Aleksandr Zinovyev
Global Suprasociety and Russia
There is no need to remind the reader in what situation Russia and the Russians
found themselves as a result of the crisis in their history, which happened
after 1985. This information is already known from numerous sources. But there
still remains a shroud of secrecy over the fact that that situation did not
happen merely as a result of untoward historical developments, but had been
diligently planned by certain forces in the West and artificially imposed on
the Russians. That condition is the consequence of one of the greatest
tragedies in the social history of mankind. The tragedy which began in the mid
1980s may with high probability have a fatal end for
Actual historical developments are always a combination of two processes: 1)
'elemental', unplanned and uncontrolled; 2) conscious-volitional, planned and
controlled. Their proportions and roles vary with certain limitations. The
domination of the second type will lead to a situation, when the general line
of development is monitored, and only less important components may be out of
control.
If we intend to give a scientific description of these processes, we will
require quite different methodologies and sets of concepts. 'Elemental',
natural processes are described with the concepts and postulates of dialectic.
For the conscious-volitional processes we would need a different methodology,
based on the knowledge of what social plans (projects) are, how and why they
are created, how they are executed, and by what rules. Though this other
methodology does not exclude dialectic, it implies an essentially different focus
of attention while examining social objects.
All famous theories of social evolution proceed from the explicit or implicit
view on history of mankind as an ungoverned natural process, beyond human will
and conscious planning. This view was formed at a time, when people knew very
little about the laws of their social life and had few ways of influencing
their own evolution, let alone controlling it. The powers of mankind were not
enough to manage history: there were several rivaling alliances, and the idea
of international unity seemed an unattainable utopia. There were regions with
great autonomy and even those independent of the mainstream evolution
tendencies.
But beginning with the latter half of the 20th century the situation in the
world fundamentally changed, so that the view on history as a natural process
has become an anachronism. Humankind has entered an era when evolution no
longer develops by its own freaks, but rather by conscious deliberate planning.
In fact, planning has become the dominant factor in the range of factors
conditioning history. Multitudes of people and huge resources have been
involved in history; acting for the same end, they have enhanced the role of
the subjective factor in history. This, coupled with the achievements in the
research of social phenomena, processes and human behavior, has resulted in the
situation, when the measure of control over history and the efficiency of
trimming its course to plans have grown. On the pragmatic side, mass
communications, manipulation technologies and means of solving problems on a
large scale have become incredibly sophisticated. Immense intellectual powers
and great resources have been put on to solving numerous problems, so that the
percentage of unforeseen, unexpected historical developments has been
drastically reduced as compared with predictable and planned ones. All the
mentioned factors have combined to bring about a qualitative change in human
evolution.
The historical process, which decided the fate of
SOCIAL TRAGEDY
The word 'tragedy' itself is polysemantic, its meaning is rather fuzzy for a
scientific concept. But this holds true for most other terms of sciences,
studying social objects. So I think its use is quite justifiable. If we wish to
understand the essence of what happened to
In everyday speech we commonly use the word 'tragedy' to denote events, which
cause loss of lives of individuals or death of groups of people. Not every
death may be called 'tragedy'. For example, this word will be used inaccurately
to denote death of soldiers in a war. To call death a tragedy, one has to refer
to his/ her own or other people's experience of this death as a tragedy. And
this experience has to be so strong, that all other experiences fade in its
face.
In antiquity the meaning of tragedy had a narrower meaning - it included the
semantics of predetermined death of certain people. Their death was
predetermined by some supreme powers - gods or Fate. Gods victimized an
individual, motivating it by a certain 'guilt' of the selected victim and
sentencing him or her to death. The tragedy in this sense was predictable - it
was predicted by oracles, prophets and gods. Sometimes victims themselves were
conscious of their fate and acted as doomed to death. I will use the word
'tragedy' as a sociological concept, which is closer in its meaning to the
antique understanding, rather than to its intuitive everyday usage.
Tragedy in the sociological sense, or social tragedy, includes the following
main components: 1) a Victimized, 2) a Judge, 3) an Executioner. All these
components are people as social creatures or unities of people viewed as a
whole: they are social subjects. Two of these components (or even all the three
of them) may coincide in one subject - the Victimized may convict and even
punish himself. Two or even three roles may be performed by the same subject,
though, of course, these are logically singular cases.
The Judge of the social tragedy is not the cause of historical developments, he
is exactly the judge. His historical role consists in choosing a social subject
to be victimized, assessing some of his actions as criminal (from the Judge's
perspective!), i.e. establishing the guilt of the Victimized, passing the
verdict, and finding an Executioner.
The notion of guilt here is also sociological, rather than legal or moral
(although the legal and moral judgments of the Victimized's actions are not
excluded). Guilt in the legal sense suggests the existence of a victim of
somebody's crime. In social tragedy, the assessment of a social subject's
actions as 'guilt' only nominally suggests the party in relation to whom the
Victimized may be judged as guilty. This party may be only a pretext (not a
cause!) for the Judge to justify his selection of the Victimized. If the
Victimized and his alleged victim are parts of the same social subject, then
there is a doubling of social roles.
In a social tragedy the Judge convicts the Victimized, justifying his verdict
by these or those considerations - moral, legal, humanistic, religious, etc.
The Executioner enforces the judgment, he does not have to justify anything.
The Victimized is not required to confess his crime - such are the rules of a
social tragedy. But if he repents, he merely acts as an assistant of the Judge
and the Executioner - and such cases in history are not rare.
In a social tragedy the Judge possesses the power, which exceeds that of the
Victimized. He counts on getting away unhurt, or with a small toll, in his
struggle, or even on profiting by the situation. If the planned victimization
does not happen, the situation will not be a tragedy.
The classic example of the tragic situation in the above-mentioned sense may be
the situation with
RUSSIAN TRAGEDY
The Victimized in the Russian tragedy are
The word 'fate' may be used in two senses: in the common colloquial sense and
in the narrow sociological sense. The second sense of this word refers not to a
certain event in the life of a social subject, but to his life as a whole,
which terminates with a certain end. In this sense we may speak about the fate
of the Roman Empire, the Romanovs dynasty, Soviet communism, the
What has begun happening in
The Russian tragedy has features of the antique tragedy. The factor of
predestination in it is extremely strong. Its inevitability was predicted by
some prophets, its imminence has long been felt by many Russians. The
assertions that that death could be forestalled are logically indefensible and
empirically false. They are probably signs of belated repentance,
self-justification, or self-consolation. Statements like '
Although all the nations of the former
THE JUDGE IN THE RUSSIAN TRAGEDY
The role of the Judge in the Russian history is played by the masters of the
Western world, who have organized in the joined global suprasociety. I have
already mentioned it, let me now explain what it is.
The modern Western world is not a mere sum total of countries, such as the
The process of integration occurs as a 'vertical structuring' of these
countries and the Western world in general. This structuring entails the
appearance of numerous and various organizations, institutions and enterprises
of supranational type. There are tens, perhaps, hundreds of thousands of them
nowadays. They do not belong to any concrete country, they sort of rear above
them. Millions of people are involved in them. They are organized and function
according to social laws, different from the laws by which the traditional nation-states
are organized and function. This superstructure dominates the nation-states in
the most fundamental aspects of their life. Using the financial means of those
countries, it controls over 50 per cent of the world resources (other estimates
give the figure of 70 per cent). In fact, it has spread its tentacles over the
whole planet, so to call it 'global' will not be an overstatement.
Today the global suprasociety, rather than a bunch of money-bags, actually
governs the world. Of course, this suprasociety employs the financial machine
of the Western world, using it as a means of ruling the West and the rest of
mankind. But finance alone is not enough to control the West with its nearly
billion people, let alone the rest of the world with nearly five billion. To do
it, the suprasociety requires powerful armed forces, political machinery,
secret services and mass media. It needs to have instruments to compel national
governments to grant it free disposal of national resources of each country.
In fact, all the Western societies, including the
As was mentioned above, the global suprasociety already involves tens or
hundreds of millions of people. It has a complex structure, not yet clearly
defined and profoundly studied. It does not submit to national governments,
contrariwise, they somehow or other depend on it. It has at its disposal such
huge resources, as no separate nations possess. It is the rulers of this
suprasociety who have assumed the role of the historical Judge of Russia and
its people in the above-mentioned Russian tragedy. The suprasociety involves
millions of people, who support the resolution of their masters to punish the
Russians for their alleged guilt against humanity. Those people are included in
the 'collective' Judge in the Russian tragedy.
HISTORICAL GUILT OF RUSSIANS
What is the guilt incriminated to
The historical role of
First of all,
Secondly, the experience of Socialist Russia has become an infectious example
for numerous nations of the world. Besides, following the victory over fascist
Thirdly, the
Fourthly, under the influence of the Soviet ('Russian') communism the Western
world itself has adopted a whole range of socialist features - unscrupulous
profiteering was cut short, antiracist movement developed, working people
insisted on their rights, social security was established, colonialism was
declining, etc.
It is under the threat of ever strengthening Soviet (Russian) communism, that
the Western world consolidated, and the conditions for the global suprasociety
appeared. The basis for this consolidation was formed during the Cold War of
the
Their malicious appeal was extended to
ANTI-RUSSIAN PROJECT
The anti-Russian project was not developed overnight. It was particularized and
corrected during the Cold War.
At first it only included the problem of the future of the
Next, the project envisaged the dismantling of communism - the social order of
the
Next, the specifically Russian problems were to be tackled. The first stage was
to impose on
The third stage, which is still underway, envisages separation of the problems
of Russia as a commonwealth of republics, regions, social groups and
individuals from the problems of the Russians as a nation. What does this mean?
So far the focus has been on the disintegration of the Russian people, and on
resolving this nation into individuals. Now it turns on the decision of the
fate of the Russians as the ethnic group, who are viewed as the innate
(biological, genetic) carriers of the communist infection. In this respect the
cause of the global suprasociety masters in a way continues Hitler's cause, but
on a more powerful foundation of sophisticated political strategies, and in a
'democratic' disguise. (Although the present epoch is more suitably
characterized as both post-communist and post-democratic).
The third stage, in its turn, includes a number steps, the most important of
which are as follows. It is proposed to disseminate hostility among the Russian
peoples and reduce them to the position of nationalities, incapable of having a
united sovereign state. It is also planned to set the Russians upon the track
of biological degradation and extinction, to the point of vanishing as an
important ethnic group. It is proposed to reduce the Russian population to 50-
When I unveil these plans, I often hear objections to the effect that 'people
in the West are civilized' and unable of hatching such devilish projects.
However, we have to look beyond the surface and learn from the lessons of the
past. The ruthlessness and greed of the Western civilization is well known, it
was revealed in its extermination and maltreatment of 'inferior' nations of
North America,
EXECUTION OF SENTENCE
The anti-Russian project was not just a blueprint, it was carried into effect.
Moreover, with time the anti-Russian campaign has gained momentum - appetite
comes with eating. The major part of this project may be considered
accomplished: the Soviet bloc has been ruined, the Soviet Union demolished, the
Soviet communism destroyed, and a new social order, desirable for the Masters
of the Western world, has been imposed on
So, who were the Executioners of Russia and the Russians? First of all, the
Western institutions and concrete individuals, who were involved in the Cold
War. Secondly, 'the fifth column' of the West in the Soviet Union, including
the Western spies, Soviet citizens, enlisted by Western secret services,
dissidents, emigrants, nationalists, etc. Thirdly, traitors in the high
echelons of power, morally depraved party and government officials,
representatives of privileged strata of the society. Fourthly, the malcontent
intelligentsia. Fifthly, the organized crime, rampant in the 1990s and merging
with power structures. Sixthly, tens or even hundreds of thousands of people in
the West and dependent regions, employed for the falsification of Russian
history. Seventhly, masses of the Soviet people, duped by the Western
anti-Soviet, anticommunist and, ultimately, anti-Russian propaganda, who
actually became the foundation and the striking force of the
counter-revolutionary overturn.
The Western Cold War army skillfully doctored the public opinion for the
downfall of the Soviet social order and the destruction of the
The crucial point in the Russian tragedy, turning the tide of history, has
already been accomplished. It was the counter-revolutionary overturn (the
Russian counter-revolution) of the late 1980s of the 20th century. However, the
Russian tragedy is not finished yet. The execution of
COMPLETION OF THE RUSSIAN TRAGEDY
The third, most dreadful, stage of the anti-Russian project has already been
begun, albeit without direct interference so far. One of todays strategies is
blotting out the Soviet achievements from the collective human memory by the
defamation of the Soviet Union and
History was more than once falsified in the past, and the modern means of
technology have made it a trivial task to manage. In fact, we should distinguish
between two types of falsification of history. The first type is involuntary,
routine falsification of details, caused by the imperfectness of means of
historical cognition and description - the invariably limited means of human
memory. The second type is the intentional, extraordinary and complex
falsification by social projectors, guided by their objectives.
Let us consider the first type. In the pre-written and pre-discursive periods
means of social memory were scanty, and means of falsification of what little
was remembered were scanty too. In the written period the events of history
have been fixed with the help of the written word. But, as Fyodor Tyutchev put
it, 'A thought once uttered is untrue'.
We cannot embrace all history. We have to draw from it comparatively sparse
information, make conjectures and organize the isolated data into a whole - in
this way historians compose coherent texts. The modern information technology
does not drastically change the situation. If we introduce certain historical
'atoms' - minimal undivided historical events - as units of historical
description, we will realize that to describe the aggregate of all events of
one-year's history in one language would require all the computers of the world
and all the people working as computer operators for scores of years. We may
admit that modern technologies increase our opportunities in learning history
objectively, but we will not fail to realize that they may actually serve as a
means of falsifying history. The scientific analysis will be drowned in the
ocean of facts.
Besides, it is people, not gods, who describe history. People are brought up
and educated in a certain way; they occupy certain social positions and pursue
their selfish interests. All this influences the processing of information. As
time passes, many events simply fall into oblivion; they are neither set down,
nor even taken notice of. And as historical contexts change, people's attitude
to and interpretation of past events change, too.
As a matter of fact, there are two processes in evolution - above the
threshold, which implies conscious perception, and below the threshold, which
implies subliminal perception. The threshold is the level at which a person is
aware of a stimulus. In describing history, people frequently underestimate the
role of below the threshold events and overestimate the contrary. We all know,
how frequently less important personalities (certain kings, presidents) and
events are given most attention by historians, and substantial facts are
slurred over. Even if we suppose that all historians are after truth, their
efforts will result only in their personal notions and impressions. And, over
centuries, a tremendous flow of involuntarily falsified history, with some
tributaries of voluntary distortion and fraud, is channeled together in one
pool.
This distorted history does fulfill its function for a while, but at a certain
time the picture of the past, presented by it, becomes inadequate. People are
apt to seek for truth - abstract scientific truth and concrete factual truth.
But is there truth, as applied to history? I doubt it. It would be better to
speak of the conformity of people's notions of the past to their social
conjunctures and the new needs, which they develop in the historical process.
When people's notions of the past cease to conform to their new demands, and
this discrepancy reaches a critical point, there occurs a conscious
'correction' of history. In fact, revolutions entail large-scale, organized
falsification of history as a whole, not only of its isolated facts. The whole
bulk of never again observable historical data, once set down in black and
white, is processed and modified. It is not just reevaluation of phenomena of
reality. It is the adaptation of a total of signs, denoting these phenomena of
reality, to the changed demands of people, who have to live in a different
environment. This requires organized work of specifically trained people, who
create a new coordinated picture of the past - with available data, they
conjure up the past, needed for the present. In fact, such kind of
falsification has been made since ancient times, for example, when Christianity
was introduced in Europe, when the Romanovs ascended the throne in
But the falsification of facts concerning the Soviet Union and
Of course, it is hard to believe, that the intention to obliterate the Russian
nation from human memory can be accomplished - distortions of history are
somehow or other exposed. But not all of them. It is possible to nail down one
lie, but when there are millions of them, when they are selected and recombined
from year to year, from decade to decade, when millions of expertly trained
people participate in this falsification, using huge resources and
sophisticated technologies, and billions of people are ideologically
brainwashed from generation to generation, there is no chance of overcoming the
barrage of lies and establishing the truth. It is not improbable that in
several centuries a scintilla of truth may be discovered, but what difference
will it make? It will be just a weak and twisted reflection of history.
I think it most likely, that the Russians will be blotted out of history
altogether. Their achievements will be distorted and misappropriated, ascribed
to others. In the future, some traces of a great nation, which occupied a
certain area, may be found, but there will never be a true picture of that nation
and its history.
RUSSIAN COUNTER-REVOLUTION
In the period between Gorbachev's election to the post of Secretary General of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party in 1985 and the shelling of the
'White House' (the Russian Parliament) on Yelstin's orders in
The Western propaganda usually portrays it so, as if the Soviet socialism
collapsed because of its internal insolvency, that it had had its day, and the
Soviet people themselves, in the course of their experience, realized the
necessity of rejecting communism and transiting to capitalism. This concept has
long been taken for granted by Western 'people in the street'. After 1986 it
has been imposed on the Russians. It was not through sheer carelessness (though
carelessness was also in evidence), that such a thoroughly false idea could
take root in the minds of people. It was inculcated into their mind as an
'official belief' and 'established truth', causing a peculiar ambivalence -
when a person thinks one thing, and says another.
In fact, the Western masterminds and the Russian performers of the
counter-revolution are still uncertain if the destruction of communism is
final. That is why concealment of truth about the essence of the Soviet
counter-revolution is still an important task for its apologists. Besides, they
wish to appear as noble liberators of the Soviet people and mankind from
oppression and terror of the 'communist evil', rather than obedient Western
puppets and voluntary traitors of
Scientific research of the Soviet counter-revolution is the task for history
and social science of the future, when passions simmer down, and it will be
permitted to open up the veil of ideological fraud. Here I will limit myself to
outlining the chief directions for the future thinkers, groping for historical
truth.
ESSENCE AND TIME OF COUNTER-REVOLUTION
To grasp the social essence of the Russian counter-revolution we have to study
the multitude of actions of the people, who participated in it, and establish
what united those actions into a single joint action of different individuals.
This research reveals that all those actions were essentially directed at the
destruction of the Russian social order - the 'real' communism [ii].
It is exactly this anticommunist polarity that united all the actions into a
single historical action, resulting in the defeat of the Soviet communism. To
understand how it happened we have to look into the principles of the communist
social organization and the social order of the Soviet society. We should know
it objectively, as researchers, discarding its ideological misrepresentations
(both Soviet and anti-Soviet). And to understand the social essence of its
destroyers' joint doings, we must apply a scientific approach, although it is
obvious, that they were not guided by theoretical postulates, but by other
motives. Perestroika (rebuilding)
launched by them did the job of destruction nevertheless.
The basis of the Soviet society was formed by the organized system of power and
government (not by the country's economy, as some erroneously assume.) The
position of that system in the social organization was very important. It
pervaded society in its axial dimensions at all levels of social hierarchy,
from the top of the government to the primary collectives. The communist
society in the
If we apply scientific approach without false ideological dogmas, and proceed
from the real, not imaginary, communist social organization, we may say that
the dismantling of the CPSU apparatus
and the Soviet system of government signaled the beginning of the
counter-revolution. In fact, it was sanctioned at the top - initiated by
Mikhail Gorbachev shortly after he was elected Secretary General of the CPSU
Central Committee, and backed by the top party leaders and their ideological
lackeys. I emphasize - it was begun at the top of the government - from the
core of the party, which provided the basis for the communist social
organization. Initiated by Gorbachev, this counter-revolution was completed
already under Yeltsin, when the CPSU was liquidated on his orders and the
remnants of the Soviet state system were shelled in his attack on the Supreme
Soviet in October 1993.
It would be wrong to date the beginning of the Soviet system's collapse to
Nikita Khrushchev's times and its end - to the years following Yeltsin's
shelling the House of Soviets. This would mean diluting the very event of
counter-revolution in the extended historical span and distorting its essence.
Certain events, which preceded Gorbachev's activity for the CPSU destruction,
were somehow connected with it, providing conditions for it, but they were not
counter-revolution itself. And the events, following Yeltsin's coming to power
and his suppression of the Supreme Soviet, were but inevitable consequences of
the de facto counter-revolution. As for the counter-revolution itself, it
happened in the period of 1987-1993, when the social foundation of the Soviet
society was undermined and the edifice of the
CONDITIONS AND CAUSES OF COUNTER-REVOLUTION
The Soviet (Russian) counter-revolution was determined by a number of factors,
which represent a multi-dimensional complex. In one of its dimensions, these
factors fall into internal and external - the conditions in the
There is no denial that the Soviet counter-revolution was grounded in the
Soviet society, it was the phenomenon of the internal life of the Soviet society,
and later - of the Russian society. But those grounds would not by themselves
lead to any social upheaval in the
SOCIAL STRATIFICATION
Contrary to Karl Marx's teaching about the classlessness of the Communist
society, in the real Soviet society a kind of social stratification began to
take shape. From the very incipience of the
Meanwhile, this resulted in what appears to be a discrepancy with social laws
and even with common sense: these upper strata of the society, its privileged
part, became the main ideologists and activists of the counter-revolution. They
rose to the highest spheres owing to the Soviet system, achieved success and made
careers within it. They were the Soviet ideological and cultural elite. By
logic, it was incumbent on them to be pillars of the society they were indebted
to, its apologists and champions. But they rushed into destroying it, and
surpassed in their zeal all the dissidents, critics of the Soviet regime and
most unmitigated anti-communists of the West. Why did it happen? There were no
objective causes for this development in the social organization of the Soviet
society. Obviously, it was the effect of certain factors, operating from
without.
One of these factors, the anti-Communist ideological propaganda, was
subjective: it brought about a certain ideological, moral and psychological
shift in the Soviet people's minds. Right after the end of World War II the
Western countries, headed by the
The elite's degradation proved to be one of the most important conditions for
the counter-revolution. But in itself it did not induce any subversive plans or
actions, and there were no other important internal conditions for the
counter-revolution. Actually, it needed to be unleashed by someone. And so it
happened: the counter-revolution was sanctioned at the top, followed by open
calls for it and examples of unpunished, and even rewarded, anti-Communist behavior.
When the fact of the counter-revolution became apparent, the elite were quick
to betray their social order and in most cases, their country.
IMPENDING ECONOMIC AND ADMINISTRATIVE CRISIS
Towards the end of the nineteen-sixties the Soviet economy entered into the
phase of stagnation. It was at a disadvantage compared to the brisk Western
economy of that period. This, along with the subversive drone of the Western
propaganda, proved to be an important factor, conducive to a specific frame of
mind of certain groups of the Soviet people. Having lost faith in the quick
advent of the Communist plenty ('to each according to their needs'), they began
to look to the West as 'paradise on earth'.
The Marxist-Leninist classics asserted that the communist society was
crisis-free. This belief was shared by both communist and Western leaders and
ideologists, including anti-communist and anti-Soviet ones. But the crisis-free
postulate might only be valid, if there were no instances of crises except in
capitalist societies. It is not so. Each society experiences economic crises,
depending on the nature of that society. True, there were no capitalist crises
in the Soviet society, since it was not capitalist. But it was not exempt from
crises as such. In the mid 1980s the communist crisis, first of its kind, began
in the
The economic situation in the
So what was actually going on in the
In the postwar years (especially in the so-called 'stagnation years' of the
1970s-1980s!) the number of industrial enterprises, establishments and
institutions grew dozens of times. Large-scale processes of development and
sophistication of the society were going on at an unprecedented speed,
unheard-of in the history of mankind. And this was happening in a community of
enormous dimensions. All the aspects of life underwent sophistication -
education, culture, communications, international ties, etc. Naturally, there
emerged inevitable problems and difficulties, which could not be dealt with by
the old means. The organizational crisis was looming. But the Soviet leaders
and ideologists were unaware of the threat it posed.
The essence of the impending crisis lay in the fact, that the established
system of power and government, efficient and successful for the time being,
became inadequate under the new conditions. Moreover, as the Soviet society and
economy advanced, the inadequacy grew. That process could have been stopped,
and the crisis could have been averted or alleviated. No doubt, it could have
been done by the means that the Soviet society possessed, i.e. by the communist
means. There was no need for the transformation of the social system, quite the
opposite - it was necessary and sufficient to improve exactly the communist
social structure. It was urgent to enlarge the apparatus of power and government - the Communist Party apparatus, which was inadequately small
for the growing number of objects and more complicated conditions of
administration, for more sophisticated structure of the society. It was
important to strengthen the system of planning and exercise stricter control
over the fulfillment of the plans. It was necessary to raise the proficiency of
government and administration officials, develop the economic theory for the
changing conditions, enhance centralization of economy and management, etc. In
short, it was necessary to develop the country along the lines of strengthening
and improvement of all the attributes of the communist system - the things that
were criticized and mocked at in the West, precisely because they functioned so
well and permitted the
But the Soviet leaders and their ideological lackeys did quite the opposite.
They rushed into perestroika
(rebuilding), the disastrous effect of which was evident from the very
beginning. Perestroika unleashed the
crisis, which became all-embracing, covering political, economic, social and
other spheres. It is well-known what this crisis resulted in, and there is no
need to speak about it again.
Why did the top government officials, headed by Mikhail Gorbachev, act so? Can
it be explained only by their folly, by the fact that they were thoughtless of
the consequences of their actions? I think it cant. It was a conscious
operation, a clandestine coup d'etat, prompted by the West. And, as we have
seen, there were no prerequisites for the weakening and destruction of the
socialist state and economic systems and other vital aspects of the Soviet
society, even if we take into account all the tensions in the Soviet society on
the eve of the counter-revolution. Nor did such ideas circulate in any sizable
and influential sections of the Soviet population. Destabilization came in the
wake of the de facto counter-revolution from the top and engulfed the country,
like a sudden epidemic or natural disaster.
SHIFT IN THE SOVIET PEOPLES OUTLOOK
Weakening of the iron curtain, expansion of ties with the West,
intensification of the Western propaganda and other factors combined to bring
about the turn in the Soviet peoples views on the Western society. During
Leonid Brezhnevs times the West permeated into the internal life of the Soviet
society through numerous radio stations, broadcasting in Russian. The Western
propaganda inflicted a hard blow on the fundamental principles of the Soviet
ideology and shook peoples conviction of the undisputed advantages of the
Soviet social order and mode of life over the Western ones. On the one hand,
certain negative facts of the Soviet communism became an object of tremendous
anti-communist propaganda in the West. Those facts were consistently blown up
and brought into focus by the Western companies, broadcasting for
Let me specifically dwell on two factors, which played an important part in the
crisis of the Soviet outlook. The first factor was the scantiness of objective
information about the West and the incapability of the Soviet ideological apparatus to counter the Western
propaganda with a more or less efficient counterpropaganda. True, the
The second factor was the Soviet elite, who were permitted to get acquainted
with the West at first hand - by traveling there. Their stay in the West was
their privilege as a distinguished group of the Soviet people - politicians,
diplomats, cultural workers, academicians, honored intellectuals, party
functionaries and government nomenclatura.
They saw there what they were permitted and wanted to see in their position -
abundance of goods in stores, comfort, excellent service, etc., i.e. the show
window, the advertisement, the surface manifestations of the Western economy,
rather than its basis, its heart and hidden essence. They compared this
splendor with the relatively austere conditions, in which their compatriots
lived in the
They did not have to earn their daily bread, seek jobs, compete with Western
professionals, buy or rent a place to live in, pay taxes, worry about medical
care, education for their children, work in the conditions of Western
companies, experience the negative sides of down-to-earth daily life in the
West etc., i.e. they did not immerse themselves in the real life of the Western
world with its real hardships, which were described by thousands of honest
Western writers and shown in thousands of more or less realistic films. The
Soviet elite had a guaranteed position at home in the
The ideological shift occurred primarily in the minds of the upper circles of
the Soviet society, its top leaders, and its intellectual and ideological
elite. I emphasize: the crisis of the Soviet society was not primarily economic
in essence. It sprang from the top of power and ideology, and its major
symptoms were the loss of civic responsibility, the sense of duty to their
country and people, and the incapacity to understand the Soviet and the Western
economies objectively - even at the level of the common sense, let alone from
the scientific perspective. It was these higher strata - not the lower ones -
which became pro-Western in their mind-set. They began to covet Western
comforts, hoping to preserve what they possessed in the
Despite all this, the positive trend in the internal social life prevailed, and
no matter how discontented were certain groups of population with certain
phenomena of Soviet life (and there is no society in which everyone is always
content with everything), nobody ever questioned the Soviet social organization
and proposed its elimination. The older generations felt its advantages from
experience, and the younger ones tasted its fruits, as standards of life were
slowly but surely improving. Besides, there was no opposing ideology strong
enough for an internal ideological breakdown to take place. Even dissidents and
critics of the Soviet regime did not advance the slogan of overthrowing
communism, and organizations, capable of instigating people to this, were
inconceivable - even a hint of such organizations would be crushed. And they
would not be able to find support in the masses, anyway. Thus the corruption of
the elite could not by itself generate counter-revolution. But when the command
for it came from the top, they abetted in assaulting and destroying the
foundations of communist ideology.
EXTERNAL FACTORS
The Soviet counter-revolution cannot be explained without taking into
consideration the external factors. As a matter of fact, it was planned in the
West and imposed on the Soviet people by the West. True, that
counter-revolution was carried out by Soviet people, but there is no doubt that
the West stood behind them. So far from being a local Soviet event, it was an
epoch-making operation of global dimensions.
It had been prepared for a long time. At first the only task was to restrain
the international ambitions of the
The Soviet counter-revolution was the final step of the West in its Cold War
against the
I have mentioned a propitious occasion which played a critical role in the
Cold War. What was it? It was Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev as an individual, as
well as a symbol of the beginning of the subversive operation, resulting in the
defeat of the Soviet state system. The Cold War strategists in the West had
been studying the Soviet system of government since the emergence of the
However, for a long time (perhaps, till the late 1970s) the main focus of
Sovietology had been the psychological and ideological brainwash of the Soviet
population and fostering the pro-Western group, who would act as the fifth column of the West in the
USSR. For this purpose the dissident
movement was created. The dissidents were engaged - consciously or
unconsciously - in the ideological and moral corruption of the Soviet people
directly in the enemys camp.
Thus, an important part of anti-Soviet work was done at the grassroots level
with the view to destroying the Soviet society from within. There were
considerable achievements along that line, which became one of the factors of
the future counter-revolution, but they were insufficient to lead to the wreck
of the Soviet society.
By the late 1970s the Western Cold War activists had realized this and decided
to change their tactics. They concluded, that the Soviet society could only be
destroyed from the top and decided to undermine the Soviet government system.
The basis of the Soviet communism was formed by the CPSU apparatus, so to destroy the
This opportunity was provided by the crisis of Soviet
administration, coupled with the infirmity of the ageing CPSU Politburo
members. It happened in 1982-1985 - the latter years of Brezhnevs rule and the
subsequent quick change of leadership in Andropov and Chernenko years. At that
time the Western command of the Cold War worked out a definite plan: to seize
the supreme power in the
If we recall all Gorbachevs actions, we will easily see that they were
systematic and premeditated destruction of the CPSU apparatus. In those years a joke was current in the
The West claims that the Soviet Communism did not have any steadfast defenders.
True, it was ruined nearly without any resistance of the population, CPSU
members (and there were about twenty million of them!) and party functionaries.
There were but two open protests - the so called 'putsch' in August 1991 and
the revolt of the Supreme Soviet deputies in October 1993. But even the
participants of those events did not proclaim defense of Communism as their
goal. Most leaders the 1993 revolt were themselves involved in the CPSU dismantling
and the defeat of the 1991 'putsch', whereas the 'putschists', in their day,
took part in Gorbachev's anti-party and anti-government overturn. Some Western
authors called the Soviet counter-revolution 'velvet revolution'.
In the Western and pro-Western Russian propaganda the absence of massive and
staunch defense of the Soviet Communism was explained (and is explained now) by
the alleged 'hate' of the Soviet people for Communism. The Soviets have been
represented as suffering under the yoke of monstrous totalitarianism and
longing for liberation. This 'explanation' is a blatant ideological lie, which
has nothing to do with reality. To explain the Western victory in the Cold War
and the Soviets' non-resistance adequately, it is necessary to have an understanding
of the organization of the Soviet society, the psychology of its people and the
essence of the counter-revolution as a specific operation of the Cold War.
Let us begin with the highest echelons of power. We have already mentioned
certain Soviet government officials and top ideologists, who were secret agents
of the West, used to subvert the
Other participants of that process made their careers under Gorbachev's
leadership, as followers of his political line. They perceived Gorbachev's perestroika as a mere prerequisite for
their personal success and did not care a damn about their civic
responsibility. By their nature they were and acted as ordinary careerists.
They were products of the system of power, with its established training and
selection procedures, and behaved according to its laws. At first they swore
allegiance to Communism, promising to perfect the existing social order. Then
they began to speak about perestroika - reformation
of the social and political system, and finally - about the decisive rejection
of communism. This apostasy was largely caused by the increased ideological
pressure from the West.
Then, the counter-revolution did not reveal its social essence immediately.
Every step, taken separately, did not resemble counter-revolution, nor did
these steps reveal any apparent connection with each other. The
counter-revolution at first occurred in the form of several relatively
insignificant modifications of the CPSU apparatus,
particularly, on the top level. If any struggle did take place at all, it never
transcended the apparatus framework.
The decisions, which in their aggregate amounted to the counter-revolution,
were gradually sent down from the top to party apparatuses on lower levels. Step by step, they pervaded the whole
system of power. The lower-rank officials of all sorts were carrying on the
destruction of communism as a part of their routine duties, adjusting their
activity to the new set-up.
As for the masses of Soviet people, their social position and past experience
accustomed them to trusting in the course of their government. Nobody suspected
at first that that course would lead to the collapse of the society. When the
process of destruction began to spread and the masses became aware of it, the
counter-revolution was already in earnest, chain-reacting in the destruction of
economy, ideology, culture, system of education and other spheres of the Soviet
society. People simply failed to guard against it in time.
We should also take into account the factor of the anti-communist propaganda,
which had been carried on for nearly half a century, with the use of more and
more sophisticated technologies. This propaganda was picked up and redoubled by
the internal counter-revolutionary forces. The Soviet people were besotted and
demoralized: the Western system of values, imposed on them, was organically
alien to their morals. Broad masses of population fell into ideological and
psychological confusion and became still more susceptible to manipulation.
HOW RUSSIA WAS 'REBUILT'
The fact, that the Soviet counter-revolution was a large-scale subversive
operation of the West, carried out by the treasonable government, becomes
manifest, if we consider the Western-style social order, that came to stay as a
result of this counter-revolution. This social order, imposed on the Soviet
people from the top, was absolutely contrary to the interests of the majority
of the population and had disastrous consequences for the country.
In the early days of the counter-revolution Alexander Solzhenitsyn published an
article, entitled How to Rebuild Russia.
This article, containing a program for the development of the new capitalist
But let us omit this incident in the Russian tragedy and turn to the essence of
the problem. We can invent scores of projects of 'rebuilding'
True, the social organization of any human community is created by the
conscious volitional activity of its most proactive members. But for this they
need to have some viable ideas, concepts, theories, plans. What happened in
As a result, instead of the thought-out theory and scientifically grounded
project, the performers of
Even if the Western model was in some respects applicable to a non-Western
country, it should not be transferred to this country without reckoning with
its specific conditions in their entirety. A thoughtless transference of alien
models to societies inevitably leads to disastrous results. There are abundant
examples of it in history. It is not surprising, that Westernization of the
non-Western world has become a mighty weapon in the struggle of the West for
its world supremacy.
The Russian reformers imposed upon
Plus the fact that the 'West-made' capitalism was not suited for specific
Russian conditions, necessitating communal way of life and mentality. The
tinsel Western model was thrown upon the austere Russian reality - this factor
was totally ignored by the reformers. They were guided by the principle 'why
don't we live as they do in the West?' Let me draw here the analogy with Khrushchev's
wild idea that American maize would help build communism in
The failure of the Western-style social order to strike root in Russia was also
due to the law of social-historical successiveness: if the social structure of
a human community collapses, leaving behind its human material and cultural
foundations, those factors ensure that the new system, emerging from the
fragments of the old one, repeats the features of the latter in many important
aspects. But, as they say, you cannot build a skyscraper out of the fragments
of a woodshed. You can only build another woodshed, worse than the previous
one. The social structure in today's
In a word, a social monster, or, rather, a social mongrel was born, in some
features resembling the Western model, in others - the Soviet one. Let's take
the basic components of the social structure. The actual Western system of
government and administration has a powerful undemocratic framework, though
shams democracy. In the
A wholly different situation was in the post-Soviet economy. The Western
government and administration dispose of huge financial resources. The Soviet
power disposed of all the resources of the
And, despite its economic insolvency, the early post-perestroika government concentrated in its hands all the control
levers of the executive: the Ministries of Internal Affairs, Foreign Affairs,
Defense, Justice, Security Service, Revenue Service, Protection, Frontier
Guards, Communication, Information, etc. In fact, fulfilling the function of a
colonial administration, the post-Soviet government largely reproduced the
Soviet power in its internal mechanism. (The same happens today. The Russian
parliament, the Duma, plays a secondary role compared to the presidential
power. In fact, it repeats the function of the Supreme Soviet, the Duma's
counterpart, compared to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the
The Soviet counter-revolution was successfully accomplished, determining the
fate of
THE BETRAYAL FACTOR
One of the main factors, which enabled the demolition of Soviet (Russian)
communism, was betrayal. Perhaps, for the first time in human history this
factor was not only taken into account by the Western masterminds, but also
planned, cultivated and replicated on a large scale as a historical factor. Its
conscious use is worthy of our attention as one of the signs of planned and
controlled history.
I use the word 'betrayal' in the sociological meaning, as a scientific term. A
question may arise why I use the word, loaded with moral and legal overtones,
characteristic of people's intuitive understanding of it. However, this is
exactly why I insist on using it - taken as a scientific notion, betrayal
serves to explicate certain phenomena of reality, to which this word is not
normally applied.
The notion of betrayal is seemingly easy, but only seemingly so - in the
easiest and most trivial cases. If a person has begun to spy for a foreign
country, he is a traitor. If he or she has deserted to the enemy during the
war, they are traitors. But even in these cases the criteria for estimation of
betrayal are loose and may be trimmed according to the situation. For example,
the traitor General Vlasov has been turned into a hero, an ideological fighter
against Stalinism. Or many overt representatives of the Western 'fifth column'
in the Soviet Union and
Betrayal becomes even less evident, when we deal with large groups of people,
human communities and nations, when we analyze people's behavior under complex
and changing conditions. The character of people's actions and criteria for
their evaluation change over time. Starting with the most primitive and obvious
forms of individual betrayal, humanity has developed more sophisticated forms -
hidden betrayal, mass betrayal, etc. This fact should be taken into account
when we give a scientific definition of this phenomenon. We should also
distinguish between moral, legal and sociological approaches to this problem.
The moral and legal approaches are sufficient to evaluate individual actions in
simple situations. The sociological approach is necessary to understand the
behavior of large masses of people and whole communities in complex historical
processes. It is this approach that should be applied to the analysis of the
years of preparation, carrying out and fixing the results of the
counter-revolution in the
The easiest case of betrayal occurs in the relations between two people, who
are bound by a certain commitment (naturally, legally or by a contract),
especially when the fate of one person essentially depends on the other. The
former trusts the latter and believes that the latter will fulfill his or her
obligations. The latter is committed to the former and is aware of the fact
that his vis-à-vis trusts him and relies on him. This relationship may
be consolidated by a promise, an oath, a tradition, a custom, a habit, public
opinion, moral rules, laws or a formal agreement. If the obligor does not
fulfill his commitment to the obligee as understood, we have the right to call
this case 'betrayal' - the former betrays the latter.
More sophisticated cases of betrayal include those when the relationship of
obligation binds an individual and a group of people, a group of people on each
side, entire communities, masses of people, nations and countries. We may
include here the relationship between a government and the people it governs,
between a party and the class it represents, between party leaders and ordinary
party members, etc. When an individual, a group of people or a human community
betray themselves, we deal with the degenerative case of self-betrayal. But in
this case there is a kind of 'doubling', when a person or a community functions
in different roles. For example, an individual can betray his life principles to
gain some benefits, or unwittingly perform some actions, which may prove to be
self-betrayal (at a certain time, or in a certain respect). There may also be
self-betrayal of human communities.
Other cases of betrayal involve the actions of a third party - an enemy (an
individual, a group, a community), who provokes a betrayal and benefits from
it. The classical example here is the situation of two warring countries - when
groups of citizens betray their country in favor of a hostile country, under
the influence of the enemys propaganda or threat. Betrayal becomes more
sophisticated, if the number of parties includes more than just the traitor,
the betrayed and the enemy, if there is a complex tangle of actions, amounting
to treacherous behavior, or a prolongation of betrayal in time. Betrayal may
pass unnoticed. For instance, the government of a country conducts a policy,
detrimental to its nation and favorable for a hostile country. Each action of
this government in itself may not be treacherous, but their total amounts to a
betrayal.
Who is indictable for betrayal? In the easiest cases of individual betrayal the
answer is evident - it is the traitor himself. To apply moral and legal
criteria in these cases does not pose any problem. But what if the participants
of the situation of betrayal are large human communities? For example, an
entire army capitulates (as it frequently happened in 1941 - 1945). If a
command orders to lay down arms and soldiers obey these orders, are the latter
traitors or not? And what about the former, who decide that fighting is
useless? In certain circumstances people violate their oaths, and we may find
it hard to assess their behavior at its true value. And if we deal with a whole
country and its government, the situation becomes immeasurably more
complicated. There are no universal criteria for behavioral assessment in this
case. In fact, moral and legal norms become meaningless - at least the
acknowledged and legalized code of norms for such cases is absent. The
effective tools here are public opinion, political considerations, traditions.
Betrayal may be conscious and unconscious, intentional and unintentional. In
any large-scale and complicated betrayal, which involves lots of people and
consists of lots of acts over an extended period of time, we can detect
conscious and intentional, as well as unconscious and unintentional actions, in
various degrees and combinations. This renders the general assessment of
sophisticated cases of betrayal quite difficult, the more so that there are no
strict criteria for it and no particular desire to understand that phenomenon
objectively. Most betrayals belong to this category: they are commonly not
estimated as betrayals - they are left unpunished or are leniently punished,
and traitors are not ravaged by their conscience. All that is not due to the
decay of morality (although this factor is present, too), but because there are
life situations, to which the moral and legal norms are not easily applied.
To assess some people's behavior as betrayal, there should be other people,
standing 'above' the traitors or at least being independent of them. To punish
some people for a betrayal, there should be other people, entitled to punish
(or exonerate) them. If there are no such Judges and Executioners, the betrayal
is not publicly exposed and punished. The perfidy of the powerful and
privileged is seldom estimated as such and, more often than not, goes
unpunished.
THE GREATEST BETRAYAL IN HISTORY
Betrayal is a widespread phenomenon, both in people's personal life, and in
historical processes. It is a permanent factor of human existence. The history
of humanity is contradictory. It has rewarded betrayal, perfidy and shiftiness
much more frequently, than devotion, loyalty and honesty. And the pinnacle of
progress in this respect has become the betrayal, committed in the Soviet
Union and Russia by Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin , as the former
prepared the counter-revolution in 1989-1991 and the latter actually carried it
out in 1991-1993.
It is enough to recall the behavior of the top party leaders and the government
under Gorbachev and Yeltsin, the behavior of the CPSU apparatus and millions of ordinary CPSU members, who had sworn
allegiance to the party, their country, the ideals of Communism and so on. All
of them violated their oaths, the effect of which was that the Soviet social
order, the Soviet system of power, the party, the ideals of Communism, and the
country itself were downtrodden. All that was done according to the plans of
the
This betrayal is a tangle of various actions of a large number of people. It is
also entwined in the complicated processes happening inside the
The discussed betrayal by no means resulted from the social laws of the Soviet
socialist order - the 'real' communism (the actual, practically implemented
communism). It was neither natural, nor inevitable. It could have been avoided.
It resulted from a unique concurrence of circumstances. At the same time, it
was not accidental. It was carefully prepared by the anti-communist
masterminds, who took advantage of certain aspects of Soviet life. Their
efforts fell on a fertile soil. Below we will consider some (but not all)
components and landmarks of the preparation of that fatal betrayal in the
Soviet period of the Russian history.
STALIN PERIOD
For the scientific explanation of such a grandiose phenomenon, as social
betrayal, we need to take into account a range of interacting factors. Isolated
factors, looked upon from just one perspective, will give a distorted picture.
Let's begin with the orgy of informing, which broke out in the
The attitude to informing was controversial. On the one hand, it was considered
immoral, because it concerned one's nearest and dearest (relations, friends,
colleagues, comrades), and was regarded as betrayal. On the other hand, it was
artificially imposed on the masses from the top and encouraged. Informers were convinced
that they were discharging their sacred duty to their country, their people and
the ideals of communism. And, whether the Soviet authorities wanted it or not,
the system of mass informing had become the State-organized school of betrayal
for millions of people. Betrayal ceased to be violation of moral and legal
norms.
The main detriment from this practice did not lie in the fact that established
secret informers were bred for State security bodies (those were not so many),
but in the appearance of numerous voluntary enthusiasts, who wrote countless
reports to government bodies and mass media offices, made vocal denunciations
at meetings, unmasked saboteurs in publications ('public' informing). The whole
country became an arena of sneaking. Betrayal of friends, relations, colleagues
and comrades became a usual element of reports.
Individual betrayals went hand in hand with collective betrayals. The life of
the Soviet people abounded in meetings with their criticism and self-criticism,
unmasking drawbacks, censuring culprits, motioning sanctions against the
wrongdoing members of collectives. This was going on in the government and
administration bodies, in artistic collectives and educational institutions,
etc. Collective 'pogroms' of colleagues relieved each individual member of a
collective of personal responsibility. Adherence to one's word, loyalty, honor,
reliability and other qualities of a decent person came to be disadvantageous
and sometimes even perilous. Collective betrayals disguised each individual
one, so that, separately, members of a collective did not look or feel
traitors. Of course, the responsibility for collective betrayals could be laid
at the door of those who headed collectives. But they could be eventually
relieved of it by the fact, that they were obeying instructions from the top.
Vicious as it was, the policy of encouraging betrayal, conducted by the Soviet
government, was grounded on reality itself. The construction of the new
Socialist social order was happening amidst the acute struggle of pro-communist
and anti-communist forces. That struggle caused people to be split into
opposing camps. By the very logic of struggle, the opponents of Stalin's policy
were pushed into the enemy's camp and embarked on the path of sabotage. The
purpose of Stalin's repressions thus was to suppress the activity of actual and
potential saboteurs. Of course, there were extremes, many innocent people
suffered and all kinds of blackguards benefited by the repressions. However, in
the light of the mass suffering and huge death toll following the overturn of
the late 1980s - 1990s, they look overt and are at least justified by the
interests of the majority (the Stalin epoch paved the way for the country's
flourishing). In all events, we should assess Stalin's repressions in a
realistic aspect, casting away ideological myths.
Still, apart from suppressing sabotage, the repressions created prerequisites
for breeding future traitors. Thus the activity of the Soviet power for the
establishment and consolidation of the new social order simultaneously forged
large numbers of future traitors of this order. Let us not forget that the high
Soviet betrayers (Gorbachev, Yakovlev, Yeltsin and others) learnt their first
lessons of betrayal in the Komsomol and the Communist Party of Stalin's period.
At the beginning of 1941 efficient military units and even troops surrendered
to the enemy. Why? Anti-Sovietists and anti-communists ascribed this fact to
the alleged 'hate' that people felt for the Soviet social order (for
communism). However, this was only true for a very insignificant minority of
people. But I personally witnessed an occasion, when a whole military unit,
voluntarily and without high orders, laid down arms, although they were quite
able to fight the Germans. So the special anti-retreat troops, introduced by
Stalin in the rear of some unreliable units, were an absolutely justified
defense step. And the soldiers, placed in the conditions, when the refusal to
fight was tantamount to death, began to fight with fortitude and selflessness.
I think the reason for this was the quality of the 'human matter'. We, the
Russians, have a rather marked natural inclination to betray. Such qualities as
servility, obsequiousness, cringing to power, chameleonic timeserving are not
alien to us, and they naturally transform, under circumstances, into betrayal.
Yes, but how about Russian heroism? Alexander Martosov, the Panfilovites, the
defense of
The
KHRUSHCHEVISM
The Stalin era ended with Khrushchev's de-Stalinization of the Soviet society.
I will touch only upon one little known fact of that period, somehow connected
with the subject discussed above. It is significant that millions of Stalinists
headed by Khrushchev, who himself had been Stalin's lackey, betrayed their
former leader at lightning speed and turned into active anti-Stalinists. I
don't remember a single person who would have publicly defended Stalinism and
expressed devotion to Stalin. The entire de-Stalinization was carried out as a
mass betrayal, initiated from the top, but involving nearly all the active
Soviet population. It was a dress rehearsal for the fatal general betrayal,
which, thirty years later, would be committed on the initiative of Gorbachev's,
and later, Yeltsin's governments.
Khrushchev's betrayal affected but a few aspects of the Soviet society, leaving
unchanged the social order as such. This is why it did not become fatal.
Besides, presumptuous Khrushchev was checked in time and dismissed from his
post. However, his activity revealed the vulnerability of the ideological and
moral condition of the Soviet society. It also demonstrated the destructive
power of the Soviet government system, if it happened to be in the hands of a
fool and political adventurer. Having broken out at the top, the epidemic of
betrayal of Stalinism rapidly spread in the masses and became universal. The
masses displayed peculiar humbleness and dependency on the authorities. At the
same time, the Soviet government slackened the control, needed to preserve the
social organization of the society, and abated the historical struggle for
Communism. Those facts were noted and taken into account by the Cold War
organizers.
BREZHNEV'S YEARS
In the years of Leonid Brezhnev as the CPSU Secretary General the epidemic of
betrayal, begun by Khrushchev, was checked and muffled. But the viruses of that
illness were not destroyed for good. They began to multiply and infect the
Soviet society on the sly by many channels. The main channels were the liberal
intelligentsia with its selfish opposition to the masses, the dissidents'
movement, the samizdat and tamizdat [v],
the emigrants' wave, etc. We should bear in mind that the Cold War was in full
swing and the
In fact, the Western services, engaged in the Cold War, counted on betrayal.
They employed expert and well-informed people. They knew about the betrayals of
Stalin's times and about the capitulation of Soviet soldiers at the beginning
of the 1941-1945 war. They were aware of the mass betrayal factor of
de-Stalinization. They directly made it their aim to set up the 'fifth column'
in the
For instance, one of their specific devices was to single out an outstanding
Soviet personality of science or culture, and set him or her off against the
'faceless conformist mass' of their colleagues and fellows. They were extolled
by the Western mass media, and their colleagues - abased and mocked at. The
works of the select individuals were published and exhibited in the West; they
were invited to work there and paid big salaries. By the very logic of
interpersonal relations, they turned into conscious or unconscious traitors,
infecting the others with the spirit of jealousy and betrayal.
Dissidents also received broad publicity in the West; they were given grants
and other material incentives. Vociferous campaigns for their defense were an
important part of the anti-Soviet propaganda. There were even occasions of
exerting political and economic pressure on the Soviet authorities for
dissidents. Soviet immigrants were cherished: lucrative appointments were
prepared for them in advance; they were allotted lavish tips.
(In passing, I think that in Gorbachev's
case it was this weak politician's envy of dissidents and his eagerness to
contend with them for glory, that played the crucial role in his turning out an
epochal traitor.)
There were many attempts of fanning
nationalism: special nationalist centers and organizations were set up, future
leaders for dissident nationalist movements were nurtured. In a word, for many
years the Western Cold War activists had been patiently and consistently
carrying on the work of infecting the Soviet society with the virus of
anti-Sovietism and anti-communism and preparing the masses for the final
epochal act of betrayal.
THE APOGEE OF BETRAYAL
The whole evolution of betrayal, that we have described, consummated in the
betrayals of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. The new aspect here was that
those leaders' betrayals were components of the large-scale
counter-revolutionary operation organized by the West. Gorbachev in his
capacity of the party leader and head of the State opened the anti-communist
locks; and the well-prepared torrent crushed the country. Terminating the Cold
War, the Soviet counter-revolution also terminated the
Why did the
It is incumbent on the authority to carry out its duty to their subjects. This
duty consists in protecting the territorial integrity of the country,
strengthening and protecting its sovereignty in all the aspects of its social
organization (power, law, economy, ideology, culture), ensuring the personal
security of its citizens, protecting the system of education, social and civil
rights, etc. In the case of the
Why, then, hasn't that qualification been articulated by any experts? Simply
because there were no such experts before, as there are none now. The external
forces, which were manipulating the Soviet people, encouraged betrayal and
represented it in the guise of good. As a result, there were no people inside
the country to assess the actions of the authorities as betrayal. Nobody could
deal with them as traitors are usually dealt with.
That betrayal was also left unpunished because of its mass character. The
pro-Western manipulators managed to involve in it millions of Soviet people,
who 'drowned' their personal betrayal in the mass betrayal and relieved
themselves of all responsibility for it. Thus the Soviet population themselves
turned into accomplices and means of betrayal, or passive and indifferent
observers of it. The majority of people did not realize what was going on at
all. And when they did realize it, all they could do was to reap the harvest of
that betrayal.
An important circumstance was also that for seventy years the Soviet people had
been carrying the heavy burden of its historical mission. It was tired and
viewed the counter-revolutionary overthrow as a delivery from that burden. The
population supported the overthrow, or rather, did not interfere with it,
without a thought about what consequences that delivery might lead to. It did
not occur to anyone that, by shifting off the burden of its historical mission,
the Soviet people capitulated to its enemy without fighting. It miserably
betrayed itself, and behaved as a traitor to the Socialist world, for whom it
served as a beacon-light.
The behavior of masses was largely determined by the political system of the
Ideology also made its contribution to the preparation of the betrayal. It is
well-known, that one of the principles of Soviet ideology was internationalism.
On the one hand, it turned into cosmopolitanism in a large part of the
population, predominantly in well-educated, well-to-do or non-Russian circles.
Stalin's attempts to fight cosmopolitanism failed. On the other hand, internationalism
reduced the Russian nation to a pitiable position in the
Was it the high treason of the top party leadership that played the crucial
role in the downfall of the Soviet social system? If we understand 'crucial' in
the sense that had it not been for that treason, the social order of the Soviet
Union and the Soviet Union itself would have survived, then the answer is
likely to be yes. But the possibility of the
In all dimensions, Gorbachev-Yeltsin's betrayal is the greatest betrayal in the
history of mankind: by the rank of the people involved, by its mass character,
by the degree of premeditation, by its concrete historical content, by its
social level, by its consequences for the international socialist movement, for
the solidarity of progressive forces of the world, for many countries and
nations, and for the evolution of mankind in general. As a matter of fact, the
Russians were divested of their pioneer right as discoverers of the new,
communist course of the social evolution of mankind. They were reduced to the
role of puppets in the global operations of the Western world (the global
suprasociety). Even the executioners of this unprecedented, epochal betrayal -
Gorbachev and Yeltsin - went on record as cretins and scoundrels.
The wretchedness of the Russian tragedy is that it happened not in a heroic,
elevated and martyr-like form, but in a dastardly, self-seeking, base manner.
We, the Russians are leaving the international arena and passing into oblivion
not in a furious fight for the life and dignity of a Great Nation, as it should
be in an ancient tragedy, but kissing the feet and hands of the cold-hearted
enemy, who's trampling on us and throwing us miserable sops. Our tragedy is
unprecedented in its disgrace.
GREAT EVOLUTIONARY CRISIS
The second half of the 20th century witnessed a momentous change in the social
evolution of humanity. This change essentially meant the transition from the
'society era' to the 'suprasociety era'. It resulted from a contingency, formed
by a number of historical factors. So far those factors have received no
logical systematization and complete scientific description, at least to my
knowledge. Nevertheless, they are widely known - they have become customary
objects of social study - as single events and in certain combinations. In this
work I will not focus on all of them, but delimit myself to the discussion of
the concept of suprasociety itself. A more detailed exposition of my ideas on
this account may be found in my books Communism
as Reality, Crisis of Communism, The West, Global Humant Hill, Russian
Experiment, New Utopia, Suprasociety Ahead, and in a number of articles and
interviews.
Let's define the notion of suprasociety by its concomitant notions - cheloveynik[vi] and society.
A cheloveynik is an association of
people, possessing the following complex of features. Its members live their
collective historical life, from generation to generation reproducing their
kin. They live as a body, regularly interacting with the other members of the cheloveynik. There is a division of
functions within this community, and individuals occupy different positions.
Differences between individuals are partly biologically conditioned, dependent
on sex, age, genetic features, but mostly acquired dependent on the community
conditions. A cheloveynik occupies
and exploits a certain area, which is jointly guarded and preserved by its
members, who enjoy a relative autonomy in their internal life, produce
livelihood, protect and defend themselves from external menaces. A cheloveynik imparts a sense of identity
to its members, that is, they identify themselves as such, and are identified
as such by other members. Those, who do not belong to a given cheloveynik, but somehow come into
contact with it, recognize it as an alien community.
The evolutionary predecessors of such communities are herds, packs and similar
groups of animals, but cheloveyniks
are in a way more similar to ant-hills. Not in the sense that the former
associations of creatures originated from the latter, but in the sense that
morphologically they stand close to each other in the evolutionary
classification of associations of creatures. If we arrange such associations in
a vertical row by the degree of their development, we'll see that cheloveyniks stand above the others.
Naturally, cheloveyniks are different
from groups of insects and animals - first of all, by the substance ('matter')
and its organization. The substance of cheloveyniks
are people nd all the material and
cultural objects that people create and use - labor tools, dwellings, clothes,
means of transport and communication, technical constructions, domestic
animals, cultural plants and other objects. We will call them material culture.
The first cheloveyniks were families,
fraternities and tribes, which were later replaced by larger communities,
spread over larger areas and more advanced socially and technologically. There
appeared complex cheloveyniks. Some
of them dissolved in the course of time, others arose. They came into contact
with each other, waged wars, influenced each other. Over time they reached a
high level of development and transformed into full-fledged societies, which
were more viable, competitive and rapidly developing. Human history has become
the history of societies, emerging, evolving, struggling, competing, sometimes
perishing. There were numerous instances and types of cheloveyniks, differing in dimensions, duration, structural
complexity, human 'matter' and many other features - suffice it to compare the
primitive cheloveyniks, numbering
several hundred people, which have miraculously survived on earth, and modern
Western countries, which consist of tens of millions of people. In fact, the
Western nation-states have become the acme of the cheloveyniks.
Society is a special evolutionary type of cheloveynik,
with its qualitative evolutionary peculiarities. Actually, cheloveyniks of lower than society organization are pre-societies.
The higher organization structures - societies - dialectically deny
pre-societies as such, but do not presuppose the full disappearance of their
residual features. Many of those features are retained and reproduced in the
new society in a 'skimmed' form, i.e. divested of their historical content and
transformed to the conditions of this society. However, the residual features
of the old social structure do not pertain inherently to the newly-formed one
and do not form its basis.
Societies emerge in conglomerations of cheloveyniks
under certain conditions. Those conditions, among others, include the
following. Firstly. Considerable masses of people conglomerate on a restricted
area and are compelled to co-exist for many generations - not as relatives
(although, of course, they may have blood relations), but for some other
reasons. For example, different tribes unite to protect themselves from their
common enemy or to cope with adverse environmental conditions. These people
are, to a large extent, unrelated, sometimes even antagonistic to each other,
for example, if one cheloveynik
conquers another. In a society the ties of blood are of lesser importance than
in a pre-society, and the ratio of relatives to all the other members of a
society is very small. Secondly. The people conglomerated in a society
represent autonomous and stable groups, fairly small in size, united by a
common work. Even if a group is formed by relations (e.g. a family), its basis
is not their blood ties, but their common occupation. Being more or less
autonomous, each of these groups pursues its own interests. Those interests may
coincide with or differ from the interests of other groups. Different groups
may have certain common points and certain points of disagreement.
What unites all these groups is that the private interests of
individuals in them may be only met if they are united, and the interests of
each group can be satisfied only in association with other groups, united in a
society. Thus, society emerges as a unity of heterogeneous people and their
groups to ensure the satisfaction of their self-interests.
The society is distinguished from the pre-society in its social quality - in
the level of social organization. The major components of a social organization
in a developed cheloveynik are
identical with those of a society; they include the system of power and
administration, organization of primary administration cells, economy, mental
and cultural spheres. But in a society these components are understood and
purposefully used. Thus the social organization of a society is rational. In
this respect, societies are exceptional cheloveyniks.
The three major components of social organization are the State system, economy
and ideology. In my previous works I analyzed the components of social
organization, and the possible variations of their interaction, which we may
observe in the most developed samples of societies (and which makes them
empirical facts). My chief conclusion is that the State system - the system of
power and administration - should be acknowledged as basic among other
components. In fact, the definition of other components cannot be logically
correct without the reference to the State, whereas the State can be defined
without a reference to them.
The State system determines the other components specific to a society. For
example, economy as a standardized 'feeding' domain of a cheloveynik is conditioned by the State and formulated through its
functioning. The State organizes economy, arranges and legalizes the economic
cells and introduces legal regulations, in the framework of which the economic
life is to take place. Owing to the State a common and internally connected
economy is formed, complete with fiscal and monetary systems, exchange,
division of functions, etc.
Among the properties of the State as a system of power and administration
important are legitimacy of power, sovereignty, i.e. the absence of any
non-state (or external) power, standing above it, and also the fact, that the
State functions within a legislation, which it establishes and rules the
society whereby. All the other means of administration are, in their turn,
based on legislation and applied within the rule of law.
Not everything, that emerges during the human evolution, can be assimilated by
a society as its integral part. Not everything that a society generates can be
contained within its boundaries. Already this stage of social development (i.e.
society) manifests the incipience and consolidation of phenomena, which do not
fit into it, go beyond its social quality. Thus the phenomena, generated by the
society, deny the society itself.
The loss of the old quality and the acquisition of the new one signals the
upper border of society. It earmarks the appearance of a social organization,
which is qualitatively new and more complex - the suprasociety. Thus the upper
boundary of a society is at the same time the lower boundary of the
suprasociety. It reveals the aspects, which rise above the society, forming the
foundation for a higher floor of evolutionary hierarchy. However, the phenomena
of the suprasociety are still intertwined with the characteristics of the
society. They appear in their disguise, look as their continuation or
varieties, are immersed in the total of concrete historical conditions and
events. In fact, the epochs of society and suprasociety overlap: one of them is
still going on, while the other begins - in the same social space and at the
same time.
The change is more visible from a certain historical distance. What has not
been seen at close quarters then becomes apparent to everyone. We can already
assert as an empirical fact that there have emerged two types of suprasocieties
- Comminist and Westernist. The classic sample of the first one was the
In the
At the same time, as the West waged the Cold War against the
The structure of each individual country in a suprasociety is based upon two
levels, the first corresponding to the structure of a society, and the second
being a peculiar superstructure over the social organization of each society.
Suprasociety may be associated both with this superstructure and with the
entire human community included in it. It determines the social type of this
community as a whole, reflecting in the set-up of each individual country.
Essentially, the Western suprasociety configures as a complex association of
interacting countries, each functioning as a part of the superstructure. Today
the arena of this superstructure's activity, probably involves the whole
planet.
Originally a pan-Western phenomenon, it has transcended the borders of
the Western world, established the new world order and exercises full control
over it. As a matter of fact, European integration has been developing for a
long time - intercepted and, perhaps, contributed to by bloody wars. The new
period has introduced the superstructure with 'vertical' structuring of
mankind. There emerged numerous organizations, institutions and enterprises of
pan-Western (supranational) kind. There are tens, even hundreds of thousands of
them, rising above nation-states and involving millions of people. They
organize and function according to social laws, different from those of the
Western nation-states. This superstructure subordinates the nation-states in
most of their vital functions. It is this suprasociety - the society of the
second order, rather than a bunch of moneybags, that rules the world. It
embraces the monetary mechanism of the Western world and uses it as a tool to
control the West and the world. It also uses powerful armed forces, political
system, secret services, and mass media. Through compelling and coercion, it
enlists nation-states' support.
In this respect the Western world is divided in such a way, that the
Here we observe the merger of the elements of two societies - the
What appears to be the tendency of uniting mankind into a global whole is in
reality the process of subjugation of the entire world by the West as a global
whole. With this regard we would be justified in saying that globalization is
none the other than Westernization of mankind.
Also, since the
The transition to suprasocieties entails that the previous societies'
achievements are partly preserved and even augmented, and partly lost. The major
loss in this process is the reduced number of participants of the evolutionary
competition. In fact, cheloveyniks
participate in this competition not as single entities, but as parts of
ideologies (ideological worlds). And there are but a few worlds, capable of
fighting for their independent evolutionary path. Until recently, the major
competitors in the struggle for the world evolutionary path were communism and
Westernism. After the destruction of the Soviet Communism the Westernist
evolutionary course got the upper hand. Other options, such as the Muslim,
African or South American models are but evolutionary cul-de-sacs, imitations
of other (mainly Western) models, or colonization zones for the West. At any
rate, whatever happens in them, they are unable to change the direction of
social evolution, merely by virtue of the momentum, which evolution has gained
from the major ideologies.
As for the Western evolution course, it is impossible to change it because of
its social organization. The defeat of the Communist world in the Cold War has
buried for long (perhaps, forever) the opportunity, and even the very idea of a
social revolution and an entirely different evolutionary path. The global
suprasociety has brought about the fundamental change in the evolutionary
process. The control of historical events has reached a point, when the
spontaneity gave way to consciously governed and planned evolution. This does
not imply that it's all decided for mankind, but the conscious control of
historical processes has come to stay.
The aims of forces, controlling history, may not be quite noble, they may be
(and actually are) selfish, mercenary and infamous. The means, by which those
forces propose to achieve their aims, are not necessarily expedient and
reasonable, they may be absurd and even insane. And the implementation of those
plans may be managed not wisely or efficiently, but quite amateurishly and
inefficiently. All this, however, does not change the evolution course, just as
bad State organization does not change the type of State power, and bad economy
organization does not change the type of economy.
The global superstructure strives at exclusive omnipotence, viewing individuals
and nations as live material to mould into what projects they envisage. Whenever
they sense that power could be exercised unpunished, they do it immediately. At
present, they are only afraid to use state-of-art weapons on a large scale,
because they themselves can suffer from the environmental disaster. The Western
suprasociety will integrate more and more, but not as a united whole, but as
atomized weak nations, with lifted borders - convenient for the superstructure
to govern. Any demur from separate Western states will be successfully
overcome, by force or by manipulation. The features of the Western (Westernist)
suprasociety, with its legislation, global economy, monetary totalitarianism,
supraideology (ideology of Western, particularly, Anglo-Saxon superiority), and
future Westernization of mankind are discussed in my books (especially, Suprasociety Ahead). As for this
exposition, I will end it with the grave concern about
Abridged translation by Helen Shelestiuk
Original: Zinovyev, Aleksandr. Global'noye Sverkhobschestvo i Rossiya.
Labirint, 2000.
[i] There are quite a few examples of the Western activity
in the direction indicated by Zinovyev. One of the most striking examples is
the promotion of drug addiction. Having occupied
[ii] The
expression used in the
[iii] In Russia alone population grew by
56 million people - from
[iv] Among those
agents of influence are reportedly Mikhail Gorbachevs ministers Aleksandr
Yakovlev, Eduard Shevarnadze, Vadim Bakatin and some others (Translator).
[v] Samizdat - illegal printing of unsanctioned
literature, tamizdat - publishing of anti-Soviet literature abroad
(Translator).
[vi] Zinovyev's coinage, the blending of two Russian words,
meaning 'human' and 'ant-hill'; a 'humant hill' - Translator.