The Thinking Reed

is effected in such a way that part of the statocrats’ income (in particular, of state revenue) takes the form of collective income, and part of it the form of individual income; including that which takes the form, on the one hand, of expenditure on collective needs and, on the other, of expenditure on individual needs (in the form of salaries and wages). These forms, which arise not in the process of the creation of the statocrats’ income but in that of its distribution, make it appear that the statocracy, with the individuals who compose it, is a variety of the collective producer. This appearance is reinforced by the fact that individuals’ unearned income takes the same form here as earned income, although wages are, in essence, no longer the price of the commodity labour-power, but an income. In statocratic society wage-labour relations appear to be universal, applying both to the producers and to the exploiters.37

From this ensue some important peculiarities of the society in question. Let us begin with the fact that the ruling class entertains an extraordinary number of illusions about itself owing to the contradictoriness of its position, as mentioned earlier. These class illusions are no less real than class interests, but they can lead the class in a quite different direction. The consequence is that we can speak of an extraordinary ‘ideologization’ of society which penetrates into every sphere of social activity, including culture.

The main characteristic of this ideology,38 as Charles Bettelheim and Bernard Chavance rightly observe in their study of Stalinism, is ‘fetishism of the state, in which the latter appears as a “supernatural force”.’39 Analogous to this is ‘fetishism of the Party’, expressed in the celebrated formula ‘the Party is always right.’ One of the first to put into ideological circulation this notion of the Party’s infallibility — absolutely alien to Lenin — was Trotsky (incidentally, when he had already been ousted from power). ‘I know’, he said, ‘that one cannot be right against the Party. One can be right only with and through the Party, for there is no other way of realizing history’s task.’40

The ruling statocracy tries to impose these illusions upon society, and does this not least by means of art. The ideologization of consciousness means that the governing circles look on all forms of intellectual activity, in the last analysis, as varieties of propaganda. Naturally, members of the nomenklatura can see art in no other way than as one form of ideological agitation. They impose this role upon it by every means available. ‘But art as a political force is art only in so far as it preserves the images of liberation,’ wrote Marcuse.41 By trying to oblige artists to sing the praises of slavery, the Stalinists actually come into conflict with the essential nature of art. Sometimes the official ideology wins this battle: ‘It wants art that is not art, and it gets what it asks for.’42

The second most important aspect of social development is connected with the incredible plenitude of power. The class-apparatus, which is itself the ruling class, concentrates in one centre the entire administration of social life in all its manifestations. One must of course allow for the fact that as the crisis of the system deepens, one sphere of social activity after another escapes from bureaucratic control. Nevertheless, the tendency is maintained. In consequence there is constant pressure by the state upon culture, as a sphere which is not thoroughly subject to this centralized control. Similarly, constant pressure is also brought to bear on the individual. How successful this pressure is, and what it leads to, we shall see later, but it is obvious that it exists. On the whole we can say that there is obvious domination of civil society by the state. Moreover, it must be remembered that, as Cheshkov has written, this domination