My article "Super-individualism" was published in the issue No.2 (117), 2006 (the first publication in the newspaper "Duel", No. 40 (388), October, 5, 2004). Naturally, I am very glad that many people did not sit back and somebody has even expressed his thoughts on my text in press. I am very grateful to comrade Iskrovets from Ufa for his critical notes. The editorial board of the "Moscow – Sadovoe Koltso" newspaper has kindly given me an opportunity to comment on the statements expressed in comrade Iskrovets’ article. It would be stupid not to use this opportunity. Here I go.

First, it is not good to misquote for the first time already. I haven’t "thrown on some profile but have drawn out. "Drawn" means a text on a paper, "thrown" means a loop on a neck. Further, the essence.

"It is impossible to take everybody and call collectivists or individualists unambiguously. In fact at certain historical moments in a country taken separately the majority of its citizens may be either collectivists or individualists". Don’t you know what I am speaking about? Why use force on an open door?

Dear comrade Iskrovets! Aren’t you on occasion an intelligentsia member? Yes, I write that "...people may be either collectivists or individualists according to the circumstances". You can’t agree with this opinion emphatically but before it you state solemnly and proudly that "at certain historical moments in a country taken separately the majority of its citizens may be either collectivists or individualists".

There is a famous Soviet anecdote:

– Have you got an opinion on this question?
– Yes, I have but I disagree with it emphatically!

Only an intelligentsia member can misunderstand the essence of what he has written himself, only an intelligentsia member can’t pull out one idea through two pages without mutually exclusive statements.

By the way, the first to pronounce the phrase "people are the matter" was a Georgian many years go with some other words. At that time it sounded: "Cadres are decisive for everything". Comrade Iskrovets has brought me into line with Stalin! It is evident I am not worth such honour, nevertheless that’s pleasant.

I know, I have heard it. It’s like a theatre story of an actor who emphasized not the word "yourselves" but the word "help" in the phrase "help yourselves". It’s a fresh idea, indeed.

In fact the author wants to say something else, of course, but what? Indeed - "depending on circumstances" means "in view of circumstances", i.e. "because of circumstances". It's six of one and half a dozen of the other. Besides such a pleasant and nice thing as the freedom of choice there is an unpleasant and gloomy notion – the structure of choice, i.e. a set of variants to choose. For example, a person is offered to choose a scaffold and an electric chair. The freedom of choice is present but the structure of choice guarantees quite an unambiguous result.

Well, wasn’t it so indeed?

The matter wasn’t that all the Soviet individualists without any exception "took the most active part in the USSR destruction". Their indifference to the fate of the state and the people was quite sufficient, the notion of common interests was alien to them, the notion of common tasks was alien to them, the notion of common fate was alien to them, the philosophy "I am not my brother's keeper" was twin to them, so as a result of their indifference, of their super-individualism a small group of traitors has easily destroyed the Soviet Union, as a result of the Russian population’s super-individualism public enemies and destroyers of the state didn’t meet and don’t meet any obstacles on their way.

"The same is philosophizing on the topic "only hardships make people think..." (believe, dear comrade Tsygankov, Marx and Engels have come to their great teaching not because of personal hardships) and addresses to a famous demagogue S.G. Kara-Murza, etc. Once the malodour of Russian nationalism smelled. In brief, we can’t agree with the above listed anyway".

So, what would you agree with – that Marx and Engels were working out their teaching not because the surrounding situation didn’t serve their turn and they wanted to understand it in detail in order to know what to change and in what direction – but because green devils had whispered something to them – those which come together with delirium tremens, or extramundane voices caused by maniacal-paranoid -schizophrenia?

And why to offend S.G. Kara-Murza? Naturally, "once" the "malodour of Russian nationalism" is mentioned. How can it be otherwise? Isn’t it too sharp, comrade Iskrovets? Marx and Engels are crazy jerks inventing teachings for something to do, Kara-Murza is a demagogue, I have only to keep silent about myself, Iskrovets is the only one in a white suit. I have to ask the question again: comrade Iskrovets, aren’t you on occasion an intelligentsia member? Such hypertrophic self-esteem with full absence of wish to grasp the essence of the question and inability to express their idea clearly is quite typical for them. It is clear that the author disagrees with my interpretation of the reasons of the USSR breakdown – but he can’t explain what he dislikes, nothing remains to him but to offend S.G. Kara-Murza and to discourse about the "malodour". I’d say, comrade Iskrovets, nothing smelt before you.

By the way, my formula is not HOW to address the agitated person ("thou" or "you") but to address the very agitated person but not a mythic character arising as a result of reading of old books. To see the very interlocutor in your interlocutor but not Pavel Korchagin or Plokhish (the Bad Boy). And to construct your speech according to circumstances.

"But we considered..." According to your writing, personally you, Iskrovets, considered nothing. You wished to pique me. You have heard a wise phrase – "certain premises necessary for appearance of a revolutionary situation". You have decided to chop it in to look wise. You failed. Answer a simple question – at least to yourselves: what to do until there are no "premises"? To join "NASHI" –"OURS"]?

Why is individualism a capitalist feature exceptionally? Out-of-limit development of individualism in the Roman Empire was one of the reasons of its breakdown – but was there any capitalism at that time? Was there any "bourgeois conscience"? Nevertheless, individualism was flourishing.

The first version: the ideal of a collectivist for Iskrovets is a homeless person. It is a homeless person who has no property indeed. As seen, Iskrovets considers a homeless person’s life, a poor man’s, a farm labourer’s or (at worst) a pauper’s life optimal. It is better to be sick and poor than healthy and rich, isn’t it? I don’t think Marx or Engels would like such a mutation of their teaching.

The second version: Iskrovets is confusing the reasons and consequences, is confusing private and personal property, is confusing conscience and existence and much else. Having such rubbish in his head he has a good chance to take a place near personalities like Novodvorskaya in the Russian political Cabinet of curiosities. But I hope sincerely my prediction is wrong. Probably Iskrovets is not hopeless. Merely – less incomprehensible words, less bonified, more think what you read and what you write – maybe something constructive comes out.

Unfortunately vice versa. A modern poor man doesn’t aspire to retain his proletarian position and world outlook, on the contrary, he wants to be a bourgeois – or, at worst, to seem a bourgeois.

The common backward of thinkers like Iskrovets – they stand for their misbeliefs too firmly, they like nice but fusty and misunderstood stamps too much, they look at the window too rarely.

(A quotation from Lenin) "The communist organization of labour the first step to which is socialism would more hold on free and conscious discipline of the working people themselves who had overthrown the yoke of either landowners or capitalists" (V.I. Lenin, the Complete Set of Works, vol. 39, p.14).

Did it hold on?

Lenin was a clever man so he cannot be reproached of inability to predict events for more than half a century front-wards. But the true approach for the early 1920s, the approach right for people of the early 1920s cannot be absolutely applicable to the people of the late 1980s. Moreover, it can be absolutely inapplicable to these people.

(One more quotation from Lenin) "As great, as inevitable are petty bourgeois lurches and hesitations of non-proletarian and semi-proletarians masses of working population behind, towards bourgeois "order", under the wing of bourgeoisie, however they can’t reject the moral authority of proletariat which does not only overthrow exploiters and suppresses their resistance but which also constructs new, higher public connection, public discipline: the discipline of conscious and united workers having no yoke and no power over them except the power of their own association, their own, more conscious, brave, consolidated, revolutionary, consistent vanguard" (the same, p.17) That’s how we look at the nature of the "collective" and the "individual".

Iskrovets, it is good of you to quote Lenin so abundantly. It is bad of you to quote him not as a creative person but as a textualist.

You read a great book "Capitalism development in Russia". Why haven’t you taken from this book neither exact description of the peasants’ community destruction nor extra-actual for modern time information on connection of per capita consumption level to level of economy monetization – why have you taken only the conclusion which being unambiguous itself turns into a claptrap in your context?

You quote Lenin’s statements on the role of the proletariat as the revolutionary vanguard – give at least one example for the recent 20 years. What has the society done under the influence of the proletariat and what has it done under the influence of, for example, Alla Pugacheva? Whose voice is more significant for modern society?

"That’s how we look at the nature of the "collective" and the "individual". Well, good man you are that you "look at it in such way". And what is the practical way out? To learn Lenin by heart like a rabbi learns Torah? Our aim is not an empty opinions exchange but search, grounding and further implementation of a project able to save the people and the state. On my mind, one such quite sensible and promising project is offered by Yu. Mukhin and the People’s Will Army (published in even-numbered issues of the "Duel" newspaper). Its discussion (in terms of implementation) could be a real matter. Anyway, comrade Iskrovets, it would be more useful than arrogant sitting in an ivory tower. Unambiguously, that is the most useless of possible variants.