The Twelve Sexual Commandments of the Revolutionary Proletariat

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The Twelve Sexual Commandments of the Revolutionary Proletariat was an influential work by the Soviet psychologist Aron Zalkind, published in 1924


Summarised
There must be no premature development of sexual life among the proletariat.
Sexual abstinence is necessary before marriage, and marriage should be only made in a state of full social and biological maturity (that is, 20-25 years).
Sexual intercourse is only the final completion of deep comprehensive sympathy and affection for the object of sexual love.
Sexual intercourse should be only the final link in the chain of deep and complex experiences that bind lovers at the moment.
Sexual intercourse should not be repeated frequently.
The sexual object shouldn't be changed often. There should be less sexual variety.
Love should be monogamic and monoandric (one woman, one man)
With any sexual intercourse, one must always remember the possibility of the birth of a child and, in general, think about offspring.
Sexual selection must be built along the line of class, that is, the revolutionary-proletarian suitability. Elements of flirting, courtship, coquetry and other methods of specifically sexual conquest should not be introduced into love relations.
There shouldn't be jealousy. Sexual love life, built on mutual respect, equality, deep ideological closeness, and mutual trust, does not allow lies, suspicion, or jealousy.
There should be no sexual perversions.
The class, in the interests of revolutionary suitability, has the right to interfere in the sexual life of its members. The sexual must obey the class in everything, without interfering with the latter, serving it in everything.

Full Text

The Twelve Sexual Commandments of the Revolutionary Proletariat

... Collectivism, organization, activism, dialectical materialism- these are the four main powerful pillars that support the edifice of proletarian ethics now being built - these are the four criteria, guided by which it is always possible to understand whether this or that act is expedient from the point of view of the interests of the revolutionary proletariat. Everything that contributes to the development of revolutionary, collectivist feelings and actions of the working people, everything that best contributes to the planned organization of the proletarian economy and the planned organization of discipline within the proletariat, everything that increases the revolutionary fighting capacity of the proletariat, its flexibility, its ability to fight and fight, everything that removes the mystical, religious film from the eyes and brains of the working people, which increases their scientific knowledge, the materialistic sharpness of the analysis of life - all this is moral, ethicalfrom the point of view of the interests of the developing proletarian revolution, all this must be welcomed, cultivated in every way.

On the contrary, everything that contributes to the individualistic isolation of the working people, everything that brings disorder into the economic organization of the proletariat, everything that develops class cowardice, confusion, stupidity, everything that breeds superstition and ignorance among the working people - all this is immoral ,criminally , such behavior must be mercilessly pursued by the proletariat.

From here, the criticism of individual rules of bourgeois ethics is now becoming accessible to us. We can replace any rule of conduct of exploitative ethics with a very specific, practical consideration aimed at protecting the class interests of the proletariat...

... "Do not commit adultery" - part of our youth tried to oppose this commandment with another formula - "sex life is a private matter for everyone", "love is free" - but this formula is also wrong. The sanctimonious bans on sexual life, insincerely imposed by the bourgeoisie, are, of course, absurd, since they presupposed some kind of sinful beginning in sexual life. Our point of view, however, can only be revolutionary-class, strictly business-like. If this or that sexual manifestation contributes to the isolation of a person from the class, reduces the sharpness of his scientific (i.e., materialistic ) inquisitiveness, deprives him of part of the productive and creative performance necessary for the class,, down with it. Sexual life is permissible only in that content that contributes to the growth of collectivist feelings, class organization, productive, creative, combat activity, sharpness of knowledge (on these principles sexual relations are built).norms given by the author in the article below), etc., etc.

From these examples we see that organized, active and materialistically conscious collectivism is a moral touchstone on which one can unmistakably test the revolutionary sharpness, the class correctness of this or that of our action. All our life, all ourlife should be built on these principles.

... Any area of ​​proletarian class behavior must be based in the studyits norms on the principle of revolutionary expediency . Since the proletariat and the laboring masses economically adjacent to it constitute the overwhelming majority of humanity, revolutionary expediency is thus also the best biological expediency, the greatest biological good (as we shall see below).

Consequently, the proletariat has every reason to intervene in the chaotic development of the sexual life of modern man. Being now in the stage of primitive socialist accumulation, in the period of pre-socialist, transitional, heroic poverty, the working class must be extremely prudent in the use of its energy, must be frugal, even stingy, when it comes to saving forces in order to increase the fighting fund. Therefore, he will not allow himself that unbridled drain of energy wealth that characterizes the sexual life of modern bourgeois society, with its early excitement and unbridled sexual manifestations, with its fragmentation, dispersion of sexual feelings, with its insatiable irritability and excited weakness, with its furious rushing betweeneroticism and sensuality, with its gross intervention of sexual relations in intimate intra-class ties.

The proletariat replaces chaos with organization in the field of economics; it will also introduce elements of planned, expedient organization into modern sexual chaos.

Sexual life for the creation of healthy revolutionary class offspring, for the correct, militant use of all the energy wealth of man, for the revolutionary expedient organization of his joys, for the militant formation of intra-class relations - this is the approach of the proletariat to the sexual question.

Sexual life as an integral part of the proletariat's other military arsenal is the only possible point of view of the working class on the sexual question today: all the social and biological property of the revolutionary proletariat is now its military arsenal.

Hence: all those elements of sexual life which harm the creation of a healthy revolutionary change, which plunder class energy, fester class joys, spoil intra-class relations, must be mercilessly swept aside from class life, swept away with all the more inexorability, since the sexual is a habitual, refined diplomat, cunningly crawling into the smallest cracks - allowances, weaknesses, myopia.

I. There must not be too early development of sexual life among the proletariat - the first sexual commandment of the revolutionary working class.

The communist children's movement, capturing all children's interests from an early age, creating the best conditions for the development of children's independence, for children's physical self-healing, for the bright flowering of inquisitive, social, adventure-heroic aspirations, attracts all children's attention to itself and does not provide an opportunity appear to a parasitic spider of early sexual arousal.

Here and physiological training, and combat hardening, and a bright class ideology, and early equal comradely communication of different sexes - there is nothing for premature sexual development to grow under such conditions. Therefore, the first task of the proletariat is not to give way to early childhood

sexuality, and for this it is necessary: ​​to indicateparents and the school on the need for a correct approach to the social and biological interests of the child, to promote this approach in every possible way and to use all class energy for the best organization of the mass communist children's movement, for the introduction of this movement into all nooks and crannies of children's, school and family life. The improvement of the sexual life of childhood will make the now so difficult struggle with the sexual confusion of adulthood unnecessary.

II. Sexual abstinence requiredmarriage, andmarriage only in a state of full social and biological maturity (ie, 20-25 years) is the second sexual commandment of the proletariat.

And what is harmful, they will tell us, in sexual activity beforemarriage? It is harmful that such sexual activity is unorganized, associated with an accidental sexual object, not regulated by strong sympathy between partners, subject to the most superficial excitations, that is, it is characterized by precisely those traits that, as we shall see below, must be unconditionally and mercilessly exterminated by the proletariat in its environment. Such a chaotically developed sexual content is never limited to the narrow sphere of purely sexual existence, but impudently invades all other areas of human creativity, stealing them with impunity. Is this acceptable from the point of view of revolutionary expediency?

III. Sexual intercourse is only as the final completion of deep all-round sympathy and affection for the object of sexual love.

Purely physical sexual attraction is unacceptable from the revolutionary proletarian point of view. Man differs from other animals in that all his physiological functions are permeated with mental, that is, social, content. Sexual attraction to a class-hostile, morally opposite, dishonorable object is the same perversion as a person's sexual attraction to a crocodile, to an orangutan. The sexual attraction of a properly developing cultured person absorbs a lot of valuable elements from the surrounding life and becomes inseparable from them. If he is attracted to sexual intercourse, this must mean that the object of sexual attraction is attracted by other sides of his being, and not just by the width of his shoulders or hips.

In fact, what would happen if the sexual partner turned out to be a class-ideologically deeply alien person? Firstly, this, of course, would be an unorganized, extramarital affair, due to superficial sensual-sexual arousal (inmarriage is entered into only by people who are guided by a long life together, that is, people who consider themselves to be corresponding to each other in all respects); secondly, it would be sexual attraction in its crudest form, not tempered by a feeling of sympathy, tenderness, not regulated by anything social: such an attraction would stir up the lowest sides of the human psyche, give them full scope; thirdly, a child who might nevertheless appear, despite all preventive measures, would have deeply alienparents and he himself would have been divided, split spiritually from an early age; fourthly, this connection would distract from creative work, since, built on purely sensual desire, it would depend on random causes, on small fluctuations in the moods of partners, and, satisfying without any creative effort, it would largely devalue and the very significance of creative effort - it would deprive creativity of one of its major stimulants , not to mention the fact that a high frequency of sexual acts in such a connection, not tempered by moral motives, would to a large extent deplete the brain energy that should go for social, scientific and other creative work.

Such sexual behavior, of course, is not on the path with revolutionary expediency.

IV. Sexual intercourse should be only the final link in the chain of deep and complex experiences that bind lovers at the moment.

Sexual intercourse should be “not just drawn to”: the threshold for it should be a heightened sense of all-round closeness, deep ideological, moral soldering, complex deep mutual impregnation, the physiological completion of which can only be sexual intercourse. Social, class ahead of the animal, and not vice versa.

The presence of this social, moral, psychological prerequisite for sexual intercourse will lead to the most valuable results: firstly, sexual intercourse would become much rarer, which, on the one hand, would increase its content, the joyful saturation it gives, on the other hand, would turn out to be large savings in general chemistry, leaving a significant part of unexpended energy to the share of creativity; secondly, such sexual acts would not separate, as is usually the case with frequent sensual rapprochement, up to disgust for each other (brilliant, quite realistically correctan illustration of this is given by Tolstoy in his Kreutzer Sonata), but they would bring them even deeper, even stronger; thirdly, “such a sexual act would not oppose itself to the creative process, but would live quite harmoniously next to it, feeding on it and nourishing it with additional joy (meanwhile, naked sensual sexual intercourse robs even the most creative mood, withdrawing from the subjective fund almost all of its emotional material, almost all of its “passion”, for a rather long period of time, devastating, barren, “creative fantasy”; as we see, this applies not only to the chemistry of creativity, but also to its mechanics).

V. Sexual intercourse should not be repeated frequently.

This is already sufficiently clear from the above paragraphs. However, the last motives of the fifth "commandment" are still not exhausted.

There is every scientific reason to believe that truly deep love is characterized by infrequent sexual intercourse (although infrequent intercourse by itself does not always indicate deep love: sexual indifference can also be hidden under them). With deep true love, the formed sexual desire matures, after all, as the final stage of a whole series of rich, complex experiences of mutual intimacy that preceded it, and such processes take place, of course, for a long time, requiring for themselves a larger amount of nourishing material.

VI. It is not necessary to change the sexual object frequently. Less gender diversity .

When the above points are fulfilled, this "commandment" will not be needed, but it should still be justified in a special way.

a) The search for a new sexual, love partner is a very complex concern, tearing away most of their emotional strength from creative aspirations; b) even when finding this new partner, a whole series of experiences, efforts, new skills are needed for a comprehensive adaptation to it, which in the same way is a robbery of other creative class forces; c) when conquering a new love object, sometimes a most intense struggle is required not only with him, but also with another "conqueror" - a struggle that has a completely pronounced sexual character and paints in specific tones of sexual interestall the relationships between these people, which painfully strikes at the back of their intra-class cohesion, at their general ideological steadfastness (as far as we know deep quarrels between blood-ideologically close people on the basis of sexual competition).

VII. Love should be monogamous, monoandric (one wife, one husband).

This is clearly evident from all of the above, but, in order to avoid misunderstandings, it is necessary to single out this point especially.

We may be told that it is possible to comply with all the above rules if we have two wives or husbands. "Ideological affinity, rare sexual acts and other directives are compatible, after all, even with bigamy, bigamy." “Well, imagine that one wife (husband) makes up for me in ideological and sexual terms what is lacking in another (other); it’s impossible to find in one person the complete embodiment of the love ideal.” Such considerations are too transparent a stretch. The love life of a bigamous (two-woman) becomes extremely complicated, captures too many areas, energy, time, special interest, requires too many special devices, no doubt increases the number of sexual acts, loses class creative activity to the same extent in the corresponding area, so as the sum of forces distracted in the direction of an exorbitantly complicated sexual life, even in the most brilliant state of the latter, will never pay off with a creative effect. Creativity under such conditions always loses, but does not win, moreover, it loses not only quantitatively, but also in a gross distortion of its quality, since it will be continuously burdened with an excessive and special sexual, love interest.

VIII. With any sexual intercourse, one must always remember the possibility of the birth of a child and, in general, remember about offspring.

No preventive remedy, except for grossly harmful ones, guarantees completely against possiblepregnancy -abortions are extremely harmful for women, and therefore sexual intercourse should find both spouses in a state of complete biological and moral well-being, since the malaise of one ofparents at the time of birth is heavily reflected in the body of the child. The same consideration, of course, rules out once and for all the useprostitution, since the possibility of contracting a venereal disease is the most terrible threat both to the biological heredity of the offspring and to the health of the mother.

IX. Sexual selection must be built along the line of class, revolutionary-proletarian expediency. Elements of flirting, courtship, coquetry and other methods of specifically sexual conquest should not be introduced into love relationships.

Sexual life is considered by the class as a social, and not as a narrowly personal function, and therefore social, class virtues, and not specific physiological and sexual lures, which are in the vast majority either a relic of our pre-cultural state, or developed as a result, should attract, win in love life. putrefactive effects of exploitative living conditions. Sexual attraction itself is biologically strong enough that there is no need to excite it with additional special techniques.

Since the revolutionary class, which saves all mankind from destruction, has exclusively eugenic tasks in its sexual life, that is, the tasks of the revolutionary-communist improvement of mankind through offspring, it is obvious that not those features of class-barren "beauty" should reveal themselves as the most powerful sexual stimulants. "," femininity, "roughly" muscular "and" mustachioed "masculinity, for which there is little place and little use in the conditions of an industrialized, intellectualized, socializing humanity.

A modern human fighter should be distinguished by a fine and precise intellectual apparatus, great social flexibility and sensitivity, class courage and firmness - it makes no difference whether it is a man or a woman. Powerless, fragile "femininity", which is the product of a thousand-year-old slavish position of a woman and at the same time represents the only supplier of material for coquetry and flirting; in the same way as the "mustachioed", "muscular-fisted" masculinity, which is more necessary for a professional loader or a knight of the pre-arms period than for a dodgy and technically educated modern revolutionary - all these features, of course, correspond to the minimum degree to the needs of the revolution and the revolutionary sexual selection. The concept of beautybodily combinations of the best revolutionary adaptation, the most productive revolutionary expediency.

It is not for nothing that the ideals of beauty and strength differ profoundly in different social strata, and the aesthetics of the bourgeoisie, the aesthetics of the bourgeois intelligentsia, are far from appealing to the proletariat. But the proletariat does not yet have its own aesthetics, it is created in the process of its victorious class struggle, and therefore it would be a monstrous mistake, in the course of forming the methods of a new class sexual selection, to use the old methods of sexual attraction that have rotted away in the sense of their class suitability. What, in class terms, will be the offspring createdparents, whose main virtues, which were the main sexual activators, were: the impotent and coquettishly deceitful femininity of the mother and the "broad-shouldered muscularity" of the father? The revolution, of course, is not against broad shoulders, but it is not with them, in the final analysis, that it wins, and it is not on them that revolutionary sexual selection should be based. The powerless fragility of a woman is of no use to him at all: economically and politically, that is, physiologically, the woman of the modern proletariat must approach and is increasingly approaching a man . It is necessary to achieve such a harmonious combination of physical health and class creative values ​​that are most expedient from the point of view of the interests of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. The personification of this combination will be the ideal of proletarian sexual selection.

The main sexual bait should be the main class advantages, and only on them will a sexual union be created in the future. They will also determine the class understanding of beauty and health: it is not for nothing that not only the concept of beauty, but also the concept of physiologicalnorms are now subject to such passionate scientific debate.

X. There should be no jealousy. Sexual love life, built on mutual respect, onequality, on deep ideological closeness, on mutual trust, does not allow lies, suspicion, jealousy.
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