"The world is sick" - this is claimed not only by the Bolsheviks, it is also affirmed by lyrically inclined humanitarians, who finally understood that "philanthropy", "mercy", "generosity" and other feelings with which the two-legged predators tried to cover up their wolf "nature" "- these feelings are not really applicable, they are difficult to turn into a commodity, they do not find consumers and adversely affect the growth of commercial and industrial profits.
“The world has gone mad,” this is what people are saying more and more loudly, who have chosen as their trade the defense and justification of the irresponsible, inhuman power of capital over the world of workers, the defense of the unlimited and already senseless exploitation of the energy of the workers by the owners.
The history of the "disease" of capitalism begins almost immediately after the bourgeoisie wrested power from the exhausted hands of the feudal lords. We can assume that the first who noted this disease and desperately shouted about it was Friedrich Nietzsche, a contemporary of Karl Marx. There are no coincidences, all the phenomena of life are justified, and it is no coincidence that in those years when Marx scientifically and irrefutably substantiated the inevitability of the death of capitalism, the inevitability of the power of the proletariat, Nietzsche, with the fury of a sick and frightened fanatic, preached the legality and unlimited power of the "blond beast ". Prior to Nietzsche, Max Stirner denied the bourgeois state, religion, morality, and affirmed the right of the individual to unlimited egoism—under this denial of the anarchist lies, in essence, the denial of that "humanism" which the bourgeoisie began to develop back in the Middle Ages, at the beginning of its struggle against feudalism and the church, the ideological leader of the feudal lords. She understood the inconvenience and inconsistency of this "humanism" in the everyday practice of the bourgeoisie very early, as evidenced by the church reform of Luther, Calvin, and others. natural, but even praises the enmity of tribes, the extermination of people, robbery, deceit and all the like, without which bourgeois states cannot exist. Before Luther, the church taught unskilled builders of culture to suffer and endure for Christ's sake, Luther, with a straightforwardness not characteristic of priests, taught peasants and artisans in the 16th century - during the years of the revolutionary uprising: live and work in such a way that so that it is easy and pleasant for kings and barons to rule you. "Be patient, give in, give up both your body and your property, do not rebel against the authorities and against the rapist."
There is no need to prove the falsity and hypocrisy of bourgeois "humanism" in our day, when the bourgeoisie, organizing fascism, itself throws out its humanism, like a worn-out mask that no longer covers the muzzle of a predatory beast - it throws it out because it has understood humanism as one of the reasons for its bifurcation and decay. The facts mentioned above show that every time when sensitive people, alarmed by the spectacle of the abominations of the world, preached philanthropy in a naive desire to soften these abominations or cover them up with eloquence, the masters of life, the shopkeepers, allowed this sermon only as an attempt to calm people irritated by poverty, lack of rights, oppression and other inevitable results of the worldwide "cultural" activities of shopkeepers. But as soon as this irritation of the working masses assumed social-revolutionary forms,
Our liberal bourgeoisie willingly submitted to this law, publicly declaring after the events of 1905-1906 in the repentant collection Vekhi: "We must be grateful to the authorities for protecting us with bayonets from the fury of the people." Power was then in the hands of Minister Stolypin, who, acting dictatorially, hanged more than 5,000 workers and peasants.
In our days, the historically and scientifically substantiated, truly universal, proletarian humanism of Marx-Lenin-Stalin, a humanism whose goal is the complete liberation of the working people of all races and nations from the iron paws of capital, has stood menacingly before the authorities. This truly philanthropic doctrine has irrefutably proved that the iron paws of capital are created by the workers and that it is the proletarian who builds a "beautiful life" for the capitalist while remaining a beggar without rights.
This revolutionary humanism gives the proletariat the historically justified right to a merciless struggle against capitalism, the right to destroy and annihilate all the vile foundations of the bourgeois world. For the first time in the history of mankind, genuine philanthropy is organized as a creative force; it sets as its goal the liberation of hundreds of millions of working people from the inhuman and senseless power of an insignificant minority; it indicates to hundreds of millions of people of physical labor that it was precisely this labor that created all the values of culture and that, relying on them, the proletariat must create a new universal culture of socialism, which will unshakably establish the brotherhood and equality of the working people in the world.
This humanism of the proletariat is not a fantasy, not a theory, but is the militant, courageous and heroic practice of the proletariat of the Union of Socialist Soviets, a practice that has already proved that in the former bourgeois, peasant, "barbarian" and multi-tribal Russia, brotherhood and equality of tribes have really been realized, the process of transforming a huge amount of physical energy into intellectual energy is really and undeniably developing.
What are the capitalists of all countries putting up against the growth of the revolutionary legal consciousness of the working class?
Straining their last efforts to maintain their power over a billion working people, defending their freedom for the senseless exploitation of labor, the capitalists organize fascism. Fascism is the mobilization and organization by capital of the unhealthy physical and moral exfoliations of an exhausted bourgeois society, the mobilization of the young descendants of alcoholics and syphilitics, the mobilization of hysterical children who suffered from the impressions of the war of 1914-1918 - the children of the petty bourgeoisie, "avengers" for defeats and for victories, which turned out to be no less destructive for the bourgeoisie than the defeats. The psyche of these adolescents is characterized by the following facts: in Germany, in the first days of this May in the city of Essen, Heinz Christen, a teenager of 14 years old, killed his friend, Fritz Valkenhorst, a boy of 13 years old. The killer coolly told that he dug a grave for his friend in advance, threw him there alive and kept him face down in the sand until Valkenhorst suffocated. He motivated the murder by the fact that he really wanted to master the form of the Hitlerite drummer that belonged to Valkenhorst.
Whoever saw the parades of the Nazis saw that they were parades of rickety, scrofulous, consumptive youth who want to live with all the thirst of sick people, capable of accepting everything that gives them freedom to reveal the purulent boiling of their poisoned blood. In thousands of gray, thin faces, healthy, full-blooded faces are especially noticeable because there are few of them. These, of course, are the faces of conscious class enemies of the proletariat or adventurers from the petty bourgeoisie, yesterday’s Social Democrats, petty shopkeepers who want to be big and whose votes the leaders of German fascism buy by giving the shopkeepers a little fuel and potatoes for free, that is, at the expense of the workers. , peasants. Chief waiters would like to have their own little restaurant, petty thieves would like to engage in theft, legalized by the power of big thieves - these are the "cadres" of fascism.
Let us not close our eyes: among the fascists there are also many workers from among those who do not yet understand the decisive force of the revolutionary proletariat. Let us not hide from ourselves that capitalism, the parasite of the world, is still quite powerful, because the workers and peasants, leaving weapons and bread in its hands, continue to feed it with their flesh and blood. This is the saddest and most shameful phenomenon of turbulent modernity. Disgusting is this submissive feeding of the enemy, brought up in the working class by its Social Democratic leaders, whose names from now on and forever are surrounded by a yellow, greasy glow of shame. Amazing is the patience of unemployed, hungry people in the face of such facts as, for example, the destruction of food in order to keep its market price at a certain height, while unemployment is growing,
It would seem that the human dignity of the English proletariat should be deeply and actively indignant at the facts of cynical mockery of their unemployed brothers - facts like the following: In the English city of Surrey, the world's first candy store opened for dogs. Any dog can get a cake in this confectionery, and homeless and hungry dogs are provided with food and lodging for the night. This patisserie was opened at the expense of Mr. James Patterson, who died a few weeks ago at Broekhorst.
Shameless, cynical antics of this type are becoming more and more frequent in England, the state of the "aristocratic race." It is quite possible that under these antics the Pattersons' sense of the inevitability of their death is hidden, and these antics signify the aristocratic desire of the Pattersons, leaving life, to vindictively harm it as much as possible.
Arming adolescents and youths, in addition to revolvers, with the obsolete ideas of nationalism and racism, instilling in the youth social cynicism, a sadistic passion for murder, destruction, the capitalists organize from this youth not only assistants to the police in their struggle against the revolutionary proletariat, but treat them like a poison that will be poured into the blood of the army of workers and peasants, armed with modern mechanical technology of human extermination. The capitalists remember well that the workers and peasants, disciplined by the brutal barracks, showed in 1918-1920 that their senseless, self-destructive, automatic service to the class enemy has its limit, and that beyond this limit there are bayonets and cannons, after millions of workers and peasants exterminate, mutilate each other - cease to serve the interests of capital. Of course, "better late than never"
Not dozens, but hundreds of facts speak of the destructive, corrupting influence of fascism on the youth of Europe. It is disgusting to enumerate the facts, and the memory refuses to be loaded with dirt, which the bourgeoisie is fabricating more and more zealously and abundantly. I will point out, however, that in a country where the proletariat manages courageously and successfully, homosexuality, which corrupts the youth, is recognized as socially criminal and punishable, and in a "cultural" country of great philosophers, scientists, musicians, it acts freely and with impunity. There is already a sarcastic saying: "Destroy homosexuals - fascism will disappear." It should be pointed out that the Semites, people of a race that could - if necessary - boast of their purity, people who have given mankind so many truly great masters of culture - and the greatest of them,
At the same time, in a country where power belongs to the working class, an independent republic of Jews was organized - the Jewish Autonomous Region.
The national groups of capitalists are hastily preparing for a new world war, they want to redistribute the world in a new way for a wider and more convenient exploitation of the labor of the workers and peasants. The small countries are once again in danger of ending up in the iron embrace of the "great ones"; they again want to be deprived of the right to the free development of their cultures.
In the masses of the multilingual, multi-tribal proletariat, imperialism and fascism sow the evil seeds of national discord, racial neglect and contempt, which can develop into racial hatred and hinder the development in the world of working people of the consciousness of the unity of their class interests, a saving consciousness, which alone can liberate the workers and peasants. the whole world from the position of defenseless, disenfranchised slaves of distraught shopkeepers. Their national commercial and industrial enmity can easily develop - and already develops - into the preaching of racial hatred and racial wars. Today they preach—and are already carrying out in vile practice—anti-Semitism; tomorrow they will return to preaching anti-Slavism, remembering the shameful opinions about the Slavs of Mommsen, Treitschka and others, and forgetting how many talented people the Poles, Pomeranians gave to German culture, Czechs. Since all breeders and shopkeepers in Europe produce and trade in the same goods, it is quite natural that the enmity and war of the German race against the Roman race, as well as against the Anglo-Saxon, should arise. Of course, there are unions, but if it is necessary to sell, then what prevents you from betraying? For example: there is an alliance between England and Japan, but the Japanese in London sell silk stockings for 3 pence, that is, a nickel for a pair - this, of course, is a trifle, but Japanese "dumping" is quite a sufficient reason for the emergence of enmity and hatred for the yellow race. The impunity of the actions of the Japanese imperialists in Manchuria-China is very tempting for the imperialists of Europe. as well as against the Anglo-Saxon. Of course, there are unions, but if it is necessary to sell, then what prevents you from betraying? For example: there is an alliance between England and Japan, but the Japanese in London sell silk stockings for 3 pence, that is, a nickel for a pair - this, of course, is a trifle, but Japanese "dumping" is quite a sufficient reason for the emergence of enmity and hatred for the yellow race. The impunity of the actions of the Japanese imperialists in Manchuria-China is very tempting for the imperialists of Europe. as well as against the Anglo-Saxon. Of course, there are unions, but if it is necessary to sell, then what prevents you from betraying? For example: there is an alliance between England and Japan, but the Japanese in London sell silk stockings for 3 pence, that is, a nickel for a pair - this, of course, is a trifle, but Japanese "dumping" is quite a sufficient reason for the emergence of enmity and hatred for the yellow race. The impunity of the actions of the Japanese imperialists in Manchuria-China is very tempting for the imperialists of Europe. but the Japanese "dumping" is a sufficient reason for the emergence of enmity and hatred towards the yellow race. The impunity of the actions of the Japanese imperialists in Manchuria-China is very tempting for the imperialists of Europe. but the Japanese "dumping" is a sufficient reason for the emergence of enmity and hatred towards the yellow race. The impunity of the actions of the Japanese imperialists in Manchuria-China is very tempting for the imperialists of Europe.
Racial theory is the last "ideological" reserve of dying capitalism, but its rotten breath can poison even sane people, for people in general are corrupted by the long spectacle of unpunished enslavement by heavily armed whites of Europe of unarmed Indians, Chinese, Negroes.
Only the revolutionary proletariat, with its united front, is able to resist the poisoning by the temptation of the vile and unpunished robbery of its class brothers.
This proletariat, brought up by the ideology of Marx-Lenin, realistically and wisely implemented by its leader Stalin, this proletariat proved to the world that in its motley-tribal country all tribes and races are absolutely equal in the rights to life, to work, to the development of their cultures. To the illiterate, unliterate, semi-savage people, the Russian worker opened wide the way to knowledge. There is not a single numerically insignificant tribe in the Union of Socialist Soviets that has not proved its thirst for culture and its ability to perceive it...
The rapid cultural growth of the population of the Union of Soviets is recognized by honest people of all countries. It would seem that honest people, having recognized this fact, should draw from it an appropriate, very simple, moral and hygienic conclusion: both subjectively and objectively, it is much more useful, much more honest to live in a healthy environment than in an environment mortally infected with social ailments and condemned to death. Having recognized the proletariat as capable of social creativity, it is much more useful to help in every possible way to develop in it its thirst for knowledge, its talents and consciousness in the mass of the proletariat of its historical purpose, which it has already begun to fulfill in a country where 170 million live. It would seem that the self-esteem of the masters of culture, the "humanists" should be deeply outraged by the facts of the denial of culture by shopkeepers, their campaign against the growth of any technology, except for wearable, designated to exterminate people. But it is not noticeable that the masters of bourgeois culture were indignant at the burning of books objectionable to fascism, the preaching of misanthropy, concluded in the sense of national and racial theories, preparations for a new furious war - for the senseless extermination of millions of the most healthy people, for a new destruction by fire of centuries-old cultural values, for the destruction cities, the destruction of the results of the hard work of the masses, who created factories and factories, cultivated fields, built bridges, roads. The madness of predators cannot be cured by eloquence; tigers and hyenas do not eat cake. concluded in the meanings of national and racial theories, preparations for a new furious war - for the senseless extermination of millions of the most healthy people, for a new extermination by fire of centuries-old cultural values, for the destruction of cities, the destruction of the results of the hard work of the masses who created factories and factories, cultivated fields, built bridges, roads. The madness of predators cannot be cured by eloquence; tigers and hyenas do not eat cake. concluded in the meanings of national and racial theories, preparations for a new furious war - for the senseless extermination of millions of the most healthy people, for a new extermination by fire of centuries-old cultural values, for the destruction of cities, the destruction of the results of the hard work of the masses who created factories and factories, cultivated fields, built bridges, roads. The madness of predators cannot be cured by eloquence; tigers and hyenas do not eat cake.
It is not noticeable that the "humanists" were characterized by genuine philanthropy, it is not visible that they felt the greatest, heroic tragedy of the era and understood who exactly its heroes were. The time is approaching when the revolutionary proletariat will tread like an elephant on the maddened, fussy anthill of shopkeepers — it will tread and crush it. It's unavoidable. Mankind cannot perish because some insignificant minority of it has become creatively decrepit and decomposed from fear of life and from a painful, incurable thirst for profit. The death of this minority is an act of the greatest justice, and history commands the proletariat to commit this act. This great act will be followed by the universal, friendly and fraternal work of the peoples of the world, the work of the free, beautiful creation of a new life.
Is this a belief? For the proletariat, the time has passed when faith and knowledge were at enmity, like lies and truth. Where the proletariat rules, where everything is created by its mighty hand, there is no place for strife with faith, there belief is the result of man's knowledge of the power of his mind, and this belief, creating heroes, does not create and will not create gods.
NOTES
PROLETARIAN HUMANISM,
article
First published simultaneously in the newspapers "Pravda", 1934, number 140 of May 23, and "Izvestia of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR and the All-Russian Central Executive Committee", 1934, number 119 of May 23.
In a letter dated June 10, 1934, to one of his correspondents, who asked to write an article for a French magazine, M. Gorky wrote: “ I recommend the article“ Humanism of the Proletariat ”, published in Pravda about a month ago. This article was very much approved by Comrade Stalin "( Archive of A.M. Gorky).
The article was not included in authorized collections.
Published with a slight reduction according to the text of the newspaper "Pravda", verified with the manuscript and authorized typescript (Archive of A.M. Gorky).
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