Читать книгу The Russian Totalitarianism. Freedom here and now - Dmitrii Shusharin - Страница 5

One of the disturbing features of contemporary society is the lack of demand for self-examination, the society’s disinterest in the knowledge about itself. Mass media are supposed to function as a link between society and the fundamental science. But they are failing in fulfilling this mission. Earlier crises in the historical development of Europe turned out to be productive, when it was possible to generate a creative communication environment to connect people of knowledge with people of action, bringing political activity outside of the field of struggle for existence. Knowledge and comprehension of the modern world is born out of a combination of scientific thinking, enabling people to rise above the commonplace, with professionalism in the media, part of which is the ability to collect and analyze information. And most importantly, to facilitate the transfer of sophisticated general knowledge into accessible public language, in order to make the people see the connection of the lofty matters and general formulas with down-to-earth affairs and private lives. That was the case in Russia in the time of Perestroika. Nowadays the exact opposite is taking place, which once again confirms the absence of direct and simple connections and relationships between technological progress (in this case – the communication) and the socio-political progress.

Sociologists talk about “non-obvious aspects” of social phenomena. It is known, at least one case where the social systems of several countries had their “non-obvious aspects.” This is totalitarianism. Closely examined, the fundamental studies about it cannot be attributed to the discourse of a certain science, and some of those studies belong in the field of literature, being an outright product of imagination, where we can find various interpretations of totalitarianism (works of Platonov, Zamyatin, Nabokov, Voinovich, Orwell and Huxley, besides the pre-totalitarian ones like Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Kafka and others.) But these works can be summed as a solid basis for the historical and social knowledge.

Here is only one example: The Mass is the central metaphor in the classic work of Hannah Arendt, based on a post-totalitarian experience. She points out one crucial feature of totalitarianism. In particular, she pointed out such a feature of totalitarianism as the desire to establish a system in which people are absolutely not needed34

And here is how Nikolai Erdman saw the future as he observed the formation of the new system:

Yegorushka. By the way, under socialism there won’t be any people.

Victor. How come they won’t be? Than what will?

Yegorushka. Masses, masses and masses. The huge mass of the masses. ⁴

In the case of totalitarianism the language here is completely adequate for the description of the object that often requires not a rational explanation, but intuitive understanding of cause-and-effect relationships, which are rather hard to verify in a logical manner.

The use of the term “totalitarianism” is limited to the Judeo-Christian civilization, and those nations that have made an attempt to break off its value system. We are talking about several European countries, which for the last hundred years, since 1917, established atavistic regimes in an attempt to return not even to the Middle Ages, but rather to the primeval communal system. A variety of ideological devices were used, not necessarily consistent, but easily coexistent with the aesthetic and sometimes temporary political rapprochements.

For the serious scholars of totalitarianism the subject of their research was external. Hannah Arendt published her classic work The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951, when the Nazi regime had already collapsed. She had very vague ideas about the Soviets. Quite different was the viewpoint represented by those who lived and worked in Russia and Nazi Germany. Varlam Shalamov said:

“In a sense, the writer must be a foreigner in the world about which he writes… It is impossible to describe things you know too closely.”5

Nevertheless, he was able to do just that, as well as Nadezhda Mandelstam, especially in her second book. However, preserving their otherness, or foreignness was almost impossible for them being a physical part of the totalitarian organism. Most importantly, as the experience of these two people shows, one must pin absolutely no hopes on the totalitarian power. This distinguishes them from Solzhenitsyn with his Address to the Leaders and Mikhail Bulgakov, whom Nadezhda rightly called “a fool”.

To become a “foreigner” means either to avoid identification with totalitarianism, or desidentify oneself with it completely, without exceptions or exclusions, with a clear understanding of personal incompatibility with the surrounding social environment. For starters, come to understand that totalitarianism is not something you have outside of your person. This is something that dwells in you.

Disidentification has not always happened consciously, sometimes it was imposed on the apologists of totalitarianism, as in the case of Andrei Platonov, who left classic artistic studies of this phenomenon. In Soviet times, attempts were made to distance from the Russian totalitarianism model by studying the German model. Two names must be mentioned in this respect: Lev Kopelev and Alexandr Galkin, although one of them was a dissident, and the other a ranked Soviet scholar. But their contribution to understanding the nature of German totalitarianism was a great one, which cannot be said about Mikhail Romm’s film documentary Common Fascism.

In the current situation, to be a foreigner, you have to pull yourself out of the space of mass culture without losing its understanding. In my opinion, such a distancing begins with understanding that mass culture is incompatible with the tragedy and the tragic worldview and the ability to perceive tragedy. The paradox is that the tragedy excludes suicidality, and only a tragic consciousness compels to action.

But the managers of the discourse are not at all the power, it is the intellectual and media elite that calls the shots, and they won’t accept the grim simplicity that makes the tragedy a tragedy. Again and again, all is drowning in hypocrisy, moving the Russians away from what could be the basis for Russian national renewal.

A thorough systematic conceptual knowledge and meaningful action on the basis of this knowledge is the most dangerous adversary of totalitarianism.

In the meantime, all the actions of those who consider themselves the opposition are based on the knowledge of the former regime of classical totalitarianism, whose experience and mistakes the current regime has learned to take into account.

The regime conceals nothing, there is no cover-ups, on the contrary, it exposes and parades its abomination and obligingly announces: “Topics for resentment are served.” Like a crowd of freeloaders rushes to the buffet table, the progressive community hurries to their computers to amplify the hatred and aggression and prevent the free and dispassionate understanding of what is happening.

The Soviet and post-Soviet mind is characterized by depersonalization of humanitarian achievements of the free world, their dehumanization. It is particularly noticeable in the studies of totalitarianism. The main thing is to identify five or six distinguishing features of this social order. And to make it not too meager, a few quotes is needed. Arendt’s style in The Origins of Totalitarianism is highly aphoristic, her passages read bitingly publicistic, creating beautifully accurate parallels with the present.

The main theme of this first and still the most comprehensive study of totalitarianism is its nature, its inner essence, which is manifested in its relation with the individual human being and the communities of people derived from this individual that let the human creativity to be manifested. The findings made by Arendt are based on the observations of the outcome, but we need to project them on the observation of the process.

In recent decades, Russian scholars have actively translated and abstracted works of some of their Western colleagues. They did it with such eagerness that their work creates an impression that the main occupation of modern Russian thinkers is the interpretation of some individual authors, selected by not entirely clear criteria, translations of their texts and abundant citation; without any attempts to link this knowledge to the here and now. This also applies to the so-called philosophy, and the so-called fundamental sociology. Almost all the institutions created for research in these fields can practically be called not more than translation bureaus and referral services.

The language of the referred research, perhaps, is much more imaginative and metaphorical than the language of thinkers who tried to comprehend totalitarianism. We are dealing not so much with concepts as with images, not with different methods but with different optics, as the luminaries of social knowledge would say (as John Urry has argued about metaphors of sociology). And this is quite suitable for the society dominated by popular culture with its constantly replicated stereotypical images. This is a fragmented society offering a wide variety of fragmented images in which everyone can find something to their own liking. The intellectuals get the images produced by intellectuals. The former social knowledge, that was almost sacred, has lost its value, along with the historical knowledge. Also it has lost its integrity. Paradoxically, the globalization has not spawned the need neither for a global view of the world, nor in generalizing concepts and strategic studies.

However, if you look closely, the description of totalitarianism by less than a couple of dozens of authors, are also fragmented. So, there is a temptation to use any of the fragmentary pictures as a generalizing concept. In Russia this is reflected in the fact that, until the new cult figure comes, they just repeat a certain guru statements, no matter how outdated they are.

Since the beginning of nineties, the Western world had toyed with the simplistic predictions of Francis Fukuyama6. Dreams, Dreams.

And there was also an interview with John Urry he had given during his visit to Russia in autumn of 2006.7 Borrowed from the language of natural sciences, the words sound convincing: globalization; going beyond the civil society and the nation-state; dissolution of national borders and class distinctions; future abandonment of government as an universal regulator and converting it into a kind of moral authority. His statements are still being quoted. But his predictions never made it beyond wishful thimking. So far, everything is going in the exact opposite direction.

Let’s recall the other projections of John Urry8. The global citizenship in the global community remains a beautiful dream. The metaphors such as “nomad”, “tramp”, “tourist”, of course refer to different forms of mobility, but why there is no metaphor for “refugee” in the world without borders? It sounds somewhat pathetic to rhapsodize over another brave new world without borders, blood, sweat and tears, brushing aside one serious category of people on the move.

In fact, why millions of refugees are missing in the general picture of the world of mobility?

Apparently, because the picture is too glamorous and narcissistic. These sentiments have come about many times before and, as a rule preceded the global upheavals. Suffice it to recall the Enlightenment, crowned with the invention of the guillotine and mass terror and the ecstasy over technical progress, new culture, new comfort and new mobility, which preceded the First World War.

The picture of universal mobility was brought up for the purpose of psychotherapy, in order to offer the consumer society, which is by nature incapable of reflection, another version of its identity. The refugees’ motivations are fear, survival instinct; a refugee is an evidence of the world’s imperfection and an appeal to compassion. Another thing is the outlook of a tourist in perpetual holiday, motivated only by the desire to have a good time. This world of Universal (extra-, post-) social mobility presents a new utopia, the brave new world that can’t be other than a totalitarian world. Indeed, and not according to Orwell, but rather Huxley9 and Postman10. The atomization of society leads to its disappearance. The social being is destroyed in the process of constant entertainment and perpetual relocation. The exact social knowledge is not required, the demand even in scientific texts is now for models of different reality, glamorous and utopian. The new utopias became the subject of mass production.

Dreams of citizenship for the animals are beautiful, but hardly consistent against the backdrop of persistent reports of illegal migrants, drowning by the hundreds off the coast of the countries known as the birthplace of European civilization. Providing the coveted citizenship to people of other civilizations and cultures and creating their diasporas in the developed countries does not automatically lead to their integration in the historically formed western societies, which I would call “resident society”, a term I never have come across, so let me be the coiner of it. Obviously, the recognition of the resident society existence contradicts the spirit and meaning of the “sociology beyond society.”

Reality is always a challenge to those trying to create social knowledge. And the challenges of the present time are not the same as ten years ago, when the globalization and information revolution were universally and enthusiastically welcomed. Those were the hopeful days when people believed that universal mobility would dissolve the perennial problems associated with national peculiarities, ethnic and cultural isolation, and the incompatible civilizations would be reconciled even with societies that have no desire to lose their identity organically formed within their original nation states.