LA FORZA DEL DESTINO

These are excerpts from the Russia section of my book Nunc Dimittis.
The Wrecking Balls of Russian History.
(In my general treatment of Russian history, I have a “fatalistic” explanation for all historical “irregularities” which have occurred in the last thousand-plus years, and my view of the role of personality in history was already expressed on several previous occasions. Yet, I welcome each opportunity to reiterate it, and here is one of such opportunities.
Exceptional personalities attain greatness only when their actions are in full harmony with historical destiny. Should they run astray of the national course, they will be crushed and the historical course will be resumed. In this sense, one cannot say that the actions of the two historical actors in this entry [Emperor Nicholas II and Mikhail Gorbachev] transformed the course of Russian history. What each of them did was consistent with that course. Yet, historical necessity cannot absolve either of them (or any other historical actor, for that matter, caught in a history-changing situation) from personal responsibility for their actions, by the very same token as Judas Iscariot cannot be absolved from his culpability as the betrayer of Jesus by the historical necessity of Christ’s Passion and Resurrection.)
Russian history is replete with gigantic, self-induced calamities, which have rightfully earned them the name Smutnoye Vremya: The Time of Troubles. This murky term was originally applied to a particularly difficult period of Russian history in the early 17th century. But a far more intriguing time of troubles must have been the transition of Russia from the power of the tsars to Soviet power, as a result of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. To this I must also add perhaps an even more intriguing “time of troubles,” which was the collapse of the USSR, in our fairly recent memory.
Needless to say, both these strange periods of Russian history will be receiving an examination in the next subsection of the Russia section, but at this time I would like to give some attention to the two conspicuous wrecking balls of Russian history over all time, Nicholas II of Russia and Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union. Why them only? Because technically these two are the most conspicuous of all.
Indeed, both Nicholas and Gorbachev personally signed the fateful papers (the former, his abdication which precipitated the collapse of the old Tsarist order; the latter, the order of the dissolution of the USSR), and so both had become personally responsible for what woes their two signatures would release upon the Russian nation. Their actions revealed their common inherent weakness: a Peter or a Putin would never have signed anything like that, even if their life depended on it.
On the other hand, calling them “the wrecking balls of Russian history,” I am by no means suggesting their decisive role in actually wrecking Russia. After all, a wrecking ball is only a dumb piece of weight. I would never suggest that in both those cases, when Russia collapsed, it happened because of some Tsar’s or some General Secretary’s voluntaristic moves. Neither of them would have been competent enough for the task of changing the course of Russian history, had Russia not wanted and invited that change herself. So, let us not equate the tool with its operator, and in this case neither Tsar Nicholas, nor Comrade Gorbachev can qualify as operators.
And lastly, there is a significant historical peculiarity here defying the visual cliché of imagining a wrecking ball typically struck from outside the building. In Russia’s case, however, the ball could only be swung from the inside, and so it was.

“La Forza Del Destino.”
As the reader can see, having read the red-font paragraphs of the previous entry, the two of them are closely connected through their overwhelming Grundthema: the force of destiny. The discussion started earlier goes on in this entry, this time with more emphasis on destiny than on personality. Once again, let us observe that our subject is Russia, and not Russian history, which has determined this entry’s placement in this section.
Historical happenings in Russia are governed not so much by the force of the character of her rulers, as by what may be called the force of destiny, that is, Russia’s controlled destiny.
Peter the Great was able to transform Russia not only because of his great personal abilities, but because the time was right and he was allowed to do so by the keepers of the Russian destiny. False Dmitri I before him, was a very capable man who wanted to introduce in Russia, a full century before Peter, many of those same reforms which would later make Peter I Peter the Great, but the time was not right, and he was not allowed. Tsar Alexander II could have been counted as the greatest Russian ruler of all time, had he lived just a little longer, but Russia was about to take a different course than that of reforms and he was not allowed. (See my entry March The First, 1881, in the History section, for more on this subject.)
The title of this entry is in Italian, taken from the 1862 opera by Giuseppe Verdi. Its delicious irony is that the opera was commissioned by Russia, and first performed in St. Petersburg, while Tsar Alexander II was still quite alive and well, having just liberated the Russian serfs from their bondage. The Force of Destiny! This is so Russian, yet so much fogged up in that triple mystery, noted by Winston Churchill…
Tsar Nicholas II’s sudden abdication in March 1917 horrified a lot of people in Russia, who rightly saw it as an irreparable harm having been done to the legitimacy of power in Russia. Many were saying that Nicholas was thus overreacting to the mystical curse of Grigori Rasputin, gruesomely assassinated only a few months before, in December 1916. Rasputin had made a prophesy of some terrible things to happen to Russia in the event of his violent death, which he, Rasputin, had been very reasonably anticipating. People also said that Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, in whose favor Nicholas II formally relinquished the throne, was too horrified by his own demons to accept the crown thus hurled at him. In addition to the Rasputin curse, there was this terrible prophecy, that the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty that had started with a Mikhail would surely end with a Mikhail, should Russia have the audacity to bring one of that name to her throne.
Therefore Mikhail Alexandrovich turned down the crown in horror, but, as people said, the harm had already been done. The crown had already been passed on to a Mikhail, and it was not up to the Grand Duke turned Tsar, to thwart the strike of Destiny. And now the Romanovs were finished, and with them Tsarism in Russia had come to an end.
Next was the famous Provisional Government. My previous 'provisional' title for this entry was Provisional Incompetence, which is rather revealing, but does not tell the full story. The level of incompetence in those strange months of Russia’s quasi-democracy was extreme, but the question ought to be raised why it was so, since the leaders of Russia at the time were all commendably bright and capable men. The brightest star of the first half-time was the highly respected in the West intellectual Pavel Milyukov, Foreign Minister in the first government of Prince Lvov, and the towering figure of the period, outshining Lvov. The second and last hero of the transition was Alexander Fedorovich Kerensky, the only true democrat in Russian politics of the time, and probably of all time and, for that reason, equally hated by his enemies on the non-democratic right and on the non-democratic left.
Historians are quick to point out the horrifying mistakes, each of them lethal, committed by Milyukov and Kerensky during their respective tenures (see the History section). Meanwhile, the Russian losers, in exile, were quick and acrimonious in putting the blame on the West:
“For quite some time now, some Russian people have been voicing their bitter suggestion that the Entente had not just defeated Germany, but Russia as well. The Allies do not want a great unified Russia, they are better off with Russia fractured and weakened. It is better for them to have Russia that can be pushed and manipulated, than a mighty Russia, which must be reckoned with as a factor of world politics…” (From the March 1919 letter of the Russian émigré National Center to the British General Hallman.)
But let us not spread the blame for Russia’s troubles around. The tragedy of both Milyukov and Kerensky was not of a tactical nature. Neither of them had understood the fixed course Russia was on, neither could change it. The force of destiny was with Lenin at the time, and to him and to his handful of wild and badly inexperienced Comrades was it now predisposed to hand over the laurels of victory.

Understanding Leninism.
(The subject of this entry is extremely serious and requires a much more thorough treatment than this short entry can possibly provide. But the reason why I keep it so short is that, as I have explained, the treatment of this subject is entrusted to the historical Lady section, which follows. After all, Lenin and Leninism are truly the property of history unknown, ignored, and misunderstood. Meanwhile, the present entry stays the separate course charted by the Russia section.)
Two kinds of historians make two kinds of mistakes about Lenin and Leninism, which need to be addressed and rectified right away.
One kind, which by now may have become extinct, but requires a mention nevertheless, sees Leninism as a fairly decent beginning of what would suddenly turn into an abominable anomaly, under Stalin, lamenting such a rude twist of political fortune. The other kind see Leninism as an evil turn for Russia, lamenting the demise of the “promising democracy” under Russia’s Provisional Government of 1917, and spreading the blame accordingly. Both kinds are badly mistaken in confusing Lenin with Leninism, and also in seeing the Leninist period of Soviet history as an institutional phenomenon, whereas it was undoubtedly a transitional one. But first things first.
It is helpful to realize that if we are talking about understanding Lenin, I have a whole lengthy subsection on him in the History section, which follows the Russian section. But my subject here is Leninism, which is not so much about Lenin, as it is about Russia, and her acceptance of Lenin as Russia’s transitional leader. Lenin himself was an opportunistic megalomaniac, picked by Russia’s secret police Okhrana to subvert the pesky revolutionary organization, RSDWP (Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party), the job that he was to do spectacularly well.
But in the process of doing that, he was chosen and empowered by the Keepers of Russia’s Destiny to do a much more valuable job for them, the job of completely destroying the old Russian order, the ‘first stage’ of the creation of a new Russian order, which Russia badly needed, in order to become revitalized and ready to keep doing her historical duty, that is, fulfilling her Third Rome Destiny.
Again, Leninism was a transitional phenomenon, whereas Stalinism was an institutional one. Leninism has often been mistakenly called idealistic, as opposed to Stalin’s realism, but such a distinction obfuscates the natures of both. In fact, there was nothing idealistic about Leninism. To repeat what I have already said, it was just a job which had to be done, which was done and which, after having been done, was retired, giving way to Stalinism.

Understanding Stalinism.
The Stalin phenomenon in Russian history is a multi-faceted, but by no means unique, national experience. More than anything else, it is one of the pinnacles of Russia’s brutal greatness, previously suffered with no lesser degree of violence under Peter the Great, but unlike the Stalin era, universally acknowledged as one of her finest hours. This is a double standard, of course, explainable only when we take into consideration the remoteness of Peter’s times, ensuring the silence of his victims, whereas so many of Stalin’s victims and many millions of their children are still alive and bearing a lifelong grudge.
Being a multi-faceted phenomenon, and having a direct effect on almost everything that I have to say both as a historian and as a political scientist, it is no wonder that Stalin and Stalinism are frequent guests on these pages, and practically in every section too. My personal unique and most valuable contribution to historical thought is inseparable from the effect which Stalin has had on my family, on my own life and on my thinking.
It is, therefore, absolutely impossible to bring everything on Stalin and Stalinism into one section, let alone into a single entry. Nor is it possible to avoid repetitions and thematic overlapping. I shall not even try. I am therefore advising the reader to understand Stalinism in my interpretation not on the basis of a single entry, such as this, but on the aggregate of everything that I have written on the subject.
In particular, I am referring the reader to my Contradiction, Religion, and Collective sections, where most of the subjects raised in this entry have been examined from a variety of angles. The History section is replete with similar themes as well, but there the emphasis is clearly on the historical angle. All together, they are, hopefully, making up a rich bouquet of relevant thoughts, in support of the same, critically important idea.
I have just said it twice, but it is well worth repeating this many more times, that there is a chasm separating Lenin and Leninism from Stalin and Stalinism. Leninism was transitional, while Stalinism was institutional. Stalin was an heir of Peter the Great, whereas Lenin was not.
The difference between them is by no means that of between a destroyer and a creator. Peter was both, and so was Stalin. Lenin was a brilliant nihilist, agitator, and organizer of the flux. He was also the undisputed father of the mobilizational one-party principle, the tree with one top. But otherwise he was totally unfit to govern. He was an agent of change, which says it all. The institutions which he introduced in Soviet Russia were not up to par, and could not possibly survive the hard test of permanence. Stalin was to provide what Lenin could not.
My acknowledgment of Stalin’s statesmanship genius is historically objective. Stalin was the right man for the job of ruling Russia at that particular time, and Stalin’s power takeover in 1922 (sic!) was probably the best thing that could happen to Russia, considering that it was Stalin’s brutal buildup of Russia’s industrial and military might, conducted at an admittedly terrible cost, which was the only course capable of defeating the looming aggression of the almighty Nazi Germany.
Stalinist Russia was the embodiment of the Totalitarian State, to a greater extent than either Hitler’s Third Reich or Mussolini’s Restored Rome. After all, in the Clash of the Titans, Stalin’s Russia gained the upper hand in a spectacular fashion, and what better test of the durability of a totalitarian State can there be than a decisive military victory over its most powerful totalitarian rival?
A lot has been said about the brutality of the Soviet regime under Stalin in particular. I have already noted, on several previous occasions, that I am revolted and grieved by the unimaginable levels of violence and senseless cruelty exhibited by the Russians not only in the extraordinary times of their crises, but in ordinary times as well.
In that strictly humanitarian sense, I have no kind word to say either for Stalin, or for my native Russia. But then, have there been any other nations around, historically guiltless on that rather sticky point? Merry Olde England, the proud mother of Magna Carta with its habeas corpus, and of the infinitely pleasant Victorian Age, had been rather grotesquely vicious in trying to save her crumbling worldwide Empire, particularly in the Boer War. America the Beautiful has also been guilty of some pretty graphic R-rated state-sponsored violence over the years. And then, of course, the great nation of Germany, the ablest, the cleverest, and the most advanced among the nations of Europe, which went through a chilling period of unspeakable cruelty, viciousness, and all, during the same time as Stalin was ruling Russia with his fist of steel; and the fact that Stalin’s Russia won the war, whereas Hitler’s Germany lost it, reaches far beyond a simple condemnation of German Nazism, to the level of its utter historical refutation, demonstrating that everything that the German people were to suffer as a result of Hitler’s unbridled adventurism had been senseless and self-destructive. No Stalin’s critic can say the same of Stalin and his Russia. Vae victis!
…Speaking of vae victis, it is now time to bring our friend Nietzsche into the picture with another one of his great insights. Here is a passage from his Genealogie, which is remarkably relevant to the subject of Russia and Stalin, and to the real meaning of totalitarianism as such:
“Still retaining the criteria of prehistory (this prehistory is in any case present in all ages, or may always reappear), the community, too, stands to its members in that same vital basic relation, that of the creditor to his debtors. One lives in a community, enjoys the advantages of a communality… dwells protected, cared for, in peace and trustfulness, without fear of certain injuries and hostile acts to which the man outside, the ‘man without peace’ is exposed... since one has bound and pledged oneself to the community precisely with a view to injuries and hostile acts. What will happen if this pledge is broken? The community, disappointed creditor, will get what repayment it can, one may depend on that. The direct harm, caused by the culprit, is here a minor matter. The lawbreaker is a breaker of his contract and his word with the whole, in respect to the benefits and comforts of communal life of which he has hitherto had a share; the lawbreaker is a debtor who has not merely failed to make good the advantages and advanced payments bestowed on him, but has actually attacked his creditor: therefore he is not only deprived henceforth of all these advantages, which is fair,--- he is also reminded what these benefits are really worth. The wrath of a disappointed creditor, the community throws him back into the savage and outlaw state against which he has hitherto been protected, and now every kind of hostility may be vented upon him. Punishment at this level of civilization is simply a copy of the normal attitude toward a hated, disarmed, prostrated enemy, who has lost not only every right and protection, but all hope of quarter as well... Vae victis!” (Genealogy of Morals, 2nd Essay, Section 9).
This astonishing passage describes the very essence of totalitarianism, and provides a powerful insight into the nature of the ideal Stalinist society. Indeed, it is the community rule here, collective, not selective, not to be confused with the situation within the realm of the absolute rule which is selective, not collective. When Hobbes in Elements describes sedition as a crime physically damaging to absolutism, he is right, inasmuch as a community where the ruler’s authority is challenged by ambitious detractors is splintered and may not even survive intact the resulting damage, as Cromwell’s opposition to the king proved so dramatically, on Hobbes’s watch. But Nietzsche claims that in the case he is describing here ‘the direct harm caused by the culprit is a minor matter.’ The community is hardly threatened by its offender in a physical sense, because, unlike in the case of absolute monarch, it does not split, but, on the contrary, unites against the perpetrator. But the offense is shocking in a psychological sense, and also with regard to its social, or rather, anti-social implications. “The lawbreaker is a breaker” of the trust, of the social contract. His greatest offense is that it contradicts the very logic of the totalitarian society, and it defies common sense. Ironically, totalitarianism does seek legitimacy in common sense. The state and society provide their citizens with such benefits and comforts in exchange for their good behavior and honest effort to benefit their benefactor (in Nietzsche’s words, the debtor must seek in good faith to repay his debt to the creditor), that any challenge to such an accommodation becomes an offense of first magnitude.
My allusion to Stalinist society is most appropriate here. Stalin was not an absolute ruler in the Hobbesian sense of an individual making his will the law of the land. Totalitarianism as embodied in Stalinism, or in the sense Hegel conceptualized it, was the rule of the State over its citizens. Even though Stalin ultimately spoke for the State, he did not impose his individuality on the nation. On the contrary (and the distinction here is extremely subtle, but crucial!), the great leader himself becomes the humblest of servants to the State and to the society. As long as this is the case, the community should have no desire to dislodge him, for he, in his own bizarre and one may say absurd way, is an exemplary citizen of the state and not some monstrous abomination.
If I am permitted to sound unpleasant (which is certainly the prerogative of anyone who harbors no hope of getting published due to the great accumulation of other unpublishable offences to the extent that one extra transgression should not make a difference), I must say that the current state of Russian scholarship in the United States, to an even greater extent than what the state of Soviet studies used to be, leaves much to be desired. Whether this is sheer ignorance or an evil design (see my Russia Article on this subject) is beside the point. The fact remains that every single Kremlin watcher these days salivates over how much personal power President Putin will have to accumulate in order to stay in power, as if it has ever been the question of personal power, like in an autocracy, that determined the leader’s longevity. Totalitarian rule differs from authoritarianism in that the longevity in question is decided by the system which rejects the absolutism of an individual at the top as much as it rejects any social nonconformity exhibited by the lesser citizens including even the least important ones. I shall develop this line of thought to a greater length and depth when I finally sit down to connect the pieces, or rather to tie together all different threads into one. But, before leaving this fragment, I must strenuously reiterate that I am by no means trying to giving any kind of positive evaluation to the totalitarian phenomenon. Yet, I still insist on the latter’s social legitimacy in principle. Totalitarianism is the epitome of democracy; whether it works or not in practice is an altogether different matter.
Returning now to Stalin’s historical legitimacy and effectiveness as a great ruler in the cruel, but authentic Russian tradition, I am repeating what I said before in other places that the Russian Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was successful only insofar as it had cleared the way for Stalin, with the whole concept of the evolving Soviet State epitomized in Stalin-the-Seminarist, whose peculiar vision of Marxism combined the historical magnetism of the untamed Russian Buntar, the Rebel, with the shrewd calculation of the stern, moralizing Orthodox Priest.

The Man Who Destroyed The Soviet Union.
Having read this entry, don’t get me wrong! I am not ascribing the “destruction” of the USSR to a mindless tactical ploy of an autocratic samodur. It was not up to Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev or anybody else to do this job. Once again, la Forza del Destino was at work. Sooner or later, the USSR was to become dead skin, to be shed, and in this sense Khrushchev became a tool of historical destiny, preparing the way for what was to follow some three decades later.
Stalinism was the thirty-year apotheosis of the Soviet period of Russian history. Stalin built the foundation of Russia’s socialist-totalitarian society, and for a fairly long while his machine would be able to run on its own, regardless of the inadequate strengths and glaring weaknesses of its successive machinists. None of Stalin’s Soviet successors was a totalitarian in the true sense of the word. The best they could do was to let the machine go on its own. The worst they did was to undermine its smooth run, which happened twice in the last forty years of the Soviet Union, once right after Stalin’s death, and again at the close of the Soviet era.
The last person to do irreparable damage to the Soviet machine was Mikhail Gorbachev. It was Gorbachev who actually signed the fatal document dissolving the USSR and indeed he richly deserves the dishonorable title of wrecking ball, which I have bestowed on him. It can be therefore naturally assumed that he was the man who destroyed the Soviet Union, but this is not so.
The Soviet Union was a totalitarian state, and Stalin, the consummate totalitarian, had understood the nature of totalitarianism better than anybody. In a conversation with his son Vasili, Stalin showed his displeasure with Vasili throwing the name of Stalin around: “Do not call yourself Stalin,” he told him. “You have no right to this name. Even I do not own it, either. Stalin is Russia; it’s Soviet power, it is not a person’s name, but a national symbol!”
Totalitarianism is always huge on national symbols, and in this sense the Soviet Union was far more than its material, legal, administrative and such form, which was, indeed, what Gorbachev would actually demolish. But, first and foremost, the USSR was a symbol, a living soul, and that soul had been destroyed long before Gorbachev had even surfaced on the Soviet political scene.
The man who really-really destroyed the Soviet Union, that is, the man who mortally wounded the soul of the Soviet colossus was… Nikita Khrushchev. He did it without as much as realizing what he was doing, in the heat of a fierce power struggle of him against the whole Politburo, by attacking the Stalin legend, as an instrument of achieving his narrow purpose (yes, he was a consummate authoritarian, with no understanding of nor appreciation for Russian totalitarianism).
By attacking the name of Stalin, by destroying his posthumous personality cult, Khrushchev undermined the very foundation of Russia’s totalitarian ideal. Leonid Brezhnev, who would later follow him, later still Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko were all uninspired totalitarians at the time when Russia’s totalitarian dream called for another ‘Stalin,’ a genius leader who alone could repair the damage done by Khrushchev to it. But, alas, no such man was coming, and the Soviet Union was doomed…
Ever since Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin, the Soviet system had become the dead skin needed to be shed by the Russian Snake. The skin was cast off by Mikhail Gorbachev’s decree, but Russia was too weak still, without an authentic totalitarian leader. Boris Yeltsin was, of course, a smaller version of Khrushchev: a petty authoritarian despot with no understanding or appreciation of Russia’s totalitarian need... But then came Vladimir Putin and brought back the totalitarian magic. Putin, in a sense, is Russia’s next Stalin.

Filling In The Blank.
The Brezhnev era started with a mild repudiation of Khrushchev’s absolutist “personality cult,” with little if any appreciation of the fact that the so-called troika of Brezhnev, Podgorny and Kosygin was contrary to the basic principle of the Soviet totalitarian system. Eventually, however, the system was bound to make the necessary adjustment, with Podgorny being fired from the “President’s” post, and Kosygin dutifully fading to a secondary, functionary role. Thus, Brezhnev alone was left to fill in the necessary blank, and today, as he is remembered with nostalgia as the last semi-permanent fixture of the golden old days of Soviet-styled socialism in Russia, he is, perhaps, given more personal credit than what is due to him for the reason that it was not his own achievement that the system was somehow still functioning under him, even though in an erratic fashion, but it was rather the achievement of the system’s inertia that it was still functioning while he, Brezhnev, was just a man filling in the blank.
There was a lot of negativity and derision in my attitude toward Brezhnev in those years. I was appalled by his grotesque personal appearance, a bloated, seemingly diseased man (although the latter impression had to be wrong, since Brezhnev was able to live out a long life, after all), not a promising image of a great leader of a great nation. Perhaps, he was symbolic of the condition of the whole Soviet system, which looked sick, but somehow managed to hang on. Thus the question of how long the Soviet system could keep running on inertia, before it would run out of steam, had to be the most pertinent one to address to the Brezhnev era. Today, even I myself have changed my mind about Leonid Ilyich, as I nostalgically compare his “good old times” to the hell that broke loose under Gorbachev and Yeltsin. But, to be honest, the Soviet system had been terminally ailing ever since Khrushchev stabbed it in the back, and it was not up to Brezhnev, or anyone else, to put Humpty-Dumpty together again, since the fall of the USSR was now only a question of time.

The Twelve Commandments Of Soviet Communism.
Before we move on from here to Comrade Gorbachev, and to the last days of the Soviet Union, a brief stop on the way is in order. At issue is the question of morality, and how it was addressed in Soviet times.
The position of the Russian Orthodox Church on morality and politics, both before the Bolshevik takeover and throughout the Soviet era, forcefully reaffirmed in the presently existing post-Soviet duumvirate of the State and the Church, has been that among the freedoms granted to individuals within society, there can be no such thing as freedom of immorality. Maintaining the highest possible moral standards, and suppressing amoral behavior, therefore, ought to be the policy of the State, trumping all freedoms and privileges granted to the citizens. It is difficult to imagine of course that even the most intrusive State can eradicate immorality altogether, but when the Church and the State jointly put a stigma on depravity it will be safe to assume that immorality will be essentially limited to a smaller part of hopelessly wicked persons, and would not become a standard of acceptable behavior, which the young might want to emulate as a result of peer pressure.
Today’s Russia, despite the newly forged duumvirate of Church and State, indulges in revolting excesses of depravity, which will hopefully some day soon be officially condemned and suppressed. But so far, this has not happened, and it is, therefore, all the more amazing how well the official State policy of moral behavior in public and private life used to be sustained, in spite of all the shortcomings and failings of the later years, during the years of Soviet power.
As I was growing up in Moscow, there were always very rigid rules of behavior, which the citizens, young and old, were obligated to follow. When I was thirteen, in 1961 the 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the USSR codified such rules as part of a newly adopted Program of the CPSU. This document received the name Moral Code of the Builder of Communism.
It was a set of twelve moral principles, the observance of which was not limited just to the members of the Communist Party and of the Komsomol, but was expected to be followed by all Soviet citizens. These rules were generally benign, which I intend to demonstrate promptly in my comments to each of them, as I will be quoting them one by one. But, before I do, a general observation is in order.
This Moral Code has been compared to the Ten Commandments of the Bible, with some justification. The familiar basic elements of Christian morality are virtually hiding their religious identity behind the official language of the Code, which is still much gentler than the standard Soviet gobbledygook of the rest of the Party Program. Presently, we shall see the evidence of that, in my comments. Another point is the number twelve, which cannot possibly be a coincidence, as the Russians have never been indifferent to symbolism, senior Soviet officials never to be excluded. The number twelve has a very special mystical meaning, as we cannot fail to see, for instance, in Alexander Blok’s celebrated long poem The Twelve. (Be mindful also that Russia uses the metric system of measurements, and the number ten is generically more to be expected.)
Aside from the traditional symbolic values of twelve, and its Christian significance as the set number of the Apostles of Christ, the Russians who opt to show off a certain religious sophistication, like to point out the fact that Jesus has given us Two Commandments of His own, adding them up to Twelve. But an even finer point would be to indicate that the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament are not exactly ten, when we start counting them. (If we wish, we could easily count twelve there, too!) As an additional and convincing proof of the amazing ambiguity of the number ten the in Ten Commandments, the Jews and the Christians cannot not agree between themselves as to which are the Ten Commandments, and accordingly count them quite differently!
But enough of that talk about symbolism. Here are the Twelve Commandments of Soviet Communism, the Moral Code of the Builder of Communism, reproduced here with my comments:
The Moral Code of the Builder of Communism:
1. Dedication to the cause of Communism, love of the socialist Motherland and of the socialist countries.
The first impression that this commandment is grossly politicized and filled with ideology is misleading. It is indeed squarely ideological, in promoting the socialist principles of social organization, but otherwise, it is much more conservative in its essence: Dedication to the cause of Communism means being committed to the policies of the State; love of the socialist Motherland demands patriotism (love of country) and also an adherence to the socialist principles of Soviet society; love of the socialist countries means a support of the nations who are on our side in the global confrontation between the forces of socialism and capitalism.
2. Conscientious labor for the good of society: he who does not work, does not eat.
Compare this to 2 Thessalonians 3:10: This we commanded you that if any would not work, neither should he eat. There is hardly any other meaning to look for here, except what this passage plainly demonstrates, namely, its unambiguous spiritual affinity with the morality of Christianity.
3. Concern on the part of each for the preservation and growth of public property.
The very legitimate concern of the State over the property of the State becomes a moral obligation of each of its citizens, not only precluding theft and misuse, but demanding an active role in its regular maintenance and improvement. There is little disagreement here between totalitarian and free societies. Public property is to be respected everywhere.
4. High sense of public duty; intolerance of actions harmful to the public interest.
The questions of civic duty and the common good are stated here as general moral principles, which is also an accepted principle in all civilized societies.
5. Collectivism and comradely mutual assistance: one for all and all for one.
Camaraderie and mutual assistance are of course staple Christian principles. Also, collectivism comes out here as patriotism in its specific manifestation, as opposed to the general slogans and practices, such as the formulation of the First Principle above. In fact, ## 1 and 5 are mutually complementary.
6. Humane relations and mutual respect between persons: man is to man a friend, comrade, and brother.
If this is not a more elaborate rewording of Christ’s Love thy neighbor, I do not know how else to interpret it. Incidentally, the second part of this sentence is a linguistic refutation of the Russian saying Man to man is a wolf (obviously derived from the Latin saying Homo homini lupus est, attributed by Plautus).
7. Honesty and truthfulness, moral purity, unpretentiousness and modesty in social and private life.
All of these articles of personal conduct are superlatively commendable principles of Christian life. Oddly enough, this call for personal humility and denial of ostentation is consistent with socialist egalitarianism and Christian communal life, exposing a deep and wide chasm between these ethical laws, and Capitalist ethics, which thrives on the drive to success at any price, and on ostentation, which shows off the fruits of success.
8. Mutual respect in the family, care for the upbringing of children.
Soviet society prized strong families and good parenting to the extent that common adultery was seen as a much greater danger to society than, say, homosexuality of unmarried individuals. There is a forceful irony in the allegations of Western propaganda about the plight of Soviet children, relinquished by their parents from an early age to the custody of Soviet ideologues and indoctrinators. Perhaps, these insinuations were drawn from a blueprint of the kibbutz life in modern Israel, but one thing can be certain. With their focus on the integrity of the family and freedom from immorality, the Soviet authorities made certain that the life of children would be a happy one, and from a personal comparison of the two experiences, in Russia and the United States, I can declare in good conscience that Russian children and Russian families were generally much better off, even in bad times, than the American children and their families are today.
9. Intolerance of injustice, parasitism, dishonesty, careerism, and profiteering.
This rule is an unequivocal repudiation of the capitalist way of life. The word injustice here means social injustice, that is, when people are cutting themselves a bigger slice of the cake than what they have earned by their labor. Parasitism means living off public funds, or illegally obtained private funds, without doing their share of work to promote the public good. Dishonesty is making a living by improper means. As for the words careerism and profiteering, they directly point to the two main principles of capitalist thinking: the drive to succeed at all costs, and the spirit of private enterprise.
10. Friendship and brotherhood among all peoples of the USSR, intolerance of national and racial hatred.
This principle is self-explanatory, and, again, it is natural for all multicultural, multiethnic, and multiracial civilized societies.
11. Intolerance towards the enemies of communism, peace, and freedom of the nations.
This is not only a denunciation of all enemies of the Soviet nation, but also a repudiation of all contrarian ideologies, which is mainly the capitalist ideology
12. Fraternal solidarity with the working people of all nations, and with all peoples.
This last principle balances out the preceding one, in the sense that the Love of your neighbor principle goes beyond the national borders of the USSR, extending to all honestly working wage earners of all nations. It is not extended, however, to the governments and individuals who are sworn enemies of the USSR, nor to the enemy ideologies and their ideologues, as the Eleventh Principle states, but, again, intolerance towards the enemies is not projected from the few to the whole nation. All these principles were promoted in the USSR long before 1961, and the quick recognition of good Germans versus evil Germans led to the establishment of the friendly country GDR, in the aftermath of World War II, in spite of the deep hatred of Nazi Germany and, presumably, of every living German during the war.
I am foreseeing an angry rebuttal to my commentary on the part of Russia’s perennial critics, and, in such a case, it will be almost valid. How can you regard this so-called “moral code,” they will argue, as anything but cheap propaganda and dissimulation? To which I can only rejoin that when good Christian principles are adopted as the nation’s moral code, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with that. On the contrary, the rules of good ethical conduct, when taken at face value, can only be beneficial to society, even if its defects in the practicality of everyday life are severe and glaringly obvious.

Ubi Venisti, Gorbachev?
“Quo vadis, Gorbachev?” was the question of my provocative 1987 article (published by the Marin Independent Journal and carried by the Gannett newswire), musing on the impending course of Russia under her new leadership, glasnost and perestroika, and all. “Ubi venisti?” ought to be the question asked twenty years later.
As much as Mikhail Gorbachev has been lauded in the West for ridding the free world of its worst enemy, the Soviet Union, he is maligned and cursed in his own country, deservedly, no doubt, for condemning the great superpower nation to global humiliation in its astounding fall from greatness, and for bringing upon many millions of its unsuspecting citizens the incredible miseries of the horrid Yeltsin era. The collapse of the USSR has been called, in retrospect, by all Russian patriots, Vladimir Putin included, Russia’s “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century,” and, considering that the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, with the terrible Civil War ensuing, plus the devastating Great War (WWI), and the even more devastating World War II, all happened in the same twentieth century as well, that is really saying a lot!
How and why did he, Gorbachev, come to such a bitter ruination of his great nation, and to such a horrible verdict on his own historical legacy? Some call it a dreadful miscalculation, as if there were anything there to miscalculate! As if the terminal act of dissolving the USSR were not, in itself, a conscious act of national suicide, as if the actor performing it had no idea, not just of the consequences, but of the direct significance of what he was doing!
No, this was not some unfortunate miscalculation, but a deliberate and willful subversion of the system that had been in place for three quarters of a century, but now, apparently, was no longer of use. And Comrade Gorbachev, with all his powers at the helm, could not have done it alone.
How was it done? Some say, it was glasnost and perestroika gone too far. Nonsense! The greatest tragedy of the twentieth century was not an excess of glasnost and perestroika, but the act of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which alone opened the Pandora’s box of horrors. Thus, it was not a gradual process, but one single act of putting the official signature of one properly authorized government official to the document straightforwardly declaring to the nation and to the world that the once mighty and seemingly indestructible Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was now officially dead.
Why was it done? Not because a Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev had willed it, in some personal psychotic episode, nor because he had somehow been planning for something else, but wretchedly miscalculated. In Bakuninian terms, the collapse of the USSR was the conscious act of total and complete destruction, for the purpose of a new creation. And, in the words of my old family friend, the late Professor Anatoly Ivanovich Zimin (in his mystical explanation of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution), the eternal Russian snake was getting too old and too tired, and it was time to shed the old skin, and, with the new skin, to become young again.

Russian Democrat American Style.
Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin has been dead for nearly four years already. De mortuis aut bene aut nihil! But I have no kind words for him, nor can I remain silent. The eightieth anniversary of his birth will be celebrated in Russia in a couple of days, and so here is my mercifully short epitaph which I am laying on his tombstone on this occasion:
Here lies “Boris-vodka-Yeltsin” who made Russia’s enemies laugh while she was weeping. May God be his judge.

The Best And The Brightest.
Those who say that Vladimir Putin burst (or sneaked) onto the Russian national stage out of nowhere may need to have their expert credentials checked. He comes highly recommended out of the most prestigious school of modern Russia’s political talent, the KGB.
Many years ago, twenty-seven, to be exact, I had a talk about the KGB with some Reagan Administration officials. Scions of prominent Soviet families, I explained to them, have their high-status niches within the State nomenclature carved out for them, whereas any person of non-specific talent without such important family ties sees their opportunity to succeed in society by joining the KGB. Thus, the KGB is not exactly a sinister organization of plainclothes policemen, spies and snitches, but the ultimate talent school in all of Russia, the place to be for the best and the brightest.
I am sure that if my revelation to Washington opened any new eyes, it was more on account of their prior failure to grasp such a basic concept, than on account of my words being a genuine eye-opener.
With regard to Putin coming out of the shadows, when he did, I might add that at that particular time, with all Russia in disarray, the KGB (or FSB, if you like the new sound of its name) was the one and only place in the country (with the possible exception of Russia’s Strategic Forces), where good patriotic minds could still function in good conscience, as keepers of Russia’s security, and ensurers of continuity in those highly volatile and dangerous times.
After eight years of the Putin Presidency one might safely say that he was one of the best and the brightest among that elite club of the best and the brightest, and discovering him, and entrusting to him the reins of the Kremlin power was an enlightened decision, for which, as I said before, Boris Yeltsin cannot take any credit.
The main accomplishment of Mr. Putin is that he understands the nature of Russia’s totalitarian mentality and its main requirement of Russia’s Leader. Like Stalin, he has to be an incorruptible man, with no regard for luxury, and no love for money, and for whatever money can buy. Like Stalin, he has to be a totalitarian, which is the direct opposite of authoritarian. The latter seeks to make the State the tool of his desires, as he imposes his will upon the State. The totalitarian fashions himself into the most reliable tool of the State, and sheds all personal ambitions and desires, submitting himself to the will of the State, and identifying himself with that will.
So far, Putin has managed to restore much of Russia’s self-confidence and self-respect, and he is definitely responsible for the dramatic improvement of Russia’s great-power image in the West, although America is still in a state of denial, concerning her cold war adversary’s forceful reemergence on the world stage. But will it be enough to undo all the seemingly irreversible damage done to the nation? After all, capitalism is still quite active in the country, currently counting more billionaires, according to the Forbes List, than at least a hundred capitalist nations of the world combined. And although a lot has been done to alleviate the suffering of the poor, the Russian poor are still suffering like they never did in Soviet times, and that same disparity between the rich and the poor that used to be the staple of Soviet anti-Capitalist propaganda, is a somber fact of life in Russia today.