The Thinking Reed

On the whole, the politico-ideological principles of Stalinism have proved less tenacious of life than its philosophical conception of the world (if one can speak of philosophy in this connection) — its presentation of ‘socialism’ and ‘Marxism’. A factual lie is always easier to refute than a ‘theoretical’ one. As Schopenhauer said:

If in the representation of perception illusion does at moments distort reality, then in the representation of the abstract error can reign for thousands of years, impose its iron yoke on whole nations, stifle the noblest impulses of mankind; through its slaves and dupes it can enchain even the man it cannot deceive.218

A paradoxical question arises. Democratic man and democratic ideology can develop only under democratic conditions. But if this were so, not a single democracy would ever have appeared. It is not a simple matter at all.

The history of Soviet dissidence in the 1970s confirms once more, albeit in a very special way, the classical Marxist idea that the ruling ideas of every society are the ideas of the ruling class. In trying to create an opposition ideology or to work out a new way of thinking, Soviet man is obliged to use the cultural material of the official ideology. This is the logic of history. Philosophy and culture have to use the material left to them by their predecessors. Literature brought in illegally from abroad, together with samizdat, were — in any case in the seventies — unable to shape the spiritual climate in the country; they merely reflected it. Is there no way out?

There is a way out. The official ideology is not the only possible source of cultural material in our society. The alternative sources are limited, but they do exist. The opposition can derive this material from the traditions of European (including Russian) humanist culture, from its own history, and also from the accessible works of classical and contemporary Marxist thinking on history and philosophy. Finally, the very fact that in place of one universally obligatory dogmatism there have come into being several contending dogmas is itself significant: it points to the approaching decline of the Stalinist pseudoculture and the beginning of a real spiritual emancipation.

Notes

6 Looking for a Way Out

The 1970s: New Cultural Currents

Dogma-creation was by no means always capable of satisfying the ‘hunger for ideology’. In any case it would be wrong to suppose that the overwhelming majority of the intelligentsia took that road. On the contrary, in the seventies the quest for new ideas was quite fruitful, but now the critically thinking intellectuals no longer hastened to publicize these ideas. In the art of the seventies, in all its genres, there was less pathos and emotion but more objectivity and analysis. Distrust in emotionalism became so widespread that it even affected the statocratic pseudoculture.

At first, official art reacted to the ideological crisis merely by increasing the number of propagandist films and ‘artistic’ canvases in the spirit of the old ‘socialist realism’, but this propagandist pressure proved only counterproductive, displeasing not merely intellectual circles but also the broad masses. Then another tendency, especially noticeable in the cinema and on television, began to gain ascendancy. They began to make deliberately problem-free films in the style of the worst clichés of Hollywood — ‘hits’ like Pirates of the Twentieth Century or The Crew, or melodramas (Moscow Doesn’t Trust Tears, and so on) — all with an obligatory happy ending. Such commercial products met with a favourable response among some viewers, who wanted ‘just to be entertained’, ‘to be relaxed, relieved of their worries’. The technical level of these films was higher than in the old propaganda jobs, and the approach different, Americanized. Nevertheless, the purpose was the same. It was obvious, frank propaganda for lack of spirituality — ideological opium.