Ideology of the nomenclature. English version

                IDEOLOGY OF THE NOMENCLATURE
                (“Moskovskaya Pravda” 12/19/1990)


       Thinking, that and now this article is quite actual …

       "Allergy to Marxism now manifests itself in people in different ways. Some of them "cannot compromise" his "principles", others completely reject it, considering communism as the stirrer of crisis. So the declaration of Russian Democratic Party says: "The causes of catastrophic situation in society are the monopoly of communist ideology and practice of systematic destruction of tens of millions of the best people, systematic suppression of people’s economic and political freedom." Thus, it turns out that Marxism is identified with the administrative system, totalitarianism, with the ideology of the nomenclature.

       Marxism, however, has never been the ideology of the nomenclature. Its ideology was deep dogmatism canonized by many communist party congresses. To call this ideology as Marxism was a monstrous lie to the Communists and everyone who have joined their movement.

       We knew about the existence of only two classes in our country, workers and peasants, from the school bench, their union is fixed by famous symbol of hammer and sickle on the coat of arms and state flag of the USSR.  Intelligentsia had been considered as "layer", like jam, adds taste and flavor to the social pie which social scientists fed schoolchildren and students. But dogmatic social scientists were silent about the nomenclature as the social group which actually forms the ruling mechanism of society. This silence has led to the fact that not only people, but also their best representatives still do not consider that  nomenclature  was  the  really class  having  ruled soviet society  for 70 years.
      
       The ruling elite lived happily under a cover of ideological dogmas, bringing closer representatives of the nomenclature's lower stratums, or distancing from them, keeping them in constant dependence. The party-state elite, despite some easily suppressed objections of the part of soviet intelligentsia, was managed inspire to people a number of provisions of Marxist theory, which eventually became considered unshakable.

       Every kid joining school children's pioneer organization was taught that everything social is above personal; everyone joining the Communist youth union (Komsomol)  was reminded that the decisions of the higher Komsomol bodies are absolutely mandatory for the lower ones; everyone joining the Communist Party of Soviet Union ( CPSU)  - new that only it is the "guiding and leading force" of the society. As a result, soviet people, called  by the oligarchy as "multitude", since childhood have been susceptible  to some dogmas,  not only those listed above, but also to any other dogmas and propaganda tall tales, for example, that the human rights problem do not exist in the USSR, or that the national question in their country has already been resolved. Thereby, one dogma after another was canonized by the party-state oligarchy on behalf of the ignorant "multitudes".

       Replacing Marxism with bureaucratic dogmatism was beneficial to the nomenclatural oligarchy. In fact, why propagandize, why analyze the   classics' definition given by them in the "Holy family" that "history is nothing more than activity of a person pursuing his goals"?  It's better to look at the history from the class standpoint, and if you object, you are declassed element, dissident, in a word, an apostate.  Building its ideological colossus on clay feet, the nomenclatural oligarchy observed practically only its own interests and interests of its close associates, hiding behind the class dictatorship. In fact, the entire dictatorship was carried out by apparatus of the CPSU Central Committee.  Were people given freedom in their activities? Were they free to achieve their goals? On the contrary, they were dependent everywhere: at work - on the madcap boss, at home – on the local registration and utility services, in the shop - on the availability of money and deficit.

       Why instill workers that, according to Marx, their goal should be "liquidation of classes in general and their own domination as a class"?  It's better to cover themselves by this fictional domination to assert own power. This forgery will go down in history as one of its most ugly pages. It should be taught to workers, and indeed to whole society, that only proletariat carries out the world-historical mission of liberation, and it must be done certainly in fierce struggle, because of the antagonistic contradictions between proletariat and bourgeoisie. But Soviet workers had nothing to do with Western capitalists, but the Western workers began to enter into co-ownership of the means of production with capitalists, and to defend their class interests through negotiations and stopped dreaming of their own dictatorship.

       From decade to decade we were told that communism is the highest phase of the society development. But in fact, all this turned out to be ideological chatter. Marx and Engels had written: "Communism for us is not a status that must be established, not an ideal with which reality must conform. We name as the communism the real movement that destroys   present status."  But there was no movement of thought in the speeches and articles of our recent times political figures. Instead, long-outdated and invented truths were repeated again and again, reform attempts were choked, encountering to inertia of thinking, red tape, nomenclature’s unwillingness to change anything.

       However, the "real movement" that Marx wrote about, it seems, becomes reality now. I think  that not only representatives of the nomenclature, but also the current rejecters of Marxism from the supporters of democracy  today would give a lot  to remain this  doctrine  untouched in the form in which it was planted  to  people for tens years.  For some, it's an attempt to take revenge, for others - almost a basis for political aspirations. Criticize the nomenclature, democratic friends, but not for adherence to Marxism, but for systematic forgery based on the sincere errors of revolutionary politicians, on the ideological ignorance of people longed for better life.

       Representing proletariat as the bourgeoisie's "gravedigger",   Marx and Engels were not mistaken.  Their conclusion was preceded by actual patterns of historical development: "Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another,"- it's written in the Manifesto of the Communist Party. But along with this, Marx wrote: "Having won,  proletariat in no way becomes the absolute side of society, for it wins only by abolishing itself and its opposite."

       And let us see now what a definition soviet nomenclature came up with for working class in the Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1981 edition. "Through the socialist revolution," it says, "working class, together with other stratums of working people, overthrows domination of bourgeoisie and establishes its power, liquidates capitalist ownership of the means of production, all exploitation forms of man by man, turns into the ruling class, and its vanguard, Communist Party - into the ruling party, under which leadership a socialist society is being built". This, to put it mildly, free interpretation by Soviet nomenclature the actual role of working class in the embodiment of communist idea essentially inverted the whole that idea.

       Soviet nomenclature   justified a lot in its ideology by dictatorship of proletariat. It also covered crimes of Stalinism. However, it should be borne in mind that according to Marx, proletariat dictatorship should have been just a brief episode in it tactics to retain power. "Between capitalist and socialist society,"- he wrote in «Gotha Program Critique", - "lies period of revolutionary transformation of the former into the latter. This also corresponds to the political transition period, and the state of this period cannot be anything other than revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat."

       Having belittled the genuine humanism of Marx's theory, having elevated dictatorship to absolute for covering up its own lawlessnesses, soviet nomenclature has achieved that many people today unreasonably reject communism as a "hoax". That's right: we don't need mystified communism. We need a communism in the era of which, instead of capitalist society bureaucratic institutions, humans will not invent new bureaucratic institutions, but will maximize their freedoms, overcoming their alienation from the property.

       After October Revolution of 1917, all ownership of the means of production was transferred not to proletariat, but to nomenclature bureaucracy and declared as the state property. Soviet ruling elite was bossed it. Has there been a "communist regulation of manufacture” in our country for 70 years, eliminating the alienation with which people concern to their product," as Marx and Engels wrote? Or this regulation is being carried out now by the creation of artificial bread and tobacco shortages?

       Instead of deep analysis of its attitude to the property, critical perception of the reality, Soviet nomenclature invented another ideological bogey of the "private property", declaring that "emergence and development of the private property had led to the society split into antagonistic classes and emergence of the state exploitation of man by man". (Encyclopedic Dictionary, 1981 edition). But, tell me, what is a difference between form of the property owned by private persons and the actual property of nomenclature oligarchy? Their basis is one - exploitation. And if "private persons" still take care of their hired workers, individualizing the forms of labor use (part-time, renting, working at home, differentiation of pay according to abilities, emphasis on forms of self-sufficiency), then the ruling oligarchy, taking care exclusively of itself, did  not focus its attention on these issues.

       By suppressing economic freedoms, Soviet oligarchy has prepared the same fate for democracy, drowning it in blood of repressions. Having won power in Russia, Bolsheviks, I think, made a big mistake by suppressing democratic freedoms, not restoring them in a short time after Russian crisis of 1917-1920 . We still feel consequences of this mistake today in the absence of an elementary political culture among people, on which some of our new politicians make their careers.

       In order not to repeat mistakes of the past, it seems that communist’s activity today should be dictated not by ideological dogmas and fictions, but by the specific political situation. Communists have already proved that they could not step alone into "Kingdom of freedom". They obviously have to solve this task in the bloc of center-left forces, without belittling other worldviews and political trends, if their activity exclude violence and are aimed to the development of Human and Civilization".   


        With a hope that modern post-Soviet society will successfully overcome today's crisis to go forward with its development.

        Author

        09/05/2023.  Moscow