The Search for an Elite

in the past, russia was run by an "elite" that had evolved asa bunch of thieves; today there isa pressing need for a new, real elite

 

By Vitaly Korotich SPECIAL TO THE MOSCOW NEWS

 

Give your soul to God, your life to Mother­land, your heart to a woman, but your ho­nor to no one" — the code of conduct for Russian army officers went far beyond the mili­tary, applying to Russia's entire nobility class. Those who lost all their money at gambling would put a bullet through their head: Living in dishonor was more terrible than living in poverty. Pledging one's word of honor was good enough for taking out a loan or striking deals worth many millions of rubles. Of course there was stealing and graft even under the tsars, but no one had ever dared to abolish the notion of honor as such.

 

Morality Tales

No one dared but the Bolsheviks: "Our morality derives from the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat...We debunk all fraudu­lent morality tales." Lenin mocked the traditional moral values, spread­ing "class-specific justice." The interests of the proletariat, however, could be interpreted in any way, to suit a specific objective: Lies and stealing became endemic in the could be interpreted in any way, to suit a specific objective: Lies and stealing became endemic in the Soviet society, from top to bottom.

Legends about the selflessness and asceticism of the leaders of the October coup are refuted by the documentary evidence on record. Not so long ago I got to read a pri­vate letter written by Nikolai Bukharin (it was recently discov­ered in the archives), who, com­pared to others, was regarded as the epitome of decency. Bukharin, at the beginning of the Civil War, writes to a friend: "Denikin is near Tula so we are packing up; we already have false passports and some ready cash in our pockets. Being a great bird lover, I was toying with the idea of catching parrots in Argentina. Lenin, however, was as calm as could be. He said — actual­ly prophesied: "The situation could not be worse. But we've always been lucky, and fortune will continue to smile on us in the future.'" They did not believe in their good luck all at once, stashing something away for a rainy day. Jacob Sverdlov's widow, Klavdia Novgorodtseva, the treasur­er of the party's 'contingency funds,' had three drawers and a trunk packed with jewels.

 

Legends about the unselfishness and asceti­cism of the leaders of the October coup are refuted BY THE DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE ON RECORD

 

Ruling with an Iron Rod

"We don't need any evidence or interrogations or even suspicions for an execution. We just go ahead and carry out an execution as we see fit, and that's that," Felix Dzerzhinsky categorically formulat­ed the fundamental Bolshevik "law." This postulate explains why the Soviet elite never really evolved. The new masters of life from day one behaved like a bunch of street thugs. There were ringleaders but no elite. Elites can not be built in a legal vacuum: Even underworld associations have their own "law."

After the October Revolution, Lenin proposed the first formula for new elite, saying in particular that everything was of course in the hands of the working class and peasantry, but they were not as yet ready to run the state so it was nec­essary to create an elite group of party revolutionaries ("a dozen tal­ented leaders," as he put it). Presumably that was how the omnipotent Politburo came about. Can a bunch of criminals run a country? As it turned out, it can.

Later, on March 3, 1937, having gotten rid of the old intelligentsia, the nobility, and the scientific, intel­lectual and to a very large extent artistic elites, Stalin, who was offi­cially known as "Lenin today," clari­fied: The new elite will be com­prised of 3,000 to 4,000 commu­nists — "the top command level." Then came the "officer corps" — 30,000 to 40,000; and the "NCO ranks" —100,000 to 150,000. In all, one percent of the USSR popula­tion. What about the remaining 99 percent? The supreme leader said: "Rule them with an iron rod."

The class/gang-affiliation prin­ciple in selecting the new elites was followed meticulously. It was then, in the 19305, that this sad joke was born: If there were two candidates vying for the position of director of the Institute of Physics — bourgeois specialist Albert Einstein and Baltic Fleet seaman Vanya Khryushkin (the surname roughly translates as PiggyMan), they would have pre­ferred PiggyMan.

The great artist Ilya Repin had tremendous respect for the toiling masses ("I revere the people," he said) — consider, for example, his famous Barge Haulers on the Volga. But Repin's trust in the rule of the working class and peasantry ended when drunken marauders broke into his house several times in a row — with total impunity. Repin chose to leave the country. The great com­poser Sergei Rakhmaninov emigrat­ed after his house was sacked, while his piano (presumably, as a symbol of social justice meted out) was thrown from the top floor into the street. The great operatic bass Fedor Chaliapin, who had seen enough, also chose to leave. Need I go on?

The novelist Ivan Bunin, the painter Konstantin Korovin, and the ballet dancer Sergei Lifar are buried at a famous memorial cemetery near Paris. The ashes of ballerina Anna Pavlova were buried in London; the ashes of composer Igor Stravinsky rest in Venice. Is there a need to go on?

The Bolshevik state kicked the people of genius out like junk. Vladimir Horowitz, a former Khar-khov resident, became the world-famous pianist; Jascha Heifetz, a former Odessa native, became one of the century's greatest violinists; Vladimir Zvorykin invented televi­sion in the United States; Vastly Leontyev, also in the United States, won the Nobel Prize in economics; Igor Sikorsky, a graduate of the Kiev Polytechnic, built Ms famous heli­copters in emigration. These peo­ple, the nation's cream of the crop, were absolutely vital for the looted and beheaded country, but the Soviet state found them worse than useless.

 

A Caste of Upstarts

The new Communist elite were not distinguished by scrupulousness. Mikhail Kalinin's wife took the fur coat of the slain empress, while Vyacheslav Molotov's spouse had the USSR State Depository of Valuables hand to her Catherine the Great's wedding crown, later pre­sented as a gift to the U.S. ambas­sador's wife. The "modest" Stalin, who wore an ordinary service jacket in public, had luxury dachas built for him across the country. It reached the point of the absurd. The dictator ordered for his new dacha, on the Valdai lake, to be built pre­cisely on an equidistant line between the two capitals—to make it more convenient to meet with Zhdanov, the Leningrad party boss. Yet on the very first night at his new residence the supreme leader was successfully attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes: He was powerless to have them arrested or executed. Stalin never returned to that dacha again.

"Stalin's policy reflects the insecu­rity of the caste of privileged up­starts" — Leon Trotsky knew what he was talking about. The Bolshe­viks robbed and looted on a grand scale. There were more than 80,000 Russian Orthodox churches in the country, each receiving a visit from fighters for social justice. Gold coins were hauled away by the bags and boxes, chandeliers and ciboria were flattened with a hammer, and precious settings and frameworks were torn off of icons and religious books. Had those treasures, as the Bolsheviks promised, been retur­ned to the people, each Soviet citi­zen would have been richer than any Kuwaiti oil baron? But instead of affluence, milk and honey, the Soviet people were hit by famine and incredible poverty.

Where did everything that was stolen go? All that remains are the legends about the secret safe de­posit boxes at the impenetrable Swiss banks. How many genera­tions have to change before the Russian bureaucrats stop stealing? Even now they are grabbing not only posh apartments and dachas: They will never miss an opportunity of registering a factory, a bank, a commercial firm or (if they are lucky enough) a whole oil company to their wife or nephew or son-in-law or sister-in-law. All of this is of course being done in the interest of the people whose finest representa­tives are indeed living it up.

The Soviet elite is an elite that never was. The Russian elite is being built on deformed principles, partly inherited from the past century. Yet, an elite is not a group of time-servers who rose to power by chan­ce. These are "highbrowed," talent­ed, and — which is very impor­tant — moral and scrupulous peo­ple. A society in the 2ist century is unable to develop without an elite — a real elite. MN

 

VERBATIM

Elite - a group or class of persons or a member of such a group or class, enjoying superior intellectual, social, or economic status. In sociology as in general usage, the elite refers to a relatively small dominant group within a larger society, which enjoys privileged status and, almost invariantly, exploits individuals of lower social status. Some elites speak a language that is not shared by the commonality: in Tsarist Russia the elite spoke French. Elite advantages are the usual ones of a dominant sociaf class: easier access to capital and political power, more rigorous education largely free of indoctrination, resulting in cultural influence, and leadership.

(source: Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary;

encyclopedia.laborlawtalk. com/elite)

Elite theories - socio-philosophical concepts positing that the elite (top privileged stra­ta performing managerial functions, developing science and culture) and the remaining mass of the people are the essential components of the social structure of any society.

(source: Filosofskii Entsikplopedicheskii Slovar)

 

Это был оригинал статьи, опубликованный в Moscow News, # 13 (4167) on 6-12 April 2005, p. 6

 

***

А теперь, собственно, мой на него ответ.

Здравствуйте, уважаемые читатели. Смею сразу же вас заверить, что английская газета и оная, написанная по-английски – вещи суть разные. Если по английской газете мы вправе судить об англоязычном обществе, то газета, написанная НЕ АНГЛИЧАНАМИ/АМЕРИКАНЦАМИ, но на их языке – это вообще чушь.

Когда у человека начинается гангрена, хирург ОБЯЗАН ампутировать данный орган, и чем раньше - тем лучше для САМОГО же больного, чтобы не запускать болезнь, иначе можно потерять всего человека.

Я, наверное, поэтому и не доктор, что пытаюсь вернуть к жизни даже невозможно больных. Таких, например, как этот долбанутый препод Г*****ый. После распада СССР и краха диктата коммунизма (истмата или диамата – не важно, названия разные – суть одна) в стране образовался идейный вакуум, который сверху никак оказался не наполнен. Что ж, началась инициатива снизу. Предпочтения разделились приблизительно так:

от 55 лет – стойкие ленинцы, а еще  старше – вообще сталинисты,

45 – 55 – псевдолибералы-нытики, которым все плохо, а Америку хочется сейчас же. А для того, чтобы ее приблизить – будем исписывать газетенки своими прожектами. «Солженицын – умница. Пишет «Как НАМ обустроить Россию». Он не отрывает себя от Родины. И подзаголовок: «ПОСИЛЬНЫЕ соображения». То есть он пригашает вместе подумать». Приблизительно так говорит и один мой знакомый интеллигентствующий зав. кафедрой (то, чем он заведует и почему – отдельный вопрос, как-нибудь напомните, скажу).

Так вот, мы будем исписывать тонны бумаги, вместо того, чтобы взять в руки лопату, да и поднять какой-нибудь сдохший колхоз. Или же учредим премию своего имени и будем из нее оплачивать работы ярых антисоветчиков даже после торжественных похорон самого СССР. Нет, чтобы взять, и как жена Лужкова, сделать такое фермерское хозяйство, что даже простые трактористы будут в нем получать тыщ по 10. И тогда действительно окажется? что делать и говорить – не одно и то же.

Если больной понимает, о чем идет речь, то он, безусловно, согласится пожертвовать малым, чтобы сохранить большое. Так было, например, с Николаем Устряловым. Да, если найдешь, к какому направлению (...-большевизм) он принадлежал, то я тебе скажу такую фразу, что этот «...изм» - болезнь гордых, уважающих себя людей, и, наверное, я такой, ибо последующее меня (доброго, нежного, ласкового и пушистого лапочки, каким я предстаю в твоих письмах) взбесило. Если мы сами не будем себя уважать, то кто будет??

Нет же, мы с петровского времени привыкли быть садо-мазохистами-хлыстунами: нас унижают, а мы только и рады: «И как это нас он так ловко унизил, вот молодец!» Именно поэтому: бесплодная страсть к самобичеванию и пустое прожектерство, маниловщина, которые заканчиваются всегда тем, что нерешительного барина бьют его же вчерашние дядьки – вот почему Ленин называл интеллигенцию одним нехорошим словом, сама знаешь каким.

Пишу я это, собственно говоря, вот к чему: первая часть моего письма со всеми необходимыми пояснениями закончена. Перехожу ко второй. Она состоит из тезы – статейки из Moscow News и антитезы – моего ответа, по поводу которого у меня с сегодня завязалась жестокая схватка.

***

About the idea-gangrene & newspapers-surrenders

Some people can’t help lying, for them it’s necessary to know the measure

The Joseph Stalin’s answer on Winston Churchill’s Fulton speech

 

In the article give the author tries to analyze the phenomenon of Russian elite. He starts from the tsar-time. There he really found the elite, the upper-class with high moral values. The basic principal of their life was the notion of honor. The latter came after the Russian army officers. That’s why the author cites, “Give your soul to God, your life to Motherland, your heart to woman, but your honor to no one”. That’s true, that pledging one’s word of honor was good enough for taking out a loan or striking the deals worth many millions of rubles. It was because living in dishonor was more terrible, than the poverty. No one had dared to abolish the notion of honor as such.

No one, but Bolsheviks. There is some my misunderstanding; the author started from the pre-revolution time and finishes with the Soviet power, but where is the time of Vremennoe Pravitelstvo? The latter was the real embodiment of Russian elite. Look at it ministers there are the richest old-Russia businessmen (like A.I. Guchkov) and intellectuals (as prof. Milukov). They started the revolution with anti-tsar proclaims from the State Duma tribune. Every historian knows well the Milukov’s speech “What is it, the stupidity or the (high) treason?” He took a German (the country we were fighting against) newspaper and claimed one of it articles, where the Russian Government was told as trying to sign the separate peace act with German. The whole article was false & of course Milukov had no evidents. I ask you now, was it an honorable action or it was the hit to the army’s back with the knife? Remember, it was done by one of Russia’s famous professor and intellectual, those, who will blame the whole revolution some months later.

The Vremennoe Pravitelstvo (the Temporary Government) was ruling since March, 1 till October, 25. This was the time of intellectuals in power. They had big plans what to do, but what did they do? Nothing original, they continued the whole policy of the cursed tsar regime. They copied it all, even the so-called ministerskaya chekharda (the ministry leap-frog). They seemed as people, who wanted the power, invented everything to get it and, when finally got, can’t imagine what to do with it, as they spent all their talent to take it. They looked sick and tired of the power and the people were sick and tired of their unfinished deals. That’s why no one resisted the Bolsheviks.

And their leaders used everything to hold the power. They forgot about the honor and invented the “class-special justice”. As the author says, it automatically made Soviet regime endemiс of vanity, lie and stealing from the top to bottom. The ordinary people were starving, when the Bolshevik party bosses were having orgies nearly every day.

Is this true? May be, but this is the very damaged and one-sided one. The other side of truth is that the money (of sacked churches and robbered people) were put into economy. Do you know, what The Second Industrial Centre means? Or you have forgotten about Magnitka and other great erectings of 1930’s? It’s high time to visit your own psychiatrist or to check your memory. The Second Industrial Centre is the multitude of factories and plants of heavy industry. And what I want to tell now, it was The Second Industrial Centre, thanks to which our ancestors won the WWII. Can you imagine the whole armor made on it during the war? Now compare it with the lend-lease supply, if it possible. Don’t forget this, Russia won the WWII under the power J. Stalin, good or bad.

Coming further in his deep pessimist article the author makes a dreadful conclusion, “The Soviet elite is the elite, that never was”. Chaadaev with his Philosophical letters is taking a rest. The journalist says, there was no Russian elite. I advise him to open the eyes and watch TV. He can see there (if he has some other channels, except American ones) the Russian scientists having the Nobel award. Besides that, if the psychiatrist visiting can’t help, open any soviet encyclopedia and find there who were the following: Kurchatov, Korolev, Morozov, Ilyushin, Lavochkin. (The last three invented the best battle tank and destroyers of WWII).

The only word of truth in this though lying article is that the modern Russia elite is being built on the deformed principals. That’s true, unlike it predecessors (the real statesmen in every sphere of life) the modern elite looks like a bunch of thieves. This is the only true passage since the first passage.

To sum it up, I can’t do anything, but state, that there is a war. The psychological war started with Churchill Fulton’s speech on 1946 March, 5 and had never been ceased. The peculiar feature of it modern period is the unhidden anti-Russian propaganda, drawing by Russian mass-media. This is the war against our memory & thus, Russians as a nation. The only thing we are to do after reading the very article is to hang ours or such a “journalists”.

 

 

 Главный Теоретик (major-theoretic.narod.ru)