Почему не состоялся коммунизм? (Кто виноват? Что делать? Куда идти?) / Why has the communism still not turned out? (Who is guilty? What should be done? Where to go?)

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Почему не состоялся коммунизм? (Кто виноват? Что делать? Куда идти?) / Why has the communism still not turned out? (Who is guilty? What should be done? Where to go?)
Марк Васильевич Бойков

Лондонская премия представляет писателя
В своей книге «Почему не состоялся коммунизм?» автор, философ от МГУ, возвращает читателя к научным ценностям марксизма и вносит в них свой посильный вклад. На основе научного понимания человека, установления его основного противоречия он приходит к открытию новой движущей силы общественного развития и видит в ней спасителя не только России, но и всего человечества.

Книга рассчитана на широкий круг читателей.

In his book «Why has the communism still not turned out?» the author, a philosopher from Moscow State University, appeals to the scientific values of Marxism and makes his contribution to them. Based on the scientific understanding of man, the establishment of his main contradiction, he comes to the discovery of a new driving force of social development and sees it as the Savior not only of Russia, but of all mankind.

The book is intended for a wide range of readers.

Марк Бойков / Mark Boykov

Почему не состоялся коммунизм? (Кто виноват? Что делать? Куда идти?) / Why has the communism still not turned out? (Who is guilty? What should be done? Where to go?)

© Mark Boykov, 2020

© International Union of writers, 2020

Boykov Mark Vasliyevich

Mark Boykov was born on September 12, 1938. During the war he was raised in the orphanage of the village Pistsovo of Komsomolsky district, Ivanovo region. Mark Boykov started his studies in Ivanovo in 1947. He was taken to the family of his father, who was a disabled war veteran of the first group in vision, and his wife, a nurse, and his stepmother. In 1950 entered the Gorky Suvorov military school, which he graduated from in 1958 in connection with his transfer to Moscow, and was sent to the Odessa higher combined arms command school, from which he was discharged in 1960 for health reasons.

Received his professional education at the faculty of philosophy of the Moscow State University. M. V. Lomonosov in 1961 –66, taking up and defending for the first time on the “Problem of partisanship in the conditions of socialism” on the Troika. Later worked as a teacher of philosophy at universities in Volgograd and Moscow.

Raised a son. Was awarded a medal for the 850th anniversary of Moscow for the excellent work as a janitor.

Бойков Марк Васильевич

Родился 12 сентября 1938 года. В войну воспитывался в детдоме села Писцово Комсомольского района Ивановской области. Учебу начал в г. Иваново в 1947 г., будучи взят в семью отца, инвалида войны I группы по зрению, и его жены, медсестры, мачехи для меня. В 1950-м поступил в Горьковское суворовское военное училище, которое в связи с переводом в Москву окончил в 1958 г., и был направлен в Одесское высшее общевойсковое командное училище, из которого в 1960-м был демобилизован по состоянию здоровья.

Профессиональное образование получил на философском факультете Московского государственного университета им. М. В. Ломоносова в 1961 –66 годах, взявшись и впервые защитившись по «Проблеме партийности в условиях социализма» на тройку. Работал в последующем преподавателем философских дисциплин в вузах Волгограда и Москвы.

Воспитал сына. За безупречную работу дворником был награжден медалью к 850-летию Москвы.

Why has the Communism Still not Turned Out?

(Who is guilty? What should be done? Where to go?)

Political essay

Who is guilty?

The communism is neither Marx’s fantasy, nor the dream of poor men and beggars. Pressed down by need they can’t simply imagine what it is. The communism also not is a project of communists’ sect that have suddenly believed in their emancipating mission and in the least it is the final deadlock as many think nowadays after liberal-reformers. The Communism is the cause of History, the common cause of its all participants, it is the History itself. Having begun in far days of tribe communism, it proceeds until now as continuous progress to more perfect, civilized forms. Exactly the history is the progress of communism.

Judge by yourself: the production grows and every new epoch makes the number of the people who are quite content with their lives become greater and greater.

Owing to co-production we find surplus of a product appeared already in days of the tribe communism, and a leisure time following it. The surplus increases resulting in exchange of surpluses’ appearing. Afterwards however we could observe the people’s stratification on rich and poor as the result of control ? loss over a product instead of the growth of leisure time for everybody. The surplus of a product, disappearing in one place arises in another one – now not as a part as common welfare but as appropriated, personified riches. As a matter of fact the communism is product’s constant increasing and this increasing product is alienated by some representatives of a society to their best advantage. So we could say the communism is the movement from public ownership to communism for the few (certainly an opposite side of the process appeared as simultaneous aspiring communism for everybody). The times of slave-owing, feudalism, capitalism are only steps of this constant movement connected with the further growth of the public product. That’s why in the certain sense the communism was an invention of richmen. It was them who lived within the limits of a principle “Everybody works according to its abilities, everybody gets according to its needs”. In terms of insufficient production it surely means living for the another’s account. Why has the things gone that way?

Every person is born having inside one basic contradiction, the contradiction between abilities and needs. The abilities represent a creative part of person, the needs – the consumer one. While implementing abilities, the person spends his energy, spends himself, on the contrary while satisfying needs, everybody receives energy, recover himself. In a primitive tribe society these processes were more or less counterbalanced as it was in Nature.

The struggle, sharp or moderate, was, is and will be going between those two poles. The result of that struggle is the victory of one or another side. Creative or consumer part of human nature has been constantly dominated first as psychological and then as social dominant of behavior.

The person appears as creator and consumer simultaneously but acts much more definitely in one or another of these roles. Hence, all human community was primary shared and now it shares on creators and consumers. Marx did not manage to propose the complete and comprehensive picture of materialistic understanding of person, but had formulated the basic regulating principle of the future communistic society. It’s familiar to you as “Everybody works according to its abilities, everybody gets according to its needs” or “From everyone – in accordance with person’s ability, to everybody – in accordance with person ?s labour” and it was a real key to understanding. Nowadays we have quite realized, that it were the very consumers who had been allocated and risen upward to become exploiters and oppressors while creators gradually were felling downwards and had joined the suppressed crowd of humiliated persons.

The consumer grasped everything while the worker worked, and eventually the consumer turned to become a Big Lord. The spare time that had been pulled out from paws of Nature by common efforts of mankind, has became the private property of a few persons. Afterwards crystallized time brought one person to domination, another – to submission and enthrallment. It is also true for intrafamily relations.

It was so in the past and so is nowadays but if the mankind proceeds in the same direction in future the mankind will inevitably be lost. The Consumers are “a dark hole” of a human society. Despite of huge growth of productive power of mankind, this mouth is insatiable. The world supremacy of consumers approaches the hour of the Globe Catastrophe. The nature has no strength any more to cope with their appetites. Unfortunately it is not the forecast, it is already the diagnosis.

Meanwhile the existing level of production and labor productivity allows the communism actually would be widespread by the decree worldwide right now. And the only thing we need for it – a world government. Look, what enormous riches are concentrated in some states, in some strata, in the hands of some persons, what a huge army of well paid militaries and policemen, protect this Pyramid of Riches! Still in reality this protection is totally useless, in fact it’s a grandiose waste of resources. What a crowd of bureaucrats and representatives of mass-media, more exactly, footmen-journalists, produce new and new different cultural and scientific fictions to justify the order of things favourable to consumers! Let’s summarize and understand that just reorganization (including the general disarmament, the balanced reorientation of manufacture, redistribution of investments and products) would make it possible all over the world! This could be an important a step to general maintenance of needs, to 2–3 hour working day with two or three working days a once a week.

Again I speak not about “everything should be to taken away and divided”, certainly no. The Marxism never preached this platitude that different «nemtsovs and hakamadas» (T: – Russian politicians of sharp-liberal orientation) try to attribute to Marxism for to look more clever themselves. The mankind needs less it produces nowadays for to live in situation of permanent glover. That is why the communism is not only possible – in fact it is comprehensively provided.

And was it a real reason why no Communism is now? Why it hasn’t appeared, hasn’t been built – choose any term you like – hasn’t appeared for everybody? I think because it has been again appropriated by some elite. It had been taken away from people by exploiters before the 1917, it also has been stolen by political elite, by nomenclature and bureaucracy in Soviet epoch after the Great Revolution. They also had no need for Communism as their own consumer ambitions were much more closer to them than any social needs.

Though the privileges which the Soviet elite had possessed could hardly be compared to that great robbery that was committed by the same elite under a pretext of so-called liberal reforms.

Those who should bear burden of the responsibility for safety of the public property has appeared to be its main thief. They had knowledge, official and personal communications, acquaintances, the access to special and secret information, the right of signature, and the most important, they had time to carry out their intentions and plans. At the same time the worker had to work all day long and could hardly find time to restore himself. Therefore Chubays’s (T: A. Chubays was of the key figures in Russian politics in 1991–2008, the “father” of Russian privatization) assurances about equal starting opportunities during privatization were not simple lie of bad-qualified economist, but do the street swindler’ dirty tricks. While “reforming” the nomenclature has shown its true face and has proved thus it represents far from being the moral leader of a society.

In a sense, certainly, everybody was guilty. Still the fault of the ordinary worker and the top-manager’s one differs greatly. The worker pressed and limited by system in many cases is compelled to act definitely.

Here is an example of former “order”. It would help to understand better who and how is responsible for our failure.

Suppose there is a daily work-quota or rate of output (WQ). The worker who carries out WQ produces 100 pieces of something and gets suppose 100 rubbles a month. Still such wages is not sufficient for a worker and he wants to overcome the task producing 120 pieces and so getting 110 rubles (100 daily + 10 for the exceeding). Everybody wants to live better and so the exceeding of WQ becomes the mass phenomenon. Then the factory management raised rates of output and accordingly reduced quotations so that work-quota was up to 120 pieces. Things’ going that way meant the worker returned to previous earning (100 rubles).

At the same time however person’s commodities have rather grown than decreased. The person matures, marries, that marriage brings children and those children begun also maturing. With those circumstances’ pressure the person adapts for the set work-quotas and starts exceeding the rates of output again. And once more the factory management was not appeased, and again the old norms and quotations had been revised and reset. In some places it took place more often, in other ones – more seldom, somewhere the process appeared to be very sharp, somewhere as just moderate. But it was the practice which to result in bloody accidents in Novocherkassk (T: – the city in the south of Russia where the workers demonstration against price-rising was shooted down) in 1962. The common intensity inevitably should blow up in any local place where the negative energy had been for some reason focused. So the elements of the protest and force of the weapon intrude into economy.

It seemed to be quite time for economists to reflect. However the scientists who serve the policy and the politicians sing chorus: “The wages shouldn’t grows faster than labor productivity”. Actually such scientists confuse labor productivity to simple mechanical performance and thus aspire to receive greater result due to relative reduction of wages. Reducing payment they intensify work, instead of raising its productivity. V. Lenin wrote: “We had seen how in 80-th (T: – of XIX century) our manufacturers have surpassed themselves in matter of ugly oppressions of workers as they have transformed penalties into means of downturn of wages, not having satisfied with downturn of quotations itself. (Lenin V. I., Complete works, v. 2, p. 59). That’s the way: Lenin’s ideological successors have gone on a way of cruel capitalists of XIX century. As a result actual depreciation of the work that quite often led workers to nervous failures and stresses has begun.

The quality of a product has been negatively influenced also. The time couldn’t be compressed. As if your rate of output or WQ has been increased, first, without technical improvement of the manufacturing, second, relying only on impellent acceleration so you can improve your skill only in the limits of labor intensification. And sooner or later the limit of human opportunities is reached, and the worker should or endow the interests, either search for another way out of situation. That’s why the more “accelerated” is the worker himself the more the worker’s sub-consciousness forces him to spend his energy less intensively. He leaves unfinished something in a product, worsens quality. The result is a decreasing of quality at the same time while the production output grows. Thus the worker compensates his loss, he met the increasing of work rates with diminishing of his labor efforts.

Still the worker suffers once more. Passing trough the checkpoint doors, he turns into the consumer, the buyer of very that product of the lowered quality that has been the result of their subquality work. Naturally as the consumer our worker doesn’t like this product. The quality decrease was accompanied therefore by deficiency increase – the goods of high quality become a rarity. The money received by the worker as extra earnings for “over-performance”, he has been compelled to pay to the speculators or to the state for the deficit qualitative goods. That is why the life of people didn’t depend on labor efforts any more.

At the same time the huge weights of goods that nobody needed accumulated in state warehouses and storehouses representing monstrous waste of social activities. This waste doubled and tripled due to persons’ made up those products getting salaries and bonuses. The nation survived only due to some number of creators who continued to make really valuable products. However the more tensely the nation worked and the more it produced, the poorer it became as the lion’s share of work simply wasted. The official reports about performance and over-performance of plans came from everywhere having a background of shelves in shops becoming emptier and emptier. If would be it the final point in that list of problems…

The enormous turnover of staff was generated in those times, and people worked there where pushed them their needs instead of working where they could apply the abilities. The whole nation creating the Communism has suddenly ceased to experience pleasure in work. The human being has started developing himself mainly as the consumer. Having been convinced of impossibility to earn a prosperity fairly the person started to look for curves, roundabout and shadow ways. He did not shun a deceit and even larceny. He established nonservice contacts with the foreman, the controller and other people whom fixing of its labor contribution and consequently earnings depended on. It preferred the career growth (posts and ranks) to improvement of parameters in work. The spirit of narrow-mindedness, mercenary thrift and bribability got into all his attitudes. Everything fair and advanced in this atmosphere suffered from stress of alienation, pressure of animosities, tearing away. There was a real false for socialist ideals.

During those times all those burbulises and gaydars, shatalines and yavlinskys, lyvshytses and chubayses, yasyns and others (T: there are the names of Russian politicians of liberal orientation who had played a appreciable role in early 90-th of XX in process of liberal reforms in the USSR and then in Russia) all these future petrels of counterrevolution, had been doing their careers (They are making their careers from the first sigh up to a grave. Be afraid of such well-wishers). They consider the economy quite out of touch with the human being and ignoring all possible communications as the closed self-sufficing system, as a transcendental object, they write Monblans of dissertations aiming to consecrate economic robbery of the party, state and scientifically-academic elites which have merged in ecstasy of privileged consumption. The work-rates abnormal growth and depreciation of work in the meantime nonplussed the economy, nevertheless nobody consider the situation as a real problem.

The individual was even more awfully nonplussed. When WQs (T: – see above) had raised and wage rates had decreased, loadings naturally increased, becoming quite often otherwordly. The accelerated deterioration of a labour took place, the everyday “weariness” became chronic and in turn chronic weariness aggravated everyday. Only illness or binge could pull out from this roundabout. The drinking-bout however easily turned into illness. Firstly the person spent extra earnings for drinking-bout. Then, when a habit to alcohol appeared, the person started to spend salary for binge.

And after binge had turned to drunkenness the wage or salary appeared to be insufficient as payment for binge. Suppression of a sustainability of the person has changed into his destruction. That is why it is incorrect to speak that drunkenness is one of the social protest forms.

Actually, when WQs are constantly raising the working day takes away so much energy from the individual that he has no power for anything else after leaving the factory. The interesting meeting, sports activity, reading a book or playing with children – all and everything demand force and desire. But the person has nothing. All desires are suppressed, all energies were spent. The more worthless the manufacturing system is organized the greater physical and psychological recourses it takes away. Accordingly the manufacture dominates over the person outside the enterprise.

If the person leaves work place completely tired and nothing would be desirable to him (her), this is a true attribute that his essence is exhausted. In such case the Big Binge sometimes often looks as most simple means “to rise from ashes”. Trying again and again to feel himself as the person, the person it in the paradoxical way kills himself finally.

Alas, it is not drunkenness which to ruin humanity in the human beings. It just finishes that was begun by nasty organized manufacturing system. The manufacturing system that compel the person to make out the worse product it could be, which forces the person to operate contrary to his conscience and abilities. Thus loss of quality hides loss of human essence of the worker. That’s why drunkenness was spreading around all over the nation so quickly and widely directly depending on wage-rates dressing-down and labor intensity increase. So during Gorbachev epoch when the struggle against revelry of drunkenness began (certainly without explanation of its original reasons and by using only command and prohibitive methods) it only added fuel to fire. The people have become embittered, authority of a power went downhill. Any system will be doomed, if starts to collapse the person substancability. It’s so happened on every history’ landmark.

To improve something is necessary to understand before the real reason of worsening.

The story began during hard post-war times, in days of Stalin. In process of restoration of the facilities destroyed by war, work-quotas and wage-rates varied as well to fill the market with the goods. However in days of Stalin those measures were accompanied by annual price-cuttings.

Thus surplus labor taken way from the worker came back to him in form of surplus consumption. Such balance harmonized attitudes of the person and the state. After Joseph Stalin’s death price-cutting stopped while revisions of wage-rates and work-quotas proceed. After N. Khrushchev ‘s coming to power (the CPSU General Secretary in 1956–1965, took the first attempt to reform the Soviet political system), the prices started growing and the worker was caught in a snare.

Frankly speaking, sometimes the wages and salaries were raised: the injections of growth were done to some then to another strata of workers. In fact it meant that government bureaucracy gave to some people the very piece of “money pie” that had been taken away from the others. Instead of allowing people to earn themselves the bureaucracy presented them miserable pittances named by “a huge social gain”. Destroying the valid interest in honest work the ruling elite tried to replace it with political enthusiasm. One injustice was heaped up on another, the good worker has been mixed with the bad one, and even the very accommodation and redistribution of investments led only to moving mismanagement from one branches of the industry to others. Certainly these wage increases had resolved no one problem and only aggravated an economic situation. The economics degradation was proceeding.

The situation was just out of control, but the ruling elite did not understand an essence of the events. It absorbed the illusions the economic science fed it. And the political economy in the USSR just had broken its neck due to ignorance of the valid source of growth of labor productivity. The Communism had been under construction for many years already, but the nation continued to base itself on “working class”, on an intensification of physical labour using the meanest receptions of that intensification. Let’s add to this list of problems the “class struggle” against the whole world, named the “cold war”. The output of tanks, rockets, planes, submarines, bombs accrued in mad quantities. Let’s add the politically-motivated assistance to poor nations and non-equal trade with the states of socialist block. Let’s add to the list the so-called “projects of the century”: development of virgin lands, drainage of bogs and irrigation of deserts, turns of the rivers, etc. All of that – at the expense of toilers and workers.

The policy dictated to economy the rules instead of be dependent on it according to a theory. It defined instead of was defined. Instead of finding the basis for strategic purposes inside the economy, the policy imposed to the economy the exaggerated phantoms of nomenclature elite. Nobody dared to thwart the elite. It was outside of criticism. Certainly such situation could not exist eternally. Many think, that wreck of socialism has occurred as a result of “perestroika” and “reforms”. Alas, this only visible consequence. The events following one behind another in time, are not always connected by a cause-effect chain. We could sink into oblivion ourselves, without any “perestroika”.