Posted on 09/21/2013 8:28:01 AM PDT by annalex
I.A. Ilyin
Translated from Russian by Annalex.
Having weighed all that we had to say about the basics of popular sovereignty , every sober-minded and responsible democrat must sorrowfully admit that the Russian people after three decades of destruction, violence, poverty and corruption of every kind - will be unable to implement a democratic system, as long as it does not restore in itself honor, conscience, and the sense of national state. Now, all the basic and necessary foundations of popular sovereignty are undermined in its soul, desecrated, distorted – if not directly abolished by totalitarian communists.
Russian people exist, but its existence is like a tortured humiliation of its own street children. His state, - religious, spiritual, intellectual, volitional, political, economic, laboring, familial and domestic - is such that the introduction of popular sovereignty promises not order, but chaos, not a revival, but decay, not healing, but the "war of all against all", that would be its last and even more bitter disaster. After the nightmare of the revolutionary era of "Jacobinism", the era of prolonged "Girondist" anarchy would have started - with the ferocious tyranny of the far-right in the end. Childish and irresponsible it is to close our eyes to that.
So the first thing an ideological and responsible democrat is obliged to utter, is pessimistic diagnosis and prognosis: the communist revolution did not bring Russia closer to popular rule, on the contrary - it blew all the framework of life, which existed demonstrably in the Imperial Russia.
The revolution has lasted for 32 years (*), and it is not over yet. During this time, the communists did their best to kill in a non-communist mass of the Russian people a sense of public responsibility and spiritual anticipation – in order to make the principle of state an object of hatred in the Russian soul, a synonym of pointless labor camp;- to wean the Russian people on the free and loyal political works; - to snuff the citizen in the Russian soul and to accustom it to slavery; - to instill in it a contempt for the humiliations of the electoral comedy. What kind of "popular sovereignty" can be built on it?
During those long, agonizing years, the Soviet government did everything possible to wean the Russian people from free loyalty and to mix with it in their souls slavish mentality, coarse flattery and mean culture of secret denunciation (**). In Soviet Russia jurisprudence has become tantamount to tyranny and violence, in the souls any respect for the law has been quenched, violation of rights has become a fundamental and necessary form of life.
As early as 1919 the directive was formulated by the Soviet of People Comissars: "the essence of revolution is in open defiance of every law, including its own decrees the revolution." And so, by this directive - the government official became a robber and a bribe-taker, and social refuse was elevated to officialdom. The Russian man in the street, hunted down by this, - in the course of self-defense against revolutionary robbery - turned the "clout"(***) into a natural and inevitable way of struggle for existence. From the top down it was made to confuse "mine" and "yours," "mine", and "state-owned" - into one indistinguishable jumble, so that to erase all property law and honesty in the souls. What kind of democracy can be built on such a "theft"?
Communists still continue to do everything possible to deprive the people from national and statesmanlike outlook and replace it with world-revolutionary fervor, with arrogance, with self-confidence of the international adventurism. That sense of sovereign right and sovereign measure, which for centuries was nurtured in the Russian soul, and on which the whole of Russia from Kiev to St. Petersburg was built, is now trampled and torn asunder. For the fourth decade now the Communists emaciate, for no national reason, the sense of national sacrifice, sense of duty and virtue of service inherent to the Russian people, as rarely to any other nation; they squander Russian patriotism; devalue Russian self-sacrifice; the Russian citizen is forced through a greatest school of political corruption. It is necessary to forget all history and to destroy all political sense in order to try building a democracy on this vice.
The Russian man never lived by another man's thought. He always preferred to think "stupidly", but independently; straggle up and sink in disagreement, but not blindly obey someone else's authority. And for the fourth decade now his ability for independent thought is beaten out of him through the revolutionary "studies", hunger, fear, obsessive propaganda and party monopoly of printing.
In education – all is vulgarized, distorted and lied through; in the forced "world view" - all is dead, stencil-stamped, godless and immoral. For entire generations he is torn away from the true knowledge - about himself, and about other people. He is blind in politics, and often does not know of his blindness, and increasingly he is taking his blindness for the higher mental vision. To offer him a popular rule can only be done in the hope of replacing the totalitarian communist stencil with a new, likewise totalitarian party stencil. What can be more disgusting to a true democrat than than such falsification of "popular sovereignty"? Or perhaps they will try to create a new "democratic fascism" so that, while chanting odes to freedom trample that very freedom on behalf of a new, unprecedented in history pseudo-democracy?
After the Bolsheviks Russia could be saved – either by the greatest discipline of self-governance of the Russian people, or a dictatorship that would be national, governmental, and educational. What a naive psychology is needed to "believe" that the Russian people, -- who have always suffered from lack of character, strength of will, discipline, mutual respect and trust,-- would find in themselves, after these long years of slavery and corruption, the super-character, the super-moderation, super-will and super-solidarity necessary for a democratic system?
Undermined are all the spiritual and social foundations of democracy – down to the tie to the land, down to the faith in the labor, down to the respect for honestly acquired property. In scraps is torn the fabric of national solidarity. Everywhere an unprecedented thirst for revenge has accumulated. The masses are dreaming about shaking off the vile hypnotic fear and answering the lasting organized terror – with terror explosive and disorganized. And at that point they will be offered:
1. "Democratic Freedom"
2. "The right of self-determination of every kind" and
3. "The doctrine of popular sovereignty."
Who will be responsible for the inevitable consequences of this?
July 11, 1949
(**) “Доносительство”; “snitching” would be the closest American equivalent, but that would not fit Ilyin’s elegant language. There is no good translation, thank God, for this ugly phenomenon, but it is a cornerstone of Soviet social fabric. In a society where ideological conformance is required of everyone, secretly denouncing someone’s real or imaginary dissent becomes a tool of self-defense or even social advancement. The authority makes it easy for such denouncements to be made and the practice spreads.
(***) "блат", slang term for government corruption was used.
If you want to be on this right wing, monarchy, paleolibertarianism and nationalism ping list, but are not, please let me know. If you are on it and want to be off, also let me know.
Yeah. Some things never change...
good translator, annalex.
Probably happiness. They've taken up the mantel of protecting Christianity and Christians in this world, you have to amuse that God is on their side.
At the most fundamental level this is simple. Cleave to God, follow biblical principles, and pray to The Lord to heal their land. What will happen is each person that does so will be healed individually and ultimately that will heal their land. They will in the majority act morally and righteously and their society will prosper. Boy do we need it here.
I think, Putin sees an opening in situations like now in Syria and he exploits it. That is all. While most of Russians are nominally Orthodox Christians, the decay of communist rule has gone deep. The statistics of church attendance, or of familiarity with basic Christian tenets, or of private prayer are awful, — all under 10%. Communist leaders are rising in posthumous popularity; there is a new cult of Stalin afoot. This is not a human material to protect Christianity with.
Democracy, that’s what we need. Russians too, that’s what they need.
There still is widespread decay, and a Mafia-like ruling class. But things are far different than they were under the Communists—so far, at least.
Putin and his buddies execute a few troublemakers here and there. Stalin sent tens of millions to the camps, or executed them by the millions.
I don’t think Putin is a real Christian, but he does find the Russian Orthodox Church useful for his purposes, so he supports it. And the Church in Russia is no longer as corrupted as it was under the Communists, but it still answers to the political powers, as it has always done.
I have considerable respect for the Orthodox Church. But, historically, it has cooperated with the Czars, the nobles, or the political powers, whereas the Catholic Church spend centuries fighting against Emperors and Kings, to avoid being subordinated to the political powers. That didn’t always work perfectly, of course—nothing does. But except in countries like France, it meant that there was a degree of separation between Church and State, and kings could not set all the religious and moral rules.
Anyway. Russia has NEVER known real freedom. And the present system is corrupt. But it sure is a whole lot better than it was under the Communists.
Communists still continue to do everything possible to deprive the people from national and statesmanlike outlook and replace it with world-revolutionary fervor, with arrogance, with self-confidence of the international adventurism....
This is done by every supporter of Free Trade today...Free Traders hate American soverignty, hate American exceptionalism, and believe that world bodies...UN, EU, NAFTA Courts, WTO Courts...should rule over American rule and law
There was a big reason why Karl Marx supported Free Trade...and why our Founding Fathers did not
Ironically, Putin’s Russia is one of the last remaining truly Nationalistic countries.
But it sure is a whole lot better than it was under the Communists.....Not arguing with YOU, but so says you. My brother and his wife went on a cruise to Russia where Jean, his wife, asked an old lady who was selling trinkets, apples, etc. where we disembarked how she liked it now, since she was free? The old lady looked at her with a tear in her eye and said it was terrible, the government provided for us and made sure they were fed, clothed and housed. Now, she must do this all by her and her husband’s efforts. I was floored, Jean (a Filipina) had her mouth open and couldn’t respond and my stupid brother paid no attention to this eye-opening insight into what happens to people’s souls when you have been dependant, once.
Oh, yeah. And most ordinary Russians are just waiting for Putin to go out and conquer all their neighbors again. They took great pride in being the great Soviet Union, and hate the idea that they gave away all that glorious empire.
Still, better to be sniveling about a lost empire than to be starving in a Gulag. They just don’t know it.
Oh, make no mistake, FRiend. Our destruction is indeed by a revolution - an underground revolution of secularism.
That graph tells most of the story. Russians were starving in 1999; You can’t accomplish anything at all while you’re starving.
No, I disagree. No one needs democracy. Democracy is what the government uses to oppress minorities: intellectual, ethnic and religious. What every people needs is aristocracy, nationhood, Church, rule of law.
I agree wholly with your post.
Decidedly, Russia is far better place now than it was under the Soviet rule, but it is still a very sick country and miracle cannot be expected of it. It cannot protect Christianity. It can poke a finger in the eye of Obama and his kind; that is useful but it is not going to save us from ourselves. The best thing for Russia would be — as much as I dislike McCain, — is what he said: take care of your own people, build your own economy not based on the oil pipe, make it an attractive country to invest money and do business in.
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