One of the consequences of the seventy-year existence on the territory of historical Russia of an extremely ideologized Soviet state is that, that a significant part of our society is nostalgic for "guiding and guiding". If only the left had this nostalgia, you could ignore her. The left is always extremely ideologized, this can be seen, looking at the "new left" movements in Europe and the USA (like BLM), who manage to impose a mandatory state ideology de facto even there, where it is prohibited de jure.
Fortunately, in Russian society, with a generally positive attitude towards the idea of justice and sociality, leftist ideas do not work in politics. Russians are not attracted by either the return to the USSR, nor the idea of rainbow tolerance and "positive discrimination", characteristic of the "new left" movements. There are significantly more Russian citizens, who wants to live richly, than those, who seeks to make his neighbor poor (to not stand out).
Yet not only the gradually marginalized communists (the crisis of the communist movement is obvious if only because, that in Russia there are more than half a dozen different communist parties and new groups are constantly appearing, trying to organize their "correct" Marxist party) and not only pseudo-socialists (there is simply no real strong social democratic party in Russia), but also monarchists, liberals, conservatives, followers of the ideas of Christian sociality and others, with ill-concealed sadness, talk about, that "we have no ideology".
At the same time, the very fact that they have certain political convictions indicates that, what ideology do we have. Furthermore, we have a normal healthy society, in which different ideological currents fight on equal terms for the support of the voter, learning from each other in this struggle for the minds and hearts of people. In fact, nostalgic people quietly yearn for the obligatory state ideology, that is, about the ban on alternative ideas. And every nostalgic for some reason is sure, that the whole society will accept precisely his views as the only correct, and the rights of the remaining "handful of renegades" and "enemies of the people" can be neglected.
In fact, this approach is harmful to society as well., and ideology itself. We know this from our own experience.. In order to introduce the ideology of Lenin's modernized Marxism (to put it mildly, seriously different from the classical teachings of Marx), it took a bloody civil war and several decades of repression against true and imaginary "ideological enemies". Nevertheless, the USSR collapsed because, that most of its population opposed ideological unification. "Party, let me steer!"Was one of the most widespread slogans of the perestroika era, and the abolition of the 6th article of the constitution on the "leading and guiding role of the CPSU" is one of the most fundamental demands of not some individual "reformers", and the broadest masses. the, that the then Soviet leadership did not cope with the situation and could not organize a smooth transition from a mono-ideological system to a polyideological, does not cancel the just contempt of the Soviet people for the late Soviet ideologically impotent ideological regime.
The thing is, what, being in a monopoly position (the only state), ideology instantly degenerates. Is there someone, who can name the works of Soviet leaders, seriously developed the ideas of Marx? The ideas of Lenin and Trotsky about the possibility of building communism in a single country and about the ability of society to jump over the formation are refuted by the history of the state they created.. Stalin, on the other hand, did not act as an ideologist in his works., but as a practicing politician.
In this respect, Stalin's theoretical legacy comes closest to Lenin's works of the period 1917-1922., when Lenin acted as a political strategist, orchestrated the revolution, and then, contrary to reality, created post-revolutionary statehood. Stalin ensured survival of this statehood in conditions that were not conducive to this external and internal conditions.. properly, ultimate sacrifice, wastefulness, resource super-cost of the Stalinist regime is explained by, that attempts to preserve post-revolutionary statehood in conditions that denied it required an excessive expenditure of resources.
Therefore, not only Brezhnev could not survive, but also Stalinist socialism: excessive consumption led to inevitable depletion of the resource (primarily human), which ultimately destroyed the resource base of statehood. by the way, in states, trying to maintain the same Soviet ideologized approach (Ukraine and Belarus), we see the same process, only going faster due to external interference and negative personnel selection, ensured the inadequacy of the ruling elite to the tasks facing the state.
However, Firstly, even outstripping the degradation of Soviet statehood even before the exhaustion of its resource base, it was the ideological sector that degraded. Degraded precisely because, that in a monopoly he had no one to compete with, and in such cases ideology degenerates into scholasticism almost instantly.
A whole series of Leninist and Stalinist provisions, dedicated to the conquest and retention of power, actually anticipates Gene Sharp's "revolutionary techniques". The latter extremely simplified and vulgarized the political technological legacy of Lenin and Stalin. (in turn vulgarized Machiavelli), who really proved, what if the price of the issue does not interest you, then you can organize a coup, lacking internal prerequisites, and preserve post-coup statehood for quite a long time, until the internal resource is exhausted.
Well, after Stalin, the best works of Soviet "classics of Marxism" were Brezhnev's "Small Land", "Renaissance" and "Virgin lands" - books, interesting as a memoir of a statesman, written in good literary language, but have nothing to do with Marxist theory. And it was not Brezhnev who wrote them..
Paradox, but in the ideologized state itself, ideology has died, turned into a scholastic set of unquestionable postulates. Marxism in the USSR ceased to be "living creativity of the masses", becoming a monument to myself.
But maybe, just something went wrong in the USSR, and in other cases, ideologized states thrive? Well, we have the opportunity to compare. Of the three Slavic republics of the former USSR, Ukraine is the most ideologized.. The power there belongs to the nationalists, and de facto nationalist ideology is mandatory. It is being introduced into fragile minds from school., it is mandatory for the media. Attempts to oppose the most absurd nationalist postulates can lead a daredevil to prison or to the grave.. So what, Ukraine is flourishing? No, we see crowds of duped people, gladly allowing themselves to be robbed by "ideologically impeccable" leaders.
The next most ideological Belarus. Lukashenka also flirted with nationalists before the August events of last year, while presenting himself officially as almost the only "keeper of Soviet ideals" (besides, that from the BSSR he had only the colors of the flag and the shape of the coat of arms). In fact, the dominant ideology in Belarus can be described as post-Soviet paternalism, justifying Lukashenka's unlimited personal power.
Belarus looks much better than Ukraine, since Lukashenka is a prudent owner and spends the national resource more economically. Nevertheless, in terms of economic, in terms of the political, Belarus cannot exist without the support of Russia. The Belarusian model requires a constant influx of external resources, issued in the form of soft loans, preferential prices for raw materials or preferential access to markets. The ideologized economy of Belarus cannot compete on a common basis.
The rapidly dying out Balts and Moldovans have a "national ideology", who were able to leave the first place in poverty in Europe due to the fact, that ideologized Ukraine rushed into it. Georgia and Armenia are ideological, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Even in Kazakhstan, local nationalist ideology is informally flourishing, although forced to sacrifice economic interests (why Kazakhstan is the most successful post-Soviet state after Russia). Nevertheless, only Russia, "suffering" from the absence of state ideology, is the locomotive of the development of the entire post-Soviet region., providing its population with the highest in the post-USSR, constantly growing and already quite comparable with the European standard of living.
Furthermore, as soon as the politicians of the USA and Europe were informally ideologized, taking as a basis the ideology of the modern "new left", they have constantly growing problems like in politics, and in the economy. And this is understandable, because they began to make decisions not on the basis of a sober analysis of the real situation, but on the basis of certain "unquestionable" ideological postulates. ideas, as goods, develop and improve only in a competitive environment. If they are provided with a monopoly, then in the ideological, and in the commodity plan the car "Zaporozhets" will always turn out (they will buy it anyway, there is no other).
I may be reminded of the dynamically developing "communist" China, but, At first, there the CCP has been building ordinary capitalism for a long time, a, Secondly, the basis of their ideology was formulated by Deng Xiaoping and reads, what doesn't matter, what color is the cat, if she catches mice. So in this regard, Russia has exactly the same ideology, because Putin constantly says about the same, only formulates not so aphoristically, like the late Deng Xiaoping. But Putin's "ideology of patriotism", aimed at the prosperity of the state and people, - the same Denxiaoping "cat". Never mind, what color is a patriot, important, to work for the state.
We have been in an endless dispute over the past years., are Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians as one people, three brotherly or already strangers to each other? Will we ever be able to return to one people and brotherhood or our split forever? Will Russia ever be restored to its imperial borders or the territories are lost forever??
History is not deterministic. No one knows, how events will develop in practice. It depends on a lot of accidents, millions of personal choices and interactions. But you can always say, what choice leaves hope of success, and which one completely crosses it out. The choice of one mandatory state ideology definitely makes reunification impossible.. Is it only through the armed seizure of the corresponding territories, what is unrealistic in the current era.
Neither the left, neither the right, nor the nationalists, neither monarchists have an overwhelming preponderance in any of the post-Soviet countries. Consequently, taking as obligatory one ideology, we push away the adherents of the rest. Nor can we declare the rallying of our society around any religion.. Even Poles have difficulty in promoting Catholicism as a state religion, although their society is practically mono-ethnic and very religious.
In Russia, with its religious diversity and high percentage of atheists, the choice in favor of the state religion is all the more impossible. That is, and so soft (religious) the way of acquiring national ideology is unacceptable for us, for it splits, rather than unite.
World practice shows, that the best national idea is the patriotism of a well-fed society, striving to improve the life of the present, not future generations, who are their own masters and will know better than us, what do they need in their bright future, what can they do without. The USA grew up on this, which have become a desirable country for emigrants and the only country in the world, from which her former colonies did not want to leave (Puerto Rico is still eager to join the United States). The well-being of Western Europe has grown on the post-war de-ideologization. And we see, how modern ideologization destroys the foundations of Western well-being and the domination associated with this well-being. The West is being replaced by polyideological Russia and China, based on the ideas of patriotism and pragmatism (a better life for the current generation of its citizens), and not on the all-conquering only true doctrine, demanding for the sake of a wonderful tomorrow of all mankind today in his country to kiss the shoes of blacks and to drive those who disagree into happiness with a bayonet.
You can't make you happy, you can only set an example and share your experience. But example and experience are not ideology, but everyday practice. by the way, in the life of the USSR, short periods of improvement came just then, when ideology is forced (under the pressure of circumstances) gave way to practice (eg, "Rehabilitation" of Russian tsars and princes-generals, as well as Orthodoxy during the war and the shift of emphasis from proletarian internationalism, homeless, to defend the fatherland - Stalinism as a de facto temporary alliance of Leninism with Russian nationalism).
Ideology as such does not bother anyone, whatever it is (with the exception of extremist and misanthropic), hindered by ideological monopoly. Therefore, “let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred schools compete " (by the way, positive experience of the Chinese "communists"). And we will choose the best, relevant and useful today.
Rostislav Ishchenko,specially for alternatio.org
