After capitalism
The manifesto of the movement "The Essence of Time", written and read during the Summer SchoolThe full text of the manifest:
Russian language: http://eot.su/sites/default/files/manifest_eot.pdf
Soundtrack - reading the manifesto at the summer school: http://ifolder.ru/25330943
AFTER CAPITALISM
Manifest of the movement "The Essence of Time"
Introduction Conceptual and existential frame
Any movement unites people with different views and beliefs. These differences are natural and in some sense necessary. But this has nothing to do with omnivorous: there must be something that unites people who decide to do a common thing together.
And this is something - not even some general principle, but a certain frame, outlining the political, moral and existential territory common to all participants.
What is the frame for the movement "The Essence of Time"?
It is composed of only four principles.
Principle #1. We all treat the collapse of the USSR as a personal tragedy. The forces responsible for this collapse deprived us of our homeland. This is especially clear now, when all the same forces seek to finish Russia to the end, using literally the same methods that allowed them to organize the collapse of the USSR.
So, the loss of the USSR for us is a loss. The pain of this loss over the years has not subsided. Quite the contrary. For as time passes, the tragic realization of how much we lost then increases.
The ruined Soviet Union lives in our hearts. And since he lives in them - the USSR can be restored.
The ability to keep in heart what has disappeared in reality is the main prerequisite for revenge. Yes, it is revenge - we are talking about him and only about him.
The desire for revenge - is the realization of the bitterness of defeat and readiness for victory. Only this and nothing else.
We are experiencing the collapse of the USSR as the defeat of our people and our personal defeat. But we did not capitulate. We are ready to continue the fight and win.
Principle No.2. We want to know why the Soviet Union collapsed and who is guilty of this tragedy. We understand that the answer to this question is extremely complicated. What the enemy used against us is complicated and insidious weapon. That the enemy and now creates all sorts of false targets and smoke screens. We do not want simple answers. For we understand that simplicity is worse than theft.
We will not spare the powers of the mind and soul in order to reach the truth. We are ready to learn, to take new and new barriers of difficulty in the search for a final answer.
Not ready to give a final answer today, we will give it tomorrow. Russian tales speak of seven pairs of worn iron boots. If necessary, we will stop seventy-seven pairs of such iron boots. For we want the final answer to your question. And we will get this answer.
Principle No.3. We want to understand not only who is guilty of the collapse of the USSR and what is the true intention of the forces that managed to ensure its collapse.
We also want to understand how to return the lost. Only for this we break through to the truth. Returning the lost is even more difficult by an order of magnitude than getting an answer to the question of who, how and why took our beloved away.
We are not afraid of this complexity. We want to find a real, complete answer to the question of how to recover the lost. And we will get this answer.
Principle No.4. Without love, reason is powerless. Without a mind, love is blind.
But both mind and love are not enough. We want an understanding of the nature of our defeat, an understanding of the paths to victory — not just to amuse our mind and soothe heart pain. We want to not only understand how to return the lost. We want to return this lost.
The heart and mind, even when united, are powerless if there is no will. We have this will. We want to fight to regain the lost. We do not want ecstasy, we will not convulse. We can cool the feeling without losing it. Our mind can and will take one barrier of complexity after another.
But all this for us is not an exercise of the soul and mind. We need to love and know in order to act.
Following Marx, we say: scientists have been explaining the world too long, while the point is to change it.
That's all that unites us. Only these four principles - and nothing else. They set the conceptual, moral, existential, political framework. Inside it, we feel and think differently. We just go to the general path. We believe that traveling in search of the lost will bring us closer together. And while we will always remain different. This, we repeat, is normal and even necessary. Differently, we experience a loss and understand the nature of this loss.
But we want to return the lost. And we will return it.
Those who do not share the four principles that unite us, let them step aside. Both sectarian intolerance and lack of will of omnivorous are equally alien.
Having stipulated all that unites us, we turn to what, in our opinion, makes possible the realization of our main and only strategic goal.
Part of 1. On the content of the modern era
Chapter 1. Twenty years later
Twenty years ago, the Soviet Union collapsed.
Twenty years ago, a red flag fluttering over the Kremlin was lowered.
Twenty years ago, anti-communism and anti-Sovietism became the official ideology of the new post-Soviet Russia.
Twenty years ago, it was stated that the collapse of the USSR was not a catastrophe, but the liberation of Russia from the monstrous shackles of Sovietism. And return to the fold of world civilization. That is in capitalism.
In the name of this return to capitalism, they repudiated very, very much. From created by gigantic efforts and gigantic sacrifices of a great state. From the Soviet way of life. And - from its historical path.
After all, the project called “capitalism” turned out to be, to put it mildly, very difficult to combine with Russia as a historical and cultural personality.
Lenin spoke about this quite convincingly in his early work, The Development of Capitalism in Russia. But this was also said by the opponents of Lenin from the camp of the poet. And also quite convincingly.
However, the point is not who exactly and what he said on this occasion. The thing is historical practice. The bourgeoisie of the Russian Empire took shape over the centuries. And she nominated prominent politicians and public figures from her ranks. But at a decisive moment, after the February Revolution, this bourgeoisie showed tremendous lack of will and lack of talent. For six months, she lost everything. Her behavior was fundamentally different from the behavior of the French, English, and even German or Italian bourgeoisie.
The differences were so striking that the question inevitably arose of the reasons for such a failure of the class, to which history provided all conceivable and inconceivable opportunities.
The collapse of the Russian bourgeoisie after the February Revolution turned into the collapse of the country, which the Bolsheviks with great difficulty rescued from the final death. And how was it saved? Conducting a radical anti-bourgeois policy. That is, abandoning the merging of historical Russia with bourgeois. Having found some insurmountable tissue barrier between this very bourgeois and the Fatherland.
The Bolsheviks had no time. They had no opportunity to break feathers, explaining why either capitalism or Russia. And the classical Marxist apparatus did not allow them to philosophically comprehend such a "either-or". After all, according to this apparatus, any country must go through a period of capitalist development.
The Bolsheviks just said that Russia had already passed this period - somehow, but somehow. In what sense was it? Why is it gone?
The Bolsheviks did not give a clear answer about this and could not give it.
This was done by their opponents from the soil camp. But they did not point the way ahead. In fact, they simply chanted feudalism, opposing bourgeois spirituality to its spirituality.
The Bolsheviks pointed the way forward. And they took Russia along this road - radically anti-bourgeois and anti-feudal at the same time.
But what is the secret of the incompatibility of capitalism and Russia as a historical and cultural personality? Are we talking only about the incompatibility of any multinational empire with the bourgeois, which always turns into a “parade of bourgeois nationalism”? Or is it about something deeper?
The answer to this question is particularly needed now.
Our opponents from the radical liberal camp have already given their answer. They said: “Yes, the Russian spirit, the Russian cultural matrix are incompatible with capitalism. We may not understand why. But we admit it. Yes, we do not want to particularly understand why. Because it is clear to us that either capitalism or death. So, in the name of life (that is, building capitalism) we will deal with Russia, like a cook with potatoes. Encourage the Russian spirit to mutate, change the core of Russian culture, radically transform the Russian cultural matrix. And what else can you do? ”So say the liberals.
But we, at least now — in the most disastrous period for Russia, a period of incredible hopelessness — to get out of the impasse, we need an intelligible answer to the question WHY Russia is incompatible with capitalism. What exactly is the secret of this incompatibility?
We admit the obvious.
Twenty years ago, Russia again started a love affair with capitalism. This time with even more disastrous consequences than in February 1917. At the same time, the catastrophe of February, which is also the catastrophe of the failure of the then bourgeoisie as the dominant political class, lasted just over half a year. The current novel of the new post-Soviet Russia with the new capitalism lasts twenty years. During these twenty years, capitalism has not created anything, but has destroyed everything.
Our opponents blame Russia for this, which only mimics consent to marriage with capitalism. But in fact, it still cultivates a focused and stubborn anti-bourgeoisness.
And if so, our opponents say, then we need any, the most radical means of encouraging Russia to capitalism. Yes, yes, even more radical than before. Desovitization in the manner of denazification, external control. If necessary, and dismemberment. All this is for the great glory of capitalism.
After all, only in capitalism is salvation, only in it is the way out, only he can somehow keep afloat.
Even before our struggle with our opponents enters a crucial phase, we need for ourselves to get a clear answer to the question - is this true? Or maybe our opponents are right? Perhaps, really, only in capitalism is salvation? Perhaps, in this case, it is really necessary to suppress by any means the rejection, which for centuries has prevented Russia from becoming bourgeois?
In order to get an honest and deep answer to this question, we need a new analyst of capitalism, which essentially rethink everything related to its past and will give an opportunity to look into its future.
At the same time, we need not anti-capitalist propaganda and agitation. We need a theoretical apparatus that allows us to answer honestly the question about the essence and prospects of capitalism. And that means about what is the conclusion of Russia from its current horrible state? In order to capitalize the country at any cost, or in something else?
We will not anticipate the answer to this question.
We will not work on the idea.
We are exploring capitalism with the utmost scientific honesty, relying on that conceptual apparatus and the factual data that will take into account everything: the objective achievements of Western capitalism, the collapse of the anti-capitalist USSR, and the humiliating nightmare of the last capitalist twenty years.
Chapter 2. Renunciation and the Renewals
Twenty years ago, under the slogan of returning to world civilization (that is, capitalism), under the slogan of accelerating the attainment of “normal life” (that is, capitalism), a fundamental renunciation of its own historical path in the name of accelerated construction of a “bright capitalist future” occurred.
Particular cynicism was that this renunciation was formalized as a return to the primordial national traditions that the "bolshevik reptiles" trampled.
The renowners metered used pre-Soviet symbolism and semantics. Dismembering the empire and trampling down all the values that had created it, the Ottomans presented an anti-Soviet pseudo-imperial surrogate to the people. At the same time, they didn’t conceal the fact that we are talking about a surrogate, which should reconcile the broad strata of Russian society with their new policies.
At the same time, the devotees did not hide their contempt for these widest strata. Encouraged by the fact that the “strata” had already supported them, having chosen Yeltsin in June 1991 as president of the RSFSR, the otverchents regarded the population that supported them as cattle, “people” who “eat” any surrogate.
It is possible and necessary to discuss the reasons why a terrible dream of renunciation has lasted in Russia for twenty years. And one cannot but admit the obvious: this dream could not have lasted so long if Russia had not received terrible damage.
The dream of renunciation is unprecedentedly long. Its consequences are horrible and humiliating. This applies to everything: education and health, industry and agriculture, defense and security, law and order, and demography.
All this does not allow us to dismiss the question of whether the country is alive at all. Let us leave the optimists on duty alone with those who are on duty listening to their on-duty exclamations about the fact that Russia "rose from its knees." And we will honestly ask ourselves: is it about an incredibly long and nightmare dream - or about the death of a country?
Asking this question, we will not play in the giveaway. And we will carefully measure the parameters that allow you to get the truthful answer to this terrible question. And we recognize that Russia, having embarked on the capitalist path in an ugly way as never before, received a terrible trauma. But, nevertheless, she is alive. And little by little he comes out of his twenty-year-old sleep, very similar to a coma.
No need for sweet illusions. Russia has not yet fully awakened. She still fluctuates between life and death. The possibility is very great that the forces that need precisely the death of Russia will achieve what they are looking for. But no matter how great this opportunity, Russia has a chance to live. And this chance must be used completely. Any lack of will, any apathy, any references to the infinite weakness of Russia's friends and the infinite power of its enemies are unforgivable here.
But what should be offered to Russia, which the capitalist temptation has already brought to a coma? The same capitalism, but in an immeasurably larger dose, plus the suppression of the whole anti-capitalist? And if the whole tradition is anti-capitalist? Then it should be suppressed all entirely? But then what will be left of Russia?
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