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About fate, violence and freedom

The intelligentsia loves freedom. It is liberal.

I'm talking here about that so-called best part of the intelligentsia, which was proud of itself before the October Revolution, sometimes even now is morally proud, continuing to consider itself the true salt of the earth. This type of intellectual is highly characterized by an extreme, sometimes exaggerated respect for his personality and its originality, and a desire for maximum independence.

In the old days, when the best part of the intelligentsia was imbued with populist doctors, the question of the freedom of the individual did not so disturb this intellectual vanguard, slogans more necessary, more courageous, stronger than the freedom of the individual emerged. But after the defeat of Narodism, around those groups of intelligentsia who were drawn into the orbit of the great working-class movement, a very thick stratum of intelligent individualists was created.

Concern for one's freedom sometimes began to take on the character of an end in itself, sometimes they even forgot those considerations that made one of the greatest defenders of individualism, Friedrich Nietzsche, exclaim: “You keep repeating to me -“ I am free, I am free ”, but tell me why are you free? »

Not to mention the old populism, even liberalism itself sometimes seemed suspicious to such individualists in terms of the possibility of falling into the "chains" of certain slogans and principles.

It is very characteristic that one of the finest representatives of the intellectual individualism of the era of timelessness, A.P. Chekhov, for a long time, was hostile to the liberals, almost contemptuously evaluating the last Mohicans of the sixties, and was generally convinced of the great height of some unscrupulousness, supposedly fully in line with the position of an intellectual, and even more so as an intellectual artist.

Of course, this unscrupulousness was by no means just some kind of “whatever you like” or capriciousness. Such types, of course, also met, but no one would agree to classify them among the best part of the intelligentsia, even if they take the word “best” in quotation marks.

No, the Chekhov type - good progressive intellectuals - were, of course, humane people, friends of progress, but they wanted to be many miles away from any party, even from any program, they did not want to bind themselves in anything, they really wanted every good fellow to be to your sample. The late Alexander Rafailovich Kugel was a charming type of such an intellectual, among those whom I met in my life.

He himself called himself an anarchist, but, of course, he had nothing to do with any anarchist organizations. By anarchism he meant precisely this complete freedom of the individual. It seemed to him that in the future such an atmosphere of absolute freedom would certainly be achieved and created for everyone.

At the present time, however, a “free” person, of course, stumbles upon a multitude of all sorts of obstacles, both material and spiritual, and various demands from both the right and the left, which constrain, reward with shocks. But a free person must stubbornly maintain his independence and try to exist, as it were, in the pores of society, understood as a combination of all kinds of organizations.

In this sense, non-partisanship was taken by Kugel as a highly moral principle, as a kind of proud position, as a kind of philosophical and social creed.

Non-partisanship means independence. Well, what good is a "critically developed personality" if it is not independent? - And this part of the intelligentsia was extremely unlucky.

In general, she always "sympathized" with the revolution; she pictured the revolution as a liberation from government slingshots and pointers oppressive from above.

The lid will be removed and the intelligentsia, this gaseous social substance, like the molecules of any gas, will expand into infinity, with each unit flowing in its own unrestricted path.

And now, when you meet such intellectuals, you notice the deep despondency on their faces and hear such words from them: Ah, the revolution hasn’t lifted the lid, now, apparently, the real lid has come for the intelligentsia!

The former state, the former ruling community could not show such perseverance in its desire to subjugate an independent person as the present one.

What could the former refer to? To the will of God? On a deep "nationality" autocracy? After all, all this could only cause a smile. Well, what moral prestige did the tsarist government have? The government could only intimidate or buy, and the ruling classes that supported this old government only had the same weapons.

“And what about the current class of dictators,” our individualists reason, the current state, which considers itself a “cultural” state? It has and wants to have enormous moral prestige, it speaks in the name of socialist construction. It attaches to very energetic forms of violence—for Lenin said that dictatorship is a “cruel word”—a high level of spiritual pressure, so to speak, and thereby unheard of restricts the freedom of intellectuals, in particular, the freedom of the artist, the freedom of the writer.

Further, as a rule, there are lamentations and teachings on the theme that freedom is the necessary ground for art, science and culture in general. Where there is no such soil, there can be no real flourishing of culture. One of the leaders of world liberalism, Buckle, very wittily argued a similar thesis, but even with this thesis we allow ourselves to disagree.

It is quite obvious that vaunted freedom is a property of the so-called inorganic epochs, and most of all of the highly bourgeois nineteenth century.

The artist and, in general, a culture-bearing intellectual became at that time a private producer of cultural values ​​for the market. This seemed to him the greatest freedom!

He did not see the customer in front of him, he could sometimes afford the most authentic "whims", it seemed to him that he was a free creator.

In fact, of course, this freelance creator was dying of hunger if there was no buyer for his products. And if there was such a buyer, then this meant that, conscious or not conscious of his dependence on him, the artist nevertheless expressed his taste and indulged him.

From this came the following phenomenon: to a great extent, the culture-bearing intellectual served the bourgeoisie, the ruling wealthy classes; sometimes, for the sake of money and success, an artist, a writer slipped into the role of a supplier of finished goods, adapted to these class consumers.

But the bourgeoisie itself loved diversity, elegant forms, wanted to settle down in life more comfortably, spend their leisure time from predatory deeds as gracefully as possible, and therefore represented a rather wide and diverse demand for works of art. Great formal originality even appealed to the bourgeoisie.

Next to this stratum of hers, which conservatively adhered to the old models, another stratum appeared - snobs, who were easily carried away by any new thing.

But, of course, if a writer or artist allowed themselves to deepen the ideological and emotional content of those cultural goods that they produced, and if these ideas, feelings stroked the bourgeoisie against the wool, then it would immediately overturn and trample such an artist.

Indeed, bold artists have experienced in the highest degree these invisible chains that bind them to the ruling bourgeoisie.

True, there was a well-known way out. It was possible to find an audience among their own brethren: intelligent philistinism. But this stratum was much poorer, and a person who did not enjoy the support of the ruling classes, did not accidentally enter into fashion, was not invited and accepted by the top, in general, eked out a rather miserable Bohemian existence.

This developed in such people a sense of isolation from society, different beliefs in pure art or even in all kinds of mysticism. And if the artist, who catered to the ruling classes, faded away and became a purely formal craftsman, then approximately the same thing happened to typical Bohemians in somewhat different, more painful and romantic ways.

Finally, the third way out, about which Mehring once wrote about the great tragedy that happened in the life of the recently deceased Arlo Goltz, was for an intellectual in search of ways to the proletariat.

But here only those who were able to freely sing the proletarian song received freedom. For those who could not sing it “freely”, singing such a song was only a new form of slavery.

So this is how things stood with freedom in the field of culture and in the field of artistic creation.

We are entering an organic epoch, although we are only building it, but its very construction requires an ever stronger organization of all the forces of the country. The social order more and more assumes the character of a call to take one's definite place on the scaffolding of a building under construction, to become somehow in a common gigantic conveyor, to do a genuine deed, which, as a particular, enters into the general conceived plan.

Indeed, an unusually difficult situation for an intelligent cultural bearer who considers non-partisanship and independence to be the main shrines of his life!

Talking once with such an intellectual, I said to him: “First of all, you must understand when you complain about the violence of both the state and public opinion against a free artist that you do not have in front of you the manifestation of some kind of arbitrariness.

On the contrary, the Communist Party and the Soviet state eradicate, and probably will completely eradicate, any manifestation of such arbitrariness, i.e., some personal pointers and bureaucratic command. However, in no way can one cancel the presence of certain violence both in strong forms of censorship and in more subtle forms of public indignation, such as some manifestations of "intellectual freedom".

We must only remember that this is historically lawful violence , that this is the new face of necessity .

Our socialist construction flows, as something absolutely natural, from all present historical conditions. And since this is so, then everything else is given, i.e., more and more complete planning of this construction.

“I understand you,” said my interlocutor, who was not devoid of the ability to formulate his thoughts well, “I understand that fate itself is looking over the shoulder of the current dictator. But is it easier for us?

These words of my interlocutor brought to my mind a curious fact.

More than once or twice I heard from the lips of Lenin with great penetration the Latin phrase he uttered: "Fata volentera ducunt, nolentem trahunt" ... - Fate itself leads the consonant, but drags the dissenting.

Indeed, this phrase of some old Latin poet is Marxist in its own way. It would be worthy to take its place with Hegel, although I do not know if Hegel ever used this phrase.

Who is this "consonant" here? Is it an obedient servant of "fate", is it Molchalin, a man who adapts himself to the ruling class?

Of course, there are periods when the old, ossified has tremendous power, when even the most courageous people have doubts - is it not better to bow to this old one and somehow live, at least in secluded silence and as a private person, is it not even better to find, in accordance with the slogan “everything real is reasonable”, traits that justify this power of the rulers and take its side (Belinsky’s temporary fall into sin and the great fall into sin and the root of Dostoevsky’s torment)?

But the fact of the matter is that even the strongest old is undermined by the spirit of the times.

The one whom “fata ducunt”, who is led by fate, is a representative of new forces in the dialectical process of the development of society, and the more the new, born in the bowels of the old, grows, the more it acquires the features of a winner, the more it becomes power, the more As far as "free" are the precursors of victory, the first fighters, executors and builders of this new.

For them, fate, i.e. historical laws, becomes a great ally.

You can objectively find out where the river of time flows, where growth is and what its trends are.

But you do not introduce yourself into this progressive trend precisely because you have recognized its objectivity (this happens, but this is a secondary process), but precisely because you (especially in this case, if you are a proletarian) are precisely the organic spokesman for , the real embodiment of the essential, bearing force of these progressive historical trends.

Whom will these destinies "drag", entail?

Firstly, all the junk that sticks out, all those whose principles and positions have become completely "unreasonable" and must therefore be thrown out of "reality"; secondly, all those who deviate from the central path, from the general line. They go to the sides and call others to follow them, they want freedom, as Lenin figuratively said, while the party (Lenin said this precisely about the party) is a chain of people holding hands.

If your freedom is expressed in the fact that you are going into the swamp, drop our hands, go and drown! But if you want to show your freedom to drag us there too, we will not allow it.

But what is obviously true in relation to the Party is no less true in relation to the life of our entire country to the extent that it is drawn into a single planned construction.

And here also woe to those who go to the right, to the left, up, down, anywhere from the central path. This path is very broad, it requires workers of all kinds, it allows for enormous personal initiative. Personal initiative, ingenuity, hard work, even heroism—all these extraordinary values ​​in common construction, taken from the point of view of socialist competition, these individual-group manifestations of freedom run parallel to the general movement, accelerate it, are the best expression of this movement.

The "drummer" is extremely free and often becomes a leader. But the very essence of his freedom lies in the fact that his personal tendencies coincide with the general historical dominant, but it is only by the pace of his movement that he turns out to be charged with a greater potency than the average people around him.

Of course, it is very difficult to understand the very image of movement here. It's not just that such a drummer wants to work faster. This raises a huge number of questions related to the very form of work.

Therefore, a high potency is not a purely quantitative concept, but namely ingenuity, skill, the ability to find new ways, which, however, are all the time in the general plan, improving, improving it. It is natural for us who are within this moving whole to feel free in the highest measure. All our forces are set in motion, consciousness is constantly illuminated by enthusiasm, individual objective or internal difficulties, no matter how great they may be, burn out in this general striving for the goal.

For an unworthy spectator, for a doubting “fellow traveler” who has stopped on his way, or who is walking along a road with a certain deviation from the central path, which must inevitably lead sometime to separation, people bound in the unity of planned construction seem, on the contrary, enslaved . A peculiar law of ethical relativity rules here.

But it is precisely in our country that all these doubters, wavers, or denyers without any doubt, turn out to be slaves of the same fate of which we are sons, for "fata voientem trahunt" they will be dragged by this fate. Will she drag them in the sense that she will force them to put on a transparent mask of a false fellow traveler, or will she soullessly sell her special forces to someone else's cause (as engineer Gorsky does in the play "The Eccentric") and, vice versa, in the sense that she simply smash them, throw them away like rags, like rubbish, turn this doubter and denier into a simply miserable layman, smoker of the sky, a superfluous person — it happens in different ways. But no matter how pride such a person covers up his insignificance and no matter how much talent, to our sincere regret, chance provides such a beggar with spirit, all the same, this poverty will only be shown with a large bloc through his talent, and the best that he can is - vividly and at the fear of others to portray the full horror of their doom.

May he curse the great procession, the gigantic, noisy labor caravan that goes along the main road! He, covered with desert sands, will not succeed in this curse. It will sound like a blessing to the winners and a lesson to those who have not yet chosen their path.

Finally, it may be that this denier will want to show his activity in order to really interfere with the common cause, guided by historical fate.

Then let him not complain if what Hegel called the “spirit of the times,” and what we materialists call reality in its dialectical development, crushes with iron feet those who hinder its progress.

Ridiculous, of course, is the talk that the word “fellow traveler” should be discarded (the word, in my opinion, is very good, until a better one has been invented) because now it is necessary to say directly: you are with us, they are against us, again, “yes, yes” and “no, no”, and everything else is from the evil one.

But it seems that this is why we are dialecticians, so as not to raise questions with such hopeless simplification. After all, we are not really at the fireplace in our own apartment and we are not solving tiny philistine issues where this gospel saying can be, according to Engels, accepted for leadership.

We are solving the gigantic historical question of how to win over the various strata of the petty bourgeoisie, from the huge mass of the rural middle peasants to some of the most valuable intellectuals who could be very useful to us, but in whom the petty-bourgeois confusion has not yet been overcome.

We cannot close our eyes to the fact that a complex and broad process is taking place, in which the phenomenon of approach to us prevails, in which our magnetism attracts everything that is best from the vast petty-bourgeois periphery surrounding the party and the proletariat, but in which there are also elements of repulsion, retreat, this one sometimes even captures elements of the party. While a certain part of the social particles rushes in streams to the party magnet, some particles, as if belonging to it, themselves break away from it and, voluntarily or driven out by the process of self-preservation, the party is thrown out.

This process, like all other social processes, is presented to us, on the one hand, as historically necessary, and on the other hand, as the work of our own minds and hands, the most important task included in our general planning.

It is a matter of attracting and organizing manpower. In our country it is unthinkable to think that the proletariat, urban and rural, alone will create from itself all the necessary elements for construction. We are extremely interested in creating a cooperating periphery from the middle classes and groups.

But among the methods of our work in this regard, there should have been a rather rigid clarification for all who were given ears to hear the true situation.

As much as our time is joyful for the indigenous builders, it is just as severe in relation to those who do not understand the direction and rhythm of modern life.

In a casual conversation, I recalled this phrase, heard many times from the lips of Lenin: "Fata volentem ducunt, nolentem trahunt", and I believe that it can become one of the deeply instructive slogans of our time.

I would like everyone who is still in a transitional state - whether he rushed, but too slowly, towards us, or treads water, or moves away from us - with a cold, but blinding fire, this iron phrase flashed into his eyes:

“Fate guides those who agree, but breaks those who disagree!”.