S.V. Gerasimov. For the power of the Soviets. 1957 year
It was a disaster much worse than fighting the external enemy, even the worst. This war has split the civilization, the people, the family and even the very person of man. It caused severe wounds, which for a long time determined the development of the country and society. This split still predetermines the present of Russia.
At the same time, the civil war was inextricably linked to countering the external threat, the war for the survival of Russia — the war against the western interventionists. The role of the West in the generation and course of the civil war in Russia in modern times is often underestimated. Although this was a major factor in the fratricidal carnage on the territory of Russian civilization. In 1917-1921 West led the war against Russian arms and white nationalists, in particular Poles. Lenin rightly pointed out the December 2 of 1919 of the year: “World imperialism, which caused us, in essence, a civil war and is guilty of prolonging it ...”
The February-March revolution of 1917 of the year (in fact, a palace coup, in its consequences, the revolution) was caused by a civilizational conflict, as was the subsequent civil war. The project of the Romanovs as a whole was pro-Western, the westernized elite of Russia, the intelligentsia and the bourgeoisie generally adhered to a liberal, Westernist ideology. The majority of the people — the peasantry (the overwhelming majority of the population of the Russian empire) and the workers — yesterday’s peasants — maintained a connection with the Russian civilization matrix.
However, the pro-Western elite of the Russian Empire believed that autocracy hampered the development of the country along the western path. The political, military, administrative, industrial-financial and most of the intellectual elite of Russia tried to make Russia "sweet France or Holland (England)". The king was overthrown, contrary to the myth created in the Liberal Russia in 1990-ies, not the Red Guards and Bolshevik commissars, and members of the upper class - the most prominent politicians, members of the Duma, the generals, the great princes. The noble, wealthy class of the empire. At the same time, many revolutionaries of the Februaryists were simultaneously freemasons, members of closed clubs and lodges.
These people had strength and connections, wealth and power, but they did not have full power in the country. Tsarism prevented - Russian autocracy. They wanted to destroy autocracy, reform the archaic political system in Russia and get full power. That is, the bourgeoisie, which had the estate, was to become the complete masters in the country, following the example of England, France and the USA. Russian Westerners needed liberal democracy, in which real power belongs to money bags, the market needs economic freedom. Finally, Russian liberal Westerners simply liked living in Europe - so sweet and civilized. They believed that Russia should become a part of European civilization and to go on the Western path of development.
Thus, the revolution and the civil war in Russia was generated not by a class conflict, but a civilizational one. Class interests are only part of the conflict, the visible part of it. Suffice it to recall how the Russian officers (generally from one class) during the civil war was divided almost in half between white and red. So, in the Red Army served about 70-75 thousand officers of the former Imperial Army -. About a third of the old officer corps, in the White Army -. About 100 thousand (40%), other officers tried to remain neutral, or fled, and did not fight. In the Red Army there were 639 generals and officers of the General Staff, in the White Army - 750. From 100 Red Commanders to 1918-1922 - 82 were former royal generals. That is the color of Russian imperial army was divided between red and white is almost equally. At the same time, most officers did not accept the “class position”, that is, they did not join the Bolshevik Party. They chose the Red Army as the spokesman of the civilizational interests of the majority of the people.
The red project created a new world on the ruins of the old and at the same time carried the beginnings of a deeply national, Russian civilizational project. The project of the Bolsheviks absorbed such basic values for the Russian matrix code as justice, the primacy of truth over the law, the spiritual principle over the material, the general over the particular. At the same time, Bolshevism adopted the Russian work ethic — the fundamental role of productive, honest work in the life and lifestyle of the Russian people. Communism stood on the priority of labor, rejected the world of robbery, appropriation, was against social parasitism. The Bolsheviks offered the image of a "bright future" - a just world, the Christian Kingdom of God on earth. This Russian civilization basis of Bolshevism manifested itself almost immediately and attracted the people, including a significant part of the officers.
During the civil war, they fought for the truth, on the question of how people should live in Russia. February crushed one of the main pillars of Russian civilization - its statehood, killed “old Russia”. The revolutionaries of the Februaryists, who formed the Provisional Government, were guided by the Western development matrix, the Western model of the liberal bourgeois state. They enthusiastically broke all the institutions of the traditional, old Russian statehood - the army, the police, etc. The destruction of the Russian statehood became the most important consequence of the February revolution.
Liberal Westerners took the first role in society, and they demolished “old Russia”. The liquidation of autocracy and the destruction of the old Russian army became the basis for the all-Russian turmoil. At the same time, the Bolsheviks, who relied on the workers, began to create a new reality, a world, a new Soviet statehood, an alternative to the Western model that the Provisional Government was trying to build. This gave rise to one of the most powerful social conflicts for the whole history Russia. The stronger the new pro-Western power tried to bend the traditional society under them, bearing in itself the beginnings of the Russian civilization matrix, the more they met resistance.
In particular, the peasants went their way. Already in 1917, they began their war of peasants. After the fall of the sacred (sacred) for the peasants of the royal power, the peasantry began to redistribute land and pogrom landlord estates. The peasants did not accept the new power, the Provisional Government. The peasantry no longer wanted to pay taxes, serve in the army, obey the authorities. Peasants are now trying to implement their project of freemen, free communities.
A civilizational split, not a class split, is clearly visible in the example of Georgia. There, during the collapse of the Russian empire after February, the Georgian Mensheviks, Zhordania, Chkhenkeli, Chkheidze, Tsereteli, and others, took power. They were prominent members of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDLP), revolutionaries who destroyed the autocracy and the Russian empire. The Georgian Mensheviks were part of the Provisional Government and the Petrograd Soviet. In class terms, the Mensheviks expressed the interests of the workers. Thus, in Georgia, the Mensheviks formed the Red Guard from among the workers, disarmed the soldiers' Soviets, in which the Bolsheviks and Russians by nationality prevailed. The Georgian Menshevik government suppressed the Bolshevik uprisings, and in foreign policy focused from the beginning on Germany, and then on Britain.
The internal policy of the government of Zhordania was socialist and anti-Russian. An agrarian reform was quickly carried out in Georgia: the landlord’s land was confiscated without ransom and sold to peasants on credit. Then mines and most of the industry were nationalized. A monopoly on foreign trade was introduced. That is, the Georgian Marxists pursued a typical socialist policy.
However, the socialist Georgian government was the irreconcilable enemy of the Russians and the Bolsheviks. Tiflis in every way suppressed a large Russian community within Georgia, although objectively Russian specialists, employees and military were needed by the young state, which is experiencing huge personnel problems. Tiflis quarreled with the White Army under the command of Denikin, and even fought with the Whites for Sochi (How Georgia tried to seize Sochi; How the Whites crushed the Georgian invaders), although objectively the white and Georgian Mensheviks were to become allies against the Reds. They even had common patrons - the British. And this Georgian government was the enemy of the Bolsheviks. The essence of the confrontation between socialist Georgia and Soviet Russia was well explained by Jordania in his speech 16 January 1920: “Our road leads to Europe, the road of Russia to Asia. I know that our people will say that we are on the side of imperialism. Therefore, I must say with all determination: I would prefer Western imperialism to the fanatics of the East! ”Thus, socialist and nationalist Georgia chose the Western path of development, hence the confrontation with all Russians (and whites and reds), and the opposition of Georgian and Russian socialists.
Poland demonstrates the same example. The future dictator of Poland, Jozef Pilsudski, began as a revolutionary and a socialist, a fan of Engels and the leader of the Polish Socialist Party. And he ended up as an ardent nationalist, whose main point in the political program was “deep hatred of Russia” and the restoration of Great Poland (Rzeczpospolita) from sea to sea. Poland again became the tool of the masters of the West in the millennial struggle against Russian civilization.
It is clear that civilization conflict is only the foundation, the foundation, it does not cancel the social, class conflict that has matured in Russia. He was associated with the struggle of economic formations. The invasion of capitalism undermined the old feudal, caste society and its statehood in Russia. In this regard, the reforms of Alexander II, especially the peasant reform, undercut the foundations of the old system in Russia, but did not approve capitalism. The ideology of the whites - “capitalists, bourgeois and kulaks”, just stood for the victory of capitalism in Russia, the Western model of development. The same forces that were against predatory capitalism, but were in favor of modernizing Russia, went for the red ones. The way out of the historical deadlock, which Russia entered at the turn of the XIX - XX centuries, and which led to the 1917 catastrophe of the year, these forces saw in the establishment of a socialist Soviet system, a new, but not a capitalist formation.
In this way, The 1917 revolution of the year led to the fact that from its very beginning a civilizational conflict emerged - the Western and Russian civilizational matrices, a conflict of economic formations - capitalist and new socialist, and two types of statehood - the liberal bourgeois republic and the Soviet government. These two types of statehood, the authorities were different in ideology, social and economic aspirations. They belonged to two different civilizations.
October was the civilization choice of the Russian people. February, which was represented by the Cadet liberals (the future ideologues of the White movement) and the Menshevik Marxists, who considered themselves "the power of Europe", represented the Western model of development, civilization. They quite persistently called the Bolsheviks "the power of Asia", "Asiatic". Also, some philosophers, ideologists identified Bolshevism with Slavophilism, the Russian "Black Hundreds". Thus, the Russian philosopher N. Berdyaev repeatedly said: “Bolshevism is much more traditional than is customary to think. He agrees with the peculiarity of the Russian historical process. Russification and orientalization of Marxism took place ”(orientalism, from the Latin. Orientalis - Eastern, giving the Eastern character). In Russia, Marxism became Russian communism, which absorbed the fundamental principles of the Russian civilization matrix.
Fevralist-Westerners and whites did not have full support in any major social group of Russia. The pro-Western elite and intelligentsia of Russia saw the ideal in a liberal-bourgeois republic based on civil liberties and a market economy (capitalism). And the ideal of the liberal-bourgeois state was incompatible with the ideals of the overwhelming majority of the people, except for the social elite of the society, the bourgeoisie, large and medium-sized owners. The peasants preserved the patriarchal ideal of a family-society (Christian commune) living on the basis of conscience and truth. The workers, for the most part just emerged from the peasant class, maintained the outlook of the communal peasants.
The civil war showed that the people are behind Russian Bolshevism, as an expression of the Russian civilization matrix. The white project, in fact, pro-Western, tried to make Russia part of a “sweet, enlightened Europe” and was defeated.