We publish here views that are being debated in the former Soviet Union about its degeneration. It was translated from the Russian by Maria Donchenko, member of Vanguard Communist Youth – AKM.

Are modern Russians collectivists? The question looks like rhetoric and the answer seems to be unambiguous: yes, they are. But somebody considers it good, while somebody considers it bad. The Russian community is well known to have existed up to the beginning of the XX century and even in the XX century under the name of "collective farm"; it is well-known... Nothing more is well known exactly. Nothing more appears to confirm the version that Russians are collectivists "by nature". All the other confirmations are Russian classic texts who sympathized socialism and peasants’ community patriarchal society and so presented a peasant as a communal collectivist. But the Russian landowner with the Swedish name Engelgardt mentioned in his "Letters from the village" that in a peasants’ hut where a large genus lived each woman washed only that part of the table where her husband and children and she had dinner and took care not to wash a neighbour section – each for herself; but during those years intelligencia explained it simply and optimistically that autocracy prevented peasant women’s solidarity. Now we have a hundred more years of experience so we may say sadly that autocracy isn’t the matter. But people are. But people may be either collectivists or individualists according to the circumstances. Individualism and collectivism are not genetically inherited features; they are nothing more than behavior models used by men for best adaptation to life conditions. The British are considered to be individualists. But they managed to submit a quarter of the planet in the XIX century including strong and high-developed countries as India and China. To submit such vast territories, one needs mutual solidarity, unselfishness, ability to sacrifice one’s own profits and even life in the name of the society’s interests – in brief, the British revealed collectivist features at that time. But, what about their individualist reputations? There is a fine Russian proverb: "Have in common salt and bread, but see to your own cigarette". While the life is hard and dangerous the collectivist behavior model comes forward; while the life is easy and pleasant being an individualist is more profitable. There is nothing strange or unnatural. A different matter is that Western people had to share "cigarettes" so their individualist features were more evident for researchers, but Eastern people, the Russians in particular, had to share "bread" more often, so their collectivist features were more notable.

So the Russians are not "genetic" collectivists. Their hard and dangerous life, their eternal struggle against enemies’ invasions and hunger threat made them collectivists. If all of these threats disappeared Russian inhabitants’ collectivism should fall into oblivion. That happened in the Soviet era.

What threats to people’s life did the Soviet power eliminate? Having created the well-adjusted law-enforcement machine the Soviet power has eliminated the criminal threat. Having created the most powerful Army, having constructed thousands of tanks, airplanes, cannons, surface ships and submarines, having placed military bases all over the Earth and having encircled the country with a stockade of air defense, ballistic and cruising missiles the Soviet power has eliminated the threat of an external invasion. By large high commodity mechanized agriculture the Soviet power has solved the problem of hunger. As soon as citizens appeared to wish more meat the Soviet power resorted to virgin lands reclaiming and purchasing feeder grain (i.e. corn for feeding cattle) abroad. As a result the Soviet power appears to have eliminated ALL the threats to human life. All the systematic permanent threats. Of course, there remained inevitable ones like age, death or occasional ones like an icicle fallen at one’s head – but there’s nothing to be done. The essence is that the permanent threat to human life was annihilated. Is it good? Maybe yes, but it were threats and dangers, the knowledge of these existing threats and dangers that consolidated for centuries Slavs, and Russians, and Soviets... The Soviet power based on collectivism has created such a society where collectivism was no more necessary for surviving and individualism proved to be the most advantageous behavior model. It proved malicious – the Soviet regime has raised its own grave digger. It had assigned the task to improve life – but as soon as people’s life became enough comfortable the people faced away scornfully. The reason is quite clear: the comfortable and quiet life conditions, the absence of threats which otherwise people would have to fight themselves, people fell out of a habit to think, but official propaganda was hostile to it. Often only hardships are known to make people think (the main works by More, Campanella, Lenin, Marx, Machiavelli were written not in luxurious apartments but in prison, in exile, in expulsion) but comfortable life of Soviet citizens didn’t encourage their intellectual process.

S.G .Kara-Murza mentions an "image hunger". Maybe it is one of the reasons. Enormous enlightening work of the Soviet power at the first stages of its development is also worth mentioning – as well as quite unconcerned attitude towards it during the "stagnation" – that was the time when there was no evidence of threats and dangers consolidating the society and therefore this work was particular important. Remember the film "Chapaev". There the White General sending his subordinate colonel to crush Chapaev’s headquarters, voices all due high-flown words and adds afterwards: "Probably you are aware that the Allied Command has promised $50 thousands on Chapaev’s head?" The Colonel answers at once: "Your Excellency, the Allied Command might set more. Guriev is behind and oil is in Guriev". That’s how soft-pedaled and clever action of forces ruling the world was explained to the population. And what did the stagnation films teach? To "be softer to people and take broader view of problems"? By the way, that’s important information, too, but not of enlightening but of manipulation kind.

In brief, the Soviet power has grown up individualists instead of collectivists and was crushed by their weight. The Soviet Union was being destroyed with individualistic slogans. The demand for privatization – everyone wished to snip his piece, the fight against gray-out – are actions of a typical individualist who doesn’t want to share the results of his labour with the society. There is no matter if this gray-out really existed, it is important that it was used actively and effectively as an ideological stamp in the struggle against the USSR. A typical revelation of individualism is birth rate decreasing within high level of wealth – the wish to live for one’s own pleasure.

The individualist motives of the elite during the USSR breakdown are well known. But our analysts – those who are published by open press – don’t want to recognize that the overwhelming mass of the population was led by the same motives. It is clear: the enemy analysts have no reason to show their cards but patriot ones are hurt painfully by losing their favourite chimeras because having realized that an average Russian is not a collectivists (that’s the ground for all their predictions) but an individualist, they lose all their hopes and world outlook.

The slogan "Every man for himself" was introduced after the USSR breakdown. This slogan has caught on fertile soil – the minds of stupid individualists, so individualism has grown into super-individualism. That’s very dangerous because as soon as collectivism and individualism are only behaviour models, each with its own advantages and disadvantages – neither people nor society can cure super-individualism by themselves. I.e. super-individualism is hypertrophic individualism which cannot be transferred to anything else, without external influence. Manifestation of this disease is more than clear. While oligarchs and the government were robbing the people during the privatization, it certainly caused indignation. But the indignation was by word of mouth and never in practice. At least, there were no serious attempts to find out what was going on and to correct the situation. Why? Everyone was robbed! That’s because "everyone" understood that oligarchs had good luck but they hadn’t and if they had found themselves in the same situation they would have behaved in the same way as oligarchs or even worse. It is not the attitude to take a rifle and to go to barricades. It is the attitude to envy the more lucky men but not to fight for one’s rights. These people – a miserable engineer and a super-rich oligarch – have the same ideas, the same souls. They have the same spirit. And how to lift one’s hand against a like-minded man?

That’s why the being predicted burst of anger against those who had plundered all-people’s property didn’t occur. A modern Russian doesn’t equate himself with the people! Notions of "family", "relatives", "colleagues", "neighbours" may have some sense for him, but the word "compatriots" is a mere name for him.

An interesting confirmation of it was published in the "Criminal Chronicle" newspaper in summer of 2004. There was a large article about "ethnic hazing in the military" – how Dagestan soldiers at a military base cantoned at the Stavropol territory, forced Russian soldiers to fulfill nasty jobs in the barracks, punished them physically or materially for violation of "concepts" invented by them and humbled them in different ways. Local "soldiers’ mothers" proved to be clever women: before taking out a process against the base command they decided to examine the situation themselves. The scene was extremely humiliating for Russians. There were not more than 20-30% Dagestans in a squad, and even two persons in one of them; but they all stood one by one through thick and thin. Situations happened often that even 2-3 Dagestans "punished" one Russian and 15 Russians more were waiting for their turn for the punishment. Why? Russians are not cowards, and the Chechen war confirmed it! The elderly in Cossack villages still remember ten Russians breaking up a crowd of 30 Chechens armed with knives by claws only! The matter is super-individualism. While an enemy (a Dagestan, a Chechen, I don’t want even to think about Americans) stands face to face against a modern Russian – the enemy knows that all of his people, several million persons, backs him. At the same moment the Russian thinks he is alone against the whole hostile Universe, and nobody comes to his aid, and to submit on his knees is not cowardly, but prudent. But once a Russian knew, too, that if 0,6 million Chechens backed a Chechen – he was backed by 130 million Russians. A Chechen knew it, too, and everybody realized who should obey. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya could state that we Soviets were 180 million and all cannot be hung by German fascists. But this statement is incorrect now. A super-individualist is alone, always alone. He can’t rely upon others, join them for common case, he doesn’t believe unselfishness may be useful or it may be necessary to cede his interests in order to save his honour, dignity, or his life. Super-individualism is the most terrible disease of our people. If we are not cured we’ll die off.

So we found out that the present Russians are not collectivists at all. In the mass they are individualists, sometimes even pathological ones, and collectivist slogans are not relevant for them. Now, we should only answer the question: who was the first to come to this conclusion (maybe having formulated it in another way or even in another language)? I’d like to be mistaken but in my mind if not the first then among the first were the Americans many years ago, not later than late 1995 – early 1996.

The task was set to make Yeltsin, the less prohibitive favourite of all the candidates (maybe except for Martin Lucianovich Shakkum– but the name, second name and surname got the citizen into trouble, otherwise he could expect rather good results: if he had a reasonable program and nice agitation) win or even get such a rating that could allow the voting falsification pass smoothly and make the society trust it. Tatyana Dyachenko has invited a group of American political strategists and settled them in the "President Hotel". The American took their bearings quickly. Having used the lemming instinct they launched an idea of alternative to Yeltsin and launched a slogan "Vote or you’ll lose!" to affirm this idea. Even 8 years later Russian political strategists consider this slogan classic. It may sound clumsy, stupid and hardly Russian – but it has brought the victory, so it is a clever slogan. The only thing that is not spoken about: it is an individualistic slogan, not an engineer’s slogan, not a scientist’s, not a worker’s, not a military man’s – but a casino player’s one. Its mind-bending success means that a very significant amount of Russians, not depending on their occupation or social status, consider themselves casino players where everyone is for himself but not a representative of people doing a common case.

American political strategists used this individualistic, to be exact – super-individualistic people’s attitude towards society. Of course we want to deny effectiveness of such approach, but it is impossible. They have won temporarily.

What to do?

Just so: what to do? Because an attempt to answer the question "Who is guilty?" would take too much time and resources and, that is crucial, brings the next dissociation which turns to our enemies’ advantage only. Here we may cite Parshev: "I think the details to be revealed later, during show trials. Otherwise deep-six to all – either left or right". So there is reason to wait for the show trials, but now we must think what to do further. The answer is rather simple: all the agitation and propaganda should speak not about robbing of the PEOPLE but about the robbing of a single person. Moreover, "robbing" but not "fraud". The term "defrauded investors" was of a great importance in the information war against us. We’ll examine this question certainly, but not here.

Many people ask a rhetorical question: how could any oligarch (many of them even don’t remember the surname Abramovich) get money for 3 (three) yachts each cost $120 million? A propagandist should have a ready answer: he has stolen it FROM YOU, TAKEN FROM YOUR POCKET! All modern Russians don’t care a goat about the people but they care a lot about their pocket. It is necessary remember Machiavelli’s statement: that a man would rather forgive his father’s death than a loss of his property. It is necessary to realize: an individualist deserves an individualistic approach. And don’t confuse an agitated person with talks about "all-people’s property". As soon as he wizens up he understands it himself, etc.

However, there are some people of such kind that are not subjected even to such propaganda. These are people looking at their life like at a casino game. Any idea of justice is hostile to them as well as any struggle for justice. They think Lady Luck may smile on them at any time and only on annoying occasion it hasn’t happened yet. They are typical victims of Western democratic propaganda; they are sick with super-individualism. Rational arguments are useless in discussion with them, but calling upon emotion is the only possibility.

Never forget that social problems, global problems – we can’t say they don’t bother an average person, maybe they bother him but he IS NOT ABLE TO PERCEIVE THEM! To perceive adequately and sharply – but not at the level of a football match.

A propagandist should speak not for mythic heroic people but for existing one, i.e. for individualists. Perhaps then they will change their mind and see people around whose interests coincide with their own. What to do otherwise? Otherwise we’ll die off.

It is necessary to address a concrete person, i.e. it is reasonable to use the pronoun "thou" instead of "you" in leaflets and posters. By the way, pay more attention to advertisers: they practically never use the word "you". As usual: "THOU buy", "THOU invest", "THOU do"... They address a concrete person but not a community. That’s not in vain. As it seems to be told in the TV program "Puppets" on December, 12, 1995: "Guy, you don’t believe people in vain! These bastards know what they tell!" So it is necessary to defer.

It is necessary to know the society we live in. I have drawn out some profile of this society and told a little what our enemies know about it. It is necessary to know, and to act according to this knowledge. Only then we’ll see enthusiastically the only great Victory arising from many small failures.