How Soviet intellectuals criticized Stalin

The Soviet Union relied on violent revolution to seize power. However, the Soviet Union’s regime collapsed not because others overthrew it with the same violent means, but because it was overthrown by its own elites and The people abandoned it. However, the political climate in the Soviet Union developed to the point where the elites within the Soviet Communist Party were "vacillated and rebellious." This was mainly the result of the pressure exerted by the democrats. And how did democrats develop in a centralized and authoritarian system like the Soviet Union? This is always something people want to know. The growth of Soviet democracy was indeed a tortuous and difficult process, but it did not come from the impulse of a few people, but had its profound social foundation and cultural roots.

Since the Khrushchev era, Stalin’s brutal rule of terror implemented throughout society has gradually weakened and finally disappeared. The Communist Party has implemented economic methods to win people’s hearts. , and adopted a tolerant policy politically. Under such circumstances, a situation emerged where the Communist regime and the people were pretending to each other, that is, the people no longer believed in the Communist Party's ideology, but they still pretended to obey it on the surface, while the people The Communist Party regime knew clearly that the people were pretending, but it was satisfied with the people's pretense of obedience. No one on either side tried to pierce this "window paper."

The former Czech playwright Havel once cited an example that people in all Soviet and Eastern European countries found very typical. In a grocery store in the Czech Republic in the 1960s, a political slogan hung: "Workers of the world, unite!" The clerk hung this slogan not because he believed that workers' unity would help his business. Instead, he hopes to use this slogan to show people his attitude and that he is willing to obey the rules of the Communist Party to avoid getting into trouble. The instinct of ordinary people in living under a totalitarian system is to get used to telling political lies in public. It is such actions that can be observed every day and every hour that "consolidate" the power of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. .

However, even in such a political atmosphere, sooner or later there will be a challenge to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The first such challenge will not be a sudden outbreak of organized opposition demonstrations, but It comes from people’s inner desire to tell the truth. It is human nature to like to be sincere and tell the truth. However, in the communist system, people have to "wear a mask" to go to work every day, and can only tell the truth when they return home. At the same time, when educating children, on the one hand, they are required to maintain honest moral character, and on the other hand, they are required to maintain honest moral character. On the one hand, they have to be taught that they must be good at telling lies on political issues to deal with the authorities, but they must not take the authorities' political propaganda at face value. This is a family education that is really a headache for parents.

The Soviet autocratic system led to the emergence of "kitchen political culture", that is, after people told lies in the workplace during the day, relatives and friends gathered around the kitchen table at night (most Soviet families did not have dedicated kitchen tables) The living room (but the kitchen is relatively spacious) has become a place for relatives and friends to meet and chat), discuss and criticize current affairs, and speak out the truth that is usually suppressed in public, but be careful not to let children participate. This is how many dissidents formed their political consciousness, and many teenagers also gradually formed concepts that were completely different from official propaganda because of eavesdropping on the political discussions of their parents in the kitchen.

This kind of social lifestyle of "living lies in public and returning to your true self in private" is most disgusting to intellectuals. Therefore, the most conscientious intellectuals, out of their responsibility to society, must find a way to transform the facts they discuss in private into honest expressions in public. These intellectuals are often writers, poets, and journalists. They are not necessarily activists with political goals. They just want to prevent society from being overwhelmed by lies and to bring to light the popular descriptions of real phenomena.

Such intellectuals often use officially controlled non-political propaganda magazines to publish works depicting social truths. The earliest such works were about various dark phenomena in the Stalin era, and the most daring The literary magazine New World published such works.

Since the 1960s, semi-underground handwritten publications have also been published one after another, which have been widely circulated among intellectuals and some people, and their contents have become bolder. Legally speaking, these activities are permitted by the Soviet constitution and laws, but in fact the Soviet authorities still have many secret control regulations that violate the constitution and laws. These works and publications challenge these regulations and call for the return of the authorities. own constitution and laws.

The independent voice of intellectuals mainly appears in large and medium-sized cities. Although it can only spread among a small group of people, it has won high respect and support from readers, and this support in turn encourages knowledge Molecules further emit more independent sounds. Of course, the things that these intellectuals care about are quite far away from the daily life that ordinary people care about. Therefore, these intellectuals and their voices have not directly transformed into political and social mobilization of ordinary people. However, their influence has been It cannot be underestimated.

Because many of the truths that had been blocked and covered up by the Soviet Communist Party regime were gradually revealed, and more and more people were suspicious of the propaganda of the Soviet Communist Party. Believe again. The more intellectuals tell the truth, the more people dare to tell the truth. The truth gradually replaces lies, and those who tell the truth gain more and more respect from society, so much so that even some *** Communist Party bureaucrats also had to cater to social trends and tell a few truths in order to enhance their prestige. This is how the social foundation of the Soviet Communist Party was shaken by its own lies and the truths of intellectuals. Of course, this was a long and subtle process.

At almost the same time as the independent voices of intellectuals, there was also a relatively independent youth culture that began to appear among young people in the 1960s and 1970s, including gatherings of pop music lovers and self-organized Sports clubs and literary groups, etc. The most common feature of these activities is that young people are unwilling to repeat the values ????propagandaed by the official, nor do they want to act as vassals of the Communist Youth League, but seek their own independent existence and express their own independent social values. The young generation, nurtured and grown up in such a relatively independent youth culture, became the social foundation for one or two generations that supported Gorbachev's political opening policy.

After Gorbachev came to power, he further opened up press freedom. Newspapers and magazines gradually turned to more objective and fair reports. The media published more and more stories that the people have wanted to know for decades but have no way of knowing. Learn the truth. This greatly stimulated the circulation of newspapers and periodicals, which greatly increased the sales of those newspapers and periodicals that dared to take off the abominable official propaganda cloak. The competition among newspapers and periodicals for readers further promoted press freedom.

After the emergence of press freedom, the Soviet people not only read historical facts that many people knew but that had been strictly forbidden to be reported by the government before, such as how the Soviet Union detained and brutally persecuted tens of millions of political prisoners through political concentration camps, How the Soviet Union met with resistance from farmers when it forcibly implemented agricultural collectivization. In the end, millions of farmers were deprived of food and died of famine. Moreover, many political secrets that had been quietly passed down from generation to generation in the Soviet Union were made public. For example, how Lenin received a stipend from Germany during World War I and engaged in activities against his own government; how Lenin suppressed thousands of sailors of the Baltic Fleet who participated in the October Revolution but later opposed Bolshevik policies; how Lenin himself acted in his early years He contracted syphilis and finally died of dementia caused by late-stage syphilis, how the Soviet Union murdered thousands of Polish government army officers who defected to the Soviet Union during World War II (the "Katyń Forest case" that the Soviet government has always refused to admit), etc.

Su *** can only maintain temporary social obedience by concealing the truth. Once history is restored to reality, the people will naturally turn to support and sympathy with strong indignation at having been deceived for generations. The new democrats.