, and there are many such people from the Caucasus, where our federal authorities are bothering them, have the same “Caucasian” face. Indeed, although there are scores of nationalities living in the Caucasus, they all look alike, just like us, the white Europeans, look like one another. So he generalized. He neglects linguistic details, and he probably does not even know them. I would say though that in one of the cases Luzhkov got it on the head, just like Yuri Afanasiev did when describing the Congress of People’s Deputies as an “aggressively obedient majority”. There is no Afanasiev for today’s State Duma, or he would say something like that about it. It deserves it, except that one more word could be added – “indifferent”. Zhirinovsky could say that, it is up to him, but he also belongs to the “aggressively-indifferent-obedient majority” in spite of his aggressive nature. As Bruno Jasieński wrote (I do not remember it verbatum, just the main idea), an indifferent person is more dangerous than an enemy, or a traitor; it is because of indifferent people that the evil is perpetuated. There are not that many enemies and traitors, but the world seems to be full of indifferent people who are led to an abyss as a lamb is led to the slaughterhouse. So, Yuri Mikhailovich gave the formula, not suspecting the consequences. But who knows? He is a cunning man; look, what a Baturina he has got! Now it must cost one billion, - not roubles, I hope. When he is retired, or forced out (if they can manage to do it), he will have his bees to toy with. Besides, he will have a pension from that Baturina. A Shangri-La!… So what was that nail that he got on the head? Oh, yes. The Russian tsars were only called Russian, being in fact either Tatars or Germans (not Germans directly, but through German princesses who were unfortunately married to their fathers and produced heirs, one worse than the other). Nicolas II had only a 116th of

86 Russian blood. The rest was Tatar-German! And the last Russian “tsar” does not have a single drop of Russian blood. What nationality would you assign to him? If you call him Osseti, it would be against nature, because, they say, only his father was an Osseti – a shoemaker and drunkard. If you call him a Georgian, it will not be right either, because only his mother was Georgian (her son used a bad word referring to her; according to Avvakum, it was the people whom he especially disliked that he described in that manner). It's quite another thing to say “a person of Caucasian nationality”! It is absolutely clear! Just for this wording Yuri Mikhailovich deserves a monument at his apiary. Why exactly there? Because, in the first place, nobody will dare to throw the monument off the pedestal after his death (our ways are very well known!), for fear of bees. In the second and that will be the main reason, it is granted that all the merits of Luzhkov will be crossed out, it is done in our country with great ease. But nobody will ever manage to besmirch his kind relations with God’s creatures, and his formula “a person of Caucasian nationality” will stay (has already stayed) for ever…

Do you know how I came to this conclusion about Luzhkov? It is pleasant or rather, beneficial for me to think that way after a recent incident. Up to and including 2005 I had kept two or three families of bees, but because of an experiment gone wrong they did not survive the winter of 2005-2006. Well, I grieved a little, and then became glad they’d left me. I thought that they tied me hand and foot and prevented me from going where I liked and when I liked to go in the summer time (in accordance with the law of preservation of species the sweet little things swarm at this time of the year, and before you can say honey they may fly away in an unknown direction, which would certainly be a loss). I thought that now I could do plenty of travelling. Oh, yes, there was one more inconvenience connected with the bees and left to me by my friend Rafik (he's passed away now). He wanted to keep bees, too, and I gave him one family, from which he made two. But he had nowhere to keep them. He wanted to keep them at my dacha, for which purpose he adapted the attic of my sauna. He made a simple ladder for climbing upstairs hoping to turn it into a staircase with banisters later, so we could both climb to our bees. But he did not manage to do it, he up and died, well before his time (let him rest in peace, for he was a good man). So I thought that I no longer needed the ladder.

I enjoyed my beeless self almost the whole summer of 2006, and I thought the feeling would last. Nothing of the kind! In the first place, I was missing them greatly, because I had gotten so used to them in 23 years! (Those 23 years keep popping up in this book. I cannot get rid of them. That time was compensated

87 though: during the next 16 years I wrote 10 times more works than I had before defending my Ph.D.). Those 23 years were not lost for the science, though. In the second, here's me sitting on the veranda of my dacha with my notebook computer, composing my next “imperishable” work at 4.30PM on July 19. I remember the time because I was supposed to have a snack half an hour later, just before bedtime (I go to bed at 10). I went out into the garden where I had no business whatsoever, came up to the sauna and saw a hive flying round the roof. I wondered where they came from, me being the only bee-keeper in the village, and an ex-bee-keeper at that (when I had begun doing it in 1982, there were 4 bee-keepers in the village, three of whom gave it up when they were alive, and the fourth, Nikolai Feodorovich, died 3 or 4 years ago). So, on that very day I observed the bees over the roof of my bathhouse. I climbed up to the attic, and there I saw masses of bees on the roof. There was a crack there, maybe 4 inches wide (I think it was the work of the storm wind that had recently blown throughout the Moscow outskirts). I noticed that some bees were flying from under the roof of one of the empty beehives. I opened it and saw inside it a mass of bees in conglobulations, and also fresh honey and brood on the three empty frames. I had closed all the entrances of the beehive, but now I discovered that the soft iron grid on the ventilating opening on the front of the beehive had been moved aside (where the bees were flying in and out). I told about it to a bee-keeper, who was the editor of one of the newspapers in the town of Bugulma, and he said, “Allah has sent them to you. You intended to resume bee keeping in the following year, and He heard you, and suggested that you should attend to your God’s creatures henceforth”. I don’t know: I am more likely to agree with Bill Gates' point of view when he said that he had no facts testifying to His (God’s, that is) existence. My relations with Allah are about the same as of Niels Bohr's with the horseshoe nailed to his gate. When one of his colleagues visiting him asked, “you, a man who has penetrated into the mysteries of the Universe, and you believe in this nonsense?”, he said, “of course not, but they say it (the horse-shoe) helps non-believers, too”. Of course, I prepared the bees that came to me from God knows where for the winter; they hibernated well and I have my honey now.

Coming back to the idea of the President of Chechnya, you understand that he does not want to be listed as a “person of Caucasian nationality”, because he is a true Chechen, heart and soul, not necessarily hating many of the Caucasian nationalities, but undoubtedly loving his own nation.

But doesn’t the snag of Alkhanov’s idea consist in the pronunciation of the new ethnic name for Chechens, which is very hard to pronounce for Russian

88 speakers? Now what? You cannot say “Chechen” on the one hand, and you cannot pronounce the new name because it is quite a mouthful, on the other. So, the Chechen problem is taken care of via a euphemism. The only thing left to do is to scientifically explain all this, for which purpose we have The Russian Academy of Natural Sciences as an alternative to the Russian Academy of Sciences, in spite of the fact that the first one (not second!) issued the Secretary of the RF President’s Public Chamber. In the first one there are academicians with whom you can shake hands without feeling uncomfortable. For example, with those who directly represent the interests of a well-known Chechen clan. “Feeling uncomfortable” is an anachronism, a leftover from unnecessary “dinosaur” morality peculiar of honourable people in the past.

Let us take, for example the above mentioned Public Chamber – a public laughingstock, allegedly represented by activists appointed by the President of Russia, who in their turn appoint the same kind of people as themselves. All that is done to camouflage the anti-popular essence of “the aggressively- indifferent-obedient majority” of the State Duma, “majority” formed by the under-developed democracy and governed by those who have nothing to do with democracy. I admire the wisdom of the Kremlin advisor who invented the terms like “controlled democracy”, “sovereign democracy”. Controlled by whom? It goes without saying, by bureaucrats, not by democrats. The word “sovereign” is used in the meaning of “independent”. From whom, indeed? – From people, of course. And all is presented as something so clever that you cannot help wondering at the foolishness of those who think that way. They do so, apparently thinking that if they do not have any conscience, neither do the rest of the people.

Speaking of sovereign democracy. That official, attempting to explain the applicability of this word to the Russian realities, writes that democracy is not a fact but a process, touching upon various spheres of people’s life. Probably the author means that Russia as a sovereign State is going through the process of democratisation, the degree of which is determined by our conditions and cannot be any other, and the State will not allow any “non-sovereign” democracy (the centre of power over its present and future “must be consolidated in Russia”). Referring to European examples, Surkov says that they also have “sovereign democracies” in the countries of Europe. It is known that all comparisons have their drawbacks, and comparing Russia to Western countries, especially to their democracies, just doesn't fly. Firstly, because it exists in Western Europe, and does not exist in our country. Secondly, in

89 Europe it has a social soil in the name of a multi-million class of owners (up to two thirds of the society), which is the social core of civil society. But we have neither. It is more than strange to assert that the concept of sovereign democracy expresses dignity and strength of the Russian people through the development of civil society, and not to say a single word about the social basis of the latter. Of course, it is only strange at first glance, but it is just where the crux of the question is: bureaucracy cannot create this social structure, because it will be its death (with the first signs of an emerging middle class, start expecting a new default, comrades-gentlemen nouveau riches!). Mr. Surkov slips in different adjectives to the word “democracy”, probably convinced that by doing so he is killing outright the “loud-mouthed” faction of intellectuals. Yes, adjectives are appropriate as applied to class-type democracies. For example, under serfdom peasants’ democracy worked in skhodkas (special village meetings), elections of elders, distribution of communal land, etc. Nobility’s democracy manifested itself in the elections by landlords of regional nobility leaders, and some state bodies were elected with their participation. There was and there is bourgeois democracy, which functions when solving all the problems of social life. But there is not (and cannot be!) any proletarian democracy, because proletarians do not need it in their everyday life, and in their productive activity it is simply impermissible. Owners and market do need democracy, as it is the market that gives birth to democracy. But in the West the adjective “sovereign” characterises different kinds of democracy in different democratic countries, and in Russia all it means is its non-existence. The word performs the function of a cover for false democracy. “Democracy” is a means of action (control) of citizens in defence of their interests from the power bodies elected by them, and not anything else.

And last, Mr. Surkov. In spite of the fact that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, I am, in connection with your passage about the possible future “inevitable and unprecedented crises”, glad because of your questions to which you are seeking answers: “Will Russia master the people-saving technologies of democracy to overcome them? Or will it turn, as usual, to devastating and ruthless state monopolism? Or will it capitulate and disintegrate?” Next you assert that optimistic answers presuppose national solidarity on the basis of common values of freedom, justice and material well- being. And I ask you, are you talking about the basis of “proletarian internationalism”, by any chance? It seems we have already had it. Did any one of our domestic or international proletarians lift a finger to prevent the USSR from disintegration? National and international solidarity exists and will exist only among owners. When they constitute the majority, they save the

90 Fatherland and the unions between Fatherlands. The present Russian proletarians of physical and mental labour would fail to associate themselves with the buyers-up of “azure beaches” and other such things, no matter how hard the higher officials tried. There are many other dubious and disputable points in Mr. Surkov’s article. Generally speaking, the future should be nationalised and made public property, but it cannot be done now or in the future until we give up the bureaucratic code of existence. However, the trouble is that there is no one within the country to take this salutary step. Not because the”creative forces”, under which the author means the “creative class of free people” are scanty and dispersed, but because the people cannot become the subject of development because the State does not want it. It needs wage slaves.

Let’s get back to the topic of females. Some parts of a woman’s attire have some beautiful foreign names, but the Russian word (the equivalent to English “sluttiness”) describing them all is not half as beautiful. I am referring to tits that fall out of almost non-existent bras, or to a slit from the top down to the belly-button, or from the bottom up down to right there, covered (sort of) with a transparent piece of cloth (or cord?), so that there is no need to take the thing off in emergencies; you can move it aside with a finger. And there is an open bottom with the floss between the buttocks. All this needs an adequate name, sounding so that a man hearing it would be excited in a moment, and this excitement would last him until the moment he touches the object.

It will be difficult to find such a word in Russian. To turn to English for such a word would not be convenient, for they have already presented us with the word “sex”. Frankly speaking, Russians could have adopted the Tatar word with the same meaning, and it would have been just as good. I shall tell you about an episode I once witnessed (believe me, it is not a joke, a true story). About 5 or 7 years ago I was in Kazan. I was on a bus going somewhere, and there were two women sitting in front of me. They were obviously friends, ages 25-30. One of them says to the other, “Yesterday Abdul came to Man’ka”; “What for?” the other asks. “You know, what for. Sigarit’ ”, says the first woman (this is a Tatar obscene word transformed in accordance with Russian grammar. It means “to have sex”). Well how could this almost Russian well- conjugated word be any worse than its English equivalent? And the phonetics of “si-ga-rit’ ” also makes it sound very expressive in Russian, much better that “sexit’ “ (by the way, I have never heard this version).

91 In general, if you adopt a foreign word into your native language, you must adapt it to your pronunciation. And the impression you would produce on the people of other nations would be so victorious that the possibility of ever defeating us would never get into their heads.

For example, Russians have some taboo words, helping them to get out of the most difficult situations. I will tell you about a sad experience of a Japanese athlete. For a number of years he had been getting ready to take part in an ice- skating championship, which took place in Moscow. But the Japanese did not take the gold, as expected by his sponsors, only the silver. Naturally, it made the sponsors indignant. On his return to Japan, his boss called him into his office and told him, “You have not justified our confidence in you! How could you let that Russian chap take the upper hand and become the World Champion?” The athlete said that he was not to blame, because those Russians had some sacred word which helped them in the hardest situations, and they, the Japanese, did not have such a word. Boiling over, the boss shouts at him, “What sacred word?” The athlete answered, “this word. Ivan and me got on the starting line and, as the gun went off, the sky became all cloudy, it began to rain and snow, and I could not see anything. I thought that the race was going to be cancelled, but Ivan looked up at the sky, waved his hand, said something that sounded like “ah husima” (“f…ck it”) and went forward and was the first, and I could barely take the second place. So none of this was my fault”. Then, trying to enlighten his boss, he said, “the Russians have quite a lot of such words. For example, if they are sick and tired of someone, they send him “to the three letters” which form the Russian word meaning “phallus”. They do it without saying whether they mean their own or somebody else’s body. And when they want to swear at somebody, they mention “a mother”. They say it loud and with a beastly face. The implication is that he has had, or is certainly going to have sex with the addressee’s mother.

What is especially interesting (I am just thinking), in my ignorant opinion, is that this three-word expression (“f…ck your mother”), though pronounced in a single package, is the only one that has a word for word translation in the Tatar language. May be there are some other word for word translations, but I am not much of a linguist and I just don’t know. I only know that things are pretty bad with translations from Russian into Tatar and vice versa because the languages are not related. Here’s a curious case. My article was being edited in the magazine “Kazan Utlary” (“Kazan Lights”) (I write in Russian). On coming to Kazan, I called at the editors’ office and found the Deputy Chief Editor there. He was reading the proof sheet of my article. I began to read it,

92 too, and discovered in one place something opposite in meaning to what I had written. The editor and I began racking our brains as to how to put it right. We were at it for over an hour, but came up with nothing. I went to a friend of mine, a popular writer Amirkhan Yeniky (he’s passed away by now), with whom we did the correct translation, having worked for over an hour at it. And, being probably very tired of this labour and voicing his displeasure in my address, Amirkhan-aby opened a bottle of good cognac, which we proceeded to drink over bowls of wonderful Tatar noodle soup masterfully cooked by his clever wife Naziya-khanum (also dead now). I forget what toast and which glass it was, but we both had a moment of utter clarity… One of the worthy Tatar writers insistently once advised me not to have my works translated into Tatar. “You disappear in your translated works. The translator is there, but you aren’t”. I understand that he is right. Is “Child Harold” really by Byron in Russian? No, it is Pushkin! The translator should be equal to the author. But where can we get them, such translators? They are very rare. Luckily, I have two good translators in “Kazan Utlary”, and one of them is even a Tukay Prize winner (the highest literature prize). My works are in such favour with him, that sometimes there is no end to my rejoicing when I read them translated into the Tatar language. He understands me sometimes more profoundly than I understand myself. In one of my works I was reasoning that a loving and beloved woman must always please her husband with herself, and as Russian and other non-Moslem women cannot, or rather do not want to do it, the number of divorces in Russia is increasing from year to year. So the prize- winning translator added to my work… You know what? He added what I wanted to, but did not know (I do not know much about the Koran and the legends about the words and deeds of Mohammed): “The wish of a husband is the wish of Allah. Therefore, I think that a Tatar woman will not turn from her husband in bed. That is the reason why Tatars had no divorces in earlier days. Today, of course, they have quite a lot of them, because we are being civilised, too. Oh, indeed we are!..

Russian people stick to the principle of no man being a prophet in his own country”. In this case, neither in Russian nor in any other language there is a word worthy of expressing properly such a nice occupation. In the meantime, we have been living together for almost five centuries, and our First Secretar- ies-Presidents have systematically been swearing an oath of friendship with Russians, the Russians do not know and do not want to know our language. And why should they? To tell the truth, there is not a single Tatar who does not know Russian. Man is apt to choose the way of least resistance and energy sav- ing. What is the necessity of studying a strange difficult language if the native

93 speaker has a good command of your own? This situation is similar to the fol- lowing: why should you develop technology and know-how if you have a lot of raw materials? Of course, it would be nicer to trade petrol at five cents a milli- litre than crude oil at one. But to do it successfully you have to do some think- ing, inventing, calculating, etc. Why bother, if you can simply pump it out, pour it into the pipeline and send it where you want to and as much as you want to? Let the trash work by the sweat of their brow, and we, the bosses, will only count the profits. We do not need to think. Waging a war requires some skill, and you have to learn it and take care of talented generals and officers. But if you want to wage a war with sheer numbers, you do not have to think much: there are many Natashas in Russia, they will breed more children, so you do not have to spare them, because there will be 10-15 Russians (Tatars) to one German. And another thing: why should colonialists develop their own in- dustry if they can easily get profits from the colonies. Germany had no colonies before World War II, and they had to develop their economy at such a pace that had it not been for Hitler’s idiocy mixed with anti-Semitism, Germany could have got the whole world on their knees. And still what a pity that Russians have not adopted the above-mentioned Tatar word. And we could help them henceforth. Now Russians will have to turn to Frenchmen for help. It is said they are great masters in this particular subject.

It is hard to justify such disregard for the word of, we may say, the closest friend – the Tatar people. According to an old adage, you are a human being as many times as there are languages you know. We also say that in the beginning there was the Word. To tell you honestly, personally I do not believe in this formula. Indeed, how could it be: there is no deed yet, but the word about it already exists? Why do words appear? To talk to others about the deed, to tell them what is done and what is to be done, etc.? No, in the beginning there was the Deed. Words without deeds are as many as you like, and everybody can speak today and very few like to take care of business.

Before I round off this subject, where women are represented in an unfavourable light ( and it's their own fault - almost), it will be only fair to say that in the first place, they are nevertheless better than us, in the second, they are not the only ones to blame. I love them all in spite of the fact that not all of them love me. Here is one of them who has sent me an email to the distant country where I am now writing these lines. She writes that she wishes me creative success, love of the surrounding people, and she calls me “our dear Agdas”, meaning “dear to her and to the people who know me”. But I would like to be dear to HER alone, and to be loved not by all the surrounding people,

94 but by HER. When I told her so, I received a bitter refusal, and, you know why? “If only you were 50, then…” (Meaning that in the nearest future she does not want to put a pot under me). My attempt to convince her that I am better than those who are 50 (just some 35 years older!) had no effect on her. I even offered to test me practically, but she said no. I can't figure out those women! A woman is like an infection, but the Russian colloquial equivalent of the word sounds very rude. And still, they are wonderful! They are our better half, because they are wonderful. And we, the men, are not their better half at all…

The problem does not lie in the subservience of women. Their humiliating position in society much depends on the attitude of men the masters. Women to them are an object of sexual exploitation.

This attitude goes back to the time of serfdom with its jus prima noctum which functioned in separate estates of Russia up to the 19th century inclusively. But in Russia it was bad enough even without the “right of the first night”. There was a barin (lord), and through centuries our women asked God to rid them both of the barin’s anger, the more so of the barin’s love.

Alexander Pushkin, presenting one of his friends with a bondmaid from his es- tate, asked him to take care of the child that she was going to give birth to (to not let the baby die of hunger, leave it in an orphanage or somewhere else). And Pushkin is the person who is “our everything” (it is not Stalin, as one of the chief editors of rather a good newspaper said. “Our everything” is Pushkin, and no one else (by the way, with the arrival of that editor, the newspaper went bad and tanked later on). Well, and if he treated that maid so badly, it is not known whose initiative it was. Maybe, it was she who offered herself to the Pushkin’s friend. One of our well-known economists said that women are like economics – you will never understand them. Or, some years ago I met a cer- tain Levkin and told him that he had a very interesting surname. But he said, “one half of our village have the surname of Levkin, and the other half – some less interesting surnames”. In a word, barin…

In the Soviet days there was a youth organisation called “Komsomol”, which was very well adapted for this kind of “business”. I used to know the First Secretary of a certain region, for whom secretaries of a lower rank had built a number of little hunting houses, which he'd visit at pleasure. In addition to vintage drinks (and he liked a good drink) and delicacies, they'd give him a nice Komsomol girl to share his bed with. Once such a girl got tired of the

95 songs he sang when lying on her, and made an escape. The First got really angry; he rang up the First District Secretary, threatening to demote him. Of course, the girl was found and returned to the good lord’s chamber; they say that from that day the man’s songs were heard for a long time after. The Bolshoy Theatre is worth remembering in this connection. Some parts of this organization, by virtue of some of the girls working there, were well adapted to the interests of the dotards – the Members of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee. Communists are very smart, they can adapt anything to their own interests…

Before I forget… My surname stands in the way of any decorations and titles conferred by powers. It does not help even my near and dear, to say nothing of the people who are not my relatives; sometimes it even harms them. I do not want to give examples, because the people I'd mention would be offended and they do not want their names to appear, preferring to suffer without publicity. They just want to be on the safe side, because our people have been educated by the long-time experience: the Russian realities are such that you cannot expect anything good, but the bad can happen any time. The most abominable production of the constant fear is Chekhov’s “man who keeps himself wrapped in cotton-wool”, contaminating everything that surrounds him with his miasma. It is especially insulting when a woman with a higher intellect and willpower finds herself under this type of snip. In this case the genetic gift of superiority is worth nothing.

To mention women in the story without mentioning love is, at any rate, not proper. Therefore I cannot conclude the episode about women without some amateurish generalizations on the psychology of love. Not only because they are unavoidable in my narration, but also because they are necessary for my self-cognition and a more profound cognition of my surroundings. I divide psychology into feminine and masculine. It defines the status of the two sides in love, and it may also be peculiar of some representatives of the opposite sexes: feminine – of men, masculine – of women.

The majority of misfortunes of women as such, i.e. their existence as the sex opposite to men, comes from the fact that a woman is a beautiful, “sweet” half of a human being. Therefore she can become an object of desire of the other half independent of her will and even against it. But in this particular case I am interested in the status of a woman in an equal love partnership, her love destiny arranged by herself or, as a minimum, with her consent, formulated by the popular wisdom “beauty is in the eyes of the beholder”.

96 The inborn task of a woman is the continuation of the human race. Therefore her happiness consists in love. No matter how well off she is materially, culturally and socially, this prosperity does not amount to much without love. In short, there is no happiness. Real, full happiness in love occurs when the two human halves that have been programmed for each other by Nature, join together, when they co-incide with each other in everything, the main thing being their similarity in sexual preferences. The parties should both be either with feminine psychology, or one with feminine and the other with masculine psychology. I believe that such things rarely happen, but they do happen, in which case there are practically no problems of love quality. The happiness of the overwhelming majority of people, is connected one way or another with the situation marked by the above-mentioned formula about the beauty and the beholder. Happiness is produced by marriage (or living together), in which one of the parties (necessarily with the predominance of a feminine psychology), most often a woman, because women are in sexual competition due to their majority over men, allows the other party to love her, although she does not love with a similar passion in return. A centuries-old struggle for her place under the sun in unfavourable social conditions, has made her feminine psychology more pliant, more compromising. Being loved, she puts up with the status of a non-loving entity and gets used to being lavished attention on. The behaviour of a non-loving one in marriage is to a certain extent similar to the behaviour of a prostitute selling her love “willingly” for the sake of a reward necessary to secure her survival. We should not think that she constantly blames herself for her dirty trade. If she did so, she would perform her duties badly and lose her clients (it is not a pleasant comparison, but it somehow explains the nature of the phenomenon).

And the last type of love in this classification may be called “an attempt to love”. It is peculiar of the people with the masculine type of psychology, the main feature of which is a boundless ego and the wish to have a partner by all means, independent of whether he is needed by the other side or not. The marriage between them is possible, but most unwelcome, because with age, as the sexual attraction abates, the joint living becomes complicated, or simply impossible. This type of love does not give happiness at all.

To characterise the behaviour of masculine and feminine types of psychology, I would like to put forward the following formulas. The feminine type is characterised by “taking while giving”; both parts of this formula are subjective, the aspiration is acknowledged, but the second part of the formula is

97 not always realised (through no fault of hers, though). Masculine psychology is based on “giving while taking”; the first part of the formula is subjective, the second – objective, not necessarily subjectively desirable, and sometimes, if you prefer, not infrequently a subjectively impossible consequence, and therefore not always given.

The interrelations between the sexes are complicated, but they are natural. Therefore, they eventually attribute to the good of the multiplying mankind (demography). Far more complicated are the social and political relations, because they are historical, i.e. they are not programmed by Nature (and therefore opposing its normal existence). These relations are formed in the course of the development of mankind, which does not always go smoothly, but comes as a result of a mixture of victoriously selfish motives of stronger subjects of history, in particular, between nations, and in such a multinational country as Russia. I am especially concerned about the relations between two great nations: the Russians and the Tatars.

C) Russo-phobia, Tatar-phobia?

Somebody may accuse me of Russo-phobia, as some of my enemies among the unwise Russians do, because I consider the Russian state and its spiritual leader, the Russian Orthodox Church the main enemy of Russians (and of course, of the nations living together with them). Under the latter (the church) I mean the members of its hierarchy, who have been trying, to this very day, to make Orthodoxy, despite the Constitution, the State ideology (it was such before the Revolution) for which “every power is sent from God”, to be served by all people. Since its conception the Russian State has been building its relations with the dependent nations as an invader, and ever it shows xenophobia towards the nations that break away from Russia. The President of the Russian Federation allows himself to speak publicly of the “ethnically contaminated” spheres of our life; “Russia is rapidly going mad”, “our sick society has a very small hope of recovery, because there is to one to heal it”. I protest openly against imperial-chauvinistic attempts of the prevailing authorities to impede the national development of national minorities

Some zealous Tatars accuse me of Tatar-phobia, because I dispute the principle of territorial self-determination of nations, but advocate the principle of national and cultural autonomy and consider it the only acceptable variant for Russia with its immeasurably mixed population. It is my belief that the fall of the USSR was accelerated due to this notorious principle of territorial self-

98 determination of nations (the main cause being, of course, the inconsistency of Communist teaching). It is impossible to love or to hate a nation, as well as a country, as a whole. They are not women whom you can love or hate. A nation or a country is an entity given to us by nature. And to apply the notions of “love” or “hate” are pseudo-patriotic, contaminating people, with false, perverse ideas alien to the realities of life. Every living creature, especially a human being, accepts the God's world with all its subjects (objects) as a given.

The future of the multi-national mankind lies in the federation of national and cultural autonomies, within which territorial autonomies of national communities are also possible. But no more. Only then will the ungodly process of assimilation of smaller nations by bigger ones (not necessarily more cultural ones, which have grounds for assimilating and not being assimilated, but those infected with the idea of their messianic destiny, a false idea of their own concoction) be suspended.

Why do I not want the disappearance of Russians from the ethnical map of the world? If I am ever influenced by some most intelligent and educated (in the Tatar way) part of the nation, it is just in this connection. As like as not, it's because I love Russian culture very much, its literature, music (classical and folk). I want their prosperity, maybe because I am a man of two cultures: the Russian and the Tatar, in which connection I understand the first better than the second (educated in Russia, I write in Russian). I am a man torn between two cultures, and it gives me pain to see one of them (Russian) being vulgarised with the velocity of light… I am immensely happy to see the appearance on the market of the masterpieces of Russian thought, for example, a 900-page book by G.G. Vodolazov. I would say, it is the book of books, synthesising what has been achieved by the spiritual elite in the conceptualisation of the philosophical and moral development of mankind from Socrates to the tragic Russian thinker of the hard times Evald Ivlenkov, the pure-hearted righteous man of the same epoch Yuri Burtin, a clever man Igor Dedkov, the ascetic Len Karpinskiy and some others, the masters of the “golden thread of intellectual quests”. Later on I will dwell on Burtin. As I wrote about him in my monograph, he was “the heavy conscience of modern Russian democracy”, appealing to us to begin with a personal example of unselfishness, self-restriction, nonpossessing, all in order to win back the trust of the society. I wrote once that he's worth listening to. Fat chance… (Information for those who want to make a research of such problems: without the book of Vodolazov any research will be historiographically incomplete).

99 But I am not a “Tatar-phil”, although I am somewhat partial to Tatars. Not because I am a Tatar myself and consider them to be the best nation. No, far from it, especially after a certain hisorical mark. I suspect that Nature, having endowed Tatars with an especially active, though not necessarily realized, passionarity, also gave them more than their share of conceit (the opinion is that “every Tatar is his own king”), depriving them of something very essential, perhaps, something restraining. The passionarity helps a Tatar torn from his native place (Tatars are a nation scattered all over the world) not to perish. Tatars do not shy away from any kind of job: they used to work as street-cleaners in pre- and post-Revolutionary Russia, as porters at Moscow railway stations, and as waste collectors everywhere. It is not an accident that beyond Tatarstan there are no beggars among Tatars. But there are quite a few traders, businessmen, scientists, generals and administrators. If there is an extraordinary person in a nation at a given moment (history proves that such people are very rare), the passionarity can bring the nation to a very high level of development (take Gengiz-Khan, for instance). And vice versa, when there is no such person, the mass passionarity prevents the actual mediocre leaders to unite the nation, letting their common enemy beat them one by one. Today Tatars are on the latter stage of existence. One side of mediocre talents consists in their particular intolerance of stronger talents, and even of their equals (a vivid example from Russian history: let us compare the surroundings of Lenin and Stalin!); if they are in science, they wish to stay irreplaceable and do not train their substitution. In political activities they drive out more talented competitors from their region, they do not admit outsiders to the posts adequate to their levels. As a result, a fourth part of the Tatar nation, living in Tatarstan, is isolated and is not enriched by fresh blood from Tatar Diaspora and other places where Tatars live beyond the Republic. It is worth talking about because quite recently Tatars were given a chance of renaissance, of becoming an advanced nation.

Due to the circumstances related to the “democratic euphoria” of the masses and a weak central power, that was trying to ingratiate itself with the passionary regions, Tatarstan had a real opportunity to solve the problem of transformation of the national economy into a popular one. The method would have been different from the anti-popular, wicked variant of reforms of the 90s and the following years. It was possible to turn the national wealth of the Republic into a co-ownership of citizens, guaranteed by the National Bank. An appropriate suggestion was made on all levels of the administration of Tatarstan. The Republic would have become a good example for other regions of the country. Moreover, it could have been appreciated eventually on a

10 historical scale as a kind of “repentance” for the sins of the ancestors, who conquered Rus in the past and occupied it for over two centuries and helped the Moscow prince (who, by the way, had no legitimate right to be called the Great Prince) to subjugate by force the other Russian Principalities. The Russian State, not so much territorially, but rather in image and likeness is the successor of the Golden Horde. Since the time of Moscow Principality the Russian State has consolidated the power of its ruling class not by forming a social base (people’s well-being), but via punitive structures, and this practice still exists today. In world history, alongside with the fact of the conquest of Russia by the Mongols and its negative consequences, there could have been an note that after the liberation of Russia from communo-fascism, the Tatar people and their elite helped the Russian nation to democratise, to get rid of the dominance of bureaucracy and to become the master of its wealth. If Tatarstan had reformed its economy in such a way, it would have been in accordance with world historical practice of liberation of working people from bondage of estrangement; their estrangement from themselves (slavery, serfdom, wage slavery) first of all, and second, their estrangement from ownership. There is simply no other way of liberation of man from the state of a hireling. Tatarstan would have become the most democratic republic, and bureaucracy as a method of State control would have been a thing of the past, it would no longer manage to ruin nations (remember the categorically imperative warning of Lenin (it was fulfilled later on), that bureaucracy would destroy the Soviet Power. Maybe, having solved the problem of social justice successfully on a personal level, the Republic could have become an example, and not for Russia alone! The auto-ethnonym “Tatar” would at last have acquired a dignified meaning. But the people were headed by that kind of elite… Well, to put it bluntly, the task was too big for their shoes, as far as both intellect and political will. A windfall historical opportunity of restoration through selfless devotion, passionarity and intellect was wasted by the elite. It was overlooked thoughtlessly and maybe on purpose (bureaucracy isn’t ever picky as far as its methods). As one of the most talented Tatar authors of those days Zulfat Hakim wrote in his open letter to President Shaymiyev, “Mr. President, please do not try to explain yourself saying that there has been and is no other way out. You simply did not want to put up a fight. But you have chosen the way of least resistance, leading to personal benefit under the throne of the Russian tsar. You have betrayed your people”. In a word, the interests of the high-ranking officials and their clans, who have “grab-privatised” the State and the people’s wealth, took the upper hand. Very unfortunately, Tatars had no leader, such as Turkman Saparmurat Niyazov (and his predecessor in the Turkic world Ataturk) in intellect, political will, bravery, morality and humanism, who set

10 his task as the functional mission of a prophet. “Tatar-Bashi” has not made his appearance in our sinful Tatar world. Tatars of this kind have been successfully exterminated by the Soviet power (the rest emigrated). As the poet said, “some are in graves, and others – far away…” The best Tatars, and also self-interested active passionaries of the nation (the first group – involuntarily, the second – of their own will) were busy consolidating the States of other nations, including the defeater of their own state back in the time of the Golden Horde, and later on – of the Russian state, but not their own. We are thankful to the former for the consolidation of the young Turkish democratic State, and the latter for what is due to the “fifth column”, for we also stand for the consolidation of the Russian State, in which, however, the place and the role of the Tatar nation would be on one level with the Russian nation, not assimilated to the point of no return. Russia is our common Golden Horde heritage.

Moscow tempted the leaders of the Republic: “Take as much sovereignty as you can swallow”. And we did swallow. Now we are making ourselves throw up (the Attorney General submits a bill to the State Council, it immediately cancels the legislative intent on sovereignty, and the deal is done). They preferred a gradual entrance into the market economy, and it did give some tactical advantage for a time, whereas strategically being of no principal difference from the Russia’s experiment. As the well-known author and political activist R. Muhametdinov writes that after Putin came to power in Russia in 2000, an unprecedented pressure began on Tatarstan from the centre. This pressure has led to the loss of economic basis of our sovereignty, and by the definition of the Constitutional Court of the RF of June 27, 2000 the political sovereignty of Tatarstan was abolished. In the end the same sad results were achieved, and oligarch-monopolist criminal capital is triumphing in the Republic, just like in the whole of Russia. This kind of domination will lead to the situation when people will have to wear mesken byrek (a cap made of cloth without fur, worn by pauperised Tatar men)… The renaissance of the proud spirit given by Nature almost began with perestroika and is currently descending into obsequiousness of the center-emulating national bureaucracy…

It is only fair to say that there is something comforting in the social and economic situation of Tatarstan. According to the standards of bureaucratic existence, it is better than in the majority of other regions. Naturally, it is the result of the activities of the Republic’s leaders, because they are not the worst in the class of bureaucracy in post-Soviet Russia. I characterise the first man as one of the best bureaucrats of the country. He does for the Republic as

10 much as he can but not more, because he is not able to, by definition. But we are grateful to him even for that. In addition to this I can say that if the ruling elite of Tatarstan “grab-privatised” people’s wealth, at least fully knowing where their interests were, the intellectual and democratic elite of the Republic (among which I would mention the most honest workaholic R. Safin, who writes very well and very much today) is still weaving dreams about such things as Euro - or Tatar Islam, social-democratic, almost socialist economy, in which 70% of property would belong to the State. They also dream of some solidarity party of the nations of Russia, the Tatar talassocracy with the hegemony of Tatars in the world, of popular masses increasing the nation’s population, of support of their own Tatar leaders during elections. They want an increasing use of the Tatar language in everyday life and in production, they wish to preserve Tatar customs and traditions, if necessary, taking part in meetings and demonstrations in defence of the nation’s interests (Muhametdinov). So all’s peachy, except for one thing… “The popular masses”, those whose task to carry all this out, unfortunately, are at the moment busy surviving. They are not about to start caring for the future of the nation; a wage slave, who lives from one paycheck to another and who cannot always make ends meet, does not think of his own future, much less of the future of the nation. Only a person who has a decent present and a guaranteed upward-moving future can afford thinking of these. People do not “owe” anything to anyone, and they are only efficient when some or other ideas become their own, the ideas which they want to carry out. The deciding role of masses lies in the fact that only if they receive the progressive idea thought out and suggested by intellectuals, politicians, can it be put into practice. The ideas, no matter how beautiful they can be, are nothing if there is no one to realize them.

Tatar intellectuals consider bourgeoisie, the upper middle class, of course, a subject of development, which (and it is an historical fact) merges with the State (bureaucracy) with the purpose of robbing the people, which fact is worth keeping in mind.

In the book by R. Muhametdinov, alongside with many national projects, my concept of co-ownership of citizens is also considered. The concept has the purpose of the formation of the middle class of owners, which has been absent in our country at all times, and without which there can be no civil society.

But I see no understanding that the realisation of such concept would create the foundation, the social basis for implementation of all the other humanitarian

10 programs and projects under a civil society. The social thought of Tatarstan is focused on ideas of secondary importance, people still love yelling “sugar” without realising that no matter how loud you cry it, you’ll not have a sweet taste in your mouth. A shining example of this is the recently published monograph of R. Muhametdinov, which is profound in its theoretical and political analysis of ideological and political trends. I do not mean to say that the “secondary” ideas are not worth considering and writing about. Of course, they are, if only so that our educated citizens can have an idea of the future, albeit distant future, of the nation. Also the reading public should be able to communicate with clever talented people, I would say, with the flower of Tatar intelligentsia, both orally and in writing, dream together of a better tomorrow. It is so enjoyable! (Although this function of literature is considered to be secondary, it is still rather important and is sometimes beyond us, scientists. Therefore, our works often find peace in a wastepaper basket).

Now what was I talking about? Oh, yes. When assuming a business attitude, it is necessary to put forward the national practical slogan, “Tatars, get rich!” There is simply no other means of being a citizen and a human being in the present-day Russia. Of all the tasks that the nation faces, one should be pointed out as top priority. It consists in the forced formation of the middle class of owners, and it is necessary to remember that the positive answer to the question to be, or not to be for the nation depends entirely on whether this problem is solved or not. It is quite solvable, if we recognise it as the main factor of self-preservation of the nation, and will be solving it by joining efforts, both of each Tatar individually and all the social strata. This has been the only way out for all the oppressed nations that have liberated themselves from colonial yoke. I would insistently recommend the oligarchic monopolists not to forget the truth: people’s memory is not a sieve, and they will long remember the origin of your wealth. The only way to make reparation is to help sober-minded, capable hard-working people to become small and mid- level holders, extending credits to them, helping them in enrichment and co- operation, consistently broadening their ranks, involving practically all the Tatars of the Republic and Diaspora. It would be good to organise a kind of consumer’s co-operation for the dispersed Tatar population, which would satisfy, for instance, their needs in religiously clean food (khalal), national clothes and all other kinds of things national. People would gradually rally round such co-operation, closely connected with trading organisations of the Republic; the local associations would establish material and cultural relations with one another, thus overcoming the geographical disunity of Tatars. And then, with time you will see that there would be a precondition for the

10 unification of all Turkic nations. For the good of all people! Tatars must have their own source of self-development, and that can only be found in people themselves, when the dominant class is that of middle-class owners – “the subjects of development”.

The task of Tatars, while preserving and asserting themselves as a state- forming nation, is to help Russia come out of the corner where it has been driven by the ruling bureaucracy. This idea is of methodological quality to me: Tatars remember that Russia is in some respects the outcome of the Golden Horde, consolidated with its help; it is a state created after the image and likeness of the Golden Horde (keeping, unfortunately, some of its bad traditions!). Therefore, the integrity of Russia is dear to us. But it can only exist if it is prosperous, not led by the party of officials impudently calling themselves “United Russia”, being in reality bureaucracy united with monopoly capital. Russia is split into two directly opposed classes, between which there can never be any unity. People can only be united when their majority is represented by the middle class of owners with their own party (which have been non-existent so far), and the officials will serve them (not command!) with good faith and fidelity.

It is necessary to find all kinds of honest ways and means to enrich every Tatar, to have them multiply their elite for the sake of helping their nation which is offended and constantly abused by the state of today. Dostoyevsky declared that every honest man ought to feel humiliated and insulted by the state. I quote him in spite of the fact that he did not like Tatars, and was an anti-Semite to boot. His aspiration to play the role of a pan-human was always accompanied by voicing the truths of pan-human character. Man is a paradoxical creature, whose mystery Dostoyevskiy had tried to unveil all his life. He himself was the greatest mystery. People of even smaller size, even the villainous ones, are mysterious. There are two men in the State Duma, they are friends, they have been there for years, both rascals of the highest calibre, one of them resembling a fat boar who, strange as it may seem, utters some truths from time to time. The other of the two, when speaking in public, juts out his chin a la Mussolini, and does not make an impression of a very clever man, whereas his friend simply looks like a cretin. Hitler worshipped Mussolini probably because the Italian could so artistically perform with his mug. My hero of this episode is a natural actor, who uses his charisma in vain, in a good-for-nothing State sideshow with talentless performers. He could have been a great success in his own theatre of absurd, which would be unparalleled in the whole world. He could punch people in the face to his pleasure with impunity in that theatre. As

10 for the present theatre, it is quite possible to have a jaw broken. But he is seduced by the State show because it is bread’n’butter, a highly paid job with a lot of privileges. Besides, it guarantees loads of spectators. There are probably even more advantages, shady ones, of which we, the involuntary spectators, have no idea.

At present, there are no such people in the Tatar nation like Tukay, Gayaz Ishaki (very unfortunately!) and Sadri Maksudi, each of them a combination of a most talented writer and a statesman. As a kind of consolation we shall remember that there are no such people among Russians, either, for they have no “Pushkins” and “Tolstoys”, and have not had them for a long time. But even in the wretched 20th century there was Tvardovskiy, and in the second half of it Solzhenitsin appeared, and at the end of the century – Sakharov, Afanasiev and some others. We must remember kindly the best Gorbachov years, in which the dissociation of the country from the disastrous Communism was initiated. The initiative was worth a lot. Unfortunately, Gorbachov could not further it. Yeltsin, who managed to nestle himself artfully among democrats, stood in his way. By the way, Yeltsin did something useful, too. But he had no luck with the Family, both his own, and the one that gathered round him and robbed the state and the people. It is true that there were some standout people among Tatar writers, too. One of them was my friend, the late Amirkhan Yeniky, who, nearer to the end of his life was increasingly becoming not only a great, but also a nationally-minded (in the political sense of the word) writer. I rather hope that the long hours I spent with him, our parties with Tatar cuisine, tea, coffee, cognac and naturally, endless talks, have not been lost on me. Now M. Yunys has taken his place. Probably, there were and there are others, better ones, but unfortunately, I am not much of an expert in Tatar art and literature. I only write about what I more or less know of. I have thoroughly read Yeniky, Yunys, and am working my way through Zulfat. As far as others, I read whatever comes my way. Well, I COULD mention someone else, but I am afraid I could do harm to them, and my name, as I have already mentioned, cannot help them.

I will praise, though, Marsel Galeyev, a good poet and a first-class publicist, who interviewed my unforgettable friend, the writer Amirkhan Yeniky, and I say without any exaggeration that there is a very interesting thought in that remarkable interview, the thought that I can sum in the following way: there are no prohibitions of moral character for the lumpen-proletarians and high- ranking officials who have gone from rags to riches. They do not know what

10 “thou shalt not” is. They’ll rob the people openly. I would say for some this is a very uncomforable thought.

And what is a good interview? It means asking a good question and receiving a good answer. M. Galeyev received one, and then went and published it in a paper. And how will the one who gives prizes, titles and even flats look at it? He will look at it badly and he’ll growl, “Call him in, that Galeev-Shmaleev, and don’t even think about giving him any prizes or titles, let alone a flat”. I don’t know what kind of flat he’s got, maybe it needs changing. But I know exactly that he has no Tukay Prize. And he wants it. Therefore, I shall not praise him; and I shall not praise some others whom I respect, for example, a talented man from Naberezhniye Chelny…

Talking of flats. We must do justice to those distributing good state flats. Kazan masters have not always been tightfisted, they’d sometimes give flats to creative people who really deserved them (they gave one to my friend Amirkhan). Once I witnessed how a remarkable writer Magdeyev was looking forward to it (I know about it because at that time we were preparing together a publication for “Kazan Utlary”; he was so anxious, and soon he died. But he did receive a flat in an exclusive house built for the ruling elite).

Oh, those flats! The housing issue has spoilt the Muscovites, as M. Bulgakov defined. No, it can spoil anyone and anywhere, because there is a shortage of apartments, period. The existing flats, as a rule, turn out to be bad, primitive, not infrequently with the toilet in the courtyard (fancy being there in minus 20- 40 degrees Celsius, and with our illnesses). And the flats of Soviet bosses are an especially interesting topic. I will tell you about an incident that changed my life, first for the worse, and then, as it turned out, for the better. It served as an impulse for me to get out of military service, which I was beginning to catch to tightly, just as the devil holds the soul of a sinner. As a matter of fact, when being appointed to work in the Obkom (Regional Committee) of the CPSU, my family and I had no flat, except for a tiny room for four people in a two-room flat in one of the Khruschov type of houses on the outskirts of the town surrounded by leather- and vinegar-making plants. After a few months of working in the Obkom I was offered a flat in a house specially built for Communist Party functionaries. But one of the Obkom ladies, a member of a Trade Union Committee, offered me to have a look at yet another flat formerly belonging to one of the trade union bosses (the boss had had to leave it because it did not conform to his upward-moving status). My wife and I looked at both the flats, and my wife liked the boss’ flat, of which fact I informed the Obkom

10 people. On the next day I was invited by the Second Secretary of Obkom. He said to me, “Why do you split hairs? Why do you try to choose and don’t take the flat we offer you?” The phrase needs an explanation. All party bodies were instructed to use the informal, less polite Russian “you” when talking to their inferiors. According to my principle, this pronoun should not have been applied to me, because in such a case I prefer to address the other person in the same way. I told him, that I had just chosen one of the two flats offered to me, and, incidentally, I would not be addressed in such a way. Later on I learned where the problem was: that official had promised the boss’ flat to his brother- in-law, but had not warned anyone about it (he probably wanted to do it hush- hush). That brother-in-law was responsible for publishing houses in the Republic (his influential relative had arranged the post for him). He was a shifty little man, a Russian in church, a Tatar at work. (There is such a group of people here, who become Russian as soon as they leave the territory of the Republic, although their Russian is pretty bad, but in all other respects they are “Russian”). My unfriendly relations with the press began because of him, and only improved with perestroika. But the flat became mine, which fact can be explained first of all by my status, and also by a possible interference of the First Secretary, who, by the way, disliked his Second. That situation with the flat started my alienation from the work in a Communist Party apparatus.

Here’s some thoughts on religions. I am an atheist, of course, but I recognise the usefulness of religions. That, however, does not prevent me from reproaching the Orthodoxy (even more than the State), or, to be exact, the members of its hierarchy (which for centuries have had the same ideological direction), that they (together with the State) have brought the people to the state of degeneration. Not a single nation having Orthodoxy as their religion, lives sufficiently well. Among other things, the Russian clergy is busy with waxing fat, and is silent. It is indifferent to the xenophobic manifestations of other nations, the latest example being the anti-Georgian xenophobia. It would be worth giving a thought to the fact that attempts to steal church property and even attempts on the lives of the clergy and their families have became more frequent in villages. Why? (The reports appearing in mass media explain that phenomenon as the consequence of hard drinking of the population, which appears to me one-sided). The church administration is against ecumenical movement; it hates the Roman Church, has for decades been at clobberheads with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, (the most part of it does not recognise Moscow Patriarchy), to say nothing of inter-relations with Islam (cunning diplomacy on both sides, cunning to the point of deceiving nobody anymore).

10 My attitude to Islam and its creation, Islamic civilisation, is the same. This civilisation has not given a single improvement of social organisation to the world, nor social life, nor technology, nor know-how. It has not given a happy life to a single nation. Worse than that; almost all Moslem countries are backward. Maybe that is the reason why sheikhs, muftis, mullahs and their secular colleagues extremists who also control the Moslems, bear malice against those who adapted themselves better to this harsh and complicated world, created, as they assert, by Allah.

I have a Moslem ancestry (with Sufis and mullahs among them!), and the similarity of Islam and Orthodoxy in this respect is utterly unpleasant to me. I shall repeat myself: there is not a single religion that would wish poor life on its congregation. Islam does not wish it either. But there are members of the hierarchy, who have appropriated the right on religious tenets, and either out of folly, or profit motive do not use (do not allow to realise) the potencies planted by the prophets, in particular, by Mohammed, for the sake of the improvement of the life of the people. Worse than that, they reconcile them with the ill-being allegedly sent from heaven by Allah. There are nations with other religions, and they have moved forward, but Moslems move neither back, nor forward; they are stuck on the crossroads. One of the famous rascals once said, “the backward ones get beaten”. Take, for example, some Arab states taking part in some six-day war; they pray five times a day asking Allah to give them victory. But Allah (God) has a principle of helping those who help himself. And look! The Jews help themselves and pray a lot, too, because they are advanced: they take care of business and win. Extremists shall not beat the Jews. But what will happen if the rest of mankind rises in arms against Arabs and Moslems in general?! And the whole process seems to be developing just in this direction. And they are still looking for trouble. Recently they provoked the bloodshed of innocent Lebanese. Those, what is it… Hamas, i.e. the Iranian fifth column in Lebanon headed by Nasralla. This head of the Iranian Shiite fighters we call him (oh, I am afraid to use the wrong word. Although the whole civilised world considers them to be terrorists, our Kremlin thinks them fighters for the freedom of their nation from Israel. But Chechens are bandits because they struggle for the liberation of Chechnya from Russia, and that is a different kettle of fish). Anyway, this “freedom fighter” declared openly the other day that if he had known that for the kidnapping of one Israeli non-commissioned officer Israel would react in such a way, he would not have kidnapped him. He was probably waiting for Israel to say “thank you”, encouraging him to do more kidnappings. Sorry, no go, because it is Israel, not Russia. The latter

10 would probably not say “thank you” publicly (it is inconvenient, you know), we would keep silence, hoping that the time will come to settle accounts with the one who betrayed Motherland, allowing himself to be taken prisoner. Russia would prepare him a cushy place in Siberia. Another variant: they would send their spy from the world-famous agency, the name of which I do not remember exactly, but I know what people that work there are like, a future member of the State Duma, or even a Minister, to the prisoner camp where he is kept to do him in, so that he’d know that in Russia there is no surrender, before he gives away all the State secrets of Russia. They say that when whole platoons of our soldiers were surrounded by “dushmans” (“Enemies”. Just think: Afghan soldiers were enemies, and Russian soldiers – liberators. Do you see the difference, dear reader?), our command would bomb the place to kingdom come. The enemy would never know the secrets of Russia!

Let’s get back to Islam. I value it greatly, because it teaches its devotees to keep their bodies and spirits clean (Moslem women, as a rule, do not suffer from gynaecological diseases, because they keep their private parts clean and shaven. Men keep theirs clean too, they are circumcised, and are much less subjected to infectious diseases). They also favour honest business, private ownership, encouraging every Moslem from ancient times to have it. As for my personal relations with Allah, I can say nothing because I am ignorant in the questions of religion, and it is a bit too late for me to comprehend Islam scientifically. I am a scientist, and I cannot just believe without evidence. I must understand first, and only then will I become a believer.

It is annoying that I, being an atheist, sometimes have to experience very unpleasant moments, when, due to my status, I have to meet religious people, the mullahs and the Muftis, especially during religious rituals, of which I know nothing and thus feel like a square peg in a round hole (imagine me sitting in the presidium of some forum, and there are people beside me who are praying, and I am not). Can you imagine my position, comrades-gentlemen?! Not very legit, don’t you think? I think that after the publication of this book they won’t be inviting me to sit in the presidiums any more. Moreover, I am of the same opinion as the Moscow medical doctor/businessman Alexander Bronstein. He says that he dreams of becoming a believer, he says he’d be grateful to those who’d help him out, because when a person believes, it is easy for him to live and even to die. I want the same. I asked about it a Saratov Mufti whom I know

11 well, and he promised to help me, but after some talks, he gave it up. Probably, he had a second thought.

I think the reasoning of an Academician Vyacheslav Ivanov of the Russian Academy of Sciences to be very convincing. He said, with some reservations though, that he, just like Chaadaev did, considered Mohammed one of the most remarkable figures of world history in the first millennium AD. His conclusions were, to say the least, impartial. Having analysed some novels of Dostoyevsky, the Koran and some works of Niezsche, in connected with their diseases (the first two were epileptics, the third – suffered from syphilis), Ivanov asserts that if the centre of epileptic aggravation and epileptic activity is located in the right hemisphere of the brain, which is essentially connected with music, then during a fit the person hears what Mohammed described as heavenly singing, and when Mohammed told the perplexed listeners on the next morning, that he had been taken to paradise and heard the singing of huris, he invented nothing. He described his true experience. That is just why my position was like that of those Jews from a joke. It is known that in Russia state preferences have always lied with Orthodox Christians (it is their tolerance of which they trumpet at every corner: “We have preserved the nations we have conquered, unlike American Anglo-Saxons; nobody was baptised by force”. They tell lies and do not blush). There WERE those who converted willingly, because it was accompanied by certain privileges, etc. That must be the reason why baptised Tatars, who had been pagans before, did not fall away from Orthodoxy when some freedom was allowed in Russia. Those who had been Moslems before they were baptised, went back to their religion. Their faith proved to be stronger than material temptation.

All right. Back to the joke about the two Jews, whom we shall call Abram and Moishe. They decided to give up Judaism and become Orthodox Christians. They went to see a priest, who gave them a Bible and said, “Read, comprehend and accept. Once you do, you can come and receive Communion”. Those two began to study the Bible. When they came to the place where Jesus Christ walked on water, they doubted that the water was deep, and they told the priest so. The priest said, “I will not give you communion until you believe that”. There was nothing to do, so the friends believed and went on reading. When they came to the five loaf story, they returned and said that they believed that Christ had fed the people with five loaves, but they doubted that the people were satisfied with that. The priest said that they would not be baptised until they believed in that. The two friends went home, and on their way one of them, probably Moishe, said, that he would not be baptised because he did not

11 want a faith that told lies. Abram said that as all religions told lies, and that he would be baptised and went. Moishe stayed not far from the church to wait for his friend, just out of curiosity. After the baptism Abram came out of the church walking with great dignity, with his head high. Moishe went running to meet him and asked, “Well, Abram, tell me, how this sacrament is done”. Abram retorted, “First of all, I am not Abram, but Ivan, and do tell me: why did you kikes crucify our Christ?” And he went his way… I sympathise with Moishe.

Do you think that these and other such jokes are made by Russians or Tatars, or at least, Armenians? No, my dear friends, it is the Jews themselves that tell them. During the World War II, there was a story among the people that the Jews in battle shot with crooked guns, which they could point at the enemy hiding themselves round the corner. Horseshit, naturally, because in the first place, there were no corners there, just an open field where everything can be clearly seen, in the second, Jews fought like all the others, and there were many heroes among them. Then, take “Radio Yerevan”. Who invented its brilliant jokes and parables? You may be sure that it was Armenians themselves! But who makes fun of Russians? I do not know. It is not likely that Russians do it. They hate being laughed at. They are the great nation… If they laugh at all, they laugh crying, that’s just the way the life is. Recently one of those who laughed at himself tried to become a governor… Well, suffice it to say, he’ll laugh no more.

Not everything is quite clear to me in Islam. No, perhaps it is clear, but not acceptable. Islam is proud that there have been no changes, no specifications and no comments on the teaching since the day that the prophet Mohammed brought it from Allah. Therefore, Allah the Almighty sees everything and knows everything; He knows that mankind created by Him is changing, progressing, unfortunately not always for the better, but He himself and his teaching (Islam) remain the same. Is it possible? There is some incongruity in it! Suppose Islam came into the world mature, needing no perfection. But everything that comes into the world goes through the stage of formation after its birth. Having firmly established itself, in order to be, to continue its existence in the changing world, it has to adapt itself, in other words, to develop, otherwise it is sure to disappear, and if it somehow manages to survive, it only does so to hamper the development of those who believe in it. Is it not the reason for the appearance of such a phenomenon in the world? What if we assume that Islam did not have such a destiny to begin with, then maybe those who have made Islam their sole property profit by its artificial

11 stagnation? Is it not worth trying to find out why the Islamic countries are so backward and their people poor?

The service in the mosques is performed in Arabic. It is normal, because the Koran was composed by an Arab and for the Arabs. But when the service is read in the same language in non-Arab countries, where this language is not understood by pretty much all the congregation, and most probably by the ma- jority of the mullahs (after long years of atheism and religious ignorance). So when a Moslem kneels for hours on end, listening to prayers in a language that he cannot understand, it is in fact a derision. The Islamic clergy do not want services to be performed in the native language of the congregation. What are they afraid of? That people may understand something and ask challenging questions? Well, why not? Let the people understand and ask questions be- cause it is good. Or bad, but for whom? If the services were in the Tatar lan- guage, I would probably visit the Mosque, at least once in a while, although I am an atheist. It is nice to hear clever speeches and talk with a clever educated mullah. These thoughts came to me when I found time and listened to a Sunday Mass in a Catholic Church in Montreal (Canada) on October 22, 2006 in Latin and French, which I did not understand much. However, I was thrilled listening to it, not only because the speeches of the priests (one woman among them) who spoke from the pulpit one after another were so heartfelt and beautiful that for a whole hour I was in exaltation, but also because the faces of the people in the church were spiritual, peaceful and happy. I say nothing of the organ music accompanying the service. Organ music is my weakness, and wherever I see a poster for it, I go, especially when I am out of town on business. I enjoyed the Sunday mass so much that I said to myself, “That very mass was well worth the trip abroad to see my son”. Yes, it was!

Of course, it is very hard if not impossible for our Tatar mullahs to reach this level of performing the service in Tatar, to say nothing of the Arabic. But at least they can organise the services in the mosques in the Tatar language which is understandable to believers, and do it in the Euro-Islamic spirit (following R.Khakimov’s recommendations), keeping in mind the inadmissibility of extremism. I would insistently recommend to Tatar believers in Islam to initiate its renovation without allowing the crisis of “moderate Islam” in Europe.

Concluding this subject, this is what I am going to tell you, brother Moslems, so that your energy is not wasted in desert sands. There are many people who wish Islam to progress, and progress peacefully. The whole Christian world is

11 very likely to join them soon. Because nobody wants to live under a constant threat of terror, which is organised by some of your tribesmen, who are set against all mankind. It is understandable, that it is not sweet life that made them so. But hatred has never helped anyone. It is a bad advisor.

It would be possible to understand the terrorists, if mankind had no other way out to accelerate the exodus to the other, allegedly better world. But there is a possibility to enjoy life in this world. As for the huris, well, their singing will be waiting for us, anyway. They will wait for us there, but not as murderers or suicidal fighters, but as peaceful, loving souls. They are not likely to enjoy singing to cannibals.

So what am I saying it for? Just to tell you this, brother-Moslems: don’t be fools and don’t show your weakness, because there will always be thousands wishing to touch your sore spot.

I will tell something from my experience. It happened in 1931 – 1932. I lived in the town of Bugulma at that time and went to school there. It was a school for children of collective farmers, the first stage (3rd and 4th grades). Among the pupils there was a very capable boy, Mitya Postnikov. He was very intelligent, always clean, and gentle. He was top of the class, with a 4.0 GPA, as we’d say now. Moreover, he did not keep company with any of his classmates, did not play any games and was what now we’d call a geeky weakling. Every year there were some bad apples in the class who were held back. They were older than the others, 14–15 –year old rowdies (and we were 11–12). What do you imagine they thought of Mitya Touch-Me-Not? And so, if in the corridors during the breaks between classes there was nothing more interesting than, for example, fights between Russians and Tatars (the school was a mixed Russian- Tatar one), then a performance was made: they pulled down Mitya’s pants and showed his bare backside to the girls, who screamed like piglets, of course, to the immense joy of the torturers. And so it went on from day to day, until Mitya’s parents sent the boy to another school.

I am telling you this because one should never show his weakness to anyone in general, and to enemies in particular. There will be always someone wanting to take advantage. Mankind has not yet achieved the level of peaceful human community life: there are too many unhappy people in the world looking for someone to vent on all their misfortunes and complexes. They sometimes would even do it on themselves (there are many examples of that in Russia: hard drinking, lawlessness in families, demographic crisis, whole regions being

11 on the brink of emergency state, suicides on an extremely large scale, murders, and so on, and so forth). The situation is no better in the former Soviet Republics.

The Moslem regions are in an especially bad position. What happened in connection with the cartoons of Mohammed published in one of the Danish newspapers (or in the not-so-careful speech of the Pope Benedict XVI)? It was not necessarily done in mockery, but probably out of frivolous carelessness. It was a kind of innocent mischief. It is clear that grown up people should not take such childish jokes seriously. But look - adult Islam believers went up in arms, making threats to all the Christian world, organising pogroms, murdering an Italian nun, and setting fire to churches? And then, yet another cretin does something like that somewhere, and it will go on and on… People like those might send you to your grave, jeering at your feelings, so that in the long run you will look with suspicion at any book, and even at the Koran, suspecting that there is something wrong in it. And all your energy will be wasted on shouts and at rallies. And that is just what our enemies want; they have achieved their purpose. They have knocked you out of balance, divested you of strength, and hunted you down. You have to understand that the best way of punishing an unintelligent offender is by not paying attention to his tricks.

The Russians have a good proverb: “Many sneeze, can’t bless them all”. Extending the analogy, the Russians understand that if a boss sneezes, you will just have to say “bless you”, otherwise he will remember it. He will underpay you or will not promote, or even sack you, etc. The bosses have a lot of possibilities to offend us, the folk in the trenches. Therefore it is much better to make sure that if your boss sneezes, you say, “bless you, Ivan Ivanovich!” As for the other mortals, the Russian proverb is correct: you cannot say “bless you” to everybody. And I insistently recommend you, brother-Moslems, to heed this Russian wisdom. Then you will be able to turn your attention to what’s vital. As for the mischievous artists, they can never put a blemish on Mohammed. He is too great and significant for history. I am sure that Mohammed himself would not have paid attention to this joke. He is above all that!

***

The opinions stated above require some closure, I need to dot all i’s and cross all t’s, as the questions “what” and “how” are to be answered in the context of our topic.

11 I wrote in the preface about the attempts of ill-wishers to accuse me of Islam- phobia. In this connection I would like to share an idea, which should be taken into account in human relations, especially with Islamic people, the ignorance of which may lead and does lead to tragic consequences, such as the one that took place quite recently. (This consideration concerns the fanatics of any faith. By “fanatics” I mean those who consider their own religion the only true one, not necessarily with manifestations of madness, which depends on the degree of culture of both the individual believer and the nation on the whole). Here’s my story.

A lady whom I know is very beautiful, yet a down-and-out xenophobe. She is a devoted Moslem. Once she tried to organise a meeting of Moslem journalists to condemn some ideas (in her own malicious way) expressed in this book. (Before it was published, by the way, the relations between us were quite normal, if not friendly). Psychologically it can probably be explained in the following way. An atheist, especially one who speaks of a faith disapprovingly, is in the eyes of a believer a person who carries the spirit of the devil (“Shaitan”) in his body. He (or she), therefore, should be stoned (or some equivalent to that). Failure to actively resist the devil is a sin. Therefore, having no personal problems with the disbeliever, the believer must, nevertheless, punish him (her). Even if it is disadvantageous in everyday life to do it and he tries to restrain his temper, sooner or later, the hostility nestling inside will break out. The obligations before your own religion are above all! There have been two experiences of that kind in my life (there just ought to be a third!), and the saddest thing about them was that they took place nearer the end of my life. One was with an Orthodox Christian, the other – with a Moslem woman.

How should we respond to such manifestations? I do not know. Probably in the first place we should not egg the believers on by our careless actions, which can be interpreted as anti-confessional. In the second, we must hope that the culture of the masses has grown, and we must help them understand the essence of the eternal truth. This eternal truth consists in the great happiness of life for all of us: Moslems, Christians, Buddhists and all the other people of different religions and different languages living together on earth, the only Earth in the Universe! Contradictions arising between different confessions can be resolved solely by dialogue between them. There is simply no other means. None.

11 But in spite of that, there are more than enough speeches nowadays made by statesmen and all kinds of toadies surrounding them that contain abuse or provocations. Thus, in the discussion on the problems of the Russian State, Markov whom I have quoted more than once, considers Europe (Russia included) to be “all-Christian, in which Moslems are guests”. It is another “euphemism”, but it’s no laughing matter this time, because the “guests” numbering millions and millions do not make the “hosts” happy, making them want to get rid of such visitors by all means. According to our accepted custom, guests are welcome (tolerable) during three days; and what is to be done after that, oh dear initiator of “Major Projects”? Where shall we go? This is our native land that we’ve lived on since the time when there was no Christians here. Or do you count on yet another, tested and proven Holocaust? Planning world Communism, Stalin thought it necessary to preserve only five languages (Russian included, of course) out of the present several thousand. Another participant of the discussion, M.Yuriev suggests preserving only five states out of the present several hundred countries. Russia is supposed to be in their number, it would subjugate the whole Europe and would spread from “ocean to ocean”, from Kamchatka to Portugal. Russians will be travelling all over Europe without visas. He did not explain, though, on whose penny we’d travel, because it is a great problem today even to travel from Moscow to Vladivostok. Probably on your own: your hard-earned roubles, dear brothers and sisters, future citizens of “EURORUS”; so save money to book your trips to distant lands (visas either not required, or free). Travel away, Russia, to your heart’s content!

Would it not be more correct to presume that we, the mankind, Christians or Moslems, or people of any other religion are ALL guests on the blue planet Earth, and we must all behave according to this status? Without creating conflicting situations, without insulting, and above all without oppressing each other, using the gifts given to us by Nature and created by ourselves, on absolutely equal terms?

Referring to some crimes committed by high-ranking Communists while realising the national policy, one of the great men bitterly noted that the worst Communists are natives gone Russian. They scorn their tribesmen for not understanding the “advantages” of the passage from a small nation into a great one, as they have done themselves, and therefore have the right to rage and teach reason to their country bumpkins. And what if they are christened into the bargain, i.e. passed from their “small” confession into Christianity? Then, the degree of their imperial foulness is boundless.

11 D) Let's be semi-serious

History and life of Russia are bitter, tragic and comic at the same time. For centuries it has been a prison of nations, the Russian nation itself included. It has been indentured twice: once by the tsars, the other time by the Communists. While busy exterminating its own people, the long arm of Moscow still had time for all the conflict areas of the world to stir more trouble there, thus becoming the Empire of Evil. After the disintegration its arms got admittedly shorter, and Russian realities more and more resemble those of a madhouse: in the country with the richest resources tens of millions of people live in poverty, millions are underfed. There are three million homeless children, alcoholism is rampant. At the same time we are far ahead in the world in the number of billionaires, who enrich other countries importing their capital there and acquiring luxurious real property. At the same time, our roads are in a shocking state, and the healthcare and education systems are backward and poor. The gold rain of petrodollars is pouring, and we keep this currency abroad, that is, with those that buy our oil (the question is: why are we selling it at all?).

It looks as if it were high time to go from the sad and funny story to the attempts to solve the problems of arrangement of Russia, from which euphemisms would be excluded. But I cannot get away from mixing genres even though I foresee some well-earned reproaches in my address. Each creates according to his abilities. I can only do it in this way. Not the best way, admittedly, as I have been having troubles during all my scientific life. The worst began with defending my Doctor’s dissertation. When I was trying to set up my dissertation committee, the majority of scientists whom I approached did not want to do it because my work was too eclectic. Thus, historians did not like the way I treated the subjects of philosophy and political economy, philosophers were not happy with history and political economy, economists did not like philosophy and history in my works. I barely scraped my committee together: two of them were almost my friends, and the third one was a stranger who understood nothing in my work. But on the other hand, the leading recommending institution was the Scientific Council on History of Revolutions and Civil Wars of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. The Chairman of it, Academician I. Minz, and a Doctor of Historical Sciences Y.Gorodetsky gave me the reference. They were both worthy Soviet scientists. Yefim Naumovich (Gorodetskiy) is especially dear to me. I have never met a historian equal to him in all my life, in spite of the fact that I was friends with

11 some other scientists of renown (Academician P.Volobuyev; I was for some time in touch with K.Tarnovskiy, as well as some others). Besides being the first among historians, Gorodetsky was a very kind man: the moment he was writing the reference, his little grandson died. But still, he was helping me in spite of his own problems! I remember how, with his kind permission, I brought to him my graduate student V.Bukharaev for consultation on the topic of his thesis about the “theory of two revolutions” of Piontkovsky. I do not remember if Bukharaev was present during my conversation with Gorodetsky after the talk about the thesis, when he said, “Agdas Husainovich, aren’t you sick and tired of being beaten all the time? It’s your own problem, of course. But why do you involve this talented boy into this process? It will result not in a degree, but in something else”. Naturally, I did not take this advice because of my disagreeable character. Soon I moved to live in Moscow with my defence suspended. Without me, the former Communist Party functionaries who became active historical science, tormented Volodya for five years, beating some sense onto him. Having received his degree, Bukharaev has written a lot of articles, sometimes for very respectable editions. He isn’t writing a fundamental book, for which I jokingly call him a sprinter, a person not fit for a marathon. Hearing it and pooching out his potbelly sideways (he can sometimes do it), he immediately takes his leave, saying that it is time for him to go and write his “sprinter” things. And I say to him, “God help you!” I do not dare to keep him, and there is no sense in it because he does not drink at all; he says he has drunk his life share.

Coming back to my story. If the reader thinks that all the above is life itself, he is grossly mistaken. It may seem so to an onlooker. It reality everything is quite different, far from being that funny, it’s just we have many foolish things which we kinda laugh at.

The State tries to compensate the trouble within by successes in foreign policy. But in that field there is failure after failure, too. Instead of trying to do away with the remains of racist-fascist or communo-fascist regimes in every corner of the world working in friendly contact with the Anglo-American Alliance, the political elite of Russia is prowling round the world in search of allies or at least sympathisers to its anti-American policy. They do not understand that the situation reminds one of a parable about that little dog, following the pack of powerful male-dogs that are going to their bitches to get laid. He is shivering all over, and the big dogs say to him, “And you, what are you hoping for? You got no chance at all!” And he answers, “Well, of course I have no chance! But even if I don’t f…ck, I will at least get warm”. It would be probably correct to

11 presume that Russia’s leader (unlike the majority of his executives) understands everything, but what won’t you do to get warm? Our leader is witty, and unlike the majority of the officials, he knows languages. His responses are quick and he has them on the tip of his tongue: “ice them in the outhouse”, if you remember his famous euphemism, borrowed from the criminal slang, as recommendation to his boys from the Federal troops establishing “constitutional rights” in Chechnya. He also recommended (or promised?) some foreign journalist a “circumcision” (the Moslem way); he also promised to pay Russia’s debts with a “big fat nothing”(literally with “a dead donkey’s ears”. He probably borrowed those from his Uzbek colleague, who, judging by his policy and practice, has more than enough of the mentioned material). Putin’s cabinet has one major problem - an assistant of some big boss with his power vertical. He is especially harmful in his “vertical” idea. What is a “vertical” as a noun? It is the direction from the Governor down to Mayors and their regional equivalents, and from Mayors to house managers (supers), who will drown the best and the most sacred idea in the world in vodka, gobble it up together with rotten pickles and sauerkraut. The idea will thus be dissolved and perish, as if it had never existed at all. But imagine what’ll happen if you let the idea travel horizontally, and allow those concerned to improve it, or to even create new ideas! Those people, who have good clear heads about them (growing from the proper place, too, unlike those of bureaucrats) will make use of any worthy idea, because they are people who can not just destroy but also to create.

Right nor, though, it is neither here nor there. It is not a proper State that we need, but a State quite correctly characterised by the Russian writer (with a Chukcha background) Yuri Rytkheu as “a screwup of a state!” in which officials are only busy with lining their pockets. They do not care for ideas, because they have none of their own, and they do not like other people’s ideas, in spite of the efforts of those who are officials, yes, take that democrat, for example (forget his name, he is not often on TV nowadays. He must have run out of ideas, which were not deep, though, but still, he himself called them effective!).

Oh, yes! They say that even in the Soviet days there were whole floors and basement rooms of the multi-storied buildings of the Committee on Inventions with shelves chock-full of ideas (the older generation remembers that there was indeed such a committee). People say that there were so many ideas there that the USSR could supply all its satellites with them, including the African cannibal socialisms, and maybe even aliens on Mars (by the way, they have

12 found frozen water there) and other planets, maybe even including those living outside the Solar System. We are clever people, and we can supply anyone with ideas. Let us take my idea, for example. OK, serious now.

It will be relevant here to tell you the story of how I tried to sell my idea to my own Tatars. Once, before the Gaidar-Chubais reform, being received by the President of the Republic of Tatarstan, I explained my concept to him for 1 hour and 5 minutes. He listened carefully, remembered that a Hungarian comrade (in those days all the people were “comrades”) had once told him “something similar”, and that he was sorry he didn’t think of it himself. And that was the end of it. More than once have I offered my idea to the Ministry of Economy. They were so tired of it that the Deputy Minister (at present he is a permanent Deputy of the State Council and chairman of the committee on legislation on economy) clearly let me know in writing that they were not born yesterday, and asked me to no longer disturb them with my rantings.

I attempted to woo the Russian power with my concept (I sent my books to each president). Y. Afanasiev told me that when he was visiting Gaidar’s vice- president, he described to him (his own initiative, not my request) the essence of my idea. Gaidar said that there was something in it, and it was worth giving it a thought. He is obviously still thinking, at his Institute of Transitional Economics (transitional from nothing to nothing). Once I used to think there could be nothing worse than socialist economy, but I was mistaken: there is no limit to how bad something can be, just as there is no limit to how good something can get. About three years ago I was in Germany and saw that people lived happily there, but now that I am here in Canada, well… Now I know it is much better in Canada than in Germany.

Gaidar is publishing book after book. He told about his latest on The Echo of Moscow radio. I have not read it yet. I responded (critically) to his preceding book, which was a kind of alternative to Lenin's pre-October book. Of course, Egor Timurovich never reads such trifles, and even if he browses them, he thinks, “Such a little doggy barking at an elephant!” And he is probably right, because if he and Chubais were not, then the economy would in some measure change its course. But it is still moving in the direction they have given, to emulate the 19th century western liberalism, given up by the West long ago. Modern liberalism presumes that the economic system should be built on the basis of competition, but aiming, at the same time, at the well-being of all people and not at the enrichment of a pack of high-ranking officials and criminals who robbing the State and the people.

12 Now, a few words about The Echo of Moscow. I used to resent how indiscriminate it was: alongside with worthy journalists and professionals, highwaymen of journalism, such as M., make regular appearance there. (I know his name, but I will not give it– its owner is too evil, and it is good if he satisfies himself with just verbal insults in my address, he is a master in this field and always gets away with it). You may ask why I do not disclose full names of some of my heroes?

What do you think? Should I mention Surkov, for instance (and he has one or two hundred of “Ours” at his disposal, who are also as euphemistic as “United Russia”, and “Just Russia” representing not the country, but united bureaucracy, which cannot be just by definition and also Basman Court, which is also euphemistic! That’s it…

Well, actually there are only two people whose names I am not afraid to mention: Zhirinovsky and Mitrofanov, although I know who created them and who feeds them. I also think of another of their friends, who, euphemistically speaking, “competed” with Putin in the presidential race, and I am afraid of him. Those security people, they, you know… The other day one of the security-guards in St. Petersburg (and it is written on his face that he is a “security” and a “guard”) killed an Uzbek man, about whom not a single neighbour could say anything bad. He killed the man allegedly for an attempt to rape his (the guard’s) son. He has already become a hero. Another hero of this kind is Kaloyev himself, the one who killed a Swiss airline operator and after serving imprisonment was promoted and almost became a minister. Kaloyev rang up this security guard and pretty much wished him well. So far, a nationalilty-related murder in this “cultural” centre of Russia has been qualified as an ordinary criminal offence with a punishment being as mild as possible. So, skinheads and other thugs of this type saw that a murderer walked, with the reputation of a “popular hero” to boot. One crime leads to another. The process has started… Yes, I am afraid. But, I think that the Devil is not as black as he is painted. I think, it will be all right. And if it does happen, well, not many left to mourn. Not because nobody will be sorry for me. Somebody will, but they will think in self-consolation, “He has lived long enough. Probably, Allah decided that enough’s enough!”

I often forget names (but in the old days I used to know all the cadets of a company in a military school, not just of one platoon of which I was the sergeant (with three triangles on the collar patch. So women would often

12 jokingly shouted to us “Hey, soldier-boy! Lick my triangle and get promoted!” (The fourth triangle on the collar-patch promoted you to sergeant-major). I think that God saves me by keeping all those names off my memory. Not necessary the Russian God, but the Tatar Allah, as if saying, “To hell with the names! They are no use, you can only expect trouble from them” … The surname of that journalist is the same as that American Nobel Prize laureate of Russian background, who advised the Russian powers-that-be to give State property to the people who have a right to it according to our Constitution. Yeah, right: to give that trash their own national economy?! It shall not be done, and cannot be done…so far… Prokhanov, the “Nightingale of the Military Headquarters”, regularly speaks on this radio. Well, as I said, I did not like it before. Now I begin to understand that Venediktov (The Echo of Moscow manager) is a cunning bearded Russian man. He arranges interviews with people like Prokhanov in a company of such experts, that prokhanovs absolutely REVEAL themselves, almost literally, so that sometimes they are left with their pants down. This actually happened to the chief Kremlin counsellor who had walked all the corridors of power an innumerable number of times, in the dispute with Irina Hakamada. Therefore I wish The Echo of Moscow every success in the same style and spirit!

*** So, a new method of solving the unsolvable has been found, which I would call “euphemistic”. You speak about something obscene, but express it in a “decent” way. So, as Russians say, the wolves have eaten, and the sheep have not been touched. Man descends ever lower, and those “lowered” by nature have been equalled to women, they can now get married and adopt children. Is it perhaps out of desire that gays increase in number? What, there aren't enough of them who were not brought up this way?

The Russian State with its bureaucracy and all those feeding around it cannot solve the problem of social justice standing in the way of the people who want to make their life full and happy. Democracy is especially unacceptable, because, generally speaking, it is a bad, in spite of the fact that mankind cannot invent anything better. All the rest as concens state and social system is much worse. So I am wondering: does our state want to solve these problems “euphemistically”? Why not? After all, “necessity is the mother of invention”.

12 12 Chapter 4. Intellect: philosophical and moral aspect

A) Intellect in science

In the modern world structure even intellect, a true gift of God, works not only for the good of mankind. In many cases it is the evil’s best friend. That's postulate one. The second one is that all the troubles of mankind arising from unsolvable or difficult social, inter-national, inter-state and other contradictions, are in one way or another connected with human intellect, which for some reason is divorced from morality. Worse than that, as Gaman- Galutvina asserts, all spheres of life activity of society that are subject to moral control, are narrowed in our country because of the limited possibilities of “private” morality to be a regulator of political relations and, according to some scientists “this process is rational, expedient and fruitful”. The author bases this thesis on the statement that the criteria of morality in politics are very specific and essentially different from norms and values of individual morality. Such a conclusion emanates directly from the correlation of the public and the individual in our conscience, according to which the former presents the interests of the society unnecessary for each separate individual, and the latter – the interests of individuals not needed by the society. Hence, one equals zero, an individual counts for nothing. I think that public interests are the total of the interests of individuals, and that is the only thing that makes them public. And politics, which are supposed to serve them, cannot ignore (as they have no moral right to do so!) the norms of “individual” morality under the fig-leaf of its own “specificity”. I like Vodolazov’s interpretation of the Socrates’ tradition of rapprochement of politics and morality: today in the countries of the West and in Russia the demand that politics should be made moral, does not sound utopian.

Let us consider intellect in science. It tries to dig deep, but often finds things whose realisation is disastrous to mankind. In humanitarian sphere it is, above all, any attempt to bring about social justice through the teaching of Communism. According to Marxism, the earlier Communism was utopian because there were no material forces to put it into practice. Such forces (proletariat) appeared with the development of capitalism. The investigation of this class, its possibilities and its organisation for the struggle against bourgeoisie has allegedly made the Communist teaching scientific. But in reality Communism as an aim presupposing levelling of all people who are individuals by nature and who are by no means equal, the liquidation of ownership, the basis of self-development, independence

12 and self-sufficiency of each individual, is unscientific and immoral. The means of its achievement are just as immoral. They include: aggravation of the class struggle to the extent of a civil war, interference into private life as a method of control over society (dictatorship), physical and moral liquidation of undesirables, and setting as a model the life of proletariat, which is the lowest marginal class, the product of disintegration of society, its underbelly. Among them is also the messianic idea of world revolution accomplished by all possible means including a world war. The real Communism of one third of mankind in the 20th century, Italian and German fascism, World War II, the fall of the Millennium-old Great Russia – all those events are interdependent, the links of one chain. Now on the agenda is the idea of giving the world religions a scientific character. The tragic consequence of this will not keep us waiting…

The situation in scientific spheres is no better; we have “achievements” here from which there is already no salvation. The moment is approaching when the intellectual potential will lead mankind to a disaster from which there'll be no escape. As matter and spirit are infinite, the process of their cognition with all the ensuing consequences is infinite, too.

At present mankind has come to the stage of development in science when knowledge is required of reasonable and environment-friendly means of curbing some of its discoveries. Nuclear weapons are unstoppably spreading to all over the world. The Bomb is acquired by reactionary regimes for the satisfaction of their jingoistic ambitions. The next thing to come is the cloning of man, the consequences of which are absolutely unpredictable, if not disastrous for the human race.

At the turn of the millennium a Swedish company announced the launch of a “Smart House” program, which would allow to control household appliances and security system remotely through the Internet or via a mobile phone. There are warnings against it. Describing the tendency of unavoidable introduction of informational technologies into everyday life, Toffler in his book “The Third Wave” shows its social and philosophical aspects. Won’t it happen so that the clever machines united in networks, develop to the point of “us” not understanding “them” and so become impossible to control? And what will happen if somebody (or something) pulls the plug? And so on, and so forth…

In the USSR, under the patronage of Stalin they made experiments of crossing man with ape in order to create superstrong soldiers and workers who’d be

12 insensitive to pain, devoid of any personal characteristics and ready to carry out any orders. The GULAG millions, obviously, were not enough (the head of the laboratory complained about the difficulties in finding women to be surrogate mothers).

Is it possible to set the question as a categorical imperative, concerning the interaction of science and morality, the first being subjected to the second as to the basis of public conscience determining the existence of man as a social animal with the proper norms of social life in the system of humanity, and ultimately solving the problem: TO BE or not to be for mankind?

Science is a product of intellectual labour. It looks as if the analysis of the problem should be started with an attempt to study the philosophy of human intellect, whose existence boils down to the idea of victory. It may be the “alpha” of the whole problem (I do not say “omega”, although I want to, because man is the beginning and the end of all creation on Earth, at least as far as civilisation is concerned.

B) Intellect and victory

Intellect, being the essence of life, is self-sufficient, independent and not tied up with anything (or anyone). What is particularly sad, it is not related, even indirectly, with such a seemingly eternal category as morality, which has accompanied man from the moment we became human. Or maybe even earlier, as the majority of the animal world does not accept cannibalism, peculiar to mankind.

As Freud once remarked, the voice of intellect is quiet, but sooner or later it will be heard. The great scientist saw in this optimistic future for mankind. Intellect produces the truth, which is victorious by nature. Because the truth is one and only, and there are no other truths. It can be ignored, substituted by a pseudo-truth, but it will not disappear, and at some time it will inevitably be demanded (unfortunately, not infrequently a very long time after its birth. So it is, first of all, anonymous, and second, often not very useful any more, a stitch to save nine has to be on time). Once heard, it triumphs, sweeping all obstacles in its way. Some pseudo-truths that are needed by the powers that be, manage to hide themselves in the shade. Not forever, though, because lies have a way of exposing themselves.

12 Intellect is constantly on the move, in spite of the eternally present danger to its master’s head that can be knocked off by it, because it is relatively independent of the organism that produces it, with which it is in co-operation, but not always in friendship. Goethe stated that no man can understand what bonds connect the soul and body, why nothing can separate them, and still, enmity devours them both. Probably, intellect just considers the body to be its carrier, vessel, because after its breaking it continues to live in its creations, and its intellectual findings do not die. Is it not the secret and the truth about the immortality of the soul?! Intellect, being the basis of the spirit (if you do not maintain that it is the spirit itself that expresses the power of thought, conscience, the mental capacity of man and determines his behaviour and actions), i.e. the immaterial part of human life activities, nevertheless has a tendency to materialise in its products. Intellect is the master, and sometimes it compels its “owners”, “vessels” to struggle alone against most powerful systems and disastrous circumstances. It causes them to perform beyond the capabilities of their feeble bodies. Such struggle, therefore, does not necessarily end in victory; worse than that, sometimes it can end in a bitter failure. Parents acting in defense of their child against a powerful enemy, revolutionaries and democrats in their struggle for the freedom of the people against the powerful state, etc., are a good example, but in the long run the truth wins. Intellect is programmed for victory by all means, it does not even have a notion of defeat, it is the “vessel” that is defeated. As for the creative product, well, it can enter other carriers. The disappearance of all the murderers of creative thought (as well as all those who live a sinful life in general) lies in the adamant nature of the intellect (spirit) of man. Its creations belong to everybody and its experience does not perish. Even when something does disappear, it will be reborn in another incarnation.

The notions of life and intellect are identical. The development of each species of the animal kingdom produced at a certain stage causes the intellect to enable this or that living creature to survive and multiply in order to secure its niche of existence. Consequently, the chief purpose of intellect was initially victory over difficulties, dangers in the inevitably competitive world because it is also populated with other innumerable species. And so it will ascend, up to the maturing of all mankind, bringing its national and social communities to the highest degree of civilisation, which I will call “Civil”.

The phenomenon of victory in human life has been the subject of profound philosophical thought from times immemorial. The mythological Goddess Athena (Nike), according to Bukharaev, flies forward to meet stormy winds,

12 she is will, and strength personified, she is vigour in a great incomparable movement. Has she not lost her head because of that reckless impulsion? There are no obstacles that she can not overcome. She is unable to have any doubts. Victory is of its own value. Victory speaks for itself. Except that it is “victory is on the other side of morality…”.

Agreeing with Bukharaev about the purposefulness of the idea of victory, which is valuable in itself, I judge the meaning (place) of victory in the life of man, its consequences and correlation, somewhat differently. Morality is a component in the spirit of man, and victory is the result of his acts, which can be initiated either by moral or immoral purpose and can be achieved either by moral or immoral means (actions). There is victory and victory. So, the point is not in the victory itself, but in its author – intellect, the owner of which is endowed with a very strong willpower and whose only purpose is to find the truth in everything he touches in this reality. In his search for it the intellect will pay any price, including the wellbeing of its “master”, acting in accordance with the principle that cowardice is one of the worst human vices (“sins” according to Breg), because it is fear multiplied by villainy, an attempt to save one’s own peace and well-being at all costs. Goethe asks, “Where are those few, who searched and asked? They did not conceal their feelings, and walked to meet the crowd with reckless bravery? - They were crucified, beaten and burnt. In much wisdom is much vexation, and not so much psychologically, but from the State at the instigation of the members of clerical and secular hierarchies, and also the crowd. We shall just mention the names of the people destroyed by them: Radischev, Pushkin, and Lermontov. Let me quote Davydov here: “Wishing to perish, Gogol and Blok starved themselves to death, the “unpleasant gentleman” Goncharov was hunted down by revolutionary-democratic journals; Turgenev was arrested and exiled, Mayakovsky and Yesenin committed suicide, Gumilyov and Mandelshtam were shot, Solzhenitsin, Brodskiy and Galich were exiled; the greatest personality of world significance (“the Rock”) Leo Tolstoy was excommunicated from church, the list continues on and on!”

Intellect is victorious because the final result of its functional existence is the TRUTH. Being achieved, it needs no victory, because it is the result of victory. Consequently, a society built on the principles of the TRUTH does not include such a category of existence as victory in its life activities. Is it not the reason why Christ commanded “thou shalt not kill!” because killing is one of the most villainous methods of achieving a victory. Being the function of intellect, victory is thus an intermediate stage of man’s activity on the way to the

12 TRUTH, but not an aim in itself. Victory has no value of its own (only life has one. There is no other thing having a value of its own. All the rest exists either to serve or to oppose it! Tertium non datur). Initially and up to the highest stage of the existence of man, the chief aspiration and the justification of his life boils down to the genesis of the TRUTH.

With time mankind will give up antagonisms it the movement to progress and people will need no more victories; the antagonism between the physical and legal subjects will be done away with, and will live in the TRUTH. Whatever you may say, no matter how you explain it, the idea of “victory” presupposes antagonism and the ensuing violence, as a rule, from both sides, and most certainly from the victorious side. Finally, it assumes the total power over the defeated side, fully negating love (!).

Any victory carries the embryo of defeat in it. The most demonstrative examples from the history of Soviet socialism are as follows: the Bolsheviks defeated the petty bourgeois elements and their subjects – the peasantry and the town middle class (capitalism producers), abolished private ownership and market relations. What did it lead to? To the stagnation of all and everything and to the downfall of the victors. We won a victory in the World War II and converted up to one third of mankind into Communism, threatening the whole world with that system. And Communism fell on its face with uncommon rapidity. Bolsheviks revived a very old imperial tradition (lost in the second half of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century), in which victory is a purpose in itself. It did not lead to an improvement of life, but deteriorated it and brought the empire to self-destruction.

The paradoxical situation of Russia after WWII is painfully frustrating. France, for instance, found itself in a more or less advantageous position, because it was liberated from German occupation and continued its democratic development. I do not know whether England and the USA gained anything or not; maybe, the fact that they could develop in the democratic direction and help other nations in this can be considered a gain. But it was the defeated Germany and Japan that gained the most; their people not only liberated themselves from centuries-old militarism, but also tremendously improved life for its people. The worst loser was the Soviet Union, the chief victor, throwing untold wealth and millions of innocent lives (both foreign and their own) into the black hole of the GULAG socialist camp. Within the country the reprisals in the post-war years went up till the death of the tyrant, and then there was Brezhnev’s attempt to return to GULAG followed by stagnation in all and

13 everything. After that there was that quasi-revolution in the form of Gorbachov’s “perestroika” and Yeltsin’s “reforms”, which resulted in the robbery of the people and State. Now we are having Putin’s “vertical” leading us downwards, both in direct and figurative sense with de-democratisation and many other negative de's.

As a result, behind the finish line of victory we have semi-pauperised people patronised by thieves of State and private rank. The country is governed by the feared secret services and the police: nobody can be sure that they, either living in Russia or being miles and miles away from, leaving home, will come back alive (if the system has any interest in him at all). Unfortunately, the democrats lacked intelligence or rather, political will to take advantage of the democratic euphoria of the 90s of the last century, and to do away with the domination of secret police in the country, disband all the staff of the KGB (with some small exception), turn its big building in Lubyanka into a Museum of the Crimes of Russia’s Secret Police (The 3rd Department of his Imperial Majesty’s Chancery, then VChK, then OGPU, MGB, KGB, FSB), and hand it over to UNESCO. Of course, it is impossible to solve the problem in this way, because in ten to twenty years the structure would have grown to become exactly the same. But the country would have had a short breather, after which the world might have come to global co-operation and co-ownership of citizens in the world’s wealth, and there would be no need in state security.

The indispensable result of a victory is the victors’ sense of euphoria connected with aggressiveness of spirit, which makes a separate man or a whole nation dangerous to the surrounding world. So, the self-name, or name given by others – “victor” – may sound like music to its bearer, but I suppose not everybody feels like it. For some people, for me, for example, as Bukharaev rightly estimated it is, in the first place, a “heavy burden”. In the second, and it is more important, the “victor” causes a wary attitude on the part of those he has to deal with. In a word, the inter-relations of people based on the action qualified as “victory – defeat” are by no means humane, because they always stand in the way of concord without which man can not survive as a species.

In connection with our endless celebrations of “Victory Day” (not only in the World War II, but in many other previous wars, without ever mentioning those in which we were shamefully defeated), our cleverest analyst Maksim Sokolov writes that the verb “to defeat” is transitive, presupposing a direct object, i.e. where there is a winner, there is a loser. Consequently, a victory is an aggressive triumph by its nature, and the celebration of it is a preparation for

13 new aggressive triumphs. What the crazy Russian power may need, the people does not need at all. Our bureaucracy has a huge bee in its bonnet; it is not enough that the imperial (big) Russia is halved, they want to reduce it to the size and significance of Moscow Principality. They wants to repeat history, not knowing that what the first time is a tragedy, the second is farce. However, I am sure that the dream of imperially thinking bureaucrats shall not come true. The centuries-old aggressive history of the Russian State is coming to an end. Mankind owes it to the Anglo-Saxon democracy, whose mission was carried out by Churchill, although he himself did not want it. Together with American democracy, he managed to put an end to world wars in their “hot” form. The war became “cold”, converting itself into in the competition for world supremacy between democracy and communo-fascism. The victory over European fascism created the precondition for the victory over the Soviet Communism, that had provoked the birth of National-Socialism as an alternative to International-Communism (Communo-Fascism). An opportunity has now come for gaining a foothold for democracy on the world scale.

In the “victory-defeat” tandem its components often change places, because they are opposites. That is good. If it were not so, mankind would be eternally divided into the nations of slaves and nations of masters (“the golden billion”). It is due to this dialectical correlation of victory and defeat that their consequences are often directly opposite to the initial goals: victory turns into defeat and vice versa. Not literally, of course, but in substance, in people's welfare, which is the final aim of any human life-affirming action.

It means that the recognition of “victory” as a permanent category of existence would mean recognition of the immeasurably wicked Marx’s formula of violence as “the midwife of history”. With that formula mankind has built (and is still building) its relations even with Mother Nature on the principle of “we will not wait for gifts from Nature; our task is to take everything ourselves”. It seems that by taking and taking we are already reaching the bottom… As for the relations between different social groups (classes) the least is said, the better… (In any case, neither co-operation, nor fellowship is ever given top priority. And without them, normal happy life of all the living things on the Earth is impossible!) Victory, as a philosophical and everyday household category, has the right to exist only for the sake of life on Earth, no more. All other aims of its use is vanity of vanities, serving the elimination of Life as such. Life is victory, and it needs no other victories. Other victories are pursued by those who can use them to the disadvantage of others.

13 Calling victory a “heavy burden”, Bukharaev grasps the very essence of the phenomenon. Indeed, for the winner it is often a joylessly heavy burden. It may be a joy – but a spoiled joy, giving a sense of discomfort when socialising with colleagues, in particular when the winner is an intelligent, conscientious person. Take, for example, victories at all kinds of competitions, producing (and strengthening) unfriendly and even hostile relations among its participants. We want to believe that the time will come when personal competition will disappear, giving way to something objective, growing from co-operation based on mutual assistance and therefore not causing the negative state of mind in losers. I agree with the “Principle of Contest and Victory”, introduced into scientific use by Prof. A.Sogomonov. It transfers us into the world of man, for whom everyday competitiveness has a value of its own. Sogomonov speaks about the social space of middle-class people as a construction of life’s field of permanent competition of relatively equal individuals with one another, in which competitive co-existence has been formed with appropriate standards, “discovery”, or “invention” of “guilt”. According to the author, the sense of being guilty becomes almost the only universal stabilising and regulating factor of social inter-relationship. The sense of guilt withholds competitively-oriented individual from destructive behaviour. The “Culture of Guilt” presupposes a certain democracy in the social relations of the competitors, and, of course, the democracy of the political regime of social life. In fact, Sogomonov speaks about the principle in which future co-operation of the competing sides takes place. Then this principle will be called anything but “victory”. This time will be characterised by “a high culture of social life”, about which Hegel speaks characterising Socrates and his dialogues: “His behaviour to others was not only fair, truthful, frank, devoid of austerity and honest, but we can also see in it an example of thoroughly produced Attic secularity. It is intercommunication of a highly educated person who, with all his wittiness does not bring about anything personal into his relations with others and avoids anything unpleasant”.

C) Subjective – negative aspect of intellect

As it is generally accepted, in public conscience, in the functioning of intellect from Adam till today, besides the mentioned objectively negative consequence in scientific research activities that sometimes takes place, there is what I call on the “pre-civil” stage of the development of mankind a subjectively negative aspect. It is the so-called “cunning”, recognised in everyday life as “cleverness”. It is a substitute of intellect by a profit motive, sometimes supported by force, not only (and with time not so much) by physical strength,

13 but by the strength of wealth, which becomes, when increased, an independent force. There is an external circumstance here: the world is created in such a way that up to now there has never been a perfect society. People are all individuals with different abilities both of physical and mental quality, and the determining place among them belongs to intellect, its persistence and purposefulness. Naturally, with the shortage of material benefits, the intellect of some people may act harmfully toward other people. Therefore, the problem consists in the necessity to exclude this injustice. Something external must be found, which would render the need for injustice pointless. Should it be something like the invisible Adam Smith hand working on the market? Let me repeat myself: the participants of the market, i.e. the producers of goods and sellers are not personally (in their minds) interested in societal gains. They simply do not give it a thought. On the contrary, they are interested in the society paying them for their efforts as much as possible, so that they can get the highest profits. How can it be achieved under competition, which is the main law of market? The only way is to produce goods of high quality for mass demand. He who produces such goods enjoys high sales. Due to competition the market is filled with appropriate goods. Objectively the personal interests of the producers (sellers) conjoin with the interests of the people’s community.

But the movement of property under free competition to centralisation and concentration, even limited by anti-monopoly laws, is inevitable, otherwise the economy would not be able to progress. The strongest survive (by capital, managerial (intellectual) advantages). The weaker owners turn into proletariat, part of them become lumpen-proletariat, perpetuating the same vicious circle whereby the few enrich themselves at the expense of the many. The process of competition of intellect with intellect is endless, as is the world itself. The problem is how to make it harmless to society.

It was stated above that intellect is always in a perpetual quest for the truth. But how can the side effects of intellect be neutralised? It can only be achieved if their realisation becomes pointless. It will happen only when social, international and inter-state contradictions disappear. In its turn, such a situation will be possible only when the Earth as a whole becomes a common home for all the people of the world, in which no nation will be divided into “landlords” and “lodgers”, but all will be masters. Selfish aspirations of some individuals will be suppressed by general rejection of them. This moral imperative, voiced by Musina, will triumph: to be a man is to feel one’s responsibility, to feel shame for the evil around you, even for that of somebody

13 else's, to realise that by doing something good you are helping to build the world.

Even today the world suppresses many anti-human acts. Why not exclude all the things which threaten mankind with revolutions, wars, ecological catastrophes, etc., from human life? The mankind of today is ugly, and it cannot stop its downward movement. There is only one way to prolong life on Earth without oppression of man by man, without gasping from lack of oxygen, without poisoning all around you with chemicals, radiation and vile water and without polluting the land. It can be done by turning the Earth into a common home of people with equal rights and equal duties in everything, each possessing an equal inalienable share.

In his research Vodolazov talks about the aspiration of intellectuals to understand the logic of the intellectual history of mankind, and with it and through it the sense of human history in general, the destiny and essence of Man. In the first place, the “meaning of the intellectual history of mankind” consists, in my opinion, in the tendency of interaction of intellect with morality, of finding such a method of arrangement of human life, in which morality would triumph, guaranteeing the Earth – the all-human home – health and capability of carrying the burden of LIFE. In the second, “the destiny and essence of Man”, the brain of the Planet, is to LIVE safely, happily and beautifully, consequently, to make LIFE, the great gift (of God or of Nature, if you like) as happy as possible and to make its improvement a determining tendency in his activities for all times and all over the world.

*** Very important is the reasoning of Vodolazov about Socrates as a thinker who believed in infinite possibilities of cognition, but at the same time warning mankind that if anyone imagines himself to be God or a god-like know-it-all, there will be trouble. If somebody imagines that he has grasped the very essence of this world, and on this basis of his self-assuredness begins, like God the Creator, to rule the world and the people, there will be trouble.

An amazing prophesy, which was fully confirmed in the activities of the Bolsheviks who fancied themselves to be the Creators of History, who probably supposed that they had God by the short and curly. But what is impossible to agree with is Socrates substantiating his thesis by asserting the impossibility to understand fully the laws and the forces in the depths of the Universe. I do not think it is a correct proposition: consistent cognition of the

13 infinite world by man is opposed to its non-cognised part, the former being constantly compared against the latter. If we continue thinking along those lines, then man must not intrude into the chaos of life at all, never imposing his will on the world on the basis of incorrect knowledge. He can (and must!) interfere on the basis of what he has cognised in accordance with the laws of dialectics and principles of logic. Change the world if you must, but remember that not everything can be changed. What has become necessary in the life of man, something that helps him to survive and develop, cannot be thrown out. Something that functions well in the present life, passes on into the future, but in a changed form, because the old form would stifle further improvement. I am referring to the radical factor in human social life, the basis of human existence in the world, where there is never an absolute fullness of material benefits, the fact that private ownership and its relations are never to cease. And, as long as, due to some objective obstacles (limitation of possibilities of nature and production, environmental requirements and inevitable growth of demands), absolute material benefits are never to be achieved, observance, protection and development of private ownership (and its relations) is unavoidable. Trying to deny this axiom leads to into a blind alley.

Socrates’ complaint that something strange has happened in human history is understandable. The laws that are rooted in the nature of man, in the nature of Creation (he asserts) have suddenly collided head-on with the laws created by man – the so-called political laws regulating the life of citizens and their interrelations with the State, society and one another… Thus started competition of different interests, ever-aggravating rivalry of people which raises high those who are aggressively energetic (sometimes – artful), and lowers the others. The split into rich and poor increases. It has been so during the whole history of mankind, and it is so today in most parts of the world. But nowadays, the experience of revolutions and civil, inter-national and inter-state wars has led the most advanced democratic part of mankind to understand that the solution of the problem of correlation of natural laws with political laws consists in the distribution of ownership among the people and in the transformation of working people from wage slaves into owners. So far this is the only way out.

It is in connection with that I was talking about the positive and negative functions of intellect. The role of subjects richly endowed with intellect and will-power grows, because they carry the idea of victory either of the species or some separate representatives of it, as well as of classes, nations, states, etc. It is good, if the good wins! But it often happens that the evil, sometimes

13 disguised as the good, (maybe not forever, but for some time for sure) takes the upper hand, especially if there is such a force behind it that intellect is not needed.

I have a question, if we accept the hypothesis of the creation of the Universe, including man, by God. How did Thou, Omnipotent and All-Good, manage, endowing this two-legged beast with an also omnipotent intellect, not to restrain him with the principle of categorical imperative, with morality, without which he would be absolutely powerless, and consequently, the non-genuine “victories” could not have taken place?

In connection with the question a believer has the right to reason as the writer Viktor Erofeev suggests. He says that some Russian iconoclasts lay a claim to God, considering Him unjust, because he kills millions of innocent people, takes little children away from their parents, agrees to wars, terrorist attacks and accidents. But God has a Host of Souls, they are his children, some good and some not so good, and He has His own plans concerning them, and He has His accounts to settle with them. And a physical body is nothing but a bag of bones and a producer of other such bags; an accidental shelter, a prison for the soul. Therefore, it is imperfect and perishable. So, people have to look after their bodies themselves. All the more so: a sound mind in a sound body and we should think it is not worth for them to be at war with each other. The problem is probably solvable by a soul impregnated with morality.

If we do not grow our souls to the necessary condition (“for the sake of life on Earth”), we shall receive the final answer in the nether world, which, by all appearances, is near at hand. It will be explained in its propaganda departments … with live coals.

In my thinking, however, an attempt to justify God fails: a thinking head cannot admit a simultaneous existence of Evil and God, who is All-Good, Almighty, etc.!

***

The main indicator of difference among and inside all forms of life is the level of intellect, i.e. information accumulated during lifetime, beginning from simple imaging and instinctive reflexes, and culminating in the expression of realities in writing, pictures, sounds, and the most complex modern information systems. Therefore, if we proceed from the fact that any objects and

13 phenomena carry some information, which certifies them such as they show themselves to the world, and which Life, represented by thinking subjects, can extract from them, we can say that life and information are initially identical. So, life is information. Accumulation of the latter in non-living matter to the level of critical mass gave birth to something unknown before, something living that has declared to the world, “I am”.

The fact that the present era of civilisation is called the age of information is the evidence that it is approaching the top of its existence (but it does not at all mean that before it the life of mankind had not been informational. Life has always been identical to itself). Life is victorious, because it is intellect programmed for victory, incessantly accumulating information in its continuous development, reaching the degree of being able to change the future of the Earth. It has no end. Its death will only come with the death of the planet Earth, which is the repository of all intellect. By the way, mankind, during all its history has been furthering its demise incessantly, “thanks” to the intellect, by developing it infinitely. There is a paradox: developing itself, it will kill its repository, with which it will itself cease to be! There is simply no other way for mankind to survive, except by bridling the intellect. But the bridle can only come in the guise of morality, if intellect ripens so as to understand the necessity to work together with morality, when the taboo on some of its actions becomes categorically imperative; morality will be able to perform the function of anti-intellect. It can only be possible on condition of full absence of antagonistic contradictions in mankind.

Then it will be possible to suppress any action tabooed by society. Is it possible, at least theoretically? I am not sure. Because, as I already mentioned, the process of cognition is impossible to stop. Its fruit are dialectical, and to control the results in such a way that they do not harm people, but are useful to them, is still impossible. It will hardly ever be possible in view of the absolutely uncontrollable infinity of creation. We can only speak of the possibility of partially reducing the negative and some delay of its advancement, etc.

The optimism of Freud about the happy future of mankind, namely in connection with intellect, turns out to be disputable. In any case, in today’s situation, when both separate individuals and mankind in general often experience woe from wits. We are still staying in the prehistory of mankind, which I earlier called the “pre-civil” stage of development, an inalienable feature of which in the majority of the countries is “social pathology” (formula

13 of A. Davydov), and mankind suffers from immaturity of panhuman morality: each social group, nation and state has a morality of its own, and that is the reason why it is harmful. Vodolazov says that on this stage of prehistory there are outlaws on the one hand (beginning with highway robbers and ending with those who, artfully circumventing the law, appropriate most part of the public wealth, turning the majority of fellow citizens into hirelings, i.e. “wage- slaves”), and on the other – normal working people terrorised by them. There should be humanism in the basis of morality. The first condition of its appearance is the abolition of poverty as such in the whole world. The poor are the causa causans of social and international instability, retrogression in all and everything and above all, the moral degradation of man.

The abolishment of the poor, the disappearance of wage slaves, including the proletarians of physical and mental work, the organisation of life in world co- operation, uniting all equal nations on a voluntary basis, will allow to work out the guarding morality as an ally of the Almighty. Intellect will be prevented from being used for evil purposes, with all of its negative consequences suppressed. Most likely, it is the task of the next, “civil” stage of development of mankind, in which people in their majority will not be wage slaves as they are today, having become citizens in the original sense of the word. It would be nice to live to see it!

However, I should think, even today things are not as bad as Erofeev formulates when speaking of Russia, that in this country Hope dies first. I think, it will be exactly so, if the bureaucratic code of existence does not change (the essence of that code is the substitution of the subject of development (the people), looked upon as trash by the false subject in the name of the ruling state bureaucracy, which is alien to the idea of national service and modernisation).

It fills one with optimism to observe some glimmers of hope in the tendency of the highly-developed democratic part of mankind to become “more clever” (the union of intellect and morality). Thus, “hot war”, on the world scale at least, I assume, has been substituted by “cold” war (and the results of it are not so bad: democracy has been established in the world’s leading countries and the world’s socialist camp of GULAG has fallen), and today little by little we substitute it by athletic events. As for the main source of war – the trade war, the majority of nations is trying to regulate it with the help of the World Trade Organisation, which we, too, are eager to join. They will let us in, God be willing, when we become more civilised. Then, as a side effect we might

13 prosper, as the need will make us raise the people’s labour productivity and quality, and the national wealth will at last become the property of the people (and not of bureaucracy slash oligarchs, and not on the basis of Communism (“nobody’s” property), but on the basis of private ownership, thanks to which the people will revive their natural right to be the subject of development. Drunkenness, theft and “poverty as a habit” will cease to be basic phenomena… For all that, even taking into account the assertion of the late Academician A.N.Yakovlev about state corruption, we shall hope for the best. Anyway, “hope dies last”. What if it becomes true?! Maybe…

D) Society's main resource

The late Academician N.N.Moiseev once remarked, that the main asset of Russia is brains. The problem, however, is how they are used and taken care of . When answering this question we have nothing to boast of. The intellectual situation in Russia is aggravated by forced emigration that has taken place for a long time in this country and become traditional. Many of our people (not infrequently those who are far from being the worst) were pushed out of the country, and later, in the Soviet days took place an extermination (“holocaust”) of the genetic resources of the nations of the Soviet Union, as well as of all the thinking people. Erofeev remarked that, generally speaking, there are no best people in any fields of human life activities and social strata, only the worst: there are no philosophers. Very few writers. A few strong musicians. A few artists. That is all my motherland, he concludes . To my mind, it can be considered the result of the “abjection of the value of personality”, which is traditional in Russia. The most vivid and practically tangible indicator of that are the results of “perestroika” and post- Soviet “reforms”, carried out by an intellectually inadequate, practically irreplaceable for a whole century, self-interested ruling state bureaucracy with its low level of world outlook, general culture, and morality. It is known that only the state which understands the role and place of knowledge, can expect success. The realities in today’s Russia are characterised by a full loss of the national modernisation potential and insurmountable technological and intellectual weakness compared to the majority of the developed countries of the world (V.Lysenko). The role of the dominating class is determined by the level of its possession of information and knowledge. What is awaiting us?! The rulers can’t say anything certain even about the nearest future.

The main problem of ours is the problem of “the personal value” because it has been at all times the chief shortage of the unfortunate Russian society. It is not accidental that the great Russian literature has always been full of it, beginning

14 with Fonvizin and continuing with Chaadaev, Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol, Goncharov, Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Bulgakov, Pasternak, and today – Pelevin and Victor Erofeev. They ask themselves whether a personality is possible in Russia, and answer thus: “to be a personality in Russia means to look up to Europe, but it also means to oppose oneself to the Russian majority”, “the way of our society into the future of personalities is paved with dead bodies”; the thirst for totalitarianism, reprisals of people who think, speak and look in a different way is dominating in mass conscience today. But the future of Russia is connected with the formation of personality culture. Otherwise, it will be lost.

I cannot help reacting to a very notable statement of President Putin made at the press conference in the Kremlin on January 31, 2006. In answer to the question of one of the journalists, how he would characterise the significance of President Yeltsin in connection with his approaching 75th Anniversary, he said that the question could be answered in more that one way. One thing is certain: he gave freedom to the Russian people. And it is true, and, let us not forget, something like this is worth a lot! Unfortunately, alongside with many freedoms, for example, the freedom of the press (and mass media in general), which he did not persecute in spite of their sharp criticisms (against him, too), he gave freedom to his family, higher officials and criminal circles to rob the people and the State, all of which was the cause of the brain drain. (In an interview with “The New York Times” on October 4, 2003, Putin said openly, “We have a certain category of people, whom the State appointed billionaires, giving them large pieces of State property practically for free”). As a result, later on in the time of Putin, the freedom of the media was suppressed but the freedom of wealth redistribution is still going on. Meanwhile, the freedom of mass media is an indispensable supplement to intellect as an obligatory competitive condition of its long-term functioning on a mass scale (the activities (in Stalin's time) of outstanding intellectuals duped by the false ideology of Communist “patriotism” or under the threat of the hardest reprisals in GULAG is an exception and cannot be taken into account). Without freedom intellect withers, and this is exactly what we have now…

I’d like to conclude the first part of my research turning to the all- philosophical and highly “productive” regularity of human existence, according to which the logic of action of a separate individual or a community is richer (stronger) than the logic of theory, no matter how perfect it can be (it is probably because in any action as in any inevitably creative process the position of the starting point continuously changes).

14 Let us follow the destiny of Russia in connection with the RSDLP (Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party), that was later transformed the CPSU. It was a party whose mission was to provide happy life for the oppressed people. Such a purpose was set by theory, the implementation of which led to the creation of the State of GULAG with innumerable human victims. “Scientific Communism” turned out to be not scientific at all, because its aim was to create a society not based on what had been accepted and mastered by mankind, by which I mean private ownership and market economy, which gave society a possibility to progress. The means of the achievement of the goal turned out to be pernicious. They crossed out the goal itself. By the way, Aristotle proved that it is the “the Gardener Method”, not “the Architect Method” that must lie in the basis of social transformational activities. It is no use trying to put something “absolutely new” in place of the completely destroyed “old”. The new should be grown out of the old.

Unlike Communism, Liberalism, developing what appeared and had to be developed in the previous social-economic system, being itself dynamic, having built and increasingly perfecting the democratic structure of the state and society, has been victorious in the majority of the countries of the world. The theory of Liberalism has been confirmed by practice. The practice has led the theory: the Liberalism of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st is not equal to the Liberalism of the 18th-19th centuries.

Russia has known neither the old nor the new Liberalism, and by all appearances, does not (and cannot!) want to know it, because its dominating class is the parasitic class of bureaucracy, but not a class of owners who can be self-developing and self-sufficient subjects of development under democracy, produced and strengthened by market economy and relations of private ownership. Democracy is death for bureaucracy, the latter being a false subject of development. Therefore, after the collapse of the Soviet totalitarian system it turned from “bureaucratic socialism” to “bureaucratic state capitalism” (Y.Burtin). It amalgamates with criminal private capital. The state monopolistic capitalism, which practically excludes the market (competition), has only one tendency of existence – fascism inside the country and confrontation (all the way up to the world war) outside. The hopelessness of the tendency is evident, as testified by world history.

Therefore, the problem for Russia is to acquire such a theory of development, which, being accepted by practice and developed by it, would lead the country

14 out of the deadlock onto the road of prosperity. The second part of the research is dedicated to this problem.

14 PART II CURING THE WORLD’S SORES. A CIVIL SOCIETY OF NATIONAL WEALTH CO-OWNERS

Chapter 5. Russian experience of “popular (people's) capitalism”

The “end of history” concept of Fukuyama declares victory of the capitalist social-economic system. Russia, having torn away from it, tried to build something quite different. After a crashing defeat, it returned to an almost “classical” capitalism of the time of the original accumulation of capital of the 18th-19th centuries with a considerably bigger criminal segment in it. After the first (abortive!) attempts of building that “other”, so-called “socialist” society, Russia returned to capitalism, not the regular one, but what they later called “people’s capitalism”, as more corresponding to its spirit of the people. The theorist and pioneer of its construction was Lenin (but without Leninism!).

A) Stating the question

There is probably no need to remind anybody what unsightly historiographic situation has the personality of Lenin been in during the last 15-20 years. Lenin and Stalin are considered to be almost twins, and worse than that: Stalin was the most faithful and consistent pupil of Lenin, affirming all Lenin’s ideas and plans by acts, which, naturally, were not only anti-popular, but also criminal, anti-human in general. Therefore, before coming to the essence of the problem, it is necessary to answer the question about the criteria I was guided by when assessing the state leaders of the past.

Man is a creator by nature. Creation is by definition an act conjoining the present with the future. Just how creative the role of each man is gets determined by his talents. It is known that talents are rare, and geniuses in their ranks are really precious few. Therefore, as regards statesmen, primary importance should be given, I think, to the historical significance of the personality, assessing it by the measure of talent. Judging by the status in which such men as Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great and others became history, we see that the experience of geniuses is valuable in itself, and does not depend on whether the final results of their activities are positive or negative. After all, human existence did not stop with them. Besides, not a single one of those consequences takes place in reality in its pure form; in the acts of great people they occur intermittently, and sometimes even simultaneously, so it is sometimes a bit difficult to separate one from another. It is probably of no

14 principal importance for history, whether a statesman of the past was guilty of anything objectively or subjectively. Only the real consequences or the factual heritage are of importance. The important thing for us is to understand how the nature of the leader's activities was conditioned by the realities of the history of the nation, its psychology, and how adequate/alien they were to it.

In the light of the above, very interesting is the glory of Napoleon as a great Frenchman, whose activities, incidentally, brought the people of France to such a disaster as could not be compared with what any of his predecessors had done. What is the reason for such deification? As it seems, Dominique de Villepin in his book “One Hundred Days” has found the answer. He writes that in the first place, Napoleon managed to link his destiny with the destiny of his nation, in the second, he incarnated the dream about the Great France, greater than the French themselves.

Let us turn to the life of Lenin. The determining features of Russian character are: 1) nonconformity/violence (cruel, merciless); sharp turns from the past, up to crossing it out (the latest events of this kind were the revolution of 1917, NEP, co-operation, “perestroika” and “reforms”); 2) anti-ownership mentality, dislike of the rich and richness in general, 3) messianism: “Russia is the third Rome, and there will not be the third”, because there is the third one in the name of us (“God Loves the Trinity”), the 3rd International. In a word, Russia wants to be at the head of either the Christian, or the Communist world! All this at the time when the nation is under-civilised, lagging at least a century behind the advanced countries in production, labour productivity, the culture of everyday life and living. We have been drinking heavily from times immemorial, and so on, and so forth. All the activities of Lenin and all his theories about the reconstruction of Russia have intersected with these, sometimes identifying with, sometimes opposing them.

All Soviet mass media together with historians and sociologists have been glorifying Lenin incessantly for many years. So, what is the result of their work? On January 25, 2004 in the program “Vremena” (“The Times”) on Channel I, lead by V.Pozner, the question of the role of Lenin in the 20th century was under discussion. As experts, the participants were Academician A.Yakovlev, the art director of the “Lenkom” theatre M.Zakharov, the Chairman of the Socialist Party R.Medvedev (who wrote the brochure about the (living) Putin in the series “The Life of Outstanding People”), Erofeev (a writer, I've mentioned him several times already) and professor S. Kara-Murza.

14 Only one of them, R. Medvedev assessed Lenin positively. The others blackened him as hard as they could go without watching their language; and they could do it perfectly, because they are all not only talented people, but also people who are popular with masses. As is usual with such programs, they organised a vote among the audience in the studio, who were asked, “does the future of Russia depend on the assessment of the historical role of Lenin?” The voters were supposed to just say “yes” or “no”. 85% of the young people said “yes”, 15% – “no”; among the people who were a little older, there were 60% “yes” and 40% – “no”. In spite of the fact that the audience had been preselected, I am inclined to assess the results in accordance with the saying “The voice of the people is the voice of God”. A common person and the masses of common people possess some inexplicable instinct (intuition) that helps them to grasp the very essence of the “barin” (boss).

I tend to agree with A.Mekhanik, who interprets the ideas of de Villepin, saying that politicians stay in history when they alloy their destiny with the destiny of the nation. We shall apply this interpretation to Lenin, because it corresponds to his activities. Besides, there are a number of circumstances. We must find answers to the following questions: 1.Was he self-interested? 2. Was he humane? 3. Was he thinking dynamically/dialectically? 4. Did he move the country forward to progress? 5. Is his experience (theoretical, social and political heritage) vital today?

The role of an outstanding personality in the positive or in the negative is great. It can be compared with a midwife, who either helps, or in case of her incompetence, prevents the woman in labour to present the world with a new life. The more difficult the delivery is, the greater is her role. But birth a natural process. A woman in labour gives birth to a child not because the midwife wants it, but because she was at one time impregnated. Normally she will deliver a child without a midwife and strictly in the time programmed by nature. The midwife is needed just for safety in case of any deviation from the norm.

As a rule, social processes are not subject to full (complete) programming, because many different human interests intersect in them, they constantly change and cannot be predicted, especially with the lack of objective starting point, i.e. because of the impossibility of “total knowledge”. Jaspers noted that any activity leads to casual and unforseen consequences. We continue to live and cannot stop even for a moment to start all over again. We always have to

14 start from what we have at this given moment. Our possibilities come from the future.

Therefore it is always beneficial to a society when a normal, largely indeterminate development of social processes (to say nothing, for instance, of the abnormal development of our society!) is assisted by intelligent and experienced people or groups of them – political parties. They can to some extent either assist or hinder the social process, but never cancel it or cause something different from what exists (in this connection one should know that it is not so much the activities of political leaders that bring them to power, but the “fertile soil”, the objective reality, requiring a definite policy).

B) Heritage of Lenin

There are several reasons for turning to Lenin's heritage.

The first reason is that we are still living out the results of what he did, and it is the worst part of his heritage.

The second is that the best part of his activities, in the absolute majority of sociological literature, is represented by superficial descriptive works, and some separate attempts of more profound investigation by a few researchers are either unnoticed or ignored. At the same time there have been a lot of publications lately, denouncing and insulting his memory. They can't leave well enough even Lenin’s ancestors. Thus, someone found out that his maternal grandfather M.Blank had at some point been accused of the theft of other people’s (sic!) hay (it is probably possible to steal one’s own hay – A.B.). However,… by all appearances, he did not receive any punishment worth talking about. He most probably bribed his way out of it, because it was declared (the whole affair took place in 1803) that Blank had not been found guilty. Much talked about is his alleged foreign ancestry: according to Arutyunov, Lenin’s maternal ancestors were Germans, Jews and Swedes, paternal ones – Kalmyks and Chuvashes. It is just like in the Soviet joke: a discussion is going on among representatives of different nations concerning Lenin’s nationality. Naturally, the Chairman is Russian. He suggests that the participants voice their arguments. The first to speak is the Tatar. He says, that Lenin is, no doubt, a Tatar, because Lenin himself said, “scratch a Russian, and you will find a Tatar”. The second was the Jew. He said, “you may scratch as much as you like, but do not forget that his maternal grandfather was called

14 Moishe Blank. The third to speak was the Kalmyk: “his paternal grandfather was a Kalmyk Ulyanin”. Enraged by these arguments the Chairman turned to the Chuvash, “And what are your arguments that Lenin was your tribesman?” The Chuvash said, “he was so very clever”. As for me, I consider the last answer the most correct. In spite of the Chairman’s verdict that “Lenin is Russian from the Russian Simbirsk and no more of this!”, I think that Lenin’s genius comes from the mixture of many bloods in his genes.

I remember Pushkin’s words: some Philistines want to see in great men a reflection of themselves – low and mean people, and they are happy to hear something derogatory about them. Yes, even the greatest people are humans, and in many ways they are like all the other people; they also love women, and not only their own wives (that happened to Lenin, too). In some ways they are like everybody else, but in something very important they are quite different. Balzac once said, “a genius is like all the others, but all the others are not like him”.

Especially heavy is the sin connected with Lenin is his idolisation. But it took place against his will. While he was alive, he resisted it as hard as he could. After his death his widow resisted it. But Stalin and his gang needed an idol, which would be worshipped by the people, and in whose name they could do what they liked against the will of the people. Therefore, the cult of his personality was puffed up “to an extreme hyperbolicity” (Valentinov). Unfortunately, the age-old priority of the state before a human being has reared in the people a veneration of powers, particularly of the First Man of the State. Otherwise it is impossible to explain the formation of the personality cult of Putin, who has became popular in the masses not by a conception of a better society, but by the continuation of the war in Chechnya under the slogans of “ice them in the shit-house” and “circumcision”...

The third: the experience of the last period of Lenin’s activities still has an enormous bearing on today's life. I can assure you that if the CPSU had followed Lenin’s legacy (not in Stalin’s interpretation, of course), we would be living now in one of the best countries of the world. Lenin the revolutionary had at times such theoretical epiphanies, that their realisation would have made the whole mankind happy. So I stick to the principle that it is better to lose with a clever man than to find with a fool because whatever you find with a fool will never agree with you as evidenced by our having been bogged down in the “reforms”.

14 It is clear that it does not pay to speak well of Lenin: he organised and headed the party that led the country to a disaster. Such were the consequences of the revolution. But the revolution was inevitable, the soil for it had been fertilised by the autocratic and bureaucratic regime. True, such radical principles as “the good of the revolution is the highest law” (Plekhanov) and for the revolution “we'll side even with the Devil’s grandmother” (Lenin), are most likely incompatible with the categorical imperative of morality. Lenin and his party hurried the revolution and its victory along in every possible way. In Russia the conditions were aggravated by the world war, accompanied by mass violence. Under excessive injustice leading to the inevitability of an uprising, according to Camus it is necessary to avoid “violence, justified by any doctrine or state interests”. But there was simply no other way of transformation of the feudal bureaucratic Russia into a democratic state. The mature class of the bourgeoisie, which would have been able to stand at the helm of their revolution, was absent. The bureaucratic power can never change for the better by itself. The state security service hindered the progress, the country was governed by the scoundrels of the Rasputin type, the best people of their class were not admitted to power, and those of them who managed to get to power were, at best, pushed aside (Vitte), or even killed (Stolypin). It was the regime that was responsible for the revolution, which it produced by its hideousness, by its anti-popular policy and practice, by driving the masses to extremes. It was by no means those who headed it that were able to later channel it into more a more peaceful movement without anarchy. Only Bolsheviks, led by the genius strategist and tactician Lenin managed to do it, although there were more than enough candidates (because of their passionarity at the time): SR’s (Socialist Revolutionaries (right and left), People’s Socialists, Social- Democrats of all possible Menshevik denominations, Constitutional Democrats and others. I would compare a country seized by a revolution to a ship that has sprung a leak in a stormy ocean thanks to the unwise captain with his crazy crew. And in order to save the ship, there appear people who are able to take the lead and steer the ship to the shore albeit in a heavily battered state. The revolution was the only real means of overthrowing the rotten regime.

It is another question that the actions of the new crew who tried to accomplish the Communist utopia, were unsuccessful, and the result was that the salvation of the ship, i.e. the Russian Empire, just prolonged its agony. Did it mean that the country did not need to be saved? I doubt it. And the captain cannot be blamed for not having foreseen everything: he was not God. Besides, he died soon. To put the blame on him for the activities of his followers would be similar to blaming the ancestors for the actions of their descendants. There is,

14 after all, a certain inter-generation logic of succession. Yes, every new generation inevitably receives the heritage from its forefathers. Intellect is given to man so that he can use it and act reasonably. As he lives, he is responsible for his actions. Therefore, take from the heritage only what suits best your circumstances and present interests. Do not put your own faults on others. The more so in case of Lenin, which was much more difficult to explore. His theoretical heritage was buried in oblivion and also distorted. The inadequate attitude to Lenin of “the old party guards”, when he, being heavily ill, continued to express orally and in writing his ideas concerning the future of the country, which were principally different from his former views, showed itself in Stalin’s letter to the Party organisations, where Lenin was but announced to be mentally incompetent. One of Stalin’s toadies (V.Kuibyshev) made a suggestion that one of the last articles of Lenin should be published in the newspaper “Pravda” in one copy only, to be handed to Lenin alone. I am not sure that it was suggested as a purposeful treachery. More likely, it was done by mistake. I assert this, because in spite of the fact that in the immediate surrounding of Lenin (unlike in that of Stalin’s) there were giants of thought and practice, they were, unfortunately, lower in mental rank, because Lenin himself was a dialectical thinker of an unattainable level.

Maybe, in all the new history he was the second one after Hegel. A true dialectician, so to speak, every inch of him, who could see the difference between the contradictions with a source of self-development (self-motion) and those causing destruction. He saw the first of those inside the phenomenon (object), the second – outside or between them. Which in its turn led to the recognition of perpetuity in the development of human society and impossibility of building a new society from scratch, assuming the divine role of the creator. Lenin understood it (like as not, he was the only one to understand it) on the eve of his departure for a better world. It was not always easy even for his fellows-in-arms, to say nothing of the masses, to understand and accept Lenin’s sharp theoretical and ideological turns; it was not even done in his life-time. Lenin insisted on having his way by great effort, by constant explanation, and sometimes threatening with a retirement, i.e. compelling to accept his point of view, which, in later activities turned out to be victorious. Why should we be surprised of the Party deviating from his theory after his death? However, we must admit that Russia has been in a hopeless situation for a long time, constantly about to collapse, which makes taking the right decision very difficult, if not impossible. Its position is similar to that of a duck in a bog: if it takes out the bill, the rear end is bogged down, and if it takes out the rear end … well, you get it. A remarkable feature of Russian character! As the

15 Japanese rightly noted, we always rush headlong into the unknown future with the wild cry, “A husima!”, pinning our hopes on the famous Russian “it’ll work out”.

A politician’s responsibility for the actions that brought sufferings to the people is never waived, even in case when the politician realises it and tries to correct his mistakes, as it happened to Lenin. At the end of the Civil War he stated that for the achievement of social justice he and his party had brought the country to the state of a “man on crutches”. Such atonement was akin to that of a criminal who had committed a crime and then wanted to eliminate the consequences. Today we are witnessing how it is done in democratic countries (but not in our country, where a statesman who has robbed his people and State is decorated with the highest Order). In the time of the Chancellor Kohl Germany prospered, but his manipulations in inter-relations with his constituency and parties is not forgiven. Another example: General Pinochet saved Chile from communo-fascism, created conditions for prospering economy in the country, but 3 thousand citizens of Chile and foreigners were killed; he was not forgiven for it. And that is only fair! The “sin and repent” principle is just not acceptable! However, Lenin’s fault in the post-October days of Russia was to some extent justified by his trouble. For he understood that he was going in the wrong direction, leading to a deadlock, and that it was necessary to take another road. But it was too late: he was ill (maybe because of his disappointment in what he believed in and tried to accomplish with great effort and innumerable sacrifices), and he died, leaving us by way of heritage his party, that was incapable of finding the right road without him, the road that had been shown by him. He also left the state, the disastrous prospect of which he had himself predicted in connection with its bureaucratic essence, having inherited the worst from the tsarist regime and “perfected” completely by his pupils. He may be justified somewhat, but…. There was something that deepened his fault. I mean the resolution adopted at his recommendation at the 10th Congress of the Party: “On Unity of the Party”, forbidding other parties or factions. This resolution excluded any kind of criticism and search for better solutions, for which reason the Party became later the steamroller in the hands of Stalin. Hence the moral: every man, every leader in particular, before making a decision that can influence the future, must presume that the decision may become unchangeable either because the author could not do it (because of his possible death), or because the others did not allow him to do it during his life-time or after his death. The situation is similar to the following: “instead of the execution of one innocent person, it is much better when ten criminals are not executed”. The resolution of the 10th Congress was provoked

15 by the emergence of many factions within the Party. But it happened at the critical time of transition from “military communism” to peaceful reconstruction, the time when one mighty effort of all and everything was needed, the country was in ruins and rampant with famine. But it was no good for the next period of development, yet very convenient for the usurpers of power, for dictators. A dialectical approach to the solution of any problem always requires the answer to whether the suggested measure would conform to the object of its action. Certainly, the New Economic Policy that was introduced then with its free competitive trade, could not have any prospects of working for a long time, and Lenin knew it in light of the resolution of the 10th Congress. The Party was supposed to build something different. Yet this “new” was supposed to be created in competitive and creative activities of all the subjects of life, and not in the sepulchral unity of mortification, the perfect master of which was Stalin. It meant that it was necessary to find the solution of the problem which would not exclude democracy in the life of the party. Let us admit that Lenin had no time to seek the right solution of the problem, and he thought he would be able to cancel the resolution “On Party Unity” as soon as it was no longer necessary (judging by his previous successful experience in tackling the past resolutions, theses, etc.). Like any sane man, he could not suppose that in the near future he would become disabled. Now that was a mistake! We all walk under God, man proposes but God disposes. Therefore, taking this or that decision and action, you must always presume that this very decision or action is going to be your last one in this world, and it must be made so that there will not be urgent necessity to change (cancel) it (after your life-time!). It may be impossible to do, or undesirable for some of the decision-makers.

There is one more consideration. Such attitude of Lenin to the resolution of the 10th Congress corresponds to the principle of way of least resistance, which produces directly the oft-mentioned rule (concept) of a lesser evil, according to which the lesser of the two evils is to be chosen. It is done, in the first place out of maximal preservation of energy, and in the second, in hopes that later on it will be clear what to do with this evil. As I have already said, in this “later on” the so-called “lesser evil”, encouraged by the fact that it was not put out, increases to become a great evil, which is somewhat more difficult to suppress. Hence the moral: evil must not be supported, no matter whether it is great or small. The choice between the greater and lesser evil must not take place. But our life in this sinful world constantly makes us come up against this very dilemma. Up to now mankind has lived by the rule of “choosing the lesser evil”. That is probably why we are is living surrounded by evil. Maybe, such is

15 its destiny?! Is it a vicious circle? Man is given intellect, so please be so kind as not to give in! As for Lenin, it would be correct to summarise his activities in the following way: he defeated all factions (of opposition), introduced and consolidated NEP using the same method that his successors later employed to do away with it, thus swerving from Lenin’s way of the development of the country. Is Lenin responsible for that? No, he is not, as, I repeat, he is not God. Let us also take into account the fact that any victory has a seed of defeat in it, which will blossom sooner or later. As long as human life goes on in this “victory-defeat” tandem, people will never see full happiness and its chief attribute – peace. But that is another question; there is no room here to discuss his philosophy in detail (besides, a more or less detailed description of him is given in the previous chapter). I'll just repeat a remarkable thought of Bukharaev , “It is not accidental that the dear word “victory” rhymes (in Russian) with the word “trouble”. (the Russian word for “victory” is pobeda, for “trouble” – beda). Any victory has a tendency to become Pyrrhic, because you always have to pay a heavy price for it. Often after gaining some impressive advantage you get to close quarters with the logic of history, and it laughs and brings down even the mightiest”. In this connection some facts from the history of Soviet socialism were commented upon in Chapter 3.

I am telling you this because of the need to turn the attention of the dominant class (hoping that there may be a smart and patriotic person there) to the unrealised or, to be exact, interrupted in its realisation, Lenin’s concept of transformation of “military Communism” into “people’s capitalism”.

Assuming that our present is not much different from the previous critical periods of Russian life, I admit that among the existing higher officials a “new Lenin” may emerge. It may be somebody whose power is stable, who is popular among the people; such a situation can convince the “pillars” of the regime that there is no reason why they should continue destroying Russia, and if Russia is lost, they will perish, too, and that the country should be pulled out of the deadlock by the means already tested by the advanced nations and fine- tuned to Russian realities. The Russian way of “people’s capitalism”, the foundation of which was laid by Lenin in the 20s of the last century (although that term and notion did not exist at the moment), was rather successful. That way was NEP PLUS co-operation (comprising all the population without exception, in which everybody was a private owner). The solution of our problems by the state (from above) is traditional and therefore understandable and acceptable by our people, and it has an invaluable advantage before all other methods. It is so because chaos would be brought to a minimum and

15 there will be relative order, the yearning for which is nowadays bemoaned by the population wishing to strengthen the State in spite of our knowledge about its stupidity and corruption. Because criminal order is also a kind of order.

I do not agree with the assertion of Academician Yakovlev concerning the self- interest of the founders of Marxism and Leninism, that they “smartly adapted centuries-old Communist ideas to the era of primary accumulation”, that in the Marxist scheme Russian Bolsheviks saw a speculative possibility to mobilise the pauperised and rightless masses of Russia for the overthrow of the old regime on the basis of revenge and hatred. I sympathise with the position of Camus, according to which not only Marx, who considered it inadmissible to achieve noble goals by unrighteous means, but also Lenin, who believed in the possibility of the diminishing of the repressive role of the proletarian state, were not subjectively anti-popular minded. The opinion of Prof. Nalimov is closer to the truth. He writes that today many thinking people are looking for those who are guilty and who are to be punished. But there are none. There was no dark conspiracy (in any case in the early 20s nobody felt it, there was an aspiration to the new and unknown. (And to think that these words belong to a man who had been a GULAG prisoner for about 20 years!) I suppose that it was a sincere delusion of geniuses, and it psychologically led to mass belief. This makes the struggle with Communist utopia difficult. The conviction of the founders of Bolshevism that they had “seized God by the beard”, achieving the final truth, made them energetic and active fighters, consistent, never doubting anything (unlike the Menshevik intellectuals), and ready to overcome incredible hardships. I would say it is one of the deepest and therefore tragic mistakes that man can make, that of imagining himself to be the architect of history (which inevitably happens to totalitarian parties and leaders). And the stage of primary accumulation gave them the necessary “confirmation” of their rightness. The monopolistic bourgeoisie producing two imperialist world wars played right into their hands. The inner development of bourgeois society in democratic direction did not confirm the conclusions of Marxism, but it was hardly noticeable at the time, and only began to develop widely after the Second World War. (It would only be fair to note that in the Marxist ranks there were some theoreticians who forecast almost the same type of capitalist development as we are observing today). For example, such theoreticians as Kautsky and Bernstein said that, but they were not listened to, they were called renegades and revisionists. It may happen so because great people give up this or that part of their idea only when they themselves see the fallacy. The problem consists not only in the fact that periodically there appear people who put a certain spin on a theory, but in an unjustified belief in the possibility of

15 achieving the ultimate truth which they have to make part of everybody's life. This is where the real danger lies.

Parties of the Bolshevik type should be fought with. It is not serious to ascribe sinister motives to their leaders. Self-interest even on a class scale and even thoroughly camouflaged is a phenomenon of individual character, which is seen (felt) and condemned by the majority. But fanaticism is a phenomenon, forming in the majority of masses a mob syndrome turning people into ochlos with all the villainness peculiar to submen. Qualifying defeatism of Bolsheviks in the Russian-Japanese and Russian-German wars as betraying the country in the selfish interests of the leaders, as Yakovlev puts it, is at any rate incorrect. This assertion just shows the imperialistic spirit of the author. The Russian people were not interested in conquests, they were interested in non- participation in those wars. For that matter, had the rulers of Russia listened to the Bolsheviks’ advice concerning the questions of war and peace, they might still be ruling the country. After all, there is patriotism and patriotism (preached, according to the precise definition of Putin, by “half-wits or provocateurs”). Lenin and Bolsheviks subjected all their activities to the cause of world revolution and put the country on its altar. Which, of course, was criminal; but it was a crime of fanaticism, not of self-interest. Another question is that the people did not feel any better for it. But, knowing the source of the crime or mistake, which is worse than a crime, it is easier to struggle with it, or to prevent it from happening again.

The fanatic belief of the Bolsheviks in their teaching, their “ideological blindness”, according to the words of Yakovlev, pushed the Bolsheviks to the well-known Plekhanov’s formula “the good of the revolution is the highest law”. We cannot accuse Plekhanov of self-interest and wickedness. Or, for example, Alexander Blok for his poem “The Twelve”, in which he proclaimed: “To the woe of all the bourgeois / We shall blow up a world fire / World fire in blood…” All the trouble is in fanaticism, which in itself orients even the best people towards all that is evil, to say nothing of the fact that it attracts all the social underworld. Concerning some of the consequences (but not all!) of Lenin’s activities, it is impossible to dispute the opinion of Ivan Bunin, characterising him as a “degenerate”, “moral idiot”, or the opinion of Leo Landau, who said, “Lenin was the first fascist”. Beyond any doubt, Bolshevism is in the first place social fascism as opposed to German racist fascism, pointed against other nations. Our fascism is of the worst kind. It is the most beastly, inhuman, preferring to eliminate in the first place its own people, continuing then to the elimination of other nations “standing in the way” of world

15 Communism. IAn insight in the problem of “subjectivity” in the character of Lenin was given by Innokenty Smoktunovsky who played Lenin in the film “On the Same Planet”. It is paradoxical that in the information of the Chairman of KGB to Brezhnev, the very essence of Lenin’s image has been grasped. In the film, “there is no Lenin the revolutionary, but there is a tired intellectual who insists on the conclusion of Brest Peace (without laughing or jigging up and down in excitement - A.B.). The film ends with a very strange phrase said by Lenin. He says that he dreams of the time, when agronomists and engineers will speak, and politicians (including KGB–men – A.B.) will keep silent” (Yakovlev). Bolshevism and its founder fully corresponded to Russian historical traditions and the psychology of Russian people.

As regards the search for the truth, constant competition of knowledge is needed. When putting into practice a certain achieved knowledge claiming the status of the truth, you must by no means trust its discoverers, who are objectively interested in the results of their research. In this case it is necessary to proceed from the principal difference between self-criticism, which is very rare among people, and external criticism, which not only does exist but is also very enjoyable to give. Therefore, there should be strict delimitation of functions between theoreticians and experimentalists, approximately like the delimitation of power between legislators and executives. Bakunin was absolutely right in his argument with Marxists, when he said that if scientists (i.e. Marxists) came to power, they would consequently turn people into guinea pigs for their experiments. His foresight was completely confirmed by Communists and Gaidar-Chubayses.

I cannot agree with the treatment of Stalin as a true follower of Lenin’s teaching. Alongside with many of his personal characteristics which were far from the best, Lenin also had such remarkable trait as “opportunism”, that is, an ability to give up his own thesis if he saw its fallacy. Besides, he did it without any embarrassment. He was a dialectician unlike Stalin, who was a dogmatist. He was principally “unprincipled”, for example, on the question of socialism.

I admit that Lenin remained a socialist to the end of his life and was not going to build any capitalism. But theory is one thing, and practice is quite another. The latter is richer than the former, for its logic lies in a creative process, in movement. Lenin’s combination of NEP and co-operation presented a menace to the socialist construction of Stalin type. It widened the ranks of the middle class of owners (NEP-men and co-operators), people by definition of anti-

15 Communist mentality. This class was not a very good subject to control by higher Communist officials, who knew only one method of rule, that of bureaucratic administration. Moreover, the consolidation of the class of owners into a political form in the nearest future threatened the power of bureaucracy with inevitable death. (That was the main reason of Stalin’s attack on the peasantry and on NEP co-operators, and not the problems allegedly emanating from the needs of industrialisation and socialist transformations, as it was stated in all kinds of party propaganda).

C) Relevance of Lenin’s heritage

I'd like to begin by saying a few words about the experience of the Soviet State in the almost successful solution of the problem that had not been solved by the bourgeois or, to be exact, near-bourgeois reformers, thus undermining the future of Russia. It was the formation of the middle class.

Objectively, the reforms and the revolutions following them after their failure in Russia had historically one main purpose, thoroughly concealed by the initiators, the aim required by life itself - the capitalist transformation of society, opening the prospects of the development of productive forces and the well-being of the masses. I think that this is the mystery of the Russian history, which has not been uncovered since the time of Peter I, and not clearly realised even today because of the confusion in the heads of the dominant class. There is only one reason for that confusion: the truth is obscured by the idea of the “exclusiveness of the Russian way of development”, which is different from both the eastern and the western ways, but which is destined to become a model for all mankind (The Third Rome – The Third International).

Bourgeois tasks were set before the reforms of Peter I, Alexander II, Stolypin and the first two Russian revolutions. They caused the third, the October Revolution of 1917. Its slogans were: stop the war, liquidate the monopoly of landowners by giving the land to peasants and give the right of self- determination to all nations. However, the bourgeois (capitalist) potencies in the Russian revolution were obviously insufficient. This shortcoming had to be compensated by the radical elements of the liberation movement: Lenin remarked that Bolshevism came to power as an “agent of the bourgeois- democratic revolution”. That was the reason why the revolution headed by Bolsheviks and consequently unable to solve consistently the bourgeois tasks, switched to the counter-revolutionary way of building state feudalism. Having completed the task of an “agent”, it immediately started the creation of state

15 monopoly on economy (nationalisation, surplus appropriation system), and consequently, on power, proclaiming the sovereignty of Soviets (in fact, Communist higher officials). That was the trouble of the revolution as a consequence of the Communist teaching adopted by the Bolshevik party (subjective factor).

How can we peacefully acquire a state, which had almost been created by the new economic policy, thus decidedly cancelling the goals of the revolution? I would like you to focus your attention on the fact that the Soviet Power guided by Lenin at the very start of its rule at the end of 1917 (and not from the moment of the introduction of NEP, as it is asserted in most cases), attempted to make a transition to new social relations, if possible, without much damage. At the beginning of 1918, in counterbalance to the pre-Revolutionary interpretation of socialism as not carrying any bourgeois traits within it, he began his struggle for such an understanding of it that would include its coexistence with the capitalist elements of economy for an appropriate period of time. In the autumn of 1918, at a meeting of party officials of Moscow he formulated the thesis that socialism could only be built by “a whole number of agreements”, including those with co-operators and intellectuals, who were “the only cultured element”. This problem was particularly highlighted in the struggle with the “left-wing Communists”. Lenin suggested an accomplishment (under the fig-leaf of the “new phase of struggle against bourgeoisie”) of the policy, which was later on called the “new economic policy (NEP)”, adopted in 1921 by the 10th Congress of the Party (substitution of the surplus appropriation system by agricultural taxes, freedom of trade, etc.). In December 1921 Lenin speaks about a retreat to a “co-operative capitalism” (alongside with private and state capitalism). The foreign intervention and the Civil War directly connected with it delayed the accomplishment of Lenin’s plans. The country had to go through “military Communism”. But the latter was not only and not so much the consequence of the war, but the result of the Communist vision of socialism presuming “mostly” an immediate transition to socialist construction through the creation of state production and state distribution. This serves as the main explanation of the persistent and destructive character of its realisation during rather a long time. At the same time, even at the very height of it, at the 8th Congress of the Party in the spring of 1919 he formulated the long-reaching conclusion on the inter-relations with the peasantry – “Don’t you dare command!”

Lenin’s profound searches, his doubts concerning the way chosen by him are expressed in the fact that he initiated correspondence of the outstanding

15 theoretician of anarchism V.Korolenko with A.Lunacharskiy (it would be correct to say – with the Soviet government) in the autumn of 1920. Korolenko wrote 6 letters (Lunacharskiy did not respond). Those letters were circulated in forms of copies at the time and were published by the Paris publishing house “Zadruga” (Lenin saw that publication). All the letters are constructed around the idea that a true victory of a social revolution would not consist in the destroying the capitalist production apparatus, but in mastering it and in making it work on some new principles. According to the letters, Communists were required to frankly acknowledge their mistakes, the main one being the fact that they removed many things from capitalism untimely, and a possible measure of socialism could only enter a free country. The dialectical thought of Korolenko emanated from the right understanding of the law of negation of negation, according to which development takes place only on condition that the developing subject receives something essential from the preceding stage and “digests” it. Ortega y Gasset formulated it with remarkable wisdom: “It is impossible to struggle with the past by just destroying it. There is only one method of overcoming it. It is by swallowing it. A revolution that will not do so shall be a failure”.

In October 1921 Lenin said, “In our attempt of transition to Communism we have suffered a defeat more serious than any of those from Kolchak, Denikin or Pilsudski”. Lenin must have fully realised it when he began to sum up his and his party’s activities on the eve of his death. He said at the end of 1923: “Of course, we have failed. We thought we would accomplish a Communist society by magic. But it happens to be a question of many decades and generations. In order not to let the party lose its heart, faith and will to victory, we must illustrate before it a return to exchange economy, as a temporary retreat. But we must see for ourselves that the attempt has been a failure, that it is impossible to change the people’s psychology and their age-old habits. It is possible to drive the population into the new system by force, but the question is also whether we would be able to remain in power in this meat grinder. By the way, the words I have italicised convincingly refute the long-established assertion about NEP as a tactical move of the Party. No, it was a strategic step or, to be exact, it undoubtedly became such after Lenin changed his view on socialism, combining NEP with co-operation. Lenin’s assertion concerning the failure of the previous policy of forcibly making people happy contained the prediction of what would happen in case of its continuation, which was fully confirmed later on. (Unfortunately, such understanding of NEP and Lenin’s warning was taken into consideration by the party only for a few years after his death).

15 It was as if Lenin, having been hitherto blind, recovered his sight: it is possible to do something useful in social development without turning anything on its head, but adapting to the world and to everything that is settled in it, in the first place to basic relations of private ownership and market, the abolition of which had been such a disaster for the people. Lenin formulated the main conclusion of all his life activity: “We are forced to recognise the need for radical change of our entire point of view on socialism”. What is the essence of this change? Concerning that formula of Lenin I must say that it was by no means understood at that time. Nor was it understood in the years that followed. As far as I can see, even one of the possibly most thoughtful researchers, Prof. V.Sirotkin interprets it as if referring to NEP only. In reality it embraces NEP together with co-operation. Lenin defines co-operation as equal to socialism. He sees the viability and effectiveness of the new economic policy only in combination with co-operation. Lenin knew that otherwise NEP, in full conformity with the laws of market would sooner or later begin to rob the owners that it itself created, enriching the minority, thus restoring the old capitalism from which the country had just so awkwardly escaped. For two plus years of NEP its quality showed itself rather vividly, which caused its active rejection not only on the part of left-wing elements of Communism, but also many others (especially the working class). That is the reason why Lenin wrote that co-operating to a sufficient extent all the Russian population, while preserving NEP, was what the country needed. He went on: “because now we have found the degree to which private interests and private trading interest can be joined with state control, the degree of subjection of it to public interests, which was earlier the stumbling block for many socialists”.

In co-operation, personal and public interests merge on both the local and state levels. Co-operation makes for an organic integration of the personal with the public and does not allow either one to swell beyond measure, preserving at the same time the status of man the master, which is the basis of his dignity. The centuries-old experience of building the existence on the basis of private ownership relations receives further development in co-operation: private property, remaining as such, also becomes a component of public property. In fact, the country’s economy becomes the total wealth of all its citizens. If the Soviet power had accomplished the NEP- co-operative concept, it could have become a highway to the society of social justice. I do not have any doubts that eventually mankind will be co-operated on the world scale, because otherwise it will perish because of national selfishness and also out of considerations of multiplying the possibilities of every person’s idea of happiness. One more

16 reason would be to understand that co-operating is initially the principle of existence of all living things, humans in particular. It is a self-organising universal method used in all life activities of man; the impetus of the activities of co-operation is inside, not outside of it, as is the case in some non-co- operative companies, institutions and activities.

Thus, co-operation, being an association of private owners, who remain such after the unification, is similar to socialism, which completely denies private ownership. Does it not mean a denial of socialism? I suppose that it is just so, because this feature is essential and unchangeable in socialism, and it is, in fact, negated. (The other features, including the “dictatorship of the proletariat”, are transitional and temporary. It is true though, that Communists convinced us by their practice that there is nothing more permanent than the Communists’ temporary introductions).

Capitalist transformations found their way on the October stage and after it in Lenin’s lifetime in spite of the socialist camouflage. However, after Lenin’s death they were moved aside by the Communist dictatorship. But they did not disappear completely (they can never be altogether removed). Their time came in the middle of the 80s. Thus, history was repeating itself at the end of the century, trying once again (for the last time?) to complete bourgeois reforms started by Peter the Great three centuries ago, continued in the19 th – 20th centuries by Alexander II, Stolypin, and Lenin. The aim of those reforms was the creation of the middle class of owners.

Why did Stalin’s bureaucracy not accept the new, Lenin’s concept of socialism rejecting NEP together with co-operation? Was it the subjectivism (voluntarism) of Bolshevik leaders, emanating from the fact that Lenin was already dead, or was it something objective, not depending on them at the time?

The results of NEP were brilliant. But its future was already doomed by the non-conformity of the political system to the relations of ownership in the dominating branch of economy represented by peasantry.

The dialectics of the correlation of the political superstructure with the economic basis determines the place and role of the revolution (reform) in their interaction. When the political system is adequate to the basis, they consolidate each other, and they both develop in the direction beneficial to the society. A bourgeois revolution, wherever it took place, was a natural consequence of the

16 transition from feudal society to capitalism, the result of the changes in the relations of ownership (basis) that took place in the depth of the given society and were at some point requiring a change of the political system (state power) that guarded the outdated relations of ownership. But the political system produced by October fancied itself to be the architect (“demiurge”) of history. Instead of consolidating the new capitalist relations of ownership born within the old society, it created a new economy, different from the previous ones (feudal and capitalist). Its basis was state ownership of the means of production (nationalised property and property confiscated from citizens), an economy negating relations of private ownership. Thus, the correlation of the economic basis and the political system was turned upside down. The State intruded into the natural historical process thus dooming itself. It could not create new laws of development for its economy, because they are natural only for the private, not for the state ownership. That is the reason why state-defined economy, living only via artificial measures, goes into stagnation. The absurdity and artificiality of the “socialist” course taken by the leaders of the 1917 revolution soon became clear. Having created a new political system for the transformation of the society, they could not make it a force determining the economy. The political system may have a precedence over the economic system for a very short time, necessary for a quick transformation. When this process gets drawn out, the danger of failure of transformation and overthrow of the given political system becomes real. It happened to the Russian autocracy, which was way behind with the abolition of serfdom. It also happened to the reformers at the beginning of the century and to the Provisional Government (1917) that hampered the final abolition of squire land-owning. (The same thing happened during perestroika of the 80s, and there is a possibility that it will happen to the Yeltsin-Putin type of reformers for the same reason).

NEP turned out to be incompatible with the state-run economy. What was NEP really? Why was it able to lead the country out of ruin, famine, cold, devastation and poverty? NEP comprised individual farmsteads, craftsman trades, individual masters of production, and the like, as well as their active (self-organising) associations.

So the co-operative movement in Russia with its long history and an increasing success (only during 1900-1917 all types of co-operation went up 29 times) proved to be just the thing needed. The zenith of co-operation falls on the 20s, by the end of which it comprised (on a voluntary basis) up to three thirds of peasantry and millions of townspeople (craftsmen of all kinds).

16 The process of the forced formation of the mass middle class was under way (for the first time in Russia!). As for the state economy, it could not compete with the private, in spite of the financial injections levied from NEP co- operatives. The latter was already baring its teeth at the State, which was used to solving economic problems by non-market administrative ways. In particular, during harvesting campaigns farmers refused to sell bread at the pre- set low prices. It is important to keep in mind that NEP and co-operation were successful because they developed on the basis of the relations of ownership inherited from the previous, pre-Revolutionary lifestyle. Its carriers were peasants, craftsmen, tradesmen, etc., in sufficient quantity and quality. But the introduction of new relations of ownership, the vehicle of which became the State alone, negating all the other subjects of economy, both physical and legal, was doomed to failure. This happened as a result of October Revolution and the construction of socialism, which in reality turned out to be state feudalism.

Stalin had to scrap NEP and co-operation, which could only develop under market economy, and forcefully collectivise the peasantry, making them state peasants and serfs. He was in a hurry. Otherwise, the high party officials would have been overthrown by NEP-co-operative middle class, which was continuously growing in quantity and quality. The bureaucracy headed by large and small personality cults, controlling the national wealth, and the middle class of owners independent of the state, were incompatible. The development of NEP in conjunction with co-operation would have demanded a change of the whole political system.

Introducing NEP, Lenin especially stressed personal material interest as a locomotive of progress. Such interest is present in co-operation. The Adam Smith “invisible hand” of the market “obliges” the capitalist masters who are a small part of the population, to achieve large-scale successes in the development of the productive forces, and consequently, the well-being of the country, in spite of the fact that subjectively they do not set such goals themselves. No, they only want one thing, and that is profit, which is possible on one indispensable condition: to produce and sell as much as possible which can be done only when the goods are, on the one hand, of high quality, and their price is reasonable enough for the population, on the other. What perspectives will open when millions of people become owners up to two thirds of society (as in the highly-developed democratic countries today)?! It is as clear as day: a society of social justice can only take place under an organic integration of personal interests of citizens into public ones, when the total sum

16 of the first constitutes the second. The clue to this integration is in the master’s status of every working person and, if you like, every citizen in general. Such status on the scale of the whole society can be established in Russian conditions only with co-operation. I think that it was a brilliant discovery of Lenin, unfortunately ignored by his stupid and cruel successors. Ignored up to this day.

Traditionally, the notion of co-operation is associated in literature only with the peasantry. But, speaking about the peasantry, Lenin means its absolute majority in the population of that period. Moreover, he speaks about all the people, which should be “civilised to such an extent” that they realise all the advantages of the general participation in co-operation and organise this “participation”, for which purpose a whole period of cultural development of the masses is needed.

The consistent accomplishment of Lenin’s ideas favoured the development of many forms of co-operation in production and trade, supply and marketing, finance and credit, in everyday life and in other spheres. By the end of the 20s, up to three fourths of the peasantry, city craftsmen and other producers were embraced by all the types of co-operation on an absolutely voluntary basis. The multi-million middle class of owners was forming and consolidating, which by no means suited the followers of Communist doctrine.

Let us imagine for a minute that Lenin’s idea of co-operative society has been realised. All the able-bodied citizens are members of co-operatives with their shares of ownership bringing regular dividends. There is no unemployment or mass thievery (when working people steal from factories and carry things home, which was a usual practice in the Soviet days). The population of each district are members of a consumer society, including all the enterprises selling goods or services, the workers of which are accountable to the population (and not to officials bribed by them). It would mean that all supply/demand tasks would be solved in the best way; lodgers and landlords will be members of housing co-operatives. Those co-operatives will completely exclude any vandalism or bad service. The new positive changes can already be observed today in co-operative blocks of flats.

Uniting the citizens in the initial sense of the word, with the highly developed economic dignity, citizens who all together form the demos of real masters of the country (not the present-day hirelings, deprived of any property, being the slaves of the State and criminal businessmen), co-operation would make them

16 politically active people, the middle class, the social basis of civil society. As a result, the political system would change in accordance with the spirit of the democratic nature of co-operation. But Stalin’s bureaucracy did not support co- operation, turning it into State ownership. It began to govern by applying extreme measures, it compensated for the inefficiency by violence. An interesting event took place on the eve of collectivisation in agriculture when there was a great food shortage. Stalin went to Siberia where he spoke at one of the meetings, urging peasants to sell bread at the prices fixed by the state, which did not even cover the cost of production (on the whole, the situation in this respect had been better before 1928). A poorly dressed peasant man came out of the crowd, came up to Stalin and said, “Dance for our rye, old chap!” Stalin decided to make peasantry dance in the “second serfdom”.

Thus, Lenin’s change of mind concerning socialism proved to be too late. After his death there were no forces capable of continuing his policy. Had Lenin lived longer, this would be a different country now. This is how Lenin was assessed by the wisest captain of modern capitalism Sir Winston Churchill: “Not a single Asian conqueror, neither Tamerlan, nor Gengiz-Khan enjoyed such a glory as he; irreconcilable avenger, growing out of cold compassion, common sense and understanding of reality. His weapon is logic, his state of mind is opportunism. His sympathies are cold and broad, like the Arctic Ocean, his hatred is hard like a hangman’s noose. His destination is to save the world; his method is to blow up this world. Absolute fidelity to his principles, and at the same time readiness to change the principles… He subverted everything. He subverted God, the tsar, the country, the morality, the court. The debts, the rent, interest, laws and centuries-old customs. He subverted such historical structure as human society. Finally, he subverted himself…. Lenin’s intellect was brought down the moment when his destructive capacity was exhausted and the independent self-curing functions of his searches began to show themselves. He was the only one who could lead Russia out of the bog…. Russian people were left to flounder. Their greatest misfortune was his birth, but the next greatest was his death”. The lines from the poem “High Disease” by Boris Pasternak sound in unison with the last words of Churchill: “The genius comes as a message of happiness and takes revenge for his death by oppression”. Two great men, both of them Nobel Prize winners, have grasped the essence of another great man as a world-scale phenomenon as well as the direct connection of his life with the life of Russia.

Has the time not come to accomplish Lenin’s concept of Russian people’s capitalism by giving up the bureaucratic/criminal system? Is it not time to

16 finaly learn the lesson taught by Russian bureaucracy? The fruit of their rule are apocalyptic: its first clan ruined the tsar’s empire, the second Communist bureaucracy ruined the Soviet system, and the third clan is finishing off the post-Soviet Russia. And they will finish it off, if the political wisdom and the will of the chief executive is not able to overcome the resistance of his brothers-in-arms. To the question raised by Gogol: “Rus, where are you speeding?” Russia is answering today by agonising, with only half of its territory left, and further disintegration is predictable, because the principles of relations between Moscow and the regions that have led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union, have not changed essentially. Russia today is like a herd of horses, spooked by wolves and galloping towards a precipice. There is only one way to save them from the inevitable death: a cowboy of sorts should outrun the head stallion and lead the herd away from the precipice. A similar event was observed in the history of Russia when its race to a “precipice” was headed by Bolsheviks. Their leader Lenin, having understood the essence of the movement initiated by him, turned the country sharply by NEP and co- operative construction. The country was brought to life in an extremely short time, but the leader overstrained himself and died. There was nobody to continue his work.

I am convinced: if we understand Lenin and his last commandments – we shall come out of the deadlock to prosperity in everything!

*** My assertion that Lenin, having given up the attempts of building socialism at the beginning of the 1920s, theoretically substantiated and began to build the society of “people’s capitalism”, at the basis of which the new economic policy together with co-operation, needs additional explanations. There is another point of view (A.D.Sakharov laid the foundation for it and Y.G.Burtin arranged it conceptually). According to it, Lenin’s socialist perspective was not a problem of choice between socialism and capitalism, but the problem of their combination; moreover, later on Lenin supplemented the idea of co-existence of socialism and capitalism by a more profound idea of their interpenetration, by a more principal and constant interest in it. As to the private sector, Lenin considered co-operation a seed of socialist collectivism, binding the market with socialism. How can we speak about the combination and interpenetration of socialism and capitalism if the former absolutely denies private ownership, market relations and democracy, and the latter is based on them and therefore prospers? We can (and we must!) say that Lenin’s NEP + co-operation was not just a retreat to capitalism of those days, but a step forward to its popular form,

16 which became reality in most democratic countries of the West only in the second half of the 20th century. And that is mainly because of the “cold war” between them, and not because of any “interpenetration”. The socialism that actually existed, tried not to penetrate into capitalism, but to eliminate it, and capitalism tried to do the same. And we cannot speak of any two-way traffic, for there is nothing of socialism that can penetrate into capitalism. As for capitalism, it definitely can penetrate socialism, but this penetration annihilates socialism as such, and nothing of it remains in a society organised in a capitalist way and thank God for that!

The merit of “real socialism” of the Soviet Union and its satellites in the stimulation of the creation of prosperous, almost “socialist” results in the West, is great, objectively speaking. However, it is not because the West has borrowed anything good from socialism, but vice versa – because it has created well-being for their own people opposite to what was going on in the socialist camp (GULAG). Every socialist cloud, so to speak, has a silver capitalist lining. Socialism, that had incredibly strengthened its military and political positions during and after WWII, compelled the democratically-minded governing elite of the non-communist world to give up everything in their policy that produced supporters of socialism and irreconcilable fighters for its triumph. They did so in economy by limiting the monopolies and by distributing ownership among the people, by strengthening the social basis of the civil society, widening the ranks of the middle class of owners. In the political sphere it was achieved by increasing the democracy. Had the Communism not gathered momentum, nobody knows how long the West would have been on the monopolist stage of capitalism, whose only tendency is to redistribute the world's riches. Therefore, at the commemoration of the late socialism, clinking glasses of wine (it is permissible, because it is not for mourning, but for joy), it would have been nice of them to THANK socialism! Indeed, every cloud has a silver lining, just like every coin has its reverse. Without offence to our dear Yuri Grigorievich and Andrei Dmitriyevich, the unforgettable citizens of Russia who gave their lives for the freedom and happiness of Her sons and daughters!

Chapter 6. Distribution of property among the people

A) Preliminary Notes

16 The sense of history lies in the development of a free man. Historically, the process of mastering the freedom is directly connected with the growth of material wealth, with the movement of property in social classes. The class that has managed to take possession of property and keep it becomes free, and the people belonging to this class are free, too. It corresponds to Marx’s understanding of wealth as an independent force above society: the wealth is formed via labour forced directly ( slavery), or indirectly (hired labour, wage slavery). Is it not the clue to the secret of the principle of class approach of Marxism to the explanation of the past, present and future of mankind? According to the logic of Marxism, wealth is the result of forced labour in either of its forms, if it is in possession of few owners, and the majority of the people are deprived of it. It means that to make wealth not stand above society and not to be formed by forced labour, it should be made the property of everybody, so that everybody should work at it. But all the complexity of the problem lies in correct definition of “wealth of everybody”. Communist (public) property, that appeared on the basis of the abolition of private property proved to be unviable. Being the actual result of the labour of all people, it was nevertheless in possession of those who managed it, i.e. bureaucracy, turning the State and everything belonging to it into their private property, and therefore becoming a dominant class of oppressors.

Our eternal technical and technological backwardness compared with the nations of the West is of secondary nature. The primary and main backwardness is that of social development (lagging behind with the abolition of serfdom, the abolition of it combined with the oppression and ruining of peasants without essentially touching the feudal ownership, consolidation and development of state ownership of land and the military industrial complex, the preservation of communal use of land, etc.). The main cause of social backwardness is in the relations of ownership which do not correspond to the formation of powerful, solid and stable multi-million middle class of owners.

The Russian State has for a long time been in a vicious circle on a very low level of social development (compared to the highly-developed democratic states). Indeed, according to synergetic sociology (Bransky), development is the growth of the synthesis of order and chaos, conditioned by the tendency to maximal stability. In Russian society there is no elementary primitive stability, to say nothing of “maximal stability”. Such situation has lasted for centuries because in the interaction of “order and chaos” as social phenomena, the latter always triumphs. Does it not happen so because, as Berdyayev characterised the Russian nation, we have no “genius of form”?

16 According to Berdyaev, in Russian soul there lies a mystery of correlation of the masculine and the feminine. The masculine is always expected from without. Hence the eternal dependence on the alien, the foreign, all that is manly, liberating and creative has always been non-Russian, coming from abroad, from Western Europe. Russia is too weak to arrange itself into free life, too weak to make itself a personality. Berdyaev’s idea that a bureaucratic state is born from anarchism needs explanation. Throughout the whole history of Russia the State has exercised a strong influence on a Russian person. Its requirements left very little space for a man, all the external activity was in the service of the State. The expansion of the State through the vast Russian spaces was accompanied by ruthless centralisation and subjection of all life to the State interest and suppression of all free personal and public forces. A Russian person feels helpless and unable to master these vast spaces and develop them. He is too used to entrusting this to the central authority. It has to do with Russian laziness, lack of initiative and under-developed sense of responsibility (Berdyaev). Probably that is the reason why the State has become and continues to be the architect (demiurge) of all and everything in the life of the country, the morphogenetic factor in the Russian people, particularly in legalising the ownership of land and of military production in its own name, and in appropriating communal property. Ownership is a category imperatively “demanding” legalisation and placing it within a certain framework of legal norms, forming certain responsibility of the owners. The absence of legal form is a condition producing chaos, and, vice versa, the presence thereof creates order. Therefore, ownership is a factor taking a decisive part in the “order and chaos” tandem in such interaction that favors order. But there is order and order: one achieved by the violence of the State and the other the result of self- organisation of citizens. In the discussion I wrote about many of the participants mentioned a small ability of Russians of self-organisation. But it is the bureaucratic state that made the Russian nation incapable of self- organisation, in the first place, by endless conquests of new territories “from sea to sea”, in the second, by not allowing it to become the owner of its own Fatherland. Owners of their Fatherland can only be people who have some property in their country. Uniting citizens in societies, in which the majority of the population are proletarians, is unstable, because every person is only concerned about himself. His living standard does not allow him to think of others, as he has to think of his own survival first. The people have more than once tried to affirm themselves, but the State (in all of its forms!) suppressed every attempt. There is also another aspect of this problem. There is a version suggested by A. Auzan, according to which a very difficult question for the Russian conscience

16 is the question about the ability of different social groups to speak to each other without the mediation of the State. Not to agree, but just to speak. The most terrible and extremely popular phrase in Russia is “I won't shit with him on the same field”. Such aggressive isolationism gives all mediating authority to the State. It is the Russian way: we are incapable of compromise but have always said on the same breath “come and rule us”. Therefore, the power, which nobody likes, is placed in the position of the central deciding subject. I refer to this opinion in connection with my own position on placing responsibility for such a mentality on the State. I have adhered to it beginning from the middle of the 90s of the last century (in the books “Where from, and where are you going, Russia?”, “The Philosophy and Sociology of Ownership” and others). Auzan's thought suggests the question: is this quality of a Russian person’s character inborn? Indeed, in the very old days the Roriks came to rule Rus because there was no order in it, i.e. the weak State could not provide proper structure. This quality of Russian people’s nature has prevented them from ripening into a civil nation up to now. And the state, having strengthened itself, still controls a considerable part of the national wealth and constantly interfere in the economic affairs and in the public spheres of life in general, i.e. performs the functions alien to its nature. The results of that interference are, naturally, far from being the best. But maybe it cannot be otherwise, because the people are like that? I don’t know... It dawned on me to suggest to the opposition that they search among the bureaucrats those who are “the best”, who are ready to serve their country honestly and selflessly, with whom it is possible to get in touch to turn Russia to democracy without capsizing it.

The necessity of social progress is the circumstance that has always forced the good people from the ruling class to come forth and assume power (in spite of any obstacles!). The abolition of serfdom, the Russian revolutions, perestroika and post-perestroika reforms (admittedly, mostly stillborn) of the 90s have shown that, in spite of the deviations from world experience and lagging behind the West, Russia is advancing in a civilised direction towards the formation of civil society with market economy and the domination of private ownership. But the permanent aspiration to make Russia a fully European country that was formed in the time of Peter I cannot be accomplished in a “European” way. We are hopelessly late… The stage of primary accumulation of capital in Russia that was not crossed under more favourable conditions at the end of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century is ever more insurmountable at the end of the 20th – the beginning of the 21st century with its mongrel “capitalism” – the stillborn child of the post-Communist criminal regime. For right in front of our eyes the democratic West and even some of

17 the Eastern states are prospering under the capitalism that has very little in common with its beginning. We also cannot forget the socialist-communal mentality of the people, historically formed and strengthened by the Soviet power. Western civilisation develops private ownership and encourages the increase of the number of owners. On the early stage of its development, the capitalism, filling the ranks of owners by freeing citizens from feudal shackles and giving them the property taken from the feudal lords, and then, having overcome the stage of spontaneous monopolization of property by bourgeois capital, on the democratic stage of its development (the second half of the 20th century), distributed the property among proletarians of physical and mental labour. We shall have to do the same thing that has been done in a number of highly developed countries, but converting state ownership into private and distributing the monopolist-oligarchic property acquired by criminal means among small and medium businesses. By our Russian method, different from that of Gaidar-Chubais that has split Russian society into a small bunch of rich people and proletarians, including lumpens, opposing each other. We should do it keeping in mind the main purpose of the formation of the material basis of the future prospering civil society, the creation of which will be the embodiment of the Russian national idea. Besides, from my point of view, a civil society is a democratic constitutional state, in which separation of powers is put into effect not by establishing different branches of state power itself, but by complete separation of judicial and legislative powers from the government, making them popular (parliamentary), thus representing directly the society itself. In this case the State is subjected to society and serves it because it is not the owner of the national wealth. The latter is distributed among the people, who are citizens, i.e. owners of different ranks, which makes them independent from the state.

In the Russian situation, a very important factor is the correlation of the State (power) and nonconformity. The late Prof. Nalimov wrote, that when the expected revolution took place, the Bolshevik Power dictatorship fell. But, by that time there were no spiritually prepared representatives of liberal thought left. The policy of dictators, who eliminated the dissidents was far-seeing, for the alternative was dramatic: “either them, or the destruction of the country”. The fruitless, or even destructive activities of the post-Soviet regime, the absence of clarity as to where we were going, seemingly confirm the idea of Nalimov. But it is only possible to agree with him concerning the Communist “elite”, which in reality does not have any activists of the level mentioned by Nalimov. Their predecessors were shot. And, as the present statesmen from the same “elite” are often of far worse quality, the results are much worse, too.

17 Hence, the task laid out before us is the enrichment of the public thought with new theories, the lack of which is felt everywhere, in all the spheres of life of society and State (demonstrably shown in the discussion I mentioned, in which took partthe elite of sociological thought).

B) Stating the problem

Our bureaucracy had just enough intellect to try and get out of the deadlock according to the street traffic rules: “back to the place from which the movement to the deadlock began”, that is, to the pre-Revolutionary state of under-developed semi-capitalism with backward feudalism and pauperised people. Indeed, our wise ancestor Chaadaev was right, when he said that the tragedy of our country is in the fact that we have no historical memory, every new day begins with a new leaf, and therefore we are doomed to repeating the same mistakes. We owe all this to the bureaucracy dominating this country for three centuries! They have created our “wild market” with our wild businessmen. Mineral raw materials proved to be the our only competitive goods. During the whole period of perestroika and reforms we have been running up debts and selling abroad oil and other raw materials, which we need ourselves. By the way, there is not much of those materials left: our oil will last us 35 years, natural gas 81, coal 60-180 years, iron ore 42, copper 40, nickel 40, gold 12-37 years. As for the other minerals, the picture is approximately the same (Parshev). The question is: at what expense shall we live when we have exhausted the above-mentioned materials, belonging to our grandsons (not to us!)? Sooner or later the “reformers” will have to answer for the allegedly pre-meditated destruction of the State and the people. The reformers started a new barbarisation of the masses amidst absence of ownership and mass pauperisation, which have more than once led to revolts and revolutions.

Capitalism was formed in the world by the ruin of the peasantry and the small and mid-size owners, but this road turned out to be unacceptable for the Russian mentality, which was the cause of four revolutions, the last of which literally shook the world: mankind is still suffering from the consequences of it, and today’s democratic stage of development of capitalism, though very desirable, is inaccessible for us due to social and material reasons.

The problem of problems is how we can acquire a State that would launch another NEP? The operative word being how. It is known that in any discourse

17 it is important what is said, and no less important how it is said. All the more so when the question is about social existence (development).

According to our mentality it's the state that's supposed to solve the problem of social justice. But no social system can fully solve it, unless you consider the Communist levelling the absolute majority of people to primitivism in the Soviet time a solution. Only higher Communist officials were different from them in the standard of living and privileges, and also all communists, as better protected socially (a career, a guaranteed job, legal protection, etc.).

Social justice is more or less achievable only in conditions of “people’s capitalism” by the method of distributing of the national wealth among the people on the principle of its individualisation (shared private ownership). This is the way in which the starting equality of all citizens is achieved.

Such distribution can only be real when the share of each person is guaranteed by the National Bank by real money. The only right of the owner will be to invest the resources into any form of business, among which the co-operative one is of higher priority. In this way a person will be taking direct part in economy as its subject, he will be receiving dividends. These dividends will be the only thing he'll be able to use at his discretion and which will be the only thing involved in market turnover and inheritance. To avoid the vicious circle peculiar of any market relations (monopolization of capital, enrichment of some people at the expense of the others), the initial share of a citizen is excluded from market circulation and not inherited. It will be for ever an integral part of national wealth, which is also a permanent share of every citizen (both in present and in future), guaranteeing some minimum of profit and preventing people from lumpenisation. At the same time it will encourages people to increase their profits by participation either in labour in some sector of production (business), or in financial operations (joint-stock or bank capital).

I assume that the suggested variant of the way out of the crisis will fix the sick psychology of the people. It is the best way of involvement of the masses in market relations as masters, not as people walking about in their stepmother country begging for leftovers. It may also be the beginning (for the first time in many centuries) of disappearance of the old Russian tradition of the negation of the principle of succession in the development of the society. In this case it is going to be done by return to private-ownership relations, but only to those acceptable to the masses. Even such high-ranking masters of culture as V.Vasilyev (the former artistic director of the Bolshoy Theatre), were

17 “possessed”, as he says himself, with the “crazy idea” of giving (not selling) the land to Russian people: “And that will be our way, purely Russian, so as to change the mentality of each citizen, and make everybody an owner”.

The most important feature of the concept is that it is neither a pro-Western liberal one, nor Communist, but, while borrowing something from both, it contradicts each by affirming the relations of private ownership, while raising them to the all-national level of co-ownership of citizens (similar to the main principle of co-operation) in all the national wealth of the country. This is a concept that could produce material and spiritual interest of the Renaissance of the Fatherland, “Fatherland as property” (P. Struve). Of each and everybody!

We live in a country in which only some rudiments of civil society have appeared. There are practically no conditions for its actual appearance. The situation in Russia is unsightly, not to say virtually hopeless. The immediate reasons seen on the surface are: in the first place, that during all the 20th century (similar, incidentally, to the18-19th centuries) Russia was constantly in conflict. Judge for yourselves: it participated in two world wars (especially destructive), three local ones (Japanese, Afghan, Chechen), and also “volunteered” by financial and material means in innumerable civil wars of the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the second, we had three Russian revolutions, the last one of which (October, 1917) soon grew into a boundlessly bloody and devastating counter-revolution, which is still going on.

The internal and external faults listed above are phenomena of secondary importance. What is the root cause that is driving the nation to the abyss? The root cause, the basis of all the negative we have lies in the imperfection of the civil society, i.e. the internal disorder leading to social instability and to a situation which excludes development of the natural tendency to the maximal stability of the society.

The source of social disorder are the centuries-old abnormal relations of ownership: at all times property has been concentrated in the hands of a small part of the population, and the majority has been completely deprived of it. The destruction of the foundation of Russian life, the material and spiritual wealth substantiated by an ideology negating private ownership took place because there were very few owners as such among the population at the beginning of the 20th century (squires – 1.2%, clergy – 0.9%, just a little more than 1% of bourgeoisie, over 80% of peasants, two thirds of which were paupers (semi- proletarians). Only one third of the population were lower middle class

17 peasants and town petty bourgeoisie, i.e. owners that could barely make ends meet. The rest of the population were proletarians. There were very few of those who were to lose something essential in the revolution, and their supporters were still fewer. Unlike the revolutions in the West, the October Revolution brought to power not a new rising class developing on the basis of the new relations of ownership, that had appeared in the old social-economic system, but a new bureaucracy (and bureaucracy has been a dominant class in Russia at all times). The post-perestroika “reform” was also limited to the change of one clan of bureaucracy by another. The difference between the two bureaucracies was only in people in clans. The first time, behind the screen of “the dictatorship of the proletariat” they exchanged feudal-bourgeois bureaucracy for communist higher officials, the second time they changed older communists for the more dynamic younger.

It is known that there are two troubles in Russia, one of which is fools. The fools are the officials. Bureaucracy is stupid by definition. The official red tape keeps them away from the life of the people, from stimulating the development of intellect. Besides, their intellect is clouded by the self-interest of temporary rulers, they try to grab with feverish quickness as much as possible of people’s wealth while they are in office (power is not given for ever). (Is it not the reason why the idea of a hereditary monarch was born?! He can’t steal from himself by definition.)

Bureaucracy is an impostor, master de facto, whose right for dominance comes from usurpation of the right to dispose the wealth that does not belong to it. It can only become a dominant class where and when this wealth belongs to the State, not to the people. One thing is to manage one’s own property, and another is to manage that of other people’s, which has not been earned with your own sweat and blood. In the first case the interest of the owner and the “interest” of the property coincide and merge, in the second, such merging does not take place even in cases when the manager of the property is honest and conscientious.

The precipitous failure of Gaidar-Chubais reform planted with all acuteness the problem of forcing the creation of the social core of the future civil society – the middle class of owners.

In conditions of the specific anti-ownership mentality of our nation the class of owners must embrace if not all the people, then their absolute majority, because we shall sooner put up with total slavery and levelling of all the people

17 in poverty than accept separate rich social groups, even if they come from the masses of the people and exclusively due to their own hard work. We just do not like the rich, and that's that! To solve the problem of making our people well-to-do we must not use a frontal attack, but come from the rear. The chief difficulty in this connection lies in defining the mechanism of turning the people into the “subjects of development” so that they would become self- sufficient without anyone’s help in creating all the necessary conditions for their life activity. People must learn to create for themselves all the necessary social, economic, political and legal supports for their developing.

I suggest a socially oriented reform radically changing the paradigm of the development of Russia. I am inclined to think that ultimately the result of the Western way is inevitable for us, too. In this respect indisputable is the assertion of Fukuyama that after the Second World War practically all mankind were on the way to unavoidable victory of economic and political liberalism, to which there is no other life-giving alternative.

But, taking into consideration our mentality, we have our own means of achievement. As A. Gertzen once said, “I do not see any reasons why Russia should undergo all the phases of European development”, that “the finished work, the achieved result are for all those who understand; it is a mutual guarantee, a primogeniture of mankind”. It goes without saying that, as our stand-up comedian M. Zhvanetski said, “Nobody wants to go our way for us. We shall have to do it ourselves”. Yes, we must go our own way. We must make a theoretical breakthrough, create a new theory, in accordance with which the people would undertake the arrangement of their life without the usual revolution-counter-revolution from above.

There is an opinion that the problem of creation of new developed and prosperous societies is unsolvable. Thus, V. Belotserkovski identifies sociaty with nature, which no longer creates new life forms; the Earth has grown old, and there are no conditions on it in which new life was once born. The same applies to the birth of new social systems. In this case a combination of certain conditions is necessary, the time has come when the formation of developed capitalism similar to that existing in the countries of the West, a.k.a. the “golden billion”, becomes impossible in a new country. This impossibility cannot be explained by the existence of powerful bourgeois states, blocking the development of other countries, leaving them as their suppliers of raw materials. First of all, the author adheres to the views of social Darwinism, in the second, he considers the countries of western democracy as imperialist,

17 which view, to my mind, is somewhat obsolete. The rise of real democrats to power, the rejection of imperial ambitions and Communist heritage would help us solve this problem in our favour with a resolute support of western democracy (if we are worthy of this support). The other reason of the impossibility of becoming a developed country is, according to the author, the absence of colonies. Why should capitalism be the result of exploitation of other nations? They exploited them because they had such an opportunity, but not because it was a requirement of the capitalist system: any business in its development follows the line of least resistance, unlike the Bolsheviks, who preferred greatest difficulties which were to be overcome with the sweat, blood, tears and misfortunes of millions of people so as to be proud of the whole thing later on. Now there isn't such an easy way as exploitation of colonies. And there is no need for it. It is possible to move mountains using one’s own people, if the work of common people-masters is voluntary, and not wage slavery. Some will say that there is a new legal consciousness that stands in the way of our desire to become a developed country; nowadays even in Africa it is allegedly impossible to make people work 15 hours a day. But there is no need for it with today’s technology, know-how and high labour productivity. Plus, work for one’s own self has always been highly productive. There is also an opinion that Russia has yet another complicating circumstance, the existence of many gigantic monopolist industrial firms, which are very hard to privatise and adapt to the market. Also the absence of petty bourgeoisie stands in the way. True, we have no class from which middle class is usually formed, and this is the root of the weakness of democracy, but instead we have a possibility of creating the middle class immediately amd on a mass scale (according to my concept). The author has presented a number of other reasons including the low morality of our people, and that in general, the “catch up and overtake” kind of modernisation turned out to be inconsistent, etc. It is so, and at the same time, it is not. Anyway, it is not absolutely insuperable.

The main obstacle to the creation of a state prosperous in every respect lies in another sphere. It is dangerous in itself both for Russia and for all mankind. It is the problem of problems, without the solution of which we shall never see happy life. It is most profoundly investigated by Prof. Y. Afanasiev in the book “The Dangerous Russia”. He defines the history of Russia as the history of the deepening divide between the power and the nobility, between the land and the peasants, between the church and the state, between the power and everything else. This split is not getting smaller in the modern period. The reason for it is absolutely clear. It lies in the uncertainty of the existence of literally all classes of Russian society as a consequence of the fact that they have not been and

17 aren't self-sufficient, not possessing real property of sufficient quantity and quality. Even the nobility, which was the social support of autocracy, could be humiliated any time, and any representative of it could be ruined through the whim of the tsar In the same, or worse, condition were the other classes, including the clergy. It is just here that the roots of the “deep disintegration of the spirit”, the “terrifying discord and outrages” lie (Ap. Grigoriev). When there is no certainty in life, when nothing is predictable, when there is nothing to lose, then violence rears its ugly head. Hence the constant tendency to strengthen the State, its executive organs, the trend that naturally produced centrifugal counter-state movement of the society, all its strata, except, perhaps, the church, which has always adapted itself to any power, as “any power is from God”. Therein lies the problem of the Russians who at all times lived on the land, taken, or about to be taken away from them by the elite. The “Russian spirit”, as represented by sophisticated minds of intelligentsia, is fond of dreaming of complicated things, to have its head in the clouds. It is fruitless, it lulls, sending one to sleep with sweet dreams of some non-existent happiness which in reality is absolutely inaccessible. All socialist dreamers, beginning with Gertzen and Chernyshevsky and ending with Lenin (in his pre- Revolutionary and first post-revolutionary years (before 1921), were partial to this kind of dreams. Stalin, whom Trotsky called “the genius of mediocrity”, understood this quality of the “Russian spirit” very well. He simplified everything, creating a society officially without natural, life-giving internal contradictions, in whose place he imposed external, artificially made pernicious “enemies of the people” and “world imperialism”. With this simplification he first duped the party, and then the masses. Using this method he built a great totalitarian empire, which he endowed with economic, organisational, cultural and educational functions, thus trying to make it a subject of development instead of all the people who were turned into slaves completely deprived of a master’s status. The final result was collapse, because the subject of development turned out to be false. It was, has been and is a society without a subject of development, and this speaks for itself!

Y. Afanasiev mentions that Russia is the only country among those that have liberated themselves from Communism that is still a serious threat to the world peace. The determining tendency in the foreign policy of our State is a search for an external enemy, a “demon figure”, according to Afanasiev. A concrete “enemy” can appear depending on the circumstances as a “terrorist”, a “Caucasian”, a “Moslem infidel”, a “Jew”, “American imperialism”, or an “oligarch”. These constant “enemies”, shuffled in people’s minds depending on the circumstances are necessary for country

17 leaders so that there is always somebody to fight, to blame for all the troubles in the country. Russia is an abnormal construction with its society swallowed by the State; neither is historically natural. The point is not what the “bosses” want or need, the problem is this xenophobic feature of Russian psyche that the “bosses” use, siccing people on others, distracting the country from themselves, the real enemies of the Russian people. Where does it come from, this feature, where is its source? It is a compensation for lack of artificially removed internal contradiction, which is needed as a source of self-motion. The philosopher Frank characterises a Russian person as a “naked man”, whose “personal right does not spread beyond his right to have his own body”. A Russian person does not have what organises his life in a proper way, that is, property, forming his internal and external relations in constant development, and thus making him active, capable, self-sufficient and prosperous. Hence the instinctive search for the guilty; for a Russian everybody is to blame, except himself. And he is not really guilty that he has turned out to be like this. He never knows whose fault it is in reality as the leaders (bosses) always turn his brains in direction desired by them. That is all the consequence of the fact that the millennial history of the Russians has been relentlessly accompanied by inexorable suppression of personality. It was Grossman who said that the peculiarities of the Russian soul were produced by absence of freedom; the Russian soul is a millennial slave.

There is a thought in public conscience that the society cannot do without the rich and the poor at the same time. In aspiration to deliver us from the distorted notion of justice and the necessity of transition to market economy, its ideologists convince us that justice is strictly individual under market economy, and that market guarantees freedom to strong people, and the State takes weak people under its protection, and only one thing can be just: the equal rights for the realisation of personal abilities. So, on the one hand, we have the right of each individual according to be judged according to his strength, and on the other, the right of the weak to be protected by the State.

In this case we deal with a reversed thinking. In the first place, equal rights (allegedly “equal”!), which are not based on fair relations of ownership and not materially guaranteed (just declared), mean nothing. A right does not exist by itself. There isn't another country in which so many rights were proclaimed, the rights which were still-born and could not be realised by the very essence of the Soviet State. And we are still going on with this practice. In the second, it is quite clear that when the majority of the society lives in misery, the well- to-do citizens cannot expect to live in peace. Is it not better to set the goal of

17 creating conditions for an all-round development of all people? The wealth and well-being of the country consist in the wealth and well-being of all its citizens, not just part of them.

Each person has the right to a life worthy of a human being, the right to satisfy his main material and spiritual needs. Differences in needs are admissible and will probably be inevitable for a long time under the insufficiency of production, but they are of qualitative nature because people are unequal in their physical and psychological characteristics. Equality among people is possible and necessary only from the point of view of equal legal opportunities in a democratic state, where, on the one hand, all are equal before the law, and on the other, they are all co-owners of the national wealth. In Russia, only this approach to the arrangement of life will allow to work out social immunity, opposing to revolutions/counter-revolutions and guaranteeing social peace.

Today, the Russian progressive thought is occupied with the idea of Russia’s return to human civilisation, “back to history”, so to speak. You hear everywhere that we will build neither socialism, nor Communism, nor any other “-ism”, but follow the way of the United States and other highly developed countries.

No doubt, more than 70 years of the movement away from civilisation has brought us to the results you would not wish on your worst enemy. The Bolsheviks have led the society into a dead-end street. But can we get out of the deadlock following the scheme of “back to the beginning”? Enough of that, they tell us, stop seeking special ways, we have already tried and it didn’t work out. Once bitten, twice shy. Sounds wise. But there are also certain reasons to look for some Russian “particularity”, otherness. Not in the Slavophil sense of the exclusiveness of the way of development of Russian civilisation, due to which Russia cannot be measured by common means. In an attempt to accomplish the Communist Utopia Russia has conclusively proved that it was not, indeed, a special country, and now we shall have to go the way common to the whole world, the way of progress, at the basis of which lies freedom. But even on this road we will come across an unavoidable thing, our Russian specificity which eventually, if dealt with properly, will lead to following this way most consistently and with more significant social results.

The first problem is that of denationalisation of the economy. In our condition the problem of denationalisation is not only and not so much the problem of economics, it is more of a social problem. The main obstacle to

18 denationalisation and the greatest danger to future democratic system lies in not paying attention to the social spectrum. The Soviet power did its worst to alienate the working man from the means of production and the product of his labour. Denationalisation means liberation of the economy from the State. We should understand privatisation as not auctioning of the people’s wealth off to the first/highest bidder, but as the inclusion of the element of private ownership into the system of productive relations. The country needs to allow everybody to have one’s own business. And it should only be run at one’s own expense, according to one’s accumulations and one’s own share in the national wealth, but never at the expense of the national wealth appropriated by the embezzlers of State property.

Our way lies in the transformation of all the citizens into owners, into workers- masters. The democracy of the highly developed countries is going a similar way. In particular, American society, giving the workers of some firms the right to buy shares (even loaning them money to do so), turns them into capitalists, and the United States into a country of workers, of democratic capitalism. In their article John Simmons (et al.) said that there are myths that need to be cast down. Getting rid of them Russia will be able to set a course for the development of a democratic form of ownership. The authors convincingly prove the advantage of the firms co-owned by workers compared to other forms of ownership:

1. The workers are not inclined to waste away the capital, as the antagonists of this form of ownership assert. As a rule, in the USA, Russia, China and Poland the sizes and degree of the investment of capital in the development of production in such firms is higher than in traditional firms. The index of investment in the companies where at least 10% of stock belongs to workers, rose 193% from 1993 to 1998, and the index of investment in companies belonging only to external owners of monetary capital in 500 public corporations rose only 141% during the same period. An investigation carried out in the period of 1988-1992 in 2776 companies which were partly owned by the workers revealed that the income was 50% higher than in the companies where the workers were not shareholders. For the last five years the price of shares in the companies with workers’ ownership in the USA has risen 37% compared to other companies. In Great Britain during this period the price of shares in the companies with workers’ ownership rose three times compared to the companies where the workers were not owners. According to public opinion polls in the USA, 80% of adult population think that the workers in the companies with workers’ ownership pay more attention to the achievement of

18 financial success by their firms, and the improvement of the quality of food and services, than the workers of the companies that do not belong to them.

2. The ownership of workers does not restrict the effectiveness of the market in providing it with investment capital.

3. The reference to the failed Yugoslav experience of workers’ self- administration as a proof of its non-viability is not convincing because in reality workers and administrators were never owners in Yugoslavia. Property was in the hands of the State.

4. The assertion that the companies where the workers are owners will not attract foreign capital, is wrong. The experience of the Russian entrepreneurs of the companies “MOVEN”, “MOSFURNITURA” and Saratov Aviation Plant which were bought out by their workers, testifies to the opposite: they have attracted investors from the USA, Germany, Finland and Italy. 5. The ownership of workers favours a better technological reorganisation and development of production. It is companies of that kind that began to rise to the summits of the highest productivity of labour and the best competitiveness in their branches. Due to those indices every year almost 100 companies in the USA change the nature of possession. becoming companies with the ownership of workers.

6. Many think that the tax benefits of the ESOP Program provided to the companies wishing to make owners of their workers are ruinous to the State. In reality it is not so. Those benefits stimulate them to create owners out of their workers. The resulting growth of labour productivity, profits and income of workers lead to a long-term budget revenue increase fueled by taxes on higher income. At the same time the reduction of unemployment and the increase of the workers’ income decrease the social expenses of the Government. There are also other advantages in this type of companies.

I my plan were realized, the difference between our country and the countries of the West would be the following. The West is trying to achieve the creation of the middle class of owners by developing private ownership, and we in Russia can do it by individualising the denationalised people’s property. This is going to be our only difference. In this connection interesting is the opinion expressed by M. Savin and A. Smagin concerning the role of small business in

18 the development of civil society. They adhere to the theory of development of social systems, called “the path of dependence”, according to which the achievement of the destination point depends on whether the point of departure was chosen correctly. And the correctly chosen point consists in full development of small business. Afanasiev writes that the main thing that ought to figure in the long-term strategy of the reforming of Russia is the overcoming of the social polarisation of society (on the basis of formation of the middle class), which has lately gone through the roof. However, according to his opinion, it is presented in state plans as yet another project, not as a long-term problem of top priority, and not as a system-forming category both for short- term and long-term prospects. Another problem is what exactly do we understand by “every possible development”? Where is its “point of departure”, so to speak? It lies in the co-ownership of citizens in the national wealth. There is no other way. We have been in poverty too long, our patience has run out.

The particularly “Russian” way is not in coming back, but in finding the least painful means of jumping on the bandwagon of civilisation.

The individualisation of State property is not limited to formation of the class of entrepreneurs, because there is another problem, which is no less important: overcoming the negative, hostile attitude of common people to ownership. An ancient Russian proverb says, “You won’t come by a palace of stone by honest labour”. Not only because serfdom and later on capitalism made labour cheap, but also because, as V. Rozanov said, ownership had as its source either robbery, or a gift from somebody. It is most widely practiced by our rulers now. But people are looking at it with complacency. The baddies are robbing the country. Let them do it. It isn’t mine! They’re killing bankers and businessmen. Well, as all of them are crooks, let them sort it out. Hence the famous hair of the dog moral: the disrespect, the dislike of ownership can only be cured by attaching people to it. It cannot be done otherwise: you cannot begin to love the property that does not belong to you; you cannot love an owner riding in a “Mercedes”, when you yourself are dog-poor and you do not always have money even for public transport with its stench, crowds and very ininhibited swearing.

Human society must consist of masters, of owners. According to the opinion of many, for example, the program of Social Democrats, it can be developed in people by their involvement in running the production (or any kind of office) through different kinds of elections. This is just another utopia which has been

18 proved, by the way, with the failure of the Yugoslav exit from the Socialist deadlock. Another evidence is the “management” of Soviet bureaucracy, which had a full command of the national economy and failed to make it work. Bureaucracy works hard only where it has a real master – a capitalist, but not with an abstract “master” (state).

In order to not just manage something, but also to participate in different kinds of election campaigns, one ought to be interested in them, the fact that fully depends on the status of citizens in their relations with the concept of ownership. Hence the absenteeism (at present officially encouraged by the State. The law on lower limit of voters at any election has been done away with), or brainless voting for anyone any time.

The concept of co-ownership does not contradict the Roman Club idea of “new humanism”, “new ideal social organisation of people”, guaranteeing all the people “equal opportunities based on universal human values”.

The meaning of the “new humanism” for Russia should be treated as an aspiration to turn each citizen of Russia into a self-sufficient figure, capable of standing by himself in order to lead him out of the disabled state when he has to walk with a begging hand stretched towards the State or another (self- sufficient) man all his life. A new paradigm is needed, according to Vodolazov, in order for us to move toward it a new general reconsideration of all the preceding world’s intellectual tradition.

Let us turn to the capital world’s intellectual tradition about the correlation of man and ownership. Life, as it is generally known, is motion. All living things have the happiness of existence only by virtue of some movement. Marx wrote that the movement of history creates social relations. The latter are closely connected with productive forces. It is reasonable. No objections here. But then Marx, developing his thought, asserts that acquiring new productive forces people change their mode of production, and with the change of the mode of production and the means of providing for their families, they change their social relations. The hand-mill gives us a society with a feudal lord, the steam- mill – a society with an industrial capitalist.

It is notable that on the whole, the anti-Marxists do not disagree with this tenet. I suspect that more or less educated people, especially highly intellectual ones are arch-enemies of the idea of ownership, which oppresses them, as they themselves cannot acquire and increase any property. For example, Popper

18 asserts that the bourgeoisie is a class that rose to power as a result of industrial revolution; D. Bell says that productive forces (technology) replace social relations (ownership); it is generally accepted that the technological basis is the precondition that determines the whole social and political life. And, as a conclusion: the changes proceeded from agriculture to industrialism, and from it to post-industrialism, the highest stage of which has become information society (Webster).

Is that so? Is the connection so direct and so rigid? There is no doubt that the new productive forces exert influence on social relations, but not to such an extent as to make them change directly under their influence. They are changed indirectly through the broadening of the ranks of the new class that is formed within the existing society, and it is not done cardinally. Worse than that: it is quite possible that there may not be any new productive forces, but the social relations have radically changed, as it happened in Russia after the October revolution-counter-revolution. In reality, people change the mode of production and their welfare by changing relations of ownership. The new class rises to power when such changes relations have already taken place within the old system, and the class that has risen to power, unlike the overthrown class, consolidates and develops them. It is the changes in the ownership relations that also give the green light to the changes of productive forces. Besides, the changes of both relations of ownership and productive forces reciprocally interpenetrate and condition each other. But it's the relations of ownership that have priority. The transition from one social system to another takes place not because the conflict has ripened between the productive forces and productive relations, but because of the unsolvable contradiction within the basis between the productive forces/ownership relations on the one hand and State power (superstructure) on the other. Today’s troubles of all the unfortunate countries including Russia and future social, inter-national and inter-state cataclysms of mankind, have as their source the conflict between the basis and the superstructure. No technology can solve the problem of transition into the higher form of social organisation. The reason is simple enough: between productive forces and productive relations (relations of ownership), the former ones are secondary, impossible without the latter. Why did the technological revolution not take place in the USSR, but was tremendously successful in the West, allowing our enemies to formulate the thesis that Russia had fallen behind the developed countries for ever? Besides, in a number of cases those countries have been successful in spite of the shortage of natural resources (Japan and some others). As for Russia, it has more than enough of both natural and human resources. We have blown off a considerable part of them and

18 continue to follow in the same way today because of bad technologies and mismanagement. Why? Because a technological revolution is not only technological, but also social, and, just like any social revolution, is a consequence of the corresponding relations of ownership, the dominance of private ownership, forming in the nation a certain social structure interested in the progress of productive forces. We must not agree with the Nobel Prize winner Camus, who asserted that the political form of the society on the given level was not important, what matters was the settings of technical civilisation, on which both capitalism and socialism equally depended. (Here is one of the sources of the “convergence theory”, which fascinated A. Sakharov and Y. Burtin). The political form of society (in Russia it is the State), in particular the presence or absence of the separation of powers, depends on which class is dominant. Under the dominance of bureaucracy, which is a false subject of development, the “settings of the technical civilisation” do not work. Russian society is something opposite to what is needed for the technological revolution. The USSR collapsed not because of the stagnation in the development of its economy as a consequence of mismanagement, but because Communism, negating the relations of private ownership, is stagnation with a clear tendency towards a backward movement. To our great sorrow, the incomprehension of this prompted Gorbachov and his team to start the perestroika with the acceleration of technological progress; we cannot see this comprehension in the present “reforms” either. Without private ownership the Russian economy has transformed from State monopoly into oligarchic monopoly, in which has taken place the merging of private monopoly capital with the State capital, with faulty relations of ownership, standing in the way of the development of small and medium business. So, until the new concept of socio-economic transformation of Russia, the essence of which are the relations of private ownership forming the middle class, begins to work, no “technology” will ever lead the country out of the deadlock.

We can and we must make an extraordinary theoretical breakthrough, create a new concept, according to which the people would start to change their life without the usual revolutions-counter-revolutions from above. Without aggravating internal social contradictions, not counting on anybody’s external help in any form, especially charity, which sooner or later turns into an antagonism between those who give and those who receive. Nobody can help us to the extent we need. We cannot pin our hopes even on the good intentions of the Roman Club, calling on to bring the other regions of the world “to the corresponding level of well-being” in the nearest future with the help of the United States and the European Union. It is necessary to create such an

18 economic system, under which the immeasurably harmful drawbacks of market economy will be defeated, define the framework within which the market can function, and do away with the smothering effect of the ever-expanding bureaucratic structures. Russia should find a source of development inside its own self. This source consists in the co-ownership of citizens in the national wealth through its individualisation, represented in the joint-stock or co- operative capital.

C) Advantages of the concept

The first and the main thing (taking into account our mentality) that my concept can give is equality without levelling and social justice in the distribution of national wealth.

“Social justice” is a multi-levelled category, comprising material, spiritual, legal, habitual, behavioural, moral and many other aspects of human life. It is not my task to analyse them. In accordance with the topic I would like to dwell only on the basis: what the mechanism of its realisation is founded upon, what makes man self-sufficient, and what makes the society be fair and non- humiliating. And when I say “self-sufficient”, I mean self-sufficient and equal on the initial level, through a stake in the national wealth. When I say justice I mean justice coming from society on the whole, but not from the dominant class and the State that it represents. Social justice is possible in a society where the national wealth belongs to the whole people, not to bureaucracy and oligarchs. It should not, in addition, belong impersonally, as it was declared in the Soviet Constitution, but individually. Then every citizen will have his share in it. Only then will social justice become a norm of existence; the dream of mankind will come true in everyday life. This seems to be one of the principal differences between the suggested form of organisation and all the previous systems including the present one.

If we try to define in one phrase the obstacle to the progress of our society that was not overcome by the post-October development, it will be no other than the aspiration to level all and everyone in spite of the persistent resulting struggle. Beginning with the NEP that made the material interest of a self- financing working person a matter of paramount importance in the economy, the State, by means of the constant canonization of hard-working real people and Communist labour movement, seemingly struggled against levelling. But there were no results. Why does it happen so?

18 Social justice is impassionately blind: it demands a levelling of all in consuming, which sooner or later leads to the levelling of the contribution of each in productive activity, i.e. to the stagnation in the decisive factor of progress - labour productivity. The demand for equality of people, who are absolutely unequal in abilities, possibilities, zeal, needs, etc., is absurd. The problem, however, is that even though the nature has conceived in man an aspiration to self-realisation and self-assertion, it is impossible to predict the abilities of a person. Besides, even small abilities can blossom under certain conditions; big talents can come to nought if not developed properly. This circumstance obliges the democratic, socially just society to give all its citizens the equality of initial opportunitty, and not more than that, without any levelling in the future. Market economy cannot maintain the material equality of all people even if there were such a goal: the efficiency of different people is different. For the market, equality of opportunity is an unchangeable law. The primary source of the democratic organisation of society lies exactly here. This is what provides social justice in the realistically admissible form of “rewarding justice” for the maximal zeal, conscientiousness, honesty, talent, etc., and ultimately, the possibility of some assistance from the prosperous people and society for those less fortunate.

As economic inequality is unavoidable today, it must be only the consequence of differences in the labour contribution of each person. It also partly comes from the heritage that was earned by the labour of ancestors. This circumstance would serve as a stimulus to the growth of labour productivity, enterprising, thriftiness, etc.

Aspiration to equality among sensible people is natural and therefore insuperable. And it is good, too. Otherwise mankind would be left divided into the oppressors and the oppressed forever. We have to remember that all that was done in the history of revolutions was not for the assertion of inequality, but for its eradication.

Nowadays the welfare of a citizen of our society comes from two sources: 1) the fund of individual consumption and 2) the fund of public (impersonalised) consumption. If the differences in the first source proceed from the labour contribution of citizens, i.e. they are more or less connected with the personality itself and its characteristics, the differences in the second are imposed by the State with all the ensuing injustice. Thus, education, healthcare, environmental “consumption”, housing improvements, communications, etc., are different both in quality and quantity in all regions, which is the reason why

18 the satisfaction of citizens’ needs at the expense of the funds of public consumption is irregular in the extreme. Many categories of citizens get but a miserable help from these funds. For example, people living in the country receive twice as little as the people living in urban areas. The difference in the per capita income between separate regions reaches a thousand per cent, and even more. We shall not forget that public consumption, being “free”, and consequently devoid of competition, has proved its practical inconsistency (one of the most important reasons of our catastrophic backwardness and degradation in all fields of culture has been the absence of profit-driven competition). It is not accidental that the Soviet bureaucracy, especially that of the high and middle level, found for itself a way of satisfying their needs by creating special health centres, elite schools and academies, exclusive shopping centres and many other “special” things. The fund of public consumption should probably embrace only what is not personified, e.g. what is connected with environment, some types of communication, the defence of the country and the maintenance of public order. All the rest should function through profit-oriented competition, the system of individual consumption, regulated by market relations, which will be available to everyone without exception, if the people become real liquid owners of their share in the national wealth of the country. For example, in healthcare and education, it can be solved by using appropriate vouchers. Medical vouchers would be given to every citizen and to be spent when necessary, and the unspent part of the sum would go to the individual pension fund to replenish the pension, or would be given to the person at once at the moment of retirement. Quite an obvious stimulus not to be play truant too much! Educational vouchers would be given to each would- be student before their enrolling, and the unused sum would be returned to the State without compensation. An obvious stimulus to study more! And, which is the main advantage, the greater possibilities of spending money on the people's needs, which functioned very badly before, as they were part of public consumption, will be levelled all over the country (without class, territorial and other discriminations).

The transformation of all the members of society into shareholders of one all- encompassing co-operative or into shareholders of appropriate firms (companies) will allow everybody, not only workers and peasants, to access the means of production. The principle of co-ownership solves the problem of such access for all people independent of age and class. The basis of economic equality of all the members of the society is created by the fact that each person will initially have an equal share in public property. It will be a pre-condition of real freedom, the right to choose to work where one wants to according to

18 his abilities, no matter whether it's state, co-operative or individual production, or in the sphere of culture, because he is a shareholder. He is a proprietor, i.e. a master-worker!

Thus, the well-being of each person is directly proportional to his efforts, which in their turn depend not only on the person’s zeal, but also on his possibilities. The latter, however, are strictly individual. This will encourage the development of productive forces through the aspiration of each for self- assertion, the desire to be no worse than the others. Therefore, the initial aspiration of man to achieve social justice through levelling in the distribution of the national wealth belonging to the whole society and inherited from the previous generations, acquires an appropriate material basis on which he has equal starting opportunities and acquires a stimulus for the realisation of his abilities. Thus there appear conditions to overcome the “leveller” psychology of the masses.

All that is achieved by a co-ownership of each person in the national wealth and his personal efforts. It tangibly defines the “cost” of each worker, him being not only and not so much a commodity on the market of labour and occupying a certain place in social production, but as one of its masters and manufacturers. Thus the society naturally appreciates highly those who work well and give a lower assessment to others, by which measure it favours the stability of the personnel in production.

The present level of the development of productive forces, which is not sufficient for general and maximal well-being, allows to accomplish social justice only to such an extent that would not hinder their progress. That is to say, it would not admit the leveller’s approach to the problem.

The second aspect of my concept. The highly developed democratic countries are now socially oriented. There is a practically unsolvable contradiction arising in them, a constant increase of state bureaucracy in quantity and influence. This tendency will sooner or later lead the country to collapse. Bureaucracy is objectively rather significant, because it manages large sums intended for social purposes, therefore becoming a force in itself. It has vast opportunities to abuse its position, increasing its influence on the state in an anti-social direction. There is one more trouble, especially undesirable for us, citizens of Russia. It is the strengthening of the already strong psychology of passive dependence. And, generally speaking, is it not better to follow the example of Mother Nature? See how it educates its younger generation,

19 preparing it for life? A mother goose proceeds from the principle of self- sufficiency, she guards and feeds until the time comes. And then? As they say, the problem is yours: if you can live, live. And if you cannot live, you die. But we cannot do it like this. Sometimes we guard our beloved children till they are about ready to retire. This principle has been adopted by the state also. Instead of applying it only to the needy, old and disabled, the State has turned all the people into its dependants (badly patronised, though). This is the way to bring up infantile people. We are wondering where these dependent and irresponsible people come from? Our task is to bring up free people who are independent from anyone, who can do things on their own, and they can only become such with self-sufficiency which can only happen when a man has a property of his own in appropriate quality and in sufficient quantity. The co-ownership economy is intended for the well-being achieved by every capable person alone, and the supervision/charity by the State is limited to helping the unable.

Having acquired property, a citizen receives material basis for self-realisation and self-assertion. He becomes self-sufficient and self-organising. The category of hired labour is abolished, because it is in fact a forced form of labour for the people who have no other means of living. The cause of the deadly disease of the society, “the plague of proletariat”, continuously nourishing the ever-growing criminality, which may grow into the cancer of revolution, is removed. The stewards of the State property, the bureaucrats, are made equal with the other citizens in relation to the means of production. The material basis for the eternal opposition between the interests of the managers and those of the managed, disappears as they all become masters-workers. The economic bureaucracy that feeds the other types of bureaucracy, is abolished, and the rest gets drastically decreased. The new “democratic counterbalance to the power of bureaucracy” (sought, incidentally, by Einstein!) is found, which is, first of all, elected or hired by shareholders, and consequently accountable to their colleague co-owners. Second, it becomes directly interested in the success of the economy it governs, as part of its property is invested there. As a result, the executives lose their special bureaucratic interest, which is at present limited to pleasing the officials of higher rank and therefore opposed to the interests of direct producers. The interest becomes common for everybody.

The third. Unlike the state production, which cannot compete with private business and therefore is inevitably monopolistic, the economy based on private ownership can be represented by all forms of economy: joint stock, co- operative, individual, family business, etc., which makes it decentralised. The transformation of the most part of State property into public property (shares,

19 co-operation), without fractionalising it, preserving its entity, will serve as a serious obstacle to an outrage of the negative sides of the relations of private ownership, in particular in intellectual sphere in which the situation nowadays is pre-disastrous.

The fourth. The citizens working in intellectual sphere will be connected with production in a practically tangible form through the investments of their initial share of the national wealth in this or that particular business.

The fifth. As the share of both of the working and the retired people constantly grows, another social problem is being solved: together with the growth of the well-being of the society, the living standard of pensioners is improved not through governors or presidents, but directly.

The sixth. As the income of every person is dynamic and regularly changes depending not only on the degree of one's labour contribution, but also on the size of one's share in the national wealth, a personal interest in such growth is formed. This interest leads to the formation of a group interest, which in prospect may be similar to the Japanese “group co-operation”, which is prospering at present. A co-owner finds himself interested and working for the development, strengthening his share in the national wealth. Personal, group and public interests are combined in such a way as to penetrate into all the pores of society. It results in a certain new form of the Adam Smith “invisible hand” working in a “joint private enterprise”.

The seventh. Ownership means responsibility. The psychology of a proprietor, even the smallest one is principally different from the psychology of a non- owner. The same goes for a hireling. The latter is concerned with the maximum of consumption with a minimum of output, but the first – with the aspiration to preserve and increase his property both by hard work and economy.

The eighth. A short foreword here. We have to agree with the opinion of the German philosopher Jaspers that the correct world order does not exist. Most likely, it cannot exist, just as the absolute fulfilment of human needs cannot exist. We must agree that “justice remains a problem which has no final solution” (Jaspers). It cannot be solved by dictatorial planning methods, be it in the economy or in other spheres of the life of society. He also writes that even a full recognition of the arbitrariness of all or separate individuals would also block the solution of the problem, for it would lead to the growth of injustice, and without justice there is no freedom. The arrangement of our life is a great

19 unsolved problem of our epoch. I think that this problem, which is unsolvable ideally, can be solved partially, in the fundamental, material part of human existence. It can happen in the possibilities of every man as a subject of development of all that depends on him, the master of the national wealth. As for the fact that it is not a full solution of the problem, well, we are not gods. Being humble is what's required of us here, c’est la vie…. We did not invent the way some things are, and we are not supposed to abolish it! I think that vain are the expectations of Jaspers’ that the desired world order will establish itself as people achieve unanimity without using violence. In the first place, it is hardly possible because it goes against the very nature of man. In the second, is this unanimity so necessary? If it is achieved, would it not mean the end of history? Not in Fukuyama’s, but in the final sense?

Of many irregularities of the world order the concept of co-ownership allows to exclude one of the worst, to do away with the vicious enrichment of the few feasting upon the ruin and moral degradation of the majority, and as a consequence, to make disappear revolution/counter-revolution. With this purpose the initial share of the property of a citizen is excluded from the market turnover. Only the interest gained/earned by the citizen himself would take part in it. The initial share cannot be alienated physically either from the national wealth or from the owner himself (including by himself). Thus, the formation of the middle class of owners is facilitated, the class which, being the subject of development, has a lot of things to do at home and its members are up to their eyes in work, and they have no time to think of foreign lands to be occupied, nor do they try to make other nations “happy”, nations that allegedly suffer in “spiritual poverty” without them and gorging on undeserved material well-being. In other words, the society will get rid of the “ulcer of proletariat”, it will no longer present a danger either to itself or to other people. Just what the doctor ordered!

Thanks to NEP and co-operation in the 20s, an attempt was made for the first time in Russia to create a middle class of owners on a mass scale. It was yielding good results, but was interrupted by Stalin’s bureaucracy. The present state of our society is somehow comparable with the depression of the 30s in the United States. So, A. Utkin, analysing the activity of the US president of those years Franklin Roosevelt has come to the conclusion of a decisive significance for our realities: “the greatest achievement of Franklin Roosevelt has been the creation of the middle class, people who had something to lose... This class prevails in the United States today. This is what granted the stability to the American ship in spite of the Babylonian melting pot of languages, races

19 and nations. It allowed America to reach the high level of fast technological renovation, to realise the unique historical opportunities and to become the leader of the West, and in a sense, of the whole world”.

The only way of preventing the red totalitarianism to be substituted by the fascism consists in the transformation of the post-communist State into a community of owners, who are subjects of development (not only large ones, the formation of which in market economy is probably inevitable, but in the overwhelming majority of small and medium ones). There is no other way as to progress and transition to a normal democratic legal state. All other options lead back to the past with all the ensuing troubles that in this or that way are connected with re-distribution of property either the Communist way (“rob what has been robbed”), or the initial capitalist method (peculiar of the primary accumulation of capital, i.e. “rob the State and the people”. We have had it all, and are still having it in all its demoniac beauty. Is it not time to give it all a rest?

The concept of co-ownership initially includes the cost of natural resources into national wealth, shared in money terms among the citizens who due to this become independent with a source of permanent income. By this measure alone we would leave the list of the countries with the poorest population. The proof of it is the experience of Turkmenistan.

On the initiative of the national leader the natural resources there have been announced the people’s wealth, and on this basis a number of extremely important measures for the benefit of the people have been taken. Thus, taxes have been abolished so that “the people had no need of anything, became rich and free and acquired self-respect”. The State can do without levying taxes from the population as there are other sources of income. People are given land, flats, gas, electricity, free use of public transport, salt, water, and needy people also get flour. Education and medicine are free, and petrol is dirt-cheap. Great care is taken of the veterans of the World War II (medical and dental treatment are absolutely free, as are surgical operations of any complexity, vouchers for health centres etc.) Of course, they are not free “presents”; they are part of what was earned by the people and received from ancestors, given to the nation directly, not through a bureaucratic article re. expenses on culture, healthcare, internal and external security. The acts of the State concerning the abolition of taxes and distribution of free benefits are pioneer steps dictated by love and respect of their people. Moreover, they are the

19 precursors of the future civil society of co-owners of the national wealth, which from my point of view is absolutely necessary for the post-Soviet states. The classical capitalism, forming an independent national state, will not take roots in them, it will only be a capitalism of sorts whereby such countries become colonial states and natural resource appendages of the highly developed nations. History, tradition and mentality of the post-Soviet nations “demand” the economy of “people’s capitalism”. I am convinced that it is only with that kind of state that the tax and many other excruciating problems will be solved. The transformation began for Turkmenians from a nation of consumers into a nation of producers, into a middle class of owners – subjects of development, which have never existed in proper quantities in the post-Soviet countries.

It appears that the socio-economic policy of the Turkmenian State is akin to the concept of co-ownership of citizens in the national wealth. It has to make but one step: to take an inventory of all the wealth of the country (land, water, mineral resources, forestry, industry, etc.), and then define the initial “cost” of every citizen – his share in it, and work out the formula of people’s production, at the basis of which there will be private shares of citizens (see Ch.7).

***

In this connection it is necessary to understand the main reason for the failure of perestroika and current “reforms”. The widespread delusion in public opinion is that there is an absence in our country of proper (commanding, managing) subjects of perestroika, and that instead of them we’ve only had “pseudo-subjects” who ruined the economy, bringing the country to anarchy, not to democracy. However, they forget that the country was governed by the Communist bureaucracy, a false subject of development, from which there emerged an honest part of higher officials who were not indifferent to the destiny of the country. But they were still the same incompetent bureaucracy. They destroyed the totalitarian system. They had no other choice, and any delay or hesitancy (just in that sphere of activities) would have been disastrous.

But the proletariat (of physical or mental labour, i.e. practically all the Soviet people) supporting this part of higher officials could not be fed and clothed by endless rallies and demonstrations: back in the days of Soviet power they were subsisting on ration cards on all the most important articles of food and clothing which were often unavailable anyway. The “social soil” (the quote- unquote “soil”, because it was not such by definition) of perestroika was getting depleted, and the power had to face the problem of feeding the people.

19 Hence the perestroika deadlock. The Yeltsin-Chubais-Gaidar team decided to go through the stage of primary accumulation of capital by robbing the State and the people. It was a time-proved strategy, after all. But can it last? Unlike the West, we have no time to go through the monopoly stage of capitalism, two world wars and only then reach the democratic stage. Not because there will be a revolution/counter-revolution, as some predict. It will not happen, for there will be nobody to perform it. There will be a decay, demographic crisis, heavy drinking, drugs, rampant crime. The way out is in another dimension, shown in the next chapter.

Chapter 7. Formula of public production

Imagine: the national wealth of the country gets inventoried. Then, the initial “cost” of every citizen, his share in all the national wealth is defined, including land, mineral resources, water, forestry, etc. From the point of view of social justice, the right thing would be to give every citizen a voucher (bank account) free in accordance with his “cost”. But taking into account the psychology of our people and their attitude to “free wealth”, it would be more proper (or expedient) to sell the said share at relatively low prices, and crediting those who cannot afford it at a low interest rate. This bond is guaranteed by the Central bank. The owner can use it either for share acquisition or to start one’s own business, and for nothing else. In the first case the owner of the voucher (bank account) acts as an investor: an enterprise gets created, accumulating the necessary start-up capital exchanging/selling shares for real vouchers. The second case is starting one’s own business for one’s shared sum or, if it is not sufficient, by adding one’s own savings to the voucher or getting a bank loan.

The main thing in the reform today is its social purpose: in which direction are we moving and what kind of society are we building? The people are discouraged, passive in production activities, embezzlement is flourishing. It is only the realisation of the concept of co-ownership that can extricate us from this state. By denationalising the economy and giving each citizen a share due to him we would act in accordance with the concept of Adam Smith about the individual interest as a decisive factor of economic progress working for the people’s good all over the world. Thus we would have a mechanism regulating the development of ownership in its own environment.

The life of ownership is in competition, its death is in its absence. Without competition it will not be able to develop according to the natural laws of economy, its existence will only be supported by merciless exploitation of man

19 and nature (as it was in the socialist countries). Being in constant fluidity, when competition is present, property changes hands and gets concentrated in the hands of the few, and those who have lost it become proletarians or lumpens. The Communist abolished private ownership in State monopoly, thus removing the competition. This resulted on the one hand in the deprivation of everyone of his property and turning the people into proletarians of physical and mental labour, and on the other, in degradation of economy way below the world standards. It is not private property in general, as Marxism asserts, but in the first place its monopolisation, in the second, its full absence in the hands of proletariat that conditions its existence as a class. The difficulty of the solution of the problem consists in not allowing the monopolisation of property in any form, which, by the way, is not possible by its liquidation because it cannot be liquidated period. It just changes the form of existence, changing owners, the worst of which is a State bureaucrat. Therefore, this problem should be approached from the other end: the property should not be abolished but on the contrary, it should be consolidated in every possible way on the principles of competition, yet a part of it should be protected from the hazards of competition and excluded from market turnover. This part would be an untouchable source of income of the citizen, but it will not be big enough as to allow him to be idle and totally exclude oneself from the process of production (without one’s participation in it one’s untouchable is not sufficient for a life on a decent level). The main purpose here is not to allow monopolisation of wealth in the hands of the few. The suggested option of the organisation of people’s production has the following advantages. In the first place, it entails all social groups which can be immediately involved in the construction of national economy as producers and proprietors. In the second, it embraces not only direct producers, but also all working people without which a society cannot exist. Their connection with production is also performed in a tangible form, proceeding from the correlation of the number of direct producers and those engaged in a non- material sphere, and also disabled people (for example, in the production sphere – 50%, in the non-material sphere – 5% and the disabled – 45%, which makes a ratio of 1:1). Such a connection will objectively direct the two sides to to the conformity beneficial to the whole society.

It appears that by adoption of the suggested principle of the structure of economic life, decentralisation of property is achieved, and the following two birds are killed with one stone: 1) the national economy is preserved in its integrity not in the form of State property, which is in fact the private property of bureaucracy, but belonging to the people; 2) the largest part of public

19 property is divided not physically, but “ideally” – by giving every citizen a certificate for their share in it (in money terms) with the right to invest it at the sole discretion of the owner into any business, acquire a flat, an agricultural holding, start up one’s own business or keep it in the bank at interest.

The practical implementation of the concept in its most concise and schematic form would look something like this.

In the first place, the share of each citizen in the national wealth in the form of securities/certificates/vouchers, will be the property of each at the beginning of their independent working life (such as joining a co-operative); it certifies one’s financial standing. In the second, the income of each consists of two parts: 1) his work contribution into production (in the activities of his institution or organisation), 2) the dividends, accrued according to his share of property, invested in production (institution). In the third, the property share of each can (and will) fluctuate according to the labour contribution of the worker. It can actually go down in case the company goes in the red. The increased or reduced share of property accompanies the owner everywhere till the end of his life (when changing jobs, residence, etc.). This document is decisive in definition of his income, sick pay, retirement payments. The interest part of it can be withdrawn by the owner at any time (even though it is not profitable to do) and it can be inherited. The reduction of the share of property in case the company goes bankrupt or ceases to be profitable for a period of time, is effected proportionally to the work contribution of each, except in cases of embezzlement, misappropriation and such when the bill for the lost money is footed equally by all the members of the group. In the fourth, the initial (basic) share of property determines the income only where it is invested, because it is part of the national wealth, obtained by each citizen as common heritage from the previous generations (mineral resources, objects of material production, national product, etc.). This wealth is a material guarantee of existence of each person and the society on the whole. It cannot be cashed in by anyone, i.e. it is inalienable even by the owner himself.

Suppose that the ownership ratio (OR) of each person is expressed by 5000 capital units (CU); let us assume the ratio of those working in production sphere and those in the non-production sphere plus the dependant part of the population as 50% to 50% (1:1); it means that totally 10000 CU united in production fall on each participant of production. Let us assume that the capital gains (CG) as a result of the worker’s labour will be 500 CU. 30% of this (150 CU) is retained for public needs, and 350 CU remain. 50% of this (175 CU) is

19 used to increase shares in production (175 : 2 = 87.5 CU). One part enters the account of the worker of the given production, the other goes to the funds: a) of workers of the non-production sphere (for distribution of dividends) and for b) social maintenance. Now each share in property is expressed by the sum of 5000 + 87.5 = 5087.5 CU. The sum remaining from CG (350 – 175 = 175 CU) goes into the income of the worker. A dividend is also calculated on the whole (new) sum of the ownership ratio at the rate of 1%, which amounts to 50.875 CU. Then the income of a worker will be 175 + 50.875 = 225.875 CU. And the OR will amount to (5087.5 – 50.875) = 5036.625 CU , now becoming the basis for the subsequent calculations.

And how does the system deal with those not involved in production and who do not work in organisations (institutions)? Where is their ownership ratio? It is either in the bank or in the form of shares of an open joint-stock company. As for the people who have a business of their own, their ownership ratio participates in their production (business) by a corresponding lowering of rent and tax according to income as established by the given region: in our case it is 1%, i.e. 50.875 CU. How does one increase one's share of co-ownership in public ownership? Part of the tax taken from him, determined by a fixed rate is used for the increase of his ownership ratio. This increase depends on the tax rate, that is, with a low income his share in co-ownership can increase insufficiently, or even decrease. As the whole sum of the share is an insurance in case of disease, disability and old age, the owner of a business is interested in the increase of the share of his co-ownership in the national wealth. As for the disabled, the sum due to them from their OR is a component of their pension or other kinds of their material security.

19 Part III GLOBAL CO-OWNERSHIP OF CITIZENS

Chapter 8. The globe – our common home

A) Inter-regional and inter-state co-ownership

The concept of co-ownership has only been considered on a regional scale (Ch. 5), but logically it begs to be viewed on an inter-regional and inter-state scale as well.

Let us take Russia as one of the most multi-regional parts of the world, where the regions differ from one another infinitely in the most vital parameters. At present, in the inter-national relations, and even in the relations of the administrations of the Russian regions, some centrifugal forces have appeared, the consequence not only of the economic ill-being both in the Centre and in the provinces, but also of essential differences in the economic development of the regions, depending on the peculiarities of nature and on the level of the productive forces in them. Within Russia there are some regions, which are rather rich in mineral resources, and there are some, which are deprived of them. But the development of the former is the business of all the citizens of Russia, and it is mainly they and of course, the centre, who reap the benefits. The organisation of economy on the principles that I suggest evens out the quantity of material benefits, as every citizen of the country receives their initial share of the all-Russian national wealth irrespectively of their place of residence and activities. It is one country with the same initial opportunities for everybody. If this principle were to be spread all over the world, where the countries differ greatly from one another in mineral and other natural resources, which today threatens with an energy crisis on a global scale, the principle of equal distribution of all the natural (and with time – industrial) wealth to all mankind, to every inhabitant of the world would triumph. But the difference connected with the labour contribution and the culture of production (labour productivity), etc., still remains. It will be a serious stimulus for the efforts to overcome the differences in the quality of life of our nations, will encourage the mobilisation of all the intellectual resources, talents, skills and conscientiousness of each nation and region. The main source of people’s well- being will be labour and skilful management, and not only natural resources or the bureaucratic whims of the Centre to create privileges or to discriminate. The advance in the living standard of the people populating any region (state) will depend on their own selves. Thus an understanding will be affirmed in

20 people’s minds that the well-being of the population of any region (state) is directly connected with the all-national (and the global!) wealth. Hence the interest of each and everyone in the integrity of a separate state and in the well- being of the whole world.

The co-sharing by the citizens in the national wealth will delay spontaneous migration, especially the brain drain. Moreover, the reverse process will begin. In the citizens of all states the sense of patriotism will redouble. Indeed, what is a patriot? The initial meaning of the word is “Fatherland as property” (Struve). The Fatherland, the material essence of which is in the national wealth, must be transferred in the minds on the citizens from virtually national into really all- national, belonging to every citizen without exception in a vivid and palpable form. For example, the threat of the disintegration of Russia is not limited to the separatism of some regions. No, it has been present for a long time in the citizens themselves as they do not associate themselves with a state. This notion of “dissociation” was introduced by the liberal bourgeoisie at the beginning of the century. It applied to radical democratic intelligentsia, revolutionary-minded and consequently, anti-establishment. It appears that it can be applied to all poor people who are up against the wall because of poverty, who join a revolution or emigrate. I think that Marxism has formulated it right saying that proletariat has no fatherland. There cannot be any fatherland for a person who is a tumbleweed-like uprooted thing, whose well-being does not depend upon the wealth of the country, because that wealth is managed not by him, but by an official standing above. And this official will never be willing to change the system as the lower is the well-being of common citizens, who are mercilessly robbed by the State, the higher is his material standing.

In the world co-operation of all states the problem of brain drain will be removed altogether, because, in the first place, the labour contribution in any part of the world will bring income to the common bank, in the second, the whole mankind is equally interested in the development of every corner of its habitation.

In the materials of the Roman Club (report by B. Gavrilishin) attention has been paid to the Japanese experience in which the values and norms of group co-operation prevail. Such values live in any society, although very often they either slumber or remain neglected in the atmosphere of feverish competition. If they are roused though, a social system based on these values will be established all over the world. Another speaker of the same club, Ed. Pestel,

20 calls the Japanese economic system a “co-operative private enterprise”. Speaking of the advantages of co-ownership organisation of economy, I’d like to point out that in it private interest grows into a group one, becoming ultimately part of the general trend toward progressive advance, the expanded reproduction of the national wealth.

Today mankind is building a global community, which is best formed in Western Europe in the countries where democratic capitalism with socially oriented market economy has gained a firm footing. Apparently, the reply to these “humane” (co-operational) processes in human existence have been the spread of the synergetic approach (synergetics as the general theory of self- organisation) to social phenomena, having prompted the birth of the science of synergetic sociology of common activities of people (on local, regional and global scale). Therefore, is it not permissible to assume that the co-ownership of citizens in the national wealth is the core, the foundation of joint activities of people that are self-organized to their own good and to the good of other members of society? It goes well with the tendency which has established itself in the world, the one of world co-operation, at least as far as economic and environmental problems. Ownership is a consequence of the self- organisation of man in the world, the world whose destiny is the absence of the absolute fullness of benefits. Thus, ownership is a product of the immanent development of society. It means that it is something we can’t do without, and the attempts to deny it would always lead to the degradation of society, which we have had thanks to the Communists.

***

The tendency to globalisation is natural and everlasting. Mankind has gone and is going a long way to global unity. Until recently, it has been done by creating empires (chiefly by wars) which sooner or later fell to pieces since they were artificially made unions of nations.

The foundation of global volunteer political unification of mankind was laid by the League of Nations (which could not prevent World War II). Its successor, the United Nations Organisation is at least doing something, although not always successfully. NATO is more efficient. The European Union has been successful in the unification of nations in the vital spheres of people’s life: facilitation of travel, common currency and common budget for definite purposes. I want to point out that in this case the unification of states is carried out not on the basis of national economies organised on co-ownership

20 of citizens in the national wealth. The progress of these states is due to the classical development of private ownership relations that guaranteed the formation of a powerful middle class of owners. In other regions of the world such unification is hardly possible: the general poverty of the nations and states will not allow doing it; poverty encourages unification for destructive purposes only.

In the world there exists at present a multitude of non-governmental associations on an international scale. Their number is constantly growing. Kustarev asserts that in 1981 there were 13 thousand non-state organisations, and by 2001 their number went up to 47 thousand. The number of transnational corporations was 64 thousand. There are also branched-out international associations: the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the World Currency Fund (WCF) and the World Bank.

Solzhenitsyn’s idea of self-restriction for the richest nations and states of the world is rather to the point. About thirty years ago our great fellow countryman came out with a noble appeal to the nations of the world to admit their past sins to one another and restrict themselves in their consumption. Because (as he was saying) the way things were going, in the 21st century mankind will perish of exhaustion, barrenness and land pollution. Quoting the conclusions of the Roman Club, he writes that progress must cease to be a desired characteristic of society. The “infinity of progress” is a crazy myth. It is not the “economy of constant development” that ought to be realised, but the economy of constant stability. Economic growth is not only unnecessary, but it is pernicious. The highly developed nations, whose living standards are acceptable and do not need to be raised, could agree with this thesis, but the nations with a low standard of living cannot. Also the developed nations have no reason to stop the growth of their economy, because it would limit their possibilities to help others in extreme cases and poor nations in general. The problems of environment should be solved not by suspense in the development of economy (which is unreal in general!), but by perfection of production. The idea of Solzhenitsyn of self-restriction of consumption by rich nations, works only in the sense of the realisation of the concept of co-ownership of citizens on the international scale under which they will have to share their wealth with poor nations. The poor part of mankind will not be able to tolerate much longer the process their increasing pauperisation. Indeed, in 1950 the correlation of GDP per capita of the rich and the poor was approximately 20 to 1, in 1971 – 30 to 1 and at the beginning of the 21st century – 75 to 1. It does not bode well! ***

20 The implementation of the concept of co-ownership could be performed in three stages. The first stage is realised according to the formula of people’s production in the national economy of each state. In the development of mankind an historical tendency of sorts has established itself, which advances towards democratisation of republican or federative type. Republican federalism guarantees the independence of actions of the subjects, Democratism is necessary to neutralise the excessive material and status division, which is fraught with alienation and a sharp conflicts in society (Kustarev). Therefore, on the second stage co-operation of states is desirable according to the neighbourhood, religion, language, etc., averaging out the revenue position of the citizens of the given association. And ultimately, on the third stage, there comes the co-operation of the mentioned alliances on the world scale with the same averaging of the revenue position of all the people of the world. Other variants of the mechanism of social globalisation are possible as well. For example, it is possible to begin with making all sources of drinking water, the shortage of which is present, the property of the whole mankind (the idea expressed by M. Yunys, when I was talking to him). And then, as the need dictates, the same can be done with the other resources, which are nowadays being ruthlessly blown off.

However, it is still impossible to solve the problem of well-being of every inhabitant of the Earth, because the level of well-being is determined not only by equal distribution of the world’s wealth, but also by the degree of culture, knowledge, skill, by labour productivity on the whole and also by the degree of spirituality, all of which is not equal with all nations, or even within one nation.

This is where science comes in. Until now, as I have already noted (Ch. 4) science has not been used much to further people’s happiness. Solzhenitsyn writes that the end of the world has descended from mysticism into the scientific, technical and psychological reality. And it is not only the danger of a world nuclear war any more as the calculations of ecologists show us.

What is to be done? An academician V. Ivanov of the Russian Academy of Sciences says that in order for the science not to eliminate all of us, it is necessary to provide it with some serious problem, the solution of which would consume all its strength, similar to the training of a predator, when the trainer throws some object for the beast to hold in its teeth. Such task for science, according to Ivanov, is the resurrection of the dead. The comparison of science with a beast of prey looks more like academic witticism or maybe an accidental slip of tongue of an outstanding scholar who is tired of scientific absurdity

20 which is a characteristic feature of the modern world structure leading mankind to destruction. And if we speak seriously, why should we resurrect the dead, if we can’t even feed the living? In the end only resurrection of chosen people would take place, and those chosen people will be Stalin-Hitlers. Then mankind will have to pay a heavy price: the grave consequences are absolutely predictable. Besides, the Nature in its dialectical development is “internally perfect”. There is no reason why we should intrude in the functions of Nature concerning the reproduction of living matter. Having divided itself into 1) living component and 2) nonliving matter, and then, living matter into 1) animals and 2) plants, with 1) feminine and 2) masculine species, the Nature stopped its further bifurcation, because internal perfection was attained there. The reproduction of human species, as well as that of the entire animal world, is accompanied with the ultimate enjoyment! The idea of the resurrection of the dead, as I suspect, if realised, may become concentrated on the attainment of the mentioned enjoyment, for such things as birth, feeding, upbringing, education, funerals will be excluded from the process of the reproduction of man. It appears that the moral degeneration together with physical degeneration would then finish us off! To the joy of the Satan! I am afraid that the search for the death gene belongs to the same field (the scientists of the Institute of Biology of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences has created a certain medical agent due to which the life of mice has been made 4 – 5 times longer).

Naturally, it is a shame that the life of the citizens of Russia is 20-30 years shorter than that of the people of Western Europe, North America, Australia, Japan, Norway and some other countries. But is there any sense in prolonging people’s life without improving their living conditions? Life is granted to people for joy and happiness, which gives it a meaning, and not for sufferings from malnutrition and diseases.

My concept of the socio-economic structure of life makes exploitation of man by man and wars of all kinds impossible and, which is the main thing, senseless. It will inevitably lead to an acute necessity of the growth of culture of the nations of all regions for the sake of the increase of labour productivity, giving all branches of science, all spheres of culture and education as much work as possible. The fangs of the science will from then on be clenched. *** I already quoted the thought of Solzhenitsyn concerning the necessity of repentance and self-restriction in the consumption of nations. But it appears especially vital concerning the behaviour of the political elite of literally all the

20 world’s states, and namely in the movement of mankind to the era of noosphere.

The self-restriction of the elite of separate states refers not so much to their personal consumption, but rather to their unrestrained dissipation of the national wealth. Such self-restriction, accompanied by the resignation of the usurpation of the people’s rights, has a chance to take place under the influence of the highly developed democratic societies in the states of the European Union and some others. It would be remarkable if an authoritative international activist supported the idea of world co- operation, as W. Churchill in his time warned the world about the threat of being enslaved by Communism and thus united all the sound democratic forces in the struggle against it.

Churchill emphasized the appeal to the conscience of the leaders of all rich nations with the “you have to share” appeal. He did it first with his own citizens and then with the rest of the world convincing them that planes, trains and buildings would be blowing up, and the good citizens would be shot like rabbits, not being able to enjoy their riches. I am convinced that such a man would become the world famous winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. In a word, gentlemen, “you have to share!” It is necessary to return the riches to the nations of the world, to mankind. And to avoid the resistance of the people who in particular became rich on the “grab-privatisation” of the 90s, some of them should be sent to the much-deserved prison.

The idea of self-restriction of the elite and the transference of their riches to the people, supported by the United Nations Organisation, explained and popularised in every possible way, may have a success. After all, it is the 21st century now, about which the French anthropologist Claude Levi- Strauss said that it will be the century of liberal arts or not at all. So by hook or by crook, by the world public opinion, volens-nolens, but the problem will be solved. The axiomatic premiss is: the Earth, the mineral resources, the rivers, seas and oceans are given to all people to be the foundation of life on the principles of equality. After all, bureaucrats are human beings, too, endowed with some intellect, on which conscience should be imposed. They cannot forever be cutting at the bridge they walk on, leading all people to disaster.

20 In the realisation of the idea of transformation of the Earth into a common home of all people-masters, a decisive step could be made by the UN to save mankind from the impending catastrophe. And it should hurry up given the approaching energy crisis in order to prevent it, because its consequences are absolutely predictable – the world disaster. *** There is yet another complex point touching upon the interests of all nations. It is the correlation of social globalisation with the developing process of renaissance of national states and national values. Though Kustarev asserts that the convergence of the sovereign state and world community is going on on both sides, with the State being diffused, and the world society being consolidated, the national states, in spite of the fact that today the religious respect to sovereignty is becoming weaker before our very eyes, and nations remain as they have always been, and none of the globalists is going to abolish them. Moreover, the transformation of citizens from wage slaves into the masters of their national wealth during the process of levelling of the well- being, will create most favourable conditions for the consolidation and development of the national cultures including the nations that could not develop because of their poverty. Under world globalisation all nations will enjoy real prosperity, for the material obstructing reasons will cease to exist. Another question is that in the world there are autocratic states whose leaders are dreaming of their “power” and themselves, of course, ruling mankind, whom they would “cultivate” and educate as they see fit, teaching them the Byzantine things and other “wisdom”, in other words, all those values that had repeatedly sent the carriers of this idea into political non-existence. Those people are talking about the “national values” which are allegedly constantly threatened by someone. But they are the people of yesterday, and no matter what clothes and mask they wear, their ugly mug is clearly seen, and they will not manage for a long time to keep their autocracy (which is their main “national value”) covered by pseudo-democratic talk under the flag of “unlimited sovereignty” (naturally, their own, which they unthinkingly and nonsensically call “sovereign democracy”!). I repeat: globalisation is natural, fruitful and therefore unavoidable. Thank Heaven, it is the 21st century and not the 19th!

B) To the question of the “unified theory” of society

Here I will try to get to the philosophical core of the problem. An outstanding physicist, a member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR A. F. Ioffe once complained that Einstein wasted last several decades of his life on the search of

20 the unified field theory, non-existent in nature. But the post-Einstein science of the whole world has been trying to find the solution of that very problem. If we assume that unified field theory exists, let us also assume that it will eventually be discovered. This theory’s main tenet is that all the interactions of elementary particles are inter-connected, the fact that probably constitutes the basis of the “inner perfection” of Nature.

In my Doctor’s thesis I tried to understand the unified theory as explaining the Universe being composed of different interacting phenomena, united not to the detriment of each of them, but to the good of them all. I must say that not being a physicist, I did not know what Einstein meant by the “unified theory”. But it fascinated me together with his formula about the “internal perfection of Nature”, its immanent beauty expressed by the word “unified”. What did I find it beautiful? Well, because it supported my concept which, in the first place, denies class struggle as a universal law determining the progress of mankind, and in the second, provides for co-operation of all working classes in their struggle for liberation from oppression, and not for the struggle with each other. I would go as far as to mention the inadequacy of the split within proletariat and the world Communist movement representing it, which allegedly goes against the nature of Communist teaching. At that time I was a true believer in Marxism-Leninism, although I disputed some important aspects of the teaching as interpreted by some leaders (Stalin and others). I fully accepted the thesis considering the marginal class of proletarians the victor in the class struggle against the bourgeoisie and the creator of the future prospering society. Marxism based this process on the dialectical law of the “unity and conflict of opposites”, an explanation I did not agree with.

I thought that if in the irrational nature it is through a system of chaos and eventuality that a law of internal perfection finds its expression in the form of combinations of the particles, it goes without saying that in the nature of homo sapiens it must be so, too. The rational world must by all means possess the property of “internal perfection” and its components must be in a harmonious relation to one another, and by no means otherwise. After all, what is reason for? Otherwise the whole problem of mankind’s progress to Communism would appear pointless, as it must divide itself into opposites. For the irrational Nature, whose laws of development act spontaneously, self-awareness and any kind of control are impossible, the “bifurcation of one whole” is invariable and eternal. But here, too, on a certain stage of development, live nature is only moving in a circle repeating the old bifurcations and not continuing them. This process ends in the bifurcation into a male and female species. There is no need

20 in further splits. In Nature we deal with the realm of necessity. In society, at a certain point of its development there comes the period transition from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. Man becomes aware of oneself and that surrounds him, constantly creating something new: ultimately a planned prosperous society, governed in accordance with the demands of science. In an antagonistic class society a considerable part of people’s efforts is directed not to mastering the nature to serve the whole mankind, but to mutual annihilation, fighting of man against man, class against class, one nation against another, etc. Only the strength and resources left over after that fighting are used for the subjection of Nature to man. It will be quite different under Communism. The main contradictions moving the progress of mankind will be between the nature of homo sapiens and all other. Only this counterposition is eternal. Social contradictions, unlike the contradictions of Nature are not, they only emerged on a definite stage of the development of society, its productive forces and productive relations. Considering Stalin’s tactics of decisive direction of the Bolsheviks towards delivering a blow to petty bourgeois parties (for the sake of justification of the anti-peasant policy of his party in the Soviet period) to be an adulteration of the history of October revolution, I rejected such practice. I set against it Lenin’s strategy, the purpose and method of which was the unity of actions of all working classes and groups against counter- revolution. It is co-operation, not struggle, that would have been the goal of the revolution. This is what I thought then.

Realising later the fallacy of my apologetics of Communism, I nevertheless still think that there is a kernel of truth in the statements quoted above. It consists in the following: the dialectical law of the unity and conflict of opposites is not universal. For example, it cannot be applied to the existence and development of living nature. As for human society, things are more complicated. Presuming that this law works here, comprising all the classes and relations between them, then what about progress, and the production of food, consumer goods, etc., which are absolutely necessary for people? Indeed, such production can only be possible with co-operation of people, because nothing can be produced in a fight which only destroys and never creates. Then, what is the source of self-movement (self-development) of society?

Are the contradictions between owners (contradictions inside classes) in class societies the source of self-movement? If so, getting rid of class society is absolutely inevitable. The combination of intellect with morality is inevitable, and mankind in its democratic part is already coming to it in the highly civilised countries. Sooner or later, the rest of mankind will be compelled to

20 come to it as well. It means that class oppression will be done away with. On the foreground of social life only the contradiction Man and Nature will remain as the main engine moving the development of mankind. But it will not be in the meaning of “we will not wait for handouts from Nature; taking them is our task”, but in deep cognition of it, placing it at man’s service without harming it, saving and multiplying its riches. Only those contradictions are eternal. Only in this does the “bifurcation of one whole”consist, stimulating a constant forward movement. The tendency of mankind’s development is such that it changes from one primitive classless society to a split class society, then – to the one classless socially just society, which in the future is not supposed to bifurcate again into opposite classes. This united society will stand against the unconscious Nature, constituting one whole with it, bifurcated into natural, and not social opposites brought about by man as a consequence of a class split. It appears that unlike the contradictions of Nature, social contradictions are not constant. They are fluid, and under the normal evolutionary development of society in the direction of their relaxation, and to some extent, disappearance, they came about only on a certain stage of the development of society and eventually are supposed to disappear. If they do not disappear altogether, they will probably be put within a certain controlled framework. We cannot expect a total lack of all contradictions in society, which was the dream of Marxism, both within and between the parts. Distribution of property (according to my concept) amid the absence of economic monopolies will inevitably entail competition among separate owners and between their associations (co- operatives, joint-stock societies, companies, entrepreneurs, etc.). But the taboo on monopolisation of property and exclusion from market turnover of a part of the national wealth (individual shares, as I called them) will not allow these contradictions to boil over into antagonism, leading to pauperisation (lumpenisation). The appearance of private property was conditioned by the insufficiency of production, and the movement of property generated opposite classes, because the society could not control its relations; modern productive forces in a number of countries have developed to such an extent that material production is able to start the abolishment of classes, the poor above all, on condition that there is a proper control over the process. In the post-Soviet Russia there was a unique opportunity (maybe it has not disappeared altogether) for the consolidation of the classless condition of society in quite a new quality, when every person could become both a master and a worker. A master-worker – this is the future citizen.

There is not a single object (phenomenon) in Nature in which we cannot find contradictions. Hegel wrote that a contradiction is the root of any movement

21 and vitality and as long as something has a contradiction within itself, it moves with its impetus. Lenin, expounding on this thesis of Hegel, asserted that the recognition of contradictory tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature (including the spirit and the society) is the condition of the cognition of all the processes of the world in their “self-movement”, and with a different approach to development, the self-movement, its locomotive force, and its motive are left in the shade (or transferred to the realm of God, subject, etc.), whereas the cognition of contradictory tendencies in them, the main attention is directed to the cognition of the source of self-movement, auto-motion.

Following Lenin’s lead, the Soviet philosophers opined in a number of leading publications that each of the main forms of the movement of matter develops exclusively on the basis of their self-contradictions, that self-contradictions is a source of development of natural and social phenomena. Therefore, the scientific understanding of the problem by Soviet philosophers did not contradict Hegel’s and Lenin’s formulations. But in Soviet practice the root of any movement was considered to be in the contradictions between the objects (phenomena) themselves, and not within them. (Such understanding was the basis of the treatment of the inter-relations of classes in the capitalist world and of the Soviet Communism with this world, which has not been given up today. As a result, the Soviets ended up with the collapse of Communism and losing half the territory of the Soviet Union. The bastard post-Soviet regime will most probably end up wiping their State from the political map of the world altogether).

The existence of things (phenomena) in Nature is determined by inner contradiction. On the whole, the existence of the entire Nature is guaranteed by the co-existence of many things (phenomena), not by their conflict with each other. The same can be said about a society; its movement and vitality are guaranteed by the contradiction within the class of owners and its co-operation with the poor. When the contradictions between classes, transformed into struggle, become prevalent, they lead to the death of the fighters and to the victory of a third force. Thus, the contradictions within the classes of feudal lords and serfs (both of them being classes of owners) produced the “Third Estate”. The “Third Estate” of the towns in alliance with the peasantry overthrew the feudal lords. Both classes of the feudal society disappeared. The bourgeoisie and free peasantry (also bourgeoisie, but a rank lower) firmly established themselves in society. From now on the contradictions exist within the classes of owners, who, through competition lead to the ruin of the majority in both. Thus monopolist bourgeoisie and proletariat are formed. The

21 contradictions within these two classes are not developed, they are not essential to determine the development of each of them. Therefore, from then on it’s the contradictions between these two classes that lead the history forward. It was only in Russia and, under its influence, in some other countries that this struggle followed out to its logical end. It ended in the defeat of both classes and the victory of the Communist bureaucracy. The bourgeoisie was abolished. The former proletariat ceased to exist giving birth to the whole people becoming proletariat, and not only as a hireling, but also as a semi-indentured worker. So, the task of the politicians consists in preventing the contradictions between the classes to ever be prevalent, and in general, in pursuing the policy of abolishing the classes as such, because if there are classes, the contradictions between them will be unavoidable, and sooner or later, uncontrollable. It is necessary to keep within the framework of contradictions of a positive order, that move life forward, not negative ones that lead to strife and self-destruction. The first type of contradictions is within the class of owners, which are resolved in the process of competition. They need anti-monopoly regulation from the society, otherwise the contradiction within the class abates and an inter-class and an inter-state contradiction appears in its place (monopoly capital is not satisfied with the home market, as it has nobody to compete with), leading the State to a war.

Thus, the dialectical laws of the development of the society, on which Marxism-Leninism bases its theory of re-building the world, work against it, for they do not agree with it. Ownership and normal human relations based on it develop in accordance with them. “Scientific Communism” turned out to be not scientific at all. The rise of Bolshevik-Marxists to power in Russia meant, according to the apt definition of Struve, the defeat of the “deep” and the establishment of the “flat”. Having mastered Russia, they destroyed everything in it, levelling it with the ground, just as the “International” sings: “Du passe faisons table rase” (We shall make a flat board out of the past).

Communists have a faulty thinking, pathology and a primitive conscience. In their case we deal not only with the maniacal desire for power (allegedly for the happiness of the humiliated classes), but also with an intellectual insufficiency characterized by a complete absence of logic. The latter is particularly problematic (see Ch.2).

So, the source of self-development of mankind in class societies is the contradictions among the owners themselves, their competition on the market (in accordance with the Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”), leading to technical

21 and social progress, creating necessary material conditions to regulate the relations of ownership without revolutions/counter-revolutions and the triumph of the interests of big owners who distort the relations of ownership solely for the sake of their own interests.

Mankind, after the image and likeness of Mother Nature with its “internal perfection”, must achieve “social perfection” with correct regulation of the relations of ownership in order not to perish, ruling out antagonism, both inside separate communities and in the whole world.

Einstein’s Unified Theory presupposes the possibility of the unification of the well-known four functional interactions of elementary particles: 1) the interaction retaining the quarks within the atomic nucleus, 2) electromagnetic interaction between the electric charges and the magnet, 3) interaction conditioning some types of reaction of the radioactive disintegration, 4) gravitational force. The purpose of the creation of this theory is cognition of the foundations of life on Earth and in our Universe.

Human society is yet another facet of Nature. In scientific communities the search for the unified theory for human society encounters resistance and scepticism, same as happened with Einstein’s Unified Field Theory. Nevertheless I will take a risk and suggest as such an all-sociological theory, the Theory of Co-operation. All living things come into this world when the female and male species co-operate. Man enters the struggle and co-operation with Nature, co-operating organisationally with his own kind, because he will not survive alone. Co-operating of people in their history passes through a number of stages of advance-retreat movements. At present mankind has begun to co-operate regionally and even internationally on the problems of environment, security, trade, customs, migration and currency. The next thing on the agenda is co-operating with the purpose of guaranteeing an acceptable level of existence to all mankind on the basis of the world’s wealth, uniting the national wealth of all nations. The destiny and happiness of mankind lies in the accomplishment of the Theory of Co-operation: from step to step, going up and expanding sideways!

Having come to an agreement on the main principle of organisation of the Universe, which is co-operation of all and everything, mankind will at last grow into its full identity, thus approaching social perfection – an analogue of the “internal perfection” of Mother Nature that has created it. Perhaps the greatest mission of the UN is to initiate on the basis of the latest intellectual

21 achievements the beginning of World Co-operation. That is the only solution of the problem of abolishment of the disunity of mankind in all of its components: the alienation of man from himself (direct or wage slavery), from his own like in his community (nation) and then other communities (nations, states). Every person, in mentality, in concern for the whole Planet, and all the people on it, becomes a CITIZEN OF THE WORLD, with an intellect, on the one hand strengthened by morality, and on the other, protected by all mankind, delivered from the lawlessness of “sovereign states”. (There is no need to remind that the problem of alienation (and slavery, too) is especially acute for the nuclear-armed post-Soviet societies with proletarised majority of population).

21 EPILOGUE

Hard will it be to accept my concept, especially in Russia and similar nations. As Ivanov once remarked, that although mankind is advancing towards noosphere, i.e. in the direction of increase of the rationality of behaviour, this rationality of behaviour very seldom concerns the highest members of the society. A strange violation of the balance… I think this oddity concerning state bureaucracy is explained by the fact that it is stupid by definition. Not being a real owner, but disposing of property not belonging to it, it develops an immense grabbing instinct, which overshadows the reason, impelling to “grab while it’s grabbable”, hurriedly, convulsively, while in power, which is not given forever. Its material interest emanates from the status of being a temporary ruler. It is like a guard stealing from the storehouse he is supposed to protect. The situation is strange, but explicable for the behaviour of a false subject of development, into which it turns out of necessity, as long as in Russia there is no naturally legitimate subject of development in the name of the class of owners, in which the middle class would dominate. The most reliable (the freshest!) index of intellectual weakness of the political elite of both camps was vividly demonstrated by the “parliamentary” elections of December 2007 and presidential elections of March 2008. In the first place, the army of officials did not dare (want?) to start debate with the so-called “opposition” in which two parties had been created by the Kremlin anyway, and the rest were neither here nor there. In the second, the perfidious Kremlin managed to set the “oppositionists” against each other, and they enjoyed flinging dirt at one another. So, with their abysmally low ratings, they reduced their influence to nothing during the debates. They lacked both wit and political will to understand that it was necessary to unite if they meant to overthrow the status quo. In a word, both the power and its “antagonists” are worthy of each other. The triumphant euphoria of the victors is surprising: they were voted in the office by two thirds of those who came to the election, who represented only two thirds of the electorate. Therefore, they were elected by only one third of the citizens of the country. And the remaining two thirds were either against or indifferent to the powers. It was a victory equivalent to defeat, obtained in accordance with the Russian tradition of a good lord and bad servants.

*** I want to make two confession-like statements. In the first place, I want to apologise to the reader for mixing genres in this book. I was writing as it

21 was coming to me. Although I understand that in such a serious project it is necessary to follow the strict rules of the scientific style accepted in Russian academic circles without digressing from the subject matter into “trifles” concerning everyday life, which at first glance have nothing to do with the proposed problem. And that’s exactly what I did in the version intended for the UN (“A Citizen’s Non-Communist Manifesto”). But when writing this book (initially intended for my Web-site only), I have felt that these “trifles” are an inalienable part of my life, so I made an executive decision (with doubts, I have to admit) to leave them be. Life is kaleidoscopic: all that is happening in it is mixed and simultaneous (in parallel and separately). In one word, it is chaos. But chaos creates order. Not the totalitarian order, the dead calm of a cemetery. Life consists of chaos, in which there is everything: work, laughter, tears, sorrows and joys, grief and happiness. Nothing should be alien or “improper” in literature, no matter whether it is political, scientific or fiction, the same as it is in an ordinary man (although in accordance with the accepted conventionalities it should not be lowered to obscenities, such as pornography).

As an example I would again mention “Ideals and Idols”, the recent work by G. Vodolazov, concerning Socrates. Unfortunately, it so happened that I read it after finishing the first version of this book. I was happy to discover in it a description of Socrates’ method of proofs: arriving at the truth by “lingering”, jumping from one question to another, because, apparently, the way of reason is trickish and thorny. So similar to mine! Cognition is a process; it can never be definite and straightforward. The method of Socrates is the most productive and attractive for the reader. I also like Victor Erofeev’s method of writing. He tells in one of his stories about his experience of travelling with his friend the same way as Pushkin had once travelled from Moscow to St. Petersburg. Having reached some small town (not far from Moscow), they went into a toilet. What did they see there? The partition between the ladies’ and men’s parts was not fixed normally – from the floor to the ceiling, but vice versa, hanging from the ceiling and not reaching the level where it ought to be, not covering what needed to be covered. So the two friends gave up the idea of continuing their travels and returned to Moscow, where the partitions are made as they ought to be made. Some can say, well, why write about shameful things? But we must, friends, we must. If we do not write about shameful things in Russia, what shall we write about? Then Russia will live to the day when it will be headed by the likes of Zhirinovsky, who are at present active only as third- rate leaders of poor masses

21 In the second, do I believe that my concept will ever be carried out somewhere? Were the President a democrat, he would himself suggest such a reform, continuing the denationalising of the economy, which would be undoubtedly cheered by the people, and none of the organs of power would be able to oppose. Thus, the “from the top” variant of urgent and deepest revolutionary transformations could be accomplished. But it is necessary to have not a “democrat-populist” at the head of the state, but a democrat that could be supported by the people at the decisive moments. So far there isn’t such a leader in sight. The “from the bottom” variant is also possible: the masses will compel the administration to start on the way of people’s privatisation.

I said earlier that the realisation of the concept in Russia is doubtful. There is no initiative to begin the transformation of the world with this country, which, interestingly enough, would have proceeded directly from Russian messianic ideology. It will not happen without change of the regime. (Worse than that: the course for the revival of the “cold war” set today by the ruling bureaucracy, for the development of its military-industrial complex, into which billions are thrown, the money so necessary for the people who can hardly make ends meet and many of them simply starve and some are on the verge of degeneration, directly speak of the opposite). It would be a sin not to remember Lenin’s decision to reduce the army by 90% immediately after the end of the Civil War and foreign military intervention, and that in the time wnen Russia was surrounded by capitalist nations, which did not accept Soviet Russia! What, are we being threatened with a war now? It looks like we are ready to threaten someone, first of all, our neighbours. If the US power weakens or its isolation policy prevails, which is very likely in connection with their ill-advised actions in Iraq, our power will necessarily make a forceful attempt to restore the old empire in this or that form. The ruling bureaucracy had better put up with the idea that mankind has irreversibly entered a new phase of its development, in which it will never tolerate any disgraceful acts committed by anti-human regimes. The evidence of it is the fate of the communo-fascist Yugoslavia of Milosevic and the Arab-fascist Iraq of Saddam Hussein. There is no sense in hoping to restore the glory with the thermonuclear shield, for we already know that there are other methods of solution of the panhuman problems. They include the time-tested method of struggle against the world communo-fascist socialist camp. It is applied by the West and is the most victorious one – the development of democracy in their own countries coupled with material well-being of the people. It was a method

21 beyond the understanding of the Russian ruling bureaucracy, who are raking it in together with a pack of rich criminal monopolists in cahoots with them, whereas the majority of the working people are living in poverty. And as far as playing with weapons of mass destruction, well, it is a double-edged sword.

The answer to the question stated above has a continuation, because the concept is ultimately intended to be carried out on a global scale. And I am absolutely sure that mankind will be compelled to change the world order so as to avoid the inevitable disaster, if not in full accordance with my concept, then at least in accordance with the main part thereof. Western Europe (EU) is already on the way to accomplishing it, although not through the co-ownership of citizens in the national wealth of its states. The latter is more acceptable for developing and poor nations, for now it is practically impossible to attain general well-being by classical methods lasting 200–300 years. That ship has sailed. The pauperised people have no time to tolerate the centuries-old poverty and environmental lawlessness. The inter-state contradictions grow day by day, and mankind is on the way to all kinds of endless terror. Life will not be sweet for the “golden billion”: the first harbingers of that are the tragic consequences of the antagonism between the poor and rich nations, between the castaways and the well-to-do, going on in Europe and America according to the rule in which the end is justified by any means. It will continue by the split of human souls on a mass scale, the symptoms of which, I think, are already present. We are advancing to a “war of all against all”!

It all reminds me of the episode from “The Dead Souls” by Gogol, where two men sitting under the windows of a small house discuss the departure of Chichikov from the town where the author placed him for the purchase of dead souls. One of them said, that the carriage would not go as far as Kazan with such feeble wheels, but the other man disputed it. I personally think that neither Chichikov, nor any reforms will get to where they need to be, no matter how necessary, good and useful to the people they are. They will only end in failure, as they always have. And not because the carriage is no good, for it can be fixed and upgraded, but because such people as Chichikov, Tyapkin- Lyapkin, Basmanny and Khlestakov are sitting inside, and thousands of corrupt officials with them; and even if all those dishonest people are imprisoned, it will not help the situation. Their seat would immediately be taken by those who are no worse in the art of thieving. Without a change of the bureaucratic code of development and without destroying the centuries-old bureaucratic system of the State it is impossible to save Russia from collapse.

21 There are no internal forces for the solution of this problem in this country today. Any attempts to find them with the present opposition are doomed to failure. There is a bureaucratic force. It is destructive. Its disastrous danger lies in the fact that it is unaware of it, it is filled to the brim with good intentions, leading us all straight to hell. (It would be interesting to know what they were thinking about when they accepted this bandy-legged serviceable foolish beast as the brand for the “United Russia” party. You need to know that in Russian there is an expression “to grant somebody a bear’s favor” meaning to make the situation worse than it was while trying to correct it).

And yet, and yet… In the title of this book the term “messiah” is in commas and with a question mark. By this I want to say that the term “messiah” is used not in the generally accepted meaning of “being heaven-sent to save mankind”, but to emphasize the significance of Russia, its role in History. It is impossible not to notice that Russia is too large geographically: even after its disintegration it occupies one seventh of the land of the Planet. And there are quite a lot of people in it, very different in racial, national and social parameters, and destinies that without exaggerating can be characterised as dooms. Having survived the worst forms of monarchy with the cruel monsters Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, and then even more perverted “tsar”, the self-proclaimed “father of the nations” Stalin, having gone through endless inter-state and civil, big and small wars, three revolutions during the first 13 years of the 20th century, with its people almost completely deprived of any property, having collapsed twice, at the end of the 20th century Russia entered the period of an uncertain existence under the flag of “perestroika”, sometimes called “revolution”, which was in fact a change of the clans in power. The successors proceeded to rob the state and the people on the way to “wild capitalism”. The first two stages of existence were feudal-monarchist and Soviet communo-fascist. The present regime, generated by the inheritors of Soviet-Communist bureaucracy and therefore combining in itself the previous Soviet-bureaucratic elements and the elements of the epoch of primary accumulation of capital that immediately became criminal-monopolist, cannot be an independent stage of development. Such a system can only be formed as a consequence of a social upheaval carried out by a new class of owners that has grown within the previous society, impossible in the USSR by definition. And the external circumstances will be of no help to the Serbian, Iranian, North Korean and Latin American followers of Stalinism to turn history back to a new world war – it is not destined to come true. Because the limit for world wars is exhausted (“God loves the Trinity”): the first two were “hot”, the third one is cold, and it is still going on,

21 but it is coming to an end, in spite of those who want to take revenge. So, it will not last long. The present transitional stage of the existence of Russia will end either in its final disintegration or (if the new class of owners manages to reach the “critical mass”, which is not very likely to happen!) in the transition to the third, conclusively-eternal (in the foreseeable future) stage, in which the society will be turned into people’s capitalist society. It is hard to say which variant is more preferable to history: the first one is “stronger”, because, unfortunately, the strength lies with the State; the second variant would be better for the people, just as it would have been better if the USSR had not disintegrated. But this variant in our conditions is something of a “dream of an idiot” than real prognosis. I’d like very much to be mistaken! Why? Because the future of the Russian people, no matter whether they are a subject of history or not, fully depends on them ceasing to be a lowly unthinking mass for which there is no difference between normal and abnormal social systems and who do not understand that they should be fed not from the hands of bureaucracy, but by their own property, which they ought to have by all means. The mentality of a dependant, slave, serf, formed by the centuries-old lack of property, may only be changed by the method of desperate times calling for desperate measures, i.e. by ownership, by property given to each person. There is no other way!

Until today Russia has played a “negative” messianic role of sorts, showing mankind how it should not live. Especially great was the part of Russia in discrediting the Communist utopia by its own tragic experience: Russia revealed its fascist essence, being the result of the disintegration of society, result of the world wars of nations, and the proof of its inability in the struggle against liberal-democratic capitalism. Thus mankind was saved from the new attempts of its realisation on the world scale. Wasn’t this the essence of the beliefs of Chaadaev? It was Pyotr Yakovlevich CHAADAEV, a real Russian philosopher, unsurpassed maybe to this day, that said about two centuries ago that we lived and are still living now for the sole purpose of teaching some great lesson to the remote descendants, who will understand it. Transforming itself into a state of “people’s capitalism”, Russia can become a model for imitation for the whole world. This, I think, is the positive messianic role of Russia.

Otherwise, a deadlock is awaiting us, the logical conclusion of which will be SELF-DESTRUCTION. Russia is in an unnatural situation, no matter from which side you approach. Beginning from the Crimean war of the

22 19th century, all the 20th century up to now the people have been busy just surviving. They cannot organise themselves for struggle, and there is nobody to organise them, and there is nobody to be organised. The main reason of the impotency of the opposition is the fact that there is no self- organising social structure in the society capable of supporting it materially and physically. Our opposition in its organisational essence is only “intellectual”, not operative. With the absence of civil society it is in a latent, suspended condition, it's easy to harm and it's harmless itself. As regards the State, it has all kinds of special forces: Special Police Forces, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and many other artificially born organisations of the “ours–yours” type, created specifically to exert violence over the society. All that in the hands of the State, the “pseudo-subject of development” that pushes the country further on the road to self-destruction. It will be the third time now the February-October (1917) revolution and pseudo-reforms of perestroika (the 90th of the 20th – beginning of the 21st century); but it is going to be for the last time! If that's any consolation...

But, and once again “but”… Because, should we really be comforted and consoled?! I mean, are we to put up with the negative process going on within the State? Because, while the State thieves who have it made abroad, with their double citizenships and bank accounts, we, the absolute majority will have to live in THIS country! In Ch. 2 there was a suggestion to the society, to the opposition elite to try to get in close touch and come to an agreement (compromise) with the “best people” of the State with the purpose of “turning” the country to progress, i.e. democracy. This task is very difficult to accomplish, if it can be accomplished at all: the opposition is required to do some very “delicate” work among the progressive representatives of the State bureaucracy, and, which is the main thing, to have intellectual supremacy, advancement of ingenious ideas and projects of re-construction of the society to the public arena, ideas that can be understood by common people on the one hand, and on the other – bringing about an immediate (positive) change of their social status, changing them from the present wage-slaves (or businessmen living in constant fear of officials) into subjects of development, masters of their own country, THE FATHERLAND. (Let us recall the eve of October Revolution, when Lenin overthrew the Provisional Government with one blow, issuing the Decree on Land and the Decree on Peace). Such an idea would not leave the “best” part of bureaucracy indifferent. That is the only

22 way by which we can achieve the involvement of the masses (now the opposition is, by the way, practically alienated from them) in the liberation movement, which should be the main purpose of the opposition's strategy and tactics. But today its rating, as well as the rating of the legislative and executive powers is tiny, the masses do not accept either of them. At the same time the rating of the chief executive (“good landlord”) is through the roof. His “goodness” only consists in smiling during TV sessions with the “people”, in a touch of slang in his speech, in the approval of xenophobia in part of the population and dependent psychology of the masses by miserable additions to their wages, pensions, allowances, supplying some with running water, and other such “people–loving” mimicries. Both the opposition and the performers of the will of the chief executive are in their mass disrespected, and the author of all the hideousness made by his executors is a “fairy godfather”. It would be wrong to explain it only by the centuries-old “tsarist” psychology. He speaks to the masses in their language, and the opposition speaks in its own, which is alien to the mind and heart of the people; it is directed, at best, to a “perfection” of what can never be perfected in principle, to mending the holes in the bureaucratic system, which is done more or less successfully by the power itself, or to the return to the past stage from which we have just come out. The latter is widely practised by the two parties – twins both by their origin and their obsoleteness. It seems to be out of the question for our oppositionists to come to an agreement with each other, or with anyone else.

Unfortunately, the total intellectual poverty of the society has left its impession on the cadres of the opposition: there is not a single member in its ranks who is capable of giving the society an idea which would be widely supported by the masses. Stalin made a good job of choosing his elite cadres: anyone, who turned out to be an inch higher than his standard, immediately disappeared forever. As for the survivors, well, the proper gene cannot be detected among them so far. That may be the reason why, compared to the leaders of the opposition, a lieutenant-colonel looking for spies among Communists in one part of our GULAG seems to be a genius. I do not know who it was, but it was certainly one of such men who played a dirty trick on the Soviet Union, recruiting the assistant of the Chancellor of FRG (I do not remember exactly the name of the Chancellor, who favoured our country. Maybe Willy Brandt, but I am not sure). In a word, there are two troubles in Russia, both beginning with the letter “f”. Fools. And more fools.

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Yes, it is a difficult task, but what other option do we have? It is necessary to do something, to do what we must and let the rest take care of itself. Right now Russia is doomed. The psychological health of the people of high thinking and morality is similar to the formula by A. Tvardovsky, in which he reasons that neither he nor many other citizens of the country are to blame for the death of many of our soldiers on the battlefields of the World War II. “And still, and still”: yes, they are not to blame, but they remained alive, and those were killed in the battles to let the living live. The despair of the poet’s sorrow lies in this. Not that somebody is to blame, and not even because those who remained alive will ever be disconsolate, but also because they did not manage (although they simply were not able) to prevent the death of those who fell on the battlefield. The same is with us, citizens of Russia; we are naturally not to blame for the impending disaster, the state bureaucracy is to blame for it. Of course, we are not to blame for the situation, for example, when the countries and nations which are supposed to prosper and have all the necessary things for that, lead a wretched existence through the fault of their rulers and some Castro-like statesmen. But man, by his nature, carries the whole world on his shoulders and feels responsibility for everything, irrespective of where he lives and what he does for his living and who rules his society. This is still an ideal, and not everybody is aware of it because of people’s alienation. But when there is less alienation, the Earth will be ever fruitful, and so will be the people, unlike today, when we spread stink, pollute our planet with cannibalism, inherent in all its strength solely to a two-legged beast called man. Then, the WORLD will have peace eternal. It will be so as a result of the social globalisation of mankind, which will put an end to the disunity of the nations, and, I daresay, it will start the general abolishment of the alienation of the people from one another both on the mass and on the personal level.

Montreal-Moscow October 2006-March 2008.

22 BIBLIOGRAPHY (M. – Moscow, SPb - Saint-Petersburg)

Afanasiev Yu.N. Opasnaya Rossiya. Traditsii samovlast'ya segodnya. M., 2001 Alekseeva A. Novaya volna bogatstva. Ekspert. January 14-20. № 2 (591) Arutyunov A.A. Lenin. Lichnostnaya i politicheskaya biografiya. T. 1. M., 2002 Bakunin M.A. Polnoe sobranie sochineniy. V.2, SPb, 1907 Batkin L.M. Ne mechtayte o sebe. O kul'turno-istoricheskom smysle "Ya" v "Ispovedi" bl. Avgustina. M.: RGGU. 1993 Belotserkovsky V. Vozmozhno li sozdaniye novikh razvityh kapitalisticheskikh gosudarstv. Nezavisimaya gazeta. July 28, 1999 Berdyaev. N. Sud’ba Rossii. M., 1998 Bransky V.P. Teoreticheskiye osnovaniya sotsialnoy sinergetiki. Peter- burgskaya sotsiologiya. № 1, 1997 Burganov A. Kniga, zadumannaya kak “Nekommunisticheskiy Manifest grazh- danina mira” ili “mechta idiota”. M., 2007 Burganov A. Filosofiya I sotsiologiya sobstvennosti: russkiye i tatarskiye re- alii. M., 2004. Burganov A. Otkuda i kuda idyosh, Rossiya. M., 1996. Burganov A. Neponyatniy Lenin (Rossiyskiy opyt “narodnogo kapitalizma”). Rossiya i sovremenniy mir. . № 1 (54), 2007 Burganov A. Tovarisch po partii. Sovetskaya Rossiya. February 27, 1985. Burganov A. Oktyabrskaya revolutsiya i melkoburzhuazniye partii (mart- noyabr’ 1917 goda). Dissertation. Kazan, 1966 Burtin U. Ispoved’ shestidesyatnika. M., 2003 Bukharaev V. Tyazhkoe bremya pobedy. O yavlenii po imeni Agdas Husainovich Burganov. Kazan’. 2005. Camus A. Buntuyuschiy chelovek. M. 1990 Chaadaev P.Ya. Sochineniya. M., 1989 Chornaya kniga kommunizma, M. Churchill W.S. The Aftermath: The World Crisis, 1918–1928. N.Y., 1929 Davydov A. Poverit’ Lermontovu. Lichnost’ i sotsial’naya patologiya v Rossii. ХIХ–ХХ–ХХI vv. M., Almaty, 2006 Erofeev V. Entsyklopediya russkoy dushy. Roman s entsiklopediey. M., 2002 Gaidar E. Gosudarstvo i revolyutsiya. Kak otdelit’ sobstvennost’ ot vlasti i povysit’ blagosostoyaniye rossiyan. M., 1995. Gaman-Golutvina O. Politika I moral’: uroki perestroyki. Perestroika. Dvadtsat’ let spustya. M., 2005 Gertzen A.I. Sobranie sochineniy. V. 6, 12

22 Goethe. Faust. SPb., 2005. Gvishiani D.M. (ed.) Rimskiy klub, Istoriya sozdaniya: Izbrannye doklady I vystupleniya; ofitsialnye materialy. 1997 Hegel. Lektsii po istorii filosofii. SPb, 1994 Ibatullin I.A. Mysli vracha po povodu… Kazan, 2006 Ivanov V.V. Nauka o cheloveke. Vvedeniye v sovremennuyu antropologiyu. Kurs lektsiy. M., 2004. Inozemtsev V. Natsional’niy pozor. Monde diplomatique. Russkoye izdaniye. M., October 2006. Khandruyev A. Interviu pervogo vitse-prezidenta Assotsiatsii regional’nykh bankov RF. Rossiyskaya Gazeta, July 27, 2007, № 161 Klyamkin I. Kontinent. № 1, 2007. Klyamkin I. (ed.) Rossiyskoye gosudarstvo: vchera, segodnya, zavtra. M., 2007 Korolenko V.G. v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov. M., 1962 Kryuchkov V. Khochu vsyo poznat’. Albert Eynshteyn pochti tridtsat’ let svoey zhizni posvyatil sozdaniyu teorii vsego. Itogi, December 17, 2007 №51 (601) Kustarev A. Kem i kak upravlyaetsya mir. Pro et contra. November – December, 2007 №6 (39) Lakshin V. Ya. Roman M. Bulgakova “Master i Margarita” M., 1989 Lenin V.I. Polnoe sobranie sochineniy. V. 2; 29; 36; 44; 45; 54 Marx K., Engels F. Sochineniya. V. 4; 18; 20; 23; 36; 42 Merezhkovskiy D. Tayna russkoy revolyutsii. M., 1998 Mukhametdinov R.F. Ideyno-politicheskiye techeniya v postsovetskom Tatarstane (1991–2006). Sopostavleniye s opytom Turtsii. Kazan’ 2006 Nalimov V.V. Kanatokhodets. M., 1994 Novgorodtsev P. Ob obshestvennom ideale. Kiev, 1919 Parshev A. Pochemy Rossiya ne Amerika? M., 1999 Ortega y Gasset. Vosstanie mass. NY, 1954 Osokin N. A. Velikaya tayna Velikoy Otechestvennoy. M., 2007 Riefenstal L. Memuary. M., 2006 Rawls John. Teoriya spravedlivosti. Novosibirsk. 1995 “Rukhnama” Kn. 1-2. Ashkhabat, 2006 Safin R.G. Tatar yuly. Kazan, 2002 Sogomonov A. U. Genealogiya uspekha i neudach. M., 2005 Sokolov E. Pamyat’ ego iz roda v rod. Mesto vstrechi – Ezhenedel’naya gazeta. Nasha gazeta. October 6, 2006. 39 (366). (Montreal, Canada. “Moskovskiy komsomolets”) Solzhenitsyn A.I. Na vozvrate dykhaniya. Izbrannaya publitsystika. M., 2004 Solzhenitsyn A.I. Publitsystika. Stat’i i rechi. Vermont; Parizh, 1989

22 Surkov V. Natsyonalizatsiya budushego. Paragrafy pro suverennuyu demokratiyu. Ekspert. November 20-26, 2006. №43 (537) Ulitskaya L. Daniel Stein, perevodchik. M., 2007 Utkin A. Kanon i chelovek. Nezavisimaya gazeta. July 29, 1998 Villepin Dominique, de. Sto dney ili dukh samopozhertvovaniya. M., 2003. (Quoted from: Mekhanik A. Mechta o Frantsii boleye velikoy, chem frantsuzy. Politiki ostayutsya v istorii, kogda oni splavlyayut svoyu sud’bu s sud’boy natsii. Ekspert. January 26-February 1, 2004. №3 (404) Vodolazov G.G. Idealy I idoly. Moral’ I politika: istoriya, teoriya, lichniye sud’by. M., 2006 Yakovlev A. Sumerki. M., 2003 Jaspers K. Smysl i naznacheniye istorii. M., 1994

22 INDEX

Afanasiev Yu.N...... Bakunin M.A...... Berdyaev N.A...... Burtin U.G...... Bukharaev V.M...... Camus A...... Chaadaev P.Ya...... Churchill W.S...... Eistein A...... Erofeev V.V...... Fukuyama F...... Gaidar E.T...... Galiev M.B...... Gertzen A.I...... Goethe J...... Hegel G...... Inozemtsev V.L...... Ivanov V.V...... Klyamkin I.M...... Konstantinov K.K...... Korolenko V.G...... Lenin V.I...... Marx K., Engels F...... Niyazov S.A...... Ortega y Gasset ...... Osokin N. A...... Safin R.G...... Sogomonov A. U...... Solzhenitsyn A.I...... Surkov V.Yu...... Ulitskaya L.E...... Villepin Dominique, de ...... Vodolazov G.G...... Yakovlev A.N...... Jaspers K......

22 4 страница обложки – ПОРТРЕТ АВТОРА

Био данные:

Dr. Agdas Husainovich Burganov was born in 1920, in Tatarstan. He participated in World War II (he is a lieutenant-colonel in retirement). Full professor at the Russian State University for the Humanities (Moscow), an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of Tatarstan, a member of the Academy for Political Sciences (Moscow). His fundamental work “The October Revolution and the parties of Mensheviks and Social-Democrats” was written in 1963 and published only in 1990. Dr. Burganov has authored more than 350 books and articles, among them “The increase of material well-being of peasants as the main condition for the strengthening of the peasant-worker union” (1958), “Where from and where to, Russia?” (1996), “Philosophy and sociology of ownership: Russian and Tatar realities” (2004, 4th edition), “Who is to blame?”, “What to do?”, “Who should be doing it?” (2005) and others. Dr. Burganov has suggested a concept of a civic society “Cooperation of Individuals” represented by citizens/owners with private shares in national wealth.

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