CPSU: Ideology as a Simulacrum

Ideology as a Simulacrum – Reactions to the CPSU, and its totalitarian regime.

Abstract
The CPSU, or the Communist Party of the Soviet Union is often regarded as an ideological monolith. The words "commie", or even the academic labels of Communism and Marxism are afflicted on party members and the ideology in itself. Indeed, viewing the principles of the party as pure ideology and not systemic and institutional adjustments adhering closely to the party members' understanding of Marxism is a fundamental problem encountered in academic and political circles. This paper strives to put things into a more open, holistic light in terms of our understanding of how the CPSU functioned, and moreover, to dispel such schizoid extant notions of the party. Understanding the party in an ideological vacuum is often the norm for everything communist, and fingers are pointed at the USSR for spawning all that is evil in the form of Marxism in itself. Contemporary understanding of anybody confessing to be a communist or Marxist is severely tainted. For these purposes, this paper will shed some light on the changes in party functioning, ideology and moreover, its mutable nature wherein ideology was adjusted to suit party actions. Further, the paper argues that the party, at one point did exercise complete control over the stare. The paper also concludes with a short understanding of international reception to this phenomenon. The paper will begin with a brief history of the party in itself, which will then be subjected to analysis in the light of the paper's objectives. The paper will be divided into sections for comprehensive understanding.
Section I – Workers of the World, Unite
If one were to examine the publication entitled "A History of the CPSU" (published worldwide, even in the United States as the copyright of 1939 would indicate), one can examine that the document glorifies the CPSU almost unhealthily. Declarations of the evil behavior of the capitalist bourgeois class, citing evidence of the serfdom and post-serfdom eras of Russian Tsarist history run rife in the earlier chapters of the book. References to the continual "greatness" of Marx and Engels, along with the touting of almost all party heads with grandiloquent adjectives are yet another feature which may make the objective reader weary of its obvious biases. Yet, the extensive details of party history found in this document make it an unavoidable source if one were to study the history and trace it from Stalin onward.
The Russian empire was rapidly facing disintegration – economic and social, where the Tsarist regime had become extremely unpopular due to their lack of policymaking and complete standstill as concerned human rights violations, along with the lack of providence of basic necessities to the working class. The provisional government when the monarchy toppled was primarily comprised of two factions – The provisional government and the Petrograd Soviet. The Bolshevik and Menshevik were constituents of the Petrograd Soviet, whose power slowly grew as the Provisional government focused on issue areas which were extremely detrimental for the economy – the case in point being Russia's decision to continue providing military aid to its allies and going to war when infrastructure at home lay in tatters. Their neglect also made them extremely unpopular, and their unpopularity was quickly connected with their ideological leanings which were moderately liberal in nature. This was when Vladimir Lenin, the iconic founder of the CPSU came to the fore with his hard hitting philosophies, fiery speeches and an impenetrable faith in the Marxist framework of thinking which he thought could be molded easily to repair the state of affairs. It also helped that Lenin the individual overshadowed Lenin the Bolshevik – indeed, his strong revolutionary persona was what cemented the foundational pillars of the party. This tradition would continue with his successor, Stalin and would continue diminishing in power till Gorbachev – however, it was hardly due to their inferior capabilities as statesmen but rather the detrimental effects of monocratic control which were being realized by other party members and members of the state apparatus alike. The history of the revolution was short and bloody in its mannerisms – however, what it definitively succeeded in doing was establishing the supreme status of the Bolsheviks in the coming age – and moreover, when the Czar and his family were executed despite their abdication of the throne, it was clear who definitely held the reigns to the country.
The roots of the CPSU, with its heavy Bolshevik influences were ingrained due to this sheer negligence, and the regime was portrayed as the evil capitalist bourgeoisie, and not undeservedly. Imparting a socialist consciousness to the working class, and integrating it with Marxist philosophy was perhaps the only solution many revolutionaries saw at that point in time, for the working class was stifled to a degree that it needed to be its own voice rather than following some haphazard, and in some cases, non-existent channels wherein their problems could be solved. Economic stabilization in all areas was an area of prime importance, and is also often cited to be one of the reasons as to why economic policymaking and fluctuating party ideology was directly interlinked. However, this paper also believes that right up to the dissolution of the party with the fall of the Soviet Union, the idea of the "Party" reigned supreme. We will elaborate further on this as we go through the stages of party ideology and leadership.
There have, and continue to be myths regarding who actually ruled the Soviet Union for the uninformed outsider, and with good reason. The flow of documents regarding party functioning, official proceedings and other such was notoriously secretive in nature, and it is only with the turn of the century that many more documents have now come to light for the analyst's perusal. Secondly, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the topic does not necessarily receive the attention it once did due to its deviant mode of behavior in structural, institutional terms placed in the context of the superpower age of the Soviet Union. Hence, for many, as Chernov states,
"Outside of Russia, the Council of People's Commissars has been long considered as the real government of the Soviet state. Actually it occupies a very subordinate position." (Chernov, 1929)
If the state machinery was not dominant at that point, what was the dissemination of power like? Chernov mentions, and it is also evident from available literature that the Party was constructed on the ideals of Marxism-Leninism. What Lenin termed the "dictatorship of the proletariat" was what was of paramount importance to the party in itself. Hence, by dissecting what this dictatorship indicates, and by keeping in mind the hostile nature atmosphere that the Tsarist regime and the events later had created, we come to the context wherein the Workers of the World, regardless of the clarion call to justice were indeed very fragmented, disillusioned and fractured in their understanding of terminology which the party regularly doled out.
The first pretext to seizing complete power, and providing adequate justifications for it can be found in Lenin's 1918 declaration. Aside from deciding that the dictatorship of the proletariat would be the ultimate Utopian goal, the process of pragmatic realization dictated that there be some sort of explanation as to why the party was suited to lead the proletariat on such a path, and it was provided.
"The translation to socialism will inevitably be accompanied by the dictatorship of the proletariat; but the dictatorship of the proletariat through the organization of all proletarians is impossible, because not only in Russia, one of the most backward capitalistic countries, but in all other capitalistic countries as well, the proletariat is still so divided, so debased, and occasionally so corrupted, that the dictatorship cannot be effected through the organization of the proletariat as a whole. It can be brought about only by the small vanguard imbued with the revolutionary energy of its class. . . . It so happens, therefore, that the Party counts among its members the vanguard of the proletariat and that this vanguard brings into effect the dictatorship of the proletariat." (Lenin, cit.Chernov, 1929)
The words above, if not to be somewhat despised by their deviousness can serve as an admirable move of statecraft, wherein Lenin needed to consolidate power, while not appearing despotic and similar to the regime he himself had annihilated – and this was perhaps a masterstroke in that direction. The seeds for the party and its supremacy had been sown.
Lenin and Policymaking
Contrary to the unidimensional understanding of the Soviets, Lenin's economic policymaking was fairly liberal, and even allowed for profitmaking et al. The NEP (New Economic Plan) implemented by Lenin let the farmer's retain a part of their produce as surplus, and in turn garner profits. Margins were also kept in order for small scale businesses et al. to flourish and develop. In this line of thought, some Bolshevik members, still rigidly obeying the laws of communism lost their edge over Lenin's actions, even thinking of him as a deviant as members started leaving the ranks of the party. Conyngham, in his article "Party-State relations in the USSR", refers to the ironies of Lenin's rule, where the Bolshevik element was never fully atomized by Lenin as regarded economic policymaking – and to add, the party-state dichotomy still existed in terms of infrastructure. (Conyngham, 1970 pp.115) This was proved by the many clashes the State and party apparatuses had during policymaking decisions. It is fundamental to our understanding of the party, that we begin noting the totalitarian and absolute nature of the party with Stalin, and not Lenin – despite many a facile remark of the underhanded nature of both their methods, along with a strong individual cult. Although one could easily defend Lenin's true Marxist nature which necessitates a phase of capitalism before the Communist upheaval – the fact remains that pragmatically, his adherence to ideology was not completely sycophantic. Secondly, the fact that he needed much of the extant state apparatus, and if not that, the help of specialists in profession and over that – an educated mass, so that state machinery could be revamped also ensured that he did not erase the remnants of his past. Lenin's pragmatism in this matter is to be lauded, and also seemed favorable for the rise of other activities, like a flourishing environment for Art and other cultural products.
The foundations for the consolidation of power were definitively laid down by Lenin. Having realized that much of the local state machinery and power was entangled in the hands of the "soviet", which the Bolsheviks themselves had bolstered. To prevent this, the parallel structure of the Soviet Party emerged – something never seen before in a form so beguiling. The structure, as stated by Chernov succinctly was as follows-
"The supreme organ of the Soviet Union is the General Congress of Soviets, which elects the Central Executive Committee, which in turn elects from among its members the Praesidium, de facto the highest executive organ of the Union. The Communist Party pyramid is similarly constructed. The General Congress of the Party corresponds to the General Congress of Soviets; the Central Committee of the Party corresponds to the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets; and the Politbureau, which leads and dictates to the Party, corresponds to the Praesidium. Every grade of the Soviet structure has a similar parallelism in the Party structure." (Chernov, 1929 pp.242)
The twin pillars of Party and State seemed to be coming closer to amalgamation with Lenin's move. With more control given to the party members, and with state personnel increasingly losing power and being answerable in terms of power to their party counterparts, it became increasingly difficult for the decision making processes to go smoothly in the beginning of the transition. Lenin was also responsible for the creation and maintenance of the CHEKA, his secret police, which did not favor very well for his continued insistences on "collective leadership". Lenin's dictatorial image still remains in the accounts of many an individual, and the concentration of power in the hands of one would become absolute with his successor, Josef Stalin.
The Man of Steel and the Iron Maiden
After Lenin's sudden death in 1924, Stalin, a Georgian and earlier commissar of nationalities came to the fore – a period of four to five years was needed for him to win the title of Lenin's successor. Do note that Khrushchev would fight a similar battle after Stalin's death, underlining the individualistic nature of power in the party till that point. Josef Stalin succeeded in sidelining Leon Trotsky, one of Lenin's trusted lieutenants and leader of the Red Army - who was decidedly had the intellectual edge – eventually removing him, deporting him and later allegedly assassinating him in Mexico in 1940. Stalin also initiated The Purges in 1934, in order to rigidly follow a single minded plan of mastering heavy industry; moreover, eliminating any and all deviant "moderate right-wing" opposition. The mere suggestion of a shift of focus of economic policy to consumer goods or agriculture resulted in being branded a traitor, and the period was dominated by a terrified, volatile atmosphere as Stalin slowly constricted all outlets of power and disseminated them among what could only now be termed as Stalin's party – but the CPSU nevertheless.
Stalin's ideological innovations were few and far in between. Retaining the ideals of Marxism-Leninism, he was a man who brought about institutional change rather than a paradigmatic one. Conyngham's assertions here hold true – the monocratic bureaucracy that Stalin had created, where the party exercised a tight level of control over all state apparatuses, and further, over its local organs created an atmosphere of sycophancy, subservience, vested interests and corruption. The impractical and complete shift to heavy industry displayed the heavy burden Russia had to face – the enforced nature of which did not help in the slightest. As matters stood, the newer generation was still to be completely educated in the ways of technical skills and knowhow that is required in an economy of that sort, a stagnant environment developed. This red tape percolated to the lowest levels of management, and a stalemate was often the answer to many problems that the people themselves faced. As Conyngham asserts,
"As the structures of Soviet economic management became more differentiated, interdependent, and technically sophisticated, the efficiency of a highly centralized system of industrial management operating through direct central Party controls became increasingly suspect" (Conyngham, 1970 pp.116)
Managerial problems being the norm in this environment, Stalin's other definitive feature of executing economic policies was the initiation of the Five Year plans, which involved the state meeting the production criteria set down by Stalin and an economic planning commission, or the Gosplan. These targets for the first plan were unrealistic, and created heavy pressure on the state machinery in order to deliver perfectly. The second and third installments of the five year plans were also less than satisfactory with their performances – but Soviet Russia had been industrialized at the heavy expense of very poor growth rates of the consumer goods, housing and agriculture industries. The collectivization of farms was also Stalin's incentive – which was again met with fierce resistance from the peasants in themselves. The fact that agriculture was always a sector relegated to the sidelines seems to baffle some – however, one could also call this natural as no tenet of Marxism-Leninism, or Marxism wanted to focus on the peasant classes as the proletariat. (Marx himself termed them "lumpen", for better or worse) The industrial worker was who was important, and perhaps in was in this vein that Stalin chose to exercise his interpretation of an ideology- moreover, he came to embody a system of governance rather than a completely different paradigm within himself.
By eliminating all of his opposition and ensuring control through many totalitarian methods, Stalin's death would later create a power vacuum for his successors – Beria, Malenkov, Andropov and Khrushchev himself. The higher party organs by now had soaked themselves with power, and the Party was truly extra-constitutional. Any decisions made by the state apparatuses and lower party organs had to have Party clearance – Chernov brilliantly summarizes the Party's supremacy in this period and for more to continue –
"Nor will one be surprised by the fact that the order does not even mention what party: there are no other books, but only The Book; there are no other parties, but one and only one Party, because when a party becomes the essential brain and soul of the State machinery, there is no longer room for another, just as there is no room for two governments or two States within the same territory." (Chernov, 1929 pp.248)
The fact that many elite party members, in their numerous battles of elimination and subterfuge acted the way they did out of fear of other party members and not legal state infrastructure speaks volumes as to how much power they held. With the rise of Khrushchev, as Conyngham notes, the power may have slowly decentralized from the top into the lower organs. However, like a completely closed thermodynamic system of energy, all power flowed from, and back to the Party in itself. The decentralization of power, in fact, saw the increase of power in lower rungs which were gathering scores of volunteers by the day.
The Party in itself functioned as an Iron Maiden of sorts, wherein the members were all slaves to its changing ideological fluxes and systemic orientations. While some managed to successfully escape its clutches, a different sort of interpretation could rope them in – the ambit of Oligarchy and collective leadership was extremely vast in its scope with every regime change. This is most evident in Khrushchev's case, where the Party consciously sought to move away from a Stalin like regime, but for Khrushchev to exercise any of that level of control, he needed to establish some form of monocracy – regardless of whether it was a shadow of its former self or not. Even with Khrushchev beginning the processes of anti-Stalinization and moreover, liberalization with a renewed focus on agriculture and consumer goods, the ideological leanings of Stalin and the shadow of heavy industry still hung low over his head in the form of the aging retainers of power who thought his actions were completely antithetical to the ideologies he was supposed to follow. The Party exercised maximal control in this particular era like none other, from Stalin to Brezhnev, whereby the changes brought about from all subsequent regimes slowly brought complete control of state apparatuses under the Party's own. What was supposed to be the vanguard of the proletariat cleaving the capitalist dream in two had turned into a misshapen hydra, with no direction but its own to turn towards – the proletariat were quite forgotten in this battle for the ideological castle which was as elusive as the power it promised.
The Politburo, the Orgburo, the Central Committee and all their appendages soon exercised complete control over the one factor Russia was always striving to rectify – The Economy, via industry. As the discussion in the paper above suggests, ideology and economy seem to run hand in hand as far as regime changes are concerned, and "power", in terms of absolute power stems from the power to exercise influence over the economic decision making processes. As Marxism-Leninism was so firmly rooted in the ideals of economic governance, it is no surprise that the behemoth it created would soon try and desperately cling onto a blueprint it once possessed – forever rectifying deviant behavior of any sort.
International Standing
The CPSU's functioning was such that foreign policy lay in relative ruins as Russia struggled internally, through the maelstrom of economic and social hurdles. However, the seeds of Russia as the "other" had already been sown with their adoption of the Marxist ideals, fundamentally opposed to the Capitalist state system. The International Community has been institutionalized in several ways – the League of Nations, the UN, the NATO et al. are all institutions which represent some shared sense of the international community, with a set of norms which go beyond the national realm. The reactions of any and all states would naturally be in accordance to the paradigm that they wish to follow – and during the years documenting the rise of the CPSU, the international environment was also one of turmoil and volatility. The aftermath of the First World War, and Second World War, and the Cold war are the contexts this paper is referring to, and it is important to gauge the community's reactions in this light.
This paper believes that the functioning of the party was centered primarily on a simulation of an ideology which went amok – or rather, was suitably tailored to make it THE prototype for functioning. A strange mix of Marxist, Leninist and yet other ideas can be found in the way the Party functioned, right up to Gorbachev – and none of it can be matched with one particular template. The Party's failure to also realize the problems of its own power, or rather, an infinitum of it was something of a resilient lack of pragmatic judgement. The deadlocks in functioning created by trying to exercise control over all aspects of the state did not give the system a time to reflect on its own inconsistencies – generation after generation of economic planning, horrific purges and humanitarian violations later, the Party's lack of streamlined, effective decision making ultimately turned out to be its own undoing. However, there was a greater ideological problem which came to light in the eyes of the international community. When "Marxism" or "Communism" began to be associated with the ideals of tyranny, despotism, corruption, lack of opportunity, hopelessness and endless strife as was unluckily showcased by the Party – the international community became prone to, and is still haunted by that image of what implications it could have if one tried implementing a similar system. The complete lack of control over party power and other such also put the Soviet Union in a very unfavorable light as regarded democratic, secular nations. Soviet foreign policy, also hampered and confused due to internal power struggles and the party's obsessive need to maintain some simulacrum of the status quo was another blow to Russia's standing – while economically, Russia undoubtedly rose to power, the ethical roots of this power were under close scrutiny and suspicion. Russia's misplaced drive to imprint this ideology on its satellite nations also hampered its standing further – and it did not help that much of international discourse was dominated by none other than the United States of America, who would soon see itself as a staunch opposition to any and all Red Waves.
Hence, this paper illustrates how the party consolidated its power and came to completely dominate state apparatuses in this fashion – moreover, making certain comments on its perceived standing in the international system. Hopefully, there is some crystallized understanding of the system and its constraints, and moreover, the why of why we view Communism in so monolithic a manner shall perhaps be understood.
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Manav Kambli
Le201276359 Prof. Nisha Mathew