6.8.2. To Overcome the Atheism
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6.8.2. To Overcome the Atheism
That is why we are going to continue the analysis of “Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”, starting with Stalin’s opinion about the mistakes that were made by comrade L.D. Yaroshenko:
«Some time ago the members of the Political Bureau of the C.C. [364], C.P.S.U.(B.) received a letter from Comrade Yaroshenko, dated March 20, 1952, on a number of economic questions which were debated at the November discussion. The author of the letter complains that the basic documents summing up the discussion, and Comrade Stalin's «Remarks», «contain no reflection whatever of the opinion» of Comrade Yaroshenko. Comrade Yaroshenko also suggests in his note that he should be allowed to write a “Political Economy of Socialism”, to be completed in a year or a year and a half, and that he should be given two assistants to help him in the work». (“Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”, “Concerning the Errors of Comrade L.D. Yarochenko”).
As it was said earlier, «to describe Comrade Yaroshenko's opinion in a couple of words, it should be said that it is un-Marxist - and, hence, profoundly erroneous». But if J.V. Stalin really wanted the USSR to come up with a non-Marxist social-science theory, including Political economy, then there is a question:
Why in “Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.” he openly opposed the suggestion of comrade Yaroshenko of «allowing him to write «Political Economy of Socialism» in a year or year and a half time-period with the help of 2 assistants»?
In other words:
What are the mistakes of comrade Yaroshenko, which have no bearing on the matter of his adherence to Marxism?
Having this key question formulated, let’s turn to the text of J.V. Stalin:
«Under socialism, Comrade Yaroshenko says, «men's production relations become part of the organization of the productive forces, as a means, an element of their organization» [365] (“Comrade Yaroshenko's letter to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee”).
If that is so, what is the chief task of the "Political Economy of Socialism"? Comrade Yaroshenko replies: «The chief problem of the Political Economy of Socialism, therefore, is not to investigate the relations of production of the members of socialist society, it is to elaborate and develop a scientific theory of the organization of the productive forces in social production, a theory of the planning of economic development» (“Comrade Yaroshenko's speech in the Plenary Discussion”).
That, in fact, explains why Comrade Yaroshenko is not interested in such economic questions of the socialist system as the existence of different forms of property in our economy, commodity circulation, the law of value, etc., which he believes to be minor questions that only give rise to scholastic disputes. He plainly declares that in his Political Economy of Socialism «disputes as to the role of any particular category of socialist political economy - value, commodity, money, credit, etc., - which very often with us are of a scholastic character, are replaced by a healthy discussion of the rational organization of the productive forces in social production, by a scientific demonstration of the validity of such organization»' [366] (“Comrade Yaroshenko's speech at the Discussion Working Panel”).
In short, political economy without economic problems.
Comrade Yaroshenko thinks that it is enough to arrange a "rational organization of the productive forces," and the transition from socialism to communism will take place without any particular difficulty. He considers that this is quite sufficient for the transition to communism. He plainly declares that «under socialism, the basic struggle for the building of a communist society reduces itself to a struggle for the proper organization of the productive forces and their rational utilization in social production» (“Comrade Yaroshenko's speech in the Plenary Discussion”). Comrade Yaroshenko solemnly proclaims that «Communism is the highest scientific organization of the productive forces in social production».
It appears, then, that the essence of the communist system begins and ends with the «rational organization of the productive forces». (“Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”, “Concerning the Errors of Comrade L.D. Yaroshenko”, part 1. “Comrade Yaroshenko’s Chief Error”).
The last two paragraphs clarify that:
· the statement that «communism, bolshevism is in denuding the property of others and dividing it among ourselves» is a vile slander of fools that is a systematic propaganda of Russian mass media and public politicians (including B.N. Eltsin) since 1985 and especially after 1991.
· J.V. Stalin was not of the opinion that if the productive spectrum per capita reaches some rather high point, it will automatically bring all-out welfare, prosperity in communism (this remark is for those, who consider communism and bolshevism an earth-fed aspiration of primitives to fill their maw and grab tricks).
Further by the text, Stalin continues taking a more detail view of L.D. Yaroshenko’s ideas and formulates his thought by means of the suitable quotation from Marx’s heritage:
«Marx said:
“In production, men not only act on nature but also on one another. They produce only by cooperating in a certain way and mutually exchanging their activities. In order to produce, they enter into definite connections and relations with one another and only within these social connections and relations does their action on nature, does production take place”». (Karl Marx, “Wage Labour and Capital”, Selected Works of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Eng. ed., FLPH, Moscow, 1951, Vol. I, p. 83.) [367].
Revealing himself with the help of this quotation to everyone willing as a true Marxist, J.V. Stalin pursues his thought and readdresses the ideas of L.D. Yaroshenko:
«Consequently, social production consists of two sides, which, although they are inseparably connected, reflect two different categories of relations: the relations of men to nature (productive forces), and the relations of men to one another in the process of production (production relations). Only when both sides of production are present do we have social production, whether it be under the socialist system or under any other social formation.
Comrade Yaroshenko, evidently, is not quite in agreement with Marx. He considers that this postulate of Marx is not applicable to the socialist system. Precisely for this reason he reduces the problem of the Political Economy of Socialism to the rational organization of the productive forces, discarding the production, the economic, relations and severing the productive forces from them.
If we followed Comrade Yaroshenko, therefore, what we would get is, instead of a Marxist political economy, something in the nature of Bogdanov's «Universal Organizing Science».
Hence, starting from the right idea that the productive forces are the most mobile and revolutionary forces of production, Comrade Yaroshenko reduces the idea to an absurdity, to the point of denying the role of the production, the economic, relations under socialism; and instead of a full-blooded social production, what he gets is a lopsided and scraggy technology of production - something in the nature of Bukharin's «technique of social organization». (“Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”, “Concerning the Errors of Comrade L.D. Yaroshenko”, part 1. “Comrade Yaroshenko’s Chief Error”).
One comes to a conclusion that Yaroshenko’s addressing to non-Marxist views in his “Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.” for J.V. Stalin is only a convenient occasion to warn against mere declamation on the topic of so-thought enough replacement of a conceptually define theory by «a common-sense reasoning about rational organization of the productive forces in the social economics, scientific underpinning of such organization», and against nisus to take purchase on something qualitatively similar to “Universal Organizing Science” of A.A. Bogdanov in the development of the theory.
As for the first point - the so-called «common-sense reasoning» regarding organization of the processes of management and self-management in society in the pace of arising problems - Stalin during decades of his party and state work (especially after 1923 as the party and state power was being concentrated in his hands) has mastered in such kind of common-sense and amiss reasoning, that ran in lexical forms of Marxism and economical science, that conceptual expressed Self-focused mentality of the “elite” of the before-socialist formations. And when this reasoning was of common sense and this was demonstrated in the successes of the USSR economics, they hid actually full and desperate practical and theoretical inequality of Marxism from people who were not in management. J.V. Stalin was obviously not content with such a situation. And he very convincingly showed in his answer if not to comrade Yaroshenko, then to many readers of his work, that having pretensions to soundness of reasoning, that free from «scholastic argues» (i.e. from the necessity to define the meaning of each of the used definitions and their interrelations with each other and life [368]), comrade Yaroshenko in fact is not capable of such reasoning.
It becomes clear, if you understand that Stalin was not a Marxist, and Yaroshenko, understanding neither this fact, nor Marxism in its essence, pretended to creative development of the Marxist theory in the context of new historical circumstances. Accordingly, at the example of comrade Yaroshenko, in the form of criticism of non-Marxist viewpoints J.V. Stalin showed the sterility of attempts of the «creative development of the Marxist theory in the context of new historical circumstances» and turned the laugh against the leaning to «common-sense reasoning», that pretend to change the conceptually defined sustainable theory.
Generally, as the historical reality shows, the so-called «common-sense reasoning»:
· either turns into creation of sustainable scientific theories, which do not reject common-sense reasons, but become their backbone in tackling the problems that arise before the society, revealing to the people the possibility of comprehending the problems and their reasons and also the ways and methods of their solving;
· or stays a Self-focused schmooze, that is the source of life for, at times, rather large social groups, but is of no good for creation, and therefore can destroy a lot of things if to hang on it in the politics on the state and society [369].
One of the following examples of such kind of the «common-sense» reasoning is academic A.D. Sakharov (under the physiological dictate E. Bonner) and the whole dissenting movement that took place in the last decades of the USSR existence [370]: if to suppose that their goal was to destroy the USSR in order to drain million people dry and rule over them, and be parasitic on their labor and life, then A.D. Sakharov and his companions are just scoundrels; but if they hoped that after the downfall of the bureaucratic regime in the forms of nationality of the Soviet power all in the social life will go on «on its own» to the pleasure of everybody (i.e. there would be neither homeless, beggars, living at dump piles [371], nor seats of Civil War, and such social intestine calamities that took no place on the USSR, at least in the periods of its peaceful life) then they are fools, that were «deceived» and used by scoundrels, who stayed at the backstage of the following events.
However, in the foundation of such kind of foolishness is abiding ethics. In other words if academic Sakharov is someone’s conscience, then it is a very sick and perverted one. An earlier but a matter of record example of such «common-sense» reasoning on the topics of history and sociology is «Mein Kampf» by A. Hitler. In all appearance J.V. Stalin actively desired to see the nations of the USSR free from the power of such kind «common-sense» reasoning that ruled them and their fates.
Therefore a question about “Universal Organizing Science” by A.A. Bogdanov touched upon by Stalin is more significant, than just non-Marxist ideas of comrade Yaroshenko and his tendency to «common-sense» reasoning, that pretend to change the conceptually defined sustainable theory, becoming a matter of allusion of problematic of universal organizing science as such. And this is also a question of «conspiracies» [372] in the general context of “Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.”.
A.A. Bogdanov - Malinovsky (real last name) Alexander Alexandrovich (1873 - 1928) is an economist, philosopher, natural scientist, political leader, and fantasist; since 1896 until 1903 - a member of social-democratic party, joined the Bolsheviks. His views in many ways were of a non-Marxist character. In 1909 he dropped out of the party. In the following years linked up with different party groups. After the Great October social Revolution he gradually drew back from the politics and devoted himself to the scientific work (his basic education was medical). He is the organizer and the director (since 1926) of the first in the world Blood Transfusion Institution, that later was named after him. Malinovsky died on April 7, 1928 during the experiment on blood transfusion that he tried on himself (biographical background is based on the article about A.A. Bogdanov from the “Big Soviet Encyclopedia” (BSE), 3 edition, book 3, p. 442, 443).
Among the scientific inheritance of A.A. Bogdanov during all this time “Universal Organizing Science” or according to its other name “Tectology” is the most interesting point. As the aforementioned encyclopedia article runs, A.A. Bogdanov was one of the «pioneers of the systematic approach in the modern science. In the series of the latest research works of soviet and foreign authors it is noted that some of the statements of Tectology anticipated the ideas of cybernetics (the principle of the feedback, the idea of modeling, etc)».
“Universal Organizing Science” - is a huge in volume ideological tractate, many educated people have heard about it, but only few read it, among all because it contains non-Marxist ideas and in the Soviet times it was not republished [373], and it could be found only in the special storages of the leading scientific libraries or few in number in the family libraries. It represents an attempt to fetch away from the power of Marxism over the man’s understanding of the world, its essence being based on the version of The Sufficiently common theory of control in the terms of A.A. Bogdanov.
But J.V. Stalin found this attempt unsuccessful and was right [374]. Those who do not agree with Stalin on this point may find all three books of “Tectology: Universal Organizing Science” and start to study and apperceive them. They are not the first ones: after the downfall of the cult of Marxism in the USSR, many take this way, those who understand that the science about management is the key to everything. But before taking this way it is worth seeing what those who have already studied and learned some things from «Tectology» have to say.
In the Internet there is a paper work titled «48 Thesis of “Tectology” by А.А. Bogdanov» [375]. As the author of this paper says, his goal «includes brief representation, in tabloid form of the essentials of Bogdanov’s work, which he considered his lifework - “Tectology. Universal Organizing Science” (1913 - 1922)». Let us turn to the paper work:
«1. “Any human activity objectively is of an organization or disorganization character” (p. 19) [376]. and it may be viewed as a material for organizational experiment. Organizational activity of a man directed on rearranging the surrounding world according to his needs. Mankind however, are not united in their organizational activity, which creates disorganizational activity that is the result of the clash of different organizational processes.
This is the organizational view of the world.
“Nature - is the first great organizer” (p. 22). The last achievements of natural sciences make the view that all the natural phenomena, alive and static, are organizational and well-founded. From this the understanding of organizational experience expands to the world total combination of organizational and disorganizational processes.
Similarity of the organizational arrangement, that is inherent in different natural systems and the possibility of a man to adopt this principals in his activity bring us to the thought about the entity of the organizational methods, that are inherent in the world in all its displays, monism of the world arrangement.
The entity of the organizational methods brings us to the necessity of creating a new science for their summarizing. The organizational experience should be investigated and used for the benefit of the humanity» (the aforementioned paper work, thesis 1 - 4).
Although we are not familiar with any commentaries of J.V. Stalin about «Universal Organizing Science» of A.A. Bogdanov, as the first four theses of the “Tectology”, given by the author of the paperwork, show that objectively Stalin was right in his rejection of such kind of morally diluted «scientific and theoretic» basis for development of the socially needed social theory, including its economical component [377].
Those theses of the “Tectology” that are given by the author of the paperwork express Self-focused (anthropo-focused [378]) atheism of the material kind [379]. And this is a rather sufficient reason for not accepting “Tectology” of A.A. Bogdanov as a sustainable standard of understanding the universe. This understanding should be achieved by all intellectual people in their development by the time of they maturity.
If to judge according to what we know about the life of
A.A. Bogdanov, he was a sincere man, who didn’t accept any oppression against individual (that is why he had conflict in his inner party hierarchy in Russian Social Democratic Labor Party and had to leave the politics), he was ready to sacrifice his life for the life of other people (and he proved this readiness by the way he died during the medical experiment). But justly refusing the leading in Russia cultic forms of idealistic atheism, A.A. Bogdanov however could not dramatize in Life and comprehend the manifestation of All-power of God. That is why he could not overcome atheism as such, which he absorbed with culture. As the result of this circumstance, accusations in mechanistic, which in fact is an accusation in the moral petrifying (immorality: mechanisms have no morals, though they reflect the morals of their creators) that is voiced by many in this or that form against his version of universal organizing science as such is also fair.
A man as a person and humanity in the whole is a barer of this or that but rather definite, objectively native to him, moral. But besides this, he is free to re-comprehend his existent moral and having this re-comprehension as a foundation he is free to create his future moral. This is about personal and panhuman moral that is fixed by neo-sphere as a present bottom-line of life of mankind; every person makes a contribution to it in the form of a thought-over well-directed or inane input.
Just because “Universal Organizing Science” of A.A. Bogdanov is morally petrified, and as a result it may present evil morals and immorality of a subject and communities as an objective fact that is free and independent on their intentions and will; it is so attractive for Self-focused outlook that is a characteristic of many central figures of the modern science. In their opinion what important is the scientific result that is acclaimed in the «scientific communities» and which in its essence is the only characteristic of the human virtue of the personality of the researcher, and as for all the other characteristics and his morals, they are not other people’s business and they do not concern the science as the process of study and managing the circumstances of life of the societies and people [380]. The fact that the scientific result and the possible practice of its appliance are most of all conditioned by the morals of the researcher is a fact (this is true about all the other activities of every person and a collective: trivial or professional). Comprehension and understanding of this is especially difficult for flourishing in the historically formed circumstances scientists (and the leaders of other branches) - bearers of Self-focused conception.
Because of being morally petrified «general» organizational science in the version given by A.A. Bogdanov is absolutely not general and therefore is unable to tackle the problem of overcoming estrangement of specialization of sciences, which is a characteristic of a presently ruling culture, though this aim was in his times put up by
A.A. Bogdanov, and the author of the paper in question made it his 5th thesis:
«5. Different forms of common mentality in this or that extent are inhere the organizational view of the world. Largely what is said refers to Philosophy, which is nonetheless “did not realize its dependence on the reality of life” (p. 64). Impediment to the true learning of the organizational experience is the specialization of sciences that prohibits “integral formulation of the question” (p. 65). It is high time to overcome this impediment. “New, universal organizing science we are going to call «tectology», its… translation from Greek means «discipline about building»” (p. 66)» «48 Thesis of “Tectology” by А.А. Bogdanov»).
The thing is that in the morally petrified “general” organizational science there is no place for Psychology, that directly or indirectly deals with morals of people and collectives and changes of morals under the pressure of circumstances and under the influence of will of the people themselves as a result of their reconsidering the life and in their applied appendix - with the adjustment and disorder of algorithms of peoples mind, collectives, societies and the global civilization in the whole. As an addition to this case - in «tectology» there is no place for History as well, because historical science, insensible to moral-esthetic changes, turns into a senseless in its nature, closed-up «bookkeeping» of archeological memorials, texts, facts. Thereof:
Universal Organizing Science may be only relatively rightmoral-conditioned theory of social control, which has ways out, connections with Psychology in entity of specific life of psychological theory and psychological practice, and with History, and consequently (and this is the main thing) with the political script-writing for future.
Only in this case knowledge and skills, that make up the essence of the private sciences and crafts, become an attachment to the single for all human core of any personality and do not change the core of the personality, which dissociate the society, sciences, crafts and all kinds of people’s activities in the social life, including family, generating many conflicts. But «tectology» due to being morally petrified is not able to overcome this dissociation; otherwise those scientists who were morally petrified would not have referred to it as the deceased academician N.N. Moiseev.
Stalin thinking of comrade Yaroshenko’s ideas as of the kind of «tectology», accuses him basically for the same - for rejecting the role of the productive, economical relations of people: «intellectuals» that do not use right-brain always forget that political economical theories always deal with the interaction of people, with their morals and ethics. Exactly in the result of such obvious and unobvious putting people’s moral and God’s righteousness [381] beyond the scope of research instead of political economy and sociology in the whole, that are clearly morally conditioned, we get a lopsided and fleshless technology and mechanical organization of production and consumption. It is expressed in a more broad way in the phrase:
How many of these beasts do we need and how much do these beasts need so that we could have all to our hearts’ content?
But this anti-humane nature of morals and ethics of sociologists, economists, public and backstage politics may be veiled for its evident foolishness or hypocritical cynicism by rather goodly speculations on «human rights», «socially-oriented market economy», «civil society», etc.
Some may still think that due to his intellectual primitivism and ignorance (that are assigned to him by permissively-individualistic, so-called «liberal» tradition of interpretation of the world) Stalin was not able to comprehend the heights of the tectological thought, that is expressed in such a literary language:
«17. Desingression is something opposite to ingression. “In the ingression of activity, those that were not connected before - connect, forming ‘a bond’ of conjugating complexes; in desgression they are mutually paralyzed, what leads to the establishing a ‘border’, i.e. separation” (p. 121, footnote). At the full neutralization of activity there is a full desingression that is accompanied with the establishing of tectological border and dissociation of complexes. Medium elements are implanted on lines of cyclic resistance between the complexes» [382] (aforementioned paperwork «48 Theses of “Tectology” by A.A. Bogdanov»).
But Stalin’s evaluation of different kinds of morally petrified «tectological» approaches to the economical life of society is the case when morally-conditioned, right in its essence result is important; no matter whether it is accomplished as a bottom-line of long accumulation and study of facts, formulation and apperceiving of terminological conceptual and on their basis reasoning in the course of some intellectual activity culture or it is accomplished momentarily as an effulgent flash of intuition.
As any person in all his activity Stalin had a border that limited what he understood clearly and what were beyond his understanding and were conditioned by interaction of his mentality on the subconscious levels with aggregors [383] with the mentality of others subjects, guidance from Above [384]. This deals with accomplished events (including the evaluation of «tectology»), as well as present events and providence.
But no matter where was the boarder in the Stalin’s activity, he expressed God’s Providence [385] supporting Bolsheviks in a couple of phrases in the pseudo-Marxist text where he preprogrammed the end of the Marxism and in a matrix way excided the possibility of the future need of Bolsheviks of some morally petrified atheistic «general» organizational science.