Igor Charskykh

Ideological Conflict in the So-Called Socialist System

[Charskykh I. Ideological Conflict in the So-called Socialist System // Charskykh I. (Ed.) Eastern Europe and World Community: History and Contemporaneity. – Donetsk: DAIR, 1996. – P.106-116]   

The author wishes to express his gratitude to all sixteen participants of the Scientific Seminar "History of Communism" which was held in June-July 1996 in Budapest within the framework of CEU-HESP Summer University and especially deep acknowledgments to the Course Directors Istvan Rev, OMRI Archives Academic Director, and Alfred Rieber, Head of CEU History Department. Owing to the contacts and discussions with organizers and the participants of that conference these observations and suggestions came into being and then were presented more comprehensively at the Plenary sitting of the International Scientific Conference in Donetsk, in September 1996.

The Civilization theory' as a trend of social science obviously or under the veil opposing the west-centrist stages-formation approach when explaining humanity history and going on processes in the present day world defines religion as the main criterion when classifying civilizations. Religion as historically primary kind of ideology served during many centuries as a form of making and developing cultures which became the basis for making up Western-Christian (Occidental), Buddo-Confucianist, Hinduist, Islamist and other civilizations. In 1917 there was a collapse, a break up of the intermediate Eurasian civilization and on its ruins there appeared a new one - a Communist civilization. The communist ideology became its main formation factor Having at the beginning really grounded claims for scientific character it was turned into religion with its all main attributes:

with its saints and prophets, rituals, suppression of other religious beliefs by organized measures of compulsion and creation of treatises not for the cognition of objective reality but for the people's consolation and justification of the existing state of things and governors' actions.

Each universal civilization community is characterized by a hierarchy of development levels when the preceding hierarchy levels continue existing alongside with the appearance of higher ones; each universal civilization is characterized by an unevenness of territorial spread scale (Center-Periphery) and uneven strata of society (more and less civilized strata) as well The borders of civilizations are rather mobile and here a reciprocal action takes

106

place beginning with mutual enrichment up to the confrontation and the fight for submitting their influence and including marginal regions and zones into their own sphere.

It is characteristic of each universal community to have its own specific structures on which civilizations are organizationally based. They are umma, sangh, caste; as for the Western civilization one can find such structures in the communities of Christian parishes and the organizations of civil society. No doubt, the primary Party organization was such a specific structure in the Communist civilization.

With such an approach to the defining significance of religion and its key role as a spiritual and ideological factor as an institute integrating various social strata, groups and states is evident. That's why the complex study of ideological conflict in the so-called Socialist system is highly important, in our opinion, for the explanation of its history and break up and for making clear the historic perspectives of its splinters.

Before considering the above mentioned problem it is necessary to make some introductory remarks.

1. We are afraid, the term "ideology" especially with the addition of "communist" will acquire an exclusively negative character. Ideology is necessary for any society. The state is powerful in case its ideology is strong. It is only with the help of well regulated state mechanism and in accordance with the scientifically well grounded ideology that a successful social development is possible. On the second and subsequent modernization waves social engineering is inevitable. The times of "natural" rise of successful socio-economic systems from chaotic relations passed long ago if they have ever existed

Every system of views lacks something. And the Communist one not more than others. If we treat communism (socialism) as an ideology we have to agree that it can develop. Not without difficulties, we should say. And then we are not to oppose the young Marx to the mature Marx and so on. Each of us has an opportunity to develop his views. Why Marx or Lenin should be exceptions? And why not to choose then the best points, the highest achievements of the ideology under discussion for its characteristic?

2. So if we proceed from the refined criterion of "sociolistness" according to Marxist-Leninist theory, socialism is a sociosystem that creates

first of all conditions for a higher productivity of labor as compared with that of the "previous formation" ;

Secondly: Socialism is a state system with the social property for the means of production and that's why - without exploitation.

107

Thirdly: Socialism is a state system under which all state power really belongs to people, it is the system characterized by real democracy.

Fourthly: Socialism is a system under which there is harmony of national interests.

And the most important criterion of socialism is to answer the question "What is Man (Person) under the present (given) sociosystem?" Is "Man" ("Person") the aim of social development or the means (the way) of achieving the egoistic (selfish?) aims of some pressure groups of politicians or perhaps the object of exploitation? In other words, is there real humanism under the present system?

There is no doubt that none of the former Eastern or Central European regimes corresponded to the above mentioned criteria of socialism².

However, the terms "socialism" and "communism" are constantly applied when speaking about the well-known regimes. And they sometimes add in the light of the above mentioned that it was a "real", but "deformed socialism", "it was not refined, but real", "real, but deformed".

3. To illustrate the term "real but deformed socialism (communism)' we are going to give an example of a deformed bucket.

- What if the ready made bucket is rolled by a pavement roller? Will it still be a bucket or not a bucket?

- We think, it will still be a bucket, though very much deformed.

- And what if the bucket has not been made yet and the tin plate for (lie bucket has only been cut... and the roller has already rolled on it?

- We doubt if there will remain any bucket as a result. The same is about the case dealing with communism: there has not yet been built anything like communism, but the roller had rolled on it, we mean the roller of Stalinism the parameters of which were the contrast to the ideal ones. The main thing is that communism was transformed from the scientifically tested ideological system into the system of religious dogmata.

Thus, though the terms "socialism" and "communism", applied to the Eastern and Central European regimes have become commonly used the scientists should remember about the conventional character of the above mentioned terms. That's why in our title we have used such a combination of words as "so-called socialist system".

When discussing in essence the problem we have put, let's consider. the ideological conflict in so-called socialist system as an internal one to begin with. There were a lot of ideological discussions inside the governing cliques in the 1920s and mid 1950s in the Soviet Union, in the end of the 1950s in China, there were ideological battles inside the leadership in other

108

so-called socialist countries. Those discussions were often characterized as an expression of some social and class tendencies in the society under transition. We try to examine those battles first of all as ideological forms of the struggle for power inside the ruling cliques that is as a manifestation of a status conflict. Real policy, more often than not, doesn't deal with principles but interests. N.Buckharin, the left communist in 1918, becomes the right one in the 1920s. Bulgarian from Romania C.Rakovsky and Donetsk worker M.Skrypnik the revolutionaries-internationalists in 1917 when sent to Ukraine and being at the head of it one after another become Ukrainian national communists when fighting for power. The real political views of the conflict actors as a rule were of no significance as they were dictated by their posts (positions)³. Roughly speaking the convictions are secondary and the post is primary when we speak about an individual, not about a society

So the ideological divergences inside governing cliques as a result of the status conflict were very dangerous for the regimes. And it was Lenin who stressed that at his time. They staged the system. But they were inevitable! To leave the system alive one must keep those conflicts in certain frames or borders. That's why there existed many ideological Taboo. And it was another manifestation of the ideological conflict this time between theory and practice, between words and deeds.

We mean the basic conflict between the proclaimed ideals and the official propaganda statements, that is, between talking on one side and real life on the other side. Here we are speaking about the estrangement of the great majority of people from the property and power against the background of declarations about the "power of people" and the "public property".

Here we keep in our mind the mass corruption and die abuse of power by the party and state officials' isolation from people and large scale exploitation of people by indirect methods at the background of talking about "Leninist modesty" and "devoted service" to people.

The regime had a rather effective system of recruiting the most active and trained representatives of people for the ruling circles of different level, but the recruiting practice contradicted their declarations about people's democracy.

The internal ideological and organizational vulnerability of the regime toy in the fact that the formalized democracy channels were not relied on the toad that was marked in the passport or the "instruction on exploiting" and those formalized channels were compatible with strictly dozed activity. After being filled with real content those vessels were simply broken. The

109

sclerous vessels of pseudo-democracy were unable to endure the plethora of social, national and intellectual movements.

The ideological confrontation inside the Socialist Camp at higher levels of leadership developed and found expression in national communism and sometimes even in anti-Soviet rhetoric on the part of the satellite countries' leaders like Ceausescu, for instance. That rhetoric can be explained firstly from the point of view of the struggle for power inside such a leadership when each claimant showing his loyalty in the dialogue with Moscow⁴ to have its support "just in case", at the same time when making speeches for internal usage, so to say, aspired to demonstrate his independence⁵. Here one can find the influence of Western civilization, nation-state principle is characteristic of its internal structure. That fact influenced the Central European periphery of the Communist civilization stimulating national communism.

The Soviet-Chinese confrontation of the 1960-70s may be also referred to the category of Center-Periphery relations. It should be said there was a situation when the Periphery aspired to become the civilization center and head "the World Communist movement" and when on that stage it proved not to be realized it tried to form its own new civilization of "the Third World". The latter failed to some extent because of Peking's incapability to create the desired new civilization, the new world ideology-religion but not to reform Stalinist ideology into Maoism.

For the Moscow-Peking (Center-Periphery) interrelations the factor of coincidence of vectors of the two parties' internal ideopolitical development was highly important. For instance, ideological dogmatization and universal ideopolitical totalitarization were characteristic of both countries in the early 1950s (the vectors of the internal ideopolitical development coincided) and their interrelations outwardly, at least, looked fine: "Great Friendship". In the late 1950s the Chinese totalitarization lasted and in the USSR the Khrushchev's Thaw began. The development vectors stopped to coincide. Then they changed but their coincidence was preserved up to the Gorbachev's time and that fact predetermined high degree conflictness.

The next important internal ideological conflict field in "Socialist system" was culture policy. Socialist intellectuals are both necessary and dangerous. There is a wide - spread opinion that they are necessary because their skills are applied in determining social values, and dangerous because they and (lie authorities have potentially different notions of what intellectual practice should consist of. When - as it often happens - these notions do not agree, a conflict emerges over those who have the authority to define

110

intellectual work: those who do it, or those who order it, - K.Verdery .stresses, for example. For those who order it, matters are clear. From the ; heyday of Stalin's culture-czar Zhdanov onward, the apparatus sees cultural production as a minor category of ideological activism and the function of | arts as indocrination, providing clear answers to social questions⁶.

Yes, of course, but we'd like to make stresses in a little bit different 'way. The philosophical foundation of the world values is rather a .complicated matter. The social role of culture workers in any society lies in suggesting simplified variants of values as directly approved patterns of behavior such as fiction images, film characters and mass-media personages. In the first case it will be a Communist performed by Urbanski in the film with the same title, in the second case - Rembo, in the third - Pavlik Morozov.

In this way the interpretation of values system is made for mass consciousness and mass consumption and that is all. So, the conflict indicated by K.Verdery is an important one, but it is not the main one in the sphere of Stalinist culture politics.

Much more important is that culture and spirituality belong to the sphere

in which each civilization is seeking for allembrachiveness. And it is

especially characteristic of the totalitarian system. In tins case absolute

control is necessary and the totalitarian governors try to institute it. K. Simonov's diaries, V. Havel's essays and other sources are good evidences of this tendency⁷. Writers and other workers of culture are regarded as 'engineers of men's souls. It is the most important part of social engineering.

The creation of vivid images is a very difficult task. In addition to all good qualities one should have talent for that. But is it possible for a talent to create works of art under compulsion and hence without an inspiration? Of course, it isn't. Therefore, it is necessary to have Master that has sincerely come to believe. M. Bulgakov is Master but he has not come to believe. So he is not needed. He is dangerous for Stalin.

The highest achievements of Socialist realism are not simply a collection of styles and trends united by a common name according to the servility principle but really talented works of Masters who have sincerely 'come to believe. So, none of the going in for dissidency men of letters' Works could be compared with the heights of Socialist realism as for the high artistic value.

But when the symbols of belief are found under a question and the components of classic triad of values that is "goodness", "truth" and "beauty" become ambiguous a deep crisis comes. It is generally known that M.Sholokhov, A.Fadeyev and A.Twardovski experienced such a crisis. In such a case literature and art become unable to fulfill their integrating

111

function. So, the painful point of conflictness in this sphere should be looked for not in the adequacy or degree of reality reflection (artistic work is always akin with myth creation) but in the crisis of art creators' belief and an consumers' disbelief.

One can continue examining the ideological conflict in the "Socialist . system" as an external one too. By this we mean the fight of the adherents of the communist religion against dissident movement. The latter played, by the way, an important role in the legalization of communism referring to it as seriously as truly believers-communists and stakchanovists did unlike all sort of politicians, communist party Hippocratic nomenclatura including. We also keep in mind a long history of the struggle against bourgeois ideology including counter-propaganda campaign. But even having made a brief examination of the ideological conflict in the "Socialist system" as an internal one it is reasonable to ask a question: Is the ideology-religion, the communist one in particular, reformable? And if it is, then to what extent?

The preliminary answer, in our opinion, sounds as follows.

Ideology is one of the least reformable parts of a system because in modem times when wide usage of social engineering is inevitable it is policy, economics and social relations that must be transformed according to ideological dogmata and further on in the frames of civilized approach ideology-religion is the very pivot that is holding the whole system,

But how are we to explain in such a case a great number of Communist ideology variations (Stalinism, Titoism, Maoism...) and where can we find the explanation for the fact that in the same country there existed as the state religions teachings contrary to each other in their essence (Leninism, Stalinism, Khrushchevism) and more over if almost everybody recognizes the radical distinctions between Stalinism and Leninism, don't we have to recognize Stalinism in such a case as a new ideology as many writers call for, and consider 1929 (the year of Stalinism triumph) the year of formation of the new civilization?

It is difficult to answer those questions if we acknowledge what was created by Lenin's Epigoni in the ideology cornfield as the fruits of scientific-cognitive process. But if we refer to all those as the attempts of sacralizing the system of expressions and adapting the received religion to the interests of one or another governor or the historic circumstances or local conditions, then we shall come across less number of difficulties on our way

We shan't deny the fact that Imamits, Bekhaits, Nuctarits, Druses, Ismailits, Alawites are Muslims all of diem. And you know, we have enumerated only Shiites, who make only one tenth of all the Muslims. The

112

breaks up, heresies and sectarianism is a usual phenomenon for the world religions.

In the very same way the Stalinist 1929 "Revolution from above" could really have become a creation act of a new civilization if we treat that time ideology as one that is based on the cognition logic. However, the main thing for religion lies not in the content but in symbols, not in logic but in belief. The year of 1929 was not a breakpoint of ideology change process but a peak of the process of religious reformation. God, prophets and symbols remained the same.

Taking into consideration the above stated there arises one more interesting question. What will happen, for instance, if Buddo-Confucionist civilization makes a decision to become a Muslim civilization? The answer is - it will be collapsed and stop existing as a civilization. Don't we have the same situation with Gorbachev's reforms? They turned from one kind of basically aimed criteria such as development of socialism ("More socialism!") to another such as free business based on private property, market economy and so on. So the reforms have come to an end and the revolution (or counter-revolution?) has begun. The Perestroika has turned into a Collapsestroika.

One can reform the ideology-religion of society (community)-civilization but one cannot change it by another without destroying the civilization itself.

Many international and internal current problems can be easily explained in the term of such ideological-civilization approach, the Caucasus problem for Russia, for instance. With the failure of the communist ideology-religion in the late 1980s and early 1990s the factor of the ideological community stopped existing. The ideological-political methods of securing the whole state turned to be impossible and the military-political ones turned to be insufficient. So the borders of Russia turned out under the question in this becoming more and more green region as not corresponding to the principle according to which the societies are formed. And what remains for Moscow is either to enter the ideological struggle and win it (which is problematic for the lack of its own ideology) or to leave Muslim regions of the Caucasus and the latter is undertaken by Yeltsin's regime that puts a good face on the matter.

The depth of contradictions and the character of misfortunes that have befallen upon the society in the transformation period are different in different countries. That in many respects depends on how strongly the former civilization's values rooted and perceived (welcomed) and how close

113

(both geographically and spiritually) those countries were to the Center of the former Civilization.

Why did organizations of civil society that later on became the base of "Velvet revolutions" have the opportunity for functioning in the course of the whole Communist period history in Poland⁸ and Chzechoslovakia'''' Because these countries are not a classic example but a marginal zone, not a Center but a Periphery. Neither Warsaw nor Prague but Moscow was the Center.

The present day Western drung nach Central Eastern European countries has undoubtedly a stimulating character and promotes their getting accustomed to Western achievements. These countries' admmittance to NATO is aimed to become an organizational fixing of swatting the former communist civilization Periphery with the aim of a quiet digestion of this marginal zone. The CEE countries are stubbornly seeking for NATO membership and by doing this in most experts' opinion exercise the transition from one geopolitical zone, the zone where the former USSR dominated and which Russia as its successor endeavored to keep in its gravitation sphere, to another zone that is subjected to Euroatlantic solidarity¹⁰. "Geopolitical zone" shaped ideologically in our case is a Civilization.

At the present day epoch of changes the main tendency is characterized by the process of changing the former structure of international relations by a new one The system of international relations under transition is extremely unstable and full of contradictions. The West after getting rid of the Soviet Block pressure has strengthened political dictatorship upon the Third World countries. Inside the Western Block the strengthening of Germany and New Europe as a whole may hide the serious threat to the US world leadership. But it is Central Eastern Europe that has become the most important sphere in the struggle for the influence.

The vector of the characterized above global political process depends most of all not on the correlation of military, economic or resource potentials of the actors taking part in the formation of the New World Order (though it is, of course, of great significance) but on the proceedings that are not well estimated in our opinion by the modem politicians, experts and scientists, namely the development of the ideological conflict which was inherited by the Post-Soviet Space from the so-called Socialist system. In the present day conditions this conflict has acquired a new quality and a number of specific features some of which have been characterized in our article . However, the complex analysis of the ideological conflict in the Post-Soviet Space is a subject of a special research and a separate paper. And we haven't, of course, made a complex analysis of the ideological conflict m the pseudo-

114

socialist system either. The Reader has, certainly, understood that we were dealing with or merely suggesting a hypothesis (a general interpretative approach) and not an exhaustive theoretical and, what is more, a factographical characteristic. The latter is the task of a volume book.

Notes

1. More exactly - theories or approach. See: N.Elias. The History of Manners. -N.Y., 1948; J.Ortega y Gasset. Man and Crisis. - N.Y., 1958; A. Toynbee, A Study of History. Vol. XII. - Oxf, 1961; A. Kroeber. Style and Civilization!,. -N.Y., 1960; C. Quigley. The Evolution of Civilizations. - N.Y., 1960; L.Mumford. The City in History. - L., 1961; Ch. Nakane. Japanese Society. -Berkeley, 1970; B. Yerasov. Civilizacionniye ismerenia sovetskogo ohshestva [Civilizational Dimentions of a Soviet Society] // Vostok [East]. - 1991. -No 6, K. Jowitt. New World Disorder. - Berkeley, L.A., L., 1995; etc. For a discussion see; P.Ricoer. Lectures on ideology and Utopia. - N.Y., 1986; J. Szacki. Liberalism After Communism. - Budapest, L., N.Y., 1995.

2. At present many politologists evidently simplifying are seeking to put the sign ( of equality between Communism and the practice of Stalinism. "The i historical experience of one-sixth of the world proved (by its own example) that it is possible to organize a political regime on the basis of a classical theory of Enlightenment scienticism", - Y. Bystrytsky wrote in "The Political Analysis of Postcommunism" (Kyiv, 1995. - P. 59). Such attempts are common and even trivial in the politological writings of the contemporary epoch, called by A. Zinoviev in the same collection of articles "the epoch of malicious and vengeful anticommunism" (Ibidem. - P. 45).

3. The transformation of Kuchma - the nominee as a promising "bridge constructor" between Ukraine and Russia and Kuchma - Ukrainian President saying "no" to rapprochement and interested in supporting "cold peace" in Ukraine-Russia relations is evidently seen. So the question - whether the principle "the post is primary" is the inheritance and relapse of the previous epoch or it is a general rule to manifest the status conflict for power struggle in any society - is of great significance.

4. There is no rule without exception. Let's not forget about Tito's opposition to Stalin from the very beginning since the war years: "If you cannot help us at least don't hinder us by useless advice" (D. Wilson. Tito's Yugoslavia. - Camb., 1979. - P. 50).

5. In Western Sovietology there has been spread a different point of view which we consider not to be grounded enough. P.Shoup and others suppose for

115

instance that Soviet satellite countries leaders identified themselves more with the "sacrally" real Soviet regime than the "profanely" real nations they ruled because Soviet Bloc organization rested on the juxtaposition and distancing Leninist rulers from the ruled (P. Shoup. Communism, Nationalism and the Growth of the Communist Community of Nations After World War II American Political Science Review. - 1962. - X 4. - P. 889-898). First of all the named rulers were not Leninist at all. Further on we have already said why, in our opinion, there was a great distance between the Rulers and the Ruled. And finally the numerous facts of anti-Moscow rethoncs are far from speaking about the Central Eastern European leaders veneration or even mere reference for die Soviet Union.

6. K. Verdery. National Ideology Under Socialism. - Berkeley, L,A., Oxf, 1991, - P.88; see for the discussion: T.Lahusen and G.Kupemian (eds). Late Soviet Culture. - Durham and L., 1993.

7. See: K. Simonov. Glazamy cheloveka moe^o pokolenia. [With the Eyes of a Man of My Generation] - M., 1988. - P. 63-125; V.Havel. Living in Truth. -L.- Boston, 1990. - P. 123-135.

8. In the period from 1944 to 1968 with the exception of the Stalinist years between 1948 and 1954 the Polish opposition always even had to believe that political strategies succeed in transforming the state or changing its policies (D. Ost. Solidarity and the Politics of Anti-Politics. - Philadelphia, 1993. - P 33-53).

9. Somebody stressed that Czechs and Slovaks had experienced a relatively democratic phases of development during which the "national path to socialism" had more authentic character than in most "people's democracies" (H.G.Skilling. Czechoslovakia'a Interrupted Revolution. - Princeton (N.J.). 1976. - P. 825; J.Musil. Czech and Slovak Society // J. Musil (ed.) The End of Czechoslovakia. - P. 77-94.

10. See for ex.: B.A. Shmelev. Novie geopoliticheskiye realnosti v Yevrope. [The New Geopolitical Realities in Europe] // Rossiysko-Ukrainskiye otnoshenia: Preyemstvennost i razviliye [Russia-Ukraine Relations: Succession and Development]. - Odessa, 1996. - P.9.

116