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The Reality of -

ommun1s

ALEXANDER ZINOVIEV
Author of The Yawning Heights
 ISBN 0-8052-3901-4 FPT>$22-95

Alexander Alexandrovitch Zinoviev was

born in 1922 in a small village some 180
miles north east of Moscow. After serving
with the Soviet armed forces as a pilot
during the Second World War he studied
philosophy at Moscow University and held
a series of academic posts both at that
university and in the Institute of Philo
sophy of the Soviet Academy of Sciences.
As an outspoken anti-Stalinist Zinoviev
came under increasing harassment and was
finally expelled from the Soviet Union in
1978. Professor Zinoviev today lives in
Munich.
The Reality of Communism is in many
ways the most important book ever written
on the subject of Communism. Many
books have been written about the struc
ture of Soviet society, the role of the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the
structure of the Soviet economic system,
the growth of Soviet armed might, Soviet
foreign policy and so on, yet no other
author has managed to combine with such
devastating effect the analytical power of a
major philosopher trained in the exacting
field of logical systems, the inside know
ledge of the Soviet system which comes
from a lifetime of participation within it
and a merciless commitment to state the
truth as he sees it, however bleak it may
appear to be.
The book was first published in Russian
in 1981 and is the eighth of the ten volumes
which Zinoviev to date has published on
the subject of Communism. It consists of
110 topics, or short chapters, which may be
grouped roughly into six broad themes: the
nature of Communism as such, the nature
of an adequate analytical apparatus for the
scientific study of Communism, the roots
and origins of communal behaviour and
the psychological and moral consequences
of a collectivist philosophy, the nature of

[please turn to back flap]

[continued from frontflap)

power in Communist society and how it is

d1sseminated within the social structure, the
nature, role and significance of ideology in
an environment in which it can flourish
unopposed, the stability, vitality and
adaptability of the Soviet system and its
prospects for the future.
The book has been written primarily for
the general reader, but the picture which
Zinoviev paints of Soviet society is so
convincing and yet at odds with what many
experts have written, that it should also be
required reading for everyone profession
ally engaged in the fields of history, politics
and sociology who writes and lectures
about the Soviet Union.

Schocken Books
200 Madison Avenue
New York City I 0016
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 Digitized by the Internet Archive
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THE REALITY OF COMMUNISM
Also by Alexander Zinoviev
(in English translation)

The Yawning Heights

The Radiant Future

 Alexander Zinoviev

THE REALITY OF
COMMUNISM

Translated by Charles Janson

Schocken Books New York

 TRANSLATOR'S NOTE

I am most grateful to Mr Michael Kirkwood, Senior

Lecturer, School of Slavonic and East European Studies,
University of London, for his revision of my translation of
this sometimes very difficult text. He has made a good
number of outright corrections and introduced many
improvements that will bring home to the reader the
significance of the author's more subtle arguments and
paradoxes.

First American edition published by Schocken Books 1984

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 84 85 86 87
Copyright 1981 by Julliard/l'Age d'homme

Translation copyright 1984 by Victor Gollancz Ltd

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Zinoviev, Aleksandr, 1922-
The reality of communism.
Translation of: Kommunizm kak real'nost'.
Includes index.
1. Communism. I. Title.
HX73.Z5713 1984 335.43 83-40474

Manufactured in Great Britain

ISBN 0-8052-3901-4
 CONTENTS

The Reason page 9

My Purpose 11
Terminology 15
"Scientific Communism" and a Science of Communism 16
Social Models 18
Communism as a Universal Phenomenon 21
Communism and Capitalism 23
Dreams and Reality 24
Communism and Civilization 27
The Philistine and the Scientist 31
The Historical and the Sociological Approaches 33
A Sociological Look at History 38
The Problem of Method 42
Communism as such 44
Communism and Totalitarianism 47
From the Abstract to the Concrete 48
A Remark about the Dialectic 50
Laws and Empirical Facts 51
Norms and Deviations 53
Directing the Attention . . . 55
. . . to Communality 56
The Basic Idea 58
Communality 60
Communal Individuals: the Basic Unit 62
Communal Individuals: Complex Units 64
Communal Behaviour 66
Communal Relations 70
Management 74
Careerism 78
Assumptions and Reality 81
The Cell in Communist Society 85
A Note on Methodology 89
Property and Ownership 90
The Individual and the Commune 91
Social Position 93
From Each According to his Ability, to Each according
to his Work 94
A Note on Methodology 97
The Merits of the Commune 98
To Each according to his Needs 100
The Simplicity of Life 102
Degrees of Exploitation and Remuneration 103
Compulsory Work 105
Work Attitudes 108
Social Work 110
Private Enterprise 112
The Life of the Primary Collective 113
The System of Values and Value Judgements 115
The Forms of Social Struggle 120
The Intimate Life of the Collective 122
Spiritual Propinquity 124
Communal Enslavement 125
Personality and Function 129
The Responsibility of the Collective 132
Renegades and the Collective 133
Individualism and Collectivism 137
Power 140
Power at the Level of the Cell 144
The Government of the Commune 145
Party Organization 148
The Party in the Communes 150
The Primary Party Manager 154
Trade Union Organization 156
The Komsomol and the Young 159
Communist Democracy 1 63
Public Opinion 1 66
Self-government and Government from Above 167
The Social Structure of Society 1 70
The Communes in a Uniform System 1 70
The Hierarchy of Communal Cells 171
Relations between Groups 1 73
The Hierarchy of Individuals and the Distribution of
Goods 174
The Structure of the Population 180
The National Question 186
The Tendency towards Slavery 1 87
The Prevalent Evolutionary Trend 188
The State 188
Territorial Power 192
Politics 194
The Specific Functions of the Communist State 197
Planning 197
Personal and Nominal Power 200
One-man Management and Collegiality 201
The Formal Operation of Power 203
Decision-Taking 205
Instructions 206
Directives 206
Towards a Consensus 209
The System of Secrecy and Disinformation 210
Bureaucracy 21 1
Communist Adaptivity 212
The Punitive Organs 213
Law 214
Ideology 216
Ideological Work 219
Ideology and Religion 222
Ideology and Science 225
The Ideological Functions of Science and the Arts 227
The Structure of Ideology 229
Ideology as a Guide to Action 230
Ideological Resources 232
Ideology and Morality 234
The Ideological Type of Intellect 238
Society as a Whole 239
The Effects of Systems-Analysis 244
Stability, Integrality and Vitality 246
The Tendency towards Expansion and Hegemony 249
The Way of Life 252
Discontent 254
The Sources of Progress 257
The Irreversibility of Social Evolution 259
 THE R E A S O N

I N ouR T I M E Communism no longer appears as a system of abstract ideas

and starry-eyed promises. It is no longer an event somewhere on the
periphery of civilization. For some it is the standard way of life; for others
the threat of invasion by powerful Communist states; for yet others it
seems the likely next stage in their country's internal development. And
yet the West's notions of the actual forms of life in a Communist country
are still such as to provoke an ironic smile , angry indignation or dumb
bewilderment. For instance, some Westerners were chatting about the
picture of Communist society which I drew in The Yawning Heights. One
said: "As regards queuing you've obviously exaggerated. What would
someone want to stand for hours in a queue for, if he can come back a few
hours later and get what he wants, without queuing?" The Soviet emigres
present laughed until they cried when they heard my interlocutor's remark.
For them it was a well-known axiom that, according to the rules of life
under Communism , the ordinary citizen without special privileges must, on
a specific number of occasions and in one way or another, waste a certain
amount of time in order to satisfy some simple need.
Let me give another example. I was talking about one of the laws of
Communism as it actually exists, of its eagerness to penetrate every
possible nook and cranny, of its efforts to control its environment and
make it identical to itself. One of my audience made this comment. " All
right, let's suppose Soviet soldiers arrive here in Western Europe. They'll
see that the standard of living is higher here than in the Soviet Union, that
there are democratic freedoms and other blessings of civilization. When
they've seen all this and understood that the Soviet leaders had been
deceiving them , they'll go back home, turn things upside down and live like
we do in the West."
This time I and my former compatriots were in no mood for laughter. If
the soldiers of Communist countries invade Western Europe, there won' t
b e much left o f the Western form o f life for the purpose o f comparison and
moralistic conclusions. Besides, if people from Communist countries come
here, it won't be to learn anything, but to teach, and to foist on the \Vest
their own system and standard of living. And they will have a good chance
of doing this, because there are more than enough Communists and fellow
travellers in the West.
9
 And again I hear this reply: "So what?" "There's nothing terrible about
that," said another conversationalist, "the Western countries will become
convinced through experience that the Communist way of life is repulsive
and then they will reject it. " What can I say to that? ! Alas, that there won't
be any "then". "Then" will be already too late. A country isn't an
individual person ; a social system isn't a wife one has grown tired of. A
victory for the Communist social system in a country entails a fundamental
and far-reaching restructuring of society. In a short space of time a large
number of people will occupy a privileged position and set themselves up in
comparative comfort . The majority of the population will be relieved of
many worries and will receive a minimum living standard. The sort of man
who will come out on top is the one whom the new system suits more than
the old. Social selection will so influence the conduct of future generations
that people will no longer be fitted for, or interested in, a reversal of
history. A mighty apparatus of power and ideological indoctrination will be
installed in short order . It will suppress all attempts to turn back the clock.
The sacrificial victims will soon be forgotten. The authorities will begin a
frenetic acclimatization of the mass of the population to the new conditions
of existence. There will no longer be a way back. In order to "return" to
the blessings of Western civilization, they will have to begin the battle all
over again, from within the new social system. To do that society will have
to complete a new historical cycle of many centuries at the cost of hitherto
unheard-of sacrifices. And it is still doubtful whether such a "return" would
succeed. "You exaggerate the stability and the power of the Communist
regime" was the answer I got to that .
Quite often I bump into people who regard the Communist regime as
unstable because it is founded on deception and coercion, exercised by a
handful of Communist rulers. However, most commentators no longer
believe this contention. B ut even those in politics and in political science , if
one is to j udge by their speeches and books, have a very confused idea of
the Communist regime and the sources of its power and stability. They use
a conceptual system which is appropriate for the analysis of Western
societies, but which loses all sense when applied to Communist society; and
they apply to it criteria which are so alien that any reliable results are only
achieved by accident.
A striking example of this was the reaction in the West to the incursion
of Soviet troops into Afghanistan. It took the West unawares and caused
dismay, although from the viewpoint of predictive possibility the event was
a trivial one. Not long before the invasion the USSR withdrew a part of its
forces from Eastern Germany. Many in the West interpreted that as a
gesture in the interests of peace. In the middle of December I gave a
lecture to the German-American Society of Munich and said that there was
nothing peace-loving whatever about this action and that the Soviet tanks
10
which had been withdrawn would soon appear elsewhere where they were
more needed, for example in Afghanistan. I'm afraid that my audience
regarded this prediction rather as a rhetorical device. I do not claim that it
had much value within a theory of knowledge . On the contrary, I stress its
banality. But it is only banal if and when ratiocinations about Communism
make disciplined use of a conceptual system which is in fact applicable to a
study of Communism.
Then there are the quite normal hopes of the West that Western
Communism would be quite different from Soviet Communism. At times
even opponents of Communism attribute many of the negative features of
the Communist way of life to purely Russian conditions. They think that
what exists in the USSR isn't real Communism (or Socialism) . They hope
for "Communism with a human face" or "Democratic Communism" in the
West. This kind of j udgement, which seems so monstrously inept to
anyone who has experienced real-life Communism, is as frequent here in
the West as are the views about the absence of civil rights and about
repression in the Soviet camp which have become habitual . It is these very
views which have prompted me to write this book.

MY P U RP O S E

TH E C O N C E PT I O N O F Communism as an actual type of society which I set

out here took shape in my mind many years ago. But it was only fairly
recently that I found it possible to state it publicly. This I did in my books
The Yawning Heights (written in 1974), Notes of a Nightwatchman ( 1975 ) ,
The Radiant Future ( 1976) , In the Ante-chamber of Paradise ( 1977) and
The Yellow House (1978) ; and also in speeches here i n the West, some of
which were put in the book Without Illusions published in 1979. These
books and speeches taken together give a description of actual Communist
society, beginning with its deep abstract laws and ending with the details of
real life and the psychology of its citizens. This was done in literary, not
scientific, form. But I see no great shortcoming in this because I am
consciously not addressing a small circle of specialists and hoping for their
approval, but a large circle of ordinary people who may derive some
benefit from my observations. B ut in this book I shall chart the most
fundamental points of my understanding of Communism outside the
literary context . In the course of it I shall try to give a more or less
generalized description of that particular type of life and to reveal the
method of thought which enabled me to make my judgements.
It is inevitable that the problem of method in reasoning, interpretation,
11
and investigation should come to the fore . The facts about life in
Communist societies have already been accumulated in abundance. They
are widely known. But knowledge of facts does not of itself necessarily lead
to understanding. There is still a need for orientation. Somehow we have
to order and process the facts, and on the basis of these facts invent a
system of ideas and j udgements which we can use to orientate ourselves
and see ahead in the ever-changing and unusually confusing flux of life. But
this is impossible without a special technique and methodology. I
investigated this technique professionally over many years. My results
were published in many works on logic and scientific method; and perhaps
I may refer those of my readers who are interested to them . In this book I
will expound from time to time a minimum of the methodology of scientific
thought appropriate to the problems discussed. I will try to do this in a
generally accessible form and within the context of judgements about
Communism. Moreover, these methodological parts of the book will
constitute an essential part of the picture of society itself; so that
everything that I have said and will say in the so-called "preliminary"
sections of the book is not a preparation for the social picture which is to
be exhibited later but already fragments of the picture itself.
I have lived the greater part of my life in the Soviet Union. Obviously,
then . the concrete facts of Soviet social life have given me and still give me
the substance for my reflections. But this book is not about the peculiarities
of the Soviet Union. It is a description of every Communist society, the
Soviet Union included . However, the Soviet Union does appear exception
al in one sense. It was there that the type of society, in which Communist
relationships between people are dominant, first entered histor. There it
was not imposed from outside as in the Eastern European countries; it was
established immanently according to social laws and in certain historical
conditions. It was in the Soviet Union that Communism quickly grew to
classical maturity and clearly revealed its merits and its defects. It was
there that it became an infectious example for other countries, the
purveyor of Communist ideas and of the means of their fulfilment.
Victorious and secure in the Soviet Union, Communism became the
strong-point and the stimulus for the Communist attack on the world in
general. In one way or another it attracted the other parts of the planet into
its sphere of influence. Thus real-life Communism is not simply an
aggregate of independent Communist countries similar to each other, but a
specific phenomenon whose defined core is the Soviet Union .
However, if I extrapolate from the particularities of the Soviet Union, I do
so in order to highlight something which is true of Communism per se,
irrespective of however many individual examples there might be of societies
of that type. Indeed if the Soviet Union were the only Communist country,
this extrapolation would be just as possible , and in fact indispensable for a
12
 scientific understanding of its social system. In this book I shall not pay
attention to China and its pretensions to a historical role in order to avoid
complicating the exposition. The general picture of Communist society is
independent of the presence of empires vying with each other for the title.
From a cognitive viewpoint the Soviet Union does have advantages. Just
as in its day England was the country of classical capitalism for those
interested in studying the mechanics of the latter, so the Soviet Union
became and still remains the country of classical Communism. It is here
that one could and still can study the phenomena and laws of the
Communist form of life of the last decades in their purest form . Much more
than in the other Communist countries one can study them almost under
"laboratory conditions" . In the Soviet Union the phenomena of Commun
ism have developed their clearest forms. That goes also for those
phenomena whose social features are amorphous and dim in actuality: in
the Soviet Union the very indistinctness of social manifestations is, so to
speak , most clearly delineated. The reader must get used to the fact that
this type of apparent paradox is characteristic of the Communist version of
life. In the books which I have mentioned scores of such "paradoxes" came
to light. Critics regarded them as a literary device, although I was aiming at
as literal a representation of reality as possible and not at all at verbal
conjuring tricks.
Of course, if one constantly has before one the example of life in Soviet
society it is difficult to detach oneself entirely from its individual
characteristics which may not exist in other countries. However there is no
need to jump to conclusions about that. Because something doesn't exist
today it doesn't follow that it won't happen tomorrow. Besides, different
countries invent their own solutions for common tasks, creating the illusion
that there are no general models of social life. For instance, natural
conditions in the Soviet Union have always been favourable to mass
repression; in the taiga, in the Arctic region and in the northern seas one
can hide millions of corpses without trace. It would be harder to repeat
anything similar in Italian or French conditions or elsewhere in the West.
But the same tendency which, in the USSR, was embodied in mass
repression could take a different form in the West. Moreover, the Soviet
Union could lend the West a fraternal hand and put at its disposal its own
immeasurable potential in this connection. Finally, if the reader is still not
convinced that the picture of Communism presented to him is not j ust a
picture of the peculiarities of the Soviet Union, the author can still find
consolation in the following thought: the Soviet Union in itself is a serious
enough phenomenon in the history of humanity; and an understanding of
its stable nature is of value in itself. I also hope that there will be people in
the Soviet Union who will be able to read this work and extract from it
some lessons for themselves.
13
 In this book I shall aim at the most popular type of exposition. But it
does not follow that it can be understood without effort. The true grasp of
anything is not gained without effort: only error and delusion are reached
without it. Understanding is, in fact, resisting the onslaught of errors
masquerading as self-evident truths. Most people who have an interest in
social problems are not inclined to make a great effort. They imagine that
every man can take a look at the social phenomena surrounding him, pass
j udgement on them and at once become a specialist in the field. In the
USSR many millions incessantly observe the facts of Communist life and
many thousands make judgements about them. B ut can we say that there
are many who understand that society?
And a final warning: understanding a society is not the same as
unmasking its defects. Unmasking is negative: understanding positive.
Unmasking affects the emotions; understanding is exclusively in the realm
of reason.
The enemy of the unmasker is the apologist; the enemy of understanding
is error. Unmasking may be the enemy of understanding no less than
apologetics. That is why there will be no unmasking passages in this book.
And if apparent cases of unmasking should be found I would ask the reader
to add them to the category of specific instances exemplifying general
points. But the absence of unmasking does not always indicate apologetics.
The effort to understand the essence of the Communist social system does
it much more harm than any sensational unmasking of its ulcers.
The apologist seeks to highlight the virtues of a particular society and to
exaggerate them, while playing down its defects or keeping silent about
them altogether. Conversely, unmasking means concentrating attention on
the defects and exaggerating them while the virtues are diminished or
ignored. Understanding does not at all mean the adoption of some middle
line or some just proportion between positive and negative, good and evil.
In the exercise of understanding there is no positive or negative . For
understanding there are only objective facts, objective laws and trends.
How these phenomena will be evaluated in terms of good or evil, whether
by participants in the life of that society or by spectators, does not depend
on the exercise of understanding itself. Understanding, for example, will
record the tendency of Communist society towards the formation of its
own army of workers which society tears away from its natural milieu and
obliges to work in conditions which are very close to slavery. Understand
ing shows that this tendency is normal and not the result of the evil
intentions of a number of wicked people. Is this a good phenomenon or
not? For some people it's good, for others evil. But in itself it is j ust an
objective fact.

14
 TERMINOLOGY

MoRE T H A N O N CE I have heard it said that the term "Communism" is

ambiguous; that Soviet and Western people understand it differently: that
it is better to talk about a society of the Eastern or Western type. This is
partly true. But advice of this kind hides a fear of calling things by their
names, more than it reveals a wish to avoid confusion. Besides, this advice
expresses a wish to present the ulcers of Communism as something
specifically "Eastern" or Soviet and not as something intrinsic.
It isn't a matter of words. In the last analysis it is pretty clear to everyone
what we are talking about. There is no need for hypocrisy. We are talking
about a society which was, and still is, the dream of downtrodden classes,
all manner of starry-eyed Utopians, including the classical thinkers of
Marxism, Western Communists and the "progressive forces" of humanity.
We are talking about real-life Communist society which is the actual
embodiment of Marxist ideals. Demagogy and doctrines can take different
forms, but the laws of things in general, and social laws in particular, do
not change with regard to place or time. .:(he laws of the Communist type
of life are the same for all times and all peoples. And what is called the
Eastern or Soviet type of society in fact presents to the world an example of
a universal type of society and not something unusual or exceptional. To
reject the term "Communism" is to pretend that the discussion is about
something which has no connection with Marxist plans for the reconstruc
tion of society; or with what Communists and their sympathizers fought
and fight for, or with the objectives of many "progressively" disposed
people in the West. On the contrary the word "Communism" here is
exactly appropriate. In this book (as in my other books) I give a description
of that reality which inevitably results from the embodiment in real life of
humanity's most "progressive" ideals. No other reality has resulted from
these ideals; and no other reality will.
The power of words over people is indeed staggering. Instead of using
words to record the results of their observations of reality people see reality
only in so far as the words themselves induce them to see it. And often they
turn to reality only as a secondary source in the course of their main business,
which is to manipulate words. Thus people see the very object they are think
ing and talking about only via the heaps of words, sentences, texts and books
produced by other people, who are mostly the same slaves of words as they are
themselves. Here I prefer to take another path; to speak about that Commun
ism whichI personally discovered in the course of a long life without the help
of other people, especially of those who discoursed about it long before it
appeared in history or obtained knowledge of it at second- or third-hand, or
based their opinions on brief and fleeting impressions.
15
 "SCIENTIFIC COMMUNISM" AN D A SCIENCE OF
COMMUNI SM

MAR X I S M M AKES A distinction between the lowest stage of Communism

which is Socialism and the highest which is full Communism. At the lowest
stage the governing principle is: "from each according to his ability, to each
according to his needs". The term Communism is normally used in relation
to the highest stage. It is reckoned that society has not yet achieved this
highest stage. Even in the Soviet Union the situation is still only one of
developed Socialism; very close to full Communism, but all the same not
quite the real thing. Khrushchev in his day promised full Communism "in
the lifetime of the present generation". But the Soviet authorities soon
suppressed this particular piece of Khrushcheviana, because it was actually
the forerunner of a period of deterioration in the country.
For Communist ideology this distinction between the lowest and highest
stages of Communism is very useful. By means of it Communism at the
same time sort of exists and sort of doesn't exist. One has a bit of it but the
rest is due to come sometime later. All the actual drawbacks of life in
Communist countries can be ascribed to the fact that full Communism has
not yet been attained. Just wait, as it were, till we build the whole thing and
then these drawbacks won't exist! But for the time being just be patient!
But in fact such a distinction between the stages of Communism has a
purely speculative character. In actuality the principle of full Communism
is capable of being realized even more easily than the principle of
Socialism. True, these principles are not realized literally in such an idyllic
form as in the dreams of classical Marxists and the exploited classes. Their
realization is fully compatible with a low standard of living for the basic
mass of the people compared to Western countries, and with huge
differences in the standard of living of the different social classes in the
Soviet Union. So I shall ignore the Marxist distinction between Socialism
and Communism as a purely ideological phenomenon. I shall examine the
type of society that is dominant in the USSR and a number of other
countries as the actual embodiment of the aspirations of the classical
Marxists and of all the, in the Marxist sense, progressive thinkers of the
past. And if, in real history, it turns out that the embodiment of high ideals
inevitably entails dismal consequences, then it can't be helped.
The positive pole of a magnet, as Marxist philosophers are fond of
saying, cannot exist without the negative pole. The Marxist classics and
other good-hearted thinkers of the past could not have foreseen that the
road to heaven would lead to hell. Or was it that they did not want to
foresee that? Could they really not know of the many cases in history when
the "rule of the people" manifested itself in bloody terror and the most
16
frightful inequality? Besides, the wishes of the masses are rarely reason
able. The experience of Communist countries has been revealed to
contemporary mankind in all its nakedness, yet this in no way moderates
the intensity of Communist aspirations. Today's heirs to the classics of
Marxism certainly know the real value of the Communist order. But their
aspirations are purely mundane: to conquer the world for themselves and
for their accomplices and to enjoy its blessings, whatever the cost to the
rest of humanity.
According to Marxist dogma full Communism does not yet exist in
reality, yet a science of it- "Scientific Communism"- does. But in reality
the situation is exactly the opposite: real-life Communism already exists in
the form of numerous societies of a particular type, whereas a science of it
does not. Communism is to be conceived of as a definite type of real society
and taken as an empirical datum. And any science of Communism can only
be empirical too, that is, derived from the observation of facts. If there is
no object to be observed, there cannot be an empirical science of it. And so
the "Scientific Communism" of the Marxists, which prefers old texts to
new reality, condemns itself at the outset to remain a purely ideological
phenomenon.
One can regard Marxist "Scientific Communism" as a design for a future
society, though all the same a design is not an empirical science even if it is
drawn with the help of the results of genuine science and has a scientific
foundation. But can one at least regard the Marxist design for a future
society as scientifically founded? A positive answer would seem here to be
appropriate in so far as many prophecies by the architects of this design
have come true and continue to come true. After all, even !"talk about the
embodiment in real life of Marxist ideals!
And that's exactly the point: ideals! But that isn't a scientific foundation
for a social design. In the history of mankind a phenomenon such as the
embodiment of ideals in life is a commonplace. But nobody except the
Marxists has claimed scientific status for his ideals. No-one would dream of
maintaining, for example, that the philosophers of the French Enlighten
ment provided a scientific foundation for bourgeois society, or that
nineteenth-century Russian thinkers provided a scientific foundation for
the removal of serfdom, or that Hitler's theorists provided a scientific
foundation for the social order in Nazi Germany.
Marxist "Scientific Communism" is no different in this respect and does
not constitute a scientifically based design for a new society. Marxism does
not observe even the most elementary rules of scientific groundwork. What
kind of science can one call it when even in the Soviet Union problems of
"Scientific Communism" are in the hands of the most ignorant and
unscrupulous "philosophers", when only the most ignorant strata of the
population rise to this bait; and not even always then? The broad masses of
17
the population in fact do not accept Marxism as a science or as anything
scientifically founded at all, but as an ideology. And they use it for their
own personal ends which have absolutely nothing to do with thoughts of
the world's future social order.
The Marxist design for a Communist society pays no attention to two
factors without which a scientific approach to social questions is unthink
able: 1) the inherent qualities of the very substance of society, the human
being; 2) the principles according to which large numbers of people
organize themselves into a single whole. For Marxism man is an "aggregate
of social relations", and one has only to create the requisite conditions of
life and people will then become the embodiment of virtues. But in fact
people are themselves the product of history; and as such possess
characteristics which do not depend on such social transformations. On the
contrary, these characteristics determine social transformations. As re
gards the second factor, in any large agglomeration of people that forms a
whole there inevitably emerges a hierarchy of groups and functionaries
which means that hopes of social equality are doomed to be transformed
into the fictions of ideology.

SOCIAL MO DELS

THE I D EAS A N D concepts themselves which are embodied in a blue-print

enter into the mainstream of the social process via the activity of people,
activity which is rigorously circumscribed by the constraints within which it
is actually possible to plan something in advance, and actually to create
what was planned- for example, a house. But building a society is not like
building a house. A house is built, for example, by putting bricks in
particular configurations, and each brick remains in its allotted position for
a considerable period of time. But imagine bricks which had consciousness
and will-power and the capability of moving around, changing their shape
and dimensions, destroying themselves and producing new bricks; and with
the ambition to fight their way to the top of the house and force out other
bricks. . . . What would such a house look like in reality? But the Marxist
design for a new society is like a design for a house with immovable bricks,
the equivalent of which in real society, however, are seen not as real
people but individuals conceptualized in abstracto. This is nothing but an
'deological design.
-
In saying this I do not want at all to diminish the Marxist social model.
To be unscientific is not necessarily to be bad. To be scientific is not
necessarily to be good. If the public were presented with a beautifully
18
 made scientific theory of Communist society or a genuinely scientific design
for one, it wouldn't meet with any success. How, indeed, could a design for
a new society have any success which says that, alas, social differences and
inequality are here to stay, that people will be tied to their place of work
and residence (not to speak of repression)?! But one mustn't regard an
ideological model simply as a deception or delusion. The point is simply
that the correlation between the model and its realization is something
quite other than that between scientific prediction and the realization of
the predicted events; or between a projected building and its actual
construction.
The Marxist social model is formulated in such a way that it allows
different interpretations of its propositions: one interpretation suggesting
that they are being realized in real life and another suggesting that they are
not. If the interpretation is defending Marxism then the ideological model
is treated as scientific, and supposedly confirmed by the building of
Communism as it is carried out in actual practice. If the interpretation is a
critical one, then the model is treated as unscientific gibberish, supposedly
refuted by the evidence of that same practice. And both interpretations are
equally justified because an ideological blueprint is sufficiently wordy and
ambiguous. For example, under Communism the state will wither away; so
promised the Marxist classics. But one can understand this "withering" in
two ways. First, it could mean that prisons will disappear along with the
police, the civil service, the army and other attributes of the "state".
Practice has shown that these things don't disappear. On the contrary they
'
) grow in number and strength. A second meaning could be that the status of
these phenomena in society changes so that they can be interpreted not as
the apparatus of the "exploiting classes" (i.e. landowners and capitalists)
but as organs of self-government by the people. And then a prison is no
longer a prison, but a means of educating the workers. And the
,\ innumerable ministers, generals and party officials are no longer the
I' lackeys of the bourgeoisie but servants of the people.
I
1 In the case of the ideological model there is a mutual accommodation
between it and the activity which is supposed to lead to its realization in
! practice. There is always some part of such a model which actually
corresponds to the activity of people. And people behave as if they are
acting in accordance with that part, although in fact any correlation is
either coincidental or merely apparent.
As for the rest of the model, people either pay no attention to it or else
interpret it in a way which makes it appear that they are being guided by it,
while at the same time they attempt to present their own activities in a way
which suggests that they are faithfully executing its instructions.
The fact is that social models are subject to laws of one particular kind
and people's actions to another. And there can in principle be no
19
compatibility between these two kinds of laws because they belong to
different spheres of phenomena. A social model is, in fact, only a symbol,
consecrating activity. In this context relationships of truth and untruth do
not operate but are replaced by reciprocal relationships of a different kind,
and thus there is nothing surprising in the fact that the more vile an activity
is the more noble appears the social design that sanctions it. Actions which
are obviously good don't need any designs. A social design organizes the
form of people's activity. Its worth is defined not by its degree of truth or
its descriptive adequacy in regard to the present and the future, but in
terms of social success. From this viewpoint the Marxist plan for a new
society is a grandiose phenomenon and comparable with the social impact
of Christianity. If it were scientifically based. I repeat, it would be unable
to contain the features which have contributed to its success.
An ideological social model has as its main content a specific aim. A
serious plan of this kind includes objectives of which at least a part can be
realized: for example. the nationalization of land, the factories, the banks,
transport and the postal system. All this is possible. But an ideological plan
does not take into account all the possible consequences of the realization
of these goals, especially the negative consequences; for instance the
proliferation of the bureaucracy, the fall in the quality of production, bad
management and the lowering of incentive to work well.
An ideological plan cannot in principle measure the negative conse
quences of the realization of its own ideals, because its task is to mobilize
the masses to achieve those ideals; and therefore it must promise them El
Dorado. An ideological plan, I must emphasize, is preponderantly a
teleological phenomenon. But the achievement of goals is something
different in principle from the realization of a prediction. Communists and
their sympathizers seek to liquidate the private ownership of the means of
production. to destroy the class of proprietors and to realize other points of
their programme, not because this is some objective material law, but
because they want to do it in the hope of getting out of it certain specific
advantages for themselves and to win an advantageous position in the
arena of history. These wishes they dress up in the noble form "scientific
prediction,..
Once they have seized power in a country and translated their
programme (their objectives) into real life, Communists turn out to be in
the power of real (not imagined) social laws, which inevitably commit them
to a far from noble role; and which bring about unplanned and undesired
consequences. In their time Communists have, for example, promised to
build a society in which civil servants would receive a remuneration not
more than the average working man's wage. Yet from the earliest days of
the new society this promise was forgotten. In its place, and with
frightening urgency, principles of differentiation began to work which
20
inexorably created such differentials in the actual remuneration of workers
and of officials of high standing as would never have been possible even in
the capitalist countries of the West.

COMM UNI SM AS A UNIVER S AL P HENOMENON

A N OT H E R M A R X I S T DOGMA says that Communist social ("productive")

relations do not develop in the depths of the old society, but are conceived
after the socialist revolution; for their formation the prolonged existence of
a society at the lowest stage of Communism is required, i.e. in conditions
of Socialism. But the experienced researcher who observes life in the
Communist countries and compares it with non-Communist countries and
past societies soon discovers the mistakenness of this dogma. Communist
social relations in one form or another and to some or other extent existed
and still exist in the most different societies wherever a large enough
number of people are compelled to live together and where there is a
complicated economic and governmental system. They exist in the West.
They existed in pre-revolutionary Russia. But only in certain conditions
can they become dominant and rule the whole of society. It is then that
there arises a specifically Communist type of society. The most important
of these conditions is the socialization of the means of production
throughout the whole country, the liquidation of classes of private owners
and entrepreneurs and the centralized direction of all aspects of the
country's life, together with the preservation of a complex economic and
cultural system.
Of course, the elements of Communism in a Communist country are not
the same thing as those in a non-Communist country. Changes do occur;
moreover, changes of such magnitude that at times it is difficult to see what
these elements have in common. In particular, Communist parties in non
Communist countries who are still seeking power and Communist parties
in Communist countries who already have power differ in many respects
although both types of party are elements of Communism. Communist
parties seeking power, for instance, promise to safeguard civil rights and
democratic freedoms if they come to power. But having come to power
they are compelled by the very conditions of Communist society to do
everything to destroy these phenomena of Western civilization at the first
opportunity.
Although we can find elements of future Communism in non-Commun
ist societies (what I have in mind are such phenomena as the relationships
of power and subordination, systemic subordination, a hierarchy of social
21
strata and administrative positions, the power of the collective over the
individual, and so on), we can only understand their authentic social nature
when we consider them as elements of a society of the Communist type. To
be able to evaluate such phenomena in non-Communist countries one must
observe their place and role in Communist countries. Thus one must judge
the Communist parties of the West not by their slogans and promises but
by what Communist parties in Communist countries are really like.
And so, in contrast to Marxist dogma, I proceed from the actual
existence of societies of the Communist type which have been fully
established and regard them as the product of the transformation of the
Communist relations common to all humanity to the point where they
become dominant and all-embracing. This transformation takes place in
certain conditions. Some of them have a purely historical significance. Such
for example are the defeat of a country in war, the collapse of the
economy, occupation by the army of a Communist country. These
circumstances do not interest me. Another set of conditions, on the
contrary, lies at the very heart of society and these conditions continually
regenerate themselves, by the very fact that society exists. They are the
conditions of a given type of society which are built into it. For instance the
unification of the structure of business organizations, growth of state
power, the commanding role of the Party. To describe these conditions is
to describe the essential features of the society which developed as a result
of them. Such features are those which characterize the society as it is now
and, if seen as themselves developing over a period of time, conditioned its
development. The concrete historical conditions of Communism for
various countries may differ in that some or others may be absent, but the
inbuilt conditions are inevitable. They can vary only in form and not in
essence.
So the problem is not how to work out in one's mind an idealized
optimum standard of living as the goal for the future but how to observe
the empirical data of life in Communist countries and then explain which
general social phenomena found favourable ground there and engendered
that type of society. I have come to the following conclusion about this: the
universal phenomena I mentioned above are connected with one and the
same fact: that in Communist societies the majority of people are obliged
to live and work together as a single whole, to form standard units
(communes) of individuals and units composed of these units (supercom
munes). That is why the term "Communism" is more suitable than any
other.

22
 COMM UNI SM AN D C A PITALISM

I oo NOT intend here to examine the interrelationships between Commun

ism and Capitalism. I will only make a brief observation in connection with
the idea which I formulated at the end of the foregoing section.
There are a number of opinions which are fairly widespread: Capitalism
engenders Communism; Communism is the successor to Capitalism; Com
munism is a higher stage of social development than Capitalism; Communism
is state Capitalism; and so on.
The Marxist version of these assertions is well known: Capitalism
socializes production, which leads to conflict with the conditions of private
ownership, and this conflict is resolved by the transition to Communism,
i.e. by the realignment of forms of ownership with the mode of production.
This is merely a bit of verbal tight-rope walking. Capitalism may be one of
the historical conditions for the appearance of Communist society, but the
latter has its own roots and origins, its own historical lineage which itself is
not at all a continuation of the one which produced Capitalism. Capitalism
grew out of economic relations. Communism arises from relations of quite
another order: from relations which I shall designate as communal. The
lines along which Capitalism and Communism developed historically came
into contact and intersected each other but they do not form separate
sections of an identical line of development. And Marx's historical
materialism which is appropriate in connection with Capitalism (albeit on
condition that we accept numerous abstractions and then only as a starting
point for analysis) becomes meaningless when applied to Communism. It is
not that it is wrong. It is simply that it is irrelevant. Other instruments of
cognition are required. Appraisals of Communism as forms of state,
collective or even Party Capitalism .can only be adequately described in
terms appropriate to a discussion of mental deficiency.
There is one circumstance which makes it utterly senseless to regard
Communism and Capitalism as equal-ranking forms of society. Capitalist
economic relations are merely the preponderant ones in so-called
Capitalist countries. They in no way alter other aspects of human re
lations, communal ones included. Communal relations, once they have
become dominant in Communist society, give Capitalist relations no
chance whatsoever. Communism is a much deeper phenomenon than
Capitalism.

23
 DRE AMS AN D REALITY

A cc o R D I NG TO MARXIST dogma, a Communist society is built to the

blueprint of "scientific Communism" and embodies the centuries-old
dream of humanity of an ideal social order, in which there will be an
abundance of commodities and of the means of consumption (spiritual as
well as material), the most favourable conditions for the development of
the personality of the citizen and the very best human relationships. In a
word, everything that the philistine consciousness can imagine in the form
of human bliss is ascribed to Communism. How in fact things turn out can
now be taken to be a matter of public knowledge.
Critics of Communism usually affirm that the Marxists deceived the
' people; that when it came to it, after seizing power, they refused to fulfil
l their aspirations. What these critics overlook is that the majority of those
who seized power in the new society had nothing whatever to do with
Marxism and bear no responsibility for the incautious promises of the
progenitors of the ideology which they espoused.
But that is by the by. I part company with these critics of Communism
and assert that Communist societies are indeed constructed to the plan of
"scientific Communism", although this plan has nothing in common with
science, and although the creators of the new society know nothing at all
about the plan or know it only by hearsay. I assert further that in the
Communist countries that have been created there is an embodiment of the
dream of millions of what is best for them in life (for them, be it noted, not
for everyone). But I enter one qualification: having been given real form
these dreams bring with them, in addition to what was desired and planned,
something which the dreamers and planners do not suspect, from which
they strive to escape, which they do not even allow themselves to think
about.
Psychologically this is understandable; it simply cannot be possible that
the noblest intentions have in reality produced the vilest results! True, at
first glance the illusion does seem a strange one, because down the
centuries people have known that the road to hell is paved with good
intentions. But mass psychology behaves according to laws which differ
from those which apply to the psychology of the individual.
Here I will make a brief digression. In the example before us two such
principles of mass psychology are at work (among others). The first
principle is this: good causes produce good effects, bad causes bad effects;
good effects are produced by good causes and bad effects by bad causes.
For example, if a Socialist revolution is a good thing, then its effects must
be good. Mass repressions are evil, therefore they are a deviation from the
essence of the revolution. If mass repressions are an effect of the
24
 revolution then that means that the revolution was an evil. If power
belongs to the people (which is very good) then the life of the people must
also be good (full and free). Here we have a confusion of value-relations
and causal relations which are in fact quite independent of each other.
l'\ The second principle of mass psychology is the following: the social goals
V' and perspectives are so beautiful and important that any sacrifices on their
account are justifiable. As a consequence of these (and other) principles it
seems that the broad masses of the people never listen to the voice of
reason and never draw any lessons from their own or anyone else's
experience. And so they make easy sacrifices for demagogues and make
others into sacrifices too. Further. they are unable to understand the root
causes of their miseries.
The most stable and self-perpetuating basis of the negative phenomena
of Communist life is contained in the most positive ideal of Communism
and in its most positive qualities as an actual type of society. This is the
heart of the matter. The ideals of Communism have been fully realized in
the Soviet Union and in a number of other countries. But reality seems less
beautiful than was originally envisaged. The reality of Communism has
created problems, contrasts and ulcers no less painful than those which
earlier engendered those very Communist ideals and which Communism
should have. in theory. overcome. Vhe reality of Communism has shown
that the exploitation of some by others and the various forms of social and
economic inequality are not eliminated under Communism but only
change their forms; and in some instances become worse.
The tragedy of our epoch lies in the fact that within the rational
measures to overcome social evils there are elements which during
implementation create new evils and strengthen some of the old evils
merely by giving them other forms. People do not have the power to
change the general direction of social evolution. All they succeed in doing
is speed up the movement in the same direction. They lack a mooring
strong enough to allow them to anchor and think about changing course.
But consideration of this problem goes beyond the purpose of this book
and so I will say no more.
For a considerable part of the population on earth the standard of living
which obtains in the Soviet Union and the Eastern European countries
may seem something beyond their wildest dreams. But Communism has
greater pretensions than merely to raise the standard of living of the
poorest part of the planet. It intends to surpass the standard of living of the
richest countries in the world. to solve all painful problems and to create on
earth a just and secure paradise. And the fact that living standards in the
USSR are higher than those in eternally famine-stricken India does not
itself demonstrate that these intentions of Communism are m any way
realistic. But let us return to our basic theme.
25
 In human history it is not at all the case that people can establish the
social order that their leaders and themselves want, and predict. In reality
people try to bring about changes in their own living conditions. But what
happens in these new conditions and what type of society will be
forthcoming does not depend on their dreams and plans. One cannot
predict it with full scientific confidence. Here all predictions have a
prophetic or ideological character. Predictions can be made about some
banal phenomena to do with human activities, or else phenomena can be
predicted in language which allows of differing interpretations. At a later
stage the most suitable interpretation is supplied post factum. Besides,
human consciousness records only that which is more or less coming true
and ignores that which isn't coming true.
People do not have the power to choose the type of society which is
formed in the new conditions resulting from their combined activities.
Moreover, the more grandiose the changes in society, the less obedient to
people's will are the social processes whereby the new society is formed.
The more deeply these changes affect the foundations of social life, the
more closely the processes of social formation seem to approximate to the
processes of inanimate nature. The illusion that the society that is being
created anew is built according to the will and the wishes of certain people
arises from the fact that the new society suits some people, the people who
settle happily in it and who have the power to foist their interpretation of
what has happened on other people.
What would be wrong, one might ask, if some people in the West
decided to destroy Capitalism, while safe-guarding the values of Western
civilization and in its place build a Communism that avoided the
shortcomings that have appeared in the USSR? An excellent intention: but
one, alas, that in principle simply cannot be Implemented. There are
certain indissoluble links between social phenomena which nobody has the
power to break. The removal of the shortcomings of Western civilization
cannot happen without the loss of the values linked to them. One cannot
obtain the values of Communism without obtaining the shortcomings
linked to them.
For example, many people want to abolish private property, considering
it to be the source of all evils. But even if we suppose this wish is fulfilled,
by itself it does not produce a social order. The measure is a purely
negative one from the viewpoint of social construction. Either it doesn't
figure as an element in the new social order or it figures in a way that had
not been planned. Abolition is only a condition for the emergence of the
new social order. The latter takes shape thanks to the activities of people
and according to the laws of organization of the broad mass of the people
in certain given conditions (in particular the nationalization of factories,
banks, land, transport and communications). When the goal has been
26
reached, a complete reorientation of the historical process takes place on
the new base. Unexpected actors appear in the historical arena. Things
which no-one thought about before become more important. Matters of
originally great theoretical importance become secondary or disappear
altogether. An example in the case under discussion would be the fact that
the whole subject of property-relations becomes, so to speak, a blank
space in the new society.
As in nature, so in society there are phenomena that are indissolubly
linked. And it would be useful to know just a few of them so as to be able
to decide for oneself: is the game worth the candle? I appreciate that the
posing of such problems and even their most reasonable solution makes
little difference to events. People are obliged to decide their daily problems
in a particular way that depends hardly at all on their knowledge of the
consequences of their actions. People try either not to think about the
future or to think about it in a deceitful and reassuringly cosy way. The
behaviour of the West towards the USSR in recent decades provides
striking instances of this. The West has spared no effort to help the Soviet
Union to strengthen its army and to avoid economic catastrophe. What has
been the result? It would be a big mistake to think that this result was not
known in advance. To predict it was an absolutely trivial matter. Many did
predict it, moreover with convincing arguments. And all in vain.

COMM UN I SM AN D C IVIL I Z A T ION

C o M M U N I S M IS N O T something invented by evil-thinking men contrary to

all common sense and alleged human nature, as some opponents of
Communism assert. It is exactly the opposite: it is a natural phenomenon
of human history which fully corresponds to human nature and derives
from it. It grows from the aspiration of the two-legged creature called man
to survive in a habitat with a large number of similar creatures, to make
better arrangements for himself in it, to defend himself and so on "} It
springs from what I call human communality. The things which are
contrived and invented are precisely the defence mechanisms against
communality which have given rise to civilization: namely law, morality,
publicity, religion, humanism and other means which offer the individual a
measure of protection from other people and from the consequences of
their numerical strength. Man as we know him - and we pronounce his
name rather grandiloquently with a capital M - is a being who has been
artificially bred within the framework of civilization from the two-legged
communal creature which we mentioned above. In general, civilization
27
springs from the resistance to communality and from the effort to limit its
(communal) unruliness and to confine it within certain boundaries.
Fundamentally, civilization is above all man's self-defence against himself.
And only afterwards is it to do with comfort, which has other foundations.
If communality can be understood as a movement with the current of
history, then civilization can be regarded as a movement against the
current. More vividly still, if we imagine communality as a process of
falling into the potholes of history and sliding downwards, then civilization
can be seen as a clambering up.
Civilization is effort; communality is taking the line of least resistance.
Communism is the unruly conduct of nature's elemental forces; civilization
sets them rational bounds. Communism springs from communality, uses it,
unleashes it, creates favourable conditions for it, organizes and enforces it
as a special type of society, as a special form of life for the many millions of
the popular masses.
It is for this reason that it is the greatest mistake to think that
Communism deceives the masses or uses force on them. As the flower and
crowning glory of communality Communism represents a type of society
which is nearest and dearest to the masses no matter how dreadful the
potential consequences for them might be. At the same time in order to
defend itself against these self-same masses, Communism invents its own
particular means of curbing communality. But these are secondary and are
used only in so far as they preserve intact the crystallization of a society
that has sprung from communality and give it support. And initially that
crystallization is a manifestation and organization of communality for the
purposes of taking over society and fighting its constant enemy -
civilization.
People have several different potential and actual means of self-defence
against their own communality. Not all of them derive from civilization.
Among the weapons of civilization, as I have already said, are religion, the
legal rights of the individual, morality, publicity, civil rights, humanism,
great art and so on. But mass killings of people and their enslavement also
sometimes played a role as a means of defence against communality, to the
degree to which they either destroyed communality or prevented its
appearance.
Communism borrows certain aids from civilization for the control of
communality, but only to a certain extent. And when they are combined
with the other measures of Communism these measures begin to play quite
a different role. For instance, certain moral and legal ideas, humanism and
items of sacred art, here assume the function of fooling people and of
ruling them ideologically. In other words they have a role opposite to the
one they have in the framework of civilization. But more usually,
Communism elaborates its own means of defence against communality (or
28
its restraint) which however are destined simultaneously to encourage it
and become transformed themselves into elements of communality for
they are phenomena of the same order. And from this viewpoint
Communism appears in history as the opposite pole to civilization, as the
negation of the very foundations of the latter, and as its regeneration.
Communism, as an aspect of life and as a tendency, is a natural
phenomenon in every society with a sufficiently large number of people
formed into a single whole. But the civilization in which we live constitutes
in fact a resistance to that tendency. It also became just such a natural
phenomenon once it had arisen and revealed its values , and it has become
a ceaselessly active factor of human life. The struggle between the two
tendencies goes on always and everywhere. It goes on in the Communist
countries , in the West, in the Communist parties and in the parties hostile
to Communism, in government and in the popular masses, in the privileged
and in the exploited classes.
Here one can compare the situation with that of an aeroplane in flight. If
the engine is running the plane gains height and moves rapidly. If the
engine stops running the plane falls to the ground. Communism operates in
accordance with the laws of gravity; civilization on the other hand is a flight
which makes use of the laws of gravity but resists them. It stands out
against the laws of gravity while observing the laws of gravity and is in
constant interaction with them.
The struggle against Communism is in the interest of everyone. But
because historical circumstances affect people's lives and force various
aspects of their life into relatively autonomous compartments, the forces of
Communism and the forces of civilization in the end are in fact actual
people and groups of people, different countries and groups of countries. It
is only as a result of uninterrupted resistance to Communist pressures (and
not thanks to their elimination which is not possible in a living society) that
civilization can be preserved and can continue.
I have dwelt on this theme to such an extent because I wished to stress
the following thoughts: there is a widely-held view in the world that
Communism is something new, invented by a group of criminals (or
geniuses); something introduced from without, and imposed by fraud and
force. In fact, Communism is something well known and familiar to
everyone. What is new is merely the transformation of an old acquaintance
into a new master. Only on this basis does that great, historic, creative
process begin whereby people give to their lives a whole new range of
aspects, among which the defects of the new society, which have become
well known to everyone, must be given a place of honour.
So the problem becomes not one of choosing between two things,
Communism or civilization, for there is no choice; but one of finding the
effective means of resisting the first and defending the second. Not
29
stability, but struggle between these two forces is the unavoidable fate of
humanity, no matter which countries come out on top in the world, which
survive, and which perish. There can be no rest from it. It will cease only
when the two forces have been destroyed. Only this destruction will
provide the final solution to all problems. But while humanity is alive it is
doomed to be beset by problems. A society which exhaustively solves all
problems and satisfies everybody is a practical impossibility. And theor
etically it is nonsense. There will never be a situation in which people say to
themselves: "Now we've got what we need; no more rushing about, now
it's bliss for all time." And Communism is no exception. Even if it
conquers the whole world, a struggle for everything that forms a part of
human civilization will start up once more. If that struggle isn't renewed
and doesn't consolidate itself in the form of various outcomes and
traditions, then humanity will simply degenerate. For the moment
predictions of this kind have no sense. But even an outcome like the one
just mentioned is not the end of the world . Even if Communism is
victorious in this or that part of the world, with the passage of time it is
compelled to develop anti-communist forces within itself in the interests of
self-preservation and as a result of popular resistance. The dissident
movement in the Soviet Union, for instance, is just as much an organic
phenomenon as the repressive activities of the authorities against it. And
the present Soviet government itself appears as more of an opponent of
Communism than does the Soviet people. It is obliged to limit the
operation of the laws of communality, as it struggles to raise production,
tighten industrial discipline, improve the economy, stop bribery, shoddy
work and all kinds of general eye-wash. Although it is the logical product
of the forces of communality, Communism is compelled to confine and
moderate them ostensibly in order to preserve them. This is an example of
the same dialectic the application of which Marxists authorize in relation to
past societies but do not allow in relation to their own offspring whose
"dialecticality" is quintessential. The above-mentioned contradiction ap
pears with the passage of time to be one of those internal reasons which
will lead even Communism to its grave; the same Communism which was
intended by its prophets to last for ever.
The history of humanity cannot be reduced to the two tendencies
discussed above. If we isolate them in this way we are only using an
abstraction to help us understand the phenomenon that interests us,
namely Communism. One cannot understand the matter unless one has
separated it conceptually from its permanently antagonistic companion,
anti-communality, which is the source of civilization. As we examine the
two types of society we must be able to distinguish the antagonistic
tendencies which belong to each of them, but which are different from
them, or can be examined from some other point of view.
30
 T HE P HILI S TINE AN D T HE S CIEN TI ST

W H E N I SAY that Communism is a normal and natural phenomenon my

statement is sometimes interpreted as a defence of Communism. This sort
of thing enables one to distinguish two types of thought: the philistine and
the scientific. For the philistine, if something is normal and natural it
means that it is something good. He does not distinguish between the
subjective evaluation of a phenomenon and its objective properties. For
the scientist even death is a normal and natural phenomenon although
there is little about it that people find pleasant.
Here I cannot give a detailed description of these two modes of thought.
I shall simply name a few of their characteristics and illustrate them with
examples. The philistine takes note of directly observable facts and makes
hasty generalizations without any analysis. His judgements are subjective,
II
i.e., they bear the imprint of personal predilections. The scientist tries not
I only to establish the individual facts and to analyse them from the
viewpoint of their random or non-random character, he tries to understand
the laws which govern them, laws which cannot be identified by immediate
observation. He tries to prevent his predilections from affecting his
judgements. The philistine claims that his ratiocinations are directly
supported by observable facts. The results of scientific thinking, however,
do not coincide directly with observable facts. They merely give the means
whereby concrete facts can be explained and predicted.
From the scientific viewpoint, for example, it is possible for people to be
discontented with the Communist way of life and at the same time to
accept it, prefer it to other ways of life and be ready to defend it, as in the
Soviet Union. For the philistine critic of Communism this is unthinkable.
He assumes that once people are discontented with the Communist way of
life, it means they reject it and are ready to get rid of it at the appropriate
time. For the philistine supporter of Communism this is equally unthink
able; he assumes that once people accept the Communist way of life it
means they are content with it.
Or again, it is well known that Soviet people officially condemn
dissidents. The philistine apologists of Soviet society explain that fact in
terms of the trust felt by the Soviet people towards their government, of
their love of their type of society and their dislike of dissidents who, for
them, are parasites, slanderers and spies. For philistine critics of Soviet
society this behaviour is allegedly motivated by the fear of repressions.
But for the scientist both views are devoid of sense. The majority of
Soviet people condemns dissidents sincerely, but for reasons which are
social in origin and which are independent of their emotions and of their
trust, or lack of it, in the regime. The philistine thinker is inclined to
31
confuse his personal feelings with the truth. For instance, he notices that a
number of Soviet physicists, biologists, and mathematicians are involved in
the dissident movement, while many others privately express their
sympathy with dissidents. From that he reaches the conclusion he seeks ,
namely that Soviet scientists are against the existing Soviet regime.
One doesn't have to be a scientist to show the absurdity of such a
conclusion. The same scientists who sympathize with dissidents in private
conversation condemn the same dissidents at meetings in their own
institutions. But the very concept of scientist is in any case devoid of
substance when used of the mass of bureaucrats who are employed in
Soviet science.
I have come across more than one instance of inferences that are quite
monstrous in their absurdity, although they have been made by educated
people. For example, on learning of cases of young men refusing to bear
arms for religious reasons, or to serve in the army (for which they were
ready to suffer severe punishment, refusal being a crime under Soviet law)
someone with whom I happened to be conversing developed from that a
whole theory of the weakness of the Soviet army. When I adduced in
argument against him the fact that many millions of young people did bear
arms and were willing to obey any orders whatever from the authorities,
including the suppression of their own countrymen, let alone foreigners,
my interlocutor merely waved his hand dismissively. The fact that a few
people deviated from the norm seemed to him more convincing, although
that kind of refusal exists in all armies and is predictable purely
statistically.
The identification of subjective evaluations with the objective state of
affairs has now gone so far among philistines that most concepts used in
discussions on sociological questions have lost all their scientific character
and become value-judgements. Such, for instance, are expressions like
"tyranny", "dictatorship", "power of the people", "democracy",
"bureaucracy", and so on. If the power of the people exists then for the
philistine this is jolly good; and he cannot even admit the thought into his
head that massive repressions in the Soviet Union were themselves a
manifestation of the power of the people, taken to the absolute extreme.
He is incapable of understanding that the power of the people also has a
social structure and that the latter includes modes of hierarchy, and the
means of coercion.
The philistine looks at the life of other people as if he were himself in
their position and extends to them his own attitude to life, his own scale of
values, his own feelings and experiences. He cannot understand how these
people perceive and judge their own position. This type of identification is
as characteristic of people in the West vis-a-vis Soviet people as it is of
Soviet people in relation to the West. It applies not only to the present, but
32
also to the past and future. When a Soviet person is told, for instance, that
the standard of living in the West is three, or even five, times higher than in
the Soviet Union, he understands this quite simply: he multiplies his own
salary by three or five, leaving all other aspects of living conditions
unchanged. The Westerner correspondingly divides his earnings by three
or five, and usually both parties begin to doubt the truth of statements
about the standards of living in the West and in the Soviet Union. The
scientific mind, however, knows that the standard of living of people is
inextricably bound up with the general conditions of life; i.e. with the price
which people have to pay for the standard which they have. Consequently
only a comparison of the aggregate of conditions in which people live
makes any sense.
The following conception of the social structure of Communist countries
is fairly prevalent: 1 ) the people are sacrificed to the regime: 2) the
authorities are the persecutors of the people: 3) the dissidents are the
defenders of the persecuted people.
Whatever ideas people are guided by and whatever their personal
circumstances, when they make pronouncements like these they reveal
themselves as typical exponents of the philistine method of thinking. The
population in a real Communist country has in fact a quite different
structure, although it also includes victims, authorities and dissidents. And
the structure is not only infinitely more complex than the primitive scheme
instanced above, it can only be described in terms of a quite different
conceptual system.
The expression "the people" in this context is totally meaningless ; it is
impossible even theoretically to separate the people from the authorities
inasmuch as power is enmeshed in the whole of society on every level; and,
as for dissidents, the same social conditions condemn them to be the
defenders only of themselves; and, moreover, not just against the
authorities but also against "the people", on whose support the authorities
can rely.

T HE HIS TORICAL AN D SOC IOLOG IC AL

A P PRO AC HE S

H ISTORICIST I D EAS HAVE now become so natural to the understanding of

the phenomena of human life that even the suggestion that any other ideas
could contend with them seems blasphemous. It is often thought, for
instance, that the essence of Communist society can only be grasped from a
historical viewpoint; i.e. via an examination of the history of its formation.
(The authentic history, of course, and not the one falsified by pro-
33
Communist historians and philosophers.) If, it is said, it can be shown what
actually happened, and how this society was actually formed, then it will be
clear what sort of society it is.
But, we shall ask, what is the authentic history? If we discover that Stalin
really was an agent of the Tsarist secret police, that Lenin really did receive
money from the German government, that the exact number of victims of
repression was such and such, will this knowledge be the authentic story?
Will it do much to clarify our understanding of real-life Communist
society? There have been more than enough discoveries of the "authentic"
history of Soviet society. But has a scientific understanding of it been
thereby much advanced? And indeed, one might point out en passant, that
apologists of Communism also rely on the historical approach and they are
not at all interested in revealing the defects of that society. Is this just an
accident?
I do not deny the usefulness of the historical method in investigating
phenomena such as the social order of a given country. But I consider that
the leading role in this task should belong to the sociologist. Certainly we
need to know what in fact happened as the result of the historical process in
order to satisfy ourselves as to the nature of that process. We also need to
consider the society which has come into being as a given, on the basis of
which we can grasp the sense of certain historical events which preceded
and, apparently, produced the society. But the task of actually investigat
ing the society is one for the sociologist.
Sociology also examines the life of society as it flows in time. But there is
an essential difference between the role of time in the sociological
approach and its corresponding role in the historical approach. Sociology
attempts to apprehend forms of social life, as they reproduce themselves in
time in a regular and constant manner. It tries to grasp their universal rules
and tendencies. For the historian, on the other hand, the important thing is
to know by what road these forms of life once arose in time. If, however,
we put the question this way: how in general do such forms of life arise? -
that is, pose a general question, then only the judgements of sociologists as
to how in fact these forms of life in a given society reproduce themselves
can provide a scientific answer.
The historian cannot in pure logic provide any scientific explanation of
this or that type of society. Historical explanations are illusory. It is no
accident that up to now a whole army of learned men has been unable to
explain the emergence of language, of the human being himself, of
Christianity and of other complicated phenomena of social life. Not
because there are not enough facts- often there are all too many of them;
but because the explanation is impossible in principle. In the case of the
emergence of Communist society, we know too many historical details.
But we still have no scientific theory of that society and until we do all we
34
have is a story of a given bit of the world at a given time. And such a theory
can only be created in abstraction from history , by treating a given society
as an empirical fact.
Illusions about the ability of history to explain social phenomena arise
because the image of society that has been formed in one way or another
hovers in the consciousness of historically-minded people and influences
their awareness. But suppose for a moment that there is no image, only an
accumulation of evidence about the existence of a huge number of
diachronic and synchronic events. What can one get out of that? When
critics of the regime set out to unearth the "genuine" history, they already
have fixed in their minds the figures and the events of the society that has
emerged. Why is their attention drawn to the fate of an agent of the
Okhrana called Djugashvilli? Why does an insignificant Russian emigre
called Ulyanov interest them?
Moreover, a historical orientation in this case actually prevents a
scientific understanding of the society that interests us because here history
has been given functions that are alien to it. Historical science establishes
which events took place in a given context of space and time and in what
sequence, and it also establishes obvious causal connections between
events. For instance, it is quite evident that Lenin and his companions
made the journey to Russia because a revolution had occurred there. It
also has its own criteria for the selection and the evaluation of events. For
instance, it turns its attention to events which achieved a certain
prominence when they occurred, and which made a deep impression on
people at the time, but which have absolutely no significance from a
sociological point of view. How many words and chapters have been
written about the activities of Rasputin, about the fate of Samsonov's
army, about the personality of Kerensky, although these events and people
offer precisely nothing to help us understand the essence of the new society
in the Soviet Union and the Russian revolution! A historical orientation
deflects the attention towards events from which in the first instance it
should be withdrawn if we wish to understand a new society that has grown
up and developed in a manner dictated by its history.
The historical process is, of course, also reality, but it is a reality which
disappears into the past. The society which has matured through that
process (a new society) , seeks to cast off its historical garb which has
become stifling and alien to it. It will then don another, but one which
corresponds to its essence and does not reveal its origins. Sociological
reality is orientated towards what has come to stay. It looks towards the
future.
Millions of people took part in the historical process which led to the
birth of Communist society in the Soviet Union. They did billions of
different things. They did these things in their own personal interests. They
35
acted according to the laws of communal behaviour, not according to the
laws of history - in human behaviour there are no such things. Some of
these actions worked in favour of the new society, some against it. Some of
them worked both for and against it, depending on the circumstances. The
people who were in favour of the new society did not always act in its
favour. Nor did those who were against it always act against it. Some
revolutionaries unwittingly did much to harm the revolution and some
counter-revolutionaries did much to help it.
It is practically and logically impossible to distinguish between what
.
worked .. for . and what worked "against". Only after the process was
complete was it possible to make a judgement about the actual result and
its past with more or less plausibility.
A historical orientation leads inevitably to the acceptance of everything
at face value. In particular. only those who accept Communist doctrine and
act accordingly are deemed to be the sources of Communist society,
whereas those who do not accept that doctrine are seen as the source of
opposition. The historical mind is, for instance, incapable of understanding
that without the help of the privileged classes of the oldRussian society the
new society could not have survived for more than a year. Try to convince
the citizens of the Western European countries that many anti-Commun
ists in the West in effect do more to help Communism than convinced
Communists. and see how many of them are able to understand you. In
this particular context the historian is only a variant of the philistine.
Even in those cases where the historical process itself becomes the object
of attention . sometimes only a sociological approach can provide the
n ecessary guidance in the murky flow of history. This is so in our case.
There are several general methodological principles for understanding the
processes leading to the emergence of complex systems of phenomena such
as a whole organic society. In the case of the Soviet Union, and in a very
simplified form. the situation is something like this (from the point of view
of the extent to which there is any correlation between Marxism and
reality). Communism emerged in the Soviet Union as the result of a
specific combination of circumstances and as a part of the natural process
of the country's survival in the terrible conditions of the collapse of the
Russian Empire. It was the road which it was forced to take by
circumstances and not at all something which developed according to a
previously elaborated Marxist plan. The Communists only used the
circumstances in order to play their desired, or inevitable role in history
(psychologically the one easily merges into the other). The destruction of a
social order. consequent upon the destruction of the way of life of a
population of a given country. depends on people. But what is built in place
of the society which has been destroyed depends on general social laws
governing the organization of people into large collectives and on the
36
concrete conditions in which this happens.
What happened in Russia coincides in many ways with what the Marxists
were talking about. But what didn "t they talk about? A lot happened which
in no way coincides with the substance of these Marxist conversations.
Nowadays. of course. Marxists only pay attention to what does coincide,
and what does not coincide they ignore. It is senseless to deny the influence
of I\Iarxism on the process. But it is absurd to imagine that Communism as
it actually developed in Russia was the realization of the projects of
individual people and political parties. What happened were some
favourable historical coincidences plus a muddy river of words which
allowed any kind of post factum interpretation.
Actual Communism could have developed without t-.Iarxist ideology.
The only thing which is sociologically indisputable is that a mass process of
that magnitude needed some ideological formulation and would. in one
way or another. have worked out a suitable one. Marxism was on hand as
suitable material (I repeat . only material) but it was by no means the pre
requisite or source of the new society in the way that it seems to those who
are historically minded.
The grandiose process of the conquest of the world by Communism is
taking place before our eyes. and no amount of revelation of the horrors of
the Communist way of life in the Soviet Union and other countries will stop
this process. Why? The Soviet Union has seized vast territories in the
world and is striving to penetrate all the corners of the planet . while it has
at home immense untamed land. Why does it do this? What has the
historical thinker got to say about it? Something. perhaps, about the
continuation of the old Russian imperialist tradition and other platitudes,
but nothing more. The spread of Soviet Communism throughout the world
entails enormous sacrifices for the Soviet people and the risk of the
collapse and rout of the Soviet Empire. Why can't it stop the process of
expansion? Because of the idea of world revolution? What rubbish! The
fact is that it is impossible to explain the behaviour of this frightful beast
(the Soviet Union) without a detailed sociological analysis of the mech
anics of its Communist society. It is only possible to guess at and record its
separate actions. Even the behaviour of the shark is still a riddle for
science: but the Soviet Union is somewhat more complicated than a shark .
When it comes to examining what has not yet happened but might. i.e.
the future . the historical approach is. of course. utterly powerless. Take
the problem of a new world war. Can one comincingly prophesy its
beginning and its character by analysing wars which happened in the past?
And what about the general prospects in the struggle between Communism
and Western civilization? After all. it is precisely the prospects for
Communism as a type of society and its struggle with the \Vest. and not
past history, that constitute the mam problem of our time. For the
37
sociologist, on the other hand, this is precisely his concern: to explain the
laws and tendencies which are operating now and will do so also in the
future by virtue of their universality. Even when they look at the past,
people are interested not so much by what happened as by whether what
happened might happen again, and to what extent. But for this we must
know what was inevitable in the events of the past and which social
mechanisms mattered.

A SOC IO LOGIC A L LOO K AT HISTORY

I N T H E K I N D of cases we are considering here historical science provides

factual material for investigation but only sociology has the means of
understanding it. So-called "conceptual history" is only a sociological
analysis of the historical process itself. I shall now set out some principles
for such an analysis.
The historian and the sociologist do not simply look at the same thing in
different ways. They distinguish separate processes within a single more
complex process and offer different interpretations of their interrelation
ship. The point is this: not everything which happens in the spatio
temporal setting in which a new society is formed furthers the appearance
of that new society. Not everything may be included among the causes and
conditions that engendered it, or indeed be connected with the new society
at all. The new society in its turn has origins and sources which are not
specific elements of events occurring in a given spatio-temporal context. It
has its own life-line (in the palmist's sense) which extends beyond the
framework of this context, both into the past and into the future. Different
evolutionary lines are interwoven in the world as a whole, and sometimes
they coincide so that it seems that they form one single line. On the other
hand, the cut-off point of one line is not necessarily the starting point of
another.
Thus the end of the Russian monarchy was not the beginning of the
Communist order. The evolution of the latter has its origins deep within
the complex mechanisms of social life and in the past, where for a long time
its line of development and that of the monarchy coexisted. When a new
society evolves, the form it takes and the conditions under which it
develops are historically determined. What we have in fact is a social
process taking place within the framework of a historical process, albeit
covertly. At any rate, when the process is finished its participants and
activists usually discover to their bewilderment that what they thought they
were building has vanished somewhere and has been rudely replaced by
38
something they had never remotely dreamed of. When a new society is
sufficiently established there occurs a fundamental change in its relation
ship to its historical form. As before, it exists in some kind of historically
individual form, but now the social process becomes predominant and
thereby determines the nature of the historical process for the future.
What is historical in a given instance is not something purely accidental
and transient. Historical consequences can last for centuries. For example,
one can ignore national frontiers in abstracto , but this is not so easy to
accomplish in reality. One can dream of moving Moscow to some more
advantageous position, but in reality this cannot be done. Communist
society, like everything else in the world, takes shape in history and exists
as an individual and unique phenomenon. But it does so in certain standard
and persistent forms (again, like everything else in the world).
The Marxist scheme of evolution was created in the following way.
Different bits of human history were taken from different parts of the
planet and from different epochs, selected according to particular criteria
and arranged into a speculative ordered sequence which was regarded as
the natural stages of the development of society. But fragments of history
scattered in space and time are not the history of any one thing, however
much they are put into order by theorists. An ordered sequence of the
possible conditions of different societies is not a sequence of the successive
stages of evolution of one and the same society.
We must distinguish two senses of the expression "human society". It
can mean the aggregate of the earth's inhabitants; and it can mean separate
human collectives. In the first instance I will simply use the expression
"mankind"; and for the second I will reserve the expression "human
society" (which can be shortened simply to "society"). Thus I shall
understand society as being a larger or smaller collection of people united
into a relatively self-contained system. It is preserved in this form for a long
time and its essential features are continually visible in the activity of its
members. The history of mankind is the history of the rise, the existence,
the change, the collapse, the collision, the inter-penetration and so on of
societies. The history of a specific society does not coincide with the history
of mankind, although it introduces into the latter its own particular
element. Mankind is not something as uniform as a specific society.
If a given society exists for long enough that means that some stable
system for the maintenance of that form of life has evolved within it. In this
sense one can differentiate between different types of society. In itself, the
idea of introducing comparative criteria in regard to types of society and of
using them to place the societies in an orderly sequence from lower to
higher is not wrong, provided that the abstract order that results is not
viewed as an objective law of social development. For science only the
following is permissible: we can describe a given society's type, we can
39
elucidate the laws whereby this society functions and we can discover the
general laws of every type of society. We can elucidate the laws of
evolution within a given type and of general laws within any type . But
there are no laws which govern the conversion of one type of society into
another. They do not exist. not because of any empirical reasons but
because of the particularity of the modes of cognition without which there
can be no science . There is no law for the conversion of societies, just as
there is no law for the conversion of flies into elephants, elephants into
cows . or rabbits into lions or boa-constrictors. In the course of history
some forms of human social units collapse and others arise and indeed
perhaps create another type of society. For instance , when the Russian
Empire crashed, a new form of society took its place . But it took shape not
because of some mystic law of transition from one social form to another of
a higher degree but in accordance with laws regarding the shaping of large
human formations in certain historical conditions.
If we compare different types of society with regard to certain
characteristics. we can observe the superiority of some over others and talk
about progress in this sense . We can even clarify why such progress takes
place. B ut in the nature of things in general and of society in particular,
progress is by no means inherently inevitable. It is not inherent by virtue of
the principle which governs all comparative concepts: namely the rules of
logical comparison and of definition. Progress is possible if facts of a
certain kind are known (everything which exists is possible) . But it is not
inevitable. because not everything that exists is inevitable. If there are
occasions when progress does not happe n , then it is logically irrefutable
that progress is not inevitable. If progress does happen, then that means
that specific historical circumstances were such that changes came about in
a given sector of nature . Only by comparing the result attained with the
previous situation according to definite criteria can we speak about
progress or its absence (or about stagnation or degradation). The word
"progress" is a value-concept which presupposes a subjective operation:
comparison between different phenomena in time.
I shall now introduce some general principles relating to every type of
society . The time during which a particular type of society evolves out of a
conglomeration of human individuals and takes its shape is so short in
relation to historical time that we can understand it as a historical
"moment". If a given type of society evolves then it happens "at once " ,
otherwise the attempt will not succeed. People d o not manage t o grasp
intelligently what type of society has been formed before that formation
has been completed. It then begins its life, perhaps with a few finishing
touches and alterations which do not change its essence . And it is naive to
count on the ability of reformers or oppositionists to change the type of
society. They can affect the lives of people in a given society for better or
40
for worse, and they can help to strengthen it or ruin it. But the type is
unshakeable. It is formed "once and for all".
When people offer examples of types of society which allegedly change,
they are not in fact offering examples of normal societies , but abnormal
abortions, deformed by circumstances. They may offer examples of
changes in society as a whole, but not in types of society. A particular type
of society is an abstraction from observed, variegated material. Therefore
to speak of the possibility of change with respect to something which is in
abstracto immutable is to destroy that initial abstraction.
The longer that a society of a given type exists , the harder it becomes to
change its type granted the given human material and the conditions of its
existence. Attempts to change the type usually end in the collapse of the
community itself or a return to an earlier regime with certain changes that
take account of altered circumstances. When the normal form of social life
is infringed a society tries to restore its type, its ''traditional social order".
When a social community collapses and the type of society that it created is
destroyed, and when a new society is created on its ruins with the same
human material, then the latter turns out to be a restoration of the earlier
society, or a society close to the earlier type. The social order that was
established in Russia after the revolution took shape is in many ways a
reconstitution of the Russian serfdom which had existed for centuries.
Every type of society has specific parameters (coefficients, constants ,
degrees) that characterize all facets of its social life: the productivity of
labour, the degree of freedom, the level of remuneration, the extent of
parasitism. the coefficients of systemization, the coefficients which
measure the extent of hierarchical relationships, and so on. There are defi
nite bounds within which the associated magnitudes fluctuate , so that a
particular type of society contains in itself internal restrictions on that
society's potential. And talk about the limitless development and perfecti
bility of society on the basis of Communism is just typical ideological
rubbish. For example, from the purely technical viewpoint, there is no
limit to the growth of productivity. But the technical aspect is always
submerged in the systemic organization of the life of the given society, in
which each step is increasingly costly and at one point or another begins to
be counter-productive. Technical achievements are cancelled out with a
vengeance by the losses made by the bureaucratic apparat, by bad
management, by red-tape, eye-wash, parasitism, managerial play-acting
and so on. The establishment of a given type of society is at the same time
the establishment of internal limitations on all the vitally important
indicators of that society. The Communist type of society is wholly and
fully subjected to these principles and can be described by means of a
corresponding system of concepts and magnitudes.

41
 THE P R O B LEM O F METH O D

T H E O BJ ECT O F our reflections (a multi-million-strong society of rational

beings of a particular type in particular conditions) is an actual Communist
country. Such a society is a particular instance not only of a society of the
Communist type, but of society in general, of a large social system, and,
finally, of a large empirical system . Within it there coexist and intertwine
simultaneously the properties of all empirical systems, the properties of
social systems, the properties of every large human community, the
properties of the Communist system and the individual peculiarities of a
particular country, its history and its peoples. There is no such thing as a
"pure" Communist society. Real countries do exist with a Communist
order, but they have their own individual history. Further, we must be able
to distinguish in a particular country that which derives from Communism
as such and that which arises from other sources. Sometimes this
distinction is obvious: (for instance Communism is not guilty of causing
earthquakes); and sometimes not (for example shortages of foodstuffs may
be caused either by bad weather conditions or by the system of agricul
ture).
The Soviet Union. as I have already said, gives us a classically clear
model of the Communist order. B ut here too that order is submerged in a
mass of relationships of another kind as well as in the general history of the
country. Here too , this problem of distinguishing specifically Communist
phenomena from phenomena of another sort remains, and it is naive to
think that the specific features and laws of the Communist order can be
observed constantly in the streets and in the villages, in the corridors of
institutions and the shop-floors of factories. One can observe directly only
millions of people, billions of actions and some buildings and events.
Considerable intellectual effort is needed to distinguish in the flux and
jumble of passing events those phenomena which specifically exemplify the
Communist system , to recognize their regularity, to divine their mechan
isms, to trace their importance in the life of the people and to ascertain
their decisive role in society. Add to this the consequences of the fact that
any given country is itself an element in a system of other countries. Add to
that the coexistence and intertwining of different social systems in the real
life of peoples and countries. Unless we distinguish all of this and take
account of all the perplexities of social processes, we cannot make very
much sense of even the simplest phenomena.
Our object of consideration has already been delineated. Assuming that
we can study the subject freely and that we have access to any facts we
want , what can we do with them? Where do we begin? What particular
sequence should we follow? What can we jettison altogether? What can we
42
postpone for the time being and then return to later? How does one split
up the whole study into parts?
I could formulate scores of purely technical, methodological problems to
which the representatives of dialectical materialism can give no answer any
more than can those who regard dialectical materialism with disdain. You
won't find them in Western scientific methodology or in Western sociology
either: from the point of view of the problems which interest us they
provide as dismal a spectacle as Marxism itself.
But the conditions in which we are to make our enquiry are in reality not
as ideal as I have assumed above. The concrete data are either secret or
falsified, whether unconsciously or deliberately; or they are generally
inaccessible for practical reasons. Moreover, even the subject itself is
unfavourable for our purposes. It is unusually complex, cumbersome and
muddled. Its components are protean, inconstant and interactive. The very
same phenomena engender contradictory effects and can themselves be the
effect of contradictory causes. Precise measurements are too cumbersome,
impossible in practice, expensive, and meaningless because of the incon
stancy of what is being measured. It is impossible to establish exactly the
actual distribution of the different elements of the whole at any given time
or place. Also our means of receiving and processing information are
limited. And, in addition to all the rest. we have problems which in
principle are insoluble. An instance of this would be a situation in which
obtaining evidence about some phenomena excludes the possibility of
obtaining evidence about other problems. In short, the very subject itself
and the possibilities for tackling it are such that we are going to meet
thousands of different kinds of "not" : "no", "not known " , "cannot be
established" , "has no sense" and "without meaning".
In such conditions we shall be compelled to work with judgements which
cannot be verified empirically and which we cannot reach by the general
rules of deduction . So we must somehow compensate for our lack of
information and our impotence. We must invent a special method of
investigation for such a situation . One won't discover the method in the
situation itself because it simply doesn't exist in it. It doesn't exist at all ;
and s o we've got t o invent it. S o what remains t o us? Should we abandon
attempts at scientific understanding and rely on prophetic intuition, on the
amateurish guesses of reformers and the emotions of dissidents? No, there
is a way out of this situation. There is a way of studying society which
coincides with a scientific approach in its purposes and methods but differs
from science in its aims and results: one must develop in oneself a scientific
mode of thought and learn to interpret the facts of life we observe as if they
were objects of scientific examination. The results of this approach will not
be precise magnitudes and formulae but approximate valuations and
guidelines for our understanding of life around us. The approach will be
43
free from illusions and free too from the influence of propaganda,
demagogy, deceit and self-deception. Later on I want to expound certain
elements of such a mode of thought when I come to apply it to Communist
society.

COMMUNISM AS SUCH

WHEN O N E B EGINS to think about Communist society one naturally does

so within a particular linguistic system . The latter contains a system of
concepts, and so in one way or another orients the critical faculties and
predetermines the instruments and possible modes of cognition. The first
requirement of the mode of thought I am talking about is this: one must
examine the object of study (in our case Communist society) as such or in
itself, from the point of view of its own intrinsic values, and not from the
point of view of possible comparisons with other objects (with other
societies and countries) . Our method must avoid received opinions that are
foisted upon us via our own familiar linguistic system (conceptual system)
and via mental associations with other objects.
Often when talking about the Communist way of life I would find myself
in the following position. I would be talking, for example , about social
contrasts under Communism . What of it, my opponents would object,
there are also rich and poor in the West, exploiters and exploited, the
privileged and the underprivileged. When they said this my opponents
were completely forgetting that whereas social contrasts in the West had
long been a banal object of criticism,[S:&mmunism was conceived of as a
society without exploiters and exploited and as the kingdom of universal
justice. But the important point here is not so much that as the following: If
Communist society has some particular positive or negative features, and if
societies of a different type have analogous features, it by no means follows
that Communist society suddenly no longer has these features, or that their
role becomes different. We must observe the properties of Communist
society independently of the question as to whether or not they exist in
societies of another type. I do not deny the usefulness of comparisons in
general. But in this case comparisons should not play a decisive role. They
acquire sense only after we have gained an understanding of a particular
society in its own terms and without reference to societies of another type.
The fact that in other societies there is repression, exploitation, a low
standard of living and other unpleasant features does not at all mean that
these don't exist in Communist society. They do , and that is an empirical
fact . We must examine them as objective properties of the society in
44
question, we must explain why they arise, and this without reference to
their fate in other countries. Our task is not to decide which society is
better but to draw an objective picture of a particular society without
comparative and subjective value-judgements.
Amid a host of factors that prevent such an approach to Communist
society I want especially to draw attention to the following two. The first is
Marxist phraseology. Although Marxism was born historically with pre
tensions to being regarded as scientific, and still claims to be a science
(moreover, the most advanced of its kind and unique), it has in fact been
converted into a classical form of ideology and its terms and expressions
have become purely ideological phenomena which have been deprived of
any scientific sense, and which are designed to disorient thoroughly those
who seek to understand real-life Communism. Marxist expressions and
terms were conceived in the context of bourgeois society of the last century
and were inspired by the specific desires of members of that society. But
now they are applied to Communist society as it actually exists. Here they
fulfil the ideological role of diverting attention from life as it really is and
are a means of concealing the reality of the social order. For example,
Marxist teaching about social classes concentrates on social distinctions
which are not important for Communism (workers, peasants and intel
ligentsia) and their relations, thereby diverting attention from the charac
teristic division of the population in Communist countries into the
privileged and underprivileged, the rich and the poor, the exploiters and
exploited. The real social structure of the population is simply never taken
into consideration. Moreover, the critics of Communism fall into the
Marxist phraseological trap themselves by indulging in a completely
hopeless polemic with Marxists, having had foisted on them Marxist
linguistic terms. Or, let us take the example of property. Under Commun
ism there is indeed no private ownership of the means of production. But
to say this is to say absolutely nothing about how things in Communist
society really are.
The second factor is the habit of examining the phenomena of
Communist society using the same system of concepts as one uses to
examine similar phenomena in other countries. For instance , concepts such
as "party", "trade-union", "elections", "law" and so forth are used in the
examination of Communist society in the same sense in which they are
used in respect of societies of the Western type. And suitable phenomena
exist in Communist society to fit these expressions, but people fail to see
that these things in that context have a qualitatively different nature. If we
compare Communist society with other societies (for example with
Western states) it is not hard to notice many similarities between them.
One can see under Communism many things that exist in the West. But the
significance of these phenomena is often utterly different in principle from
45
their counterparts in non-Communist countries. And these phenomena
must. I repeat, be understood as above all belonging to Communist society
independently of their similarity with certain phenomena elsewhere. It is
only on this basis that a meaningful comparison is possible , and not
converse!y .
For example, i n pre-revolutionary Russia there was never a serious
trade-union movement analogous to the Western one . Now there are
trade-union organizations in all the institutions of the USSR. B ut these are
the Communist system's own product and not the continuation of a past
tradition . And their social role has very little in common with the role of
the trade-unions in the West . Yet Soviet trade-unions (profsoyuzy) are
seen as being analogous to those in the West; and the managers of Soviet
and Western trade-unions conduct relations as if they belonged to the same
category of phenomenon. If Soviet trade-unions are viewed in the same
way as Western ones then it is absolutely impossible to understand their
role in Soviet society. They can only be properly understood as part of the
structure of Communist society quite independently of whether or not they
had any antecedents in the past or in the West. The word "trade-union"
could well be exchanged for another in the interests of greater clarity.
The requirement that an object be examined "in itself' , "for itself", "as
itself' , i .e . , leaving out of account for the time being its comparative
characteristics, was well known in the philosophy of the past and in
particular in German classical philosophy (the philosophy which served as
one of the sources of Marxism) . But this methodological requirement, like
many others, is habitually ignored even by specialists when judgements are
made about Communist themes, not to mention ordinary mortals who
have no idea whatever of past philosophical achievements.
To understand Communism in itself means to elucidate that particular
social animal from the point of view of its inner processes and outward
behaviour; to be clear about what one should expect of it and what one
should not expect of it in any circumstances. One can, for instance, adduce
as many external analogies as one likes in order to reinforce a thesis about
the possibility of there being Communism with civil rights in certain
countries. But from the point of view of an internal analysis (i . e . one
without recourse to analogies), that thesis is just as nonsensical as one
which postulates a Capitalism without money, capital and profit. One can
propose analogies on which to base hopes that the Soviet Union will curtail
its penetration of all corners of the planet and give up its claims to world
hegemony. But an analysis which eschews analogies makes it quite evident
that the USSR cannot exist without expansion , without the penetration of
other countries, and without the quest for world hegemony.

46
 C O M M U N I S M A N D TOTA L ITA R I A N I S M

TH E SOCIAL O R D E R i n the USSR and the social order i n Hitler's Germany

are sometimes regarded as being phenomena of the same species, as
particular cases of totalitarianism. This is an example of the non
observance of the methodological principle which we noted above. Of
course, there is a similarity there which it would be senseless to deny, but
from the sociological point of view these are phenomena which are in
principle qualitatively different. German totalitarianism occurred within
the context of Western civilization. It was a political regime which in itself
did not destroy the social basis of the state. Of course, Hitlerism had as one
of its sources the same elements of communalism from which Communism
grew . And to a certain degree it was a training for future Communism. But
all the same it wasn't Communism . Stalin's totalitarianism was a social
rather than a political phenomenon. Stalinism was born of a revolution
already accomplished, and it was a manifestation of a maturing Communist
society. Hitlerite totalitarianism was born of fear of the Communist
revolution and of the possibility of the rise of a Communist society.
The system of each leader's personal power, the phenomenon of mass
repression and much else were similar in both countries. But the conditions
of life of the mass of the people remained different in principle. One could
cast aside totalitarianism of the German type and preserve the social order
of the country. One could not cast aside totalitarianism of the Soviet type
without destroying the whole social order of the country down to its very
foundations. German and Soviet totalitarianism came to resemble each
other in many ways because of the law that social systems which are in
contact with one another tend to become alike ; that is, through the effect
of certain general laws of large empirical systems; and not because of any
inevitable development from the inner laws of each individual system .
The use o f the term "totalitarianism" in connection with Communist
society hinders an understanding of that society. Totalitarianism is a
system of coercion foisted upon a people "from above" independently of
the social structure of the population. The Communist system of coercion
arose from the social structure itself, i . e . "from below" . It marries well
with the social order of the country. It only occasionally looks like
totalitarianism (especially during the maturation period of a social
structure of the Communist type), and mainly as such to outside observers
with a penchant for deeply intellectual comparisons.

47
 F R O M T H E A B S T R A C T TO T H E C O N C R ET E

D u RING T H E LAST century an appropriate method was discovered for the

investigation and understanding of such complex and changing phenomena
as human societies and described in general outline. It was a method for
moving from the abstract to the concrete and was described by Hegel and
Marx. Marx made considerable use of it in writing Capital. In 1954 I myself
finished a philosophical dissertation on this theme (Method of ascent from
the abstract to the concrete) . The dissertation had some success among
young philosophers (we were then approaching the liberal period) and it
was distributed in manuscript copies. But it had a hostile reception from
the luminaries of Soviet philosophy, and this was not at all surprising. The
conversion of Marxism into a ruling state-ideology was accompanied by the
conversion of the dialectic from an instrument for understanding the
complex phenomena of reality into a weapon of ideological dishonesty,
and for the deception of the population. Any attempt to describe the
dialectical method of thought as an aggregate of logical methods of a
special kind (and such indeed was the orientation of my work) was doomed
to failure because of the conception of the dialectic, by then prevalent in
Soviet philosophy, as a doctrine of the general laws of existence . When the
dialectic became the kernel of Marxist ideology, it compromised itself in
the eyes of scholars and philosophers in the West. Thus these otherwise
unimpeachable methods, which in one way or another lay at the root of the
dialectic method of thought, were consigned to oblivion, including the
method of transition from the abstract to the concrete. To know what real il
Communism is without using this method is quite impossible. Below I shall
describe it very briefly, sticking to the essentials.
When one has to study and describe a complex, many-sided, differen
tiated, changeable subject, one cannot at once take account of all its
properties and manifestations. Something or other has to be left out. Nor is
it the case that everything is equally important for our understanding of the
subject in question. Much is of no relevance while much prevents our
understanding of it . But suppose that we have managed to isolate
everything that we must include in the subject in order to understand it
properly. Even in this abstract form it will still remain complex and many
sided enough. We still have to grapple with the inconsistency of its
manifestations and the continually changing consequences of their interac
tion . In these conditions we must isolate different aspects of our subject
from their general context and while we are studying them we must desist
from a consideration of other phenomena, establish some kind of sequence
and then somehow or other take account of the phenomena whose
consideration we postponed .
48
 The j udgements arrived at in this way are more or less abstract; that is to
say that they have sense , meaning and truth by virtue of their abstraction
from circumstances. As we continue to take account of different facets of
the subject under study we gradually arrive at more or less concrete
j udgements, i.e. judgements which have sense , meaning and truth in the
context of actual circumstances.
Here I am examining abstract or "pure" Communism, which means this.
I accept as a fact that this or that Communist country has definite
dimensions, geographic conditions, a population of a certain numerical
order , a national structure , a historical past and traditions. But I am
abstracting from all that: I am examining any Communist country in
isolation from its dimensions, the size of its population, its history and a
whole series of other characteristics.
Of course one may examine some of these with the purpose of making
certain assertions concrete . For example , the very low living and cultural
standard of the population of Russia made it suitable for Communist
experiments. The natural conditions and dimensions of that country were
convenient if one wished to execute mass repressions. The dimensions
were a help in the war with Germany. Furthermore, I am examining any
Communist country in abstraction from its non-Communist neighbours
and from its relations with other Communist countries. Again, these
problems of mutual relations between Communist and non-Communist
countries and between Communist countries, can be examined later; they
will give a more concrete picture of the society compared with the one to
be had from an examination of individual Communist countries. What I am
doing ultimately is viewing a Communist country in its ideal aspect, as if all
the norms of the Communist form of life were strictly observed . For
instance, according to the rules of Communism , every citizen fit to work is
obliged to offer his labour to the state in some institution or other and
receives a livelihood only in respect of that work. In practice this rule is
constantly broken. Thus a man may receive an inheritance, he may win
money in a lottery, he may take a bribe, he may moonlight. But these
phenomena do not derive from the essence of Communism itself. They are
not accidental, but they must be understood only on the basis of those
results which are obtained from the study of ideal, abstract, "pure"
Communism.
The method of approach or "ascent" from the abstract to the concrete is
an indispensable technical element for scientific study in conditions in
which one cannot make use of laboratory experiments; when one cannot i n
fact isolate the object under study from others, separate the components
and study them in isolation from one another and in differing combina
tions; when , in short, all this must be replaced in Marx's words by the
power of abstract thinking, the ability to manipulate the object under
49
study, as if all our imaginary experiments were really taking place but at
the same time preserving the integrity of the object. Nowadays in the
context of a general passion for mathematizing everything, for cybernetics,
modelling. deductive system , empirical measurement, it is not at all a Ia
mode to work out a method of "ascent" from the abstract to the concrete
or even to remember that it exists. This is a pity. Contempt for this method
is suitably rewarded by the fact that the efforts of many thousands of well
qualified specialists produce in real life either quite derisory results or else
errors.

A R EM A R K A B O U T T H E D I A L E CTIC

T H E M E T H O D O F moving from the abstract to the concrete can be itemized

as a set of cognitive steps in the understanding of the subject under study.
In particular there is the device of moving from an examination of a
phenomenon taken individually (i.e. in isolation from the coexistence of
the interaction between many phenomena of the same sort) to the
examination of aggregates of many phenomena of the same sort (i .e.
taking into account the fact that there will be interrelationships between
these phenomena such as will affect their properties) .
Many people know, for instance , from personal experience that Soviet
man , viewed in isolation from his position in the collective , differs from
Soviet man seen in terms of his behaviour within the collective. In the first
case he is quite capable of cursing the Central Committee or the speech of
the Party's General Secretary upside down; in the second, in the collective,
he will exalt them to the skies. From the point of view of the method we are
considering this is a trivial example: in the one case our judgement of the
man will be abstract ; in the other concrete (compared with the first case).
Moreover the concrete judgement may appear to contradict the abstract,
but no logical contradiction is present, because in fact we have the
following pair of judgements: 1) if we make an abstraction from certain
factors (exclude their influence, suppose that they do not exist) then our
subject will have Property X; 2) if we include these factors (admit their
influence), then our subject will have Property Y. Here X may contradict
Y but judgement 2) as a whole does not contradict judgement 1) as a
whole. In its time the dialectical method of thought was first and foremost
an aggregate of logical steps of that type, and not a doctrine about the
general laws of existence which, one may add , do not exist in reality.
Not only the apologists of Communism and Marxism but their critics as
well equally reject the dialectic as a set of logical methods for comprehend-
50
ing a phenomenon as complex as human society. Although Marx did not
invent dialectic in this sense, he consciously applied certain of its logical
methods in his analysis of bourgeois society . He was, incidentally, the only
thinker who understood and consciously used the methods of transition
from the abstract to the concrete. Engels regarded this as a flirtation with
Hegel. And Lenin stated that. fifty years after the publication of Capital,
only a few understood it, and those imperfectly. Marxists who live in the
society of triumphant Communism, where Marxism is the state ideology.
are hostile to the dialectic as understood in our sense, because when it is
applied to Communist society itself it inevitably gives a result that
contradicts the depiction of the Communist paradise offered by that same
Marxism .
I attempted t o describe the dialectic a s a set o f logical devices a t the
beginning of the 1 950s. The reception given to this attempt by Soviet
philosophical officialdom was deeply hostile. The critics of Communism
and Marxism tie the dialectic firmly to Marxism, interpreting it in the same
way as Marxist apologists. That is why, when they reject Marxist ideology,
they also reject a scientific method of arriving at an understanding of
Communist society, moreover the only method which provides a theor
etical weapon against that ideology and one which has no necessary
connection with Marxism at all.

L A W S A N D E M P I R I CA L F A C T S

T H E M ET H O D OFabstraction o f which we spoke above does not exhaust the

methodology of scientific reasoning. Here I shall offer a few more remarks
on this subject.
In many cases when social themes are discussed confusion and misunder
standings arise because different categories of logical assertion are not
differentiated; assertions about facts, about scientific laws, assertions
about the laws of the subject under discussion itself and other types of
assertion . For example, in a certain country facts can be observed to justify
the statement: "In X country the forces of repression vis-a-vis dissidents are
growing stronger" . At the same time the statement may also be true, when
arrived at by means ofscientificanalysis, that "In country X the authorities are
trying to avoid intensifying their repression" . At first glance there is a
contradiction between the two statements, and moreover the second seems to
be false, since the first is true. But there is in reality no logical contradiction at
all between the two statements. They have such different logical pedigrees
that they simply cannot be used to form a contradiction. A contradiction of the
51
first statement could for instance be the statement: J n the country the
repression of dissidents is not being intensified'' ; and of the second: "The
authorities are trying to intensify repression".
It is very important to distinguish between statements with the logical
status of scientific laws and statements with the logical status of a statement
of facts. A classical example of a statement of the first type is the well
known law of mechanics: "A body remains at rest or moves at the same
speed in a straight line until external forces remove it from this state . " An
example of the second type is the statement about the displacement or
point of rest of observed physical bodies. Statements of these two types
differ in many respects, but particularly in the following one : scientific laws
have validity only in strictly identified conditions. Thus the same law of
mechanics when formulated more clearly runs like this: "If no external
forces act on a body, it will maintain its position of rest or movement in a
direct line at the same speed. Under those conditions scientific laws are
universal, i . e . true always and everywhere without .:: xception. And the
statement in its entirety (both that which identifies the condition and that
which takes place under it) is also universal .
Statements of facts, on the other hand, can be true in some conditions and
false in others. Statements of facts in the case of mechanics identify the
positions of concrete objects in space and their displacement. People observe
the facts regarding the stopping of moving bodies. their acceleration, changes
in their trajectory; but nobody will ever be able to observe what it is that the
law of mechanics under consideration expresses. For it was invented ac
cording to strictly logical rules which are distinct from the rules governing the
observation of facts. And despite their apparent non-correspondence with
facts. it is precisely scientific laws of this type that e nable us to describe factual
displacement of bodies and to predict their position in the future . Scientific
laws do not require explanation or substantiation because they themselves are
the ultimate grounds for the explanation of phenomena of a specific kind and
their ultimate mechanism. What we sometimes think is a substantiation or an
explanation of scientific laws turns out to be either an interpretation for
students or a popularization. or the invention of new laws from which the
first are deduced as consequences.
The theoretical part of a new scientific law is not always clearly
expressed. Often people make guesses about it out of context. Often it is
left out altogether and special expressions such as "tendency" , "purpose " ,
.
"preference . , are used instead o f it. In our example from mechanics
sometimes the statement is made in this form: "A body tends to
remain . . At times this leads to muddled and senseless discussions,
. "

especially in unenlightened circles and among people who are self-assertive

at the cost of verbal clarity. This is the usual situation in the field of social
analysis.
52
 In the field of statements about social phenomena there is the same
distinction between statements based on scientific laws and opinions that
state facts and immediately generalize from them . Here cases continually
occur in which the observed facts apparently contradict statements
generally taken as scientific laws. For example . in a certain type of society
there may be laws in operation by which the authorities try to destroy the
opposition and to lower the remuneration of work. B ut observation may
show that in fact members of the opposition are not being se\erely
persecuted and that the forces of persecution are weakening. while real
earnings are increasing. In society the law of the periodicity of economic
crisis may operate: but there may not be any economic crises. \\.ell. what
does all this mean? The point is that we must not confront scientific laws
\\ith facts directly. They are only the means to help us obtain explanations
of facts. If we use scientific laws together \\ith factual e'.idence about a
concrete situation then we can explain why the situation exists and what its
perspecti,es are in the future.

O R 1 S A :\ D DE \'I A T I O :\ S

\\"E S H A L L .-. o w examine the concept o f the norm o r normal phenomenon.

I have more than once encountered the following situation. I would say
that the social order in the CSSR was a normal phenomenon and not some
kind of deviation from the norm. This statement of mine would be
interpreted as meaning that I thought that the Soviet social order was
something good: an example of the philistine mode of thinking. But the
concept of the norm (or normality} is not a value-concept.
A poisonous snake complete with teeth in the desert is a normal
phenomenon \\ithin a particular natural zone. A snake \\ith broken teeth
or a healthy snake on the streets of 1oscow is a deviation from the norm.
In social life a certain model is taken as the norm in respect of phenomena
of a certain variety with which examples of such phenomena in one way or
another are compared. When people use the concept of a norm in relation
to a certain set of phenomena they abstract from concrete instances and
make certain assumptions. Some properties of the indi,idual examples of
events of a gi,en type are left out while other properties are attributed to
the norm which indi,idual examples of the type may not possess. For
example. when we talk about a normal human being. we abstract from him
his height. sex. hair colour and so on. But we dont consider a person to be
normal if he or she has no legs or eyes. This is a tri,ial point. Only. for
some reason or other. such tri\ially simple points are immediately
53
forgotten when important social problems are discussed.
A Communist country in which dissidents are persecuted. people are
tied to their dwelling-places and to their work and in which there are no
civil freedoms. is a normal Communist society, i.e. it is the norm for this
kind of phenomenon, even if, in practice, facts may be observed which
contradict the ones mentioned. A Communist country in which dissidents
were not persecuted and people could move freely about the world, on the
other hand . would be a deviation from the norm. I have adduced this
example in order to draw attention to the following point with respect to
the concept of "norm" .
There are various ways o f establishing an abstract model of a particular
type of phenomenon. in comparison with which empirically given examples
are evaluated as conforming or not conforming with the norm . In our case
we regard as the norm that which conforms with the social laws of the
society in question. derives from these laws and appears as their
consequence. \\'hat the norm is. however. is not always clear, even after
prolonged study. But there are many fundamental cases when the concept
of the norm is simple and clear. For example. one can describe a normal
Soviet institution I shall do this later - in terms of a certain abstract
-

model. Proceeding from these assumptions. one can test the normality of
phenomena of social life whose correspondence with the norms of the
society in question may not be so evident. Furthermore. having examined
examples of a phenomenon which we deem to be "normal" we can then
examine deviations from the norm . some of which may themselves be the
regular outcome of the operation of other laws of the particular society.
And they can be understood as such only by reference to some other norm
set up earlier. For example, instances of connivance at the activities of
dissidents in the Soviet Union constitute a deviation from the norm; but a
deviation which is itself a normal manifestation of the life of that society in
one of its other facets. Because of the complexity of social phenomena and
the intermediacy of their connections there can be cases where both the
norm and its infringement can be the effects of the same causes. For
instance. the abstract law of equivalent exchange between man and society
operates in the concrete conditions of society as the law of remuneration
according to social position: a law which itself engenders the infringement
of the principle of equivalence. And that is exactly the way it is with all the
laws of the social organism. For people who are mostly accustomed to look
upon their comparatively primitive life and psychology as the model and
measure for all other people it is psychologically very difficult to recognize
the "dialecticality" of complex social phenomena. Here nature plays a
dialectical joke at their expense: it convinces people of their cosmic
importance. while condemning them to play the role of unstructured grains
of sand.
54
 DIRECTII"G T HE A TTE N TIO I" . . .

How HIPORTA:-<T A particular logical method is for understanding the

complex and shifting phenomena of social life is shown by the fact that.
without it. neither the professional investigator nor the man in general who
wants to make some sort of analysis of social themes can even direct his
attention properly. It is widely known that human society acquires the
means of its subsistence from surrounding nature. The production of
the means of subsistence. which is called 'work"". forms the basis of the
existence of society. But this is not to say that by stating that fact and
examining it we thereby arrive at a basis for understanding any particular
type of society. At any rate. such an orientation will be of no use for the
understanding of every type of society. It is adequate for some social
phenomena and possibly for some types of social organization. It seemed
to provide a suitable starting point for the understanding of Communist
society: the latter was considered to be heaven on earth. in which all
problems of human relations would be solved in the best possible way and
it would only remain for people to produce in abundance the means of
subsistence and supply all members of society according to their needs. It
is. therefore. no accident that this orientation has occupied such a large
place in Iarx"s historical materialism. The orientation is only apparently
scientific. It is in fact purely ideological.
To understand real Communist society one must act in precisely the
opposite way. If we take the relationship between human society and
nature in which the production of the means of subsistence takes place as a
given and as a condition of human social existence. it is precisely that
relationship which we must ignore in order to define the real source of
Communist social relations. They do not spring from the fact that human
beings interact with nature in order to work and thereby produce the
means of subsistence. but from the fact that large numbers of people gather
in collectives for the purpose of common life and action. \\'hat we must
isolate as the object of our attention are the relations between people in
collectives which occur independently of the activity undertaken in these
collectives. Currently this orientation of attention is strengthened by the
fact that everyone is capable of noticing general features of the relations
between people in Communist countries in the most \'aried types of human
collective: in factories, in institutes, in towns, in villages, in the organs of
power and in the public services.
Communist relations between people operate , of course. in the life and
activity of human collectives. But neither the type of activity in the
collective nor the activity as such forms the basis of these relations or
determines them: on the contrary these relations themselves form the basis
55
of all other social phenomena. including the character of people's produc
tive acri1iry. Only on this basis can one grasp the character of the people's
attitude to work in this society and the forms of productive organization
which the society is forced to adopt because of these relations. In
particular, it is only in this way that we can explain to what extent the
hopes of the apologists of Communist society are realistic when they speak
of increasing productivity or of transforming labour into something as vital
to the human organism as food and water or into something which will
bring about the happiness and contentmont of the workers. At any rate,
you will in no way be able to explain the actual tendency of Communism
towards compulsory forms of work and enslavement if you proceed from
the Marxist orientation of social science and "scientific Communism",
whereas that task is trivially simple if you adopt the approach described
here.
If we take as the object of our attention the properties of individuals and
the rules underlying their behaviour to each other (i.e. their relationships),
behaviour which is conditioned by the fact that people are gathered in
collectives for the purposes of communal activity. we should not take
account of data which are either exceptional or of short duration , but other
normal. everyday data which are widely prevalent and which become
evident only with the passage of a considerable period of time. For this to
happen a Communist society must exist for a sufficiently long period for
the social relations under examination to emerge as factors determining the
life of that society. It is no accident , therefore . that a scientific understand
ing of Communism is becoming possible only now; i.e. when the
Communist countries (and in the first place the Soviet Union) have had a
sufficiently long period of peace to enable the actual mechanisms of
Communism to start working and to reveal themselves to those who seek
to understand them .

. . . TO C O M M U NA L ITY

H I STORICALL Y , Cont t: ;>; I ST S O C I ET Y i s formed along numerous different

lines. It is a mistake to regard it as arising from one single source. If we
take it as given , i.e. as it exists, and if we isolate the phenomena which are
of vital importance, we can then trace via these phenomena the sources of
Communism retrospectively. Not for the purposes of carrying out some
kind of historical investigation but in order to analyse the society in
question and study these phenomena from the point of view of their
universality. A case in point is the phenomenon to which I give the term
56
"communality" , which finds in Communism a favourable environment and
in which it blossoms forth luxuriantly. I shall explain this important point
in greater detail.
Let us take any sufficiently large number of people who relate to their
surroundings as a unit, occupy territory, defend themselves against their
enemies and secure the means of existence. In this respect people enter
into certain relations with each other; moreover these relations materialize
in the interests of the relationship of the society as a whole to its
environment . But there are other relations between people which derive
simply from the fact that there are many people and that they are forced to
come into contact with each other in one way or another, to associate, to
split up into groups, in some cases to subordinate and in others to be
subordinated . In this respect people are obliged to regard each other as
their own external environment. In this context , people also perform
actions, but now they do so in the interests of their own position within the
whole .
There are connections of different kinds between these aspects of the life
of the collective. It happens sometimes that the first aspect is the dominant
one , subordinates the second to itself and suppresses it. B ut the converse
also happens: the second aspect becomes the dominant one in people's
lives. Moreover, either aspect can concern individual people , groups of
people, the minority or the majority of the collective, or everyone. In large
human organizations like contemporary societies, the second aspect is
predominant , at least for the majority of the members of society. They are
not even aware of their participation in the first aspect which is always at
one remove and remote. They know of its existence but it has no real
meaning for them and it does not influence their behaviour. Even those
members of society who have a professional duty to implement the first
aspect of collective life do so as a means of attaining their own aims in the
second aspect. There is no need to adduce examples to make this clear.
Look at your own position in society and try to decide to what degree you
feel yourself to be a small part of the whole of society in its relations with
nature and other countries and to what degree you perceive your
environment to consist of other members of society. What part of your
activity relates to the first aspect of the collective and what to the second?
An individual's place and behaviour in the internal life of the collective is
determined by definite rules or laws. If that individual doesn't observe
them, he or she cannot have a normal existence in his or her social milieu
nor attain success. Communality as such consists of these rules and the
behaviour they enforce taken together.
The essence of communality was already known to thinkers of the past
many centuries ago. It is fairly well expressed in the formula: "Dog eat
dog", which subsequently has been attributed to bourgeois society only.
57
The essence of communality lies in people's struggle for existence and for
the betterment of their position in the social environment. The latter is
'
apprehended by them as something given by nature , often as something
largely alien and hostile, always as something which does not yield its
blessings without effort and struggle. From this historical perspective the
struggle of all against all forms the basis of human life.
The essence of communality as we have described it is not an absolute
evil any more than it is an absolute good. It is an objective fact , in the same
sense that the negative pole of an electron is not evil any more than the
positive pole of a proton is good. Everything which we regard as good or
evil springs from the essence of communality in equal measure . Within
communality, moreover, evil forms the basis for good and good inevitably
begets evil. In the nature of human society there is no inherent embryonic
morality or criteria for the evaluation of what goes on. These are the
artificial inventions of civilization.

THE BASIC IDEA

O N E C A N N O T S A Y that Communism as a type of society derives directly

from communality any more than it would be true to say that Capitalism
derives directly from economics or from commodity-money relations. The
rise of Capitalism required the appearance on the market of the com
modity known as free labour and a series of other conditions. The rise of
Communism is similarly conditioned. It was only because these conditions
were present that communal relations between people have proliferated
through all the spheres of social life and become dominant. Communism
derives from communality in these conditions.
The conditions we are speaking of are not the actual historical
circumstances in which the Communist order arose in this country or that.
You will remember that we have agreed to abstract from these circum
stances. These conditions are something that always exists in the life of any
society: they are constantly regenerated and serve as the basis for the very
continuation of that society's life. These conditions should be looked for
not in the pre-history or the history of a society but in its present-day life.
Moreover , they should appear as something evident, generally known,
usual, mundane . Here the intellect is required not for the purpose of
discovering something hidden in the crannies and depths of the syste m , but
for the identification of what is determinant for the formation of a certain
type of society in what is obvious and well known.
If we look at such a classical model of Communist society as the Soviet
58
Union , it is easy to see that it has a ery complex structure ; a variegated
industry and agriculture, a system of administration and culture of
immense ramifications and a particular territorial composition. We shall
notice, moreover, that some elements of the structure protect and preserve
its integrity, while others in a sense form autonomous parts of it which
themselves are also integral , albeit on a smaller scale. And these parts have
an interesting quality: in some respects they are a microcosm of society as a
whole. This is evident not only in the case of such large territorial units as
whole republics, but also in the case of smaller, but still quite large entities
like the district (krai) , the province (oblast') , and the region (raion) . But
this resemblance can go still further and embrace individual institutions
(plants, factories, institutes, collective farms). We find the limits of its
extent in the smallest components of the society which themselves possess
some of the essential features of the larger components and of the society
as a whole. They are what we may call the elementary cells or nuclei.
Indeed it is in these cells which are common to all parts of the social
structure from the smallest nuclei up to and including the whole, that one
must look for the most unshakeable foundations of that society.
Historically, Communist society, as seen in its classical model offering
almost laboratory conditions of study, took shape along many lines at
once. It was formed in a way which united the country. Its various
components were differentiated and combined in various ways. Life was
standardized in all regions, in all spheres, at all levels. It was this
standardization of life in all its aspects right down to the level of
elementary cell and the formation of a standardized cell structure for all
areas and organs of the society as a whole which form the essence of the
historical process whereby contemporary Communist society came into
being. In many other countries history seems to have taken a different
course from the one it took in the case of the Soviet Union, yet essentially
the result has been the same: the formation of a standard structure and the
standardization of life in all the cells of the whole.
Of course the process of standardization was two-way, involving the
influence of the whole on the part and the part on the whole. There was a
process of mutual adaptation and "levelling out " . But once that had
happened this reflection of the parts in the whole and of the whole in the
parts became the norm for that society.
George Orwell , in his remarkable book 1 984, did observe some features
of Communist society. But despite my admiration for this author, I should
say that he understood little about its essence . In particular, he did not
know what is most important - the way in which the life of society is
enacted at its fundamental level, at the level of the cell. It is a mistake to
regard Communism as something foisted on people by force and fraud
from above. It constantly wells up from below, from the cells. And it is
59
here that the system obtains its constant support. It is only on this
foundation that it grows and is supported from above. Here "above" is a
relative concept: "above" also has a cell structure. but occupies a special
position in the cell hierarchy.
Of course . the isolation of the cell as the starting-point for the analysis of
the whole entails a whole series of abstractions. For example, not all
citizens enter society directly via its cells. Children and old men,
pensioners and invalids, people in the "liberal" professions live outside
them. They are not tied to institutions nor do they figure at a definite place
of work. Or if they are connected with the cells it is only via people who are
tied to them. The majority of the population, however, are members of
society because they are members of its cells. All the rest of society is in
one way or another subordinate to this base and is dependent on it, or at
any rate has no real influence on the standard style of social life. Any
exceptions to the rule can be considered at a later stage .

COMM UNA LITY

I HAVE D E S C R I B E D i n some detail what communality i s i n the books to

which I have already referred. Many people took that description to be
some kind of literary device or at best considered it as a description of a
Soviet society in which the people had been corrupted by the conditions
obtaining within it. But in fact it was a fully scientific description of the
phenomenon of communality, which has a universal human character. I
emphasize the word "scientific" , because the description is valid by virtue
of a whole series of abstractions about which I spoke earlier. Here I shall
only present a part of that description together with some additions and
explanations that are appropriate to the context of this book.
The laws of communality are the same always and everywhere where
there are numbers of people large enough to allow one to speak of society.
These laws are simple and in a sense generally known, or at least known to
a significant number of people. If this were not so then social life in general
would be impossible . People in practice live in society according to
communal rules and are aware of them out of necessity. For the laws of
communality it is a matter of indifference what unites people in society.
They operate in one way or another once people have come together for a
long enough period in large enough collectives.
The laws of communality are the rules which determine people's actions
and conduct in relation to one another. These rules stem from the struggle
of people and groups of people in society to defend themselves and better
60
their lot, as they have done throughout history and always will do .
Examples of such rules include the following: give less and take more; risk
the minimum to gain the maximum; minimize personal responsibility and
maximize the possibilities for distinction and social standing; minimize
dependence on others while maximizing the dependence of others on
oneself. The ease with which people discover these rules for themselves
and acquire them is striking. This is explained by the fact that these rules
are natural and correspond to the socio-biological nature of human
individuals and groups as it has evolved historically.
People learn to behave according to the laws of communality. They learn
by experience, by watching others, or via their upbringing by others, or
their education or by experiment. The rules insinuate themselves of their
own accord. People have the nous to discover the rules for themselves, and
indeed society offers people immense possibilities for practice. In most
cases people do not even take account of the fact that they are undergoing
a systematic apprenticeship for the role of communal individuals as they
act out what seems to them their normal daily lives. Nor can they avoid this
apprenticeship, because unless they have mastered the rules of communal
ity they will be unable to cope with life. Although communal laws are
natural, people prefer to keep silent about them and even conceal them.
The progress of humanity has been to a considerable degree a process of
inventing means of limiting and regulating the operation of communal
laws. These means include morality, truth , religion , freedom of the press
and of opinion, public opinion itself, ideas of humanism, and so on. For
centuries people have been taught to adapt their behaviour to forms which
are acceptable from the viewpoint of these limiting factors and to hide
whatever is reprehensible. It is not surprising that communal forms of
behaviour seem to them something disreputable and sometimes even
criminal. Individually people are so formed that the communal rules
appear to them only as possibilities which need not exist , or as specially
cunning inventions of their own. When they do talk of this or that law of
communality, however, they deprive it of actual human status and ascribe
it to some rotten form of society. (The Marxist ascribes it to Capitalism,
naturally.) They suppose that in a different, noble type of society
(Communism , of course) there will be no place for communal behaviour.
But this is a great mistake. There is nothing inhuman about the laws of
communality, which are no more inhuman than the laws of friendship,
mutual help or respect. The latter are fully compatible with the former and
fully explicable as having derived from them. But whether a human or
inhuman type of society takes root in this or that country does not depend
on the communal laws themselves, but on whether the population has been
able to develop institutions which counteract and limit the force of these
communal laws. Only where such institutions do not exist in a society or
61
where they are weakly developed, will the forces of communality gain
great strength and determine the physiognomy of the country, and indeed
the character of the institutions notionally designed to protect people from
their effects. What will then develop is a type of society in which there will
flourish hypocrisy, together with violence , corruption, bad management,
irresponsibility, poor workmanship, cheating, boorishness, idleness , disin
formation . deceit. drabness and a system of perks for the "privilegentsia".
In this respect a perverted valuation of the worth of the individual asserts
itself; nonentities are exalted, significant personalities are debased. Mor
ally superior citizens are subjected to pe rsecution , the more talented and
active are brought down to the level of the mediocre and incompetent.
Moreover. it is not necessarily the authorities who do this. Colleagues,
friends, neighbours, co-workers do everything they can to prevent a
talented man from revealing his individuality or the active man from rising
in the world. This tendency takes on a mass-character and pervades all
aspects of life, and nowhere more so than in the creative and administra
tive spheres. The threat of the society's being turned into a barracks begins
to prevail and affects the psychological state of the citizens. Boredom and
depression reign and people constantly expect the worst. A society of this
type is doomed to stagnation and chronic decay if it cannot find in itself
forces that will oppose this tendency. Moreover, this situation can last for
centuries.

C O M M U N A L I N D I V I D U A L S : THE B A S I C U N IT

T H E S I M P L ES T C O M M U N A L (or social) unit is the individual. He possesses a

body and an organ for controlling his body which allows him to foresee the
most immediate and vitally important consequences of the majority of his
own actions and of the actions of other people affecting him. His basic
principle here is this: do not act in a way that harms yourself, prevent other
individuals from acting to harm you , see that your living conditions don't
get worse, do all you can to make them better. This principle derives from
man's biological evolution. But it is precisely as the product of that past
evolution that man enters communal life and operates according to that
fundamental principle. He is incapable of changing it. He can overcome it
only by subjecting himself to it.
Applied to the communal environment the principle works like this: the
individual tries to preserve , consolidate and improve his social position, or
at any rate to prevent its getting worse. But how is he to achieve this? The
most typical and basic position in which the individual finds himself in
62
society is that all the most tempting places have already been allotted, that
either there are no free places left, or only the worst ones and that there
are other people wanting the better ones. It is quite obvious that in this
state of affairs the principle can only be realized for the individual at the
expense of other individuals: he is forced to prevent others strengthening
their social position and seeks to weaken their position. In the conditions
of the communal environment, when an individual is sufficiently and
securely protected from the collective , another individual becomes the
enemy; one on whom the realization of the fundamental principle for each
of them depends. Moreover, social life not only does not weaken the
principle, it strengthens it many times over by creating countless temp
tations and seductions for people.
Are there any possible deviations from this principle? Yes , of course.
Here are the main ones. The first is opting out of the communal
environment itself; for example, an individual can isolate himself and be
content with the most miserable scrapings. The situation is like the one
which obtains in respect of the laws of gravity: one can avoid falling by not
going anywhere high . The second possibility lies through the expansion of
the sphere of social activity: for instance, one can seize new territory, or
create new institutions. The third entails the coming into play of other
human relations which paralyse or obscure the operation of the forces of
communality. (These would be, for instance, family relationships, or
relationships with friends, intimate or otherwise. ) A fourth possibility
involves a degree of intermediacy, whereby an individual seeks to help
others consolidate their position as a means (so he calculates) of
consolidating his own. Fifthly, people can join forces for the joint
strengthening of their positions.
Furthermore, not everything that a man does on his own account is
necessarily to the disadvantage of his neighbours. And, even if it is, it isn't
for all of them. It will in fact suit many. One might also mention the
mistakes people make in their calculations and the unforeseen conse
quences of their actions. Finally, there are people in society who make the
happiness of others their own egotistical goal: this is how they assert
themselves. There are other sources of deviation, including certain typical
psychic illnesses.
These deviations in no way change the operation of the fundamental
principle that governs the behaviour of communal individuals. First, the
number of instances of behaviour that conform to it far exceeds the
number of instances that do not. Second, deviations from it are in most
cases caused by the fact that, in one way or another, it still lies at the heart
of human behaviour: as , for instance, when one individual does another
individual a good turn in order to improve his own position or to damage
someone else's.
63
 It does not follow from what has been said that man is a born evil-doer.
By nature he is neither good nor bad. B ut if he is obliged to do something
because of the fundamental principle of his communal existence, and he
can do it with impunity, then he does it. Nothing in him prevents him or
inhibits him from acting in this way. From this point of view man is a
creature capable of anything. It is society which develops the limiting
factors which constrain this creature's behaviour, and it is only in the
framework of such factors (whether prohibitions or encouragements) that
man acquires virtues. What is perceived as deriving from man himself is in
reality only the reflection of social inhibitions in the consciousness and
behaviour of individuals. Self-control is only external control at one
remove. The only inhibitors of man's behaviour are other individuals; but
he experiences them as something within himself.

C O M M U N A L I N D I V I D U A L S : C O M P L E X U N I TS

Two OR M O R E people form an integral communal individual if, and only if,
the following conditions are fulfilled: 1) this group of people relates to the
environment as a unit ; 2) there takes place within it the same distribution
of "body" and "brain" functions as was observed in the case of the
individual person, the former being governed by the latter; 3) there is a
division of functions among the individuals who are governed.
This formulation is not a generalization from empirical facts, nor is it
something discovered in the observable world. It is a definition of the term
"communal individual" applied to groups of two or more persons. More
exactly, it could be formulated like this: in respect of groups of two or more
people, we will term "communal individual" that group of people for
whom such and such conditions are fulfilled.
The relationship of such expressions to reality is not characterized
according to concepts of truth or falsity, but quite otherwise ; namely, are
there in reality groups conforming with the definition "communal individ
ual" or not? If we define a rhombus as a quadrangle with equal sides, then
the statement "the rhombus is a quadrangle with equal sides" is neither
true nor false . It merely introduces the word "rhombus" into circulation .
So it is in our case. Communal individuals of still greater complexity are
formed, not out of separate people but from groups of people who are
themselves separate individuals. Here the division of "body" and "brain"
functions is replicated and their functions are distributed among different
people, or indeed among the different individuals which make up the unit.
In complex individuals the functions of the governing organ can be carried
64
out by individuals which in their turn are also complex and by combina
tions of such individuals. What is significant here is that people do not
thereby lose their "body" or their "governing organ" . The division and
distribution of functions concerns combinations of people: in a complex
individual its functions as a new whole with respect to its parts are carried
out by different people and groups of people who retain all their own
functions as whole entities at a lower level. On this basis there develops
what we might call the "alienation of functions". Just as in the case of the
human body a certain percentage of the cells is singled out for the role of
member cells of the governing organ, in complex individuals a certain
percentage of the people present themselves as suitable for membership of
governing organs of the new , more complex whole.
Although this is a trivial and generally known phenomenon , for some
reason all the critics of "totalitarian" and "bureaucratic" regimes obsti
nately ignore it. They dream of a society which lacks these defects, i . e . , a
society which in effect would be without government or organization. Of
course, such an ideal society is possible, but only in the short term , as an
anomaly in some larger and more normal whole or at the most primitive
organizational level.
If an entity which can be considered as a communal individual is
sufficiently complex then there will be a division and distribution of other
essential functions of the individual such as an informational function
enabling the governing organ to monitor the state of what it is governing,
the functions of disseminating truth or falsehood, threats and encourage
ment, and others. In my books I have given a description of this
phenomenon which is valid for a wide range of such functions. Here I want
to make the point that in a sufficiently large human collective all virtues
and defects which are theoretically inherent in man are personified as
functions of separate people and groups of people who fulfil these very
functions as the functions of some huge social individual.
In a division of functions at that level their distribution between different
people and groups of people becomes a matter of chance. Thus virtuous
functions can fall to the scoundrels , and the scoundrel's role to people who
are decent. Very often, at any rate, these functions do not coincide with
people's personal characteristics. In differing situations one and the same
individual may fulfil different functions, and one and the same function
may be fulfilled by people of different character. The apparent instability
of people's character and role can be explained by the simplicity of these
roles and their accessibility to everyone, but also in terms of the impressive
adaptability of people which allows them to play different roles. In actual
fact this engenders a high degree of stability in social groups and enables
the mass to organize itself speedily in standard forms.

65
 COMMUNAL BEHAVlOUR

THE BASIC P R I N C I P L E of the communal individual is realized in a whole

system of people's behaviour. To describe it would need a whole science,
and people spend many years of their lives mastering it. In my books I have
given many examples of the operation of these rules of behaviour in very
different social spheres. Here I shall offer a few important general remarks
on the subject.
Any conscious act performed by a person (including voluntary acts)
which influences his social position or that of other people I designate an
instance of communal behaviour or communal act. A person is aware of
the communal significance of such behaviour. In time much of it becomes
automatic but that does not alter the fact that it is fundamentally or
potentially conscious. Such behaviour is learned consciously as a set of
skills and if necessary the conscious nature of such activity can be re
established. A person may deceive himself and others about the nature of
his behaviour, but objectively it remains the same. For instance , he may
imagine to himself and indicate to others that he is concerned with the
good of the state when he rejects the candidature of another man for the
Party bureau on the grounds that he is unreliable in his living habits (he
drinks a lot or is unfaithful to his wife), but in reality this behaviour is
dictated by the basic principle of behaviour of the communal individual: it
weakens the position of that candidate as regards membership of the Party
bureau, an aim which the man rejecting the candidature achieves by
denouncing the other man publicly. Toadying to authority quickly becomes
a habit . B ut even when he has toadied a thousand times, the toady will be
perfectly aware of the reality of his toadying. One of the most dreadful
forms of masking the disgusting character of a whole series of communal
actions is "sincerity". B ut do not believe that this sincerity is natural,
because there is no such thing in nature. The most extreme fanatics will
act, and indeed do act, according to the rules of communal expediency.
Not all instances of communal behaviour are equivalent . Many have
trivial consequences, many have none . But there are instances of com
munal behaviour which determine the physiognomy of society, its soul and
its nature. They also provoke other instances of communal behaviour and
influence people's behaviour in every aspect of their lives. The percentage
of such communal acts in the general mass of human actions is insignifi
cantly small. Usually they are performed in such a way that they cannot be
distinguished from other actions, or are simply not noticed at all. They go
unpunished and are even encouraged. Once again I refer the reader to my
other books where I give a more detailed description of communal
behaviour.
66
 If people commit communal acts in certain situations in a more or less
stereotyped way, one can speak of the stereotype of communal behaviour
for the society in question, or about the persistent communal atmosphere
of a society. People live their lives in that atmosphere as if it were
something natural and habitual. They usually do not even notice that it is
oppressive and that it forces them to behave according to the generally
accepted stereotype much more effectively than the fear of punishment by
special organs of suppression such as the KGB . Since people in the West
are only dimly aware of the communal atmosphere in which Soviet people
live, they are always inclined to regard their behaviour as something
unnatural and performed out of fear of the organs of state security. In fact,
the latter intrude in people's lives only exceptionally, when individual
members of society escape from the influence of the usual communal
atmosphere. In the overwhelming majority of cases there is no need for the
incursion of these organs. Soviet people already reproduce the behavioural
stereotype that is appropriate to their form of society from generation to
generation and preserve their own communal atmosphere in a stable
condition . But this would not have been possible without the development
in society of more or less standardized living conditions in which this
behavioural stereotype, the product of communal rules, could become
natural.
There is a whole unwritten (or not yet written) science of communal
behaviour. Many citizens master it in its entirety. Here is what was said on
the subject in Notes of a Nightwatchman .
Every individual who wishes to get a tastier or more generous helping at
life's banquet must convince those surrounding him that, as bastards go, he
is average, run-of-the-mill and of only moderate talent. This law is
inevitable. But there are other laws which mask it and modify its outward
appearance. Imagine someone coming forward in a circle of Soviet writers,
artists or academics and saying this: "I am a real shit. Just ask me and I will
write a denunciation. I will sign any letter smearing dissidents. I will write
an arse-Iicking portrait of Brezhnev." Would such a person meet with
success? No. Yet this is the sort of thing that everyone does, and that is
precisely why they are successful. So what is the point? The point is that
there is another law of behaviour which is this: in this society mediocrity
must take the form of talent, vice must take the form of virtue,
denunciations must become a matter of courage and honesty, and slander
sacred truth. It is for that reason that the individual must operate the first
law for the achievement of success in a form that satisfies the second law.
The fact that everyone knows that he is a bastard doesn't matter. What is
important is that he is a bastard who conforms to the rules of communality
and accordingly makes an impression of decency. He has to behave
correctly (according to the rules!) so that, formally, there is no way of
67
revealing him for what he is.
Further. every individual begins to fight for his share of the cake when all
the roles have already been distributed, all the good places taken and when
those in possession won't give them up without a fight. Can the individual
afford to wait until somebody notices him and recognizes his true worth?
Society tries to encourage people to moderate their career expectations,
that is to persuade them to wait until others recognize that worth. It
happens of course that people are noticed and given their due. But rarely.
And in unimportant positions . In the most important posts the principle
operates which exposes the total vacuity of the proverbial "everything
comes to him who waits". The individual usually knows that people around
him are capable of noticing and evaluating his worth, but that they will do
what suits them.
And what if there isn't any worth? An individual has to display a certain
minimum of activity in order to be noticed and evaluated formally. But
how? Will he succeed if he sets his sights very high and, for instance , begins
to denounce the high-ups in his sphere? No, of course not. There is another
law of communal life, the law of proportionality. According to this law a
person must convince those who surround him (or at least the most
influential number of them) that his own claims do not threaten their
position. If the individual is to risk breaking this law, he must make use of
another law from the same category which is this: put the powerful and
influential into a position in which they will be compelled to satisfy the
inordinate claims of the individual.
But this doesn't often happen. Usually the law of proportionality
operates in conjunction with the law of gradualness. The individual should
claim a big piece of the cake only after he has received a smaller piece , got
used to it and accustomed those around him to regard it as well-deserved.
In this way his growing claims look like the natural reward for his services .
Besides, for every bastard who i s beginning his career there i s another
bastard who has the reputation of being an even bigger one. This is also a
law: communal individuals throw champion bastards out of their environ
ment in order that their own behaviour should not be noticed and should
seem to be the norm. And the path the bastard takes when starting out on
his career should look like the path of the development of Communist
society from greater to less skulduggery - i . e . like progress . To be a
participant in progress , to be in the forefront and to be progressive: that is
also demanded of individuals in Communist society.
In my books I have presented numerous rules of communal behaviour
illustrated by examples taken from my experience of Soviet life. I shall give
two more hypothetical examples in order to illustrate some general
propositions. Here is the first example. Imagine some sphere of activity
where the participants are more or less the same, or at any rate
68
comparable. It has its prominent figures and its below-average individuals,
but, as they all know, there is not a great difference between them . But
then they notice that someone has joined them who quite possibly will
quickly and decisively surpass them all. Will they welcome this event which
promises to do considerable damage to their own prestige? Of course not.
They will be embittered and will want to get rid of him. That their attitude
is thoroughly natural is precisely the point. The rules of communal
behaviour are generally natural . If these people have the chance, without
damage to themselves, of preventing the appearance of an individual who
threatens, they will do it. But can the individual nevertheless make it in the
end? He can if there are other people who are interested in his success for
their own private purposes and who can preserve him from his colleagues
who are trying to get rid of him. Such cases constantly occur in sport , in
science, in art and in other spheres.
These other people who help the individual to fight his way through are
also acting according to communal rules. They have their own concerns. In
real life people's actions and interests are intertwined in such a complex
way that the detection of communal rules in this jungle is only rarely
possible. Over everything there reigns a hypocritical atmosphere of
friendship, mutual assistance, and willingness to cover up for each other.
Consequently, the real mechanisms of human behaviour remain deeply
hidden in the confusion of actions and words.
The second example is this. Suppose that author A has written a good
book. Suppose author B is an enemy of A and wants to cause him harm . To
the casual observer he appears to defend A's book. But there are several
ways of defending a book, and so B , in his defence of A, reduces the status
of the book to some mediocre level. He can't severely criticize A because
that would discredit B and draw attention to A. So B praises A , and
thereby preserves his own reputation as a decent fellow, while at the same
time he reduces A to the level of mediocrity. In these conditions B causes
damage to A in a way which suits his own interests. This example is
hypothetical in terms of its exposition, but it is not contrived and is wholly
characteristic. In our comparatively highly educated age people develop
surprisingly refined and effective skills in the matter of harming their
neighbour without harming themselves. Occasionally this behaviour can
even enhance their own reputation . The rules of communal behaviour
retain their full force in the deep workings of our lives, however decorous
society may appear on the surface .
The communal behaviour of complex individuals (that is groups of
people and groups of these groups) is replicated in the behaviour of their
governing organs and the behaviour of the latter in that of the most basic
individual units. Of course the complexity of large populations comprising
single individuals can give rise to new rules which govern the behaviour of
69
the latter. but in general the behaviour of complex individuals and single
individuals is analogous. From this point of view, for example , the Soviet
Union as a whole behaves like the average Soviet citizen: it is unreliable ,
mendacious, hypocritical, it is boorish from a position of strength , cringes
in the face of superior strength, and in addition is absolutely sincere.
In the West people are surprised at the behaviour of the Soviet Union in
the person of its government. Yet , its behaviour is perfectly natural. The
country is the classic example of the communal individual. Within it the
coincidence of the types of behaviour of individual people , individual
communes and of the country as a whole is very striking indeed.

COMMUNAL RELATIONS

THE B A S I C C O M M U N A L relations o f individuals are those they have with the

group to which they belong, the relations of the group to individuals, and
the relations between individuals within the group. Derivative communal
relationships are , for example, those of the individual to other individuals
outside the group, or of the individual to society as a whole and of society
to him .
The overwhelming majority of individuals do not enter society directly,
but via a group or hierarchy of groups. The relationship between the
individual and his immediate group is determined by the degree of
dependence of the individual on the group, and vice versa. The individual's
dependence tends towards the maximal and the group's towards the
minimal. The group tries to put the individual in a position in which he is
dependent on it for everything he receives from society , and for everything
which he contributes to society. The group tries to control the individual's
rewards and punishments, his productive activity and his personal life. And
the group has the basis and the obvious means of so doing, because it is the
group which pays the individual for his participation in social life. I
emphasize again that he participates in society as a member of the group
and not as an individual person.
There are, of course, people who enjoy a large degree of independence
from their immediate group, but these are exceptions. Besides in such
circumstances there is another imprecisely defined group to which these
people belong in practice. The dependence of the individual on the group
is in reality his dependence on those members of the group who fulfil the
functions of watching over him on behalf of the group. These individuals
who exercise this monitoring function can change depending on the
situation, but the tendency is against change. Usually the head man, boss
70
or leader of the group fulfils this function together with his official or
voluntary helpers. Other members of the group, especially those who are
hostile to the individual, help them. This kind of supervision is a perfectly
natural and healthy phenomenon, without which the integrity of the group
as a communal individual is impossible. The individual tries to weaken his
dependence on the group, to which the group reacts in conformity with the
principle: "nobody is irreplaceable". The individual knows this and usually
restrains himself within reasonable bounds. The bounds are exceeded
when the individual deserts the group or regards himself as only nominally
a member of it. If the individual cannot rely on strong protection when he
has deserted the group, then it will punish him in one way or another.
Conflicts between the individual and the group normally end with victory for
the group, unless the individual is protected from without . The relations
between the individual and the group are very well known from the evidence
about certain types of groups, especially gangster bands. Here I am only
establishing their general rules. Gangster groups can be regarded as
laboratory examples in which scientific abstractions are strikingly embodied.
Communal relations within the group are divided into relations of
subordination and co-ordination. Subordinate relations are those which
exist between those who manage and those who are managed. They reflect
the division of functions between the governing organ and the governed
body. Of course in these relations there is an element of compulsion, and
sometimes they are established as a result of force exercised by some
people over others. However, this compulsion has a voluntary basis. The
rank-and-file recognize the bosses as such and carry out their wishes, which
gives them the means of existence. The bosses for their part depend on the
rank-and-file in the sense that their position and prospects depend on the
latter's behaviour. This relationship is one of mutual advantage , and helps
to ensure a stable society. Instances of conflict between the bosses and
their underlings, and attempts to destroy this form of dependence, should
be understood as deriving from the positive aspect of the relationship.
The relations between boss and underling are a particular instance of
domination and submission. Its special character derives from the fact that
the people on top are chosen or designated by law or custom. They are not
in office because of privilege of birth, economic advantage, physical force
or any other non-communal circumstances. Of course these circumstances
play their role too, but one must exclude them at the outset because they
are not of the essence of the matter. The children of the ruling elite, for
example, have more chance of attaining important posts, but nevertheless
they become bosses according to the rules of selection or designation which
are recognized by the members of society as rules which are j ust.
The relationship between those who govern and those who are governed
is obviously one of inequality from the very beginning. In principle it is
71
ineradicable once society exists. Inequality is intensified by virtue of the
hierarchical ordering of the groups, for the rank of the social position of
the boss increases with the rank within the hierarchy of the group under his
charge . The relationship between the bosses and the bossed is one of the
bases of the different forms of coercion in a society where communal
relations are generalized and encouraged. The general principle of the
relationship is this: the social position of the boss is higher than his
subordinates; he is seen as being of more value to the group than his
subordinates; his remuneration is higher than his subordinates' . This
principle is recognized by everyone , since otherwise there would not be
any unity within the group. The boss seeks to maximize his subordinates'
dependence on him, and to minimize his dependence on them. The rank
and-file naturally try to minimize their dependence on the boss and
maximize his dependence on them. It is only through this struggle between
the two tendencies that some kind of balance emerges. It is constantly
being upset because social life is an organic process which is constantly in
flux. But means exist for re-establishing the balance one way or another or
for re-ordering the individual composition of groups.
Co-ordinate relations (of co-operation, collaboration) are regulated like
this. For the individual the greatest danger is another individual who has
greater possibilities than he has in terms which are important from the
social point of view: e . g . intellect, artistic talent, eloquence , versatility,
self-interest. This provides the motive for attempting to weaken the social
position of the superior individual; or where it is impossible to weaken
him, at least to prevent him strengthening his position; and if that can't be
done, at least to prevent his getting it all his way.
Thus the two-facedness, denunciations, slander, intrigue , double-crossing
which we normally encounter are not deviations from the norm but the norm
itself. Indeed, it is the opposite qualities that are the exceptions. Individuals
protest particularly vigorously when people in a similar social position (actual
colleagues or otherwise), achieve success in some endeavour which rises
noticeably above the average level (this happens especially in scientific work,
in art and in sport ) . Then unbelievable efforts are made to prevent or reduce a
colleague's success to the very minimum. On the other hand, it is not desirable
to weaken the positions of other individuals too much because that threatens
to create problems and stir up trouble.
The inescapable result of the principles of "co-operation" that we are
examining is a tendency to make everyone mediocre. Be like everyone
else : that principle is the very cornerstone of a society in which communal
laws are paramount. The individual aims at maximum independence from
all other individuals and to maximize the dependence on him of at least one
or two of them. The individual tries to shift unpleasant tasks which are his
responsibility on to the shoulders of somebody else. If an individual can get
72
away with breaching the moral code in his relationship with other
individuals and needs to , then he will breach it. If the individual can get
away with doing somebody a bad turn and needs to, he will do it. If an
individual can get away with stealing the product of somebody else's labour
and needs to, then he will. Examples of this are numerous: one can
instance the practice of adjudication for prizes, the issue of patents,
journeys to congresses, and plagiarism. The individual tries to duck
responsibility and to transfer it to someone else. The list of such principles
of behaviour is endless, and everyone knows them from his own experience
- merely, of course, in the guise of other people's shortcomings.
Communal relations outside the group between individuals are formed on
the basis of principles transferred from the rules governing relationships
within the group. There is a reason for this. Firstly, people acquire particular
behavioural habits. Secondly, every individual from outside the group with
whom a given individual has to do business is perceived by the latter as a
potential colleague , boss, or subordinate . Besides, there are numerous
occasions when the individual in the course of his work has regular business
with other individuals (shop assistants, militia-men , government servants,
university lecturers) and stands in relation to these individuals in exactly the
same position as he does in his own group. In this way unofficial quasi
communal groups are formed which act like communal ones. Moreover, in
such cases communal laws work more openly because efthe circumstance that
here there are fewer inhibiting factors. The boorishness and capricious
behaviour of functionaries, important or otherwise, the coarseness of shop
assistants, the arbitrariness of the militia, the open corruption in the public
services and in teaching institutions, the endless red tape: all these are not
minor defects, but the essence of the whole matter.
The position of the individual in the quasi-communal groups does not
necessarily coincide with his position in the communal groups. In the case
of the former, the boss of a normal group may be in the position of a
subordinate and conversely (although that more rarely happens). The
socio-psychological law of attention-switching and compensation is more
often realized in relations outside the group. The law in essence can be
reduced to the following: if an individual needs to do a bad turn to another
individual but is unable to achieve this, then , as compensation, he chooses
someone else as a sacrifice , that is to say a more or less suitable candidate
to whom he can do a bad turn with the least risk to himself.
What is typical in communal relations is not the competition between
independent individuals but their mutual involvement and their attempts
somehow to weaken that involvement and to overcome it.

73
 M A N A G E M ENT

T H E Q U ESTI O N O F the ruling elite (the bosses) and o f government generally

should receive special examination because that elite embodies the mind,

the honour and the conscience of society. I shall begin by formulating the
basic abstract truth which underlies the following analysis of leadership in
Communist society. Leadership posts are filled by suitable people.
Naturally bosses fulfil certain functions connected with the particular group
enterprise. This requires a minimum of education, intelligence and
practical capability, but not more than is possessed by very many people in
the general population . These qualities are taken for granted; they do not
play a decisive role. When hundreds of thousands and even millions of
managers are needed in a society, then it is senseless to talk about choosing
those with the most managerial flair. This is all the more so in Communist
society in which competition in the bourgeois sense is excluded and in
which the question of competence practically loses significance. Here the
situation is more like the one in which millions of people have a motor car:
there have to be special circumstances to prevent someone from becoming
a driver.
In my book, The Yawning Heights, I gave a brief but fairly adequate
description of management in a society in which communality is the rule . I
shall reproduce it here , with some slight abbreviations, because I feel it to
be sufficiently exact from a scientific point of view.
The leadership/management question is one of the central questions of
sociology since it is a question about the nature of the social groups which
make up a particular society. From this point of view the manager is in
principle adequate for the groups. The social type of the society is largely
characterized by its managerial type.
The position of the boss is socially better than that of the underling. That
is obvious to all normal people. Therefore management is not a function
that is fulfilled for the good of the people by high-minded martyrs. It is a
position for which people struggle bitterly, and the higher the rank, with its
concomitants of greater security and greater benefits, the more intense the
struggle.
The most important principle for the manager is the one which allows
him to present his own interests as those of the group, and to use the group
in a way which serves his own personal ends. If the boss does undertake
certain activities in the interests of the group, this is only because it is one
of the means of achieving his personal goals ; and, above all , one of his
means of making a career. A man who has organized things well can
sometimes, but by no means always, improve his career prospects. But
* This is a reference to a familiar CPSU slogan .

74
more often a career is more successful on account of its apparent (but
illusory) accomplishments and improvements, which is one of the causes of
eye-wash, disinformation and deliberate deceit.
Any hopes that the management will "take steps" , "look into it" or
"sort things out" are childishly nai:ve . The management prefers demagogy
about improvement to real improvement ; and if it does go after im
provement it will do so from fear of weakening its own position because of
the l ack of improvement, or from the wish to strengthen its own position ,
or because of its own internal intrigues. As regards the operation of
communal laws, management not only does not try to limit it but tries to
encourage it, for the reason that management itself is quintessentially a
product of these laws.
The position is analogous with respect to the relationship between what
is in the interests of the enterprise and the manager's interests. Only as a
result of external , non-communal reasons can it occur that the manager of
the group fulfils personal goals by way of securing the interests of the
enterprise itself. As a social norm the tendency is for the affairs of the
group to move independently of the manager, not only from the point of
view of his social position but from the organizational angle as well. The
social position of the manager tends towards independence, and is a
particular instance of the general law which applies to all members of the
group. The business of the manager is not the same as the business of the
group but has to do rather with moving up the managerial ladder, or
consolidating his current position and exploiting it for his own purposes,
including that of making a career.
The rules by which people are promoted and make a career develop
historically and become traditional. According to these rules managers at
the lowest level are appointed from the ranks of the averagely incompetent
(or competent, which is the same thing) and the averagely dim (bright)
who are suitable from many points of view. This principle of selection
applies also to higher levels of management insofar as these posts are filled
by incumbents from the lower levels, and so as the managerial level
increases there is a deterioration in the individual manager's real worth,
including his intellectual potential, cultural level and professional com
petence.
There are , however, circumstances which compensate for this tendency.
Firstly, there are the huge staffs of assistants, assessors and deputies as well
as the possibility of calling on the assistance of different types of
institutions. Moreover, the higher the manager's rank, the larger is the
group of people who carry out his management for him. For instance, the
speeches which are read out by the top leaders (party bosses) are put
together by hundreds of qualified people. The leaders themselves who read
out these speeches not only are incapable of writing them, they usually
75
scarcely understand them. However, all the aforementioned people are
themselves communal individuals, and they become members of the
leader's entourage in accordance with the laws of career-making, so that
the compensation we are talking about is largely fictitious. Secondly, there
is the systemic effect whereby a sufficiently large group of specialists, if
they adhere to the operational rules of that system , achieves in one way or
another the desired result.
Thirdly , there is the circumstance whereby the functions of management
become more primitive as the rank of the manager increases. The point is
that the individual . whatever position he holds, can only, because of his
physical limitations, make contact with a limited number of people and
express a limited number of judgements, none of which is even minimally
well-formed. Any ordinary individual of average competence or education
can master with average speed the functions of management on any level
so long as he has negotiated the associated steps on the career-ladder. The
difficulty here has nothing to do with management as an intellectual
activity but has to do with making a career, as such, which of course in
itself constitutes a special kind of professional activity. The profession of
manager consists mainly of being able to hold one's job, to fight one's way
up the ladder and to manoeuvre. Only to an insignificant degree is it
connected with its supposedly real function of managing people. For that
reason the people who seek managerial positions are those who are least
concerned with moral considerations and most incompetent from the
professional point of view.
The individual who sets out on the path of a managerial career is soon
convinced that it is an extremely easy one as regards the demands made
upon his intellect and capability, and a very advantageous one as regards
remuneration. The number of people who give up this profession later is so
small as to be practically non-existent . So there is nothing abnormal in the
fact that old men who have lost their faculties should occupy the top posts
and be unwilling to give them up. Besides the manager in such cases, once
a certain stage is reached, is only the symbol of a large group of persons
who have positions of power.
Finally, we should notice that management (or government) in con
ditions where there is no higher authority or more powerful body to whom
it is essentially responsible engenders a system where there are masters,
but no-one with a proprietorial sense of responsibility for the welfare of the
enterprise who invests in it something of himself, in other words, a system
epitomized by poor stewardship , irresponsibility and endless buck-passing.
The masters are only intent upon grabbing a more advantageous position
for themselves and holding on to it, without regard for future conse
quences. For reasons we have already stated, the system of management
(leadership) acquires a gangster mentality which informs its behaviour and
76
engenders an attitude of disregard for moral laws and an awareness of the
precariousness of one's position , which in turn induces the need for
everything to be constantly justified, corroborated, confirmed, or eradi
cated.
It is characteristic of the individual to try to make the positive results of
the work of others his own, and to shift responsibility for the negative
results of his own actions onto others. In the case of individual managers
(leaders) it takes the following form . All successes that are somehow or
other achieved by a given society or social group are counted as successes
achieved thanks to the wisdom of the management. Moreover, the nature
and extent of the participation of the management in the achievement of
the results is immaterial. Even if they have been achieved in the teeth of
the manager's opposition they are, nevertheless, in terms of the law that
we are examining, regarded as successes of management. Successes
achieved under a given management are , of course , the successes of that
management. This law operates with such force that even all the cultural
phenomena that once were persecuted and then rehabilitated are depicted
as the product of the highest governmental wisdom. Even phenomena
which have nothing to do with government at all (for instance good
weather, the monuments of ancient culture and natural resources) tend to
be regarded by the ruling elite as something they have personally given to
the people.
Furthermore, responsibility for all the negative consequences of the
government's throwing its weight about do not belong to the government,
but to those people , classes and organizations to which the government
considers it suitable to have the blame attributed. The government is able
to do this and does it. The government as such makes no mistakes. Usually
suitable guilty people are easily found, but if it is hard to find suitable
culprits, then they are invented. Insofar as it is difficult or practically
impossible to distinguish phenomena that are really the results of bad
management from phenomena that would have happened under any
management just the same, culprits are sought for any and all phenomena
in life that might be thought of as being the result of bad manage
ment.
In such cases the management acts with blind formality. The well-known
cases in which political leaders tried to present their own criminal activities
as an expression of the popular will, or as having been approved by the
people , are a particular case of the working of the laws that we are
examining. Hence the efforts of the leadership to present its own activity as
being for the good of the people, or as willed by the people, and indeed as
activity of the people itself. This is convenient. Successes of the people can
always be represented as successes of the government of the people, while
negative phenomena, in extremis, can be represented as the result of the
77
action of the people or as actions expressing its will and interests. The
efforts of criminal or amoral political leaders to make as many people as
possible co-participants of their crimes or immoral actions is not the evil
design of individual persons, but a product of the operation of the laws of
communality which people follow - often with a great deal of personal
pleasure .

CAREERISM

WHEN PEOPLE SPEAK about careerism they normally do not distinguish

between two phenomena: 1) careerism as a human characteristic which is
open to condemnation on moral grounds; 2) careerism as a natural desire
to move up the career ladder, such as exists in every complex, hierarchical
society. Careerism in the first sense is to be found in all societies, and is
also condemned in Communist societies. In Communist societies, how
ever, careerism in the second sense is developed to the highest degree,
because only a very few people can reach a high standard of living
exclusively on the basis of their own effort and talent. They include , for
instance , writers and painters, but even then by no means all of them . In
this area, too, there are ranks, titles, posts and privileged positions. In the
academic sphere the number of steps in the hierarchy is close to that of the
army. Even people who are born into the highest strata of society use their
advantage to further their career. In itself social advantage is not yet a
career. The number of posts in Communist countries is enormous. The
number of degrees in the hierarchy is also enormous. Movement up the
career ladder, therefore, is a normal affair for many millions of people , and
is the chief (and for the majority the only) way of raising one's standard of
living and of satisfying practical needs, as well as the requirements of
personal vanity and other elements of social life.
There is a detailed and elaborate system of unwritten rules for the
making of a career which forms part of the system of the rules of communal
behaviour. I have written about it in detail in my books. I shall reproduce a
few excerpts from them here so that the reader may get at least an initial
impression. In The Yawning Heights I formulated the following three
princip.Jes for making a career: one does not make a career; a career
makes itself; if it is making itself there is no need to interfere. Every help
given to a career that is making itself leads to obstacles. If a career is not in
the making one has to wait until it begins to take off. If this doesn't happen
the idea of a career is nonsensical . The only thing that is demanded of an
individual who is desperate to make a career is to reveal himself to society
78
as a potential careerist and wait for results. As a rule the desired results
happen. All one need do is be able to wait for them and to recognize them
in time. The careerist who has skipped over even one step of a normal
career must convince everyone that he is content with what he has got and
does not intend to skip further. No matter what "advanced" or "pro
gressive" ideas might be in the air, the careerist must convince all those
that matter that he is less "advanced" and "progressive" than these ideas
are .
And here is what is said in In the Ante-Chamber of Paradise. There are
several career channels. Each of them has a particular ceiling, offers
particular chances of reaching that ceiling, promises particular advantages
and exacts a particular price. Between the channels there are different
types of interrelationship. Here is one of the laws governing them. Let us
say that there are three channels, A. B and C. B and C are such that A
takes precedence over B , while B takes precedence over C as regards their
relative ceiling. Suppose you were making a career in channel B and
decided for some reason , or were forced, to change channel . If you transfer
to channel A, regardless of the position you occupy, in the eyes of the
people on whom your further promotion depends, you revert to a career
level one step lower than you were in channel B ; i . e . your promotion will
be relatively retarded. But, conversely, if you switch to channel C your
promotion is relatively accelerated. Thus a kind of career constant is
preserved: in the first case you pay for the improvement in your prospects,
in the second you are paid for their deterioration.
Just as in the army there are general staff officers and separate army
commanders, there are generalist careerists and those who are more
specialized. Generalists take the road of general Party work or of Party
representational work: they become secretaries of Party organizations in
institutions, district committees, town committees, regional committees.
Many people would like to take this road but few succeed. The total figure
of those who succeed is colossal in the country, but is small compared with
the number who fail. Selection for a general Party career is done most
carefully and along many parameters. The system is the holy of holies
within the system which perpetuates the Party's power, and because the
selection is done by many people, by many ranks of the hierarchy and
along many parameters, it is the most ordinary and mediocre person with
an irreproachable curriculum vitae who is chosen. It is similar to the
situation which would obtain if there were a sports competition that
included a hundred compulsory events; the champion would be pretty
mediocre in any one event.
The Party apparatus channel differs from the general Party channel, i n
the same way a s the career routes o f staff officers and commanders differ.
Party careerists taking the generalist route are elected to Party office, to
79
regional, municipal and Party conferences and congresses, and become
district and municipal Party secretaries, or members of the Central
Committee and the Politburo. Although these elections are a sham from
the Western point of view, officially they are elections. Members of the
Party apparat, however, are selected in the usual fashion : strictly , by
special criteria, but they are not formally chosen in open assembly. People
enter the apparat quietly and inconspicuously. No publicity is given to their
selection. Here people are chosen who are neither particularly competent
nor particularly mediocre, but who can fulfil official bureaucratic functions,
and who are reliable by other criteria, because the apparat has to deal with
real power and affairs which really matter.
The career-problem is problem number one for the overwhelming
majority of the most active part of society. To describe the system of rules
for career-making in Communist society is in large measure to describe
that society itself, and the type of person which dominates it. To occupy a
definite place on the hierarchical official ladder, to keep it for oneself, to
behave in such a way as to have a prospect of taking the next step
constitute the basis and mainspring in the life of the most active and
creative section of the community. Incidentally, the need to take the next
step in one's career is from the beginning a means of holding and
strengthening one's previous position before attempting to move a little bit
further up. This compulsion to observe the rules whereby a position is
acquired and retained turns the best part of the citizenry into creatures who
evoke the horror and anger of every kind of moralist. But the creatures
themselves and those surrounding them do not regard this as anything
frightful. They perceive the rules of career-orientated behaviour in the
same way as high society regards the rules of bon ton. Rules are rules, and
as a matter of fact there is a certain j ustice which arises out of these rules by
which careerists are guided: on average , in the main, people tend to be
adequate for their positions. Of course , other people could also be
adequate and even a tiny bit better: but what can you do? You can't make
everyone ministers, generals, academics , or directors.
To this can be added the following. After a certain level in the hierarchy
the way things go does not depend on the person nominally in charge . It
depends on the general context in relation to the matter in hand and on the
general rules of the system. The manager operates within that framework.
He may have taken part in the elaboration of the system, but this doesn't
change his own position very much . If a man wants to get the job of
managing some enterprise or other he must recommend himself in some
way to those who have the power of appointment. Moreover, usually those
who are desperate for a managerial post are not counting on a particular
post in question . They are counting on a post somewhere. But the people
who decide their destiny and the offices which select the candidate do so
80
from a given number of careerists who are after a given vacancy. In this
situation the personal interests and calculations of the majority of the
people who take part in the selection and in the nomination of the manager
play the decisive role. Among the parameters which influence the
selection the intellectual level of the candidates is of decidedly secondary
importance. This gives an advantage to people of mediocre ability. In any
particular case this does not matter all that much: as a rule the mediocre
people fulfil their functions well enough. But taken as a whole this
contributes to the tendency towards a decrease in the intellectual level of
management and of society as a whole.
The case of careerism is characteristic from the methodological point of
view. Many of the negative qualities in people and in the society as a whole
can also be seen in other societies. But this fact in no way vindicates
Communist society. It is important to state that these negative qualities
exist in Communist society as well, and that as such they flourish.
Furthermore, it is important to me to show why they continually appear
and by what mechanism they do so. In the given case of careerism we see
the following: Communist society, because of its irreversible laws of
organization and government, has an enormous quantity of managerial
posts integrated in a complex hierarchy. People's promotion up the career
ladder is a natural and inevitable phenomenon deriving from the very
existence of this society. Outstanding talent and industriousness play a
comparatively small role in the efforts of people to better their own
position. They are of use only to the few. And even for most of those who
do possess these qualities they are only of indirect use in their career.
Average, even minimal , ability and training is enough for the fulfilment of
all (or nearly all) managerial functions. For these and other reasons (which
I have already touched on and shall speak about later) there is a ceaseless
embittered struggle in society for managerial positions, which naturally
engenders the morally reprehensible phenomenon of careerism. More
over, within this general maelstrom of careerism a brand of individual is
beginning to appear whom even the officially recognized careerists find
disagreeable.

A S S U M P T I O N S A N D R E A LI T Y

I wANT TO remind the reader that although I have been talking until now
about communality as a general human phenomenon, I have been
examining it in terms of the way in which it becomes a dominant factor in
people's lives. This is clearly what happens in a developed Communist
81
society. In addition I made a number of assumptions, some of them
obvious. others perhaps not . The most typical of them are these: 1 )
i!ldividuals perform a l l communal actions o f their own free will: they are
free actions: 2) every communal individual holds a position in society
which corresponds to his personal worth: 3) everybody receives from
society according to his contribution: 4) the needs of an individual are
suited to his social position.
From these assumptions other statements follow logically, for instance:
5) the individual's remuneration fits his social position: 6) the individual's
needs are always satisfied . These assumptions with their consequences arc
not arbitrary: they reflect the norms and the tendencies of society. I arrived
at them from the observation of facts . But to make such assumptions I had
to perform a complex operation and abstract from the circumstances which
were concealing and modifying the manifestations of these principles or
laws of social life in a Communist regime. That was , however, a purely
intellectual operation, a research method which reflects nothing in itself,
but acts as a kind of mirror for the attainment of understanding.
By themselves these assumptions do not mean anything unless we show
how such principles are realized in real life. I will try to make clear the
principle of equivalence as regards the exchange between the individual
and society (principle 3). In all probability the principle of equivalence of
exchange is a general natural principle. Only the mechanisms of its
realization differ.
Let us take the relationship: individual-society. The individual gives
something to society: his work and services. But what he gives is one thing
and what he receives is another. What he gives and what he receives are
not in themselves comparable. How can we judge whether the exchange is
equivalent? For this purpose society has a very effective mechanism which
in its simplest terms I describe as follows. Let us take the relation to society
not of one individual but of at least two of the same social level, and let us
call these individuals A and B. The principles run like this: 1) if individual
A gives to society more than individual B (and here a comparison can be
made ! ) , then he cannot receive less than B : 2) if individual A gives less to
society than B, he cannot receive more than B. From these principles it
follows that if A and B give identical labour or services, then they should
receive an identical remuneration. The collective through which A and B
give their services to society will see to it that these principles are realized.
And they usually are realized , more or less accurately, with deviations and
after a struggle. But the source of the struggle lies in other principles which
derive from the individuals themselves: 1) an individual tries to ensure that
another individual does not receive more than he does for the same
services: 2) but at the same time that same individual tries to receive more
than the other for the same services.
82
 That type of comparison of which I was speaking is appropriate only if
the individuals occupy the same social position. But what happens if they
occupy different social positions? How, for instance can you compare the
input into society of the director of an institute and that of one of his
subordinates? Here it would be senseless to be guided by the "cost-of
training" principle. Training a good interpreter, for example, is more
laborious than training a director. Only a few can do the work done by the
director's most junior colleagues, whereas at least a third of his colleagues
are capable of being the director. A cost-benefit analysis in this context is
senseless.
There are no means of comparison other than the positions which people
actually occupy. This is all the more reason why, in accordance with my
basic assumption , the individual's position is commensurate with his value
to society.
Here the following principles operate. Let us assume that position A is
higher than position B. The principle of rank from A's point of view looks
like this: A gives society more than B . Consequence: A receives more from
society than B . The same principle from B 's point of view: A gives society
no less than B . Consequence: A should not receive from society less than
B. Thus B recognizes the possibility of a certain inequality as just , while A
insists on the necessity for inequality. The degree of inequality is
established empirically and depends on tradition . But the principle of
perceived inequality of remuneration is a general one, without which the
structuring of society into groups would be meaningless and society itself
would be condemned to disintegration or ferment, at best to a system
encouraging misuse of official positions and illegal revenue. Inequality in
distribution, if it is not recognized officially, will be introduced unofficially
in one way or another. It flows from the most basic principles of the
organization of society. Inequality in no way contradicts the principles of
Marxist socialism and Communism. On the contrary, it is only through
inequality that these principles can actually be embodied.
In addition to the difficulties that are encountered in the realization of
communal principles in life , principles which force people into a cruel
struggle, whether they want to observe them or transgress them , there is
also the effect of people's actions in the mass which constantly muddies the
hypothetical clarity of our basic assumptions. Take for example, assump
tion 1 , according to which individuals execute communal acts of their own
free will. These actions are free. This doesn't exclude actions due to force
majeure, but basically they are voluntary. Only here we must clarify what
we take the concepts of free will and compulsion to mean.
Let us take a simple hypothetical instance. In time of war the enemy has
surrounded you with superior forces. You are asked to surrender and if
you refuse you are threatened with destruction. You agree to surrender. Is
83
this an act of free will or not? If we leave aside unnecessary casuistry then
we must regard your act as one of free will. You had the freedom of choice;
to surrender or to fight. You were not compelled to make this choice: you
chose to. But you made a social calculation; that is to say you considered
the consequences of one choice or the other and preferred capitulation. In
an analogous sense communal acts taken separately are also free and
voluntary.
But when we begin to consider a large number of communal actions by a
large number of individuals, i.e. regard them as mass phenomena, then
because of the very definitions of the concepts a quite different correlation
between free will and compulsion comes into being. Under Communism a
standard mass reaction develops in regard to particular types of social
action ; and individuals pay attention to this possible reaction before they
decide whether or not to perform these actions. This does not mean that in
the mass people rack their brains to calculate the consequences. The latter
are more or less obvious and people follow communal rules semi
automatically. And from this point of view free will or freedom of choice
are reduced in practice to a very small magnitude ; and the rules of
communality acquire the force of compulsion.
This is an example of how we can make contradictory judgements on one
and the same theme. But there is no logical contradiction here. One
judgement is true if we abstract from the individual act of the individual
person; while the other is true if a large mass of people is performing
standard acts in standard conditions. When they are applied to concrete
reality both judgements are valid simultaneously. B ut there they simply
lose their meaning and give place to other judgements and concepts, or a
different focus of attention.
Real Communism provides enough evidence for us to be able to make
the following statement which is of the very highest importance: the people
who come out with slogans and all sorts of programmes for the transform
ation of society have to think about how they will be realized in the
practical life of the mass of the population. Moreover, for many of them at
least one can predict at the outset certain inevitable results when the
measures are implemented, inasmuch as large social systems have general
regular properties which no reformer or participant in the social process
can escape. Our example above of the mechanics of equivalent exchange is
a fairly obvious example f this. But something of this kind operates for
any social principles and their realization.
In my investigations of Soviet society I have always been guided by this
principle: make the best possible assumptions about this society such as
only its most inveterate apologists are capable of and then show how, when
these assumptions are accomplished in reality, they produce the worst
possible results, and provide ammunition for its most inveterate denoun-
84
cers. This is neither a literary device nor a personal inclination towards
paradox, but a completely dispassionate method of scientific investigation.
It is a method that enables us to clarify complex and shifting reality, and
indeed to surmount the paradoxical nature of our first impressions.

T H E C E L L I N C O M M U N I ST S O C I ET Y

IN O R D E R T O understand why communality i s o f such fateful significance i n

Communist society we need t o turn t o its smallest structural nuclei o r cells,
which make up not only the larger elements of society but the fabric and
structure of the society as a whole. These cells are the primary collectives.
Then we shall see that there is the greatest possible coincidence between
the laws governing the life of the primary collectives and the laws of human
communality itself. Such a complete coincidence of communality with the
way in which the cells function is not to be found in any other type of
society known to history. Here the coincidence is so strong that it seems as
if communality were the direct product of Communism and not its
historical source. Moreover, there is an element of truth in this: on the
basis of Communism communality blossoms forth luxuriantly and reveals
all its potentiality. The cell is formed by the smallest part of the society
which can be said to incorporate the basic properties of the whole. It
should have a certain integrity and independence. It is the society in
miniature . At the same time the whole of society must be built from these
little parts. B ut it would be wrong to suppose that one can deduce the
properties of the whole system from an analysis of the cell. Communist
society is the product of a long history. It presupposes a large number of
people comprising a whole country with a long history. The society is
formed along several different lines at once, including the creation of those
social formations which, now that the society has been established, we can
regard as its cells. It is also formed via the creation of a hierarchy of
personalities and institutions, of power-systems, transport , education,
armies. Simultaneously, the formation of a particular way of life for a large
population takes place in such a way that some of the formations included
within the total fabric become cells of the whole and combine groups of
people in this population according to a few, unified principles. Thus the
cell can only be discovered in an empirically given society which has
achieved an integral form. This also is an experiential fact. The very idea of
cell-separation and the realization of this operation have their origin in
scientific technique. Moreover, the type of society and the observation of it
as a whole define in advance what will be taken into account when it comes
85
to the examination of the cell. When we examine the cell we shall be
examining the whole society, but in its simplest form. Or, to put it another
way, we shall be examining society by means of its simplest model .
What concrete form does the Communist cell have? Communist society
is contained within territorial frontiers, divided into regions, provinces and
other parts. However, its social foundation is organized not territorially
but in terms of activity. The expression "productive principle" is no use
here, inasmuch as it is associated with the production of material or
spiritual goods which is an individual form of activity, and not a basic one
either. Activity to do with the destruction of dissidents, or the stifling of
genuine creative literature, or government, is not the production of goods;
but it plays here a very important role.
The functional cell of Communist society is an organization created to
execute certain practical functions and has in relation to its own business a
relative degree of autonomy. It is the primary socio-economic organiz
ation. It has its own direction and management, its own accountancy
section, its own division of cadres, its Party organization. These cells are
the very familiar factories, institutes, shops, offices, collective farms and
schools and so on. For every adult member of society who is fit for work
the cell is where he obtains a job, gets paid, achieves success, makes his
career and receives rewards and decorations. It is through the cell that the
socially active member of society (the employee) engages with society,
gives it his own efforts and receives his remuneration.
Primary functional cells are established and exist according to particular
rules, irrespective of the purpose for which these cells were formed. The
nature of the business is not important, as long as influential forces in
society consider the business necessary and allocate to a particular cell the
necessary means. The functional cell is merely the means whereby one or
other group of people acquire their livelihood and realize their plans and
interests.
Communist society can be differentiated in many different respects, but
in each one of them the cell (cellular structure) forms the basis. Moreover,
the functional cell is, I repeat, society in miniature whereas society as a
whole is a multiply partitioned, functional super-cell . People's behaviour
and their mutual relations within the cells themselves determine the whole
remaining system of behaviour and the mutual relationships in society as a
whole. It is in the cell that the citizens' standardized form of behaviour is
established, and from then on this human material is reproduced as a
product of normal social activity. The product then produces in its turn the
social order that produced it. All the rest is only the struggle of the social
order for its existence, consolidation and extension.
Of course, the social structure of society cannot be reduced to the
cellular structure. We must also take into account other aspects of the
86
compositiOn of society: elements of co-ordination and subordination,
hierarchies in the fabric of society; classes, organs, and organizations. B ut
to understand all this systematically one must begin with the understanding
of the social cell. I repeat, the average and typical institution of the
country, the cell, reproduces all the essential features of the life of the
country as a whole: relations between the governors and the governed ,
relations between colleagues, the hierarchy of posts and privileges , the
distribution of goods, the surveillance of the individual. If you want to
comprehend society, start by studying its individual cell. It is well known,
for example, that it was only possible to understand feudal society by
taking as one's starting point its basic unit: the individual seigneurial
household.
Communist cells differ in many ways: in terms of the number of their
workers, their task, their place in the social hierarchy, their prestige and
their internal structure. For example, the most menial worker in any
division of the Central Committee or the Council of Ministers has greater
emoluments than the highest ranks in an ordinary scientific research
institute. On the other hand , even the youngest workers in the institute
don't wear out the seat of their pants in their institute in the way that the
senior people in the great organs do. In Moscow the car factory has 50,000
workers on its strength, while an average humanities institute of the
Academy of Sciences has only 500. However, all institutions have some
general features in common which allow one to regard them as social cells
of the same species. They have in common, for instance, a hierarchy of
authority, colleagues appointed from above, a Party organization and the
supervision by Party organs of the life and activities of the institution, a
Komsomol organization , similar relations between people , similar avenues
of promotion, similar rewards and punishments and a similar relationship
between the individual and the collective.
In any institution the management has officially more of this world's
goods and privileges than its subordinates. B ut the main thing is that the
rules of people's behaviour are everywhere identical. If you have
thoroughly studied the life of one establishment, it is n aive to reckon that
things will be different in others. Everywhere you will find yourself under
the vigilant surveillance of your co-workers and colleagues. Everywhere
you will find sucking-up, eye-wash, careerism and money-grubbing. There
are, of course , deviations from these general norms, some of which are
conditioned by the norms of social life itself, and these must be examined
at a later stage . Others are linked to the conditions in which social
phenomena are enveloped and one must distance oneself from these
inessentials and regard the general picture as an abstract model, but as one
which gravitates towards reality. Society makes fairly successful efforts to
ensure that this average model is adhered to.
87
 Henceforth I shall also be using the term "commune" to designate the
cells of Communist society. The use is j ustified, because immediately after
the revolution experiments began with the formation of communes, and
those functional cells which are now standardized did not immediately take
shape . The cells have turned out to be the most viable and the most
effective units. They differ a good deal from the first communes, but they
are their successors. These are communes, and society as a whole is
Communism or the grouping together of a multitude of standard com
munes.
Communes differ in the degree of complexity of their internal structure.
One can have primitive communes which do not fall into recognized social
groups. Groups, for example, which are created for a short period (scientific
expeditions, brigades for the unloading of potatoes) , small enterprises
consisting of one man who combined in his person the functions of ordinary
worker, manager and accountant; for instance , the manager of a beer
counter. But these cases are "degenerate" ones which play no social role. You
can have gigantic communes consisting of tens of thousands of people . Such
are the giant aviation and automobile factories and the metallurgical
combines. Such huge communes are in fact aggregates of communes. In
practice their sub-divisions acquire the functions of independent communes
that are attached to other communes by business interests somewhat
differently from the way in which ordinary communes are attached.
The more important and typical communes have a complex internal
structure based on two principles, one which has to do with the interests of
the business and one which concerns the management and control of
people. In practice the position here is fairly variegated and inconstant, but
the two principles tend to coincide. Usually functional groups are formed
which are rational from the management point of view. Where the
requirements of the enterprise demand the participation of a large number
of people and there is officially no subdivision of these groups of people
into smaller social groups they will still group themselves according to
general communal rules all the same , and one way or another leaders (or
managers) will emerge. For example, some scientific research institutes
have the hierarchy "group-sector-department-institute" . In some indus
trial enterprises the hierarchy is "brigade-section-factory-combine". It
sometimes happens that parts of the commune are dispersed and the
members of these groups associate with each other less than they do with
members of other communes. The fact remains that an understanding of
the life of all kinds of groups of people which appear to be deviations from
some ideal commune is only possible if that ideal commune is analysed
first. What is found in the ideal commune will still be found in all sorts of
departures from this ideal , albeit in a slightly modified form . Moreover,
the modifications are easily explained.
88
 A NOTE O N METHODOLOGY

I S H A LL M A K E a brief methodological digression. There exist objective ,

general, combinatorial laws for the grouping of any individuals of a
particular type. You can only assemble a limited number of human beings
in the environment of any one of those human beings, and similarly you
need a minimal number of people before it is impossible for another
human being to squeeze in between them . Social groupings are determined
by analogous a priori circumstances. The structure of communes is not a
subjective, arbitrary matter. It emerges empirically, but nonetheless in
conformity with these laws. For example , if a sector in a research institute
mushrooms beyond a certain limit it will split up into several groups, or
even sectors. If too many sectors appear departments will inevitably spring
up, i . e . the intermediate groups between sectors and a whole institute. All
this is rather obvious and yet somehow seems to escape the attention of
theorists. Given this situation, the emergence of a huge social stratum of
managers (bosses) of all ranks is an irreversible phenomenon of social life ;
and just as irreversible is the corresponding stratification of levels of
consumption.
What is interesting is the manner in which the grouping of individuals
and the differentiation of society depend on the level of the elements of the
group (primary or complex individuals) . The more primitive the elements
of the group, the higher is the upper limit of the group (the larger the group
can be) and the higher its lower limit . The larger the group, the more
primitive its elements. The higher the level of the elements of the group the
lower are the upper and lower limits of that group. The smaller the group,
the higher should be the level of its elements. The more primitive the
elements of the group, the larger is the range of its potential dimensions.
And the higher the level of its elements , the lower its range of potential
dimensions. If the elements are of different levels, the group will gravitate
towards the more primitive of these . These are all laws of nature just like
the laws of physics, biology and chemistry. I try to avoid such general
discussions, but the reader should bear in mind that everything I have
talked about and shall be talking about reveals the workings of the general
organizational principles underlying large empirical systems (including
social systems) .

89
 P R O P E RTY A N D OWNE R S H I P

T o CARRY O U T its official functions a commune acquires from society

indispensable material resources (buildings, machines, instruments, furni
ture . transport, etc.). The commune possesses these resources and exploits
the m . but they do not constitute its property. It can transfer some part of
these resources to other communes or even individual persons. It can
liquidate part of them as defective ("write them off") , but this requires the
permission of particular authorized bodies. And these facts in no way have
anything to do with property relations.
According to Marxist doctrine in Capitalist, feudal and slave-owning
societies there is private ownership of the basic, vital resources: land and
the means of production , whereas in a Communist society these resources
come under a system of social ownership. But this is a purely ideological
contention without any scientific meaning. It exploits a confusion between the
concepts of ownership and the right to dispose of property. Ownership entails
the right to dispose of property, but not every such right entails ownership.
Hegel knew this very well. One can dispose of something without owning it,
dispose of it for reasons other than ownership, for instance as a result of
physical seizure , custom or tradition. Ownership is a juridical relationship. If
a person or group of people dispose of something by virtue of ownership they
have the right to transfer it to others oftheir own free will, to sell it, exchange it
or destroy it. A collective of people working in one and the same institution in
Communist society disposes of premises, tables, machines, instruments and
much else besides. but it does not own them . The state as a whole disposes of
its territory and its natural resources but it does not own them. The existence
of external trade and the fact that the state sells to other countries some of its
natural riches and may even yield a piece ofterritory creates only an illusion of
ownership, but not ownership itself. The fraction of what seems to be
property but which cannot function as property is insignificant and can
generally be disregarded.
The situation is just the same with regard to what is called private
property. A huge part of citizens' "private property" is in fact not property
at all , for instance flats and villas. One can also add here a large proportion
of objects of consumption: you can't give the dinner you've just eaten to
someone else or sell it to him. Valuable things circulate on the black
market , but this fact does not derive from the nature of society. In
principle society wages war against the black market. True, valuable things
are accumulated in certain families as a result of inheritance, which are
disposed of as if they were private property. But all that is a secondary
phenomenon and one that does not determine the type of society.
The ideological propaganda of the Communist countries asserts that in
90
these countries, for the first time in history, the workers feel themselves to
be the masters of all the wealth which those countries contain. In actual
fact their position is exactly the opposite. Of course there are masters, but
they are far from being all the citizens of the country. Those of them who
are masters act as lords not because of anything to do with property, but
according to the laws of communality. As regards the workers, they look at
their possession of the collective as something given by nature and as a
means of livelihood to which they are indifferent . This attitude of
indifference extends to everything over which they dispose by virtue of
their status as members of the collective and is manifested by an extreme
lack of husbandry, damage, theft, carelessness, poor workmanship.
Attitudes to these same assets change abruptly when they become the
property of citizens. "Private" property and "state" property are looked
after and exploited quite differently. The sharply differing length of the
working life of the respective assets bears witness to this.
The expression "social ownership" is a logical nonsense. Even in the
cases where a collective appears to be the proprietor, this is simply a
special case of private property; and it is best simply to say "property",
because the expression "private property" is like the expression "bread
and butter with butter". In the USSR the land was given to the collective
farms "for their eternal use". But the collective farms did not become
collective proprietors as a result of this, for they not only could not sell
their land, they could not even manage it at their own discretion.

THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE COMMUNE

T H E COM M U N E RECEIVES a certain share of the social means of people's

subsistence which it uses according to established norms for the remuner
ation of the workers in return for their participation in the business of the
commune. These include sums of money for wages, prizes and loans, the
building-fund, rest-homes, sanatoria and means of transport. Communes
are thus the channels through which the citizens contribute to society and
receive the means of subsistence in return. They are the points at which
people as individual elements slot into society as a whole . People do not
enter society directly as sovereign individuals but only via these primary
collectives, that is to say, the communes. Communist society is not
composed directly of people but of communes, and so the basic personality
is not the individual person but the whole collective. Here only the
commune is a personality while the individual person is only a small part of
the personality , or a featureless pre-condition of a personality. For that
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reason the slogan: "the interests of the collective are higher than the
interests of the individual" is not simply a demagogic declaration: it is an
actual operating principle.
The active citizen who is fit for work in Communist society acquires the
indispensable means of subsistence for himself and his family only via the
commune. He is obliged to go to work in some commune or other, to fulfil
the duties that it stipulates and to occupy a particular position in it. For him
this is an economic necessity, juridically enhanced to the status of a sacred
duty. The juridical formulation of economic necessity expresses the fact
that if the citizen has the means of subsistence and is not a worker in any
commune, he is infringing the most deep-rooted norms of the society. For
such people there is a special term "tuneyadyets " , or parasite. The parasite
is Public Enemy Number One. Moreover, in most cases the parasite gains
the means of subsistence dishonestly and is criminally prosecuted. But that
is not really the point . A person who can live in society independently of a
primary collective is a threat to the very foundations of society. He is like a
soldier who doesn't walk in step with the rest of the platoon but wanders
about at random independently of the rest. He annoys the rest.
A person may change his primary collective for another and obtain
thereby some advantage, something that happens fairly often. However, it
doesn't alter the fact that he must be attached to some primary collective
one way or other.
If he has left his collective, a person must look for another place of work,
since he won't last long without wages. There are also other reasons which
compel him to look for a new collective. There are, for example, the
problems of maintaining an unbroken length of service, career consider
ations and juridical norms. Frequent changes of job are not encouraged.
People who work a long time in one institution have an ascendancy over
the others (priorities for improvements in living conditions, rewards, free
trips to rest homes).
A person can improve his living conditions and make a career, that is,
improve his social position , mainly within the framework of a primary
collective . Thus his well-being, destiny and prospects do depend on the
collective. Everything he has is at the price of subordinating himself to the
collective and behaving in such a manner that the collective will not stand
in his way and may even help him. Of course he does have some degree of
independence from the collective. For instance many people solve their
accommodation problems not through the commune but through local
organizations in the district where they live. The levels of pay are
sanctioned by law not by the communes. A person also accumulates useful
connections. However even these phenomena which lessen a person's
dependence on the collective operate only as a function of his particular
position and of his reputation in some collective or other.
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 SOCIAL POSITION

THE WORKERS I N a commune fulfil different functions within i t and

correspondingly they occupy different social positions. Although these
functions vary according to the special nature of the commune's business,
there is a fairly stable system for grading them so that it is possible to
examine them from one particular angle and to speak of standardized
social positions. These positions are officially recognized and buttressed by
the law. The acquisition of skills appropriate to each position in different
institutions of the same rank requires approximately the same amount of
training and effort. And the fulfilment of the duties attached to these
positions in institutions of the same rank requires approximately the same
expenditure of energy and talent. The remuneration likewise is approxi
mately the same.
These positions together form a hierarchy from lowest to highest . The
lowest positions are occupied by the least qualified workers who do the
least pleasant jobs . The highest positions are occupied by the managers of
the institution. The hierarchy of social positions is officially consolidated in
a hierarchy of rates of remuneration. True, the workers often use their
position in the hierarchy to obtain supplementary sources of subsistence .
But this concerns only a comparatively small fraction of the workers and
often leads to prosecutions. To what extent this obscures communal norms
and to what extent it strengthens them we will examine later.
Although people differ in their ability to fulfil their functions in a
commune, they need no more than average ability and an average training.
If people take on these roles and enact them , they usually perform more or
less satisfactorily. Of course it sometimes happens that people execute
their duties badly and then they are punished, demoted or dismissed. Or,
conversely, people do their work very well, and are encouraged, praised,
given prizes and holidays. But on the whole there are some average social
norms for fulfilling the functions of a given rank; and people one way or
other acquire the average necessary skills. In the case of large masses of
people who do one and the same thing, differences in ability and skill lose
their meaning. What we have, taking the masses as a whole. is the
operation of the principle of congruence between the worker and his social
position.
Of course, many workers who occupy a given position could fulfil higher
functions and hold higher positions and they struggle fiercely to be
transferred to them. The best do not always succeed. But then neither do
the worst. Here again we have the congruence principle, according to
which the people who are chosen to carry out duties at a higher level in the
collective will be capable of carrying them out with average efficiency.
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These people often come from other institutions, i.e. they are nominated
from outside the institution in question. But they are none the less selected
by someone, somewhere, and on the assumption that functions for which
they will be responsible will be carried out normally.
Of course, for real people doing a specific job even small differences in
ability and training play a role. They are a source of discontent, envy and
hatred. Very often good workers receive less than workers whose
performance is much inferior. Very often people make the transition to a
higher social position who in the opinion of their colleagues do not deserve
it. These phenomena play a real part in life and influence the psychological
atmosphere of society. But when we talk about social position as a whole
and its underlying laws, we must proceed from the fact that there is a kind
of abstract justice whereby, all things considered, people in an institution
are distributed among the various levels of the social hierarchy. And we
must admit that at the level of the primary collectives people recognize this
hierarchy as something normal.
The hierarchy of social positions in institutions serves as a natural basis
for the material, social and psychological inequality of people. It is
accepted by the overwhelming majority of citizens. Naturally some are
discontented with this inequality, but their discontent has no socially
significant role . Either it is subjective and partly neurotic, or it is transient.
As soon as such people begin to improve their own social position they
usually forget about their past discontent and indeed become fierce
defenders of justifiable social inequality. The attempts made in the first
years of the Soviet Union to introduce equal pay, the uravnilovka, in the
communes met with disaster. Ideas of a Party maximum pay for civil
servants never achieved wide popularity; and now only a few dissidents
remember them . Such ideas do not meet with sympathy among the
population .

F R O M E A C H A C C O R D I N G TO H I S A B I L I T Y ,
TO EACH ACCORDING TO HIS WORK

FROM WHAT H A S been said it will be clear that the principle "from each
according to his ability" is realized in Communist society, not in the vulgar
sense that everyone is at liberty to display all the ability he has, but in a
purely social sense: 1) society decides what shall count as the ability of a
given individual in a given social position; 2) on average , people appointed
by society to fulfil certain functions tend to carry them out adequately. This
principle applies not to people's potential ability but to their actual ability
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as it is realized in practice . Incidentally, if one approaches the ability
problem from a mass point of view, then mass potential ability is realized in
the given conditions as actual ability. The latter is an index of the former.
In the case of individuals there may be no correspondence between the
two. However, even in respect of individuals, assertions about their wasted
talents are quite unprovable. There is sense in talking about wasted talent
only when a person has revealed his talent in a manner that is noticed by
those around him and has then somehow lost the possibility of developing
and using it further. One may instance Mussorgsky, Lermontov, Yesenin
or Mayakovsky. But these are exceptions from the general rule. As a rule
the overwhelming majority of people is averagely able or averagely
untalented, which is the same.
Furthermore, from what we have said it should be clear that the
principle "from each according to his ability" is not a specifically
Communist phenomenon. It is realized to some degree in any large
differentiated human society.
Let us assume that we have decided slavishly to follow the principle "to
each according to his work" as regards the remuneration of the workers for
their activity. If people are engaged in identical activity we can compare
their work and its results. B ut what happens if people are engaged in
different types of activity and a comparison of their labour based on the
results of their activity turns out to be impossible? Try comparing by results
the work of a workman who is producing a specific number of industrial
components with that of a member of the government apparat, a
laboratory technician in a scientific research institute , a doctor or a
teacher! How do you compare the work of the director with that of his
subordinates? There is only one socially significant criterion for comparing
work-inputs in such situations and that is the social position which people
occupy.
The average, normal performance of his duties by a person in a given
social position corresponds to the work which he contributes to society. I n
real life the principle "to each according t o h i s work" is realized i n the form
of "to each according to his social position".
This principle operates even in those cases when one can compare the
work of different people engaged in an identical production process; when
many people engage in activity of the same order, this tends to level out the
differences between them. In such cases the authorities, in order to
preserve "material incentives" preserve pay by piece-work (related to the
quantity of production) and other special forms of incentive. B ut this does
not affect the standard of living of the workers to any great extent.
This principle: "to each according to his social position" operates first
and foremost not as some kind of juridical principle but as an objective
tendency in a complex mass process. In real life people learn, they invent
95
dodges, they try to improve their social position . As a result they try to be
adequate to that position. A legislative system merely strengthens the
tendency by means of formal norms. Gradually a very detailed scale of
remuneration is elaborated which acquires the force of law. The scale then
begins to work in a purely formal way, and weakens the tendency which
gave rise to it. Thus we have here a characteristic example of contradictory
consequences of one and the same phenomenon; on the one hand the law
fixes remuneration according to the social position of the worker thereby
expressing an objective tendency and standardizing it: on the other hand
society, having guaranteed the workers a legally determined remuneration,
itself creates temptations and possibilities of remuneration and of improv
ing one's social position without the concomitant guarantee of a corre
sponding work-input.
In relation to the main types of productive activity the principle "to each
according to his social position" is just, in so far as it expresses the just
principle of ""to everyone according to his work". But there are types of
activity where these two principles do not coincide and the first is
introduced without reference to activity and is not backed up by the
second. An example of this would be the activity of people in management.
But what is most important is the fact that after a certain level in the
hierarchy of functional communes this principle acquires such force that it
produces a glaring contradiction to the principle "according to his work"
which engendered it. This is one example of how something which is
fundamentally good at the level of the primary collectives can produce the
evil of Communist society.
But even on the level of the primary collective the justice of the principle
under examination is achieved only as some mean in relation to a mass of
examples of relative injustice. And this m.::an is achieved at the price of an
intense struggle which people wage for the consolidation or improvement
of their social position in the daily life of the collective. Here the laws of
communality are much more reliable.
If we take the statements of Marxism literally and compare them directly
with reality, then we can find facts which invalidate them and facts which
support them. Besides, they are ideological statements and as such allow
different interpretations. In some interpretations the statements appear to
be true , in others false . Therefore in order to avoid pointless verbal
discussions we must begin by describing the actual state of things in all its
complexity, inconsistency and mutability. Afterwards we can see in what
sense , to what extent and according to what interpretation ideological
Communist principles are realized in real life.

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 A N O T E O N M E TH O D O L O G Y

THE C O N T E M P O R A R Y R E A D E R i s well aware that i t is possible to have

technical devices with the following properties: you push an object away
from you and it moves towards you; it goes in the right direction for a time
and then it swerves. Up to a certain moment you can monitor its
movements and then you can monitor them no longer. We may imagine
society in the same way as a huge aggregate of such structures. Their
composition is unknown and the combined results of their actions cannot
be measured accurately.
I am ready to concede that Communist society is built with the very best
of intentions: to heap blessings on mankind. But its builders pay no
attention to the fact that its elements resemble the devices we have just
been talking about. They decide, for instance, to introduce an equitable
system of remuneration of labour. But where are the criteria of measure
ment? When the mass of the people is taken into consideration it is not so
easy to find criteria for even the simplest cases. In practice the achievement
of precise measurement and equitable treatment on the scale of the whole
society is impossible. B ut people do not need that anyway. They find a way
of realizing the principle which is significant in real, social terms: it consists
of simply attempting to occupy a position in society which corresponds to
their abilities and efforts. If we did find a common method for measuring
people's work the result would be astonishing: we would be convinced
that, on the whole, in the vast majority of cases, the sociai position which
people occupy does, after all , match their abilities and the efforts they
expend. And the principle "according to work" would be identical with the
principle "according to social position" . But at this point it emerges that
we are dealing with one of those strange devices which I spoke of at the
beginning of this section. The battle for the improvement of one's social
position is waged in a context in which the laws of communality are
paramount and in which in a large number of cases it is not the best worker
who has the advantage but the individual who, in communal terms, is the
most flexible and resourceful. As a result the principle "according to social
position" , engendered by the principle "according to work", begins to
operate in the opposite direction.
I am not saying that people should calculate the consequences of their
actions in advance. That is impossible in practice. When dealing with social
problems in real life, people are forced to resolve them according to the
circumstances: often there is only one possible solution. People do not
make history; history makes itself. If the first post-revolutionary com
munes had been effective and productive they would have survived and
been encouraged by the country's rulers. If the introduction of a Party
97
maximum wage for highly placed officials would have be.e n likely to
produce the desired results, the Party would have introduced it long ago.
But even if they had imposed a maximum, highly placed officials would still
have taken the share that corresponded with their positions, one way or
another. Incidentally. these officials do not normally have such a very large
salary. But they do not need a large salary. They can have everything they
need for little or no money at all. I only wish to draw the reader's attention
to the fact that elements of a social organism can play a lot stranger tricks
than the technical devices I was speaking about earlier.
Much has been said about how the Stalinists destroyed the real
organizers of the revolution and those sincere Communists - Lenin's Old
Guard , not to mention Trotskyites and supporters of Bukhari n . But this is
one of history's paradoxes which has a trivially simple explanation in terms
of these same mechanical models. Profound critics of Communism are
frightened by the very triviality of the problem and prefer to spout the most
unintelligible rubbish on this score rather than to state the much more
convincing banalities.
Incidentally, let me remark en passant for the edification of every kind of
left-wing movement in the Western countries that is attracted by Commun
ist ideas. that they will be the very first people to be destroyed in the event
of a Communist society being installed in their countries, for they
contradict the very essence of Communism . What they are idealistically
struggling for will eliminate them as unwanted enemies.

T H E M E R I T S OF T H E C O M M U N E

A B LE - B O D I E D CITI Z E N S i n Communist society not only have the right to

work. they are obliged to work: that is, they are obliged to be members of
some primary collective and to be attached to it . This has its shortcomings:
a person who is fit for work and obliged to be registered in a commune but
for a long time has been considered to be without work (i.e. not attached to
a commune), is regarded as someone who has infringed the norms of social
life, and might even be looked upon as a criminal. There are special laws
and organizations that have the right and power to compel those who
decline to work (more precisely, who decline to belong to a collective) to
be attached to some commune by force , and not in a place of their choice.
However, for the overwhelming majority of the population this situation is
a boon: they are always guaranteed a place of work that gives them some
means of subsistence . Unless a worker in a commune infringes the norms
of social life beyond the limits of legality, he cannot be dismissed from his
98
work. In general it is very hard indeed to sack someone if he does not come
into serious conflict with society. The collective defends him. as do various
social organizations, especially his trade-union. It is for this reason that
Communist society may contain numerous unprofitable enterprises which
cannot be abolished because they provide work ; (i .e. attach people to
collectives) and provide the means of subsistence for many citizens. Thus
open unemployment is impossible. Higher productivity which could lead to
unemployment is therefore made difficult ; and low productivity has to be
paid for by everyone taking what in practice amounts to a decrease in their
wages; the burden is thus shared out among all those who work. Here in
general variations in people's living standards depend on the situation in
the country as a whole (e.g. on whether prices in the country as a whole are
raised or lowered. etc. The same applies to wages).
Conditions of work in productive communes are relatively light. Since in
order to receive a certain remuneration it is enough to occupy an
appropriate social position and then to do one's duty in the generally
accepted manner, an attitude to work is established which is accurately
expressed in the saying: "Only fools and horses work". Only a few
enthusiasts try to raise their living standard by heroic feats of labour. The
majority is indifferent to its work and obtains what improvements it can by
other means, such as bribes, theft. moonlighting and so on. Poor
workmanship and eye-wash flourish. This is a society of unconscientious
workers and cheats.
I now introduce the concept of a coefficient of remuneration (or
exploitation) in order to compare the conditions of work in Communist
societies and other societies. If x is the quantity of work in terms of input
and y the size of the remuneration , the relation between y and x is the
coefficient of remuneration . In Communist society the quantity y is lower
than in the West and the quantity x is lower still, so that the coefficient of
remuneration . ylx is significantly higher than in the West. This is why the
workers in Communist society almost always prefer the conditions of life
under Communism to those in the West. Of course, they dream of good
food. clothes, fiats and cars. But they would scarcely be prepared to pay
the price for them that Western workers pay.
Workers in communes are guaranteed a paid holiday. They can obtain
trips to rest homes, often at a discount or without payment at all. They are
paid while they are ill. Their old-age pension and health insurance are
guaranteed. It is still the case that citizens have their place of residence as a
result of tradition or local conditions (e .g. houses and fiats might have been
passed on to them by their parents) . It is still the case that a considerable
part of living accommodation is distributed by the housing sections of the
local authorities. Nevertheless, the productive communes are playing an
ever increasing part in this respect as well. At any rate , citizens'
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accommodation is cheap. For the majority it is overcrowded . Sometimes
the efforts of a lifetime are expended on the acquisition of a small , self
contained fiat for one family. But all the same , I repeat, people somehow
acquire a minimum of living space, and acquire it cheaply. In Russia, we
must remember, even a separate bed with sheets was a great historical
achievement. And in general one can say that the living conditions of
Soviet citizens have noticeably improved since the War.
Citizens are guaranteed free medical assistance in the area where they
live. Many can arrange for hospital treatment through their place of work.
Although the medical service leaves something to be desired, the minimal
needs of the citizens are well met. In the areas of education and
professional training the situation is similar. In short, certain essential
needs are satisfied one way or another. Indeed if the principle "to everyone
according to his needs" is understood sociologically and is not interpreted
in vulgar, philistine fashion as meaning "everyone gets what he wants" ,
then in this society it is actually realized in practice. It does not remove
inequality or people's dissatisfaction with their lot . But that is another
question .

TO EACH ACCORDING TO H I S N E E D S

I S H A L L D W E L L on this principle i n more detail as i t i s one of the central

points of Marxist doctrine about Communism.
We need to distinguish between the historical conditions in which the
idea "according to need" arose and its original historical meaning; between
the philistine interpretation of this idea and its interpretation in the state
ideology of the Communist countries (and Soviet ideology above all) .
Historically Communist society was conceived as a society in which there
would be equality in all aspects of people's lives. That this society might
breed its own forms of social and economic inequality - and to a staggering
degree into the bargain - was something that the theorists did not even
wish to contemplate. They attributed all evil to private property. And as
the latter was due to be destroyed it was supposed that all social evil would
disappear with it, economic inequality included. But they conceived of
"need" in the most primitive sense: as need for food, clothing, and shelter.
The hope was that these would be satisfied and it was this hope that the
principle: "each according to his needs" expressed. The notion of
abundance is relative and historically determined. And indeed, if we
consider the way it was thought of in past centuries, then it has been
achieved in Soviet society, where no-one is destitute or homeless or
100
actually dying from hunger. In this sense the principle of Communism has
been realized.
But this satisfaction of basic needs has now given rise to another,
contemporary, understanding of the concept of abundance and the
principle of "according to need", which is interpreted as the provision of
whatever people nowadays wish for. B ut their wishes have now grown to
such an extent that even the official ideology of the Soviet Union has
postponed the fulfilment of this principle to the indefinite future. Soviet
people already regard abundance under Communism as being at least the
equal of the high living standards of some Western countries, which are to
be attainable by everyone. The founders of the Marxist doctrine of
Communism can hardly have suspected that refrigerators and television
sets would be indispensable objects of the first priority, nor that the motor
car would be a normal means of transport. But the philistine of today no
longer thinks of Communism except in terms of flats with lots of rooms and
all modern conveniences, including television and refrigerator, with a
private car and a country villa thrown in.
The official ideology of the Soviet Union sensed the danger which lurked
in such an interpretation of the very incautious declaration of classical
Marxism and gave it its own interpretation. It began to speak of reasonable
needs, which could be monitored and regulated by society. This was only
an expression in disguised form of the actual state of affairs ; namely that a
person's needs in Communist society are determined by the feasibility of
their satisfaction: i . e . , by that person's actual social position . The slogan
"to each according to his needs" is in practice embodied in the principle:
"to each according to his social position". In practice it is precisely people's
social position which becomes the guiding principle underlying the
distribution of goods and services. Since it is a "just" principle, both
notionally and in terms of its practical and fundamental influence on the
structure of society, in the context of a developed social hierarchy of
people and collectives it gives rise to socio-economic inequality on a scale
which is comparable with that of other societies, and in certain respects
even exceeds it.
Official Soviet ideology is not far from the truth in its interpretation of
need. The point is that there are two definitions of "need " : one which is
subjective or psychological, and the other which is objective or sociologi
cal. In the second instance not every human desire is a need, but only what
the social milieu recognizes as a need. And that means that there is a
generally accepted level at which a person at a particular point in the social
hierarchy might expect his needs to be met, i.e. that there is some kind of
legitimate norm of consumption . To have "according to need" means to
have within the framework of this norm, and to have "not according to
need" is either to exceed or fall short of that norm. The expression "he
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does not have what he needs" refers only to the case in which a person does
not receive what is due to him , whereas the expression "he has what he
doesn't need" refers to the case where a person receives more than his due.
In addition. one must distinguish between need as something which
society is obliged to fulfil and consequently defines, and need as it is
perceived by rational individuals within that society. For instance , in terms
of the norms which operate in the Soviet Union in practice , three square
meters of living space per person in the lower strata count as sufficient to
meet the first definition of need , while in the second sense society has
already come to think that each adult member of the family needs a
separate room. If we take all aspects of everyday life into consideration
then we can pinpoint for every stratum of the population the limits of these
"rational" needs within which the position of any one person fluctuates.
And we must recognize that. in one way or another, society tries to keep
the living standards of the population within these limits.

TH E S I M P L I CITY O F L I F E

TH E R E I S A N O T H E R feature of life in Communist society that we should pay

attention to here . and that is the formal simplicity of life itself. After school
or some other educational institution a person goes to work. That person is
automatically supplied with a work-book. He becomes a member of a
trade-union. and all the rest happens by itself. In principle he needs no
further documents for the rest of his life . True. from time to time he will
need a few certificates from his place of residence and from his place of
work. But that is a matter of routine and hardly burdensome . He might
have the odd problem when he changes residence or work. But all this
amounts to is a waste of time plus a certain strain on the nerves. In
principle it does not complicate his life any more than standing in a queue ,
or being buffeted on public transport complicate it. Under Communism
the human being is not ensnared in a formal system of juridical
relationships. For example. he is quite unfamiliar with the heavy and
cumbersome taxation system which exists in Western countries. I n
Communist society a small percentage i s automatically deducted a s tax
from all monetary payments made by official institutions. And that is all.
For the large number of people who have comparatively large incomes,
this situation is immeasurably better than that in Western societies which
are governed by the rule of law.
Because of the extreme simplification of the formal-legal aspect of life all
people's attention and efforts are transferred to the communal aspect. This
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aspect is normal, easily accessible and needs no moral or juridical
formulation. People in that society are specialists from childhood in living
in a turbulent social swim, j ust as many people in the West are used from
childhood to be law-abiding.

D E G R E E S OF E X P L O IT A T I O N A N D R E M U N E R A T I O I"

T H E O PI M O :" TH A T the standard of living i n the West i s higher than i n the

Soviet Union has more or less become dogma. But what is a living
standard? Do its components in the West match those in the Soviet Union.
i.e. those in a Communist society? Are the criteria of measurement the
same? How. moreover. does one measure a standard of living? Here I
want to examine the two most important elements of a living standard and
a way of life in general which I call "the degree of exploitation and the
degree of remuneration' ' . I shall keep my examination as simple as
possible .
In one way or another the working man devotes his efforts to society: he
expends himself for society. The magnitude of these efforts is a function of
the time spent , the intensity of his work. nervous tension, the emotions and
risks involved and much else. People differ very much in terms of these
indices, so that the production of sufficiently accurate measurements is no
easy task. For instance. the scientific worker can idle away his day at his
institute . but work at home in the evening and even at night, as often
happens. People in important managerial positions often find themselves in
a state of great nervous tension. They spend lots of time at meetings. and
have no time or energy to read books, or go to the theatre or for culture in
general . In brief. it would take a special sociological investigation to
measure the magnitude of effort expended in every form of activity, to
compare these magnitudes and to produce some kind of statistics for the
various sub-sections of society and for the country as a whole.
The working man receives a particular remuneration for his activity. and
once again this remuneration is not easy to measure . It comprises much
more than just the official wage: e.g. housing. children's institutions. rest
homes and sanatoria. the medical service . loans. prizes, privileges. special
shops, special bonuses, villas. private cars. One cannot enumerate all the
supplementary ways which people find in their sphere of work (including
theft . bribes and the use of their official position in general). To this we
may add the guarantee of a minimum of this world's goods and the relative
security of people's social position.
Let us assume that we have measured the magnitude of remuneration
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and the magnitude of the efforts expended to receive that remuneration.
The quotient from the division of the first magnitude by the second gives
the degree of remuneration , while the converse is the degree of exploit
ation. According to my observations and measurements (greatly simplified
and approximate) the degree of remuneration of the most active and
productive segment of the population in Communist society has a tendency
to grow, while the degree of its exploitation diminishes. Moreover, the
degree of remuneration is here higher than for corresponding people in
Western countries; and the degree of exploitation is lower. This is the basic
advantage that Communism has over Western society and the reason for its
attraction for millions of people on this planet.
But do not imagine that the high degree of remuneration means that
people live well in the Communist environment. People can have a low
standard of living with a high degree of remuneration, and vice-versa. In
the West the population is much better off materially than in the Soviet
Union. The degree of remuneration can grow and at the same time
material conditions can deteriorate. These magnitudes are relative, not
evaluative. A high degree of remuneration is not necessarily good , nor a
low one necessarily bad. From the point of view of the progress of
civilization it is just the opposite; an increase in the degree of exploitation
and a decrease in the degree of remuneration are the hallmarks of a higher
level of civilization. They mean greater productivity. And although there is
no direct link between the degrees of remuneration and exploitation and
everyday living conditions, large sections of the population feel that the
Communist situation is advantageous for them: and having tasted it in
practice they can no longer give it up. Of course, there are strata of the
population in Communist countries for which the opposite is the case. But
they do not play the chief role in society nor do they wield the power.
The tendency towards greater remuneration and less exploitation in
Communist society furthers the tendency for the growth of productivity to
slow down, at the very least; and it accentuates, too, the tendency towards
stagnation and at times even deterioration. Scientific and technical
progress balances these tendencies ; but there is a limit to its efficiency. It is
becoming increasingly expensive. The same tendencies apply to it too,
slowing it down and setting it upper limits. There is reason to suppose that
in time the tendency to stagnation and deterioration will dominate. At any
rate, the fact that the Soviet Union cannot compete economically with the
West is clearly not accidental.
Higher remuneration and lower exploitation, however splendid they
may appear at first sight . have far less splendid consequences. They lead to
a reduction in the metabolic rate of society itself, and of its interaction with
its environment. All the vital processes slow down. The tendency of the
society to grow purely physically and spatially is accentuated. This is one of
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the profound reasons for the Soviet Union's attempt to expand at the
expense of other places on the planet. The tendency towards the predatory
and destructive exploitation of nature is also strengthened , as is the Soviet
Union's tendency to parasitism in relation to its immediate environment.

COMPULSORY WORK

I N CoMMUNIST sociETY work i s a duty i n the sense that every able-bodied

person must be attached to a primary work commune. This obligation
stems from the objective fact that only by working in such a commune can
able-bodied citizens gain the means of subsistence. Here a socio-economic
fact takes j uridical form and becomes a means of making work compul
sory. Inasmuch as the overwhelming majority of citizens need and want to
work whether there is legai compulsion or not , the compulsory character of
the work hardly registers with them . In this case a situation arises of a type
in which Hegel's formula: "freedom is perceived necessity" operates as an
element of Soviet state ideology. But with one small correction : compul
sory attachment to a work-commune (and the obligation to work in it) is
not perceived as a lack of freedom. People perceive this apparent freedom
as if it were real. Inasmuch as there is some freedom of choice of profession
or of place of work for a significant number of people and these people
have some interest in staying in their work-commune , the acceptance of
this situation. which is inherited by each generation , taken together with
other circumstances so strengthens the illusion of freedom and hides the
reality of unfreedom that the distinction between the real and the illusory
virtually disappears from the popular ethic. If unfreedom is noticed it if.
seen as natural and inevitable.
The actual position is revealed here (and in many other instances of this
kind) only in exceptional cases, only in cases of deviation from the general
norm: that is when individual people have sources of subsistence that are
independent of work and want to avoid working in a work-commune; when
individuals for some reason or other lose their work and cannot find
suitable work of their own choice. For such people there is a special term,
"parasites" . And, as we have seen, there are laws which permit the
authorities to recruit such people for forced labour, and in places
designated by the authorities.
The majority of parasites do not threaten the existence of society. Some
of them are criminals and are prosecuted in the usual way. Some live off
their relatives or from illegal sources that have not been discovered .
Usually they get along with the authorities through bribes, personal
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connections or forged documents, and society turns a blind eye to their
existence. But some parasites attract the special attention of the au
thorities. and they are severely dealt with. These arc people who, in one
way or another, come into conflict with society such as dissidents, religious
sectarians. individual renegades and rebels. In their case the phenomenon
of compulsory work is revealed in all its mercilessness. Moreover, in such
cases the authorities will not take into account that someone works at
home . for instance composing poetry or scientific treatises or painting
pictures or teaching mathematics or languages. In this society only those
count as workers who can show documents proving that they are attached
to a work-commune. There are those who belong to the so-called liberal
professions and work individually and independently of the commune. But
they too must in some way or other be attached to some organization, for
example by a special contract.
Anyone who is unattached to a work-commune and is obviously able
bodied represents a serious danger to society for many reasons. He
infringes the orderliness of the ranks of workers in society, just as a soldier
who is out of step with his company prevents it from marching and calls
down upon himself the j ustified wrath of his commanders. He is a bad
example to the other soldiers. Some time ago in the Soviet Union there
were quite a lot of these parasites. Their behaviour infected literally
thousands of young people, and even older people as well. They showed
that one could live without being dependent on the commune and earn just
as good a living. And be a free man at the same time . They showed that
one could get on with people very well with no risk of being an outcast.
The authorities found it hard to deal with this epidemic of parasitism.
One of their main difficulties arose from the fact that parasites were very
useful in influential circles. They got them books they needed, books that
were not to be found in the usual shops, and various articles, bits of
jewellery. They coached their children in various subjects, so that they
could get a decent pass in their entrance exams into institutes of higher
education. In short. they were very useful servants of the middle and upper
classes of society. There were even parasites who composed dissertations
for learned people and verses for writers. The struggle with the parasite
epidemic only became really serious when the ranks of the parasites were
infiltrated by a considerable number of dissidents. In a sense the parasites
blazed a trail for the dissidents by pioneering and working out a detailed
technique of living in Communist society without being attached to a
primary work-commune .
The main danger of parasitism for society is not a criminal but a social
one. The parasite escapes the control of the primary collective which is in
hard fact the highest power society has over the individual.
Compulsory work, which I spoke of earlier, is a normal phenomenon in
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this society, and even an object of pride as well as of envy on the part of
many people in non-Communist countries. There are other forms of
compulsion which at the moment appear to be incidental and temporary
but which are tending to become the permanent feature of real-life
Communism. I will instance two of them : 1 ) the compulsory despatch of
large masses of the population (workers, civil servants, students, school
pupils, scientific workers and others) to work in the country, on far-off
building sites and in vegetable depots, as well as the use of the army as a
labour force ; 2) the huge number of prisoners. Although much mention of
these forms of organization is made in dissident literature (especially of
prisons and labour camps), there has still been no serious sociological
analysis of them. Yet this phenomenon deserves the most serious attention
because it manifests one frightful tendency of Communism which everyone
either tries not to notice or carefully conceals, the tendency towards a
special form of slavery: not in a figurative but in a literal sense of the word.
The inventors of ideological Communism proceeded from a whole series
of more or less obvious assumptions when they described future society as
an earthly paradise. And the first thing they disregarded was the fact that in
society there are places where people just do not want to live and types of
jobs which people do not wish to do. Communism's ideologues excel
themselves on this subject, arguing that robots and machines will do the
dirty jobs and that far-off places will be linked with other places by modern
transport and crammed full of cultural opportunities.
Taken in the abstract, everything is possible . But facts, which , as Stalin
said, are obstinate things, for the time being tell a different story. Despite
technical development, new transport, the proliferation of culture and so
on, there are other factors whereby people judge their position, and new
problems arise that no-one could have foreseen earlier. For instance, who
could have foreseen the whole complex of problems connected with the
discovery and use of atomic energy? However successful science and
technology may be, the vast masses of the population will still require jobs
to be done of a kind that has low social prestige and is relatively badly paid.
But the main point is that , because of the social hierarchy itself, a
significant part of the population must occupy a position in comparison
with which all other ranks of the hierarchy must seem to be in clover. In
order that the dismal life of Communist society should really seem to be
the promised paradise, there must be a hell with which people can compare
their lives and thank their stars that they at least are not in that hell.
One must never ignore socio-psychological factors of this kind when one
is examining Communist society. At times they play an immeasurably
greater role than tangible material factors. So that even if one supposes
that there are no unpleasant places in the country and no dirty jobs, they
will still be especially invented because of the social laws of that society.
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One of the reasons for the existence of Stalin's concentration camps was
the unconscious execution of an inevitable social wish. That they provided
unpaid labour in the form of slaves is of course evident.
Every year in the Soviet Union up to twenty million people are sent for a
longer or shorter period to do harvesting work in the country, to join
various building sites, or to vegetable depots in the towns. And how much
human effort is expended on voluntary work on days off! As for prisoners,
the overwhelming majority of them are not criminals but ordinary citizens
who have committed crimes because of circumstances, often from sheer
necessity. In the Soviet Union it is practically impossible to live without
breaking the law. The number of prisoners doesn't depend on the number
of crimes but the ability of the militia to detect criminals and of the courts
to pass sentence on this or that number of people. These factors in their
turn depend on the purposes of the higher authorities and of the demand
for labour in those places in which only prisoners, that is to say, slaves, can
work .
I want to emphasize that I am speaking here about a rather large and
typical Communist country, not about exceptions. It is possible that among
the Communist countries a small country will occupy an exceptional
position and that such things won't happen in it. In the largest countries
there may be regions with exceptional conditions. But in the Communist
world as a whole such exceptions do not affect the general trends.
The noble idea about man's obligation to work has, when it comes to be
applied to the broad masses, an inevitable consequence, namely, that
people are divided into two categories in one of the most fundamental
areas of human existence: for some work becomes slavery, for the others it
is a source of pleasure. At one end of society there is a concentration of
people leading an active social life with all its temptations; at the other
there are those condemned to exist like slaves and animals. Communism
does not eliminate this polarization . It only changes the forms it takes and
intensifies them. I would make the prophecy that in time the army of slaves
in Communist countries will exceed the figures of Stalin's time. We have no
data about China. What is happening there?

W O R K A TT I T U D E S

T H E C I T I Z E N ' s R E LATI O N S H I P to his work i n Communist countries is

determined by the organization of activity in the primary communes and by
the principle of remuneration. Here in practice a principle operates which
Soviet people express in jocular form : "it doesn't matter where you work
108
as long as you don't have to work"; "even horses die of work " ; "work isn't
a wolf; it won't run off into the woods" . This doesn't mean that all people
work badly or try not to work. First, there are many kinds of work which
force people to work and to do their job fairly well. Secondly, for many
people the very process of work gives them satisfaction; and they are
motivated not by fear but by their conscience . Thirdly, within certain limits
good work is better paid than bad. All this of course is true. However , in
much of the social activity in which the most active citizens are engaged,
the quality of work and the personal capabilities of the citizens play a less
important role than do their skills in orientating themselves in the social
milieu and in making a career . In this area of society's activities people
with mediocre gifts and mediocre training and energy are quite able to
carry out their duties effectively and yet are paid as much as, or more than ,
colleagues who are gifted and who work very hard. Here the most
significant kind of behaviour is not work in the accepted sense of the word ,
but is rather like what used to happen at society balls where the high and
mighty would resolve important governmental problems in circumstances
which did not resemble work at all . Activities which break up the routine
or contain a large fun-element are more prestigious than the activity known
as "work" . Usually even the people who find their real work absorbing end
up by being attracted by activity which breaks up the monotony or creates
some kind of diversion.
Thus there is a division of activity into work-activity and entertainment
activity. The first consists of the unpleasant and compulsory occupations
which are to do with earning one's living. The second, in addition to
offering better livelihood, brings to the participants satisfaction by itself. It
becomes an end in itself, and is its own reward. But reward for what?
Exclusively for the ability to fight one's way into that area of activity and to
occupy the necessary social position. The struggle to turn every activity
into career activity acts as a disincentive to the mass of the population to
show any interest in its work, in better performance , in being conscienti
ous. Poor workmanship, laziness, deception, disinclination to work, infect
the whole of society. Increasing the productivity of labour, on which the
ideologues of Communism rely so much in their calculations, has turned
out to be one of the most intractable problems of Communist society and
to a large extent derives from this particular attitude to work . Communist
society, I repeat, is a society of bad workers. This is not a national
characteristic of the Russian people . The experience of other Communist
countries confirms this statement.
Society tries to surmount this obstacle, which explains the very
cumbersome monitoring system, the establishment of model enterprises,
the existence of special conditions in some spheres, propaganda, a
proliferation of low-quality production sectors of the economy, and the
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 inflation of staff levels. However, all these measures cannot counteract
completely the strong tendency of society to slow down the growth of
productivity and to further the decline in quality of everything that is
produced . Indeed, the measures themselves further this tendency, as is
very clear if one examines how the procedures of quality-control actually
operate.
The system for ensuring accountability in the Soviet Union is truly
grandiose. This monitoring function is carried out by special authorities,
social organizations and the whole mass. of the active population. Here
everyone has to account for the results of his activity, one way or another.
And in a huge number of cases the form of accountability acquires much
more meaning than the actual state of the business. A special system of
procedures is worked out which allows the enterprise to produce an
excellent impression on the monitoring personnel when in fact the
enterprise's position is very bad. Moreover, the monitors themselves know
the real state of affairs and are interested in covering it up while at the
same time making it appear that everything is above board. Covering up
for each other becomes a form of self-deception which suits everyone . This
tendency is greatly strengthened by the fact that individuals and enterprises
do not depend on the sale of their products. I will return to this theme
later.

SOCIAL WORK

A B R I E F W O R D about one specifically Communist phenomenon: social

work. This is a complex phenomenon. In part it has to do with forms of
compulsory work; in part with the forms of educational and ideological
activity; in part with spending one's time pleasantly and profitably.
I myself have done social work all my life. At school I was the leader of a
Youth Pioneer detachment and drew cartoons for the wall-newspapers.
Drawing caricatures in wall-newspapers afterwards became my social work
all through my life in the Soviet Union , and although it was work , it was
also an amusing way of passing the time. Usually when we were discussing
the make-up of a wall-newspaper we would get together in a large group,
laugh a lot and then celebrate the end of our work with a jolly good booze
up . Often I used to travel about the countryside with the agitprop brigade
lecturing and giving amateur concerts. And here again I have excellent
memories of these journeys. I have drawn on some of them in my books,
especially in In the Ante-Chamber of Paradise, and in The Yellow House. I
also read scores of public lectures of every kind within the political
110
education network. And part of these lectures I used in my own books,
especially in The Yawning Heights.
Although social work is often a disagreeable chore and an empty
formality, it would be unjust to regard it as such in general. In my
experience, it is a complex phenomenon and one that is very effective i n
ideological education. Millions o f people take part i n this work. A n d how
many captive millions does it have as an audience ! To dismiss social work
in a couple of critical sentences and jokes would be to abandon the
principles of scientific investigation. Social work is an important phenom
enon.
Social work is done by citizens over and above their professional duties.
In theory, this means that it is done outside "office hours" . In practice it is
frequently done during working hours, and very often instead of official
duties. Many workers who are officially full-time employees are in practice
fully occupied with this social work professionally. It is reckoned that this is
voluntary, unpaid work for the good of society, and is the offspring of the
Communist attitude to work. I t is, of course, itself a Communist form of
work.
Let us consider the voluntary aspect first. Members of the Party and the
Komsomol are obliged to do social work, otherwise there are penalties and
reprimands. Other people are also obliged, inasmuch as the continuous
record of a worker's "standing" takes account of his participation in social
work, not, of course, to the same extent as in the case of members of the
Party or of the Komsomol, but nevertheless to some degree. If someone
avoids social work then that fact is noted and measures are taken. And
there are several measures, ranging from pay rises and promotion to the
solution of accommodation problems, the possibility of trips abroad or the
chance of having one's work published . Only those who have given up all
prospects of a career and improvement in their standard of living ignore
social work, in addition. perhaps, to celebrities, aristocrats and people with
high connections.
Now a word about the unpaid aspect. Most people who take on social
work receive remuneration in the form of a good testimonial, official
thanks and even prizes. Very often the time spent on this work is made up
for in other ways: official holidays and unofficial leave, tickets for places of
entertainment, journeys at a discount. Many social workers receive special
pay, for example lecturers at the Evening University of Marxism
Leninism; and honoraria, for instance lecturers from various kinds of Party
organs and societies such as the society Znanie (Knowledge ) . In many
cases social work is very profitable .
The basic form of social work is linked to membership of the elective
organs: the Party bureau, the trade-union bureau, the local Party
committee, the Komsomol bureau. Usually there is a struggle over this.
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Sometimes a very keen one, because it is a struggle about power and
privilege . The secretary of the Party bureau of an institution and the
Chairman of the local Party committee , for example , arc very intlucntial
personages in an institution . People who get on to housing committees and
deal with the allocation of trips to rest homes and sanatoria play a very
notable role in the life of the collective.
The highest Party and administrative organs judge the activity of an
institution by the state of its social work and its record in work of this kind.
And this affects the reputation of its management. Social work can lead to
prizes and decorations. It is social work which binds the individual and the
collective as a whole to the specifically Communist form of social life.
Social work does not squeeze out or replace productive work. It is simply
another cross-section of life in our society, and is just as indispensable as
production.

P R I VATE ENTE RPRISE

I N T H E O R Y T H E R E should be no private enterprise in Communist society.

This means that everyone should work in an official institution, do
everything within the framework of the law and be satisfied with only those
means of subsistence which arc appropriate to their place of work in the
primary collectives. But in fact people are not satisfied with this. Most of
all they use their official position to improve their conditions. But beyond
this phenomenon which the authorities find practically impossible to
control (not least because they do it themselves) there exists a very
significant sphere of private enterprise. The authorities struggle against it
and try to contain it within tolerable bounds or destroy it altogether, but in
one way or another it breeds in society and at times plays a very real role.
As far as I know no serious sociological investigations have ever been
conducted in the Soviet Union about this sector, so that its precise
magnitude is not known . But every citizen one way or another bumps into
it.
To this private sector belong the personal plots of collective farmers; the
market-garden allotments of town-dwellers; the markets; the renting of
accommodation in towns and resorts; private tailors, hairdressers, dentists
and jewellers; private lessons, speculation in scarce goods; every kind of
unlawful enterprise ; the liberal professions; and much else that is
permitted by law, forbidden by law or semi-illegal. In the country as a
whole this amounts to a high order of magnitude. However, one must not
exaggerate the role of this phenomenon. The proportion of it in the whole
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volume of activities of the population is relatively small. But the main point
is that private enterprise in no way undermines the country's general social
order. The majority of those who take part in the "private sector" are in
one way or another attached to primary collectives and are to some extent
kept under surveillance by the authorities. The infringement of the norms
of Communist society has here a purely criminal character.
Because of the fact that people in the private sector work better than
their counterparts in the corresponding branches of the public sector all
sorts of ideas arise about the expansion of the private sector within the
framework of Communism. However, private enterprise has no prospects
under Communism. It leads to the accumulation of wealth in the hands of
people who do not occupy high social positions and this contravenes the
general principles of distribution. Besides, private enterprise would enable
a mass of people to escape communal control. So the authorities do not
allow it anything more than moderate growth. And the basic mass of the
population supports them in this.

T H E L I F E O F T H E P R I M A R Y C O L L E CT I V E

A N A B S T R A C T D E S C R I PT I O N of a primary Communist collective makes it

look like something absolutely beyond reproach. Individuals go to work in
it, hold a position in it that matches their training, work according to their
ability and are remunerated in terms of their output . When they have done
their duty in the primary collective individuals leave it and then lead their
private lives in a manner which they can afford and which suits their private
inclinations.
Of course, for some people life does turn out to look as idyllically futile
as that. But for the vast majority of society's active members this abstract
model has no sense at all. For them life is basically all that they do in the
collective, for the collective and through the collective. This communal life
is reflected in all the other bits and pieces of their lives; it dominates them ;
it paints them in its own colours. It has an overwhelming influence on the
lives of the members of their families. And even afterwards when they do
leave the collective and get their old-age pension, they bear the imprint of
their former communal life to the very end of their days. For this vast
majority, then, it is not the case that they go to work in a primary collective
in order to earn the means to a genuine life when they have finished work.
In the event, exactly the opposite turns out to be the case; life outside the
collective is geared to life inside the collective . Collective life is their real
life and life outside is only a condition of life inside. The collective takes
1 13
not only the best out of them physically, it takes their soul as well. The
commune takes people in their entirety, squeezes all the physical and
spiritual juice out of them and chucks them out afterwards on to the street
and into private life as exhausted, drained, had-tempered, bored and
empty husks.
At the level of the primary collective people not only work, they spend
their time in the company of people they know well. They swap news,
amuse themselves, do all kinds of things to preserve and improve their
position , have contacts with people on whom their well-being depends, go
to innumerable meetings, get sent on leave to rest homes, are given
accommodation and sometimes supplementary food-products. As there
are continual shortages of food-stuffs. the last is very important. In the
collective people raise their qualifications and get all sorts of titles
certifying them. It is here that they go in for art and sport, not to speak of
joining political education groups. Here they do their social work . Here
they become involved in every kind of mass happening: demonstrations,
turning out to wave to arriving and departing YIPs, processions on public
holidays, recreational evenings, tourist trips and journeys. What you have
in the commune is no simple materialization of an abstract model but life in
the most exact sense of the word , with all its joys and griefs , successes and
failures, passion and drama. It is precisely this real life which a scientific
description of Communism must take into account at the outset. But in fact
nearly everyone writing or speaking about Communism ignores it. They
prefer to speak of things that make a bigger splash, such as repression and
the absence of civil rights, things which practically don't exist for people
who are living at the level of the primary collective. If such questions do
arise there. it is only in order that the collective may condemn dissidents
and express support for the authorities.
The essence of life as it is lived in the primary collectives is that the
abstract boons which we mentioned above are the subject of a ferocious
struggle between individuals. These boons (if that is the right word for
them) do not come of their own accord. Here it is a struggle to get even
elementary justice. Moreover it is not just a one-off struggle. This j ustice
has to be fought for constantly. A person only has to let his efforts weaken
for a short time before he is, in one way or another, done down . Here
everything which people have "as of right" must be fought for tooth and
nail. Despite this even the most elementary justice is attained only as an
average tendency: i . e . via transgressions of and deviations from the
norm. One individual rips off more than his due, another less. The same
individual gains here and loses there; holidays, prizes, pay-rises, pro
motions, a place in a children's nursery, a flat, and so on : these are all of
very real value. To get them there is a fierce battle of everyone against
everyone else. And here the forces of communality are unleashed in their
1 14
full strength. And to save themselves from these forces (which means to
save themselves from themselves) people have worked out socially
effective means of defence in the shape of a particular system of norms and
organizations to see that they are observed. These norms are the norms of
the allocation of work and of everything that has a value for people . The
organizations are the Party organization and the trade-union organization
and a series of others under their control, such as the Komsomol, the bank
for mutual aid, the housing committees and others.
The most deeply ingrained and at the same time the most visible features
of Communism are revealed where people work and acquire their means of
subsistence: in the commune. The commune is, as a rule, an organization
with a complex structure and a complex system of mutual relationships.
For the casual observer it is very hard to make head or tail of the system of
relationships. Indeed, it is almost impossible. It is as hard as it is sometimes
for an ethnographer to analyse the behaviour and relationships in some
primitive tribe. The members of the commune themselves (the workers)
know their way about it very well. And this isn't surprising because their
basic social profession is to be able to orientate themselves in this milieu
and to be skilful enough to snatch from it as much as they can . Their
productive activity is something secondary and incidental. The commune
doesn't exist for its work. The work is tolerated and done in as much as it is
the commune's raison d'etre. Only a few enthusiasts are captivated by the
work as a thing in itself and then only at times. Rewards, promotions,
publicity, appointments and so on sooner or later reveal the social essence
of their enthusiasm. The endless ululations in newspapers and on the radio
and television about the enthusiasm of the working masses is either lying
propaganda or a pure formality. The work people do in the commune is
seen by them merely as their means of getting vital commodities in
accordance with the actual laws of society and their means of preserving
and improving their social position .

THE S Y S T E M O F V A L U E S A N D V A L U E J U D G E M E NTS

T o THE O UT S I D E R it seems that almost nothing of interest happens in a

commune. Everything appears to be superficial, trivial and insignificant.
To notice anything meaningful one has got to live in it - and that then
excludes all possibility of objective observation . In a commune everything
lies on the surface and is known to everyone. But at the same time
everything is hidden. Hidden because it is not clear what one must discover
and identify as worthy of attention from the point of view of what is
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immanent in the life of the commune.
It is one thing when you arc whirling around in the hurly-burly and quite
another when you arc looking at it from outside. Everything looks
different. If you begin to look at a commune from the standpoint of a
naturalist studying an ant-hill, a colony of monkeys or a population of
rats, you will be struck at the outset by the apparent senselessness of most
of the actions of the workers and by the disproportion between the events
which occur and the workers' reaction to them. For instance, why does this
crowd of exhausted people go to the assembly hall and suffer torments in it
for hours when they know in advance that they will have no effect whatever
on the proceedings, since everything will have been decided long before
and endorsed by the appropriate authorities? Why docs the chairman of
the assembly put the matter to the vote when he knows in advance that the
majority will scarcely manage to put up its hand before, without even a
glance at the hall , he will declare that the decision is taken unanimously
and that nobody will let out a squeak about it? Or here comes worker A .
H e looks a s i f the most terrible misfortune has befallen him . But what has
happened? What has happened is that they gave worker B a Highly
Recommended (another nonsensical piece of paper) , while all that he,
Worker A, got was a vote of thanks recorded in the minutes (also a
meaningless sentence in a meaningless piece of paper), although his
services to the commune (what services?) exceeded those of worker B .
And, m y God, what a depressing spectacle people exhibit when i t i s a
matter of money, trips, flats! What passions are ablaze! The perplexing
question arises: surely a five-rouble pay rise isn't really worth all that
emotional upset? What is the difference between being a pauper on a
pittance and being a pauper on five roubles more? But there is , it seems, a
difference, and a very serious one. For those who take part in this nonsense
everything is much more serious than it is for people in the position of
kings, ministers, millionaires, outstanding writers and scholars, artists and
generals.
Each society has its own system of values and value judgements. What
these values are is known to everyone from the cradle. You've eaten all
your porridge: there's a good little fellow! You've broken a cup: naughty
boy, you've misbehaved! But what is far from known to everybody is that
there are certain general value systems that are universal for all societies,
all spheres of life and for all individuals. We feel this intuitively in certain
circumstances. If a tailor has made a bad suit of clothes, he has made a bad
suit of clothes, whatever his intentions were. If a man sings badly then he's
a bad singer, whether he's a night-watchman or a director. If a man has a
speech impediment then he's a bad orator whether he is the head of state
or the doorman.
One must distinguish between values and opinions. Opinions are
1 16
subjective in the sense that there are no general uniform criteria regarding
their expression. An opinion is not true or false . An opinion may be the
result of the fact that someone likes some phenomenon, event or thing or
does not . A value is objective i n the sense that there are general criteria
and rules by which it is established. Any individual who is guided by these
criteria and rules can arrive at approximately the same evaluation of a
given phenomenon. There are, of course, deviations from the norm, but
that is not important. In the main the proposition holds. For example,
different teachers in school mark their pupils' answers in more or less the
same way. There are deviations of one or two marks. But if you take the
bulk of the pupils and answers there is a reliable trend. The general
principle of evaluation is grounded on the presence of such a tendency
towards objectivity and its independence from subjective opinions. In
everyday life, however, there are no general rules of evaluation which
cover all phenomena. Values and opinions are mixed together. But none of
this affects the concept of evaluation , nor removes in principle the
possibility of there being general evaluative criteria for this or that
individual case.
In Communist society a system of values prevails which is founded on
the principle that there should be no general principles of evaluation. And
this system of values is actually not a system. Here the value of the actions
and ability of individuals is a function of the social position of individuals,
of their intentions and the moods of those around them, and even of the
specific nature of the type of situation in which the actions take place. For
instance, the highest authority takes the decision to dig a canal from point
A to point B and gives the order to start the work. According to the
general principles of evaluation as well as those of a technical and
economic order, the decision can be evaluated as idiotic in the extreme.
But according to communal rules it is valued as a stroke of genius. This
isn't propaganda. It is honest and sincere because the evaluation is seen as
being a function of the intentions ("do it for the good of the people" ,
"expect no favours from Nature"); o f the social rank o f those taking the
decision (the most senior civil servants who are by definition geniuses) ; and
of the particularities of the situation (there is nothing to eat) . The proposal
of one ardent paranoiac to dig that canal, made a week earlier, was
evaluated as harmful and even revisionist. For who was he to butt in with
his plans without even clearing them beforehand with the leader of the
planning group? But the intentions of the paranoiac happened to be the
same: to do it for the good of the people ; expect no favours. This kind of
anti-evaluative system is worked out with the greatest care and introduced
into all aspects of life, so there is nothing surprising in the fact that the
citizens hail idiotic films, pictures and books as masterpieces, praise the
quality of badly made suits and rotten potatoes to the skies, and elevate to
1 17
the status of genius their staggeringly stupid leaders.
Beyond their everyday value, many of life's phenomena have a kind of
symbolic meaning, and some of them only a symbolic meaning. For
example, it is clear that pay rises have a practical meaning; but not only a
practical one. They are also experienced by the individual as a symbol of
the fact that he is respected, that his work is valued and that he is capable
of advancing further. The expression of thanks in public has a purely
symbolic value. However, we should not regard this symbolic event simply
as having spiritual value. Symbolic valuations are the index of a person's
position in society, of his prospects and of the recognition of this position
and these prospects by society. That is why such strong passions are
aroused by what appear to be absolutely trivial events. A prize is not just a
sum of money (it is usually a small one) but the recognition of the security
of an individual's position and of his career prospects. If a man is dropped
from the presidium of the assembly, everyone knows that his position is not
as strong as it was. Here every setback, however small, is an omen that
things will get worse and every success is a hope that things will improve.
But since people live all the time in fear of things getting worse, every
trifle is worth almost a fight to the death. In Communist society life is a
permanent battle. If you slip in ahead of your turn you've won a victory. If
someone slips in ahead of you it's a defeat. If you get a seat in the
underground it's a victory. If others grab your seat, it's a defeat. If your
colleague is praised, it's one in the eye for you. If he's bawled out, you go
one ahead. Communal life is not the gentle simmering of mild cross
currents of disagreement, it is a seething cauldron of unbridled passion, but
always about trifles. Life consists of millions of trifles requiring an
enormous emotional and spiritual investment. There are only two means of
avoiding this, but both are fictitious. The first is to get to the top. The
second is to lower your sights. In both cases you deprive yourself of
genuine human potential and turn yourself into an artificial being. Normal
communal life is life lived in the quagmire of trivia.
Official ideology reflects this real-life position. It uses all its means of
impinging on human consciousness to ennoble and idealize this quagmire ,
and on the other hand to preach something contradictory; the principle
that one should be above everyday trivia. This principle was very popular
in the Soviet Union at one time as a consolation for hopeless poverty and
permanent difficulties. Now it has fewer and fewer supporters. But there
are enough of them still, especially in the circles of the intelligentsia where
a miserable standard of living and a primitive life-style are acquired at a
specially high price . In so far as people are in the last resort powerless to
extricate themselves from their own quagmire, they are glad enough to
respond to the official ideology. And the latter does not tell lies; or rather it
does not only tell lies; it does give people solace and diverts their attention
1 18
into the narrow channels the ideology requires. One has to concede that
from this ideological point of view the life of the collectives is admirably
organized. All the relevant procedures have been perfected: meetings,
bonuses, holidays, newspapers. Take, for instance, Soviet newspapers and
films, read the typical books, look at artists' pictures. Everywhere there is
the ordinary workman, doing his job well; all the same trivia of life are
praised to the skies, trivia that form the impassable swamp of Soviet life.
This doesn't mean that in the Soviet Union the ordinary worker and his
concerns are the most respected of phenomena: Soviet propaganda and
ideology are mendacious and hypocritical. What it does mean is that the
ruling classes and organizations of society are pursuing the ideological
processing of the population at the very base of its miserable existence.
People struggle for life's goods: that is the inescapable law of human
existence. It is important to establish in concrete terms what these goods
are in a given society for which people fight, how the battle is waged and
who has the advantage in the struggle . The fight for lighter work , for a
slight pay rise, for an extra metre of living-space: that is one thing. The
fight for work that demands all a man's efforts and resources but offers a
greater material reward in return, the fight for greater profits, for a higher
quality of product, for new markets, that is quite another. In some cases
the talented, educated and conscientious man has the advantage. In others
it is the ungifted time-server and crook .
I d o not make the general assertion that societies can be strictly
distinguished by a set of all these indices. In any society you will find
examples of them all . I only state that in every type of society something
prevails, is perpetuated, is encouraged and has the advantage. Take
Communist society. Which of life's goods are fought for in it? The things
which are most essential and ordinary: food, shelter, clothing, rest,
entertainment. In the struggle to acquire them what is the main weapon? It
is social position, a place i n the official hierarchy. Personal connections,
acquaintances, mutual services, "pull", bribes. Who has the advantage?
Certainly not talent, certainly not the unselfish worker, but the intriguer,
the careerist, the thief, the crook, the time-server, the informer, the dud,
and the non-descript. Of course there are exceptions. In places one can still
find opposite qualities prevailing, but on the whole things are as I say. It is
not the slogans, the programmes and the other ideological gimmicks that
define the basic features of communal society and its basic tendencies.
They only formalize, whitewash, intensify and conserve Communist life's
prosaic essence.

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 T H E FO R M S O F S O C I A L S T R U G G L E

T H E R E A R E rwo types o f struggle i n which communal individuals engage.

The first is competitive struggle. In the case of competitive struggle the
individuals are independent of each other in regard to the activity in which
they compete, and there are third parties independent of the competitors
who decide who has won . The simplest and most obvious type of
competitive struggle is the sporting contest when the competitors run or
jump and don't prevent each other from doing so physically. And there are
judges who see to it that rules are observed and decide who wins.
One can observe competitive struggle between social individuals in
different types of society, whether between individual people or between
whole collectives. Sometimes this type of struggle plays a huge role in
society, as was the case in bourgeois societies of the recent past and even
now makes itself felt in the West. In Communist countries. too. it is easy to
come across competitive struggle. But here the conditions for this kind of
competition are very much less favourable . Here it plays very much second
fiddle; the chief part is played by the second form of competition . This
consists of a struggle where the contestants are enmeshed in dependencies
of a different kind which are bound up with the object of the struggle itself.
We would obtain a graphic example of this kind of struggle if we could
somehow attach competing runners to each other and give them the means
of stopping each other from running . I call this form of struggle either
"obstructive" or "preventative " .
Prevention i s the main form o f social struggle and it i s conditioned b y the
whole order of life under Communism. At the same time it is one of the
most important mechanisms for the preservation of Communist society and
the operation of its laws. The aim of prevention is not to distinguish those
who do best in a sector of activity from the rest of the population , as is the
case under competition , but to prevent individuals from distinguishing
themselves in this way and to reduce those who threaten to distinguish
themselves to some average social level. Not only separate individuals but
whole collectives have tremendous possibilities in this business of preven
tion . Moreover, they also have the means of masking its real essence by
disguising it as evidence of social care , mutual aid and disinterested
criticism .
The means of prevention are both overt and covert. The overt method is
to detect shortcomings in the activities of distinguished individuals and so
compromise them in public. The covert method is to denounce people in
every way ; to "alert people to the fact that . . . " , to write letters to
governing bodies, to spread rumours and slander, to influence people who
control the fate of the individuals in question and to produce forgeries. The
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most despicable forms of intrigue are used. One cannot draw a dividing
line between overt and covert methods; they are closely related and merge
into each other. What is important is that as soon as the surrounding
people notice that an individual or a collective is beginning to rise above
the average level then, without conspiring together, but in a very friendly
way, they begin their systematic and relentless work to prevent the
development of the distinction which they have noticed.
The experience of the Soviet Union shows that only when an outstanding
individual is helped by the highest organs of power does he have the chance
of rising for a fairly long time to a fairly high level. But the authorities
rarely have enough power to exercise such a protection on behalf of many
such people. Furthermore, they can't go too far with their protection, and
therefore even distinguished individuals who are protected from above are
brought down to the average level. In any case the majority of them do not
usually succeed in distinguishing themselves very noticeably.
Moreover, the citizens themselves are quickly convinced that elevation
above the average gives them little real advantage and indeed often brings
extra unpleasantness in its wake. In the main the position of the rank and
file of citizens and managers depends not on their superiority over others in
a particular sphere of activity, but on other factors - including their ability
not to distinguish themselves from the rest of society. Accordingly, people
tend to be mediocre in all they do and fail even to try to raise quality and
productivity.
Of course, these obstructive or preventative tendencies also have their
advantages. Here either no-one is defeated, or if they are defeated they
don't suffer as a result, and at any rate they are not done for. Besides, one
of the strongest preventative measures is mutual assistance and mutual
rescue . Thanks to it the feeble are raised more or less to the average level .
Not surprisingly mutual assistance and the sharing of experience are
elements of so-called socialist competition . Those who are left behind in
this society are as undesirable as those who distinguish themselves. But
with them it is a simpler matter. All one has to do is lower the average
social level sufficiently for the laggards to become the average. This is the
cause of the tendency for the middling-mediocre level of everything
produced in the society to sink even further.
The tendencies we have been examining coexist very happily with model
individuals and collectives. In this aspect the Soviet Union has achieved
outstanding successes. Here there are outstanding examples for foreigners,
for the government, for demagogy and propaganda, for the needs of a
certain section of society. There are "demonstration-models" whose aim is
to be models or "beacons" for other phenomena of the same kind. There
are model specialists and institutions who exist to meet particular
requirements of the country, especially military needs. Sometimes they are
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the result of titanic efforts by individual enthusiasts. But all these
exceptional cases merely underline the general mediocrity of the system
upon which they exercise so little influence that one can leave them out of
account. On the other hand they further the social tendency towards
exhibitionist eye-wash, to organizational sham, to fake activities and to the
substitution of genuine work by its imitation .
Obstructive activity affects not only the struggle between individuals and
institutions of the same category but also that between different categories
of institution . Its operations thus result in an established and sustained
correspondence in level between different professions and branches of the
economy and of culture. The difference in level between different spheres
of human activity is conditioned by a series of causes that hide. and modify
the tendency towards mediocrity. For instance, the high level of sport,
ballet and chess in the Soviet Union is maintained because these things
have become elements of state prestige, weapons in the (as yet) peaceful
conquest of the world by Communism . And the most curious thing is that
these methods work. Not long ago I happened to be present among a
number of fairly educated people. We were watching a television
programme on sport in which Chinese gymnasts were performing. They
were very good, and some of the spectators accepted this exhibition as
evidence that life in China must be good. When I remarked that the
sporting successes of the Soviet Union were perfectly compatible with a
low living standard and mass repression, my companions reacted as if the
idea were outrageous.

THE I N T I M ATE L I F E O F THE C O LL E CT I V E

T H E I NTIMATE L I F E of the collective does not embrace only productive or

official activity. It includes social activity as well (meetings, evenings,
journeys) , and also personal relations and activities emerging from these:
gossip, visiting, love affairs, drinking orgies, local groups and mafias,
collective guarantees, mutual services. It is the latter which give an
intimate character to relations within the collective. They bind the
collective together into one family. Not just in a figurative but almost in a
literal sense. They bind it into something bigger than a family, that is into a
sort of single personality: the super-personality of Communist society; into
the kind of "we" that has the right to regard itself as an "I".
This is very important if one wants to understand everything that goes on
in Communist society. There, let me emphasize, the bearer of personality
is from the start not the individual but the whole institution . The individual
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is only a bit of a personality, a feeble claim to personality, a protest against
non-personality, is merely a memory of what personality used to be. It is
not the individual who is the precious subject of law and morality in this
society, but only the institution, itself separate, whole and autonomous in
its activity; it is the only real individual. When the norms of law and
morality, long enracinated in Western civilization, are transferred to
Communist society the same amusing incidents arise which for decades
have been the object of absolutely senseless conflict.
The intimate life of the collective consists of a vast number of actions and
connections that are in most cases habitual, automatic, obscure, unnotice
able to outsiders but very real to the initiated. They amount to everything
that makes a man "one of us" in some part of the collective, and through
that part, "one of us" in the whole collective. Because of this there is
nothing left in the intimate life of the man which is unknown to the
collective, from the condition of his bowels to his love affairs. For a man to
be recognized as a member of the collective he must possess a certain set of
vices permitted by the collective in reality, although often they are
officially censured. For example, drunkenness (provided of course that it is
not so bad as to become a stain on the reputation of the institution or to
make his wife complain) , two-facedness, sycophancy, a quarrelsome
disposition and absence of talent. A man is accepted by the collective even
more if he has a lot of misfortune such as illness, trouble at home, lack of
success with his children. The collective, for example, is willing out of
sympathy to smother in kisses someone who has been burgled and had his
fur coat stolen . The collective , in fact , is essentially a union of injured,
pallid, unhappy creatures which compensates for their defects.
There are always some people in the collective who become the
professional experts of its intimate life . They poke into all the details of the
lives of colleagues, spread news, rumours and gossip, mobilize sympathy or
censure. I n a word, the collective of the institution in which a man works is
his basic organic environment without which he simply cannot imagine
himself as a person. And society for its part does not grant the status of full
citizen to a man who is not either himself, or through members of his
family, inscribed in and attached to some kind of institution , who doesn't
as the saying goes, work anywhere. This is an objective fact of life . It is
neither the propaganda of apologists nor the slander of enemies, but a
fundamental fact of the whole social structure of society.

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 '
S P I R I T U A L P R O P I N Q U I TY

O N E O FT E N H E A R S complaints that in the West people live in spiritual

isolation from each other, this isolation being contrasted with the nearness
to one another which people experience in Communist countries, es
pecially in the Soviet Union. I am not concerned here with people's
isolation in the West. But I know very well what Soviet "nearness" means.
It is possible that it has its value. It almost certainly has - after all, it is the
natural form of human relationship in conditions of communality. But the
essence of this "boon" is mutual coercion, mutual humiliation and mutual
surveillance. All this is the manifestation of the Communist power of the
collective over the individual. Moreover, the individual voluntarily submits
to coercion by others because he himself takes part in the exercise of such
coercion. In actual fact, the principle of these "warm" and "friendly"
relations is this: "we are all nonentities". In such relationships people try
to know everything there is to know about the lives of other people; they
relish all the biographical details (usually dirty ones) ; they try to get inside
the private thoughts and lives of other people, they jeer at each other
behind their backs, they spread gossip and slander. In showing each other
such attention people willingly or unwillingly try to "land" each other "in
it" and to lower the tone of life to a level which is rather unpleasant. This is
no achievement whatever as regards humanity's spiritual development.
Rather it is a kind of promiscuity in the sphere of social and spiritual life in
general.
I know of no more loathsome phenomenon in human relations than the
intimate nearness of Soviet people. I magine that you found yourself thrust
into a situation in which your every step was watched and discussed by
those around you . You sit down to eat and everyone looks at your mouth ,
tells you that one of your teeth is missing on the left-hand side , and that
your teeth generally are rotten and everyone else's are better. Something
like this happens in all human relations in Communist collectives. There
the absence of all culture in human intercourse is elevated into a principle
which presents itself as the highest achievement in this sphere.
Moreover, the intelligentsia not only does not lag behind the lowest and
the highest in the land (who hardly differ from each other); it sets an
example by going even further than them. Boorishness, mutual denigration
and the vilification of everything in the world reaches truly monstrous
dimensions in the intelligentsia. The mud slung by his neighbours has to
stick all over a man if he is to fit into this milieu. Perhaps this mutual
vulgarization is one of Communism's worst phenomena . The principle "the
interests of the collective come before the interests of the individual
person" operates in practice as an attempt to turn everyone into
124
nonentities fit for ridicule and contempt. "Let's have no personalities ! " :
that is the essence o f i t . And the "personalities" who are inflated officially
are just as much nonentities as the others. Every member of society knows
this , especially the educated ones. Communism was conceived by the best
of people in the past as an organization of human life in which people work
together, enjoy their free time together, endure their difficulties together
and share their triumphs. In this ideal society everything would be shared
equally and justly. Everyone would live openly for all to see and be "soul
mates" together. They would care about each other, worry about each
other, love each other: in short, live as one friendly family. B ut such a
Communist cell is a pure abstraction if society is taken as a whole. It entails
leaving out of account the question of successive generations, the family,
bureaucracy, the hierarchy, the state, the Party and the organs of
repression. Such an abstraction may sometimes exist in reality in the case
of small groups in special conditions for a short time, but not in the normal
life of society as a whole. It was no accident that the founders of
Communist doctrine spoke about the withering away of the state and of the
organs of suppression when Communism arrived: they sensed even then
that their idea was an unreal fantasy and therefore furnished their fantasy
with conditions that could never be realized.

COMMUNAL ENSLAVEMENT

MAN IN S oviET society acquires the mm1mum of vital goods, an

uncomplicated life and minimum guarantees for the future at a dear price ;
the price of losing his personal independence, the price of subjection to a
primary collective, the price of communal enslavement. I have in mind not
only social control over how an individual performs his practical duties
(this is exercised in all societies in which people work together). I am
thinking of the attachment of the individual to the primary collective and
his subjection to rules of communal behaviour within the framework of the
collective and of society as a whole. This is the specific Communist form of
enslavement.
In critical literature it has become a commonplace to compare Commun
ist society with the concentration camp of Stalin's time or with the
corrective-labour camp of the "liberal" present (at best). Of course
concentration camps do bear many similarities to Communist society: large
masses of people are forced to live in them together according to the
collective principle. B ut there is all the same a distinction in principle. In
the concentration camp people are forced to live together by external
125
forces and the type of society there is forced on them by normal "free"
society. Communist society, on the other hand. beyond the confines of the
camps, is the product of natural. intrinsic human behaviour. At the outset
it is produced. one may say . voluntarily, and only on this basis is it imposed
on people as something given by nature. Moreover, it is imposed on them
in quite a different way from that of the concentration camps (from birth.
through family education, and by the whole of life's everyday experience).
Man in Communist society is free in a sense in which he is not free in the
concentration camp. The comparison of Communist society with the latter
(it has become fashionable to talk about Communist society as one "big"
concentration camp) obscures the essence of that society and hinders our
comprehension of it.
Moreover. concentration camps cannot serve as the model of Commun
ist society as a whole, just as an isolated organ of a differentiated organism
isn't the model of the organism as a whole. The concentration camp is a
useful arena for observing the manifestations of the laws of communality.
There they operate more openly than in "free" society. But the camp as a
whole is not the normal working cell of Communism. The administration
and the security of the camp can be viewed as a Communist cell in special
conditions. But the inmates. although they are put to some kind of use , are
from the social point of view material for the camp administration in the
same way that children in nursery schools and pupils in schools and
institutes are material for educational workers and educational establish
ments . Invalids in hospitals are also people, but they are not colleagues of
the staff of the hospital viewed as a working cell.
Although the number of prisoners in Communist society may assume
vast proportions. it is not the camps which are the socio-economic basis of
society. Under Communism prisoners are the product of the normal
activity of that life. Concentration camps are the consequence of that
society and lie outside its limits: they are not its basis or a particular
example of it. I repeat : people in normal Communist society are free in a
sense in which they are not free in corrective-labour camps, or in prison i n
general. To understand the type and degree o f civic bondage i n Communist
society we must begin by understanding the type and degree of the citizen's
freedom . All freedom is limited freedom. Two different questions, which
are usually confused . arise in connection with this: 1) how free within the
limits are people? 2) how stable and how narrow (or broad) are these
limits?
For example. a man who wants to go to the West from the Soviet Union
and is refused permission regards the refusal as a sign of the absence of
freedom there. whereas to the man in the depths of the country who
couldn't even conceive of making a trip to the West the opinion of his
countryman seems absurd. "Why doesn't he ask for the moon as well? ! "
126
To the pupil who has no hope of admittance to the Institute of
International Relations, his exclusion seems a limitation of his freedom to
choose his profession, whereas from another point of view the matter does
not look like that at all. Not everyone can be a diplomat, and to prove that
the above-mentioned pupil has a greater right to become a diplomat is
impossible for the simple reason that there is no such right. In case there is
any doubt about that, the regulations will see to it that the pupil won't get
into the Institute: they will simply fail him in the exams or ask for a special
character-reference from the regional committee of the Komsomol, which
won't be forthcoming. To be a diplomat is a privilege of the ruling classes.
But such privileged professions exist in all countries, and are not a
speciality of Communism.
The nub of the matter is that people in Communist society, because of
their education and the obvious conditions of their personal fate, have to
accept whatever limitations apply to their behavioural freedom or un
freedom as something natural and self-evident. They are brought up to live
within these limits and grow accustomed to them from childhood. They
accept the form of life that is foisted upon them, having no other choice,
and they themselves foist it on others. What happens when somebody tries
to infringe the generally accepted bounds of freedom or un-freedom (they
are the same thing) I shall describe later. The essence of communal
enslavement is not its imposition by external force, but the population's
acceptance of limitations to its freedom and its reproduction of these
limitations in the normal process of its own life. The majority do not view
their situation as enslavement at all. It is we who observe the society from
outside who can allow ourselves to use such an expression as "enslave
ment" when we compare the position of people in a specific society with
certain real, or theoretically possible, alternatives.
The citizens in Communist society do not consider themselves un-free,
living as they do within the framework of generally accepted and
apparently quite natural limitations. Their consciousness is directed to
something else: how to arrange their life to the best advantage within the
framework of what is allowed. And we must admit that, for the majority,
this is freedom enough. Limitations on the choice of profession, of where
to live and work, on changes of domicile within the country and on
journeys outside it are not as a rule regarded as the absence of freedom or
freedoms. Usually people are either reconciled to this or find their own
ways of getting round these limitations. For example, the limitations on
residence in Moscow are circumvented by means of marriage or through
bribes, through one's career, or through the exercise of one's talents. But
not even the dissidents have yet thought of demanding the abolition of the
residence permit system .
People live in all sorts of conditions under Communism . I n one locality,
127
for example, there will be no factories or special educational institutions; in
another one factory and one technical college ; in a third ten factories, two
institutes and ten technical colleges. Thus the chances of education and
professional training and the choice of profession arc not the same for all.
Colleges and schools differ in educational level. Professions differ in terms
of attraction and career prospects . People differ in terms of their natural
inclinations. their family position and in many other ways. In practice it is
impossible to destroy this diversity. And society finds the means to compel
people to reconcile themselves to that fact to some extent. Such means
amount to various limitations on personal freedom as regards choice of
profession. place of work, educational establishment , choice of residence ,
travel .
In every society there are similar limitations. But in each society they
have their own special character. In Communist society they are only an
extension of the general principles of attachment of people to the
commune and their distribution according to social position. For the
reasons we have given, the limitations on the freedom of individuals under
Communism become a conscious, compulsory administrative method of
allocating people to communes geographically. A complex system of
restrictions develops: passports , residence papers, problems with hotels
and transport, problems with obtaining food supplies and arranging to
work where you want . Peculiar norms of freedom come into being, chief
among which is the system of privileges.
People discover the limits of freedom (or un-freedom) for themselves,
but the latter are only experienced as such when people begin to transgress
the written or unwritten Jaws of the Communist way of life . For example, if
some people organize religious sects or political groups, try to publish
something without the censor or to put on a demonstration that has not
been authorized by the authorities, then they immediately discover that a
whole series of freedoms is missing from this society, freedoms that are
customary in the democratic countries of the West. How the authorities
react to such initiatives is well known . What is more important is the fact
that the authorities are merely expressing the reaction of the masses to
deviations from the norm of Communist life. It isn't at all as if some evil
rulers were deliberately depriving people of certain natural and generally
recognized freedoms. No, the real fact is that Soviet society at its very
foundations doesn't need freedoms of this kind and is even hostile towards
them . To Soviet people these are alien phenomena. And the struggle
against these "alien" freedoms is conducted above all at the level of the
primary collectives.

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 P ER S O N A L ITY A N D F U N C T I O N

FROM TH E DA Y h e i s born the individual i n Communist society is subject to

powerful formative influences which, with few exceptions, turn him into a
"new man" in accordance with the principles of that society. It must be
admitted that the society does this particular dirty piece of work very well.
It is by now clear that Communism is above all a society of people who
behave badly. But the business of producing this shoddy product is going
very nicely. To be good at producing rubbish, trivia, "bullshit", to be
expert in passing fiction off as fact, imitation as the real thing and the
production of counterfeit goods as honest activity are the inalienable
qualities of Communist society. And the remark is especially relevant to
the most important production of all : the production of human beings.
Here society's assembly-lines mass-produce marvellously made people,
completely deprived of any social or moral foundation and ready for any
abomination that circumstances might demand.
From the standpoint of human material Communist society is typically
unable to contain on a large scale individuals who could be described as
persons. This should not lead us to imagine that individuals cannot commit
acts that are characteristic of persons. What it does mean is that if an
individual does something characteristic of a person , then he is simply
removed from the historical arena; he is either destroyed as a biological
unit or forcibly isolated. A man may act once like a person; but this is too
little to make a person , because a person is a social individual who
accomplishes such actions more or less regularly. Of course, there are
exceptional situations when a man wins the opportunity of being a person
for some considerable time . But sooner or later Communist society, in one
way or another, cleanses itself of such individuals. Besides, such individ
uals are very rare. They are not typical or characteristic of Communist
society. What is typical of Communism is precisely the absence of such
individuals or the destruction (including their exiling abroad) of individuals
who by chance survived and had the impudence to dare to be persons.
Communist society gravitates towards an absolutely homogeneous de
personalized state. That way there is peace and quiet. Everything is more
orderly and everything is much easier for the government.
If a man in Communist society turns out to be a significant person or
"personality" who stands out against his environment, this does not mean
that he has lived a virtuous life or that he should be canonized as a saint . If
he really does try to live such a life, he is either speedily liquidated by every
available means or he grows into a fighter against small injustices in his
immediate environment. This type is in every way encouraged by the
Soviet authorities and by Soviet propaganda. Such a fighter for truth
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battles with the housing authority to get leaking water-taps mended , tights
to ban smoking in public places, mounts a campaign against the noise of
transistor radios. Such a fighter is a buttress of Communism , and
absolutely never reaches the point where he would oppose the whole
Communist order of life. To oppose in that sense means really doing
something; it means living for a fairly long time; it means thinking deeply.
It means that for one reason or another, society itself has chosen you and
pushed you right into the role. Of course traits of character, educational
conditions and events in one's past life play a role in all this: sometimes a
decisive one. but not always. and not always noticeably. The main thing is
that such a man lives his own life normally, only gradually accumulating his
exclusiveness. It is no accident , therefore , that in the Soviet Union there
are sudden "outbreaks" of personalities, when suddenly it seems that well
off and reliable citizens begin to rebel, protest , and try to insist on their
own personal worth.
Once again this position is the consequence of the very form of life of the
basic population. Because of their situation in the communes people do not
perceive each other as whole. autonomous beings who contain in them
selves all the world's values, but only as partial functions of the whole. So
they easily change their lovers. their friends, their comrades-in-arms. They
do it easily because in the commune it is only the function that matters,
which any suitable individual can fulfil, and not some sovereign participant
of interactions which only take place at the elevated level of autonomous
individuals. The ruling principle in practice is this : no-one is indispensable.
The difference between man-as-function and man-as-person doesn't
depend on the respective levels of education and culture. Man-as-function
can be very highly educated and cultured; man-as-person may be uncul
tured and illiterate. The distinction lies in the character of the human
relationships and in the relations between individual people and the
community. I am not expressing value-judgements here. To be a person is
not necessarily a good thing, while to be just a partial function is not
necessarily bad. The workers in the Soviet Union's collective and state
farms, for instance, are better educated than Tsarist peasants, and on the
whole live better than they did: but they are all partial functions of
collective personalities, whereas even the poor peasants of the past
gravitated towards the man-as-person type.
Besides the division of people according to their functions in the working
life of the collective and their official social position there is an unofficial,
but in reality no less important, division: the one corresponding with their
unofficial functions in the collective. Here the concepts of free-will and
compulsion do not apply. It is simply the case that certain people are
suitable to play particular roles in the life of the collective. Such roles
include: management spy, gossip, "fighter for the truth", informant,
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"decent bloke", " reactionary" and genius. I have described many of these
man-functions in my books, including the function of the "decent bloke". I
will give a description here of the "decent bloke" as a characteristic
example of the genre. It is an interesting one and something of a
supplementary stroke of the brush on the portrait of Communist man .
Communist society has contributed its own special chapter to general
social progress by breeding its own type of individual, never seen before
and never met with in societies of another type. This is the "decent bloke" .
It is not that there weren't o r aren't decent blokes in other countries, but
that isn't the point. Formerly there were more of them, and in contempor
ary societies of another type there are immeasurably more of them than in
Communist countries. But that isn't the point either. The point is the
special social role of individuals. Just as in any large stable social group
there are always some people (usually one person) who take upon
themselves the role of voluntary jester, in Communist social groups one or
several (more often one) take on the role of "decent bloke". What sort of
individuals are thrust into this role? Naturally the most useful and most
suitable, who know how to extract from this honourable role a perceptible
advantage. But that isn't the main point. What is important is to determine
the visible actions which these people perform regularly, and their hidden
social meaning. Usually the decent blokes themselves and those around
them are not conscious of this and that they are not is one of the most
important features of this hidden meaning. The decent bloke does all the
same things that others do, but he does them in such a way that. against the
background of the others, he looks like the incarnation of goodness,
sensibility, honesty, bravery, fidelity to principle and other abstract
virtues. By the very fact of his existence he seems to be saying to people:
"You can be virtuous and at the same time avoid suffering and even get
your reward! " By taking part in different organizations and events he
somehow ennobles them and masks their real essence. Indeed, it is the
decent blokes who hide the most unpalatable phenomena of Communist
life from the eyes of the general public. They are not only co-partners in
crimes, they give the latter the mask of virtue , or sad necessity. Besides,
they are dangerous. They deal you a blow at the most crucial moment; and
quite unexpectedly, because you are relying on them and it never enters
your head that they constitute the most vulnerable spot in your position.
The authorities take excellent account of the role which decent blokes
really play; and within certain limits encourage them and even invent them
if such people don't appear on the scene according to the natural laws of
communal life . They are elected to every bureau, are rewarded with prizes,
and are held up as examples. There are hardly any cases where decent
blokes evolve into oppositionists. As soon as the authorities notice that a
decent bloke is transgressing the limits of what is permitted, they quickly
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put him in his place or deprive him of his particular role.
I chose the example of the "decent bloke" for a particular reason that I
wish to underline. In a society in which communality rules, even virtues are
special functions of people and not innately noble qualities. Moreover,
virtue often pays better than vice. And its hidden role is sometimes more
disgusting than the open behaviour of evil men .
It is exactly the same with all the other social functions of the collective. I
have already mentioned the functions of those who "fight for the truth".
What is interesting here is that the average commune resembles the
elements of one individual scattered among many different people. If you
want to know what the potential of any one Communist is, you should
carry out the following operation: take an average typical social institution ,
analyse its structure and the different functions of the people in it and then
put them all together in your imagination to form a whole being, the
character of one man. You will then get the being which Marx himself
defined as the aggregate of social relations. Here the collective begets its
members in its own form and likeness; and the members of the collective
reproduce their community in keeping with their nature . The circle is
closed , and there is no exit from inside it. We make our social life
correspond with what we are. In Communist society an enormous mass of
people are occupied professionally and semi-professionally with the task of
bringing man down to the level of a certain small rodent. Their most
powerful weapons in this business are their own insignificance, reptility and
bestiality. This is their natural form of self-defence and self-preservation.
So, to stop this frightful force , centuries are needed; and sacrifices.

T H E R E S P O N S I B I LITY O F T H E COLLECTIVE

THE C O M M U N E S A R E so placed i n society vis-a-vis the authorities that i t is

they who bear the responsibility for the behaviour of their members. And
if individual members of the commune do socially reprehensible things,
then the rest of the members of the commune will suffer for it in one way or
another. The situation is the same as it is in the army. For instance, a
soldier goes into the town on a pass, gets drunk and breaks the place up.
As a result many commanding officers get strips torn off them , moreover in
hierarchical succession. The regimental commander gets his from the
divisional commander, the battalion commander from the regimental
commander, and so on down to the man in immediate command of the
culprit. The political officers step up their educational activity. The whole
platoon or even the whole company loses its leave passes for the next few
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days. Meetings are called; wall-newspapers are issued. In brief, everyone
in the vicinity of the soldier is compelled to pass judgement on him. The
reaction of the commune to the misdemeanours of its members is
organized in exactly the same way. The administration of the commune is
hauled before higher authority and receives a roasting. And this has its
effect on people's position and careers. The collective suffers not only
symbolic forms of punishment, (e.g. losing its position in a "socialist
competition") which in the last resort produce palpable effects (e.g. the
loss of prizes) , but also punishments that are immediately felt, such as time
wasted in meetings and committees of all sorts, the reinforcement of work
discipline and vigilance towards other potentially disruptive elements. I
have given a detailed description of this system which forces the commune
to react to the behaviour of its members in my book In the Ante-Chamber
of Paradise, in the chapter called "The collective's responsibility for its
members". This system not only places power over the individual in the
hands of the collective but makes the exercise of this power inescapable.

RENEGADES AND THE COLLECTIVE

TH E N A T U R E O F the relationship between the individual and the collective

in Communist society becomes particularly apparent in the case of
particular individuals who are known in the Soviet Union as renegades * . I
describe the renegade in detail in my books Notes of a Nightwatchman , and
In the Ante-Chamber of Paradise. Here I shall include only a few fragments
of the description.
Every commune contains an active part, a passive part and a "noncon
formist" part. A comparatively small number of officials form the active
part. They administer everything to do with the inner life of the collective:
they pressurize the administration, the Party organizations and other social
organizations. They form a peculiar mafia of their own, bound together by
collective guarantee and mutual support. They are the carriers, the
mouthpieces and the creators of public opinion within the collective. They
are elected to the local trade union committee, to the housing committee,
to the management of the mutual aid fund . They control the distribution of
trips and loans and prizes. They spread rumours and gossip. They compile
secret dossiers on every member of the collective.
Of course, not everything is in the power of this mafia. Besides, it usually
fulfils the wishes of the official management of the collective, but it does
have considerable power, especially as regards the lower ranks of the
otshchepentsy
133
workers and the little things that make life bearable. The mafia isn't always
homogeneous and unanimous. Sometimes it splits into warring factions
and changes its composition. Sometimes it has its tail between its legs. But
all in all its role remains stable: to snatch for itself everything that can be
snatched at life's lowest level.
The overwhelming majority of the workers forms the passive section of
the collective. People of higher rank also belong to the passive section;
people who in some degree stand above the trivialities of collective life.
They form a submissive and completely apathetic mass. Attention is only
paid to them when one or other group is trying to seize the initiative and,
for this, seeks to attract the mass to its side .
The "nonconformist" section is made up of a small number of people
who , for one reason or another, stand outside the collective's intimate life.
Usually they are people who have let themselves go to pieces or who are
temporary workers in the institution. Nobody takes any notice of them : for
the collective it is as if they didn't exist. But sometimes among the ranks of
the nonconformists there are good workers who consciously try to preserve
some independence and resist immersion in the petty intimate life of the
institution. These people evoke unease and bad feeling. Efforts are made
to squeeze them out, to compromise them and to destroy them.
The distinguishing feature of the nonconformist renegade is, above all ,
his non-participation in the intimate life of the collective. The members
interpret this as opposition to it, as conceit and disengagement from the
collective. And the fact that he is a good worker won't help him. If the
collective feels that the man is a "renegade " , it will do everything it can to
destroy his reputation as a good worker. The process will be made to
appear like a genuine case of "unmasking" or of "bringing things to light".
Later the incident is usually presented in a way such as to suggest that this
good, honest worker had in fact all the time been an enemy.
The collective doesn't dub a worker a "renegade" all at once. Years go
by, sometimes decades before this happens. Indeed , the worker doesn't
always become a loner all of a sudden , or if he does he is not always
immediately aware of it. Sometimes he never becomes aware of it at all and
falls into a state of extreme perplexity when the collective starts to settle
accounts with him. In the beginning the collective will fight furiously to
prevent the worker's cutting himself off from it and opposing himself to it.
All possible measures are applied, from cajolery to threats and worse. And
it is rarely that a man does not bow to the collective's onslaught. When a
campaign against a worker is in progress, the collective may allow itself many
things that would be inadmissible with regard to workers who are reliable. For
instance, the collective may hide from the administration the fact that the
worker has found himself in the sobering-up station and in that way lure him
into closer relationships with trusted people in the collective.
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 As a rule workers do not try to become loners. and the collective itself
sincerely tries to draw people in to its own life. This is evidence of a
fundamental law regarding the levelling of the individual and his attach
ment to the collective: both sides strive towards this end. And if a man
does fall into the category of loner. then this is a deviation from a general
norm . This deviation is not an accident because there are other laws which
account for it . By virtue of the laws regarding the unity of the individual
and the collective, the latter prefers not to expel the individual but to tame
him by force and include him in the collective duly reformed. Therein lies
the force of the principle: "become what we all are and then we will forgive
you". The loner is thrown out only in the extreme case when there is no
hope left of taming him, or when the authorities order him out. Usually the
two things coincide.
One of the most potent means with which the collective can pressurize
an individual who defects from it or who tends to do so is slander . Slander
existed in the past, but only in Communist society has slander become a
normal social phenomenon that evokes no open censure and causes no
pangs of conscience. Only here does it assume monstrous proportions and
invade life at all levels. Of course, everything depends on whom it is
directed at. If it is directed at one's own administration or (Heaven forbid!)
at a higher one, then it is a criminal action. Slander goes unpunished
only when its object is singled out by the collective, and endorsed by
the administration, as an individual who is setting himself against the
collective and society in general. Such an individual lives in an
atmosphere of perpetual slander. In so far as people have no inner censors
(such as fear of God, conscience, moral principles, good breeding) while all
external restrictions have been removed, people are not sparing of their
slander; moreover. they exhibit a wealth of invention. The talent of the
population is to a large extent squandered on the slandering of one's
neighbour.
Social skills in slander are highly developed and the habit of slander is
developed from generation to generation so consistently and thoroughly
that people do not even notice that they are engaged in slander. The
capacity for slander is organically inherent in them as one of the nation's
greatest historic achievements. Slander is a factor of everyday life at all
levels. It is practically impossible to bring slander out into the open
because everyone practises it and because its sources and initiators are
never revealed. Outsiders are in no position to distinguish slander from
truth , and any attempt to unmask it easily ends up as an apparently
ridiculous fuss about nothing.
Nevertheless. what is striking is not that the collective settles accounts
with loners but that it inevitably pressurizes one of its own members into
that role. The loner is alien to this society, but he is alien in a way that
135
makes him at the same time indispensable to the collective. To force a
suitable contender into the role of loner; to try at the same time to make
him its own ; then to try to discredit and suppress him ; finally to expel him
from society: all these are necessary elements of a society's training in
monolithic unity , and demonstrate that very unity both to itself and to
others. They are a means of constantly conditioning society in a particular
mould and of preserving that mould.
Enemies of society are not born. They are made. And they are made by
the will and wish of society itself. The collective singles out a certain type of
individual for future sacrifice , and involves him in its life in such a way that
his projection into the role of enemy is an inevitable consequence. And the
enemy is almost always fictitious and illusory. Very rarely is he real. Here
we see a characteristic of this society manifested in the contradictory
processes of incorporating individuals by first singling them out and of
alienating individuals by seeking to incorporate them . It holds some deep
meaning which escapes the participants and which is analogous to the
meaning of ritual sacrifice in societies of the past that were not founded on
legal, moral or Christian principles.
Candidates for the role of renegade have certain qualities. They will be
people of originality. They will be daring, upright, of free and independent
attitude and colourful. That is to say they will be those who are most
defenceless in the social context; the most vulnerable and the most hateful
to the grey mass of the workers of the collective. In the case of such people
all the measures taken by the collective to incorporate the loner into its
intimate life actually stimulate him to resist the collective and to stand
apart from it as a sovereign person . This either results in the ruin of the
individual on the level of the collective (he takes to drink, becomes
apathetic or begins to take risks) or his actual expulsion from it which also
means that society loses him. Very often it means the enforced physical
isolation of the individual from society by its punitive organizations.
The behaviour of people who have attracted the close attention of the
collective is not perceived objectively but is subject to interpretation.
Essentially what happens is that others attribute to such behaviour
whatever motives, objectives, causes or effects take their fancy, i.e. they
attribute a particular meaning to it. And from there on people are dealing
not with actions as such but with their interpretation of them . In so doing
they fail to notice that they are interpreting the actions in a way which most
suits the given situation and the dominant part of the collective . The
members of the collective do this not because they do not know the
underlying reasons, motives, aims and consequences of a certain person's
actions but because their own interpretation is convenient to themselves. It
affords them psychological justification , stimulates a particular disposition
and gives them arguments for the punishment of the victim. They
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themselves are both j udges and executioners. The collective itself is in the
position of being responsible for the behaviour of its members. This is
convenient. On the one hand the individual is released from responsibility
for what is in fact the collective coercion of a neighbour. On the other, the
collective is compelled to react spitefully to the dissident member and to
deal with him without mercy.
The punishment of the victim proceeds according to definite rules. A
whole system of organizations and officials see to it that these rules are
observed and that the punishment is carried through to the end. All
interested and responsible authorities must be convinced that the collective
has reacted correctly in the "emergency", that the collective is fundamen
tally sound, that the management will deal with the situation and take
measures that will prevent a repetition of such cases. Otherwise these
supervisors will have to explain their lapses in the matter, and so on until
the wave of responsibility is exhausted in the depths of the social hierarchy.
The fundamental principles of the ritual punishment are these: 1) denigrate
the victim in every possible way; 2) express one's astonishment at his
behaviour; 3) confess one's own fault in the sense that one has "overlooked
things", and "displayed a liberal attitude" without "paying due attention
to certain signs and signals"; 4) punish those who are deemed guilty of
having "overlooked things" ; 5) take prophylactic measures.
The purpose of punishment is to exact retribution from the person who
has deviated from the generally accepted norms of behaviour and to serve
as a lesson to others. Punishment is not a single act , but a continuous
condition of the culprit for the rest of his life. Moreover, the convicted man
loses the defence of the collective against hooligans, thieves, bandits, the
militia and his neighbours. In a society in which the individual has no legal
defence against the whims of local authorities, the collective is his only
defence on that level. Without the collective man becomes the plaything of
chance even when his punishment is relatively light.

I N D I V I D U A L I S M A N D C O L L E CT I V I S M

TH E C O M M U N I S T COLLECTIVE reacts very sensitively to that phenomenon

which is the polar opposite of its own form of conduct, psychology and
ideology, that is, to individualism. I drew attention to this phenomenon
extensively in my book The Yellow House. Here I shall limit myself to
some brief remarks.
Individualism and collectivism are special types of behaviour which
differ psychologically and ideologically. From the behavioural point of
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view the individualist prefers to act by himself, independently of other
people. One must not confuse this attitude with the urge to secure a
privileged position. The individualist is ready to forgo privileges and do
heavier and less remunerative work if it provides him with some
independence from the activities of other people. The collectivist prefers to
act in a group and be in contact with other people doing the same thing as
he does. The individualist avoids large assemblies and tries to separate
himself from the crowd . The collectivist seeks the mob and seeks entry into
groups, castes and parties. Situated in the mass, he acts according to mass
laws and doesn't separate himself from it. One mustn't confuse this
attitude with careerism or its absence , or with the urge to be boss. The
collectivist is even more inclined to rise above his fellows and gravitate
towards the leadership and a career than is the individualist, because for
him his behaviour and role within the collective is precisely that , whereas
for the individualist it is merely a means of separation from the collective.
The individualist tries to make his way in life through his own abilities and
by his own work; in other words, by his own endeavours. The collectivist
advances together with the collective, by means of the collective and by
means of his role within the collective.
From the psychological point of view individualism and collectivism are
not to be confused with egoism , egocentricity, altruism, misanthropy,
gregariousness, unsociability or other qualities of this type. The collectivist
can be an egoist and egocentric, a misanthrope and a recluse. The
individualist can be sociable , a lover of mankind and a man who avoids
attracting attention to himself. The collectivist can be a self-seeker, ready
to betray his collective for his own petty advantage. When it comes down
to it there is no guarantee whatever that he will sacrifice his own interests
for the sake of the collective. The individualist, on the other hand , may be
devoted to the collective and may sacrifice his own interests for its sake.
This is not at all the point. The individualist is psychologically self
sufficient, he feels himself to be a whole and sovereign personality,
irrespective of his social position.
From the ideological point of view the individualist regards himself as an
autonomous being of intrinsic worth, and recognizes other people as
similarly sovereign beings. Moreover, the individualist even regards the
collective as a being possessing equal rights. He rejects the principle: the
interests of the collective come before the interests of the individual. He
accepts the principle: the interests of the individual members of the
collective and of the collective as a whole are of equal importance. The
collectivist for his part regards himself as a function of some other
sovereign entity, namely the collective. He accepts the principle: the
interests of the collective come before the interests of the individual.
Individualism is the most vibrant manifestation of the social need for
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personal identity and collectivism the least. They differ only with respect to
the issue of personal identity, not collective identity. For collectivism ,
references to the importance of the collective principle in society are only
an argument in a debate, or material for self-justification. For the
individualist. human society is a community of intrinsically sovereign "I"s,
while for the collectivist only the unity itself is an "I"; only "we" is "1".
The active individualist tries to be unique among his equals. The active
collectivist tries to lower others to his own level, to raise himself above
them and become the "top dog" .
Collectivism makes the individual more adaptable to the complicated
conditions of contemporary society than does individualism . The collectiv
ist is more flexible, more agile, more wily than the individualist , and in the
context of Communist society or islands of Communism in other societies,
collectivism shows itself to be maximally adequate. For that reason it
specially cultivates collectivists. Individuals who in other conditions could
become individualist by virtue of their innate gifts are forced into the
general norm, rather as born left-handers are forced to become right
handers. Society tries to prevent the appearance of individualists. B ut they
still keep on appearing. Why? Partly through negligence on the part of
those around them. But mainly because there are always types of activity in
society which only individualists can handle. Generally these are kinds of
creative activity in which the collective, either in principle or de facto, is
unable in certain circumstances to replace the individual and i n which the
collective has no advantage over the individual. But the situation of the
individual who survives or even flourishes is in the overwhelming majority
of cases dramatic. The execution of the above-mentioned types of activity
threatens to elevate the individual above other mortals, not because of the
laws of society but in spite of them, and this creates tempting precedents.
The individual threatens to corrupt the whole substance of society, i . e . of
the human material forming that society. Therefore society tries to destroy
those types of activity utterly or to reduce them to the minimum or to
envelop them in a standardized collectivist environment in which the first
victims will be the individualists.
Of course, Communist collectivism has its good points as well. It
destroys the personal "cocoon" of individuals which condemns them to
spiritual isolation and brings people together. But what does this means of
curing people of their loneliness really amount to? It is like a dirty
communal pre-war Moscow flat in which five or six families huddle
together, eternally quarrelling and eternally relapsing into a state of
maudlin friendship.

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 POWER

CoMM U N I ST S OCI ETY I S a voluntarist society to the highest, possibly to the

maximum, degree. In it the power-system reaches monstrous dimensions
and entangles the whole of society in such an all-pervading network that it
is practically impossible to separate the rulers from the ruled. For this
reason it is utterly absurd to hope that one can change the way of life in this
or that Communist country by changing the form that power takes within
it. Here one can change the form of power only by changing society as a
whole ; or, to be more precise, by destroying the country and building a
society of another type from its ruins. But, as I said earlier, the possibilities
of doing this are very limited.
What is power? The concept is rather vague. First of all power is the sum
total of all the authorities in the country. And goodness, how many there are!
In a country as large as the Soviet Union their number is so huge that together
with the members of their families they form a whole state within a state. This
statement is purely metaphorical , of course, because the authorities do not
form a single unified whole but are distributed throughout the country among
the mass of people under their control. Indeed, a huge number of bosses are
themselves subordinate to other bosses and are less well-off than many rep
resentatives of the privileged classes who are not officials (for example, the
ordinary university teacher may be better off than an officer of the militia).
B ut from all this it doesn't follow that people regard the exercise of power as
unpleasant and burdensome. There is a struggle for even the lowest positions
in the power-system because they signify a rise in social position and offer
relatively tangible privileges.
This huge army of officials is a particularly communal phenomenon. It is
a direct result of the splitting of society into functional cells and beyond
that into social and functional groups at different levels, into hierarchies of
cells, and by the unification of all sorts of groups of people into complex
groups and of these groups into a whole society. One can't get away from
this phenomenon because it is governed by objective social laws which are
as inevitable as the laws of nature. There are definite bounds within which
the number of functionaries fluctuates in a contemporary society once it
has reached a certain stage in its development. It cannot be less than a
certain minimum dictated exclusively by the interests of government, and
this number cannot be reduced by any kind of governmental decree. One
can reduce the number of officially recognized officials, but then more de
facto officials will appear. They may not be officially recognized but they
fulfil functions which accord completely with social laws. The number of
actual officials may be curtailed by diminishing the numerical strength of a
country's population, by cutting down the number of hierarchical levels in
1 40
the social structure, by simplifying the system of management and by other
means. But do many of these procedures match the tendencies of social
evolution? As a matter of fact one of the reasons for the change from
Stalinist procedures in the Soviet Union to the Khrushchev-B:ezhnev type
of regime was that a process of rapid diversification of the country's life had
begun, and previous forms of control were no longer adequate.
Communist society has not invented power, but it enables the prolifer
ation of power in society since the owner has been replaced by the official,
who rules over something that he doesn't own. In addition, the official
gains office not by virtue of tradition, custom, or inheritance but by virtue
of relationships of supremacy and subordination as such.
Furthermore, Communist power is an aggregate of special organs of the
social organism: the Party apparatus, the ministries and territorial au
thorities. Their task is to weld large groups of people into a single whole ,
and in the end into a whole country. These organs themselves have a
complex structure. In the last analysis they too are composed of functional
cells. Within these cells as well people are divided into the rulers and the
ruled. These organs also have a complex structure on another plane: there
is again the Party apparatus, but also an administrative-managerial
apparatus and the state apparatus (in the Soviet Union, for example, the
state is represented in the territorial soviets) . Later I shall come back to
examine what, from the sociological point of view, the basic properties of
this rather cumbersome power-apparatus are.
Finally, power exists where any one person can exercise force in his
relations with others. In Communist society power in this sense becomes
especially potent. It consists above all in the power of the whole collective
over the individual members of the collective, the power of individual
members of the collective, the power of individual members of the
collective over the rank and file , the power of any member of society over
any other member who is at any time dependent on him . Relevant here are
the countless occasions when people become the objects of other people's
activities (for example the power of the shop-keeper over the customer,
the power of the militia-man over the drunken member of the intelligent
sia, the power of the taxi-driver over the client who is in a hurry and is
desperate to catch a taxi ) . For ordinary citizens this power is so tangible
that it often pushes all the other forms of power into the background.
In the narrow sense of the word, power is an aggregate of people
employed in the governing apparatus of the state and its innumerable
branches. In the Soviet Union this consists of soviets on different levels,
ministries, committees, unions, the militia, the organs of state security and
so on. And of course the Party apparatus, which unifies all these into one
whole, stands at the head of the whole power-system and forms its core on
all levels and in all branches.
141
 The overwhelming majority of those who represent power are poorly
paid civil servants. This results in the inevitable tendency for low pay to be
augmented through the use of one's office . So there is nothing surprising in
the fact that many of the low paid representatives of power live a good deal
better than their more highly paid fellow citizens. Thus power is materially
attractive even at the lowest levels. The overwhelming majority of the
powerful officially possess only a very small portion of power. This leads to
the tendency to make up for one's inadequate power by exceeding one's
official competence ; and the possibilities of doing this are almost limitless.
So it is also not surprising that in practice low officials in the power
apparatus dispose of a large amount of power.
This incidentally accounts for the hatred of the ordinary official for the
higher-ranking scientific-technical intelligentsia and those working in the
arts, a hatred directed by the law of compensation for impotence at
the most defenceless and the poorest part of the creative intelligentsia.
Hatred of the intelligentsia in general is an element in the ideology of mass
power as a whole, if only because in the lowest sections power is held by
the least educated and the least gifted part of the population, while in the
upper reaches it is held by people who, from the point of view of education
and talent, everywhere and always are inferior to their contemporaries
who are scholars. painters, writers, or representatives of the performing
arts.
Power in Communist society is at once omnipotent and impotent. It is
negatively omnipotent, in its ability to do harm with impunity. It is
positively impotent in that it is incapable of doing good gratuitously. Its
potential is enormously destructive and minimally creative. The successes
of the economy (and of business generally) are not due to power as such .
As a rule these successes are , from the point of view of power, a necessary
eviL This goes even more for successes in the field of culture . Such things
are in general not the function of power. The illusion that they are the
product of the exercise of power arises because decisions are taken , plans
drawn up, instructions issued and reports completed about absolutely
everything. B ut really these are only superimposed formalities: there is no
nexus of cause and effect. Management of absolutely everything is merely
a far;:ade disguising the existence of power for its own sake .
This omnipotent power is incapable of carrying through even a well
prepared tiny reform on a national scale if that little reform is called for in
order to improve social organization: i . e . if it is a positive reform. But with
a mere wave of the hand it can destroy whole programmes of science and
art, whole branches of the economy, centuries-old structures and even
whole peoples. But it cannot defend even the smallest creative enterprise
from the attacks of those around if the latter have the intention of grinding
it to dust .
1 42
 Power of the Communist type is in principle unreliable. It cannot carry
out its promises for long enough and systematically enough . And this isn't
because it is fraudulent. Power cannot keep its word because of the way it
works. This applies of course in the first place to positive intentions and
only to some extent to negative ones. People who have promised
something can easily be replaced by people who interpret that promise as a
mistake (in order to discredit the people they have replaced). The general
tendency for norms of life to shift , together with the tendency of the
authorities to re-organize everything, can change the sit <ttion so much
that previous promises lose their sense or are simply forgotten .
Unfulfilled official promises become the norm. Deep down nobody
believes the authorities. They don't believe themselves either. When
decisions are taken this disbelief is taken for granted as a matter of course.
Not openly, of course, and, I repeat , only in matters concerning positive
action. But as regards negative activity the signal has only to be given. It is
much easier to be destructive than constructive.
In addition to everything else there is almost total irresponsibility with
respect to the course of government business. Power grabs everything it
can for itself. It then arranges its business in such a way that it bears no
responsibility whatever for blunders and deficiencies. What makes this
possible is an elaborate cover-up within the power apparatus.
Power in Communist societies is an element not of political relations but
of other social relations, namely communal ones. It is power for its own
sake and has no other basis than itself. Here power doesn't exist for
society. On the contrary society only exists, is recognized and permitted to
a degree necessary and sufficient for the production and functioning of
power. Under Communism society, biologically speaking, is merely
power's "culture medium" and an arena for its own circuses.
All forms of power in Communist society and all the people who
participate in power and possess some of it will stop at nothing - in other
words they are capable of anything if it gives the desired result and isn't too
severely punished. Communal considerations are the basis and essence of
everyone and everything. Other phenomena in human relations derive
from this basis and are subordinate to it. The state power of a Communist
country as a whole is subject to this principle. If the government of the
country considers that such and such an operation is necessary and
comparatively safe , nothing from within the society is able to stop the
government from carrying it out , however monstrously immoral or cruel
the operation may seem. Communist power is limited in its arbitrariness
only by external obstacles and by its own ability to overcome them.

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 P O W E R AT THE LEVE L O F THE CELL

THE E S S E N C E O F power in Communist society is clearly revealed at the

level of the primary collective . Of course in larger units (right up to the
scale of the country itself) power assumes functions which it doesn't enjoy
at the level of the cell. But it is in the cell that the roots of these functions
are nonetheless to be found. The functions of power on a nation-wide scale
are merely generalized, enlarged functions of power in the cells. For
example, at the level of the cell there are no courts of justice or punitive
organs, yet punishment functions arc already part and parcel of the
primary collective. The primary collective cannot give a worker permission
to go abroad, but whether the worker can make that journey will depend
on the collective no less than on the Ministry of I nternal Affairs. In a very
large number of cases the primary collective authorizes the instigation of
criminal proceedings against its own workers and even takes the initiative
in such matters.
In their own working cell citizens come up against administrative power
(i.e. management) ; against Party power (including the Komsomol) and
against the power of the collective (including the trade-union organiz
ation) . The overwhelming majority of workers in the collective takes part
in the exercise of this power in some way or other. And although the chief
administrators are appointed from above and the Party management is
selected and supported by the highest Party organs, power at the level of
the primary collective is genuinely autonomous. For the majority of
citizens life is limited to the level of the primary collective, so that for them
everyday power is seen first in its aspect of local autonomy. At this level it
isn't regarded as compulsion. Even the higher ranks of the leadership of
the collective do not stand out against the rank and file in the way that
happens in the case of owners of enterprises with hired labourers, or land
owners with farm-hands or serfs. Here they are all members of the
collective . They may have ambitions to rise higher and so stand out from
the collective as something external and superior. But while they are in a
particular collective, they are all comrades together. Power in Communist
society is in the highest degree democratic at its own base, and this fact is
expressed in the personal relationships between the rulers and the ruled.
One of the tricks of the social system, to which I always draw attention, lies
in the fact that a highly democratic power-base in the collective can give
rise to the most undemocratic power on the scale of the regions, the
provinces, the ministries and so on , not to speak of the country as a whole.

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 T H E G O V E RN ME N T O F T H E C O M M U N E

THE L E A D E R O F the commune (the manager or director) i s appointed by

superior administrative organs. B ut it is the appropriate Party organ which
gives the go-ahead for his appointment and often it takes the initiative in
the choice of a suitable candidate. In the Soviet Union , the director of an
institution, and often his deputies too, are the nominees of regional, town
or higher Party organs. They form part of what in the Soviet Union is
called the nomenklatura. Functionaries within the cell are also sometimes
selected for less senior positions by the higher administrative and Party
organs (this is nomenklatura at a lower level) and sometimes they are
selected and appointed by the management of the cell, naturally with the
go-ahead from the Party organization.
It would be wrong to think that the rank and file of the workers do not
take part in the appointment of the management. Even the appointment of
the senior managers of the collective often depends on the opinions and
wishes of the workers in the institution . Both Party meetings and general
meetings of the institution do play some role, as do workers' assemblies
and other forms of democracy. Usually appointments to the lowest posts
depend very definitely on the rank and file . It is hard to compute an
accurate percentage, but probably the greater part of the directors of
primary collectives comes from the rank and file.
I have already discussed the purely social aspect of management. Here I
would like to draw attention to the following phenomena. The selection of
people for power positions at cell level is something of an everyday
procedure. It is uninterrupted; that is, it doesn't take place for all positions
at once but happens continuously, as positions fall vacant or new ones
appear. Sometimes the fiction of free elections is acted out (for example i n
the case o f scientific staff) . B ut this happens a s an exception to the general
rule.
The power system is renewed without interruption as a normal routine.
There are some general rules for choosing people for office. Among them
there are formal requirements (for instance an engineering diploma or a
Doctor of Science degree) , but in most cases it is unwritten laws which
operate ; i.e. the laws which underlie the operation of the relevant organs
and collectives. To describe these laws or rules would be to describe the
type of people who have the advantages in career terms, the type of people
favoured by those who have the power to select and appoint. Of course,
there are mistakes and miscalculations, but these are rare. Usually those
who are doing the selecting have enough experience to choose someone
suitable. When a candidate is being selected for a post his ideological ,
professional , moral and general human characteristics, such as his attitude
145
to other people, are all taken into account. The candidate who has been
chosen by means of these criteria turns out, as a rule , to be a reliable
manager of average capacity. It is not true that the most cunning and
cynical rogues are chosen for office . At the level of the primary collective
they know people well enough and don't like such types. B ut if those
respectable candidates who have been selected subsequently reveal all the
characteristics of the toady, the cynic, the dodger and the thief, this is the
effect of general communal laws from which only few manage to escape,
and that rarely.
Of course. one mustn't imagine that a management appointed from
above does not depend on its subordinates. The manager's security and
career prospects depend on the efficacy of his subordinates' work. In
primary collectives the manager is exposed to both open and hidden
criticism. Open criticism takes place at meetings and works conferences.
Hidden criticism takes the form of signed or unsigned denunciations,
complaints to higher organs, rumours and slander. Sometimes the manager
has to spend more time defending himself from this sort of criticism than he
spends on the performance of his duties. Thus the picture which I sketched
above appears harmonious only when it is abstracted from communality,
which in real life is in full spate at the level of the primary collective, and
poisons practically everyone's life . including the management's. Although
people fight to become managers, their life is not one of unadulterated
pleasure. Often it is fairly fatiguing. B ut people join management all the
same, because for many it is the only way to tear themselves out of the
quagmire of communality.
The power of the director of the commune over his subordinates is not
unlimited . Besides being limited by the demands of the official business of
the commune, it is also limited formally: by laws, by superior administra
tive and Party authorities, by the Party and trade-union organization in the
commune, by the authority of other management personnel in the
commune. So at times the director is compelled to fight a long, exhausting
battle in order to be able to dismiss someone and often he may not
succeed. At times the sub-managers of the commune succeed in defending
their own interests against the management. From the point of view of the
organization of the commune's business there is little that the manager can
alter. The work-activity of the commune is limited by its legal status and by
plans, and the manager is obliged to work within their purview, so that
even a small initiative costs managers of communes immense efforts, and
quite often the result is a heart-attack. For this reason managers are more
concerned with the showy side of communal life; about things which look
good in accounts; about their personal relations with every kind of
important and useful personage ; about their formal authority. The lion's
share of the efforts and talents of managers of communes is devoted to
146
maintammg themselves in their posts and in creating a healthy set-up
(which means that the authorities are content with the commune and that
discontent within the commune is kept within bounds) .
From the point of view of the internal life of the commune the director
or manager has real power as regards the daily life of its members. Much
depends on him: promotion , prizes, housing, pay-increases. But even i n
these areas he i s not completely i n charge. There too h e is watched over by
the social organizations and the rank and file of citizens who write
complaints and anonymous letters to all sorts of organs and often criticize
the managers openly. Thus the manager can only use his power for himself
personally and his henchmen , toadies and those people who are his real
assistants.
Naturally the managers of communes are constantly trying to exceed
their authority and abuse their power. This is the norm of social life unless
of course someone goes too far or a campaign is begun for which sacrificial
victims are required.
Since individuals chosen to be communal managers are usually suitable,
and as they undergo the appropriate training for the role, the managerial
position as I have described it usually suits them admirably. The limit on
initiative removes at the same time the risk of their losing their job through
making their own mistakes. On the other hand the initiative which is
circumscribed by the limits mentioned above is still ufficient. True, this
remaining initiative, as a rule, is rarely directed at anything to do with the
interest of the commune in terms of active progress. Managers are not
interested in technical progress, in rationalizing production , in lower costs,
in higher productivity or in anything like that: a fact which contributes to
the general trend towards stagnation.
The managers of communes are working managers, engaged in pro
duction , direction and administration, and at the same time they are the
representatives and plenipotentiaries of the Party in the governmental
system of the state. It is at this point that the regulation of society carries
over directly into the management of business. This fact is very important
for an understanding of the nature of power in Communist society. There
is another important function in the power system at the level of the
commune which I will speak about later. But already enough has been said
about commune managers for us to reject as nonsensical any idea of an
opposition between Party power and managerial/governmental power.
Power in this society is one and the same. And managerial/governmental
power is only a function and branch of a single system of power, which
appears as "Party" power only in its extreme manifestations.

147
 P A RT Y O R G A N I Z A T I O N

A LT H O U G H T H E STRUCTURE and role of the Party in a Communist society

may seem to be completely obvious, incomprehension of the essence of the
Party in the critical literature can in fact assume monstrous proportions. It
is strange that former members of the Party and even people who have
held posts in the Party apparatus are still as capable as others of talking
utter rubbish on this subject. For instance, what value should be placed on
the assertion made by one well-known critic of Soviet society that a kind of
Partocracy is prevalent in it? Why does this happen?
There are many reasons for this, and I will refer to two of them. The first
is purely psychological. Officially in the Soviet Union, and in other
Communist countries, the Party is held to be the guiding and organizing
force of society. If one believes that Soviet propaganda lies, then one will
take this formula for a lie, although it is an absolutely justifiable statement.
And although the role of the Party cannot be denied, the other extreme is
the theory that power in the country belongs to those at the top of the Party
hierarchy who suppress everyone else with the help of the KGB and the
army. Incidentally, the expression "the guiding and organizing force" does
not necessarily mean that the Party is something very good. It is not a
value-judgement. Even when Soviet propaganda affirms that the Party is
the mind, the honour and conscience of Soviet society (and even of the
whole era) , it is telling the truth; but it doesn't follow from this affirmation
itself that this mind , honour and conscience are of high quality.
The second reason concerns the distinction between knowledge and
understanding. One can know a lot about a phenomenon without
understanding anything of its essence. This applies precisely in the present
case. The word "Party" here is misleading. The Party in a Communist
society is regarded by analogy with other political parties as a political
phenomenon, whereas in reality the role of the Party in an established
Communist society is qualitatively different from the role of political
parties in non-Communist countries. Under Communism the Party is no
longer a political phenomenon. And to understand what it really is requires
that method of understanding about which I spoke earlier: we must first of
all understand what the Party is at the micro-level of the primary collective,
that is, at the very base of society. Only then can we explain those
transformations of the Party which take place at the macro-level of society
as a whole . It is only by taking this road that we can , for instance,
understand why the very idea of a multi-party system in the framework of a
Communist society is ludicrous.
In accordance with the philistine mode of thought only bad comes of
bad; and if something is bad in society, then the reasons which have caused
148
it are also bad . And, in general, in a bad society everything is bad. But in
real life it is continually the case that good engenders evil , and evil good,
and even in the worst society one can find something worthwhile. If a
society exists for long enough and reconciles itself to some evil or other,
then either something exists for the sake of which people will put up with
that evil, or else people themselves are engendering the evil because they
are not able , or perhaps even willing, to vanquish it.
So the position is that on the micro-level of the primary collective the
Party is the embodiment of good. Here (and throughout the country in
general) it is the one single force capable of somehow restraining the
turbulent forces of communality and of defending people against them
selves and ensuring some sort of progress.
The Party consists of people. Therefore our attempt to understand it
must begin with the question of its membership. We must recognize as an
indisputable fact that the membership of the Party is a voluntary matter.
Why people enter the Party is clear to all. The main reason is that they
have mercenary and career considerations in mind. B ut they do it
voluntarily. To be a Party member is the desired aim of many. But not all
are thus blessed. There are occasions when people are forced to enter the
Party for work reasons. For example, it is virtually impossible for a non
Party man to work in the field of the humanities. But this does not affect
the principle of volition. People voluntarily choose this sphere of activity
for themselves, as a rule knowing in advance that they must gain entry to
the Party. The managers of institutions are, as a rule, Party members. They
engage in the struggle for managerial status of their own volition and enter
the Party for that reason. Whoever says that he was forced to join the Party
against his will is simply a hypocrite .
It can also happen that people who have entered the Party do not believe
in its ideals, in the purity of its morals and conduct, and despise Party
discipline, its demagogy and its meetings. There are very many of these.
But this fact doesn't make any difference, once people conduct themselves
formally as sincere Party members should. The important thing is their
actual behaviour. There is nothing immoral in that because there is no
possibility of revealing that someone is only pretending and is insincere as
regards the programme, ideology and demagogy of the Party. Insincerity
on entering the Party does not invalidate the principle of free choice: it
affirms it . It shows even more that the act was committed on a basis of
personal calculation and decision.
The free will aspect of Party membership is the basis of the whole state
system. It is on this basis of absolute free will that the system develops its
complete and unbridled power of coercion. Coercion is the resultant force
of the free will of individuals and not the evil design of tyrants. Tyrants are
as much the pawns in the hands of a power that has burgeoned of its own
149
volition as are their victims. The unlimited power of the tyrant is an illusion
which is born of a situation in which absolute power is vested in the victims
of power.
The second principle of Party membership is the principle of selection.
People enter the Party voluntarily, but not all are accepted into it. The
selection takes place according to strictly defined principles . The selection
also determines the direction in which the sum total of the free will of
individual people will manifest itself as their collective power. Once set in
its mould the system of selection for Party membership renews itself in
stable fashion from day to day and from year to year, subject only to
insignificant changes.
There is no complete coincidence between the structure of Party
organizations and the structure of the primary collectives. One can find
social groups in which there are no Party members. Sometimes a Party
group is made up of Party members of different social groups (albeit of
groups which are rather close to each other functionally) . Sometimes the
primary collective has so many Party members that the Party organ in
charge of it acquires the rights of a regional Party committee (as, for
example, the Party committee of Moscow University) . But in the main the
structure of the Party organization gravitates towards the official social
structure of the primary collective, so that on any occasion one can regard
the Party organization as an element of a social group.

T H E P A RTY I N T H E C O M M U N E S

I N THE CRITI C A L literature the image presented of the Party i s persistently

negative . For some the Party means power (a ruling Party elite) ; for others
it is the road to a career, but on the whole it is the organ by which good
non-Party people are persecuted by wicked Party people. It is undeniable
that Party officials, starting at whatever level, are privileged people. The
great majority of managers of all sorts are Party members. A vast number
of vitally important functions in society are entrusted only to Party
members. Many people make use of Party membership solely to further
their career; and so on. And yet that does not entirely capture the essence
of the Party. Essentially the Party was different in the beginning and it has
become what it is largely as a consequence of other factors . Most Party
members get very little for themselves out of their membership; for many
the only reward is additional chores and unpleasantness (Party subscrip
tions, meetings, social work) . Most members live the usual life of the non
Party masses , sharing with them all the burdens of their existence. The
150
non-Party mass of the population does not in any way censure members of
the Party for being members of the Party, but rather regards such a state of
affairs as right and proper. In difficult situations of various kinds Party
members do indeed take the lead, not all of them , of course, but those who
do lead are usually members of the Party. Those who enter the Party are
far from being the worst people; and from the point of view of the interest
of the collective and of society they are the best. Non-Party people in one
way or another have an influence on whether someone is elected to the
Party by creating a certain opinion of him. Up till now the people call "real
Communists" not those who are Party careerists but the ones who are
honest, modest, courageous and selfless. The Party is a mass, multi-million
strong organization of the population which forms not only the kernel of
power but also the kernel of social life as a whole.
Before we do anything else we have to gain a truer insight into the
relationship between the Party apparatus in its key role as part of the state
apparatus and the mass of Party members who work in the primary
collectives. From the outside it appears that there is a Party in the form of a
monolithic organization , with a leadership which rules over society using
the Party as a means to this end. The idea has even been voiced that the
power-system in the Soviet Union should be regarded as a Partocracy. B ut
the reality is different. The Party apparatus supervises the Party organiz
ation in the communes; it supervises the intake of citizens into the Party; it
gives uniform directions to Party organizations; it takes into its own ranks
the most suitable workers from among Party members. All this of course
gives it additional means with which to govern society. B ut once
established the Party apparatus preserves itself and renews itself indepen
dently of the mass of the rank and file of the membership of the primary
Party organizations. In principle one can conceive of a situation in which a
clearer division of them will come about, so that even the names will be
different. It is possible that the formal renewal of the Party apparatus will
take place without an electoral procedure which even in the Soviet Union
is now recognized as semi-fictitious. Ordinary members of the Party as well
as the primary organizations will be given nominally the role which they
play in fact: a role that relates exclusively to the level of the primary
communes and operates within them.
The Party organization in the primary collectives and the Party as a
whole are not collections of people in the way that communes are. Within
the primary collectives the members of the Party may still meet together,
and this gives a certain illusion of unity. But the Party organizations even
of neighbouring communes live quite independently of one another and
form no kind of unity whatsoever. On the regional level there is a kind of
union of Party organizations in that they elect delegates to the regional
Party Conference (who are nominated for them by the regional Party
151
committee), and these delegates elect its bureau. Moreover, candidates for
this bureau and for the post of secretary are earmarked in advance. This
electoral procedure is bogus. Were it to be abolished, nothing would be
changed in substance. The important thing here is that the formation of the
bureau of the regional Party committee (incidentally its large apparatus is
not even ostensibly elected) does not amount in any way to the unification
of separate Party organizations into a whole. They remain separate. They
are even more separate at the level of the province and of the republic, and
at the highest level the severance of the Party apparatus from the mass of
the Party becomes absolute.
Even at the level of the primary collective the Party organization is not
one social group among other subdivisions of the collective. Its unity is
fictitious. The appearance of unity is achieved only because people who
have entered the Party are obliged to observe certain rules of behaviour
which apply to Party members. The observance of these rules gives them
certain advantages. Failure to observe them would curtail and even destroy
their chances of keeping their previous position. For a person entry to the
Party is only one social act among many others that determine his social
position. Moreover, it is not the most important one. What counts most is a
person's position in the primary collective from the functional point of
view. Membership of the Party is only one of the roads to a career. Even
the Party managers at the level of the primary collective depend to a
greater degree on the management of the collective than on the regional
committee of the Party. They depend on the latter for their election and for
their future career in some senses. But they are members of a collective
and receive all their material benefits in and through the collective .
Although the director of an institution , as a Party member (and usually as a
member of the Party bureau) , is subordinate to the secretary of the Party
bureau, the latter rarely abuses his power. The director still remains the
highest power in the institution, and by no means only in the managerial
sense. The director of an institution is in fact the representative of Party
power. He is the protege of the Party apparatus, chosen for the position by
the Party apparatus itself. And the Party bureau and the Party organization
are his helpers. In some degree they supervise him. But even more they
obscure the fact that in reality power is essentially a non-Party phenom
enon .
The role of the Party organization in the primary collective is charac
terized by these most important conditions: 1) it represents the interests of
the whole mass of the collective and speaks for i t ; 2) at the same time it is
the representative of the organs of power of society as a whole in this given
sector of society. The Party organization executes its first function in as far
as its members are part of the general mass of the collective, are
completely bound up with it, do not form a special privileged caste and do
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not cut themselves off from it. The Party organization executes its second
function through its own leaders who are subordinated to the Party
apparatus, as well as by constant supervision exercised by higher Party
organs. Thus the Party organization in the primary collective exhibits both
the power of the people and the limits of that power. It is at the same time
a connecting link and a regulator of the relationship between the power of
the people and the power of the state.
The role of the Party organization in the life of the primary commune is
enormous. It is a gross error to imagine the population of a Communist
country simply as obedient pawns who have no influence on the life of
society. At the level of the primary collective the population displays a
certain activity; and in the persons of its Party representatives it takes part
in decisions about the institution's business and exercises control over
many aspects of its activity. Criticism of the shortcomings in the life of the
collective is a normal item in the work of the Party organization. The latter
maintains a certain decent standard in the collective and does educational
and cultural work. In short, all sides of communal life fall within the sphere
of the Party organization's attention and influence.
The fact that the Party organization within the commune does not in
practice influence wider communities or the life of the country as a whole is
another matter. But that isn't part of its job as a specific social
phenomenon. It is not a political organization , but only an element in the
cellular structure of society, not of society as a whole. It is the Party
apparatus which functions in society as a whole and is part of state-power.
It too is not a political organization, but it is an organization of a quite
different order to that of the primary Party organizations.
It should be clear from what has been said why a multi-party system is
impossible in a Communist society. Firstly, even a single-party system is
impossible in it because this society excludes parties in general in the sense
of political organizations as they are found in the West. Under Commun
ism any attempt to create political organizations is regarded as an attempt
upon the prerogatives of state-power and is cut short with the silent
agreement or even support of the general population . Secondly, there is
simply nobody for many parties to represent. The population of Commun
ist countries is grouped, structured and crystallized in such a way that each
primary collective as a whole creates its own active representation in the
system of power. This representation is the primary Party organization . In
accordance with the general tendency towards standardization and subor
dination these organizations are also standardized and subordinated to the
organs of power.
It isn't a question of nomenclature. Other organizations exist in society
and continually appear which represent in one way or another the interests
of different categories and groups of people: e.g. trade-unions, Komsomol
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organizations, sporting organizations and so on. But by virtue of the
general principles of command and subordination they are all in one way or
another under the control of the official system of power.

T H E P R I M A R Y P A R TY M A N A G E R

T H E QUESTION O F secretaries of primary Party organizations and o f Party

organizers (who are the leaders of small Party groups) is part of the general
question of the status of the Party in Communist society.
It is an error to think that primary Party managers are all villains in the
way they are made to appear by the debunking tendencies of our times:
that is to say, careerists , thieves, liars, cowards or time-servers. In almost
all cases known to me they were far from being the worst citizens. Knowing
the general situation in the Party I can affirm that this is a natural
phenomenon. The explanation is as follows .
As I have already said more than once , we must distinguish the Party as
a multitude of primary Party organizations in the communes from the Party
seen as the aggregate of the professional workers of the Party apparatus:
whether in regional , municipal, provincial and republic committees or in
the Central (All-Union) Committee of the Party itself. These institutions
are all directorates - and the most privileged ones. It is very important for
an understanding of Communist society that we fix in our minds the
distinction between the rank and file of Party members and elected primary
Party functionaries on the one hand , and the Party apparatus seen as a
hierarchy of Party committees professionally occupied in Party work on the
other. Although the first phenomenon produces the second, nourishes and
supports it, while the second grows from the first as an instrument for
unifying it on a national scale, the second is isolated from the first as part of
the privileged command structure of society. It knits well with all the rest
of officialdom and becomes its crystallizing core. The first subdivision of
the Party merges with the non-Party body of society and shares all its
burdens. The second uses that body in every way for its own mercenary
interests.
It would be erroneous to exclude all mercenary interests from the people
who enter the Party, including primary Party managers. Almost the whole
managerial section of society starts by joining the Party, so that in the
overwhelming number of cases this is the careerist's route. But even those
Party members who don't succeed in making a career have the potential for
one, and at least Party membership is a means of self-assertion for them.
The Party secretary is usually a fairly mediocre workman in his pro-
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fessional field . He instinctively prefers the job of Party activist to a career
in his own profession. The secretary of the Party bureau, moreover, has
power, and he likes that. When he says that he is sick of the job, he is being
hypocritical . Of course to some degree he is sick of it, but he enjoys it more
than he is sick of it. He likes chairing meetings, making speeches and
having conversations with people. He would clearly love to move higher up
the Party ladder, but for some reason avers that he's "not keen". Why?
There are many Party secretaries but distinctly fewer places in the higher
apparatus. Sometimes the reason is that he is a good secretary. He is not
good from the point of view of a Party career but from the point of view of
the immediate management of the institution's Party organization and of
the Party management of the institution itself. He is rather like a political
officer at the front who spends his time in the trenches with the rank-and
file , goes into the attack with them and perishes with them. That kind of
political officer does not meet the requirements of a functionary in the
political section of a division, an army or an army group. If the secretary
hopes to get a flat that's about as much as he is likely to get . At times the
important element in the behaviour of such people is not mercenary
calculation but some natural human qualities which have nothing speci
fically to do with Marxist ideas on the Party programme. In certain people
these qualities are simply the embodiment of certain general functions of
the collective. The Party apparatus merely clothes these general human
phenomena in the required garb and turns them to its own use .
The Party secretary almost never involves himself in a major conflict
with the management of the institution or a higher Party authority. He is a
reliable transmitter of the Party line. The regional committee of the Party
and the management of the institution can rely on him absolutely. They
have elected him for his reliability (and before that he has been earmarked
and endorsed by the relevant authorities) . But in any institution it is not
just directives from above which count; the activities of the workers and
their relationships play a part as well. It is important for the life of the
institution which groups of workers the Party bureau relies upon when it
comes to promoting the general Party line. Higher Party directives are
realized in practice by the actions of the rank and file of the Party and via
the lowest ranks of the Party leadership. On the other hand, the state of
affairs in the lowest sphere of Party life has some influence on the general
line of Party behaviour. Stalinism in its time was not only imposed from
above, but also emerged from the grass roots of Party life and was
stimulated by it. The "liberalism" of Khrushchev/B rezhnev expressed a
"liberalism" which had been growing continually at grass-root level within
the Party.

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 T R A D E- U N I O N O R G A N I ZA T I O N

TRA D E - U N IONS I N Communist society are one more example o f how

concepts, at one time devised to describe the life of Western countries,
have acquired many meanings or have become meaningless, and of how
the same words can erase the distinction between totally different
phenomena.
The word "trade-union" is used in connection with the phenomenon we
will be speaking of here because of a certain historical continuity and a
certain similarity of function as between the organizations we are
examining and those of trade-unions in Capitalist countries. But the
continuity is not inevitable and the similarity of function is not so great that
we can regard them as qualitatively identical phenomena. The experience
of Communist countries has shown that the existence of trade-unions in
previous societies is not a necessary condition of their emergence in a new
society. (We are going to have to use the word "trade-union" while
keeping in mind the sense which it has in Communist society. ) In the Soviet
Union, for example , there were no trade-unions at all in the great majority
of places and institutions before the revolution . Now they are an indispen
sable element in people's lives in all parts of the country and in all
institutions. And they arose in order to fulfil vitally important functions in
citizens' collectives and in society as a whole .
It is entirely possible that the form which trade-unions take in the Soviet
Union is mainly a tribute to Marxist teaching, tradition and propaganda. A
gigantic trade-union apparatus has now evolved which struggles for its
existence and demonstrates to everyone in every way possible that it is
necessary to society in that form, and it is not so easy to reconstruct it in
such a way as to reveal the nature of the social functions that this apparatus
has taken upon itself. It is always possible that some kind of re
organization in that direction will actually happen. It is possible that the
"purest" apparatus of this type will be instituted in other countries straight
away as a result of necessity. But nevertheless we can still isolate the social
role of trade-unions in any Communist country in their "pure aspect"
whatever form the trade-unions might take and however they might be
named.
All the members of the primary communes are members of the trade
union. Their membership is strictly formal: they pay membership dues.
These dues go towards the upkeep of the trade-union apparatus (just as in
the case of the Party) , on journeys to rest homes and on all kinds of other
things. Since every worker of the commune is a member of a trade-union
the trade-union organization as a separate entity has no sense . Everything
that a worker gets as a member of a trade-union he can have as a member
156
of the commune, and all the elective trade-union organs could be simply
elective organs of the collective. The payment of dues could be discounted
in the pay-packet. All the functions of the trade-union apparatus (which is
also independent of the primary trade-union organizations, and to an even
greater extent than the Party apparatus is of the primary Party organiz
ations) could be fulfilled by appropriate branches of the state power
apparatus. However, once functions exist in the primary collectives which
trade-union workers now fulfil, and in the country as a whole there are
functions now fulfilled by the trade-union apparatus, then, because of the
tendency of society to subdivide functions and embody them in the
activities of special persons and organizations, formal structures equivalent
to the present trade-unions would inevitably appear.
Their functions are indeed very real ones . The function of the primary
trade-union organizations and of every kind of elected person and organ in
them is to supervise on behalf of the mass of workers in the commune their
conditions of work and day-to-day existence. The trade-unions have an
influence on the hiring and firing of workers, the procedures for rewards
and punishments and on promotion. They control wage-rises, the distribu
tion of free trips to rest homes and to a significant degree the allocation of
housing. They also control everyday details such as loans , the admission of
children to nursery school, tourist journeys, mass cultural events and much
else. At the level of the primary collective somebody has to deal with this,
and it is the trade-unions which do so. Knowing this important role of the
trade-unions, many workers who have no chance of improving their living
conditions by other means, throw themselves very actively into trade-union
work.
For many, trade-union work is one of the spheres of social work in which
nearly all workers are obliged to take part. Many begin their Party and
administrative career from the humblest posts in the trade-unions. Of
course , this is a very limited sphere of popular activity, but for them it is
extremely important. The functions of the trade-union apparatus are the
standardization and supervision of the work of the primary trade-union
organizations, together with the defence of their powers. The administra
tive powers tend to leave the workers' interests out of account in the most
important sphere of their life. in the sphere of their working and living
conditions. The trade-union organizations restrain this tendency. The
trade-union organization protects that power. There are specific juridical
norms regulating the position of the trade-unions. The whole activity of the
trade-unions from top to bottom is under the general supervision of the
Party apparatus.
Like the primary Party organizations, the primary trade-union organiz
ations are not in fact amalgamated into large integral organizations. Their
functions are limited exclusively by the framework of the primary
157
communes. Westerners are often surprised by the fact that trade-unions in
the Soviet Union do not fight for improvements in the working and living
conditions of the workers, and in particular that they do not organize
strikes. The reality is that the trade-unions do deal with these matters: they
do fight for improvement in conditions and see to it that the relevant norms
are observed, but only within the normative framework which is the same
for the whole of society and is secured by legislation. In this society strikes
arc simply nonsensical, because the situation of the workers in the primary
communes is determined by the general situation in the country as a whole
and by identical laws for all citizens and not at all by special situations in a
commune. in a region or in a sector of activity. Of course there are
differences, but these are determined by conditions that are independent
of the people living in one commune or another. Where infringements of
norms do occur, the struggle to rectify them is a matter of administrative
routine. In this the trade-unions play their part. It is, therefore, a mistake
to explain the absence of strikes simply in terms of fear of punishment.
There is also a deeper reason for it: strikes cannot effectively change the
situation in the country. Of course events can occur (and do occur) in
Communist countries which are similar to strikes in the West. But these arc
spontaneous rebellions against exceptionally difficult conditions. The
trade-union organizations do not start them ; on the contrary they oppose
them . Such rebellions are rare , and usually end soon. It can happen, of
course, that the authorities faced with a strike will take certain measures:
for instance. they may order more bread to be delivered to a certain region
or cancel an increased work-norm and so on. But they always punish the
ring-leaders.
Trade-unions of the type found in Western countries are impossible and
meaningless in Communist society, basically because of the way people's
life and activity are structured and not because of the unwillingness of evil
authorities to allow them. The authorities, of course, do not wish to allow
them and indeed they will not allow them. But in forbidding them they are
supported by an objective fact : the lack of interest of the population in
trade-unions of the Western type and its inability to create anything of the
sort on a large enough scale and in practical form. The so-called "free
trade-unions"' in the Soviet Union, much spoken of in the West at one
time . would have been like something out of comic opera, if the authorities
had not persecuted their organizers. The existence of a few people who
suffer a fate that is not normal for Soviet citizens in a country of 260
millions is not a sign that there is a trade-union movement of the Western
type. After all, one can find a few hundred monarchists in the Soviet
Union . but it would be absurd to regard that as a fight by the Soviet people
for the restoration of the monarchy.

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 THE KOMSOMOL AND THE Y O U N G

KoMSOMOL (The Young Communist League) is i n many ways like the

Party. It has a similar structure and is entirely and completely subject to
Party management and control. The great majority of Party members have
their preparation and training in the Komsomol. Very many Party officials
receive their basic training in the communes' Komsomol organizations and
in the Komsomol apparatus. The Komsomol is an effective branch of the
apparatus of power and plays its part in controlling, organizing and
educating the population of the country in the necessary spirit by taking
charge of the young, as opposed to the adult population and children. The
Komsomol is a grandiose institution. Relatively few young people evade
membership or are not admitted to it. The number of youngsters who are
within its grasp is so vast that practically the whole of Soviet youth comes
within its purview in one way or another. The fact that part of the youth is
unorganized doesn't weaken the Komsomol but even raises its prestige .
Exclusion from or non-admittance to the Komsomol is an act of punish
ment and education, and moreover, often a pretty serious one . People who
reject the Komsomol also encounter unpleasantness. For example, it is
harder for them to gain entry to the educational establishments they wish
and to choose the occupation they wish. It is harder for them to arrange a
type of work for themselves in institutions which carries some privileges.
Usually it is impossible to start making a successful career. Society will only
exceptionally make allowances for "unorganized" youth, for instance in
science , art, sport (when young talent is obvious and the Soviet Union
needs it for some reason or other) .
The characteristics of people of Komsomol age are well known. Here I
want to dwell on only a few of them that have an immediate connection
with the theme of this book. A person's fate in Communist society is
determined during the period when he is eligible for Komsomol member
ship either in terms of his future social position or of the line his career will
follow. While Communist society was being established in the Soviet
Union , countless professions and jobs which were attractive to young
people were coming into being. At that time the choice of profession ,
education and career seemed unlimited. B ut in the years since the war the
situation has stabilized. Society now has its full complement of specialists
and officials holding down posts which are attractive to the young. Indeed
there are too many. The turnover of jobs follows the normal pattern: some
people are pensioned off, some die and others are selected to fill their
places. Of course, people's social possibilities continue to widen to some
extent via the emergence of new professions or new enterprises. But this
falls short of the former illusion of "hundreds of paths and hundreds of
159
roads". Nothing remains of this illusion except hypocritical demagogic
phrases, and now Soviet youth lives in a well-established Communist
society, in which from the very start of its conscious life it is confronted by
society's actual social structure and the problems engendered by it.
Although the social structure of Soviet youth is more uniform than that
I
of the adults, inequality of opportunity makes itself felt right at the
beginning. School education differs in quality as between large and small
towns, and between towns and country villages. Even the gifted pupil when
he has finished school in the provinces (even more so if he has been to a
village school) is less well prepared for entry into higher education than the
mediocre pupil who has finished school in a large town . The level of school
education differs in the towns as well. There are privileged schools which it
is not simple for ordinary mortals to enter. There are special schools in
which the teaching of certain selected disciplines is far superior to that in
ordinary schools. The vast majority of educational establishments attrac
tive to young people are in fact closed to the majority of those who want to
go to them. In the privileged strata of society children can have the benefit
of supplementary education at home which is denied to the families of
workmen, peasants and petty functionaries. And the difference in the
quality of school-teaching is very real, given that there is a significant gap
between the school programme and the demands of higher educational
establishments, and the fact that there is strong competition. Furthermore ,
there are privileged higher educational institutions entry to which is
restricted to the children of highly placed officials and to people who can
pull strings. The children of parents with a high social position have a
better chance of entry to institutes irrespective of their state of prepared
ness. The percentage of youth that is accepted for direct entry into
institutes after school is not high. Preference is given to candidates with a
work-record and with good Komsomol references. Children of privileged
families have the advantage there as well. Moreover, special difficulties are
made for young people coming from villages and small towns when they try
to gain entry to institutes in large towns. (They are not given the necessary
papers and are compelled to stay in their birth-place "voluntarily" . )
In short, the multi-million army o f youth is processed from the very
beginning for the purposes of allocation, and is allocated to places of
training for future work, not in accordance with the talents or wishes of
young people themselves, but in accordance with the social laws of society.
The distribution of young people among the cells of a social structure gives
rise to inequality in any society. What is important is how this inequality is
determined. In Communist society it depends in the first instance on the
place in the social structure in which a person is born and grows to
adulthood. Society cannot exist without workers, agricultural labourers,
minor civil servants, soldiers, militiamen, salesmen, teachers and so on.
160
This is a banal fact . The important thing is which part of the population is
obliged to take such jobs and have that kind of social position. From this
point of view the myth of Communist propaganda about the equal
opportunities for young people to choose their path in life in Communist
society has absolutely nothing to do with reality. Social laws in fact operate
according to which the children of the privileged strata are kept safely in
these strata, and downward mobility is rare. The great majority of the
children of the representatives of the low strata either stay in them or drop
down to an even lower stratum.
Young people under Communism know from the very beginning what
social level fate has prepared for them in view of their family position,
place of birth and schooling and their natural endowment. There are many
examples of this kind before their eyes. Sometimes, of course, unexpected
things happen. For example , a beautiful girl marries an officer with
prospects and becomes a general's wife. An ungifted Komsomol activist
from the provinces becomes an important official in the central apparatus
of the Party. But these exceptions happen in any society, and do not alter
the general tendency which I have described above. The structure of adult
society is known to young people from the very start. And they perpetuate
this structure , not only by their individual struggle for the best position, but
through the pre-ordained character of their success or failure in the battle.
Most young people accept the situation as natural, j ust as most of the
population in general accept their given situation in life as a matter of
course.
Indeed, the naturalness of the way of life and its renewal from
generation to generation creates an ideology of the justice of what
happens. A feeling of social injustice in regard to the social order occurs
only in individual young people and is experienced by them not as social
injustice in general but as a personal injustice that has happened to them.
Moreover, in reality it is just that , since from a social point of view there is
need for only a limited number of writers, artists, professors, diplomats,
Party workers and so on. Nature offers no absolute criteria for deciding
why one young man rather than another should occupy a particular social
position. The difference between people , when they are counted in
millions, with respect to their natural gifts is not large. In society as a
whole, viewed as a mass phenomenon, there is a rough kind of justice, but
the mechanism of its realization has nothing whatever to do with a
proclaimed doctrinaire harmony, being in fact a cruel struggle for the best
positions in life in which no holds are barred.
In Communist society there are no problems of "fathers and children" in
the sense of a social problem. Young people gradually, one by one, occupy
their position in life , replace the fathers and become fathers in turn . They
have no chance of forming their own associations on a large scale outside
161
the control of adults, the authorities and the social organizations (if one
excludes criminal bands who are punished by law and receive no support
from the population). Associations of young people in Communist society
are defined by the general principles of the crystallization of the population
into groups. Here there can be no question of specific youth movements
such as arc to be found in the West.
I will mention a few more features of Soviet youth that are important for
the formation of the type of person who is suitable for Communist society.
Because of the simplicity and the pre-ordained character of Soviet life (by
that I mean the very small range of choice and the lack of need to take real
decisions) young people feel themselves young until thirty (the Kom
somol's official age-limit is twenty-eight) and even until forty. Their
chances of starting an independent life away from their parents are very
limited. owing to lack of housing. low student grants and wages. This
contributes to people's dependence on society and to their malleability.
Furthermore, from the moment people go to school they start collecting
the references on which their future depends. These references follow
them everywhere , and young people take this into consideration and adapt
their behaviour accordingly. The evaluation of their behaviour by society
keeps them within certain bounds. This doesn't mean that youth is
deprived of all freedom of behaviour; in the Soviet Union, for example, it
considers itself fairly free in its life-style. It simply means that in young
people's collectives and in collectives that deal with youth professionally
the general principles of communal life operate normally. Young collec
tives seen as social groups copy adult collectives or indeed form part of
them.
A sociological examination of youth in Soviet society could be the
subject of a separate book. Here I will limit myself to what has been said.
In my other books which I mentioned above , the reader may find, if he so
wishes, extra information on this theme . In The Yellow House the main
hero is a young man who has just left the Komsomol age-group.
Several years ago in the Soviet Union there began a special campaign
under the slogan: "towards a decisive turning-point in schools for the
improvement in the training of young people for work in the sphere of
material production!" What was this campaign all about? It was about the
fact that society is being divided into privileged and unprivileged strata.
Membership of them is becoming hereditary, and the measures taken in
school contribute to this.
Their purpose is obvious: the children of workmen and peasants shall be
workmen and peasants. The children of members of the nomenklatura , of
generals, academicians, managers, writers, professors , will not enter the
sphere of material production. For them there are special' educational
establishments, facilities for teaching at home, necessary connections. For
162
the children of the unprivileged strata of society there is nothing of the
kind. For them there is demagogy, reinforced by coercion. They are quite
simply forced to enter the materially productive sector and are prevented
in their attempts to enter higher and special intermediate educational
establishments in the towns. Pressure is exerted on these youngsters
through the Komsomol, and they are held to a level of education which
debars them from competing with the children of the privileged groups.
During the years of liberalism sociologists discovered that final-year
students were not at all anxious to enter the material production sector.
But that is clear enough even without sociology. Lessons learned about
work at school and the pupils' work in workshops attached to schools
produce a revulsion against physical labour. So the use of force on the part
of the authorities is a fully natural reaction to the attempt on the part of
young people to raise their own social position and improve their living
conditions. It conflicts with the demagogy which proclaims the unlimited
opportunities at youth's disposal . This demagogy is moving further and
further away from reality; and the conditions of work at the lowest levels of
society are far removed from propaganda ideals. This fact engenders
particular manifestations in the milieu of the young which are not
consistent with the norms of Soviet life such as the attempt by some young
people to escape from the clutches of ideological control and to create their
own unofficial associations and their own way of living.

COMMUNIST D EMOCRACY

VERY M A N Y POSTS i n Communist society are elective. Some of these are

elective only in appearance . For instance, the deputies of the soviets ,
judges, Party officials, workers in scientific institutions. The candidate is
usually pre-selected and the results of the elections are decided in advance.
B ut even if the authorities allow an election with two or three or more
candidates, the situation is still the same: the candidates will still have been
selected and earmarked in advance . Sometimes elections are genuine. B ut
this happens only in trivial instances that have no influence on the fate of
people or collectives. Such, for instance, are the elections of the trade
union organizers of groups, of cultural organizers, of members of the
editorial board of wall-newspapers. There are occasions when the collec
tive introduces amendments to the elections and to important bodies such
as the Party bureau (at times the collective will reject a candidate standing
for secretary put up by the regional committee of the Party). B ut even in
those cases where elections are fictitious everything is done via a certain
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formal procedure without which the people who have been earmarked
cannot fulfil their functions.
All this creates an atmosphere of a special kind of democracy, which is
reinforced by events representing an important element in the life of
citizens in Communist society such as meetings, consultations, confer
ences, congresses, rallies and other get-togethers notionally summoned for
the purpose of solving problems collectively. I will use the general term
"assemblage" to describe them . Assemblages play such an important role
in the life of society that a standard system has been instituted for them
complete with ritual conduct. They especially affect people who take part
in government. Here I cannot give a detailed account of this almost totally
unstudied phenomenon. I shall examine only two types of assemblage ;
meetings on the communal level and management get-togethers.
Meetings on the level of the primary commune are general meetings of
the workers, Party meetings, trade-union and Komsomol meetings. I shall
present a generalized sketch of them, concentrating largely on Party
meetings as being the most important and able to serve as a model for the
others. Meetings in Communist society are the highest form of democracy
for individuals who are on the lowest rung of the social ladder, and this
democracy is restricted to the sphere of things that do not matter and the
interests of the collective.
Meetings have various types and functions: the dissemination of
information about decisions of the higher authorities, educational work,
participation in running the commune's business, questions of organiz
ation. Readers can find a more detailed description of all this in The
Yawning Heights and The Yellow House. It should not be supposed that
Soviet people go to meetings only because they are forced to do so under
threat of punishment. In most cases they go of their own free will. Those
who try to avoid them do so in reality without being punished. Society
turns a blind eye to these "deviationists" because there is still a surplus of
volunteers. Why should this be so? Because , for some , meetings are a stage
on which they can show off in front of their colleagues; for others it is a
means of attaining their practical ends; for a third group they form the
arena in which they can attack their enemies; for a fourth group they are
the place where they defend themselves against attack; for a fifth they are a
talking-shop; for a sixth they provide a bit of theatre; for a seventh a place
in which to fight for the "good of the cause". In brief, meetings in the
primary communes fulfil an important function . They offer the maximum
of what is to be gained in a positive sense by the broad mass of the
population from participation in the management of society. Any attempts
to go beyond that maximum can lead only to squabbles, chaos and time
wasting. The population understands this very well: unlimited activity on
the part of the masses is all right in abstract doctrine , not in reality. I think
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that the supporters of such doctrines would begin to doubt their validity if
they went to a few meetings at which the managers lost control over the
body of the hall.
Management assemblages vary enormously. Here I am singling out
those which happen regularly and are an element in the power-structure:
sessions of Party, trade-union and Komsomol bureaux, the bureaux of
regional and provincial committees and so on right up to the plenum of the
Central Committee of the Party and of Party congresses . I shall not be
dealing with the activities of the corresponding organs consisting of many
people fulfilling specific functions (the management, the Party bureau and
so on). I shall single out only what is connected with the fact of assemblage
itself, when people assemble physically, consider certain problems, and
take collegiate decisions. In this connection only those in total ignorance of
the real facts of the matter could imagine that such assemblages are pure
fiction, with individual people taking all the decisions and the rest merely
voting. Undoubtedly these assemblages are prepared in advance: this is an
element in the very procedure relating to their activity. Everything may be
agreed in advance and the assemblage may take purely formal decisions.
But this isn't always so . Sometimes, indeed, there are real working
discussions, disputes and conflicts. B ut even if the business was nothing but
a rubber-stamping of decisions taken elsewhere, this function would not be
superfluous or fictitious. The very fact that some proposal has been
formally endorsed; the very fact that a decision has been adopted by a
given assemblage plays a very important role: it confers legal force on the
intentions of individual people or groups to take certain measures. This is
indeed the formal role of assemblages which at first sight seems fictitious
but is in reality their main social function. Discussion is only something
secondary and derivative. This is a very important point about the power
system of Communist society and one which is rather hard to understand. I
shall try to explain it in a somewhat paradoxical form.
I want to avoid using the words "dictatorship" and "democracy". But in
order to explain why they are inapplicable I still need to use them i n a
general sense, without claiming that they are scientific terms. One of the
social functions of assemblages is to mask dictatorial power, that is the
power that comes from above and meets no opposition from below. But
dictatorial power itself is organized and operates in such a way as to
counteract the dictatorial tendencies of individual people and groups, and
at the same time to remove from the real rulers personal responsibility for
the results of their actions. Management assemblages are summoned not so
much in order to give a democratic appearance to what is dictatorial power
(that is a secondary matter) as to deprive that power in fact of its dictatorial
character. Hence the tendency is not so much towards camouflage as
towards collegiate government . So the concepts "dictatorship" and
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"democracy" become meaningless when applied to this form of power in
their strictly scientific sense. In the Communist power-system there is a
quasi-dictatorial tendency and a tendency which is quasi-democratic. But
other terms arc needed here . "Centralization" and "decentralization" do
not fit either. Perhaps "one-man management" and "collegiality" are
better. These two tendencies are complicated distillations of the general
twin principles of government and subordination when we apply them to
society as a complex whole. Even Stalin, the greatest of dictators, was not a
dictator in the strict sociological sense of the term . He was a leader
(vozhd') whose power exceeded that of the dictator. The quasi-democratic
tendency also has another nature. Sometimes it can develop a greater
power than the one deriving from the first (dictatorial) tendency. The
struggle between these two tendencies in government enables the forma
tion of a ruling clique. The latter brings to prominence, as their own
symbol and guarantee of formal legality, figures very like the dictators of
the past but who are rarely dictators in fact. Only in exceptional
circumstances do they actually become dictators. "Dictatorship" is typical
of the formative period of Communist society and of crisis situations but
not of society in conditions of normal stability. Even Stalin was in part a
fictitious dictator. Khrushchev's attempt to follow his example was a
failure, while Brezhnev as dictator was pure fiction: he was, rather, a
mockery of dictatorship.

PUBLIC OPINION

I s THERE sucH a thing in Communist society as public opinion? To answer

the question one must define what public opinion means. Not everything
that people think about a certain fact of social life is public opinion, even if
masses of people are agreed about it. Millions of Soviet people thought
that Khrushchev was an irresponsible buffoon and that his plan to grow
maize everywhere was laughable. Millions of Soviet people thought that
Brezhnev in his later years was senile and that his internal and external
policies were dooming the country's population to suffering and pushing
the world into catastrophe. But so what? What people think is not
transformed into public opinion because it has no influence on the
government's behaviour. More than that, in spite of what the population
think, if the government demands it, it will openly express its approval of
the government's policies. Public opinion operates as a real fact of social
life when it exerts pressure on people's behaviour and on the behaviour of
groups and organizations. In Communist society public opinion in the
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sense of a national factor influencing the behaviour of the government
doesn't exist ; or it exists to such a minimal degree that it is hardly
noticeable. It exists only at the level of the commune. Moreover , at this
level it is strong when it comes to influencing the behaviour of individual
members of the commune , and rather weak (although still perceptible and
at times significant) vis-a-vis the behaviour of the commune leadership. In
short , public opinion in the Soviet Union may be described as the normal
form of communal domination exercised by the collective over the
individual . Hardly at all is it a means of defence against communality or a
means of defending individual people or the collective itself against the
authorities.

S E L F - G O V E R N ME N T A N D G O VE RN M E N T F R O M
AB OVE

U N DE R C O M M U N I S M S E L F - G O V E R N M E N T i n the commune i n practice

degenerates into a situation in which one part of the membership of the
commune seizes power, and exploits and terrorizes the other members for
whom life becomes a nightmare. The Soviet Union has had experience
enough of this. It is enough for the higher authorities to relax their control
somewhat over the actions of a commune for a state of affairs to come
about which Soviet people call "running your own pigsty" , and other rude
names. Communes like this begin to live according to the code of a band of
gangsters. For this reason people prefer that a limit be set to self
government by the transfer of basic power-functions to a centralized body
higher up, so that self-government in the commune is kept to a bare
minimum (which I spoke of earlier) . This gives the members of the
commune protection against the use of force by their neighbours which
would be more humiliating and more cruel than the use of force from
above. Thus the principle of government "from the top downwards" is not
so much the result of aggression by the highest authorities and organs of
power against the unfortunate population as the result of that population's
voluntary acquiescence . It is the principle of government necessitated by
the very conditions of communal life. I n , addition there are the purely
"technical" laws of administration . In Communist society every commune
exists only as a part of a more complex whole, and government from above
makes this a real fact. The idea of a confederation of self-governing
communes is only possible in doctrine and on paper, not in reality. In
reality it is possible only as an exception and in the short term. Even with
supervision from above there is a constant tendency towards the infringe-
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ment of the rules which bind together and to chaos.
As regards the business activities of the commune, self-government has
no meaning. The remuneration of members of the commune depends very
little on its productivity: most often it has nothing to do with it at all. The
members of the commune are in real life indifferent to this aspect of the life
of the commune as a whole . Very rarely do they feel "patriotic" about
their institutions; rarely do their "hearts bleed" for its interests. Except for
the top management of the commune , whose first duty it is, and for those
who derive advantage from a bleeding heart in the form of prizes and
promotion. From above the authorities try to stimulate productive activity,
and encourage rationalizers, inventors, and instigators of every kind of
campaign . However, in most cases all this is pure formality, eye-Wash and
window-dressing. The members of the commune do not regard the
business of the commune as a whole as their business. They regard it
merely as the setting for carrying on their own small personal affairs. The
main point is that the fate of the commune depends very little on whether
the individual members of it do their work well or badly. The commune
itself has a very weak degree of independence from other communes in
terms of its own activity. Its functions, the quota and the character of the
product produced, and where its products are destined to go are strictly
determined from above. The commune cannot change its position with
respect to other communes in the system. I will turn to this particular
question later.
The members of the commune do not participate directly in the running
of more complex entities such as regions, provinces, republics or the
country as a whole. It is impossible that they should, for purely technical
reasons. But the main point is that such participation can do little to change
the conditions of the population, and the latter does not aspire to it. In this
society people who seek to play a part in the power-system do this
individually by participating in the professional government apparatus.
Ideas about "Democratic Communism" (or Socialism) whereby broad
sections of the population participate in the running of enterprises,
regions, provinces, and the country as a whole, are asinine and ignore all
the general rules of social organization and the specific laws of societies of
the Communist type. In connection with this theme , I would like here to
draw attention to one of the aspects of the "power of the people" that is
also usually lost from sight.
When people talk about the initiative of the masses, that doesn't mean
that all members of the mass show initiative . In fact most people are
passive . When they do get going it is thanks to the efforts of a small group
of activists who stir them up. The presence of such activists is an element in
the social structure of the masses. Activists collect evidence about certain
members of the coilective, compile "dossiers", keep track of their
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behaviour, come forward at meetings and raise questions about the
behaviour of certain individuals, send "signals", write letters and take part
in all kinds of investigative committees. Sometimes three or four of them
determine the whole social and psychological atmosphere of the institu
tion , and exercise control over all aspects of its life. This constitutes the
genuine control of the mass over the life of society which is one of the
levers of genuine "people power" . An activist group of this kind is
immeasurably more effective than people who are officially appointed. In
order that it should exist and function well two conditions must be fulfilled:
1) the powers on high should protect it , give it their open support, and
perceive that it is a support to them; 2) the activist group should have
support and approval within the collective itself, i . e . , among the masses: it
must express the interests and the will of the collective at least as regards
certain important aspects of life, and it must be an element of the real
power of the collective as a whole over its individual members.
In Stalin's time there was a great blossoming of this aspect of the power
of the people. At the moment it has somewhat weakened. The authorities
are afraid of a return to Stalin's time (that is, to the genuine power of the
people as we have described it) and so they are afraid of encouraging and
supporting initiative-taking activists in the collective. Within the collectives
themselves potential activists who would have the support and the
confidence of the collective and who would fulfil their functions voluntarily
and enthusiastically no longer emerge spontaneously. And this amounts to
nothing other than a diminution of "people power" . The real power of the
collective over the individual has passed to the special organs and to
officials, while the mass has renounced its own excessive power and
become indifferent to it. We all know the type of people who thrust them
selves forward for the role of activist in the primary collective. They are the
dregs, the scoundrels, the informers , the agents provocateurs, the liars, the
hacks, the dunces. Society no longer wishes to remain in their power.
The power of the people is reflected in a specific power-structure and is
not something formless or unstructured. The characteristic figure under the
conditions of people power is the omnipotent leader who is supported by
the spontaneous action of the broad mass of the population and who relies
on terror of the kind there was in Stalin's time. Under the power of the
people, the popular mass develops a communal structure in which the laws
of communality operate with a force which threatens the very existence of
society. Our large modern society, with its complex culture and complex
economy, comes into conflict with people power and excludes it, or at least
ensures that it is reduced to the minimum, kept within the communes and
restricted to the unimportant concerns of its members. One can repeat the
Stalinist phenomenon only if one repeats the phenomenon of the unlimited
power of the people.
169
 T H E S O C I A L S T R U C T U R E O F S O C I ETY

C O M M U N I S T SOCI ETY IS composed of a large number of primary working

collectives: the communes. Of course , not everyone belongs to a com
mune. Invalids. old people, children and many individuals who , in one way
or another. escape organization remain outside it. Nevertheless, the
communes form the basis of the crystallization of society, and the majority
of the population which is not directly included in communes is included in
them indirectly as members of the families of persons who are attached to
communes; or as the professional concern of special kinds of commune
such as children's organizations, schools, hospitals and other special
divisions of institutional authority. Thus the number of people who remain
outside the influence of the commune is comparatively insignificant. Those
who do are as a rule law-breakers of one kind or another.
Society is structured along other lines as well. although these have their
basis in. and are determined by, the communal cell-structure. Here I would
draw the reader's attention only to the most important ones: 1) the division
of functions within industrial communes and the formation of a single
system of production and allocation of goods; 2) the division of the social
functions of the commune as a result of which individual functions become
the speciality of special social organs. These special organs generalize and
unify these special functions on the scale of society as a whole (or on the
scale of one or other of its parts) . These organs also have their cellular
structure, and within their cells everything happens which we spoke of
earlier; 3) the formation of a hierarchy of cells, thanks to which there arises
a highly calibrated hierarchy of social positions on the scale of the whole
society; 4) the distribution of the population into national and social groups
dependent on people's social position, on parental and other non-social
relationships, or territorial affiliations and other circumstances.

THE C O M M U N E S I N A U N I F O R M S Y STEM

A C O M M U NIST c o u :-.TRY may be divided into comparatively autonomous

areas. However, what develops in the main is the formation of a unified
social organism in which every commune is assigned a strictly defined role.
A single army, transport system , postal system , financial system and other
social institutions naturally weld society together into a whole, but the
chief interlocking device is the commune's place among other communes
and its dependence on them. The communes are the cells of the whole, not
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only in the sense in which we have regarded them above but also in the
sense of the cells of a living body. They are parts of a whole with definite
functions in relation to that whole.
The commune or cell under Communism differs from the feudal cell or
fief in that the commune is not an independent economic whole ; and from
the capitalist cell (private enterprise), in that it is not incorporated in
society as a whole via the market or competition with other enterprises. It
is a unit in the distribution of the activity of society and carries out
particular functions. By so doing it becomes a sort of autonomous whole on
its own in the same sense as that in which the cell of a living organism does
not merge with the mass of other cells. Of course , this social whole has to
come to terms with the historically given conditions in which the commune
developed. Here there is a process of mutual influence. But in a society
which has set in its mould we can observe the following fact: each
commune is assigned a particular character and scope ; the same is true of
all the other communes with which it has business relationships, from
which, for exampl e , it receives raw materials or to which it sends its own
products.
The membership of the commune and its distribution according to
profession and social rank is determined. All this is secured by a body of
special legislation that lays down the status of communes and by a system
which plans the activity of all communes, by defining the way in which a
particular commune participates in the general plan , and the extent of its
participation. This fixes the commune's industrial position and its pro
fessional and hierarchical composition. A plan is also given for the
observance of norms of communal behaviour. The task of seeing that this
unifonn system functions throughout society belongs to communes of a
special type which form the state apparatus. I will examine this matter later
in the sections relating to the state .

THE H I E R A RCHY OF COMMUNAL CELLS

THE B A S I C s o C I A L division of functions within communes i s between

business-functions and functions that control business-functions. Special
cells are formed whose sole task is to exercise this control. In each
individual person there is, if we regard him as a social being, a governing
organ which directs his body and has a higher social rank than his body's
other organs. It is like this in society where there is a directing cell similarly
related to the other cells. The governing cell has all the social qualities of
any other working cell. From this point of view it is like the cells which it
171
governs. But inasmuch as it has the function of governing the others, it is
the governing organ of a new social whole, and it therefore reveals new
social qualities. The most important of them lies in the fact that a group of
people which in its turn governs others in a governing cell has a higher
social rank than the highest people in the governed cells. Of course there
are certain exceptions to this rule, but they don't alter its general force.
A second consideration which is very important here is the formation of
a complex hierarchy of cells within government itself which stems from the
primary governing cells. I emphasize this: the hierarchy of communal cells
is not formed along the lines of the hierarchy of the majority of cells which
are occupied with the commune's actual business (and are themselves
governed by other similar cells) but according to the cells concerned with
government itself. In other words, there is a mass of business cells which
govern nobody else. These are grouped into aggregates of business cells
which form a body that is governed by a special governing cell, namely a
primary governing cell or cell of primary rank. Depending on the number
of governed cells, there grows up a number of governing cells of primary
rank that in their turn need to be governed, and this brings into being
governing cells of secondary rank. This process extends to the point where
it comprises the entire society. Moreover, there are statistical social laws
regarding government and group formation according to which the whole
grandiose hierarchy of commune-cells takes shape . Thus the social
hierarchy of society is a strictly governmental hierarchy in just the same
way as the whole aggregate of military officers of different ranks grows up
on the base of a mass of private soldiers.
Of course , even those communal cells which don't govern anybody
somehow develop their own hierarchy, but this happens in quite another
spirit. For example, there are factories and institutes of higher and lower
categories. The category determines many people's pay (for instance a
worker in a first-category institute is paid more than a worker of the same
rank in a second-category institute). However, the factory of the second
category is not subordinate to the factory of the first category just as a
regiment of the line is not subordinate to a guards regiment.
There is an absolutely natural consequence of the hierarchical system of
commune-cells which we have been examining: it is that it creates a social
ladder with many rungs, and that it converts the business of governing
people and groups who are occupied in some real task into something
much more important than the actual jobs which the governed people are
doing. The officers, generals and marshals are not there for the sake of the
soldiers. It is the soldiers who are there for the sake of the officers , generals
and marshals . Moreover, the soldiers exist only as raw material for their
activities.

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 R E LA T I O N S B ETWEEN G R O U P S

B ETWEEN G ROUPS O F individuals we find the same relations as there

are between individuals in groups: subordination (governing and being
governed); co-ordination (or co-subordination); and co-operation (for
practical ends) . The first two relationships are constituted by the relations
between governmental or managing groups. For example , the government
of an institute forms a ruling group vis-a-vis a department of the institute,
inasmuch as the head of the administration, the director, is the superior
officer and the man in charge of the department is his subordinate.
Besides, between groups there is an inclusive relationship; the institute
contains a department and the department contains a section . Society as a
whole contains a complex structure of groupings built up in this way.
The kind of existence which people have in the group has very little to do
with how the group as a whole performs. There are exceptions, but in the
case of the great majority of people and groups their circumstances even
out. This principle that an individual's position has nothing to do with the
efficiency of the group is a very real one: it makes people indifferent to the
success of the group. Sometimes the management of a group and odd
individual members of it are interested in achieving the best results. But
even this is far from always being the case . On the other hand an
individual's position may be materially affected by the rank of the group to
which he or she belongs and by the number of privileges it enjoys. For
example, the secretary of the director of an important institute of the first
category has a higher salary and more perks than a secretary in a small
institute of the second category.
Generally speaking, most principles which act strongly on society have a
negative character. It is the same, too, with group-relations. Take two
groups of the same rank. The management of one of them tries to see to it
that the other group is not more successful; or at least that the other
group's success should not be noticeable , should not attract publicity. The
management of the other group, if it is experienced, knows that the same
law applies to the relations of its group and so does not especially want to
fall out of line. All the more so since the careers of managers depend only
to a very insignificant degree on the performance of their institutions. They
depend largely on the manager's relations with those people who have the
power to decide his promotion up the official ladder. So the management
in charge of a group will try to see to it that its group is no worse than
others. Here the phenomenon of competition is excluded, for the fate of a
group doesn't depend on the results of its work. The group gives something
to society and receives something in return which is regulated by its
position in society. Therefore it can well be that the workers in an
173
enterprise employing out-of-date technical methods have exactly the same
living standard as . or even a better one than, workers of a similar
enterprise which uses advanced techniques. In short, communal relations
in no way stimulate industrial progress.

THE H I ERARCHY OF INDIVI DUALS AND

D I ST R I B UTI O N O F G O O D S

B EC A U S E OF THE just principle of the distribution of benefits according to

social rank which is at the very basis of society , a hierarchical ladder with
many rungs evolves in the distribution-system as well. Moreover, the
difference in the share of benefits as between the top and bottom rungs is
huge. The share of benefits at each level is determined not by laws of
nature (there are no such things) but by what any person can snatch for
himself at any given level, and by how much he can compel society to yield
to him. In other words, his share is determined by social struggle and
enshrined by law. This being so, the differentials have a tendency to grow
to monstrous dimensions.
Critics of the way of life in Communist countries talk about all kinds of
defects, but for some reason they are silent about the main question in
people's lives: the allocation of the good things of life. The actual position
is this: there is an official basic wage, and it is generally known that there is
a huge wage-differential , amounting sometimes to a hundred fold.
Moreover, there are hidden forms of supplementary remuneration such as
prizes, honoraria, handouts, money in envelopes, travel warrants, free
stays in sanatoria. There are special shops with restricted access where
prices are much lower than the official price. There is the legal or illegal
kitty derived from personal resourcefulness ; so-called gifts, bribes, person
al influence, the black market, ordinary bazaars. Things are continually
bought and sold on the official and semi-official market which indicate the
existence of very well-to-do social strata. The fact is obvious: society is
divided into layers in which people exhibit different levels of consumption.
Moreover, at times the difference is so great that the contrasts of the past
pale into insignificance.
Furthermore, it is generally known that the ruling elite receives more
and better goods than their subordinates, and that as people go up the
ladder their share of the social product grows . Moreover, the higher they
go the easier their work becomes, the fewer talents required and the
greater their privileges. The authorities themselves, irrespective of type or
rank, have no doubts about the justice of all this and safeguard and extend
1 74
their privileges in every possible way. The ordinary people grumble but
they too don't consider this to be unjust ; it is normal that high-ups should
get pickings. The "intelligentsia" feels pinched and insulted, but not
enough to rebel. It redoubles its efforts to compensate for its position by
setting out to create its own distribution-hierarchy. As for the mass of the
population, it acts in the way dictated by the objective social laws of
communality, and above all by the principle of distribution of goods which
is in actual operation .
The principle "to each according to his social position" is the main and
most basic principle for the distribution of the good things of life in
Communist society. This principle is in effect the embodiment of the
principle "to each according to his work " . When there are big differences
in the forms of social activity and where the general human laws of
communality operate, the individual's social position is the only socially
significant criterion by which both his contribution to the social product
and his "reasonable" , i . e . socially acceptable, needs may be estimated .
There are deviations from this principle in society but these deviations
come about not through a non-observance of the principle but by an
attempt to observe the principle. The most powerful and noticeable
consequence of this principle is the tendency for the share of the social
product progressively to increase or diminish in line with an increase or
decrease in social rank. The result of this tendency is the polarization of
consumption: an unusually high level of it at the top, and an unusually low
one at the bottom .
When the investigator examines the hierarchy of distribution, he comes
up against the following difficulty : the officially fixed index of consumption
often does not correspond with the real index. For example, an official
from the apparatus of the Central Committee receives a comparatively
small salary. B ut his consumption-level is several times higher than that of
an ordinary citizen with a higher salary, since he can obtain goods at
derisory prices, or without payment at all , that are not accessible to
ordinary mortals. The manager of a restaurant or a department store is
paid less than a school teacher, but in fact he is much better off than a
professor of an institute. He simply has another way of getting hold of the
good things in life. The manager of a meat Kombinat has a third way. A
fourth one will be at the disposal of a hairdresser or of a seller of beer or
soda water. So , in order to arrive at an accurate description of the
consumption levels of different social strata we have to introduce the
concept of the social outlay on an individual's maintenance, i . e . the cost of
his existence to society. For most individuals the size of this outlay
coincides with the size of his needs as established by his real pay (with
slight divergences).
But for the privileged classes there is no such coincidence. There are a
175
good number of citizens who "cost" two or three times more than the
average. Sometimes it can amount to five or six fold. For a smaller group it
can reach several tens of times. even a hundred or a thousand times. The
"social outlay" on the highest Party and State officials is incalculable. No
king, no emperor, no millionaire has ever cost society so dear as a General
Secretary in the USSR, a man who is supposed to express the interests of
the working people and to be leading society in the direction of a just
distribution of material and spiritual goods.
I am not speaking here about the countless squanderings of social assets
through stupidity, wilfulness or obtuse vanity. Unfortunately it is not
possible to obtain data about the personal estates of representatives of the
various social strata . The comparative value of these estates would give an
even more frightful picture. For instance, the total area of plots of land
(and they arc only plots) given over to the privileged, that is to the
nomenklatura of all ranks, exceeds the area of a medium-sized European
country, while the value of the private residences, flats and villas which
they dispose of in one way or another surpasses the value of the palaces of
the most extravagant sovereigns of the past. Add to this the outlay on
medical institutions which are exclusively concerned with the health of the
Soviet rulers and the cost of their glorification. You will be appalled.
History has never known such contrasts between the numerous strata of
society in the matter of expenditure and the distribution of goods as is
found in what the demagogues call the j ust society of the Soviet Union. At
the same time , of course, the system exhibits a picture of frightful dullness,
mediocrity and vulgarity. But this doesn't change the essence of the
matter.
The system of privilege built on the principle "to each according to his
social position" is grandiose. The consequence of the system is that the
principle which we have mentioned, "to each according to his work",
comes to look like a deviation from the former principle and a violation of
it .
If we reason in the abstract the situation looks like this. Citizens go to
work in their communes. fulfil their duties and are remunerated according
to the legal scale for their social position ; and they exist on this pay. For
example , a shop assistant in a grocery sells goods to other citizens and for
this he receives a miserable hundred roubles per month for which he
cannot buy even a decent suit . Then he runs round to other shops and joins
the queues for food . The director of a song-and-dance ensemble chooses
the girls who apply to him , teaches them to sing or dance, helps them and
receives two hundred roubles or less. After work he goes back to his
healthy Communist family and sleeps with his shrewish old wife . The
manager of the housing section of the town council lives cosily in the flat
allotted to him according to the established norm .
176
 Such is life in the abstract. The reality is entirely different. The salesman
helps himself to the goods in his shop, and contrives to do so without
paying and even to make a bit of money out of it too. He does his friends a
"bit of good" and they help him out in return. Salesmen in the meat
sections in Moscow shops, for instance, are among the richest people,
although their pay is miserable, not to mention the people who work in
commission shops* and jewellery shops. Directors of the artistic ensembles
force boys and girls to cohabit with them. People who have a hand in the
allocation of flats are the best provided for of all , and are often very rich
people.
In reality a social law operates whereby each individual tries to make the
very most of his social position for his own ends. This is a natural law, and
it cannot be changed by means of any "high level of awareness" which the
ideologues promise, or by way of any kind of threat. There is only one way
to stop the law operating, and that is to give a person "legally" everything
which, in his position, he can get hold of anyway. But even this method
isn't absolutely effective. Receiving something "legally" isn't as satisfying,
and so the individual will make use of his position in some other way.
There have been innumerable cases in the Soviet Union in which the
highest in the land , who are provided for beyond all measure, have
nonetheless used their position in the most monstrous ways.
Social privilege is the advantage which individuals of a certain sort have
over others because of their social position. Not every privilege is a social
privilege. For example, people who live in regions where there are holiday
resorts, and have the chance to make a fortune on account of the resorts,
have an economic/geographical privilege rather than a social one. A young
man from the family of a highly placed official has a whole series of
advantages over a young man from the family of a poor creative
intellectual. For example, the former, even with a mediocre performance at
school, is guaranteed a place of his choice in higher education. In the main
this happens by parental selection or from calculations of subsequent
advantage, but not according to the principle "from each according to his
ability". Even the most gifted young man who has no influence may find it
hard not only to get into an institute appropriate to his gifts and
inclinations but into any sort of institute at all - unless, of course, his
parents have connections thanks to which the examiners can be given a
secret instruction not to plought him in the exams. But when we examine
the privilege of the first young man in comparison with the second, who
perhaps sat beside him at the same desk, we can see that the social
privilege of the first young man is not his but his father's. Because of
*Shops which sell items on behalf of private citizens on a commission basis.
t One way of limiting intakes into vuzy (institutions of higher education) is to "fail"
certain candidates, irrespective of their school performances or talents.

1 77
a privilege of birth he receives a social privilege, so that one can view
the privilege as a potential social privilege. But l will not launch into these
fine points.
Western societies also had and have a system of privilege. For instance ,
if Western parents have sufficient means they can buy their children an
education suited to their talents and inclinations. Not everyone has such
means; they constitute a privilege. But it is a privilege deriving from
wealth . not from social position. How the riches arc acquired is imma
terial. They can be earned , they can be inherited or they can be the result
of social privilege . But the fact itself of having enough money to acquire
education is not a social privilege . Similarly, a man who has a large sum of
money can make a journey abroad if he is the citizen of a Western country.
Again, this is a privilege in the sense that to make the journey isn't open to
everybody. But it isn't a social privilege. In the Soviet Union if one wants
to make a journey abroad it is not enough to have money and to be a
normal citizen. The opportunity to travel abroad is one of the most
important social privileges, and as a rule such journeys are granted to
privileged people free of charge.
There isn't such a thing as a society without privilege. The chief of a
primitive tribe who took the first piece of meat from a slaughtered animal
was a privileged person, and indeed for those times very privileged. It is
important to establish what type of privilege we are talking about and what
role it plays in the society in question. Soviet liberals who demand freedom
of movement within the country and abroad, more freedom of expression,
of the Press and in creative work, are attacking the very foundations of
Soviet life : they are threatening its inherent system of privilege. Their
desires derive from their reading about the past and about the West . They
have heard all sorts of little conversations on this theme and perhaps have
seen a certain amount of these things themselves. But all this is foreign to
Soviet social realities.
Social privileges are divided into those which are official and which have
the sanction of law and custom, and those which are unofficial. The latter
are divided into punishable, or at least censurable, privileges and those
that are not punishable or only mildly punishable . But there is no strict
demarcation . For example, high pay, a good flat, a private car and a hidden
source of provisions, free sanatoria for high officials are all legal privileges.
On the other hand, the compulsion of subordinates to share one's bed,
theft of their ideas, the foisting on them of co-authorship, the fixing of jobs
and education on the old pals' network, are all de facto privileges without
legal sanction. Officially they are reprehensible . But are many cases known
where the officials who enjoy such unofficial privileges have suffered for
them? These privileges are just as entrenched as the legal ones. There are
many positions where de facto , non-legalized privileges are important
178
sources of every kind of revenue. And they are sometimes even taken into
account officially when pay is fixed so that official remuneration becomes a
pure fiction. Take a walk, for example , in the areas around Moscow where
there are country villas and make an estimate of what the villas are worth
and how much their occupants are paid. You will see that in the great
number of cases the occupants would have to put aside all their pay for tens
of years in order to accumulate enough to buy a villa.
Thanks to the system of privilege that actually operates (including legal
privileges) there comes about a supplementary distribution of goods. This
means that the principle: "to each according to his social position" is
converted into the principle : "each man grabs for himself everything that
his social position enables him to get hold of" . His official salary forms part
of the share of the social product that the individual grabs. This principle
applies to everyone , but not everyone can operate it over and above their
basic pay. The lowest strata also contrive to supplement their pay , for
instance via extra earnings on the side or petty theft. In Communist society
most crime is connected with attempts to make use of one's position in this
way, which in the case of the lowest orders usually means breaking the law .
B ut for the middle and highest classes things are much more favourable .
From a strictly legal point of view , they too commit crimes, but it is very
hard, if not impossible, to detect them in practice. Moreover, those in
positions of power aren't interested in detecting them because they
themselves are the first to make use of social privilege. In the Soviet Union
to make use of one's office for private gain isn't really an abuse , but rather
something quite natural. Abuse is seen as infringing a certain limit and
going to "noticeable extremes". Whole regions of the country are infected
with bribery, back-scratching and the arbitrary rule of officials, to such an
extent that even the all-powerful organs of state-security are unable to deal
with it. Besides, they too are sometimes involved and are even the
ringleaders of gigantic social mafias which have their claws on whole
regions, towns, provinces and even republics.
Every well-developed society engenders a social hierarchy and that
inevitably begets a system of privilege. This law works in a way that is
primitively simple . If a category of people has privileges in relation to
another category of people which belongs to a lower level in the social
hierarchy, then in order to safeguard its own privileges it is ready to make
peace with categories of people who have a higher position and enjoy
greater privileges. This law explains the fact that the staunchest defenders
of the existing social establishment are not the upper or even the middle
strata, but the strata that are slightly above the lowest. It is similar to the
army where discipline is upheld not so much by senior officers and generals
as by sergeants and junior officers. It is naive to think that the sergeants
and lieutenants of society act as they do only because of instructions from
179
above and from fear of society's colonels and generals. Mainly they act of
their own accord and in their own interest.
This law also applies to people on the same level. If an individual in a
given category has even the slightest privilege in relation to his fellows he
will on that account do everything he can to preserve and endorse the
entire system of privilege. In every institution there are model workers
from the rank and file who regularly receive prizes, official thanks, trips to
rest homes, better living conditions. Any person in authority is surrounded
by a host of toadies, lickspittles, informants and boon-companions, who
fulfil their unofficial functions in a way that is far from being disinterested.
All of them feel themselves to be participants of power, and hence of
privilege. It is the petty officials and their voluntary aides on the lowest
level who make up the toughest obstacle to the rank and file who wish to
rise in life. The lower the rank of the primary official stratum, the harder it
is to get through and the more cruel its attitude towards those below it.
Only where there are protectors on a higher level or when someone
exercises great resourcefulness can the obstacle be overcome.
The stratum of primary officials forms the basis and the core of the
primary collective. If a member of the collective comes into conflict with it,
the collective will very rarely support him. Usually the collective takes the
side of the officials because its whole life is far more dependent on
officialdom than it is on the individual in question. Thus the overwhelming
majority of the population of the country does not fight its way through
the relevant primary official strata and therefore does not attain a
position from which an individual can oppose the highest powers of the
state, that is oppose society as a whole and not merely his own miserable
collective.

T H E S T R U CT U R E O F T H E P O P U L A T I O N

ACCORDING T O OFFICIAL ideology, the population of the Soviet Union is

divided into friendly classes of workers and peasants, and a working
intelligentsia forming a stratum in between. Even many critics of Soviet
society accept this scheme in general. But it is a totally senseless one. How
on earth can the intelligentsia be a stratum between the workers and the
peasants? A stratum in this case is something intermediate between worker
and peasant. For example, it could be peasants who were partly workers or
the other way round. If it is meant that Soviet intellectuals are from
peasant or worker stock, that would have some meaning, but they are not a
layer between the two.
1 80
 But let us leave these captious objections on one side. Let us say that the
intelligentsia does originate from the workers and peasants. This statement
would have been appropriate after the revolution when the old intelligent
sia was absolutely wiped out or expelled from the country and when people
who were called intelligentsia out of habit did emerge from among the
workers and peasants. But what happens when such people are producing
their own like, in the second or third generation - i . e . when they are the
issue of the issue of peasants and workers? How can they come from
peasant or worker stock if they are produced from strata which did not
even have a name in the past, for instance from Party officials? Further
more, where shall we place the huge army of Party officials, KGB men,
army officers and militia officers? One cannot ignore this category of
people because it exceeds the intelligentsia in numbers. I t clearly has no
connection with peasants or workers, and to relate it to the intelligentsia is
somehow awkward. In any case , they themselves do not want that, since
for the most part they despise the intelligentsia. So one has to admit yet
another special category of people: government servants. Is this a class or a
stratum? Finally, townspeople differ from country people in their way of
life, though from a sociological point of view this difference is not as
substantial as that between governors and governed, which is the same for
country and town. Officialdom is aware of this and now prefers to speak
simply about workers and to ignore the real division of the country into
different social categories. I am avoiding the word "class" in order not to
evoke unnecessary associations with Marxist ideas about classes and the
classless society.
It is particularly laughable to hear Westerners talk about the intelligent
sia, scientists, military and economic planners as special social categories.
In all this, for some reason or another, they entirely lose sight of obvious
facts: that among the "scientists" there are low-paid workers, and the
professors, the doctors, the academicians, the managers, the directors and
other people who exist on different rungs of the hierarchical ladder. The
difference in social position between them is sometimes so great that to put
them in one category is like placing peasant serfs and land-owners into a
category called "farmer". The ruling scientific stratum merely makes use of
its scientific endeavours for its own social advantage. It has nothing to do
with the function of learning or the discovery of truth.
The picture is exactly the same in other spheres of activity. Each has, of
course, its professional distinguishing features. Everyone know the military
ones, for instance. Writers, although they have their own complex social
structure and hierarchy, as a whole form a sub-division of society for the
purpose of ideological work. But these are professional differences, not social
ones. The concept of the "intelligentsia" in the Soviet Union has lost so much
of whatever meaning it might once have had that one cannot designate a
181
profession, way of life , or level of education which could distinguish the
intelligentsia from other strata as an identifiable social group.
The structure of Communist society really needs to be described in terms
of another system of concepts. In the first place, society divides into
primary work communes and people are divided into social categories
according to their functions and position in those communes. One can thus
construct a scale of these categories beginning with the lowest workers and
ending with the top bosses of the regions, provinces, branches of the
economy and of the country as a whole. Different methods of classification
arc possible. The crudest is the division into lower, middle and upper
strata , while the most accurate is a division into officially established
groups with a register of degrees, titles and ranks. In the latter case we
obtain a more or less uninterrupted series which has little scientific value,
especially since here we shall encounter difficulties in regard to many
categories of people who in one sense should be included in one rank and
in another sense in another. For example , the manager of a commission
shop as regards pay is inferior to a junior worker in a research-institute.
His official position is equal to that of the director of the laboratory in
which the junior assistant works. But in terms of the means at his disposal
and of his influence on society, he is superior to the director of the institute
of which that laboratory is a part. Thus from the point of view of the
sociologist a classification would be more interesting that took account of
many different parameters. In real life people constantly take these
parameters into account and spontaneously classify themselves accordingly
- a classification that has nothing at all to do with the idiotic scheme
"workers, peasants, intelligentsia". What is very close to the real
sociological structure of society is the officially recognized division of
people into categories according to their level in the nomenklatura ; and for
non-nomenklatura people by the official level of their position in the
primary collectives.
The great majority of the population accepts this social hierarchy and
considers it to be a j ust one. Here the situation resembles that in the army
where the lance-corporal thinks the system of ranks is just inasmuch as it
raises him just a little bit above his ordinary fellow soldiers, while the
soldiers feel that if there were no order and no hierarchy their own
situation would be worse. In conformity with the laws of ct?mmunality they
would be bound to form a social structure in any event, but one without the
protection provided by an officially established order. The population
accepts the social hierarchy because for many it gives some hope of getting
clear of the masses and elevating themselves while for others it gives the
sensation of being protected. People understand very well that without a
social hierarchy there could be no economy of the contemporary type and
that it would be impossible to conserve even that level of life and culture
182
which does exist and which seems to them a very low one. Thus only an
insignificant part of the population is interested in the destruction of the
hierarchy and their attitude either derives from their own selfish interests
or is unthinking, although these people often chatter on about how they
are fighting for the public good. The many opposition movements in the
West (especially those involving the Left and young people) are really
fighting against the inevitable structure of contemporary society, although
they usually enter the fray with slogans about the struggle against
Capitalism and Imperialism. These movements are often anti-Communist
in essence even if, because of historical conditions, they dress themselves
up in Communist garb. This is yet another interesting historical paradox.
It is quite obvious that those people who have the chance of obtaining a
higher position in the social hierarchy regard the hierarchy as a completely
just one. Try suggesting to those who have spent many years of effort to
become doctors, university teachers, generals, ministers and so on that
they give up their titles, rank and level of security and then see how they
respond to your proposal. But even in the case of students, young workers,
soldiers, workmen , peasants and shop assistants thoughts about a pro
gramme of destruction of the social hierarchy do not enter their heads.
People are upset by any deviations from the norm. The norms are relative
and subjective, but officially recognized norms are not considered to be
unjust.
People's most basic social relations come about through personal
intercourse. People know each other personally and enter into immediate
contact. Associations of people that are not formed by the laws of the
state, namely, unofficial and informal ones, arise as a matter of course.
They differ from official associations in that they do not have their own
management, their own accountants, their Party men , their trade-unions
or Komsomol, their own territory, their own legitimate business or any of
the other attributes of official organizations. These unofficial associations
are extremely diverse. They arise in the business collectives themselves, or
in connection with business relationships but in a wider field (for example
in a given field of culture) or independently of people's actual occupation
(for example, family and national associations). There are various combi
nations. Some have one activity and are regular, some are continuous,
some are not. They may be noticeable or not, encouraged or discouraged,
tolerated or not tolerated, punishable or unpunishable. These associations
arise on the basis of traditional ties, personal attachments, mutual help and
advantage , and for self-defence. These groups and strata play an altogether
more serious role in society than divisions of people into peasants, workers
and intellectuals. I will not go into the super-primitive formula "people
versus authority" which is current among critics of Soviet society and
among Russian emigres in the West.
183
 The whole population of the country can, moreover, be divided into the
privileged and the unprivileged. This division docs not follow the line
which appears to demarcate the presence and absence of privilege in
general. People can belong to the unprivileged part of society even if they
occupy fairly high positions and thus have certain advantages laid down by
law; for example, colonels, university teachers, professors , engineers,
doctors and so forth . What we are talking about in this case are special
privileges and specially exclusive people. The ranks of the privileged in this
sense comprise the highest Party and state officials and a few especially
eminent artists, painters and writers. Individual scientists belong too, but
only in their capacity as powerful officials in their own field. Within the
non-privileged part of society one can detect the formation of what I call
"clans" , while within the privileged part in addition to the "clan" one can
also detect the formation of privileged strata. I will explain briefly the
distinction between these structural elements of the population .
"Clans" are formed out o f families, friends, neighbours and colleagues.
These are rather amorphous formations but not so amorphous that one can
leave them out of account . One "clan" might comprise officers, engineers,
civil servants, students, school pupils and cleaning ladies. All of them,
despite their differences, live in a similar way. Such groups can have their
own privileged persons who arc the object of pride, hatred and other
feelings on the part of the other members. Members of such groups know
about each other's existence, they meet each other fairly often in different
combinations, they are interested in what happens to each other and play
some part in each other's fate. They are the people with whom and among
whom the individual lives his life outside the primary collective and thus
form the environment of his private life. These groups of people are guests
and hosts, they correspond with each other, talk on the telephone, marry,
produce children and make friends. The groups may change their
composition and they are not always stable. But despite their shapelessness
and variability people nevertheless are involved in them , they spend a good
deal of their time in them , are interested in them and take them into
account. For the great majority of the population these groups are a
supplementary source of influence and an extra supervisor of their own
behaviour. It is in these groups that public opinion operates, and there its
power over people is immense.
It operates in two ways. On the one hand it compels people to act in
consonance with the social laws to which all members of society are
subject. On the other it establishes certain limits to behaviour by creating
standards of decency, good order and honesty. People are forced to reckon
with these standards of behaviour which are deemed by these "clans" to be
correct. If an individual infringes the accepted norms of behaviour, the
"clan" will censure him. At times it will exclude him and have him
184
punished officially, so that when individual people in the Soviet Union
enter into serious conflict with society (dissidents for example) they meet
with condemnation not only in the primary collectives but in their own
"clans". In particular, relatives and close friends as a rule condemn these
dissidents. People in the West cannot understand these phenomena. B ut
they are an absolutely normal affair for people who have experience of
Soviet life. The point is that the clans work out standards for the correct
behaviour of individuals, borrowing them from the primary collectives.
The fact is that a significant part of the membership of the clan (in any case
the most influential part of it) are members of working communes, and for
them the clan is only an extension of the working commune. Conflicts, of
course, arise between working communes and clans, but they have no
meaning in principle; they do not split the life of the population into two
different lives: the communal and the private. Most of the conflicts are
such that they can be ascribed to the behaviour of some individual who has
infringed some behavioural norm in a collective.
Groups which are analogous to "clans" are formed also in the privileged
part of society. Everything that has already been said applies to them too,
but something new arises here that is not accessible on the lower levels:
there are broader possibilities of intercourse; a consciousness of a common
prestige ; the solidarity to be found among privileged people and other
phenomena that unite the representatives of that part of society into wider
groups and even strata. Even potential membership of such a group can be
enough. For instance, it is enough for a privileged writer to know of the
existence of a privileged painter or a minister for them to become members
of a potential group to which he attaches himself. For these people the
main point is that acquaintanceship with each other is possible in principle.
They can render each other services and count on this in advance. Their
children can go to the same privileged educational establishments and
marry each other. Their villas are comparable and may even be in the same
neighbourhood. In short, something is established that is similar to that
which exists among the ruling classes in non-Communist society. More
over, a special hierarchy of strata emerges which only partly coincides with
the official hierarchy of middle and higher officials.
The social strata which I am speaking about here exert even greater
pressure on their members than the "clans" because the consciousness of
belonging to the population's ruling class also operates. Although in this
society the exploitation of some people by others as it is found in Capitalist
society is absent, a more insidious form of exploitation occurs in the Soviet
Union where the exploiting agent is not the individual but a whole social
stratum. Members of the privileged classes feel themselves to be partners
in exploitation and value this position. The existing Communist order is
their way of life and it suits them because it is only thanks to it that they
185
have the special position that raises them above the mass of the people .
Therefore the members of the privileged strata deal rather harshly and
mercilessly with those who infringe the accepted code of behaviour.
However, such cases happen rather rarely.
Of course "concepts" such as "worker" and "peasant" have not yet
entirely lost their meaning and will retain some of it in the future. But they
have lost their sociological sense as concepts that can categorize real-life
Communist society. Already many people engaged in the industrial sector
at the lowest level can no longer be designated simply by the word
"worker". They are skilled men like mechanics, or instrument-fitters, and
so on . The word "peasant" , too, has a very vague meaning even for people
who live in the country. They prefer to be called "tractor-driver",
"combine-harvester driver" , "agronomist" or "livestock specialist". Quite
often "peasant" is used only for the least qualified members of the
population of the village.
In brief, a complex sociological investigation using all the methods of
modern science is needed if an accurate description of the structure of the
multi-million-strong population of a Communist country is to be obtained.

THE NATIONAL QUESTION

I A M N O T going to examine the division of the population into nationalities

and tribes. I will only remark that the Communist regime deals successfully
with national problems, as Soviet experience has shown. In particular, it
has been extremely effective in raising the educational, cultural and living
standards of the more backward peoples and groups of the population to a
comparatively high level. These peoples become a bulwark of the new
society. Certain national minorities occupy a privileged position and are
converted into groups which can hardly be distinguished from bands of
gangsters. I n the Soviet Union whole republics at times occupy this
position such as Georgia and Azerbaidjan. Under Communism organized
social life can very easily be converted into gangster-like social organiz
ations and from this point of view control by the central government is in
some places the only means of restraining this tendency.
In Communist society there is a very strong tendency towards destroying
national barriers and levelling out national differences. There is a tendency
to form a community of people beyond nationality, i.e. a tendency towards
a generalized communality. It follows that any expectation that conflicts
between nationalities will cause the ruin of the Soviet Empire derives from
a total misconception of the real situation in the country in this regard.
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 THE TENDENCY TOWA R D S SLAVERY

I w A N T E S P E C I A L L y t o identify one tendency i n Communist society: the

tendency to create a category of people whose status is very near to that of
the slave. They are the convicts. In Stalin's time the army of convicts in the
Soviet Union was reckoned to be fifteen million. At the present time there
is reason to believe that the figure stands at four or five million. This figure
isn't enough to satisfy Communist society's real need for workers of this
type, a need which is temporarily satisfied by making use of town workers,
especially young people, as forced labour for harvesting and on building
sites and by using the army. The position of these people is very near to
slavery inasmuch as they are adults who are torn from their usual milieu
and their normal working collective, who do not procreate in captivity ,
who receive a pittance for their work, and who are not free t o choose their
abode or the kind of work they do.
The only thing the authorities don't do with these people is sell them,
and the reason for that is that there is nobody to sell them to and nobody to
buy them from. This army of slaves is topped up as a rule by law-breakers
who are always in good supply in this society. The number of prisoners
does not depend on the ability of the authorities to detect crime, but on the
punishments imposed by the authorities and on the "through-put" capacity
of the organs of justice. The need for an army of slaves arises in those
sectors where normal people have no wish to work (for example, industries
with a high record of injuries or industrially related illness, factories in an
unpleasant climate, and especially secret enterprises). This tendency to
form an army of slaves derives from the fact that work in Communist
society is compulsory, and from the power of the government to create
such an army without the opposition of the population. Most people view
the phenomenon with indifference or encourage it inasmuch as it cleanses
society of thieves, bandits and burglars and other socially dangerous
elements. B ut the authorities do not confine themselves to sanitary
measures: they also "recruit" as convicts the labour which is needed in the
places mentioned above. It is easy enough to do this because in principle
huge numbers of the normal population are vulnerable in relation to the
courts of justice. As far as I have been able to establish , the prevalent type
of Soviet prisoner in the last decades has not been the professional criminal
at all but the ordinary man who has committed a crime either accidentally
or because of his living conditions.

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 THE PR EVALENT EVO LUTI O N A R Y T R E N D

S o c i A L EVOLUTI O N DOES not take account of people's beautiful ideals and

intentions. However deplorable it may be, we have to recognize the fact
that the prevalent social tendency in Communist society and in Commun
ism in the modern world is to organize the whole life of the popular mass as
one organic whole: i . e . with complex internal differentials between people ,
with their attachment to one cellular unit which is their place of work and
with their allocation to different levels of the social hierarchy. All this
inevitably generates an irresistible trend towards inequality of status and
rights. This is covered up hypocritically by everyone, but fully recognized
in fact by the most active and effective part of the population. In its early
days ideological Communism borrowed its ideals of equality and justice
from the ideology of Western countries. These ideals came into glaring
contradiction with the real-life historical fate of Communism as a type of
society and as a general tendency of humanity. It is not impossible that in
the future a struggle to legalize ideals of inequality of status and rights will
play a no less important role in history than obsolescent ideals of equality.

T H E STATE

IN sociETY THE communal cells are hierarchized. At the same time a series
of vitally important functions of the cells are converted into functions of
certain organs of a special kind . These organs express the functions of large
communities of people and of society as a whole. Through this process the
huge aggregate of heterogeneous cells and the mass of humanity in which
they are submerged form an integral social organism. The aggregate of
these organs forms what one can call the state apparatus, which fulfils the
functions of government and acts as a cohesive force in the regions, the
departments, the provinces, the republics and the country as a whole. It
has a very complex formation, a description of which would require several
weighty volumes. I will limit myself to the more important points
concerning its structure and functions.
The Marxist theory of the state is well known. According to it the state
arises with the rise of antagonistic classes. It arises as the weapon of the
dominant classes which is used by them to keep the exploited classes in
check. When the exploiting classes are destroyed, the state will wither
away. I do not want to discuss how the state arose originally, but from the
sociological point of view the Marxist theory of the role of the state in
1 88
society and of its future in the "classless" society (by which is meant a
society without landowners and capitalists) is obviously absurd. The theory
is in fact a purely ideological phenomenon intended for the most primitive
intellectual level of the popular mass. The ideologists of established
Communist society obviously find this part of Marxism extremely awk
ward. So they have to resort to no less idiotic ideas about the fading away
of the state via its strengthening and about the waging of class-war in the
sphere of international relations between Communist and non-Communist
countries. Soviet ideologues used to see the signs of the fading-away of the
state in "People's Patrols" (which are formations of workers from various
institutions that help the militia), in "Comrades' Courts" , in administrative
committees attached to the local organs of power and in other supposedly
voluntary organizations that fulfil a very secondary role in the power
system, without remuneration and in people's free time . Once I asked an
ideologue of this sort when it would become possible for the ordinary
citizen to fulfil the functions of General Secretary of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, voluntarily and
without remuneration. At first he was slightly perplexed, but then he found
a way out: "The General Secretary," he explained "is no longer a state
phenomenon in the Marxist sense of 'state'." This was still the case until
the General Secretary in the Soviet Union began to merge his own
functions with that of the Head of State. On one point this ideologue was
right, without suspecting it. The state in the Marxist sense (i.e. the organ
used by the dominant class after society has been split into antagonistic
classes) actually no longer does exist in the Soviet Union . But, alas, the
state as such continues to exist all right, and will collapse only with the
destruction of the society as a whole.
The state apparatus of Communist society consists of a core apparatus
and of a whole network of other apparatuses, subordinate to the core and
acting as its branches and extensions. These are not different forms of
power but elements of one single power apparatus. In the Soviet Union the
core of the state apparatus is called the Party apparatus. It visibly binds
itself to the Party, regards itself as the Party apparatus although its actual
position is rather different. The branches and the extensions of the core
apparatus are the soviets, the ministries, the trade-unions, the punitive
organs, the ideological apparatus, the military and sporting institutions and
so on.
When critics of Soviet society differentiate between the Party and
economic and military powers-that-be , and even read conflicts into their
mutual relations, then it is clear that they understand nothing at all about
the structure and essence of power in Communist society. In that society
there are no different forms of power but only different functions of one
single power. Of course, conflicts do occur as in every collectivity of people
189
or institutions. But they are in no way conflicts between forms of power but
phenomena of another kind. They do not split society into warring factions
and they rarely express the important requirements of the population as a
whole. More often they are episodes in the struggle for power and
complete control in the ruling group, whose members will use particular
problems facing the country as a front behind which to make their power
plays.
In any case the conflicting groups do not represent, in their own conflict,
the broad masses of the population because this cannot be so for strictly
structural reasons. Expressions such as "military", "economic" and so on
are often used in connection with a situation in the Soviet Union in a way
that is completely devoid of sense , for the simple reason that no such social
units exist . In the army, in science, in industry and in the other sectors of
life there is to be found one standard social structure as described above.
This divides people into social categories in such a way that there can be no
question of there being representations of separate interests in a given
sphere. The generals have more interests in common with academicians
and managers of factories than they have with the soldiers. But in this
respect they do not form associations distinct from the others. Talk about
conflicts between ideologues and economists, politicians and the military is
nothing other than a projection of conceptions of mutual relationships that
exist in Western power-structures upon a phenomenon of a totally
different order: power in Communist society. Of course, all forms of power
have certain general features, but they arc not these .
The spine of the state apparatus has the following specific quality. First,
it has a hierarchical structure from the summit to the smallest territorial
unit: the region. The regional committee of the Party is the core of power
in the region, the provincial one in the province and so on up to the top.
But notice that at the level of the cell the core of power is no longer the
Party bureau or the Party committee but the management of the institution.
Although the Party bureau watches over management, nevertheless their
relationship is of a different order from the relationship between the
regional Party committee and the other organs of power. Here the
relationship is more like the relationship of the different sections of power
at the highest level, since here we find an aggregation of a greater number
of cells and an isolation of a series of their functions in the shape of
functions of special organizations and thus an isolation of the different
functions of power. Here, at the level of regional power, we have a divide
in the Party structure which demonstrates the qualitative difference
between the Party apparatus of power and the Party seen as a multitude of
ordinary Party members.
A second peculiarity of the power-core of the state apparatus is that it
contains within itself in concentrated form all the most important functions
190
and potential of the state apparatus in general. These functions are broken
down in detail into the whole aggregate of special institutions in the
different branches of the state apparatus. It is from this point that the
illusion is created that the Party apparatus duplicates the governmental
apparatus in industry, agriculture, science, the army and the other sectors
of society. It does duplicate it, but in such a way that only the roots and the
nerves are strengthened; the roots and nerves of branches that develop into
what are to some extent autonomous organs.
Reproaches levelled at Communist society regarding the exaggerated
growth of the state apparatus have become commonplace in the critical
literature about Communism. Of course the apparatus is huge, but its
dimensions in Communist society are established by social laws, according
to which society is crystallized. There are minimal dimensions below which
simplification just cannot go because of the laws of social organization. The
upper limits are more mobile, which does at times enable the apparatus to
grow beyond an acceptable level. It would be possible to reduce and
simplify the governmental apparatus below the minimal-normal line only if
the population itself were reduced and its whole economic and cultural
systems simplified - i . e . if life were made more primitive. There is indeed a
tendency in Communist society to primitivize the whole of the structure of
life, but nevertheless that tendency does not lead to a simplification of the
state apparatus. This is another example of those strange social phenom
ena I spoke of earlier.
The position of the state apparatus in society is twofold. On the one
hand it consists of cellular communes whose activity is subordinated to the
general laws of communal life (which means that what happens in them
also happens in other communes) . Of course, there are some modifica
tions, but they do not change the communality of life in such cells. On the
other hand the state apparatus is the governing organ of society as a whole
regarded as an individual, and from this point of view the activity of the
apparatus is like the activity of the governing organs of individuals of lower
rank right down to the level of the individual person. But the complexity of
the body that is governed, society itself, and the peculiarities of the
behaviour of its gigantic body set in its environment condition some of the
principles of state activity and cause them to spread downwards. That is to
say, they are disseminated among the governing organs of the lower ranks.
This is an example of the fact that two sources of influence are ceaselessly
interacting both in the formation of society and during its existence ,
namely the influence of low-level cells on those above and vice-versa.
I will draw attention to one more peculiarity of Communist power in a
Communist society and that is its colossal network. What does this mean?
The Party power apparatus is built on the territorial principle : it embraces
the regions, the cities, the districts, the provinces and the republics. At the
191
same time the communes which are situated on the above territories
(primary territorial units from the point of view of Party power) have their
own system of functional subordination. The communes enter into the
fabric and the organs of a different, non-territorial, cross-section of society
I
which extend beyond the frontiers of these territorial units. The fabric and
the organs are subjected to Party power at a higher level in the territorial
hierarchy (right up to the scale of the country as a whole). So there is a
multiple interweaving of the network of power. It can be presented in this
form :
1) first level: Party power in its primary territorial unit , with its network
of antennae locked into the institutions that are in the j urisdiction of
or actively supervised by Party power: institutions which are subordi
nated to higher organs via professional subordination;
2) the second and higher levels: This is Party power in the higher
territorial units with its antennae which extend to Party power below
and to the institutions under its direct control as well as higher
ranking institutions within its purview;
3) the level of the country as a whole;
4) special and extraordinary conditions.
Thus any attempt to tear the network of power from the social body of
necessity entails tearing from it bits of its flesh and bones, which is
tantamount to destroying society as a living organism.

TERRITORIAL POWER

I N THE S oviET Union territorial power is vested i n village, regional ,

district , provincial and republican councils and in the Supreme Soviet for
the whole country. But the word "councils" (soviety) is immaterial because
the essence and the functions of this locus of power are the same in all
Communist countries.
In outward form territorial power appears to be freely elected . B ut what
passes for an election here has long been an object of ridicule. However
the ridicule has not been altogether j ustified because an election does
indeed take place: the Party organs really do elect suitable candidates to be
deputies. It is only from the point of view of voting citizens that the whole
thing appears as a complete fiction. But that is beside the point. The official
election of the deputies to the councils is the least significant feature of
territorial power. The essential fact before anything else is that these
councils are stable organizations (collectives) in which people work on a
uniform basis. They are selected for work in these organizations individ-
192
ually although the selection is, of course, biased: not everybody is accepted
who wants to enter them. B ut the selection of suitable people also takes
place in other institutions which do not form part of the power-system . The
important point is that people go to work in these institutions and
participate in the power-system by fulfilling routine functions that often
have nothing to do with power as such. And it is with these workers in the
apparatus of power that the ordinary citizen generally has to deal, not with
the fictitiously elected deputies in the councils. Most people never bump
into a deputy or do so only in exceptional circumstances. The role of
deputies is in general fictitious: they only vote on decisions which other
people invite them to take. The directors of these organs of power are
chosen formally like the other deputies, but in fact they are selected for
their posts by the Party organs and work there more or less all the time .
They make their career there or are transferred to other posts. But in this
respect there is no difference at all between them and the directors of other
institutions.
Territorial power remains root and branch under the control of the
Party. In the Soviet Union this situation is graphically demonstrated by the
fact that the head of the Party has become the head of the State as well.
B ut this was the result of concrete historical conditions (state-visits, state
receptions and treaties, and the personal ambitions of the head of the
Party) , and there is nothing obligatory about it in principle. There is no
such unity of power-functions at the lower levels; the only obligatory thing
is that the directors of territorial power are selected and in fact appointed
by the Party organs. They themselves are members of the Party's power
apparatus, being members of the bureaux of the regional and provincial
committees of the Party or members of the Central committees of the
Party. Territorial power is only a branch of the general power-system, at
the core of which is the Party apparatus.
For the ordinary citizen in Communist society, territorial power means
the regional council with all its subdivisions: the militia, institutions for
children , schools, social security, j ustice, the housing section and so on.
And naturally the ordinary person is continually coming into contact with
them in one way or another. If the citizen makes no claim to anything
special and leads a normal life, he will hardly be aware of territorial power
as such. Of course, there too one finds everything characteristic of
Communist institutions such as red tape and bribery, but in the main the
citizens, in return for their own efforts, get their "rights", that is, what they
are entitled to by law. And at least they can fight for these rights. The
important point here is that in relation to this territorial power the citizens
are objects of the authorities' activity. The one party does not enter into
communal relations with the other.
For the active part of the population territorial power plays a much less
1 93
important role than the system of power in which they find themselves in
the primary collective. But this doesn't mean that the role of territorial
power does not matter. In principle a situation is conceivable in which the
rank and file comes into contact with territorial power only via their own
primary collective ; or even in which the territorial power is swallowed up in
the administrative , economic or industrial power. But despite all this there
remain certain power-functions that will be fulfilled by certain elements in
the power structure of the collective and b' groups of them . This fact
doesn't change the essence of power.

POLITICS

T H E WORD " po uncs" is used in different senses. The behaviour of

individual people is called political, as is that of groups, parties, govern
ments, working to attain their goals. "Politics" is a name for the sphere of
activity of state-power and for that of people and organizations who affect
the interests of the State . There is the well-known saying that politics is
about power. But the question of power isn't always a political question.
When people want to seize power and try to do so, then the question of
power is a political question. But if power has been seized , then the power
question in Communist society ceases to be political. In addition politics
is not just a matter of power.
But let us define the concept of politics itself in order to be able to speak
about it more accurately. This is not of course, a question of words.
However, it is the case that a terminology that was invented by Western
civilization for the purpose of describing its own phenomena is regularly
applied to the Soviet Union , and the term "politics" is included in it. But
such an application forces one to look at Communist society in a light
thrown upon it by a foreign conceptual system ; and this does little to help
one understand it.
There are differing relationships between social individuals, whether
they are separate people , groups of people or whole countries. Earlier we
were examining the relationships of command and subordination and the
relation between subordinates. We can now add to them the relationships
of coercion and games. The games are not to be viewed as anything
amusing, but as something serious in which some players lose something
and others gain something. In social life the stakes can be the fate of
people, classes, parties and whole nations. Political relations can be
included among these games.
Of course, in real life different forms of social relations are interwoven ,
194
so that it is hard to separate them . The command relationship may include
both coercion and game-elements. A coercive relationship often contains
an element of voluntary submission , but it is useful to distinguish these
relationships in order to help us investigate the complex phenomena of
social life. I have already said enough about the relationships mentioned
above, with the exception of the game-element, about which I will now
make a few observations.
The game-relationship between communal individuals arises in a par
ticular situation in which individuals are compelled to come into contact, in
particular when they form a single whole. But it is a relationship between
individuals in which there is neither superordination, subordination or co
ordination. To some extent people here are independent, not subject to
control and enjoy freedom of will and choice. Their influence upon each
other is not determined by law, force or custom. Of course, people here
have their own rules of behaviour, their own experience, their own skills
when it comes to behaving advantageously for themselves. But these
determine the behavioural procedures as such and not the relationship
itself. Partners in a game-relationship try to extract maximum advantage
for themselves and achieve their own ends.
The partners are not necessarily equally matched. One player may have
a great advantage over the others but that does not stop him from entering
the game because he as the stronger may elect not to apply direct force, i.e.
a force which would obviate the need for the game in the first place. Not all
the players will play actively; some may be passive. Moreover, one of the
partners in the game may not regard himself as a player and may just be an
object of the games of the others. For example, after the Russian
revolution masses of peasants remained beyond the control of the new
power-system. The latter applied force to the peasants. But the measures
were inadequate and at times dangerous. Then the new power began to
play its own peculiar game with the peasantry, which took the form of
certain propaganda slogans, certain legislation and operations with indus
trial goods. By means of this game the authorities managed to divide the
peasants, attaching some to itself and suppressing the discontented ones .
Thus the peasantry went down the road desired by the authorities.
Political relationships are a special instance of social game-relationships.
Their specific feature is that they are in one way or another connected with
the power problem. Participants in political relations within the country
are the following: 1) the organs of power and groups of people who are to
some extent independent of power who try to acquire or conserve this
independence; 2) different groups of people who have a political relation
ship with the authorities who seek either unity in this relationship or
separation or domination and who thus either come into conflict or do a
deal with them. In the first case the political relationships are direct, in the
195
second indirect. The authorities in different countries arc participants in
political relations between countries, as are groups of people in different
countries who have political relations with their own authorities. These
groups also have relationships with the authorities of other countries. The
sphere of politics is constituted by the activities of powers and groups
which are carried out in connection with political relations. The state
power of one or other country, or several countries, is an indispensable
partner in political relations or an objective of these relations, either
directly or indirectly. The aims of political activity within a country can be
described as follows. There are those people without power who try to win
some independence from the powers-that-be, to preserve this independ
ence and to enter into a relationship with the authorities on the basis of this
independence . Furthermore, they try to get their group a share of power,
to dominate the power group, or to seize complete power. The people who
are in power try to prevent the appearance of independent groups, to
impose their own will on groups independent of themselves and to
liquidate, or at least limit, that independence. The first try to achieve the
possibility of political relations, and by using them, abolish them . The
second try to disallow political relations, but if there arc any, usc them in
order to liquidate them . The picture becomes more complex if one takes
into account the struggles that go on within both groups. The main point in
all this mish-mash of social influence and activity is that political relations
arc the least constant of social relations. They appear in order to
disappear. The whole purpose of political activity comes down to this: that
political relations should come into being and then be liquidated . While
they last, the political game is played, according to well-known rules which
at times arouse the loathing even of the professional politicians themselves.
If one examines state power in Communist society from the point of view
of its internal position in the country and the relationships between people
and the authorities, and with each other as regards their own relations with
the authorities, then one can state it as a fact that here state power has lost
all its political character; that the role of political relations in society has
become minuscule and in principle has even disappeared, so that the
political sphere has withered away just as the Marxist classics prophesied.
All this has withered, not in the sense that the state has withered or the
prisons or the punitive organs - on the contrary they have grown and been
strengthened - but in the sense that they have lost their political character
in the narrow sense we established above.

196
 T H E S P E C I F I C F U N C T I O N S O F T H E C O M M U N I ST
S T A TE

THE C o M M U N I S T STATE fulfils several functions in society. Among them

are functions shared with states in non-Communist societies, e .g. the
maintenance of public order, the battle against thieves, hooligans and
bandits, the realization of justice , the detention of criminals, relations with
other countries. However , it is not these functions which determine
essentially the form the state apparatus takes in a Communist country.
As I said earlier, in Communist society every commune has a position in
the country which is strictly defined, as are its work-functions, its relations
with other communes, its internal structure, its share of national pro
duction and the remuneration it receives. It is the state apparatus that lays
all this down and controls the commune's activity. What constitutes the
fundamental and specific role of the state in Communist society is this: to
ensure that the whole of society acts as a single organism. The whole
legislative and administrative activity of the state is geared to precisely this
end. Without the state society would be like the body of an animal that has
no brain or nervous system. It is on this basis that the other functions of the
state grow up: organizations for educating the young and allocating them
to professions and places of work, the care of the old, medical services,
sport, art and so on. In capitalist countries the state also undertakes these
things to some extent: this is one of the elements of Communism in non
Communist societies. But only in Communist societies does the state seize
these functions in their entirety and execute them indivisibly and as its
main business.

PLANNING

TH E SPECIFIC ACTIVITY of the Communist state consists i n the laying down

of strict obligations for the communes which it governs and for all the
complex aggregates of these and in the planning of their activities. So much
is said and written about planning under Communism that there is really
nothing of value to add . Apologists extol the planned character of the
economy to the skies and regard plans as stages in the movement towards
"full Communism " . Critics make ironic remarks about the fictitious
character of the plans, their actual non-fulfilment and the cruel measures
used to try to fulfil them. They point out the elements of planning in
bourgeois countries and the elements of chaos in Communist ones. But
197
both parties miss the essential point of planning. It is true that there is
much stupidity in the plans, that they are largely fictitious and propaganda
serving, that they are often not fulfilled and that something else happens
instead of what was planned. However, none of this contradicts the fact
that planning is an irremovable attribute of Communist society. The point
is that the role of planning is by no means merely to provide a blueprint by
which society is to be guided on its road towards its shining ideals. Planning
is used by the state to preserve the unity of the social organism by means of
compulsory activity. It is a purely Communist means of limiting the forces
of communality in society. The real life of society, despite everything,
gravitates towards plans and some kind of ideal or norm. The state's
compulsion of communes to fulfil their plan is the only means of avoiding
chaos and maintaining some kind of order.
The plan , I repeat, defines the status of the commune in society as a
whole. The fulfilment of the plan is the index of the commune's activity.
Here the deciding factor is not competitiveness, not the purely economic
norm of profit, but simply the relationship between the plan and the
commune's actual activity. The authorities at all levels make a sustained,
systematic effort , therefore, to ensure that the communes operate within
the framework of their plan. From a purely economic point of view the
commune may well run at a loss, but this doesn't lead to its liquidation . It
provides a livelihood for a certain number of people and produces its
required product. This is enough to justify its existence. And the state ,
which forces the commune to act within its established framework,
guarantees the commune a means of existence for its members, material
for its activity and markets for its product. The commune is granted
autonomy only within the framework of the plan. All kinds of rationaliz
ations, initiatives, innovations, movements for over-producing the plan ,
for fulfilling it ahead of time, for making economies and so on are really
only the means of keeping the commune within the framework of the plan,
of driving it on to reach the plan's targets, of compensating for the
unfulfilled plans of some by the over-fulfilled plans of others. Of course, all
this is at the same time a means of influencing the masses through ideology.
The actual position in society is not so harmonious as it appears on paper
and in propaganda. In reality "harmony" is achieved at a very high price,
at the cost of huge losses and absurdities, and it is only the dominating
tendency among a mass of others that push society towards chaos and
ungovernability. Moreover, the very system of planning creates a tendency
exactly opposite to that which the whole idea of planning is supposed to
create. Thanks to planning, the fate of most, if not all , citizens and
institutions does not depend on the marketability of their products. Their
task is merely to produce enough to satisfy the accountants. The
communes and their members invent different means of deceiving the
198
authorities and different types of general eye-wash. There is a constant
growth of fictitious plan-fulfilment in a context of factual non-fulfilment. In
addition there are constant difficulties into which the central government
lands the country and which necessitate a revision of the plan and the
switching of resources to unplanned expenditure. The Soviet Union, for
example, is chronkally subject to economic difficulties, and it is only the
population's habit of enduring a low standard of living and its submissive
ness, together with the rich natural resources and aid from satellite
countries, which deliver the state authorities from bankruptcy. The
Communist state, which has taken into its own hands the direction of the
country's production and attached it to a planning system, at the same time
ceaselessly creates the conditions in which its own plans are undermined
and creates a tendency towards economic uncontrollability and sheer
chaos.
The problem of the relationship between centralization and decentrali
zation of government is one of the most important in the existence of a
Communist country.
Centralized government has its own major defects. It causes lack of
initiative, wastefulness, senseless loss of assets, a brake on productivity and
many other negative phenomena which are well known and enable one to
affirm that the Communist countries cannot "pursue and overtake" the
leading capitalist countries either economically or in business in general.
However, a centralized government has its advantages, which are just as
well known. In particular, it is only by centralization that grandiose
structures such as existed and are still being developed in the Soviet Union
are made possible. The advantages for the development of the military
industry and the creation of the armed forces are generally recognized. But
the real point isn't the balance of advantage and disadvantage as between
centralization and decentralization of government. Social life is not a
search for some optimum academic solution. Communist society's cen
tralized system of government is adequate for that and is better adapted to
it than any other. And if it causes evil, that still isn't a reason why the
governing organs should renounce any of their prerogatives. They have the
power to keep them for themselves, the more so because it is doubtful how
much good decentralization would do. Improvements would be noticeable
on a small scale, but on the scale of society as a whole decentralization
could lead to even worse difficulties than the ones that arise without it.
Besides, experiments conducted in this field in the Soviet Union have not
been successful.

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 PERSONAL AND NOMINAL POWER

EvERY M A N A G E R , O N C E he has obtained a post, tries to create an

apparatus of personal power. To this end he gets rid of some people and
replaces them with others who arc personally known to him or who he
thinks arc personally devoted to him and wins over the rest to his side. All
those not attracted by his "magnetism" , or who oppose him, he will try to
isolate , neutralize or discredit. This is completely natural, because
management has to rely on teamwork based on the personal contacts of its
members. On average the apparatus of personal power that the manager
creates is no worse than the power apparatus that might be installed
according to "just" laws: after all, there arc no laws more j ust than the
ones that work in real life, despite the wishes of people to escape from
them. This apparatus at least has the advantage that it comes nearer to the
ideal of the team than the nominal or official apparatus. Moreover, it is
normally only necessary to remove a few people and put others in their
place for a new set-up acceptable to the new manager to begin to form
naturally. It won't be long before new lackeys will appear bent on
betraying their former boss.
The apparatus of personal power doesn't wholly coincide with the
nominal apparatus. Some people who occupy important positions do not
belong to the nominal apparatus. Some who formally are in second-grade
posts begin to play a more important role. The manager surrounds himself
with a whole system of toadies and lickspittles, informers, intriguers and
fixers who , together with all those supporters of the manager with official
posts, form a ruling mafia. This happens at all levels of power, beginning
with the primary communes. Even within the framework of the primary
communes there are more or less powerful subdivisions which gravitate
towards the same model .
Sometimes the apparatus of personal power assumes such strength that it
ceases to take account of the norms of nominal power. The mafia becomes
the sovereign ruler and rules according to its own communal laws , virtually
ignoring the limitations imposed by formal laws. In Stalin's time the system
gripped the whole country: whole republics, provinces, districts , regions
and institutions. It takes a lot of time and effort to overcome such excessive
personal power and to keep it within tolerable bounds. But in general
personal power is the normal system in Communist society. A large
number of people gain a great deal from this system and rely on it in order
to rule over others.
There is a definite technique of establishing personal power which is
inherited and handed down from generation to generation. Besides, even
the most mediocre managers very quickly grasp all its niceties and begin to
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conduct themselves like born intriguers and politicians. The occasions
when the new manager suffers a fiasco are very rare. Higher authority and
the whole of the power apparatus in one way or another do everything they
can to ensure stability and the rapid adaptation of the new manager to the
milieu and of the milieu to the new manager.
The greater part of the activity of the personal power apparatus, i.e.
of the de facto apparatus of power, consists of personal communications,
oral instructions, requests for favours, hints, and other means which do not
appear in official documents. The official documents are drawn up in a way
that only people with experience of power and competent specialists can
read between the lines and arrive at an understanding of the real state of
affairs. Thus the secretive character of the activity of the powers-that-be,
which strikes many observers, is their natural quality. It is to be found
throughout the system from top to bottom and there is nothing specially
evil about it. Secrecy is admittedly used consciously and on an immense
scale on various rungs of the ladder of power and in respect of particular
aims of the authorities. But the possibility of it springs from the very
foundations of power.
For the reasons we have indicated , any group of people exercising power
needs to be able to trust people on a personal level, needs reliable
confederates and needs a system of mutual rescue and mutual support i n
time o f trouble. None o f this excludes t h e action o f communal laws in the
milieu, but they are limited by special conditions created by the ruling
mafia. Of course, there is no absolute harmony here either. Here too there
are actual and potential traitors, denouncers, wreckers, working against
the interest of the mafia. Indeed, they are one of the means of limiting the
mafia itself and of its control by the higher authorities and by the
environment as a whole.

O N E - M A N M A N A GE M E N T A N D C O L L E G I AL I T Y

A L R E A D Y A T THElevel of the commune there are two tendencies in

management: one towards solo command and the other towards collegi
ality. The first tendency arises from the natural necessity for unity in any
management team. A bifurcation of management is unhealthy in the same
way as a split consciousness is an illness in the case of the individual. It
makes itself felt throughout the whole of communal life or at least
throughout its more active part. Society doesn't encourage such phenom
ena and tries to limit them. The second tendency, towards collegiality,
springs from the natural necessity that the various subdivisions of the
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commune should be represented in management and influence manage
ment activities from the point of view of the interests of these subdivisions.
Solo command is represented by the leader of the management team,
i . e . by the leader of a special social group in the constitution of the
commune. It is this managing group as a whole and not the ruler of the
group who is the ruler of the commune . The ruler of the management
group is only considered to be the ruler of the whole commune because
such an exaggeration of his role is one component of the reward due to his
social position. Moreover, the other members of the management are
members of the commune who in their day-to-day routine in the estimation
of the people look like elements of the general mass, which is itself on the
opposite side of the fence vis-a-vis the leader of the commune. In the
commune's external relations it is mainly the head of its managing body
who represents it.
Exactly the same picture holds for the larger units right up to the country
as a whole. This is why it seemed to the outsider that first Stalin , then
Khrushchev, then B rezhnev ruled the whole of the USSR. That is a false
impression. The role of these and other rulers of Communist countries is
not so large as it seems from the outside, nor from the inside if one takes
account of the government apparatus which is the actual ruler of the
country. The ruler can be a complete nobody and irresponsible, while the
impression is given that he is a dictator with unlimited powers. The
impression is usually greatly strengthened by the fact that the "ruler"
creates for himself an apparatus of personal power which does not coincide
with the normal power apparatus, and in particular because a cult of the
ruler arises. At times this cult assumes vast proportions, as was the case
with Stalin , Mao Tse-Tung, Kim-il-Sung, Tito, Brezhnev and others. The
rulers themselves usually do everything they can to exaggerate their role
and to diminish the role of others so as to appear as the top personality. In
Communist society the personal vanity of the rulers coincides with the
objective structure of power and with the wishes of the mass of people
employed in the power system. In addition this vanity is encouraged by the
ruler's whole entourage , which derives no small advantage from it. In fact ,
the ruler becomes merely the symbol and focus of the ruling mafia. He can
effectively exercise a huge personal power over the fate of individual
people, which also very much heightens the illusion that he is the all
powerful ruler over the whole life of the country. In reality this is a
grandiose piece of deceit and self-deceit. Even Stalin was not in reality
what historians, writers and politicians have hitherto imagined. For
instance, processes in the country's life such as industrialization and
collectivization were not thought out by him and foisted on society. Even
the mass repressions were the work of a large number of people and not
merely the personal invention and initiative of Stalin.
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 The collegiality of the leadership in Communist society is not something
thought up by propaganda: it is a real fact . I have already remarked on its
source . It fulfils a number of different functions besides. Let us note first of
all that collegiality is not simply participation in management . Collegiality
happens when decisions depend on the members of the governing body,
such as, for example, the members of the management of research
institutes, members of the Academic Councils, members of the bureaux of
regional and district committees of the Party, members of the Politburo of
the Central Committee. The basic functions of such organs are to limit the
arbitrary actions of the single ruler, to give his actions their legal sanction
and at the same time to remove from the ruler personal responsibility for
important decisions. Collegial leadership is merely the means used by the
"sole ruler" for the purposes of self-defence and self-control . When the
rulers who come to power take measures to place their own people
everywhere and surround themselves with obedient servants, they are
thereby merely asserting the natural principle of solo command which is to
create for itself a suitable college. It is a piece of typical illiterate nonsense
to say that collegiality is the leadership of a peer group who take decisions
together. Collegiality is only an element of one-man rule that appears in
the ruler's special apparatus of personal power. If one couples "one-man
management" with "collegiality" the second isn't even a partner with equal
rights. The illusion that one can have a constant collegiate leadership arises
because after a change of leadership the new leader has not yet got into his
stride and has not yet set up his own apparatus, has not yet placed his own
men everywhere, is still taking account of the comrades who have brought
him to prominence, is still dealing with them. At the end of this transitional
period it at first seems to his comrades that a lot of good norms have been
destroyed. (Actually there are no such things. ) But soon the situation
becomes stabilized and everyone takes up his natural place in the de facto
collegiate leadership. One must recognize that these people do function to
a great extent in consonance with the ideals of power, as far as the routine
business of the ruling body is concerned. The limits of collegiality are
revealed only in exceptional cases when especially important matters come
up for decision or when the personal fate of the ruler is at stake.

T H E F O R M A L O P E R A T I O N OF P O W E R

PowER A S I T operates formally i n Communist society presents a complex

picture, not to say, a confused one. The picture also contains contradic
tions, since it seems to include completely incompatible styles of be-
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haviour. I will isolate two important ones: the routine-bureaucratic and the
voluntarist. For the second the expression "creative-volitional" would be
appropriate , provided that one did not necessarily associate anything
positive with the word "creative". In the first case we are speaking of the
everyday activity of the power apparatus in which people's behaviour is
determined by laws, instructions, traditions and skills. Here little depends
on the people themselves, if we leave out of account the ubiquitous and
never-ending struggle waged according to the laws of communality. If, for
example, you need the most innocent piece of information or certificate in
the most run-down office , where they make you go several times and wait
for hours, although the manager is dreaming away in an empty office , or if
you are made to humble yourself ("who do you think you are?"), this is a
normal situation for the citizen of a Communist country and an indispens
able element of the authorities' work routine. If you have had to give a
bribe or write a complaint, this is also in the order of things. From the point
of view of the way power functions this is normal routine. Of course, even
in this aspect of power unexpected and exceptional things happen , when
the government is compelled to use its wits and take non-standard
decisions. But these are exceptions which affect only rather unimportant
matters. The authorities find some sort of solution fairly easily. Not
necessarily a positive one. Not necessarily a good one . The main thing is
that they have taken a decision of some kind. Here the important
administrative principle is to harm itself as little as possible if it cannot get
anything out of it and to take as little risk as possible if it must take any risk
at all. In the second, voluntarist, case we are concerned with matters that
have not been foreseen in directives, with extraordinary and very
important events which place a very heavy responsibility on the authorities
as regards their response . Here some intellectual effort and will-power are
needed , and there is a risk that the consequences of the decisions taken
might be unpleasant and even catastrophic.
In the Soviet Union in Stalin's time the voluntarist type of administration
was the prevalent one inasmuch as the new society had only just been
formed and even problems such as the receipt of an order for a stool or a
pair of trousers required some voluntarist creative initiative. During that
time a routine-type administration which owed much to the rich experience
of the Russian Empire was also being established and it is this routine type
of government which is prevalent in the Soviet Union today. B ut even in
the most peaceful and successful years extraordinary situations are
continually arising which give constant nourishment for the voluntarist
approach. There is every ground for regarding such situations as the
constant sputnik of Communist society, in which crisis-management is the
norm of everyday life . This is of the utmost convenience to the govern
ment. All their governmental defects can be attributed to external
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difficulties, the arrival of the promised Communist plenty can be post
poned indefinitely and opposition elements can be suppressed . From the
point of view of government behaviour the voluntarist style has its great
merits, which tempt countless officials to repeat the golden Stalinist years:
golden, that is, from the point of view of the unruly exercise of power.

D E C I S I O N - TA K I N G

TH E D EC I S I O N - TA K I N G situation i n which the top man finds himself in the

course of his work is a complex phenomenon. It includes the substance of
the problem, the reasons why it was formulated, the means at hand to take
and execute decisions, the stuff of the decision (what does it apply to?), the
receipt and evaluation of information, the weighing of the decision and its
consequences, and the act of will itself. All of this can be embodied in one
person, in a group of persons, in a complex institution, or in a system of
institutions. The situation is not some kind of academic task in which a man
can be replaced by a machine. What we have here is the real life of real
people with all its attributes, and people will never relinquish it to
machines. This life is more real for them than all the other aspects of their
activity. They use machines but only as auxiliaries and not as deputies.
Real life makes itself felt especially in those cases where the decision
taking situation involves a group of people, which is most characteristic for
Communism. In these cases some people supply information which they
can present in such a way that it can actually influence the decision in a
direction desired by a particular category of people. Experts and advisers
form another category of people - people, not gods. Moreover, they are
people who value their positions and are afraid of risking them or of being
dragged into some kind of intrigue. A third category of persons takes the
decisions, and a fourth executes them, interpreting them in their own way.
The decision-takers may have complicated relationships among themselves
that can end up in conflict. Each participant in the decision-taking situation
tries to avoid risks and to get some advantage out of the situation for
himself. Amendments to the intentions of the deciders and the executants
will be introduced by those at whom the decision is directed. To put it
briefly: in the whole business there is a Gordian knot of complex mutual
relationships which can either be cut by the sword of a voluntarist decision
or untied according to the rules of this type of situation. These rules are
very well known to the participants. Some of them are general rules of
communal behaviour, some of them are specifically connected with
decision-taking. A part of the rules is handed down from generation to
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generation as a body of unwritten professional rules; a part of them is
entrenched in the system of instructions. There are special rules for the
voluntarist form of decision-taking.

I N S T R U CT I O N S

THE V A S T M A J O RITY of the actions of the authorities are carried out

according to instructions which are worked out to the smallest detail and
apply to all of life's eventualities. The speed and pedantry with which the
problem of devising such instructions was decided in the Soviet Union is
simply amazing. These instructions simplify in the extreme the intellectual
activity of people in positions of power and remove from them personal
responsibility for the consequences of their actions. But no-one, I repeat,
can be replaced by a calculating machine. Firstly, the instructions are
drawn up in such a way that people in power have a considerable freedom
in their decision-taking. Secondly, these people decide how the instruc
tions are to be applied to actual individuals and circumstances. In response
to one and the same instruction a man may drag out the solution of a
problem and frustrate it, or he can speed up the process and make the
decision positive.
An instructional system is not a specifically Communist instrument of
power. It is merely developed under Communism to monstrous dimensions
and becomes very supple in relation to the interests of the people in power
and of power as a whole. Besides, in Communist society instructions can
easily be cancelled and replaced by others, depending on what seems to be
in the best interests of those on high. The grandiose system of oral and
written instructions makes the whole instruction system fairly indetermi
nate , so that cases where the powers-that-be freely disregard their own
instructions are just as common as cases in which they follow them
pedantically.

D I R ECTI VES

THE I N S T R U CT I O N A L A PP A R A T U S is supplemented b y the specifically

Communist instrument of the directive. The directive is a special kind of
decision by the organs of power which obliges subordinate organs of power
or any particular group of subordinates as such to execute a certain number
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of measures in accordance with the directive imposed . It acts as a signal .
The concrete measures that subordinates are obliged to take are not
indicated. The executants themselves are given the possibility of deciding
which actions will satisfy the directive and which not , and have enough
experience to understand the essence of the directive and to follow it.
Let us take , for example, a directive to improve youth training in the
sector of material production which we spoke of earlier. No matter how the
directive is formulated, its meaning is clear to a huge apparatus of officials
of all sorts: "use all means to prevent young people leaving the villages";
"young people in the towns without privileges or connections should be
compelled to do the kind of work they are extremely reluctant to do of
their own free will". This directive is implemented by countless actions of
the authorities, each of which would be normal on its own but which , taken
together, express an important social governmental line . Directives of this
kind are continually issued from above in all important sectors of social
life. The whole official press is full of them as well as radio and television.
Things which from the outside are regarded as nonsense or just propa
ganda in reality express in a special language, understood by everyone in
power, directives which are coming from the highest authorities. B esides,
many important directives are distributed without publicity in the form of
secret written or verbal orders. In conjunction with the standardized
experience of the rulers and with the instructions to which we have
referred , this system of directives secures a uniform and conformist
behaviour on the part of all the links in the power chain and of everyone
who executes that power.
In case of necessity a directive may be easily cancelled or superseded by
another directive, and the power apparatus will react quickly to this
change . The directive leaves its executants a loop-hole so that they may get
round it and at the same time pretend to follow it. In exactly the same way,
a cancellation of a directive leaves the executants the chance to carry on
the old line to some degree . So the appearance of a directive and a
modification of it do not infringe the laws of fluidity in social processes.
The directive allows the executants to act with due regard to concrete
conditions in their sphere . Of course, in the myriad actions of those
executants "mistakes", "miscalculations" and so on are normal phenom
ena. But usually they do not have catastrophic consequences and are
gradually smoothed out in the course of life. The higher authorities are rid
of the responsibility for any undesirable consequences of the implementa
tion of the directive, for they can always represent them as consequences of
faulty implementation and not of the directive itself. The latter is always
formulated as an intention to make improvements in a particular sector of
social life.
The force of the directive lies in the fact that it doesn't presuppose any
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serious scientific forecasting or calculation. It emerges from the decision
making organ of the social organism. It is an internal directive applicable to
any conceivable situation in which the social organism might find itself. In
relation to things that are going on it is a priori, worked out exclusively
with regard to some general strategy of behaviour. For the Soviet
government this strategy is the state ideology, i .e. Marxism-Leninism.
Critics of Communism , sovietologists and Western politicians are very
sceptical in their attitude and very ironical about Marxist ideology, but the
fact remains that this ideology has been worked up into a Soviet state
ideology and is more than adequate for the purpose of producing a definite
system of a priori directives.
Of course, some kind of information from outside is needed as the basis
of a directive: and some kind of elaboration and evaluation , some kind of
recommendations. But in all this the a priori-directional aspect predomi
nates. This has indisputable advantages for the powers-that-be. It excludes
mistakes and miscalculations because the concept of mistake cannot be
applied to it. The directive expresses the aim, the wish, the will to attain
what is wanted at any price. Here the concept of success can be applied. If
a sufficiently firm implementation is given to a directive it will somehow or
other meet with some kind of success. This is very convenient in
complicated situations when it is scientifically impossible to foresee the
future . In these cases the directive justifies the actions of the authorities
and provides them with some kind of orientation and confidence. The
authorities can always interpret any successful results of their blind actions
post factum as the implementation of some rational intention and in one
way or another make use of any results in their own interests.
Some directives remain operative for a long time and form the "general
Party line" at a given stage in social life. An example which still remains in
effect in the Soviet Union is the directive about the country's industrializa
tion and militarization. Other directives have the character of short-term
campaigns and are the customary form of Soviet life .
Not every social system, country or group of countries has the means to
create special-purpose directives as an organized form of behaviour and to
follow them for a fairly long time. The Communist system is not only able
to do this , it cannot last long without such behaviour. If the Communist
system lacks a purposeful directive, it will be at a loss. If this goes on for
long enough, the system will begin to go downhill and even fall apart. The
purposeful directive is an objective element in the organization of society.
Short-term directives can be occasional , adventuristic and futile (remem
ber, for i nstance, the maize directive of Khrushchev's time). But long
term, general directives are a serious matter. They flow from society's
objective tendencies and are introduced into life via a complex system of
people and institutions, and in especially important cases by the whole
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organization of social life. In such cases directives gain the force of social
inertia. When this happens only extraordinary obstacles can stop the
movement of society in the direction laid down by the directive and cancel
or weaken it. In principle it is possible to distinguish between long-term
and short-term directives and as a result predict the possible actions of the
Soviet government fairly convincingly. The invasion of Afghanistan by the
Soviet army, for example, could have been foretold by anyone who was
paying attention to the foreign policy of the Soviet Union and who knew
the situation in Afghanistan. Although this task was primitive in its
simplicity, the Soviet intervention took the West unawares; and one of the
reasons for this is an inability to regard the behaviour of the Soviet
government in terms of an appropriate.and adequate system of concepts, in
particular an inability to understand the directive as an integral form of
behaviour on the part of Communist power.
It is a mistake to think of the directive in terms of the purposes which
individual people or groups have when they agree and co-ordinate a plan of
action . The directives are indeed elaborated by individual people and
individual people secure their acceptance as guides to action. But at the
same time a social mechanism is working whereby individual people are
selected by the force of circumstances as representatives and exponents of
the directive, which for them is a compulsory force emanating from the
social whole. It is a matter of chance that the choice should fall on one
person rather than another; but that certain people will be cast in the role
of representatives and exponents of the directive one way or another is not
a matter of chance. Social problems which beget directives are usually so
obvious in their manifestations that even simple-minded people can see
them. In this case the intellect of the rulers is more than up to the task.

TOWARDS A CONSENSUS

N o M A T T E R W HA T form the behaviour of the authorities might take, in

instances deemed sufficiently important (and this will be determined in
each specific case by experience) a principle operates whereby decisions
_
have to be ratified by higher authority, or, if there is no higher authority,
agreed by the various sectors of the apparatus which, for whatever reason,
have been connected with the issue at hand. The essence of agreement is
not the discovery of the best variant from an abstract point of view, but in a
resolution of the problem of the relationships between people in power in
the situation in question. Of course, the intrinsic interests connected with
the matter in hand do play a role and it would be a mistake to dismiss them
209
entirely. But the issue itself merely provides the context in which people
have to solve their social problems; i.e. decide how to preserve or
strengthen their social positions, avoid danger. harm thei r colleagues and
so on. For this reason ratification is often a fairly long and painful process.
Its essence is especially graphically revealed when candidates are elected
for responsible positions. For example , for many years there were no heads
of certain divisions in the Central Committee of the CPSU : their functions
were carried out by deputies. Often the choice of the director of an
institution can take years . although there are more than enough competent
aspirants. The point is that in circumstances like these the interests of many
important people and organizations intersect and an agreement cannot be
found that satisfies everybody's requirements. At the highest levels the
problem of getting decisions agreed is only too familiar. At times the
struggle takes such sharp form that the voluntarist methods of Stalinism
begin to seem beneficial. Even in ultra-important matters the agreement
procedure drags out the decision-taking for long periods, so that the
decisions lose all sense or are obliterated. So it is no accident that , in such a
seemingly careful system of power as the Soviet one , impulsive actions
produce an impression of blindness or personal whim . These are the
occasions which witness a voluntarist breach of the hopelessly dragged-out
agreement procedures. Then the authorities drop their "gradualist"
directive behaviour and dull bureaucratic routine and become outright
adventurers.

THE SYSTEM O F SECR ECY AND D I S INFORMATION

T H E S Y S T EM O F secrecy is one of the essential features of Communist

power. It penetrates the whole life of society. Closed sessions, meetings,
directives. councils and deliberations, signed statements about non
disclosure , passes, rights of entry. The functions of secrecy are fairly
transparent. The first aim is to hide what happens from strangers and from
one's own people and to reduce to a minimum the extent to which people
are informed. The badly-informed individual is easier to rule and
manipulate . Further, secrecy renders demagogy as well as disinformation
and the lies of propaganda less open to attack . It confers more significance
on the powers-that-be in the eyes of the uninformed mass. Secret decisions
work more powerfully on the masses. Rumours of them get about in one
way or another anyway, and are sometimes spread on purpose by the
authorities. In conditions of secrecy and of exclusivity and with the
operation of a pass-system one can call people to justice on charges of
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"divulging state secrets", "slander" and "collecting information" . People
live under the threat of such actions, which is more effective than the
actions themselves, for the latter quickly reveal their absurdity and the
absurdity of the whole system of secrecy.
The system of secrecy is supplemented by a system of disinformation
which is carried through so completely that even its instigators can no
longer draw a line between fact and fiction . Here it is interesting to note
that it is not so much intentional deceit that is at work as an inability to
know the truth because of the social conditions in which information
functions and of the state of affairs to which information refers. Besides, a
standardized attitude towards events, an orientation of people's attention,
a system of evaluating information, a use of language evolve in such a way
that disinformation and deceit, including self-deceit, are an inevitable
consequence even when people are trying to establish the truth . In this
milieu they lie even to the advantage of the enemy and to their own
disadvantage . In my books referred to earlier I look into this problem in
considerable detail.

B U R E A U C R A CY

B u REA U C RA C Y rs NOT necessarily an evil, and absence of it is not

necessarily a blessing. The apparatus of government and power is not in
itself a bureaucratic apparatus. People and organizations who compose a
bureaucracy are divided into two groups: those who deal immediately with
people, and those who deal with paper: that is laws, decrees, instructions,
certificates, reports, directives. The director of a factory or an institute, the
head of section in a factory , a divisional commander, the secretary of the
regional committee of the Party are not bureaucrats, although they are
officials of the power and government apparatus. The bureaucratic
apparatus in the proper sense of the word is formed by people and
organizations connected with the second of the groups I have just
mentioned. One must put the question in this way : what place in the
Communist system of power and government does the bureaucratic
apparatus occupy? One usually associates with the word "bureaucracy''
some sort of red-tape and paper-games, conducted, moreover, for their
own sake and without reference to the living people who, in theory, the
functionaries should be serving. In this sense of the word, bureaucracy has
always been a subject for the mockery of writers, artists, journalists and
even politicians. However, bureaucracy is an indispensable element in the
life of any well-developed society. The interests of living people can be
211
ignored without bureaucracy. In the Soviet Union, for example , millions of
people were at one time subjected to the most inhuman oppression without
the slightest bureaucratic red-tape. Bureaucracy is not a specific charac
teristic of Communist society, and it is not an important actor in it. The
important role in the power and government system is played by the people
and organs of the first group. They act in accordance with communal
principles and with the principles of their profession, about which we spoke
earlier. Therefore every kind of instruction and regulating document is
usually ignored or else interpreted in the light of how it corresponds with
this or that directive currently in force .
Communist society is not a society based on the rule of law. It is nearer
in its nature to a voluntarist system, i.e. a non-statutory system of power
and government, and the form of execution appropriate to it is the
directive. Bureaucracy is really a social form better suited to countries
which have democracy of the Western type. Although it brings with it a
whole series of negative phenomena repugnant to most members of society
it is nevertheless the sign of a juridical society. Thus one should not regard
the Communist system as a bureaucratic one, although its bureaucratic
apparatus is enormous. Red-tape and formalism (bureaucratism) are
greatly developed in Communist society; they do not derive from the
bureaucratic apparatus but from the general system of power and
organization of the government of society. What is absent from this system
is personal interest in the speediest and best solutions of problems: what is
present is the personal effort to avoid risk and responsibility.

C O M M U N I ST A D APTIV ITY

I W I L L M E N T I O N one more quality of Communist power: its most unusual

adaptivity to circumstances. This adaptivity is of a special kind. It is not
only found in the ready ability to change course in the light of circum
stance. It is also the capacity to interpret and turn to good account any
consequences of its own unwavering, directive-guided path. Adaptivity re
rationalizes the consequences of its activity in such a way that it begins to
seem as if they are the results of a previously thought-out plan; it
accentuates what is advantageous and can be interpreted as a success.
Moreover, it is not only restricted to the world of words, thoughts and
propaganda. The activity of power itself is stressed in this way so that
people become bound to a particular way of life. And this is normal,
because under Communism the initiative in social activity lies with the
government. A society that is ruled by such a power is like a solitary
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traveller who can regard only movement forward as correct since it adds up
to some kind of progress. For such a government the only important fact is
that it governs, even though it pretends that it is leading society to "full
Communism". The fictitious character of the "final" goal is no accident.
For power the only important thing is to remain intact as power and to play
a role. It therefore adapts to circumstances by making them adapt to it and
not the other way round; consequently it expects no favours, either from
nature or from society, or from the human being. It is the crown of creation
and the centre of the universe. Everything else must adapt to it and be
subject to its will.
This quality of Communist society, alongside others (including its effort
to penetrate to all places in space) allows one to regard it as a malignant
growth on the body of civilization. Communism spreads and moves along
the line of least resistance. Absolutely everything that happens with and to
it is its own success. It knows neither mistakes nor defeats. The ideology of
this society justifies any behaviour on the part of its leadership. No-one
suffers from the pangs of conscience, because phenomena such as
conscience and other elements of morality are quite absent from the nature
of Communism.

THE PUNITIVE ORGANS

THE F U N C T I O N S O F the punitive organs seem obvious. There is a very large

literature about them and their activities in Communist countries, and I do
not wish to repeat what has been said elsewhere. I would only remark that
one finds in these descriptions much exaggeration and a distortion of their
social status. This is explicable: the victims have had immediate contact
with punitive organs and project all their hatred upon them, just as soldiers
associate all the burdens of army life with sergeants and petty officers and
not with officers and generals. The punitive organs themselves are
concerned to inflate their own importance. The real rulers of society,
whose executive arm these organs are, also have an interest in inflating
their importance for well-known reasons: to exculpate themselves from
their "dirty work" and to place the blame on others, as well as to inspire
fear in the population.
The punitive organs are only the punitive functions and powers of the
commune, alienated from them and generalized on the scale of society as a
whole. It is not the punitive organs which force the citizens into a certain
form of behaviour. It is rather communal relations which beget the
punitive organs and give them the force which then appears to be a
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mystical and evil force proceeding from somewhere ''above". The evil of
the punitive organs is only the quintessence of good imparted by none
other than the citizens of Communist society.

LAW

CoM M U NIST SOCIETY DOES not live under the rule of law. This doesn't
mean that arbitrariness or lawlessness reigns there or that there are no
norms whatsoever regulating human behaviour. There may be more norms
in Communist society than in other societies, for it is indeed a normative
society. It has its own order and its own legality. But not everything that is
normative or legal is a sign of the rule of law. Legal norms are only a
particular case of the norm. In general norms are authorizations, vetoes
and obligations to do something or not to do something, and their
negations. But all this can take place in a form that has nothing to do with
the rule of law.
A society under the rule of law is characterized by the existence of a code
of law, or aggregate of legal norms, which embraces all the spheres of the
life of that society. This code does not exist only on paper, it actually
operates. This means that citizens arrange their lives within the framework
of this code and in their actions take account of it in advance. They
preserve the code and defend it from those who wish to destroy it. There
are special institutions and persons who bring about its execution and see
to it that it is observed. Society itself is interested in the code of law and is
capable of following it to some degree or other. A society may have a
beautiful code of law on paper but neither the wish nor the strength to
observe it in practice. Such a society does not have the rule of law . A
society without the rule of law is not necessarily one in which legal norms
are infringed. It may be a society in which there are simply no conditions in
which legal norms can function: they are deprived of sense. For example, if
there are no capitalists in a society, a law which regulates the relationship
between capitalists and the workers they hire is deprived of sense . These
laws are not broken: they are simply devoid of meaning. Something similar
happens to codes of law in general in Communist society, whatever form
they might take . But let us establish what we have in mind when we speak
about legal norms.
The term " law" has more than one meaning. People often call any old law of
society "law" (for instance the legislative compulsion to do work in
Communist society is considered to be a legal norm) and even customs, such
as "the right oft he first night" . But here I am giving the term "law" only to that
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aggregate of norms of behaviour that are consolidated in the form of laws and
those means of applying them that satisfy the following conditions: 1) Real
law knows no exceptions; 2) A law which permits somebody to break laws is
not a norm of law ; 3) Law knows no privileges: before it all citizens are equal;
4) Law is indifferent as to its object: whether that be an individual person, a
group of people , representatives of the authorities or the organs of power; 5)
Law as such gives no preference to any of these ; 6) Law allows no false
rumours and no variety of interpretation. It is literal; 7) Law does not permit
equivocation; 8) Even if the observance of law brings harm to society, that is
not a basis for rejecting it or for failing to observe its norms; 9) The organs of
jurisprudence are independent of power. In a sense they stand above society.
There are other tokens of law, but I will limit myself to what has been said. Of
course, in real life the principles of law are nowhere and never observed in
their entirety, but in a society under law there is at least an appreciable
tendency to obey the law; there is a possibility of fighting for its observance .
What is the position with respect to the fundamental principles of law in
Communist society? The principle that the interests of the collective are
higher than the interests of the individual is an obvious form of non
legality, however good it may seem to some people. Those in positions of
power are brought before the courts for their crimes only in exceptional
cases and have advantages over ordinary mortals. Different criteria are
applied to different categories of people. One and the same crime is
evaluated differently according to who committed it. The representatives
of the privileged classes can always slide out of the application of any law
which is binding on the non-privileged classes. For example, in real life
neither the law about universal military service nor the one about
compulsory work-service before entering an institute applies to the
children of high officials . Laws allow of different interpretations. They are
surrounded with a system of supplementary instructions and explanations,
thanks to which their application becomes a matter of judicial arbitrari
ness. In a huge number of cases the powers authorize, or forbid, the
bringing to trial of accused people. Moreover, they tell the judges in
advance what the punishment is to be. The formal legal proceedings
themselves are instituted in such a way that the principles of law can be
destroyed with impunity at any point. In short , it is hard to name any
element in the practice of law which would not be destroyed in the
Communist system. And, most important of all, there are simply no
significant groups of people in the country who are interested in the
creation of a genuinely juridical environment.
One cannot say that, in Communist society, a person is completely
defenceless vis-a-vis the authorities, other people or the collective. Indeed
an individual has the means of defence. But his means of defence are such
that he is badly defended precisely against these means of defence . This
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isn't a play on words. History knows many examples of town-dwellers and
whole regions being the victims of the violence of friendly armies which
have been invited to defend the citizens against the violence of other
people. It is merely that in the very complex Communist society this sort of
conversion of defenders into violators happens in very indirect ways.
Of course , it is true that on very many occasions something operates in
Communist society that resembles the rule of law, but these are insignifi
cant cases seen from the point of view of the social structure of society. But
as soon as something touches serious matters, considerations and activities
come into play which have absolutely nothing to do with legal ones. Soviet
life and the life of other Communist countries have given so many glaring
examples of this , that I need not say anything more on this subject .
The non-legal character of Communist society is conditioned by the most
basic principles of its existence and of the nature of its power. Norms which
regulate people's behaviour do not function within the framework of legal
principles but within another framework: that of the principles of state
expediency, the interests of the collectives and of the country. Moreover,
the powers usurp the functions of supreme judge when they establish this
framework and when they evaluate people's behaviour from this point of
view. Special norms, skills and traditions regarding the application of
written norms to people's behaviour are worked out: i . e . secondary norms
of behaviour.
The general scheme goes something like this: 1) there are some written
laws; 2) there are definite norms of applying them depending on the actual
people who fall within the scope of these laws, on the interests of the
collective or of wider entities, right up to the scale of the country as a
whole; on the directive operating at any given moment or the ideological
campaign running at the time or simply on actual circumstances. Whereas
the norms of the first category still remind one of legal norms, the second
are clearly of a different order altogether. Moreover, the very existence of
norms of the second category bears witness to the fact that a system of
"legality" is indeed in operation, and not anarchy; but that the system is a
specifically Communist legality and not law .

IDEOLOGY

I D E O LO G Y PLAYS s u c H a significant role in Communist society that the

society itself can be regarded as an ideological society. Here everyone is
subjected to the influence of ideology from birth to death , systematically
and with a strikingly pedantic consistency. The number of people
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employed professionally in the ideological field is enormous. The number
of people who in one way or another are forced to carry out bits of
ideological work is innumerable. Every official is one way or another the
transmitter of ideology. In nursery schools, in schools, institutes, univer
sities, technical schools, colleges and other institutions people are given
specialized ideological teaching. Millions of people who have finished their
education and are working in their own speciality, study in special
Universities of Marxism-Leninism. Even more people attend every kind of
ideological circle, seminar and lecture. Ideology penetrates all sectors of
culture including even the specialist sciences and sport. The flood of
ideological texts is virtually inestimable. If one could measure all the social
resources allocated to ideology one would reach a sum fully comparable
with expenditure on the military or on industry. Many people, at times
even the ideological workers themselves, consider these ideological
dimensions unjustified , and that the expenditure is senseless.
However, the unbelievable proliferation of ideology in Communist
society is not something temporary or artificially inflated . It happens
because of inevitable internal mechanisms within the life of the society,
and because of its social instinct for self-preservation. From the point of
view of the integrity and strength of the society the expenditure on
ideology is fully justified. Moreover, it has a constant tendency to grow.
Again this is no accident. As the cultural level of a society rises, as living
conditions improve, as people become more educated, as an opposition
develops and other phenomena that directly or indirectly threaten society's
monolithic ideology, there is need for more effort and more ideology,
which is unthinkable without an increase in expenditure.
But it isn't only a matter of the quantitative expression of the ideology:
the problem is the qualitative role of ideology in society, and from this
angle Communist society is an ideological society. A whole series of
problems arises in connection with this. Numerous circumstantial investi
gations are needed to solve each one of them, which this book does not in
any sense claim to do. I will confine myself to the examination of the most
basic of these problems, and in general outline at that. I will not enter into
the concrete details regarding the content of ideology and its mode of
operation .
The problems are these: 1 ) what i s ideology a s distinct from science,
religion and morality? 2) the particular features of ideology and its
formation in Communist society; 3) Marxism as an ideology; 4) other
ideological phenomena; 5) the ideological apparatus; 6) what happens
when people are ideologically brainwashed.
I have given a lot of attention to ideological questions in my literary
works and in my book Without Illusions, to which I refer the reader who
wishes to acquaint himself with my ideas on this subject in greater detail .
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 The term "ideology" has several meanings. I shall use it here in the
following sense. Ideology is a definite teaching, about the world, about
human society, about mankind and about the vitally important features of
people's lives. A special system of persons and institutions exists (the
ideological apparatus) whose task is to preserve this teaching, to adapt it to
people's current lives and to impose it on the population of the country,
i . e . to compel the population to make the doctrine its own doctrine, to
accept it and in some way manifest it in its own behaviour. The population
accepts this teaching, not because it believes in its truth or its proofs or that
its propositions are supported by experience, but because of social
considerations and because it is compelled to accept it.
The task of ideology is the organization and standardization of people's
consciousness and control over people by means of the formation of a
definite type of consciousness that is useful to their rulers. The ideological
apparatus teaches and compels people in certain situations which are
vitally important in the life of society, to think, speak and behave alike and
in a way desired by their rulers. Here I have in mind behaviour that
depends to some degree or other on consciousness. People are "pro
grammed" to think and act in a particular way. People's acceptance of
ideology is expressed by the fact that they will act as society demands, in
the form approved by it. A person who has been prepared ideologically
and conditioned, i . e . educated in the Communist spirit, knows how to
behave without a prompter and without signals from higher up. Finally,
ideology j ustifies, of course, the kind of behaviour which is demanded of
people by the leadership .
It is a matter o f historical fact that the basis and core o f the ideology of
Communist movements world-wide and the state ideologies of Communist
countries was Marxism. together with various amendments and additions
depending on the particular conditions of the different countries (Leninism
in the Soviet Union . Maoism in China). There was nothing, however, pre
ordained about this choice of ideology. But since it has happened like that
it is a fact which has to be taken into account. and henceforth when I speak
about the ideology of society I shall have in mind Marxist ideology. It is the
most significant form of ideology in human history. When it is taken as an
example , the properties of ideology as a whole become most clearly visible.
Of course, there is not a complete coincidence between Marxism and
Communist ideology. Not everything from Marxism enters the ideology of
Communist society as it exists; and not everything that helps form this
ideology is derived from Marxism. But we can neglect this discrepancy in
our examination.
In order to determine the specific nature of ideology one must
distinguish it from science and religion. This is necessary because
Communist ideology bears a resemblance to both science and religion. It
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claims to be a science; and it seeks also to oust religion from people's minds
and take its place, i . e . it seeks to persuade people to believe in the truth of
the ideology and its teaching about the future paradise in Communist
society.
Of course, in real life there are no absolutely pure forms. Religion may
fulfil, and usually does fulfil , ideological functions, and it may even contain
assertions which are supported by evidence in the same way that scientific
assertions are. Such fragments of science can fulfil ideological functions.
Ideology can be felt to be something like religion (to this day many people
equate Marxist assertions with the Gospel truth) . It may also contain
scientific concepts and statements. An ideology may develop with scientific
pretensions, as was the case with Marxism, and it may adopt a scientific
stance, make use of scientific data and even embody such data. But all the
same these three categories, ideology, science and religion, are in principle
distinct.
When I assert that Communist doctrine, Marxism, isn't science and is
ideology, I am not insinuating anything defamatory against Marxism or
demeaning it. Ideology is no better and no worse than science. It is simply
a different phenomenon, with different aims, different laws of operation
and formation , different mechanisms of self-preservation and a different
way of impinging on people's consciousness. When I state that Communist
Marxism is an anti-religious ideology I do not wish either to praise or to
condemn it . I am merely stating a fact about the difference in principle
between ideology and religion which has become noticeable only recently
with the emergence of anti-religious ideologies. Besides Marxism one
could mention in this regard National Socialism in Germany. This fact
forces us to distinguish between ideological and genuinely religious
functions in the religions of the past.

IDEOLOGICAL WORK

IDEOLOGY I S NOT only doctrine. A n ideology i s kept alive b y the everyday

activity of people in the ideological field. As I have said, a powerful
ideological apparatus is soon installed in Communist society which
penetrates the whole of society and reaches with its tentacles into the
consciousness of each individual person . The activity of this apparatus is
not a matter of this or that campaign, although there are ceaseless
ideological campaigns at national level and at the lower levels right down
to the primary collectives. It is never-ending, humdrum, routine work.
Party organs at every level j ealously see to it that the work is systematically
219
carried out, because it is one of the most important, if not the most
important, aspects of Party work in general. With rare exceptions, all
ideological work is done by members of the Party and by the Komsomol,
who have gone through a special training in it and who are particularly
reliable. There are times when non-Party people are brought into it, but
this is only for specific purposes and under the control of Party members.
Usually they are people who are being prepared for entry into the Party
and are being coached in the ideology.
What are the functions and activities of the ideological apparatus?
Leaving aside its workers and the professional ideologues and their
personal ambitions, the apparatus as a whole fulfils the following functions.
The first is to acquaint the citizens with officially recognized ideological
doctrine, to force them to acquire at least the basics of the doctrine and to
force them to accept it. The doctrine in its essential features is set in its
mould and isn't subject to serious changes. Nevertheless, certain changes
are made in it, sometimes fairly considerable ones, as for example
happened when the slogan "dictatorship of the proletariat" was annulled.
Important Party decisions are taken which become part of the ideology for
some or other period of time. The leaders make long speeches with the
intention of leaving their mark on the ideology. Important events happen
in the world which are reflected in ideological teaching one way or another,
if only as fresh illustrations of stale old truths. So the theorists have
ceaselessly to renew the teaching and the citizens have ceaselessly to
assimilate it in its renewed forms.
The means of compelling citizens to adopt the doctrine are very simple:
exams, participation in seminars, written work, every possible kind of test
such as "Lenin's test", the Leninskiye zachyoty. And whatever people
think of ideology they are forced to adopt it and memorize it for practically
their whole life . The acceptance of ideology is not simply a "once-and-for
all" event where someone promises to accept it, it is rather a continual
readiness on his part to let people around him know that he has accepted it.
Just as in the army the soldier clicks his heels, straightens his back and so
on to show his readiness to obey his commander, the citizen in Communist
society must from time to time carry out his ideological heel-clicking so
that those around him , and the ideological powers in particular, may know
that this citizen is in agreement with the ideology.
The second function of ideology is to watch over everything which is
produced in the field of culture: in literature, original art, science, the press
and so on. It must suppress everything which does not agree with the
ideology and encourage everything that does. Ideology considers every
thing that doesn't agree with it as hostile and as a threat to its own
supremacy and even to its existence. This ideological intolerance makes
ideology a close relative of religion. Instances of ideological intolerance in
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the Soviet Union in Stalin's time are generally known. At the moment
there seems to have been some relaxation . But this is only in appearance.
In reality the present Soviet ideologues have become suppler and wilier
than Stalin's were . Besides, this "relaxation" only applies to the theoretical
"high ground", not to the mass of ideological workers, and it has had even
less effect on the position of the ideologically conditioned rank and file of
citizens.
The third function of ideology is to interpret everything that happens in
the world, including major political events, discoveries in science and
technology, events within the country, according to the fundamental tenets
of the ideology. Everything that happens in the world must support the
doctrine and happen, so to speak, with its knowledge . To outside observers
this kind of interpretation looks like sheer lying for propaganda purposes,
although in fact prevarication is not the purpose. The deceit comes as a
consequence and then only from the point of view of the external
spectator. As far as the conditioned mass of the population is concerned
what is taking place is simply a natural selection of information and its
interpretation in the light of the generally recognized ideology.
The opinion is widely held that Soviet people are badly informed about
what is happening in the world and that they are falsely informed . This, I
repeat, is not necessarily the case. It is only a certain point of view about a
certain type of information. In fact Soviet people are no worse informed
than Westerners about what is happening but they are informed about
everything in a certain ideological light. The first task of ideology is to
orientate people's consciousness in a definite standard way, to strengthen
this orientation systematically and to nourish it with specially pre-digested
food. But this orientation of consciousness is in no way a routine deceit
thought up by a band of evil-intentioned people who live in this society and
for that society's preservation.
The fourth function of ideology is to force the citizens to be not simply
passive observers with a correctly structured consciousness, but active
participants in a pantomime organized in a definite way. The pantomime is
acted out on many thousands of stages, large and small, beginning with the
summit of power and ending in the smallest social groups. Therefore in
Communist society people do not merely live, they masquerade, and the
task of ideology is to teach them to masquerade seriously and with deep
feeling. To accomplish this task ideology has one road to success: that is to
release the social forces and direct them into an ideologically controlled
channel.
One mustn't think that through the influence of ideology people become
oblivious to such a degree that they don't see what they are doing. They are
perfectly aware of the character of the pantomimes being enacted, and
they never forget the fundamental social rules. They play their part
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seriously and with feeling in situations when the ideological ritual requires
them to do so. In the intervals between ideological orgies they are ordinary
people and even allow themselves to make ironic remarks about their
behaviour and to complain of the rotten conditions which force them to be
swine. These lapses are fully compatible with the moments of sulphurous
incantations in the official shows: they are indeed a statutory element in
ideological behaviour.
I have already said that it is a mistake to regard the ideological
conditioning of the population as something artificial. That which seems
absurd in relation to the behaviour of an individual person is rational from
the point of view of those who regulate the behaviour of large masses of
people. The historical paradox consists in this: ideology arises as a socially
significant means of bridling the uncontrolled forces of communality, of
limiting them by organizing people's consciousness in a certain way. But in
practice this bridling process is realized as an unleashing of these
communal forces on which the ideology then has to rely for its existence.

I D EOLOGY AND RELI G I ON

L I K E RELIG I O N , C O M M U N IST ideology aspires to the role of spiritual

pastor. But it is, I repeat, different from religion in principle. The
psychological foundation of religion is faith, that of ideology is its formal
acceptance. I cannot describe the status of religion in detail here , but I will
make one brief remark. The phenomenon of faith is a primary psychic state
in the individual which presupposes no logical proofs or empirical
verifications of the things in which that individual believes, and which does
not presuppose external compulsion. It is an inner predisposition to
"recognize" something as really existing, true and necessary. I have put the
word "recognize" in inverted commas because here the important factor is
the inner state of an individual and not its external symptoms. Faith is a
capacity of man which permits a religious development of the psyche and
religious forms of behaviour. The formal acceptance of ideology, on the
other hand , does not necessarily presuppose faith in the truth of the
postulates and promises, although it is possible to have such faith (as is
borne out by the facts) . Acceptance can leave people cold and indifferent
to what they have accepted. Ideology is something accepted by the mind
and through conscious or unconscious calculation of the consequences of
one's behaviour and of how to acquire the best things in life. In extreme
cases it is accepted in order to avoid the worst. Religion penetrates
people's souls and is manifest in their behaviour. Ideolqgy is a purely
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external element in people's behaviour and not behaviour itself. Their
behaviour is determined by other forces, by the laws of communality.
Ideology gives them direction and justification, but does not enter people's
souls. There is no inner demand for ideology. If the powers-that-be did not
insist on the recognition of ideology and on the confirmation of this
recognition, people would soon forget about ideology. B ut they would
begin to invent religion spontaneously , and facts of this kind can be
observed even in the Soviet Union. This is not a failure of ideology, nor is
it a sign of merit. Religion also has its apparatus similar to that of ideology,
namely the church. But it was the need for religion that brought the church
into being. In the case of ideology things happen the other way round: it is
the ideological apparatus that foists ideology on the people as an element
in their behaviour and as a means of solemnizing the conformity of the
individual with society.
Communist society is an anti-religious society. In itself, I repeat, this is
neither a good thing nor a bad thing. What is important is something else:
why is this so? Can one explain the phenomenon solely in terms of the evil
intentions of nasty godless people who have taken power?
First, one shouldn't idealize religion . There is no abstract religion as
such: there are religions in concrete form. In Russia, for example, religion
took the form of Orthodoxy, Islam and some others, and it would be in the
highest degree unjust to deny the positive side of the anti-religious
activities of Soviet power in past years. These activities liberated many
millions of people from the snares and entanglements of religious
obscurantism . This had a vast enlightening significance. Anti-religious
activity has met and still meets with success among the masses, primarily
because the above-mentioned forms of religion have proved to be
inadequate to the mentality of contemporary man and to his position in
society, and not because of compulsion. Force has been applied in the past
and continues to be applied in this connection, as in many others, but it is
not the basis.
The actual forms of religion with which Communist regimes come into
conflict are only suited to a population with a comparatively low cultural
level. Intellectual depths and heights as they exist in religious doctrines are
not accessible to the broad masses. Besides, it takes a lot of effort and a
large measure of hypocrisy to make these depths and heights appear as
such . Communist society can claim virtually one hundred per cent literacy.
Almost half of the population, perhaps more, has had general or
specialized secondary education. Many millions of people have higher
education , many millions are occupied professionally in the sphere of
culture. There is a comprehensive network of education and cultural
institutions. Propaganda about scientific and technical achievements is
widespread. People are continually reading literature which leaves no
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place in their souls for religious ideas. People lead a dynamic life,
constantly moving around in collectives made up of people like themselves.
They are compelled to do a number of things in their everyday life that are
incompatible with religion as it actually operates, and it is not difficult to
show that, in the case of the majority of believers, their religiosity is in
practice hypocritical . In short, in the Soviet Union the historical religions
are supported neither by the spiritual nor by the material life of the
population. Therefore , even if the powers-that-be decided to implant these
forms of religion by force , the religions would suffer bankruptcy.
What is more suited to the mentality and to the way of life in Communist
society is ideology of the type which is prevalent in the Soviet Union and in
other Communist countries (I don't know about ideology in China). I have
already told how ideology is foisted on people. Naturally religion which is
not encouraged and even at times persecuted in Communist countries
cannot compete with ideology which is foisted upon people since birth by a
powerful ideological apparatus. And that ideology is essentially anti
religious. Although it does not rely on faith , it uses all the achievements of
science and technology and all the means of art and propaganda in its own
interests. It is concerned with the same problems as religion, but in the
eyes of contemporary man in the Soviet Union it possesses a clear
superiority in its treatment of them.
Certain signs can be observed in Communist societies which allow some
critics of Communism to speak about a religious revival . The most
powerful example of this was the recent events in Poland in connection
with the visit of the Pope and in general the position of religion in Poland. I
will not deal with the special character of Polish religion. As for a
"religious revival" in Russia, there it is mainly an inadequate form of the
expression of social discontent, and also a tribute to fashion , especially in
the circles of the intelligentsia. Only in part is it the expression of a
psychological need for something like religion. As yet we do not have
enough evidence to be able to answer the question whether there can arise
from this phenomenon new forms of religion or an adaptation of old forms
to the conditions of Communist society. In any case, the fate of religion
will depend on its fate in non-Communist countries, and on the fate of
those same countries in the struggle with Communism. Experience in the
Soviet Union has shown that religion can be allowed in Communist
countries if it doesn't enter into appreciable conflict with the Communist
order, is content with a very secondary role and lives according to the
general laws of Communist institutions.
In brief, ideology in Communist society has the advantage over religion
inasmuch as it provides a doctrine about the world, about society and
about man that accords better with the type of culture and cultural level of
contemporary human beings; inasmuch as it highlights clearly the forms of
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behaviour without which man cannot live in this society; and inasmuch as it
makes man more adaptable from the point of view of the government
which manipulates him . The religious individual is unsuited to function in
this society both in relation to his neighbours and as regards his own ability
to survive. That is why the state supports ideology and converts it into a
devastating instrument of power.
Of course, as the population becomes more educated and as knowledge
about the achievements of science spreads, as experience of life in
Communist conditions accumulates and is handed down from generation
to generation , a discrepancy between the ideological doctrine and the
general intellectual and psychological state of the population will increas
ingly arise. The doctrine is still working but it no longer commands the
necessary respect. Just as people long for an improvement in housing,
dress, food and recreation, they also long for less oppressive forms of
ideology that would not debase their own human qualities and opinions
and would even provide some kind of satisfaction. Ideology submits to
such demands with the greatest reluctance because of the conservatism of
every large and durable system. But, all the same, such a submission is
taking place. A significant "thaw" did occur in the Soviet Union in post
Stalin times and led as a direct result to a reduction in the gap between
ideology and the real situation in the country.

IDEOLOGY AND SCIENCE

C o M M U N I S T I D EOLOGY M A K E S claims t o b e regarded as a science, t o have

a scientific basis, to generalize scientific data and to illumine the road
ahead for science. As to the reference to illumination, there isn't a problem
because ideology is an element in the government of society. But as for the
other claims, they are to be explained i n terms of the historic circumstances
in which Marxist ideology arose, its original form, the spirit of our times,
the role of science and technology in our times, the high degree of
education and by the whole way of life of the population. Besides, society
is not ruled in the name of God, which has become out of date , but in the
name of the laws of nature and society, which is very convenient.
Nevertheless, Marxist ideology is not a science.
Science and ideology are qualitatively different phenomena. Science
presupposes precision, intelligence, accuracy and consistency of termin
ology. Ideology presupposes forms of language that are meaningless, fuzzy
or that are open to several interpretations. The terminology of science does
not require sensibility and interpretation . Ideological phraseology requires
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interpretation, analogy and amplification. Scientific assertions arc state
ments that can be upheld or invalidated, or, in extreme cases, they can be
established as being unprovable . One can't invalidate or uphold ideological
propositions because they have no meaning. They arc nonsense . The
expression "scientific ideology" designates the kind of ideology which
sucks the juice from science and adopts science as a mask. But as science
ideology is nonsense ; it has quite different origins and purposes than those
of the cognition of reality. Only when it is compared with some other form
of ideology can ideology look like a product of knowledge and instruction.
But this status quickly disappears.
To understand scientific literature one must have undergone a long
special training and possess a special professional language. Science is
confined to a narrow circle of specialists. Ideological texts arc for the whole
population irrespective of its occupation or level of education . No special
training is required to "understand" them, which really means adopt them.
Everything that is unclear is clarified by reference to the same old
examples.
The relationship of ideology to reality cannot be categorized in terms of
truth and falsehood. but in terms of the extent to which that ideology
serves the purpose of conditioning people's consciousness in the desired
direction . how far it corresponds to people's general culture and way of
life . whether people arc adopting the ideology and what effect it is having
on their behaviour. From this point of view Marxism is fully adequate for
Soviet society. But the main thing is that Marxism is convenient to the
authorities as a means of governing the many-million-strong popular mass.
I sec no necessity to analyse here the concepts and statements of
Marxism from the point of view of the criteria applicable to the concepts
and statements of science. A huge literature exists on this score, and I have
given numerous examples in my own books. It is not a complex matter to
criticize Marxism on this level. But Marxism is not shaken by this kind of
criticism any more than it is shaken by the disbelief of the population , and
even of the rulers. in Communism's earthly paradise. One cannot
invalidate ideology. One can only weaken or strengthen it by weakening or
strengthening its influence on people.

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 T H E I D E O L O G I C A L F U N C T I O N S O F S CI E N C E
A N D T H E A RT S

M A R X I S M F O R M S T H E basis, core and dominant content o f t h e ideology of

Communist society. This doctrinal core is enveloped in ideological
formations of another kind. It coexists with them and enters into differing
relationships with them . The most important of these formations is
contemporary science. The point is that science has been converted from
being a specialist phenomenon into being the most ordinary mass
phenomenon . It is the occupation of many millions of people united into
groups and communes that are subjected to the influence of the general
laws of communality, even more so than other groups and communes. I
described all this in The Yawning Heights as follows:

Contemporary science is not a sphere of human activity in which the

participants are concerned only with the search for truth. Science
comprises not only learning as such , which is not at all like science in the
generally accepted sense, but also anti-science, which is very harmful to
true science but manages to appear more scientific than science itself.
Science produces abstractions, anti-science destroys them on the pretext
that they fail to take account of this and that. Science establishes strict
concepts, anti-science gives them many meanings on the pretext that in
this way they will capture the true complexity of reality. Science avoids
the use of means which it can do without. Anti-science tries to include
everything it can include on one pretext or another. Science seeks to
discover the simple and clear in the complex and the confused. Anti
science tries to complicate what is simple and to present as clear that
which is intrinsically hard to grasp. Science tries to establish as ordinary
everything that seems extraordinary. Anti-science aims at sen
sationalism , to impart to ordinary phenomena the character of riddles
and secrets.
Moreover, science and anti-science (under other names, of course)
may at first be regarded as equally legitimate aspects of one and the same
science. But then anti-science gets on top just as weeds choke all cultural
growths unless they are weeded out. Within the framework of science,
true science is relegated to a rather miserable kind of role. It is tolerated
to the extent that anti-science can live at its expense. The tendency is to
try to banish it from science altogether because true science is a reproach
to the guilty conscience. So when people express the hope that science
will play its role in the progress of civilization , they are making a big
mistake. Science is a mass phenomenon that is governed absolutely and
totally by the laws of communality. Only to a very small degree does it
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 contain genuine science as such. Where communality reigns the element
of genuine science approaches zero.

The consciousness of the average educated person of today is informed by

a vast quantity of scientific data. He receives it through countless channels
(radio, cinema, newspapers, popular scientific literature, science-fiction).
Without any question this raises the level of people's education. But all this
leads to faith in the omnipotence of science, and science itself acquires
features which are far removed from its academic normality. When
scientific information penetrates people's consciousness it does not fall on
empty ground nor in the form in which it was first given. The man of today
has the capacity which history has foisted on him to re-work information he
has received into an ideological form whereby an ideological effect is
inevitable. The upshot is that science only supplies phraseology, ideas and
themes. But how this material will be used by that part of the system
concerned with the ideological processing of the human consciousness does
not depend on science alone.
One merely has to point out that science is a professional activity; that its
results are meaningful and accessible to scrutiny only in a special language.
If they are for wide consumption then they must be transposed into
common parlance by means of simplifications and clarifications which
create an illusory clarity, but as a rule have nothing in common with the
material that is being clarified. The achievements of science are presented
to people via a special class of intermediaries, the theoreticians of the
science in question, popularizers, philosophers and even journalists. They
make up a huge social group with their own social tasks, skills and
traditions. So the achievements of science enter the heads of ordinary
mortals in such a professionally predigested form that only a certain verbal
resemblance to the original material reminds one of its scientific origin.
And their role has become something different. So, strictly speaking, what
we have is the formation of a strange series of twin concepts and scientific
statements. Some part of these twins becomes an element of ideology for
some or other length of time. In contrast with the concepts and statements
of science which tend towards particularity and verifiability, their ideologi
cal twins are undefined , ambiguous, unprovable, and irrefutable . From a
scientific point of view they are without meaning.
Society exerts pressure on people and compels them to voice respect for
science's ideological twins. For instance, many of the propositions of the
theory of relativity, which at one time were persecuted as heretical , are
now , in their ideological reincarnation, on the point of canonization . An
attempt to express anything apparently in contradiction with them meets
with a rebuff from socially influential forces in Communist society.
Not all scientific truths are deemed worthy of the honour of having their
228
ideological twin ; only those which are suited to an ideological purpose.
Thus a certain theorem concerning the incompleteness of formal systems of
a certain type which has a meaning in logic finds itself converted into a
banal truth, or truism, about the impossibility of fully formalizing science.
It becomes extremely fashionable, while another truth about the existence
of problems that cannot be solved in principle escapes the public concern,
although far greater edification can be derived from it. In this area
theorems are demoted and promoted, rehabilitated and advanced. All
these appear to be genuine scientific events. In such circumstances
ideology desperately wants to be taken for science .
Something similar takes place in the world of art, especially in the
theatre, in the cinema, in literature, that is in those forms of art that have
the greatest influence on the consciousness of the broad masses. I do not
wish to repeat what I have said above, for the general laws of communality
make themselves felt with implacable force in this sector of society as well.
I will merely formulate a general statement that applies to the whole
cultural sphere. It is wrong to imagine that under Communism science,
literature, the theatre, the cinema and other areas of culture are under the
yoke of the authorities and of the ideology, and that if the latter were
absent there would be an abrupt change leading to an evolution towards
Western models. True, there is governmental supervision and control over
every department of culture, especially via ideological pressure. However,
there is only a handful of victims. The fundamental mass of people engaged
in the fields of science and art (in the field of culture as a whole) are
themselves elements and mechanisms in society's ideological apparatus of
power. Art in Communist society, and science too, is governed by official
Marxist ideology, and is itself the transmitter of this ideology and its
continuation. Art begets its own ideological phenomena which at first
glance contradict official ideology but in actual fact coexist with it quite
harmoniously. These phenomena (together with similar phenomena aris
ing from science), are even advantageous to the authorities inasmuch as
they mask the ideological oppression that actually exists and give an
illusion of freedom. Critical works of literature are an example of this:
recently they have been produced in plenty in the Soviet Union.

T H E S T R U C T U R E OF I D E O L O G Y

M A R X I S M I S T H E core of Communist ideology. But the latter cannot be

reduced to Marxism. In Marxism itself one may distinguish a general part
and a specific part. The latter is connected with the peculiarities of the new
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age and of the country in which Marxism becomes the ruling ideology. In
the Soviet Union this is Leninism. I spoke earlier about ideological
phenomena that have arisen in science and art which are not included in
Marxism.
Besides. one can make a distinction between nominal and practical
ideology. The first manifests itself in the hypocritical guise of virtue, the
latter is utterly cynical . The first is directed towards propaganda and
bamboozling people , the second to practical uses. In addition to all this
there are numerous ideological groups which arise in very different ways
and on very different grounds. The reader can read about them in my
books The Yawning Heights and In the Ante-Chamber of Paradise. Official
ideology tolerates such groups as long as they do not threaten it,
demonstrate their loyalty to it or adequately conceal their disloyalty. At
times officialdom even encourages these groups inasmuch as they distract
people's attention from thinking about more serious problems and from
active oppositionist work. But all the same, discontent and protest can
ripen within such groups too, and the authorities watch them carefully.

I D E O L O G Y AS A G U I D E TO A C T I O N

C O M M U N I S T s o C I ETY I S also an ideological society in the further sense that

in it ideology is a weapon which regulates not only people's consciousness
but also their conscious behaviour. It forces people to develop a particular
standard mode of thought and action. namely, a practical ideology, which
is especially important for the government of society.
Under Communism man lives from the cradle to the grave in a powerful
"magnetic field" of ideological influence . He is a particle in it receiving a
particular "charge" , position and orientation. Once created, this field
renews and strengthens itself and becomes continually more professional
and effective. The important thing about ideology is not what its
statements mean but the way of thinking which it inculcates in people . It is
an aggregate of models by reference to which the phenomena of reality can
be understood. These models are chosen to train people to grasp things in a
certain way and to coach them in a standard mode of understanding. When
they have completed this training, all who need to understand new
phenomena in the real world will respond in a similar manner: they will
have developed a common intellectual reaction to their environment. Thus
Soviet people, without entering into a conspiracy or being prompted by the
government , usually react to events in a uniform way whether they happen
at home or abroad. They react similarly to scientific discoveries or to
230
natural events. Ideology doesn't only organize people's consciousness, it
creates the social intellect of society as a whole and an intellectual
stereotype for individual members of society.
In Communist society one should distinguish two functions of power
which in real life are interrelated to such an extent that the authorities
themselves distinguish them only in critical periods when attempts are
being made to destroy the subordination of these functions: namely, the
function of governing society as a whole, and the function of governing the
activities of its component parts and subdivisions. The essential purpose of
the first function is realized by the activity of the ruling class and
organizations and of a good number of citizens involved in them by virtue
of whose activities the ability of society to act uniformly is worked out and
actualized. This is the government by ideology. What is usually called
political rule under Communism is really ideological rule because there is
in fact no political rule in Communist society. Ideological government as of
right dominates economic and every other kind of government because it is
the guarantor of the social organism's integrality.
Ideology. I repeat, has two aspects: the philosophical and the pragmatic.
The philosophical aspect relates to its world view, i.e. its doctrine about
the world, society, man, mode of cognition. Its pragmatic aspect concerns
the practical issues of rules of thought and behaviour. It is in the second of
these that we must look for the key to the understanding of the essential
significance of ideology. The practical ideology of a society is an aggregate
of special rules and behavioural skills which people apply in situations
which are intrinsically important. Knowing this, one can predict how the
average ideologically-conditioned Communist citizen will behave in such
situations. Of course there are exceptions, but they are very rare. Let us
say, for instance, that a meeting has to take place in a certain institution
with the task of discussing a speech or a book by the Party leader. Before
the meeting colleagues may make as many jokes as they like about the
speech or the book and tell the most devastating anecdotes about the
leader. But everyone knows perfectly well in advance that at the meeting
the speech or book will be unanimously appraised as an outstanding
contribution to science and literature. Critics of Soviet society usually
regard such a phenomenon as an index of two-facedness and cynicism, but
they are using moral concepts which are quite irrelevant. All that is
happening is that people are acting in strict accordance with the rules of
practical ideology and in so doing experience no second thoughts or pangs
of conscience; unless, that is, they have some psychic derangement which
would, I repeat, be something quite exceptional and can occur in any large
agglomeration of people.
The importance which practical ideology has for the activities of the
country's governing organs is very great because it contains a whole series
23 1
of instructions concerning behaviour. In Stalin's time, when the essel)ce of
ideology was revealed in all its nakedness, it took on a clearly normative
character. In the post-Stalinist period there has been a certain muddying of
the ideological waters, which was of positive significance for the preser
vation of the ideology. At the same time it somewhat weakened the
normative side and caused people temporarily to be at a loss. But despite
the occasional vacillation and deviation ideology, from the very first days
of Communist power, is a practical weapon as regards the general
management of society. When the rulers of the Soviet Union say that they
are acting in consonance with the teaching of Marxism-Leninism they are
not being deceitful or hypocritical. It really is the case. For them Marxism
really is "not a dogma but a guide to action" ; but not literally. It has to pass
through a definite system of interpretation, which is the proper procedure
with regard to ideological texts. Ideology sets before the rulers a general
goal which , whether attainable or not , plays a huge organizational role and
it indicates the main paths to that goal; or, to speak more exactly, the paths
along which society should move in the direction of the goal. Ideology
provides a general orientation for the process of social life and establishes a
general framework and principles of action for the leadership. Ideology is
the core of the whole directive system.

I D E O L O G I CA L R E S O U R C E S

C O M M U NIST SOCI ETY WORKS OU t its own system of ideological myths,

cults, rituals and forms. These include the cult of the leader, the cult of
self-sacrifice, the cult of overcoming difficulties, the cult of the enemy . It
invents its rituals of punishing the guilty and of encouraging those who
have distinguished themselves; rituals to do with every kind of assemblage
and adoption of "measures" . But the sense of all this is very much down
to-earth. For example , the cult of self-sacrifice makes it easier for the
government to send young people off to the "great construction-sites of
Communism" and adulterates discontent about difficult living conditions.
The cult of leadership strengthens (only to a certain degree , of course) the
authority of the government. I will say something in more detail about the
cult of the enemy.
One of the general principles of any government is this: the government
never errs. All normal people know this principle , but a lot of effort goes
into masking it . If a government can hide its mistakes with impunity. it will
do so or interpret its behaviour as having been correct. A government
recognizes mistakes only when it can't hide them and there are sufficiently
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large numbers of powerful people or groups of people who are longing to
expose these mistakes. Moreover, those who expose the mistakes of
government may survive and even gain from the exposure. This leadership
principle acquires great strength in Communist society. Here are the chief
factors which favour it. Opposition is either absent or minimal. Differences
within the government never amount to a split in the government, and if
there is a split, then one side is quickly defeated and saddled with the
blame for the mistakes of the government in general. The government acts
in the name of the laws of nature and society as they have pronounced
them. Once that is so , mistakes are excluded in advance . But what is to be
done if something in life isn't right? One can accuse the weather, for
example , in the case of bad harvests. But one can't always do this, and
therefore there is a need of an enemy upon whom the fault can be laid for
the government's failures. Such an enemy can always be found, both inside
the country and outside it. The enemy is selected, or created, in such a way
that he can be generally recognized in his role of enemy by the broad
masses of the population . The ideological apparatus systematically sets to
work to condition the population to this end. Moreover, in this instance the
government, consciously or unconsciously, (whether from experience or
spontaneously), acts in full accordance with the laws of mass psychology:
the people themselves are looking for a scapegoat for their wretched
conditions of existence. They cannot demonstrate their discontent directly
to the government. Many don't understand that the reason for their
wretched circumstances is the policy of their own rulers. Many feel there is
something wrong with the whole system of life. Many are afraid of
repression. Many derive advantage for themselves from the poverty of
others. Many take part in government themselves. In short, there is a
multitude of reasons why the discontent of the masses is directed into the
channels which are most convenient for all: it is like water in a river,
flowing where it can flow. And since the necessary channel is chosen
cleverly and consistently, things turn out as I described above: an enemy is
found whom everyone can identify. The discontent of the population with
its conditions of life now has a focus. It can now come out into the open,
which brings relief. Examples of this in Soviet history are well known .
From the earliest days of Communist society in the Soviet Union the
ideological Enemy No. 1 has been something called the West.
The enemy has various functions. Not only can he be blamed for the
difficulties of life and be used to channel discontent in a false direction , he
also serves as a focus for the ideological education of the nation and as an
excuse to rid society of inconvenient individuals and a pretext for ritualistic
demands on the population to economize. I have described all this in detail
in my books, especially in In the Ante-Chamber of Paradise. Enemies are
divided into internal and external ones. But usually the two are presumed
233
and proclaimed to be identical. For example, the dissident movement in
the Soviet Union is regarded as the consequence of the pernicious
influence of the West and of its incursion into the country's internal affairs.
The external enemy is inevitably transformed into the internal one and
vice-versa.

I D EOLOGY AND MO RALITY

C o M M U N I ST S O C I ETY I S not a moral society just as i t i s not a society under

the rule of law. Moral norms do not actually operate here. The point is not
that they have been broken , it is simply that there aren't any . I will explain
in what sense I make this statement.
The word "moral" is used in various senses. In the Soviet Union they
talk about the moral cast of mind of Soviet man . about the moral code of
the builders of Communism . about Communist morality. It is impossible to
forbid this particular use of words. But we have the right to distinguish
different phenomena described by the same words and to introduce some
precision into their usc . I shall distinguish between ideological morality (or
pseudo-morality) and personal morality (or real morality or morality
proper). Ideological morality is a part of ideology which preaches about
what man in Communist society should be and exhorts people to follow
this example. It is very like genuine, personal, morality, but in fact it is
only morality to the same extent that Communist ideology is a new form of
religion. Communist society tries to be moral in the sense of its ideology;
i . e . it tries to be pseudo-moral and tries in every way it can to destroy the
germ or the remains of personal morality, i.e. of morality in the true sense
of the word.
When we speak about morality we must pay attention to the following:
1) doctrine about what a moral person should be; the norms of moral
behaviour and criteria for evaluating both the doctrine and the norms; 2)
people's actions which are subject to moral evaluation; 3) people's
qualities as influenced by moral ideas and norms and manifested in
behaviour that is subject to moral evaluation. Not all teaching about how
to become an ideal person is moral teaching. Not all behaviour is subject to
moral evaluation. One and the same action in some circumstances is
subject to moral evaluation, in others it isn't. Behaviour that is bad from
one point of view is not necessarily immoral behaviour, nor is all good
behaviour obviously moral. People often do good to other people when
they intend to deceive them or to get some advantage for themselves, and
they cause evil when they sincerely intend to do other people good.
234
Someone who is forced to do good or who has no chance of doing evil
unharmed is not someone who is acting according to norms of morality.
Man as a communal individual is the sort of being I have already
described. And it is naive to count on people's innate nobility. If people
tell you that they are "not the sort who would do a thing like that . . . ". do
not believe them. Either they are being hypocritical or they are deceiving
themselves, mistaking for innate qualities those limitations on their own
behaviour that are forced on them by circumstances. or which they
willingly accept for one reason or another. A snake doesn't always bite
vou. but that doesn't mean that it secretes nectar and not poison. There are
bjective laws of nature which one cannot cheat. The communal individual
is forced. alas. to behave as we have described above : that is neither a good
thing nor a bad thing. Virtues only develop as a defence against evil or as
one of the means of doing evil. ;-.roreover. good and evil are relative terms
if we look at them from the point of view of the individuals themselves who
have to live life as it really is, and not from that of uninvolved, self-satisfied
moralizers.
The basis of moral ideas. norms, criteria. behaviour and qualities. is in
fact a person's voluntary decision to limit the force of the laws of
communality in his own behaviour towards others. I emphasize that the
decision is 'voluntary'' , and not forced on him by j uridical norms. by
custom or by fear of punishment . Of course. the decision is not something
totally disinterested. When a person takes such a decision he assumes that
other people value his sacrifice and will follow his example in their
relationships with him . and that as a result life in a certain milieu will
become better in at least some respects . But that gain is of the same nature
as the sacrifice itself. And at bottom sacrifice is the motive rather than
profit. Any advantage is merely a consequence. Moreover, there isn't
always an advantage and if there is it comes afterwards and not before . I
would emphasize further that this is a self-imposed limitation on the laws of
communality and not of anything else . Not all behaviour is committed
because of communal laws. For example, soldiers going into the attack and
killing e nemy soldiers are not acting according to the laws of communality.
and their behaviour in the given instance does not fall into a category
subject to moral evaluation. The essence of moral self-limitation lies in not
doing individual people harm , or else in doing them good even in those
situations when you are forced to do them harm or abstain from doing
them good by the rules of communal behaviour. People perform such
moral actions despite communal forces and in opposition to them.
Furthermore . these actions are actions which do not coincide with those of
the country's authorities: authorities which have themselves evolved from.
and have their basis in. communality. For this reason morality is directed
not only against the communal forces at the base of society. but also
235
against the powers in society that personify communality. Morality also is
man's self-defence against Communist power.
The ideal man as described by Communist ideology is not a moral being.
I repeat that what is moral is not necessarily good and the non-moral not
necessarily bad . Here I am excluding subjective evaluations and speaking
about real phenomena. Ideal Communist man, whatever he may be from
other points of view. is not a moral being. I will adduce some arguments in
support of this thesis that are sufficient for this essay. Firstly, Marxism
presupposes that man is fully conditioned by the circumstances of his
existence and his virtues are deemed to be the product of ideal conditions
of life and not of his own free will. Secondly, a person is compelled to be
what in theory he should be by the general forces of power, ideology and
the collective. Thirdly it is only outwardly that a person is compelled to
correspond with the ideal: in practice he is trained in his behaviour by the
rules of communality. These last are limited by the collective , by the
authorities and by ideology only for the purpose of preserving society
which is itself based on communal laws.
In my books I have described the type of man who corresponds to the
norms of ideological "morality". and a good deal of material has been
presented in this book as well . Here I will adduce only one hypothetical
case which illustrates the difference between ideological "morality" and
morality. Suppose your best friend has committed an act that is officially
considered reprehensible and punishable and you swore that you would
not give him away. If you told the powers-that-be about his behaviour, you
would be doing yourself some good; if you did not , you yourself would be
punished should the offence be discovered. In terms of Communist
"morality" you should break your oath and denounce your friend who has
put his trust in you . And your action in that case would be justified
according to the principle that the interests of the collective are higher than
the interests of the individual , although in actual fact you would have been
acting according to the rules of communality which compel you to avoid
danger and turn everything to your own advantage. Your behaviour would
be moral only if you kept your promise - even under the threat of
punishment.
Morality in my sense comes into conflict with ideological "morality" and
is persecuted in Communist society as a threat to its very foundations.
People are brought up from birth under Communism in such a way that
only a few people in their adulthood are capable of being moral beings and
even then not all the time. Again I have described in considerable detail in
my books the types of self-restraint which serve in Communist society as a
source of morality. Here are a number of examples: do not coerce anyone
and let nobody coerce you . Resist. Do not humble yourself. Do not be a
lackey. Pay tribute to those who deserve it. Have nothing to do with bad
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people. Avoid their company. If there is no need to speak, be silent. Don't
draw attention to yourself. Don't thrust your help on anyone. Refuse
undeserved honours. Keep your word. Do not preach at people. Do not
gloat over the misfortunes of others. Take no part in power and do not
cooperate with it. These, of course, are somewhat literary recommen
dations. But they are adequate to expiain the difference in general
orientation between morality and ideology.
Ideological "morality" has undeniable advantages over morality. It
releases people from internal self-restraint. It justifies every crime commit
ted by the country's government vis-a-vis the population and against other
peoples. The government acts in the name of "progress" , the liberation of
the workers "from exploitation and colonialism" ; in the name of building
the most "just" society; in general in the name of the most noble aims.
And if in pursuit of these "aims" there is need to wipe millions of people
from the face of the earth, this will be done without hesitation and with a
clear conscience, inasmuch as there is no such thing as conscience under
Communism.
The lower levels of the population in their turn are compelled by truths
and untruths (especially untruths) to adapt themselves to the conditions of
life, repaying the torrent of lies and violence streaming down on them from
above with lies, idleness, theft, drunkenness, hack-work, and other
phenomena of this kind. Corruption, deceit and coercion penetrate the
whole of society from top to bottom. In these conditions only occasional
individuals, or people who somehow fall outside the general swim , can
afford to follow the precepts of morality. For the rules of morality to play a
noticeable role in social life, society must contain enough people interested
in their observance; and there must be means of defending these rules that
are socially recognized, such as publicity, religion and uncensored litera
ture. There is nothing of the kind under Communism. The whole
apparatus of ideological education and propaganda aims to teach people to
live in an atmosphere of hypocrisy, deceit, coercion, meanness and
corruption, and to live according to the laws of communality, which
themselves are limited by means devised by communality itself for the
purpose of its own self-preservation .
A habit has developed of dubbing Soviet people "double-thinkers". But
in fact there is no such double-thinking. There is a surprising unanimity of
thought, and adaptability to the conditions of life. For example, someone
tells someone else what he thinks about the Soviet government and of his
intention to "do something" . He asks this person to keep the conversation
confidential . The latter sincerely promises to keep the secret, but then the
authorities ask the confidant to tell them about his meetings and
conversations with the first person. Of course, they appear to be asking
him to help them help this man who has fallen under a bad influence ; and
237
the confidant just as sincerely reveals the secret to them. He is not breaking
his oath because his oath was purely verbal . He docs not possess any self
restraining mechanisms. Besides, when the occasion arises he can always
betray his friend without being asked to at all: at a meeting, during
conversation at table , perhaps even from a wish to amuse visitors. This is
what the overwhelming majority of people do. As a result people are in the
habit of calculating the consequences of their behaviour from this angle in
advance . People don't believe in the moral qualities of their neighbours
and place no reliance on them. This in fact is the deepest source of
immorality in society. Of course, there are exceptions, and it is not difficult
to find instances of moral behaviour. But they do not determine the pattern
of social life. Besides, often in such cases morality merely turns out to be
apparent. Often people only pretend to be moral beings or they simply lack
the opportunity and the need to present themselves as individuals
conditioned by Communism.
The behaviour of the Soviet Union on the world stage as a collective
individual is a classic example of immoral behaviour.
It would, of course , be wrong to think that ideology always excludes
morality in the sense that we are talking about. It allows it and even
encourages it to a certain degree, i . e . to the degree to which it presents no
danger to society's foundations but rather supports them: morality, that is,
which is secondary and subservient to ideology. For example , it is useful to
careerists that there are people who willingly renounce any idea of a
career. But if such people elevate their non-participation in power into a
principle and begin to propagandize it, they become dangerous to the
ideology and to careerists. There are various sorts of social group where
people are open with each other, help each other and fulfil their promises.
But in such cases these beginnings of morality do not burgeon into moral
principles because when they are put to the test in serious situations they
quickly evaporate by yielding to communal rules and ' morality" of the
ideological type .

T H E I D E O L O G I CA L T Y P E O F I N T E L LECT

THE VERY FORM of people's lives in Communist society forces them to be

flexible and resourceful in the struggle of their daily existence. The
housewife who is compelled to keep the body and soul of her family
together on a shoe-string can sometimes calculate things so finely right
down to the last kopek that, from a logical point of view, they exceed the
professional intellectual rationalizations of the majority of professors and
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academicians. The petty official who is desperate to make his tiny little step
in his miserable functional career plunges into such a web of cunning
intrigue that he makes the machinations of Talleyrand look like the coarse
work of an amateur. The ideological conditioning of the population
teaches people to be j ust as flexible and calculating in their thoughts and
j udgements about the reality surrounding them. The most active segment
of the population consequently develops a kind of ideological-dialectical
type of intellect. This type of intellect closely resembles the dialectical
method of reasoning, i.e. appears to be a scientific method for orientating
oneself in the complex and ever-changing system of events in the day-to
day life of society. But in reality it isn't . It is the product of people's
adaptation to circumstances, a process encouraged and cultivated by the
ideology itself. It is part of ideology's practical mechanics embodied in the
intellectual apparatus of individual people.
The mechanism includes lack of principle, the deliberate destruction of
the laws of logic, double-think and other manifestations of intellectual
prostitution. The dialectical method of reasoning as a scientific method is
an aggregate of methods for the logical understanding of the world. but not
a method of adaptation to social conditions. However. the ideological
dialectical type of intellect is nonetheless more robust than the ideological
type of intellect of the ordinary man-in-the-street of Western society. I
don't want to suggest that the average Communist citizen is more
intelligent than his Western counterpart . but both theoretical considera
tions and comparative data give serious grounds for stating that the
Communist is more flexible and calculating than the Westerner.
So in combination with an ability to live in more difficult conditions the
Communist type of intellect creates a higher level of adaptability to
circumstances. whatever anyone may feel about this type of adaptability. It
isn"t only something negative, by which I mean something that only occurs
as a result of the disappearance of constraining factors such as the
principles of religion , morality and consciousness of law. It is also
something positive, something cultivated by the life-style of society and its
ideology.

S O C I ETY A S A W H O L E

THE I N V E S T IGATI O N O F such a complex subject as society as a whole

presents the researcher with both an analytical and a synthetic task. First
he must isolate the components and aspects of the whole, and its special
qualities and regularities. Then he has to explain in what way and with
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what consequences these separate rivulets of social life merge into one
complex mainstream . The synthesizing process is not only a matter of
incorporating the evidence obtained in the analysis into one text. It is also
the searching out of ways of obtaining new evidence from the evidence
already obtained analytically; evidence which to some degree or other will
approximate to concrete reality. The result of the synthesis should be the
discovery of a scientific theory with the help of which one can explain the
observed facts of social life and predict the behaviour of the society in
certain situations with a fair degree of confidence. But for that to be
achieved, the analysis itself must from the beginning pay heed to the
synthesis, i.e. the analysis itself must yield up such evidence on the subject
as will give the desired result when the synthesizing process is carried out.
The synthesis should provide a method of enumerating the characteristics
of society as a whole together with explanations of its tendencies on the
basis of some primary soundings and assumptions in the analysis.
If one leaves aside the quantitative aspect of the soundings, then the
synthesis must be able to answer "qualitative" questions: what may we
expect from a given society, what is it pointless to expect from it, how will
it behave in certain types of situation, in what direction will it evolve? For
this purpose society must be understood as a great empirical system, with
certain more or less constant characteristics; as a particular milieu in which
the events which concern us will happen or arc likely to happen. The
knowledge of these characteristics should enable us to foresee the run of
presupposed events in the milieu , the system's behaviour in response to
them and its behaviour vis-a-vis its own environment. These characteristics
are , for example , solidity, coherence , stability, inertia, dynamism, capacity
for survival, combativeness and so on. These will be expressed in orders of
magnitude or by evaluative concepts such as "high", "average" and "low" .
How one establishes the characteristics of the system which I have
mentioned above is a question of scientific investigative technique. I shall
give a short description below of the method by which I very often used to
arrive at my own judgements, but without going into the detail of its logical
nature. It is a special variant of systems analysis. Communist society is a
particular case of a large empirical system , and should be regarded as such
if it is our task to describe it as a single whole . Here are some of the
principles of such an approach .
An empirical system is an aggregation of a large number of elementary
bodies existing in a given space and time . Elementary bodies are regarded
as being indivisible. Neither their spatial dimensions or forms, nor their
length of existence need be taken account of. Certain norms are
presupposed in their regard. But in the method itself size and length of
existence do not play a role. For us the important thing is that the
elementary bodies last long enough , renew themselves and possess the
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requirements without which they cannot be elements of the system . Since
elementary bodies enter into frequent and varied "contact;" with each
other, there is a process whereby any "jagged edges" tend to be
"smoothed off" , which means that they tend to look alike. This is an
inevitable consequence of the huge size of the empirical system and of the
compulsory collision of the bodies. In different systems there are different
mechanisms of assimilation. From this point of view influence of mass
society on the individual, for example, is like the influence of the waves of
the sea on fragments of rock. The end result is an average, smoothed down
individual, who is in principle interchangeable with any other individual
within the same category. This gives us the right to regard elementary
bodies as indistinguishable.
In view of the abstractions that we have established only those properties
of elementary bodies are taken into account that are indispensable and
sufficient for their existence as elements of a system. It is postulated that all
of them have these properties in one way or another. People, for example,
are able to know their environment, evaluate situations correctly, have
wishes, set themselves goals, and act towards their fulfilment. For an
elementary body to exist as an element in a system, it must perform certain
actions in relation to the other elementary bodies of the system: in other
words systemic actions. The elementary body must have the capacity to
live in the system and demonstrate that fact regularly. These activities are
not analysed: they are taken as given . The process of registering the actions
of elementary bodies leads to the introduction of terms designating
potential attributes or abilities, for instance, the capacity to speak, think
and move about. All the capabilities of elementary bodies can be reduced
to a finite number of primary capacities, i . e . of capacities that cannot be
defined in terms of each other. The attempt to reduce them to a minimum
is natural . Even if one allows that the number of these capacities is infinite,
this fact doesn't have any importance in practice . Time is needed for even a
single realization of a capacity, and since we presuppose that these
capacities will be activated repeatedly, and regularly, the number of
primary capabilities of the bodies is in practice very small. Primary
capabilities are the regularly realizable capabilities of elementary bodies
which are peculiar to all bodies. Deviations from the norm exist , of course,
but these should not form part of our theoretical analysis. Elementary
bodies are distinguished only by the magnitude of their primary capabili
ties. Here there are minimum and maximum limits beyond which the
elementary body cannot survive. For example, people suffer and die not
only from an excess of stupidity and dishonesty, but also from an excess of
intelligence and honesty.
Complex bodies in the system are composed of two or more elementary
bodies, groups, and groups of groups of different rank. A group seen as a
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whole has its own dimensions and position in space. From the point of view
of the systemic approach the only important thing is the number of
individuals or groups of which it is formed . This number is finite. The
groups have certain minimum and maximum dimensions depending on the
physical nature of the elementary bodies. If the dimensions are less than
this minimum. then the links between bodies which would produce a
regular systemic effect cannot be formed. If the dimensions exceed the
maximum . then the group falls apart: it collapses into sub-groups or a part
of it splits off as a normal group. From what has been said it must be clear
that the bigger the number of individuals within a given system, the more
ranks of groups there are in its hierarchy. Groups are regarded primarily
according to the same criteria as elementary bodies. Moreover, phenom
ena appear within the group by virtue of the very fact of there being
a conglomeration of a multitude of bodies in a single spatia-temporal sphere.
The task of the systems-approach is to register these consequences of the
mass of bodies and events. and indicate methods of calculating their
magnitude as functions of the magnitudes characterizing the elementary
bodies and groups of bodies of lower rank.
In principle all properties of objects are measurable . I will remark briefly
on some of the particular features of measurement within systems. Certain
magnitudes are attributed to the primary capacities of elementary bodies.
They emerge from observations, from experiments and by agreement .
Then . taking these as a starting point. a method is worked out for
calculating the magnitude of secondary. derivative capacities. It must be
one and the same for all the analogous magnitudes throughout the groups.
One way of assigning magnitudes to the primary capabilities of elementary
bodies is to use a points system.
Using a points system for estimating magnitudes is widely known: for
instance in sport and in scholastic institutions. In the case I am considering
we need one scale of measurement for all the phenomena of the system
which are being measured on a points system . The number of points must
be finite and small. A large number of points makes calculation difficult
while adding absolutely nothing to the content or accuracy of knowledge.
For instance , in the case of social systems, very often a three-point scale
suffices: normal . below the norm and above the norm . What needs to be
measured include the primary capabilities of the bodies in the system; the
number of elementary bodies (in estimated magnitudes); the number of
bodies they come in contact with : the dimensions of groups; the ranks of
groups; the ranks of derivative bodies and derivative links, the duration of
their influence. In brief. we must invent methods of measurement similar
to those used in physics for the measurement of length , width , weight,
temperature and other characteristics of bodies and methods of calculation
of derivative magnitudes.
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 I would draw attention to the fact that, in a task of the kind we are
considering , it is impossible to obtain a causal explanation of the
phenomena generated by the system . Because of the huge number of
mutually influential phenomena , it is practically impossible to trace
relationships of cause and effect. At the same time the contradictory
character of the consequences of one and the same causes, the similarity
between the effects of opposite causes and the presence of situations in
which some causes level out the effect of other causes, as well as other
properties of the system , make a causal explanation impossible in
principle. I will instance yet one more curious example of the effect of
systems-analysis that works in the same direction .
In an empirical system bodies influence each other. The mechanics of
exercising this influence take a certain amount of time and other forms of
expenditure for its realization, with the result that there are losses in what
is transferred from one body to another (in weight , energy and informa
tion). Among these losses there are some constants. If these constants are
known then we can work out the number of intermediaries it will take
before the force of the influence is totally dissipated. For example, by the
time an instruction issued by a director has passed through a number of
intermediate bodies, its effect is reduced to zero and consequently is never
enacted by the people to whom it was originally directed . This is not
because of some chance defect in the institution concerned. It is a normal
systemic effect.
The losses of influence in transfer which we spoke of do not conflict with
the physical law of conservation, since an empirical system is not an
isolated bit of the world but only a special network which is set up in real
pieces of the world and partially organizes them. Something always falls
out from and is lost to the system : these are inevitable outgoings of the
system. But at the same time something enters it from the outside which
then is subject to systemic conditioning. So in an empirical system we must
allow for cases in which the source of influence of some bodies on others
has no causal basis in the given system.
Some of the bodies have the immanent power of producing influence:
they influence other bodies by transferring something to them but do not
receive anything in return. Thus there are not only forces of influence
which dissipate themselves but also sudden primary forces of influence
which come from nowhere, as it were. An example of such an immanent
entry into the system in the case of social systems is the intentions of the
powers-that-be to carry out reforms that raise the level of the organization
of society. In the framework of a social system such intentions have no
sources or even explanations within the terms of the system. An
examination of the system in its other aspects introduces a whole new
series of circumstances which render a causal explanation of the behaviour
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of the authorities and attempts to predict their behaviour devoid of sense.
In this instance only probabilistic explanations and predictions are
appropriate, and even then they would have to be couched in preferential
and evaluative terms. For example, "relaxations arc very improbable" ; or
"a rise in prices is very possible"; or "the authorities prefer repression".
Explanation in terms of cause and effect in empirical systems is not the
only problem. Only scrious theoretical research, free from the prejudices
not only of the philistine but also of the trained scientific thinker, is able to
deal with the task of synthesis which we have been examining.

THE E F FE CTS O F S Y ST E M S - A N A L Y S I S

I W I L L G I V E some examples which illustrate the cognitive orientation of the

systems-approach. Let us suppose that it has been calculated by certain
methods that a harvest of a certain size may be expected in the Soviet
Union during the current year. The question arises: how much bread will
there really be in that year? Certainly not as much as the harvest. To
indicate, and predict the real magnitude we must know some systems
coefficient which expresses the inevitable losses which are due entirely to
the system itself. Then one can estimate that in reality the country will have
considerably less bread than the academic projections presuppose. Quite
apart from the weather and other phenomena, the systems-coefficient
operates implacably, because it is itself a function of where people live and
the actions they perform. Another example: it has been estimated that a
certain amount of money must be spent on the construction of a building
(e.g. housing, factory, aerodrome ) . If one knows the systems-coefficient
one can say in advance that in reality it will cost much more. I should add
that the authorities are familiar with these phenomena from their own
experience and will sometimes take them into account in advance during
the planning phase. True, other laws of the system prevent it from
operating fully. Besides a systems-effect of another sort comes into
operation: systemic losses that are taken into account in advance do not all
the same rid the system of some unforeseen losses.
The general dictum about the behaviour of Soviet people is well known:
each individual is against, but everyone together is for. People view this
trait on a purely moral plane, which is completely absurd. In reality it is a
characteristic example of a systems-effect: each clement of the system
operates in virtue of its allotted role in the system , but the result of the sum
total of their actions can even be opposed to their subjective wishes,
because the result is not under their control . This systems-effect makes
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itself felt with pitiless force in all the links in the social system, at all levels
of the hierarchy and in all groups including the higher reaches of
government and those organizations which determine the behaviour of the
country as a whole in relation to this or that task.
When Western politicians and philistines hope for changes in the
behaviour of the Soviet Union as a consequence of changes in government
and in the composition of the responsible organs of government, they
display total ignorance of the strength of systems-effects. What is amusing
here is that they themselves are the slaves of their own system, as is evident
to the dispassionate observer. B ut they apprehend their bondage to their
own system as freedom and regard the systems-slavery in other societies
not as something different but as something analogous to their own system.
At the present time humanity is naturally disturbed by the question of a
new world war. People console themselves with the thought that the Soviet
leaders and the Soviet people themselves do not want war because they
know that they also will suffer from it, perhaps to an apocalyptic extent.
But, alas, this awareness plays no role. People don't start wars; wars start
themselves. Relations in a system of government may be such that the
outbreak of war will be the end result of individual people who are trying
to prevent its happening. The Soviet Union has created an offensive army
and conducts an aggressive foreign policy acting in the interests of self
defence. This isn't only propaganda. It is first and foremost a systems
effect that excessive defence turns into attack.
The peculiarity of the Communist system consists in this: it has very
weak internal restraining forces and very weak self-control. The fateful
consequences of the activities of the Communist system are terrible not
because of their premeditation but because of the uncontrollability of the
system. It is a gross error to think that everything under Communism is
subjected to the central government and to its will. The laws of these
relationships do not obey anyone.
The activity of the government organs of a Communist country presents
a most striking example of a systems-effect . The members of these organs
themselves really think that they are planning the events and behaviour of
the country. To the superficial outside observer it seems that there are
certain people and small groups in the government organs who are
pursuing this or that policy and working out decisions and taking them .
More than once I have heard people say that the operation in Afghanistan
was carried through upon the insistence of the "military" and that there is a
struggle in the Soviet government between the "doves" and the "hawks";
that the "economists" are in conflict with the "ideologues" and other
rubbish of this kind, all of which demonstrates that the speakers have no
notion of systems-concepts when confronted with social phenomena.
In actual fact the government of Soviet society exemplifies a system in
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which phenomena are inexplicable by conventional concepts. For example,
a man who is interested in a certain decision being taken may come out
against the decision, knowing in advance that the decision will be taken all
the same . that his position in the matter will be well known and that it will
enhance his image . The decision-taking by the highest organ of power may
be a pure formality, the rubber-stamping of a state of affairs which is
independent of it and which itself has dictated the decision in question.
Conflicts between persons and groups about some exalted problem may
be nothing other than a primitive struggle for posts. The point is not that
there are no inter-personal and inter-group relations, no differences
between people and no personal idiosyncracies or things of that kind. All
that does exist . The point is that if you had absolutely all the information
about people's character, people's views. people's relations with each
other and people's intentions you would, on the basis of this knowledge ,
still not be in a position to predict the possible behaviour of the country's
government as a whole . In order to make more or less hopeful predictions
on such subjects, you must throw away all this information as something
superfluous and even as something that hinders the understanding of the
matter. You should then adopt information about the Communist system
of an entirely different kind as a basis for your j udgements.

STA B I L I T Y , I N T E G R A LITY A N D V IT A L I TY

W H E N I U S E D to make declarations to the effect that Communist society

was a stable society my numerous audiences and my conversational
partners expressed dissatisfaction with my judgement. They, on the
contrary . insisted on the instability of this society, indulging thereby in a
totally unwarranted amount of wishful thinking. And yet this society is not
only stable : it is in the highest degree stable.
But stability is not necessarily a positive feature of society. Stability may
be the result of a low level of social organization , of backwardness,
conservatism, destruction of the institutions of civilization or simply their
absence. I nstability may be the result of a dynamic style of existence , of a
high level of organization , of the growth of civilization. This is precisely
how it is with social systems.
Let us define the concept of "stability" itself. The stability of a social
system is its capacity to preserve its existing structure , which appears
normal to it; the will and effort to preserve this structure and the ability to
recreate the structure should there be need to deviate from it for a time .
Any social system of a certain size has a tendency towards stability once it
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comes into existence. But it also produces phenomena that threaten this
stability. In the process of the life of a society the two tendencies will be
related in a very fluctuating manner. There are no absolutely stable and no
absolutely unstable societies. B ut they differ in terms of the degree of their
stability (or instability) and in their means of constitution (or destruction) .
So far history has given us few data for making categorical judgements
about the stability of Communist society. I base my conclusions about its
high degree of stability on an analysis of this society as an empirical system
and on some principles belonging to systems of this kind.
Communist society is highly stable because of these attributes, among
others: 1) the homogeneity of the structure, of all its parts, organs, fabric,
strata and groups; 2) the standardization of the conditions of life of the
population and of the system of government; 3) centralized government of
all aspects of social life; 4) a mighty unified system of power which
penetrates all cross-sections of society from top to bottom; 5) a single
ideology and powerful conditioning of the population which results in
uniformity of behaviour in important situations; 6) the ability of a huge
number of people to occupy any government post and to act in a way
demanded by the interests of the whole; 7) the absence of a serious
opposition movement and the presence of a powerful network of organs to
repress manifestations of discontent ; 8) the ability to preserve the cohesion
of society in face of great losses, i . e . a high degree of durability in difficult
conditions; 9) the ability to impose a low living standard on the people for a
long time without there being serious protests. If we were to trace how
these and many other factors of the Communist system are woven into a
single pattern, then the thesis formulated above would have a convincing
ring, even without precise measurements being taken.
Communist society is stable to such a degree that forces serious enough
to destroy it simply do not materialize within it. It is, therefore, senseless to
hope that the internal requirements of Communist countries will give rise
to radical changes in this society in the direction of Western countries. As
regards stability in the sense of the cohesion of the country, Communist
countries dispose of means of securing it unprecedented in history, such as
powerful armies, systems of state security, control of frontiers, obstacles to
external influences, and so on. Powerful armies are created in Communist
countries not only for defence and for attacking other countries, but to
preserve internal cohesion and social stability.
The cohesion of the system does not necessarily mean harmony among
the elements of the system and its component parts. Within the whole
there can be enmity and strife. Absence of conflict among the components
does not necessarily strengthen the system, nor do enmities and conflicts
necessarily weaken it . It is the proportions which count . And when we
examine conflicts of various kinds in the system we must pay attention not
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only to what divides elements of the system but also to what unites them.
In the West. for example, hopes are placed on national conflicts in the
Soviet Union in ignorance of the fact that , despite everything, it is more
advantageous to the different nationalities to remain components of the
Soviet Union than to separate from it. Hopes are placed on conflicts within
the government, although these conflicts in no way affect the general
governmental line and only reflect a struggle between people for posts in
government and never cross the point beyond which they might threaten
serious damage to the cohesion of society as a whole. Even the dissident
movement in no way threatens the cohesion of society. Indeed , to some
extent it fulfils a positive role by informing the government about the
situation in society.
Communist society is unusually robust in difficult situations. The Soviet
Union has proved this by its own experience. It is possible to give a
theoretical explanation of this phenomenon, but not at all in the spirit of
Soviet propaganda. When it was preparing to go to war with the Soviet
Union, Hitler's Germany gravely underestimated the vitality of the
country, although there was plenty of factual information available . True,
this mistake was inevitable for psychological reasons: it was wishful
thinking. But that does not exclude the possibility that events might have
gone differently if Germany's rulers had had at their disposal a trustworthy
method of assessing the vitality of the Soviet Union. They would then have
been able to establish in advance that the vitality of the Soviet Union as a
Communist system was considerably greater than that of Germany as a
state based on the capitalist system .
The degree o f vitality or viability o f a country i s a function o f many
factors. In Communist countries it is high because the living standards of
the population can, with impunity, be lowered beyond the limit tolerable in
a Western country; because a serious opposition is impossible ; because
every part of the social organism is standardized, including the ideology;
because the government is ready to make any sacrifices while the
population is ready to offer them. All these elements of social life add up to
a high coefficient of social vitality.
However. this quality is not absolutely positive. If the conditions of life
in society are comparatively favourable, then a high degree of vitality is a
serious obstacle to social progress. In particular, it prevents the growth of
productivity. The Communist system was born as a means of overcoming a
catastrophically difficult situation in the country; it took shape and
stabilized in conditions of chronic difficulty with the result that both the
production and the overcoming of difficulties became second nature to it .
At the same time existence on the verge of economic collapse is as normal a
feature of Communist society as stability. This state of affairs is conditioned
by the whole social order of the country and by the following factors among
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others. The government is forced to set tasks before the country, each of
which seems feasible on its own but which in aggregate are beyond the
country's strength. The country is forced to live according to a co-ordinated
state plan, but the systems-effect inevitably leads to deviations from the plan ,
to its non-fulfilment and to unplanned and uncontrolled consequences. The
planned economy, standardization, communality, the attitude to work and
other elements of social organization bring about a tendency towards a
lowering of economic growth and to stagnation. And this in turn heightens the
ambition ofthe government as regards its plans, and the consequence ofthat is
a discrepancy between the real state of the country and the government's
perception of it. The ambitions of the top leadership and the self-interest of
the ruling classes of the population are satisfied at the expense of damage to
the country as a whole. Forces are absent which could restrain society in its
movement in a direction that worsens the state of the country, and only the
catastrophic results of this movement force the government to take restrain
ing measures.
Thence develops the tendency to solve internal problems at the cost of a
rapacious exploitation of natural resources and by the creation of a semi-war
situation , by the exploitation of other countries, by deceit. blackmail and
theft. It is no accident that the Soviet Union , which possesses a gigantic
territory and a vast number of people engaged in agriculture, is compelled to
acquire foodstuffs abro-ad. And who knows the extent of the theft of the
West's scientific and technical achievements in relation to the progress of
science and technology in the Soviet Union? In any case, progress via theft
seems to be economically more advantageous than the development of its
own internal forces. Some of the important characteristics of Communist
society, the tendencies to stagnation and to economic crises, are weakened at
the present time by making use of the Western countries and by colonialism. If
the world were fully Communist, these tendencies could become fatally
pronounced. So what Communism should fear most is not the coexistence of a
competitive West, but its own world victory - not to speak of future military
conflicts between Communist countries which will lead to wars entailing the
total destruction of countries and peoples.

T H E TENDENCY TOWARDS EXPANSION AND

H E G EM O N Y

EvERYTHING T HA T L I V E S seeks to preserve itself. The laws of communality

are the laws of human behaviour that express the urge to self-preservation.
The urge to expand is one of the principal means of self-preservation and
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self-consolidation for social groups. There are many reasons for this, and I
will mention the most important. An increase in the size of the group
means an increase in its social significance , and that means an increase in
the social significance of its rulers. A group that expands receives more
means of existence and deals more easily with its affairs . People's wish to
work as little as possible necessitates the performance of the same amount
of work by more people. The general tendency of the governing class of the
population to proliferate stimulates the creation and extension of govern
ing groups in the least productive segment. The ruling classes have enough
power to look after themselves. Innumerable posts are invented for
oncoming generations of the priviligentsia. A direct consequence of the
increasing complexity of the productive and business life of society is an
increase in the complexity of the ruling apparatus and an expansion in the
number of social groups in the form of new specialists and managers.
The tendency to expand is found not only in existing groups but
manifests itself in another direction. via the formation of new spheres of
activity and new groups within it. An enormous number of people exert
pressure in this direction, all thirsting to improve their social position. This
somewhat reduces the intensity of the usual social struggle and gives some
hope to youth as regards its chances in life. The tendency to expand is
strengthened by a whole series of other stimuli on the scale of the country
as a whole . such as the drive to make surrounding areas homogeneous with
and similar to oneself; the drive to destroy anything which allows a
comparison between Communist life and other kinds of life; the drive to
destroy the potential threat of being unmasked and discredited; the drive
to subordinate other countries and to compel them to help hide the
economic defects of one's own country (for example, by supplying food
products). From all this follows the ceaseless attempt to penetrate and
spread wherever and whenever it is possible . The ideology j ustifies this,
saying that the most humane and progressive activity of the country is to
free humanity from colonialism and exploitation. Over the years the
apparatus created to realize this aim obtains such force within the
governmental system that it becomes almost impossible to oppose it. No
small part is played here by the vanity of the rulers, which is encouraged
enormously by the ideology and by the ruling caste. Communist society has
no restraining capacity to set against this tendency. It is only external
constraints that can (if they can) stop the spread of the system throughout
the whole world.
The Soviet Union is the first Communist country in history and the most
powerful. Communism was installed in the other countries of the Soviet
bloc by means of conquest during war : it was foisted on them by force .
Therefore the role of the Soviet Union as leader of the bloc cannot be
doubted as a historical fact. Its deeper social tendency towards hegemony
250
remains veiled. But yet it is precisely that, plus the tendency to expand,
which has determined the present situation in the Communist Imperium.
The tendency towards hegemony over other countries arises from the
position of the leadership within the country. In its relationship to other
countries it tries to behave as it does towards parts of its own country. The
Soviet Union tries to behave in a similar way towards non-Communist
countries: that is to say, it tries to include them in its own sphere of
influence, to subordinate them and to force them into the desired form of
behaviour (Finland is an example) . A non-Communist country that finds
itself in this situation has every chance of being swallowed up by the Soviet
Union and recast in the Soviet mould, as in the case of Afghanistan.
The Soviet Union's tendency to hegemony over its own neighbours
stems, I repeat , from its own nature as a society and from the nature of its
government. The government has an obedient apparatus for this purpose,
the army, and it has the experience. It knows how to do it. It is absurd to
expect anything else of the Soviet government. The tendencies to
expansion and hegemony form together a tendency to convert humanity
into a super-society, into one social organism with one system of
command: into world Communism. However, according to the laws of
large empirical systems, these latter have critical dimensions. So even if
Communism is victorious in every country in the world, a split of humanity
into groups of Communist countries will inevitably follow, each with its
own leader, and these groups will inevitably struggle for hegemony. The
present relations between China and the Soviet Union are eloquent in this
regard. So it is naive to hope that the victory of Communism in all
countries will lead to disarmament and eternal peace. On the contrary,
wars between Communist blocs will exceed in horror all the wars of the
past. Moreover, militarization is dictated by the country's internal needs,
and of course the threat of war is the best means of settling internal social
problems.
The tendency to expansion and hegemony naturally compels the Soviet
Union to take full advantage of the West in its own interests; to achieve a
noticeable military preponderance over the West; to create a dense
network of spies and fifth columnists in the West as well as masses of
potential and actual collaborators: in short to do everything possible to
turn itself into the governing organ of a single world super-society. The
attempt to rule over the whole world is a schizophrenic idea of vain
Communist leaders only because the tendency to world-wide rule has an
objective existence in the social organism itself. The Soviet Union has
already acquired such a momentum of inertia in this direction that only a
world catastrophe is capable of stopping it.

251
 THE WAY OF LIFE

I F W E W E R E to form j udgements about life i n Communist countries on the

basis of the articles of Western journalists, of polemical literature, of the
statements made by dissidents, and of the memories of emigres, we should
get the impression that it is impossible for the ordinary person to live in the
Soviet Union . There is, it seems, nothing to eat there and nothing to wear,
and nowhere to live. One cannot open one's mouth without risking arrest
or compulsory treatment in a psychiatric hospital. One can't move about
the country or read contemporary books. The impression is given that
people do nothing but fight for civil rights, organize religious sects,
resurrect Orthodoxy, get drunk and dream about the monarchy, wait for
the collapse of the Soviet regime , and of course dream about going to the
West. But in fact millions of people lead a normal life there, never even
think about the West and are not planning to change their way of life at all.
They are born, go to school and to university, fall in love , marry, work,
rest , amuse themselves, eat and drink, laugh and cry. Many don't live
badly at all and some very well indeed.
Communist apologists naturally give an utterly different picture of their
society than the critics. But there is much that is just in this picture too, j ust
as there is in the critics' picture. Where does the truth lie? Not somewhere
in the middle, nor in a combination of the apologist's light and the critic's
shade. Real life is sometimes colourful, sometimes monotonous, some
times diffuse , sometimes clear and straightforward , sometimes stable,
sometimes shifting. An accurate description of it requires, not the
enumeration of all the possible observable facts, but the special methods of
science and literature. The way of life of a country is a resultant of all the
efforts of all the people in all the cross-sections of society in the course of
generations. I have described all these component elements in a fair
amount of detail in my books. Here I will merely confine myself to a
discussion of some tendencies which exhibited themselves with implacable
force in the first years after the war and which now appear as attributes of
mature Communism.
The relevant characteristic of Communist life is its despondency, its
greyness, its boredom. But all this is enveloped in official bravura ,
festivities and celebration. Everything is grey: the feast-days, the week
days, the speeches, the books, the films, the successes, the defeats, the
crimes, the joys , love and hatred. Even the lying, which is meant to
brighten life up, is grey. Even on those occasions when people, so it would
seem , have something to be happy about, happiness is done to death like
something alien to the system . As soon as there is anything to be happy
about, the authorities put on a great educational campaign to show
252
everybody the superiority of the Communist way of life. They arrange
meetings and sessions, accept greetings, assume obligations, mount special
intensified labour campaigns. The country's history consists of speeches,
sessions, congresses, meetings, departures, visits, prize-givings, jubilees,
anniversaries, plans, accountings, overcoming difficulties. Open any news
paper or journal, switch on the television or the radio. Always and
everywhere it is the same, moreover of an amazing monotony and all
predictable. Ordinary life is dispiritingly grey and eventless. It consists of
the repetition of the same primitive operations, and in part of the slow
movement up the service ladder, which slightly changes and colours the
daily routine. And the content of the philistine consciousness is quite
adequate to this life, it is just as depressed, grey and monotonous.
Sometimes sparks of protest flash in people's souls, and it seems that they
are about to break into flame. B ut the days and the months and the years
go by. The sparks go out by themselves or friends diligently stamp them
out , or neighbours, or colleagues, or bosses, or subordinates, or all
together. What is the use of sparks? It's quieter without them. Do your
job. Eat your food. Sleep. Give thanks to the government. Wait for things
to get better, and don't make a fuss, you won't change anything.
Under Communism everything is made difficult: eating, living, rec
reation, entertainment, getting ahead, thinking, speaking. One has to fight
for everything, by hook or by crook. People talk about temporary
difficulties. But the "temporariness" can last as long as you like because it
is a means of society's self-preservation, a means of unity and of
government. The individual who is bounded and enmeshed by difficulties is
suited to manipulation in mass situations. In this respect the possibilities
which the government has for the uncontrolled manipulation of the
popular mass and of material resources are really unlimited. The govern
ment , in fact , supports and cultivates this way of life, and the kind of
individual that suits it, with all the means at its disposal.
The prevalent tendency is a slide downwards. This is something stronger
than the "improvements" which I spoke of earlier. This doesn't mean that
life gets constantly worse every day (although it may well do) . At the very
least it means that, on that downward slide, endemic in the whole of
Communist life , those improvements that world-wide progress would
normally bring are swept aside. Under Communism people are always
aware of the threat of things getting worse. "If only things don't get
worse ," they say. "If only we can survive." This sort of mood is a
permanent feature of popular psychology: the mass lives in fear of things
getting worse - and expects them to do so.
Communist society does offer some guaranteed provision of the neces
sities of life and confidence in the future. So do all societies, including
those in the West. But the character and the level of the guarantees are
253
different: and so is the psychological type of confidence in the morrow. In
Communist society one has to fight for one's guaranteed security at each
and every level. The guaranteed minimum is so low that only people who
are unfitted for the all-against-all struggles of communality are forced to be
satisfied with it. B ut a higher standard of living requires the expenditure of
all one's physical and spiritual forces. Even at the highest levels everything
has to be paid for by a certain form of behaviour which itself engenders
boredom. Confidence in the morrow can perfectly well be the bedfellow of
continual fear of things getting worse and of catastrophic events. For
although the creative force of the powers-that-be is comparatively small ,
people know that its negative potential is vast.
The standard of living and general way of life depend on the policy of the
central government and on its intentions. People can actively improve their
position . but only within the framework of a general level of style oflife which
doesn't depend on them personally. Even the level and way of life of the
priviligentsia depends on the general state of affairs within the country. One
can get a partial idea of this by noticing what the high-ups can have in their
special shops. These days, for example , the ordinary shop in the West is far
better stocked than the relatively well-stocked special hidden retail outlets in
the Soviet Union. The tendency of society to take maniacal measures and the
ability of the government to follow them, the general tendency towards
grandiose unproductive expenditure, parasitism , adventurism , the setting up
of fictitious enterprises on paper, all these and other phenomena I have
described have one inescapable consequence: even in very good years a
Communist country can have an extremely low living standard and for years
on end the country as a whole may live on the edge of an economic
catastrophe . The shining example of this has been life in the Soviet Union
during the last decades. The population becomes aware that these are
permanent features of the system from its own personal experience, and they
become part of its own consciousness, its own psychology.

D I SCO NTENT

Co M M U N I S T S O C I ETY I S a society o f people who are discontented with their

position in life. People accept their own form of life under Communism
because it is their own product and the context in which they live. But they
are not content with what they accept. Everyone is discontented from the
small fry to the high and mighty, from bottom to top. Cleaning ladies are
discontented because the workers behave like swine, don't wipe the mud
off their feet and throw their empty bottles and cigarette stubs all over the
254
place . The leaders are discontented because agriculture refuses to reach a
new and higher level, despite their own wonderful directives to this end
and because critics appear who have doubts about their good intentions
and brilliance . The workers are discontented because of housing difficul
ties, the rising cost of goods, especially strong drink, shortages in the food
supply, the difficulties they encounter when they try to get their children
into higher education , queues and overcrowded public transport. In short,
life for the majority of the population is so arranged that there is always a
reason for discontent.
Moreover. even if there are no special reasons for discontent at a given
moment , citizens are used to doing each other a bad turn just for fun ,
without any reason at all. A state of tension, discontent, suspicion, ill-will
towards others and lack of generosity is the usual psychic condition of at
least a considerable part of the population and certainly of the most active
part of it. Amongst the causes of discontent the following are very real: the
discrepancy between the actual standard of living and the promised one;
between real life and life as it is portrayed in propaganda; internal
economic discrepancies and injustices; information about the high living
standards of the West; difficulties connected with work; the difficulty of
changing one's place of residence and in general of moving about the
country; the absence of civil right:;; the arbitrariness of local authorities;
the costly adventures of the top leadership in foreign policy.
I have already said enough about the manifestations and the results of
discontent in the Soviet Union in my book Without Illusions and I see no
special need to repeat it here. I will simply present a few general
considerations on the subject of discontent. It takes various forms: direct
and indirect, hidden and open, active and passive , legal and illegal. Broad
strata of the population proclaim their discontent with their work position
and with mass measures by discovering their own individual methods of
compensation , through cunning, drunkenness, and other means that form
part of their daily lives. Criticism of insufficiencies plays a substantial role
at the level of the commune (especially in Party organizations) , and in the
official press there are countless complaints to the various organs of power.
One may mention among the active forms of expression of discontent
those which come from the following categories of citizens: improvers,
reformers, oppositionists. The improvers want slight improvements in
living conditions in the country as a whole and large ones for themselves.
These improvers are a bulwark of the regime. Usually they come from the
priviligentsia, sometimes from the top leadership.
The reformers want real changes in the country, and also want to
preserve the regime. But they want the kind of changes that even the
improvers stand out against. For instance they talk about introducing a
tenancy-system in agriculture, if only around the big towns, and about
255
industrial self-management . In his time Khrushchev wanted to solve all the
country's difficulties by means of maize. The authorities themselves are
inclined towards reforms of this type but usually their wish is a vain one .
Usually all of it degenerates into idiocies or propaganda sound-effects.
The characteristic criticism brought by oppositionists concerns the
foundations of the social order and their manifestations in the lives of
people . The composition of the opposition is always heterogeneous and
inconstant. Individual members of the priviligentsia turn up in it: aca
demicians, professors and writers, and even a few Party officials and
generals, and from the lower orders there are workmen and students.
However, the opposition is mostly drawn from people in the middle and
lower ranks of officialdom, employed in the cultural , artistic or scientific
sectors. Sometimes oppositionists advance ideas about deep social trans
formations in the country, even to the point of advocating the removal of
Communism and the transformation of the country on the basis of a non
existent orthodoxy. But these ideas do not serve as a guide to action; they
have no success with the population and are more an object of scorn. The
most important thing about the opposition is the very fact that it exists. A
great part of it is formed by people who are trying to drag the country back
into the past. Such , for instance , are the religious sects, and it is only the
fact that they protest against the regime that is persecuting them that
makes them something of a positive phenomenon.
In spite of the fact that many people in the West talk and write a lot
about opposition in the Soviet Union, its role within the country is fairly
pitiful and futureless. The point is that the scale and fate of the opposition
depend on the conditions of life within the country and on the extent to
which it expresses the interests of this or that group; on the realism of its
aims; on the relationship of the population and of the authorities to it. If
we take account of these circumstances, we shall surely conclude that
conditions in Communist countries are extremely unfavourable to an
opposition. If the citizen tries to engage in oppositionist activity as a
member of a primary commune, he will encounter in the first instance the
pressure of the commune-collective itself. If he does not desist, he will be
expelled from it. It is very hard to live without regular wages or a regular
salary. Besides, the powers-that-be will immediately prosecute such a
citizen as a ' 'parasite" and force him to attach himself to some commune ,
but one in a worse place and with worse conditions. This will put an end to
his opposition. The population is disinclined to support oppositionists at
any cost to itself or to help them, because ordinary citizens simply do not
have the means to support them, and it is, moreover, not without risk. If
oppositionists unite in a group this is stopped by the authorities on legal
grounds. The means at the disposal of oppositionists to influence the
population are very limited, and the powers-that-be have the force and the
256
legal right to reduce them practically to nothing .
. But the most important reason for the weakness of an opposition within
Communist society is the social structure itself and a person's position in
society. It is practically impossible to originate a serious programme of
reform such as would hold the attention of broad strata of the population
deeply or for a sufficiently long period. People are condemned to fight for
their own individual livelihoods by their own methods, or through their
primary collectives. A whole historical epoch and huge sacrifices are
needed to solve the problems which cause opposition in Communist
society. That society is still at the beginning of its historic journey. B ut
people want improvements for themselves now or at least for their children
and not for remote posterity. The real needs of the majority of the
population are such that only the official powers-that-be can represent its
interests. These needs are the usual commodities of life : food, housing,
clothing, leisure, education , entertainment. The opposition is compelled to
divert attention to problems which affect separate groups of the population
and to the excesses of the regime. So the problem of democratic freedom
seems a vitally important question for only a tiny part of the population.
For the reasons we have shown the tendency to suppress discontent and
opposition is the prevalent one. The apparatus of repression can deal with
this task fairly easily because it has the support of the population itself, or if
not, the most it has to face is very weak opposition.
It does not follow from what has been said that one can eradicate the
opposition in this society once and for all. Once it has arisen the opposition
becomes a constant factor in social life. The birth of opposition is just as much
an inescapable consequence of the whole form of social life as is its repression.
It is a normal phenomenon in any large conglomerate of people. One can
calculate a priori all possible variants of the manifestations of discontent and
all the actions that the powers-that-be could take to cut it off. But for the time
being one has no grounds for hoping that the opposition will play a discernible
role in the country's social structure. For the time being the position is that the
population of a Communist country is on balance inclined to fight for its
unfreedom against those who wish to free it.

T H E S O U R C E S OF P R O G R E S S

C O M M U N I S T S O CI ETY CONTA I N S a strong tendency towards stagnation , but

it would be a big mistake to think that it is incapable of making any
progress. Here I do not have in mind any substantive changes in the social
structure and its principles, but an improvement in the living conditions of
257
certain groups of the population and of the country as a whole. The sources
of this improvement are scientific and technical progress, the general
growth of culture and the rationalization of communal activity, the organs
of government and different departments of the Communist system .
Moreover the functions of carrying out reform and ensuring progress
belong to the government. Here progress mainly comes not from below
(which is usually the source of stagnation) but from above. This is the case
because of the position . role and resources of government in Communist
society. Government does not merely take the functions of ensuring
progress into its own hands. It is forced to do so by the whole organization
and activity of the people. All significant reforms are carried out as
decisions of those at the top. The population and the communes are
conditioned to receive every improvement and deterioration as a gift from
above. The government fulfils its progressive function not out of a love of
progress nor from a wish to make humanity happier, but in accordance
with what is best for its self-preservation and the preservation of a stable ,
cohesive society.
The point is that in this society the government must provide some
improvement merely to preserve the status quo, otherwise society will start
to go downhill. That is why progress takes the form of compulsory reform
and orders from above. Besides the government has to overcome the
inertia and the opposition of the popular mass. This partly explains the
irritation of the authorities at oppositionists who criticize shortcomings and
demand quick reforms. The representatives of the ruling circles know by
experience that even a small step in the direction called for by the critics
needs effort and time, while most of the critics' demands are in practice not
realizable at all . or. if they were , would cause even greater shortcomings.
The position of the central government in society and its real possibilities
of initiating reform are such that , even if the government wished to bring
about the progress which people desire. nothing would come of it. For
instance . the abolition of the system of residence permits, (i . e . the
limitations on the choice of residence and the attachment of the citizen to
his place of residence), or the introduction of unlimited access to higher
educational establishments to all final-year students, or a decision not to
bind people to primary collectives, i . e . not force people to be members of
communes and other such "progressive'' measures, would lead to such
catastrophic consequences for society that the country would find itself in a
state of emergency. The Communist system is stable only on condition that
the limitations I have mentioned are religiously observed. All sorts of
experiments have been tried in the Soviet Union in order to improve this or
that aspect of the life of the country. But in the majority of cases they have
ended in failure, and only those reforms survived which helped to establish
the most natural state of affairs; and that is what exists now.
258
 T H E I RR E V E R S I B I LITY O F S O C I A L E V O L U T I O N

T H E R E A R E P E O P L E i n the world who hope that the Soviet Union and other
Communist countries will return to their pre-Communist state. These
hopes are vain. Communism is not a temporary historical zig-zag. It is an
epoch. It is not a political regime which can be discarded and replaced by
another while the country's social order is preserved. Communism itself is
a profound social order on which everything else is based . One can remove
and replace ' 'everything else'' , but not that which forms its basis.
Communism amounts to such a revolution in social organization that its
reversal via an evolutionary return journey is logically excluded. In reality
only two roads are possible. The first is the physical destruction of the
Communist bloc. One cannot confidently predict what would grow out of
its ruins. Most likely a society of the same kind but with even crueller
regimes. The second road is via the struggle for the blessings of civilization
on the basis of Communism itself. But this will require time and sacrifices.
The destiny of civilization depends on people's ability to make sacrifices
and to find the means of self-defence . Nothing is absolutely predeter
mined. Communism is only the beginning of a new cycle of history, not the
end of human suffering.
Communism, like any other type of society, brings with it its own forms
of inequality, injustice and the exploitation of some people by others. But
it also brings something much more serious: a "natural selection" of the
most adaptable individuals reinforced by a systematic ideological con
ditioning of the population. This system inevitably sets the socio-biological
evolution of mankind in a certain direction. Society produces the citizens
that suit it; i . e . people who are only able to live in society of the
Communist type and who in turn preserve the cohesion of that society in
their own way of life. Mankind's switch to Communism is not just a new
play in a theatre performed by the same old actors. The actors themselves
have changed and they will have to act out the old plays in a new style and
to invent new ones of their own.
Well, now, Homo sapiens, what happens from now on is up to you
alone! Show what you are good for, 0 Highest Form of Life!

259
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