Cult of personality? Let's believe in deeds
Tired of ... How many decades have we been told that we are morons, stupefied by propaganda and therefore unable to see all the harm, all the vileness and terrible cruelty of power in the USSR and, accordingly, in Russia. We are told that everything that happened and is happening in our country is directed exclusively against us.
And we are not laying our lives for Russia, but for some hidden enemies of the state in the Central Committee of the party or the government of the USSR, and today for some oligarchs and the same enemies in the government and parliament of the Russian Federation. In discussions on any issue that interests society today, you will definitely find just such an opinion. "Our soldiers are dying for their interests ..." Next, you can write the name of any oligarch or official of the highest level.
I wonder why my and your grandfathers were so unlucky. They were not lucky to live under the cult of personality of Stalin.
Ancestors were lucky. They were dying for faith, the king and the Fatherland. Even earlier - for Russia and his prince. But the grandfathers, who went on the attack for their homeland, for Stalin, even without realizing it, lived under the cult of personality. And they died for the tyrant, obscurantist, the killer of the innocent and, what is now still in trend, Stalin.
You do not have a question about the sanity of your grandfather or great-grandfather who did not understand this? Do you have any questions for Nikolai Ostrovsky? To the builders of Komsomolsk-on-Amur? But to the thousands of heroes who deliberately went to death during the war, does not arise? To the builders of BAM? To the Vorkuta miners? To the thousands of our very grandfathers and grandmothers who threw a well-fed life in cities and rushed off somewhere to Siberia, the Far East, the Arctic Circle to build, mine, pull oil and gas pipelines? ..
The cult of personality as a refuge of mediocrity
For some reason, we forgot about one strangeness associated with the emergence of a personality cult. I about the fact that this concept appeared not somewhere in liberal minds or in Western democratic brains. They talked about the personality cult ... the communists. After the death of Stalin. And those who actively participated in events that really do not honor the leadership of our country in the 30s of the last century started talking about this.
To argue about why the cult of personality appeared is stupid. Both supporters and opponents of the cult cite hundreds of facts that really were, but which can be interpreted in different ways. It’s enough to just pop something out and forget something. For example, opponents of Stalin speak of the beginning of the formation of a cult in the 20s. And they give a historically existing fact - Stalingrad.
Indeed, in the mid-20s, Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad. I even “throw logs into the fire” of supporters. Then Yuzovka was renamed Stalin (today Donetsk), Dyushambe became Stalinabad (now Dushanbe). A little later they built Stalin (now Novokuznetsk) and Stalinogorsk (now Novomoskovsk). There was even Staliniri (now Tskhinval). Moreover, even Moscow could be renamed Stalinodar. At least, there were such conversations in 1937-39 ...
There - Kaliningrad, Ulyanovsk, Leninsk. Although there were also outstanding pilots, scientists, workers. As a result: Chkalovsk, Stakhanov, Michurinsk ... Renaming is more likely a tradition of those times. cities were named after people always and everywhere. Washington, Constanta, Hamilton, Friedrichsaw, Sherbrooke ...
It sometimes seems to me that after the departure of a truly outstanding personality, a vacuum arises in the minds of people. There is no man, but his work lives on. And in this vacuum and mediocrity rush, performers who also want to become great. But for this it is simply necessary to slander the one who was ahead.
Why are there so many great people in the history of Russia
Studying history of our state, one is struck by one interesting fact. You are amazed at the number of great statesmen who were either born here or became great after moving here. It is almost impossible today to name the greatest of many persons.
Alas, in my opinion, this is not a “special fate of Russia”, not a “providence”, not even a “divine destiny”, no matter how pleasant it is for us to talk about it. Everything is much simpler and more complicated.
We have always been a peasant country. A country based on peasant communities. There were few citizens, and the cities were located quite compactly. In most areas of the city did not go to any comparison with European. These were rather large villages. Hence the features of territorial management.
Hence the emergence of "statesmen" of different caliber, who had nothing to do with the state. All these Emelyan Pugachevs, Stenka Raziny and the like. Does anyone doubt the outstanding organizational skills of such people? By the way, on Red Square there is a monument to one of these nuggets. Remember Kuzma Minin next to Prince Pozharsky?
Russian society, based on a peasant community, did not scatter into its own huts when danger appeared. It independently promoted leaders whom it followed and trusted. Remember the militia of Minin and Pozharsky, remember the partisans of the Patriotic War of 1812, remember the partisans of the Great Patriotic War. How many leaders appeared then! How many personalities appeared from the people.
Again the cult of personality
We are again frightened by the cult of personality. Again, the voices of those who predict great blood are heard. Again remember the Gulag and political prisoners. Sentry, political opponents will soon be killed! .. Soon we will see an “invasion of the great and terrible sculptures” in our squares, as it was under Stalin ...
Although - the Yeltsin Center in Yekaterinburg is already standing. A religious building? Quite. Moreover, they are planning to build a second one - in the capital.
Library named after Yeltsin. Gaidar forums ... Cult? Well, if it is believed that there was a Stalinist cult, then why then these manifestations are not called such.
Somehow imperceptibly for the majority of our concepts have changed. The monument on the square is no longer perceived as a tribute to the memory of a great man, as a tribute to respect, if you will. We are ready to mix the memory of our ancestors with the earth for the sake of some kind of “historical truth”. We reason, sitting in a soft chair in the 21st century, about the military operations of the Second World War. We blame the commanders for the fact that "the losses were disproportionate to the outcome of the operation."
Look at what they reproach us today. We are reproached for the fact that we ourselves, or rather, our generals and marshals, threw people into a bloody meat grinder. And it was necessary as in Europe. Protect people and cities. In short, I had to give up. I once spoke with a veteran who commanded an anti-tank platoon near the village of Kostrovo. By the way, it was there that he later, after the war, came to live.
Yes, they brought them, militias, almost unarmed, to New Jerusalem. Yes, the Germans crushed the militia for two hours tanks. Those who remained came out of the battle armed and evil. Two hours later another train arrived from Moscow. Ghibli echelons! But the Germans were not allowed on. Even this New Jerusalem was surrendered only for a short time.
And this veteran became the commander of the anti-tank platoon only because he found an abandoned magpie with his friends in the forest and stood in the way of the tank column. Eight militias with a 45 mm gun against the tank column ... And he became the platoon commander only because the commander of the rifle regiment saw this gun. In the absence of others, one gun became a platoon ...
Do you think this veteran blamed the authorities for something? No, he understood that his comrades defended Moscow. Let them briefly, but at the cost of their lives restrained the German offensive. And the commanders did not blame the death of comrades. Because the same regiment itself went with a rifle to attack in a chain. Next to ordinary soldiers. Yes, and the generals then went on the attack. Even the marshals.
It’s time to stop talking about the personality cult of anyone. It's not about a cult, but about a tribute to the individual. Why do not we remember the thousands who died during the construction of St. Petersburg? We are talking about Peter the Great. Why aren't we talking about tens of thousands of dead fighters of Suvorov or Kutuzov? We are talking about great commanders.
And the last one. Now it’s very fashionable to talk about the victory of the people. The commander is nothing, the soldier is everything. Anyone who has ever participated in a real battle will tell you about the role of commander. Sorry for such a comparison, but we did not come up with a saying about a lion headed by a flock of sheep, which can disperse a squad of lions headed by a ram. Snipers knock out primarily commanders and signalmen.
To paraphrase the saying already mentioned, I’ll say: we won because lions commanded the squads of lions. Every warrior, no matter what position he held in the war, was a lion. I recently accidentally saw a new feature film called "Corporal". Our Mosfilm film about the smallest soldier of the Great Patriotic War.
For me it was a revelation. The smallest soldier, or rather, corporal, at the end of the war, awarded in 1943 the medal "For Military Merit" was ... born in 1936. And he fought from the very beginning of the war! Hero? Definitely. He is just one of many.
It is impossible to divide soldiers into those who have done more to win or less.
Probably enough to already come up with slops, which then spill over to the dead. We, unlike our grandfathers, can already see the results. What happened to the country during the reign of a leader. Stalin? Which country did he accept and which country did he transmit? Khrushchev? Which country did he receive and which was taken from him? And so for each leader, including the current president.
You just need to look around and see or not see. That's all.
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