Stalin. Part 26: The Last Five Year Plan
The country and half of the world were preparing for the 70th anniversary of Stalin more than seriously. A special committee was created to prepare the celebrations. But the olfactory Stalin could not feel any pleasure from the excessive protrusion of his name. He, as always and in everything, tried to dose his cult as well, keeping it in the values necessary for the olfactory to survive in the flock without a natural leader.
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The country and half of the world were preparing for the 70th anniversary of Stalin more than seriously. A special committee was created to prepare the celebrations. The city streets were renamed Stalin's. Mountain peaks became Peaks and Faces of Stalin. Stamps with his image were issued, a collection of youthful poems by Soso Dzhugashvili was being prepared for publication. Boris Pasternak and Arseny Tarkovsky, among others, were involved in translating from Georgian. The last absurdity, which was being done in secret, like a surprise gift, was reported in a timely manner, and the publication was suspended.
Stalin did not allow Moscow University to take his name either. "Aren't you tired of this mustache?" - he wondered half in jest, examining the pedestal, ready for the installation of the monument. The olfactory Stalin could not feel any pleasure in the excessive protrusion of his name. He, as always and in everything, tried to dose his cult as well, keeping it in the values necessary for the olfactory to survive in a flock without a natural leader.
1. The whip and the cult of olfactory survival
Controlling a whip alone is impossible. We need some kind of "carrot". Relatively speaking, for the skin part of the flock - "gingerbread" in the form of an increase in social status (rank), for the anal - one in the form of reward for professionalism, others through a calming feeling of at least the final equality of all in the distribution of carrots and sticks (religion), muscle - balance between labor expended and saturation of basic needs. A pack, welded together by a single urethral-muscular mentality, needs to feel the magnetism of the recoil of the urethral leader. The olfactory "leader of peoples" did not possess this property. The lack of natural charm of the leader was replaced by the intensely promoted cult of personality.
In the name of Stalin, great deeds and monstrous atrocities were done. One can recall Lenin's "Letter to the Congress" and lament that the prophecies are never read on time. It is important to understand that prophecy (unlike olfactory providence) has nothing to do with survival. Prophesying from the future, as he sees it, the prophet deprives humanity of freedom of choice, deprives of destiny. That is why there are no prophets in their own country and in a foreign country, too. All prophecies have been read and conventionally understood only after the fact. The history of mankind lasts not at the will of the prophets, but in spite of it, by the power of olfactory providence, which alone is responsible for the survival of people, to which alone is given in sensation the only way between life and death - the history of mankind. On this road, there is neither evil nor good, there is only a result - the survival of man as a species.
But back to our hero of the day. Indifferent to thets of loyal subjects, he could be content with the gifts he made himself. On August 29, 1949, the RDS-1 object (a special jet engine, or Stalin's, aka an atomic bomb) was successfully tested in Kazakhstan [1]. On the "western front" the GDR and COMECON were entrenched as a counterbalance to the FRG and NATO, in the east things were going really well, a friendly PRC was formed. I could have been happy, but I was not happy: there was no balance of power in the world arena and was not foreseen. There was no "peace under the olives" and within the party.
The entry into the era of atomic weapons required an escalation of expenditures on armaments unthinkable for the post-war USSR. The threat of a new war put the country in front of the need for an endless heroic struggle for survival, which was unrealistic in the lengths of time. Heroism cannot last forever. Friction among the inner-party clans, or "cursed castes," as Stalin contemptuously called them, intensified.
2. All against all
Stalin knew that the United States, with its nuclear potential, would not be able to carry out an effective bombardment of the USSR along the entire length of its territory, and would not provide its air defense at the proper level. The third world war was not postponed, it just took a different form. In 1949, the US Security Council adopted a directive to support "friendly groups in enemy territory." Millions of "rotozeans" were fertile ground for this war. Millions of hidden and overt nationalists - a ready-made fifth column. Within the party, clans, welded together by traditional anal nepotism and skin bribery, posed a serious danger.
Stagnation (freezing) of the ruling elite is inevitable. The Soviet party nomenclature, created by Stalin for effective management and designed to serve the interests of the common cause, without constant rotation (in the Stalinist version, these were "purges") gradually solidified in the form of clan clusters, where the common goals of the state's survival were sacrificed to personal political ambitions and selfish benefits … Keeping the clans in balance, shuffling the deck this way and that, removing some and raising others, it became more and more difficult for Stalin due to the unrelenting military threat. The sound "ideologists" of Zhdanov's group were pushed aside by their olfactory rivals - the curators of the military industry Beria and Malenkov. The death of Zhdanov and the "Leningrad affair" inspired by Beria strengthened the preponderance of the Beria-Malenkov group, which united with each other only temporarily.based on general political pragmatism.
Stalin felt a strong threat from this group. The olfactory Beria, claiming power after Stalin, did not possess the properties necessary to preserve the country, his desire to survive at all costs worked only at the level of his clan. The "Mingrelian case" of bribery and nepotism was brewing against Beria. From Stalin's closest ally, "dear Lavrenty" became enemy number one. There was no one to transfer the power concentrated in one hand and "backed" by the cult of personality.
This was the answer of nothingness, where Stalin “fell through” during the standing ovation on his 70th birthday. In the government box of the Bolshoi Theater, next to the triumphant Mao and other communist leaders, the hero of the day looked strange, as if from another world. Slowly, like an automaton, he clapped his hands. His gaze, fixed on the hall, was stopped and somehow lifeless. The applause grew, it lasted five or even seven minutes! But Stalin did not change his expression or posture. Everyone was waiting for his response, some kind of gratitude for the congratulations, some kind words. But Stalin never came forward [2].
When he enters, they all stand up.
Some - in the service, others - from happiness. With a
movement of the palm from the wrist, He returns comfort to the evening.
I. Brodsky
3. Let's not let go …
One of Stalin's last public speeches was at the 19th Congress on October 5, 1952. The Secretary General's health deteriorated after the war. He lived almost without a break at the Blizhnyaya dacha in Kuntsevo, if necessary, he called his subordinates to him. At the congress he spoke as if by force. He spoke slowly, monotonously, patiently waiting for the applause and starting the interrupted sentence a little earlier than the place where the applause silenced him.
The speech is addressed more to the guests of the congress - the leaders of fraternal parties than to their closest associates. Stalin exposes Western liberalism, says that capitalist exploitation and economic terror nullify the vaunted Western liberalism. "Now the bourgeoisie is selling the rights and independence of the nation for dollars." However, the speech sounds rather formal. Stalin no longer needs congresses, his speech is frankly burdens him. The last phrase: "Down with the warmongers!" - sounds even crumpled, without any rise. It seemed that Stalin was dead tired.
Even the inner circle did not know what surprise Stalin had reserved for tomorrow's plenum, where not a decrepit nominal leader who had practically retired from business would appear before those present, but a sovereign, unpredictable and terrible Boss. When he does not go down, but almost runs down the steps to the podium, those present will begin to give a standing ovation. Stalin would cut off the applause with a contemptuous gesture: “Why did you flap? There are two issues on the agenda. Election of the Secretary General and the Election of the Politburo”. And without allowing himself to recover from the shock, he will continue without a piece of paper, from the heart, or rather, from the very olfactory gut. He will tell them the truth. That they are no good. That by their laxity and blatant behavior, they do not provide him and the country with the necessary degree of security for survival. He will remind them of what happens to those who are no good.
Here are the recollections of an eyewitness to that speech, K. Simonov:
“He spoke from beginning to end all the time sternly, without humor, no sheets of paper or paper lay in front of him on the pulpit, and during his speech he carefully, tenaciously and somehow heavily peered into the hall, as if trying to what these people sitting in front of him and behind him think. Both the tone of his speech, and the way he spoke, his eyes grasping at the hall - all this led all those sitting to some kind of numbness, I experienced a particle of this numbness on myself. The main thing in his speech boiled down to the fact (if not textually, then along the way) that he is old, the time is approaching when others will have to continue doing what he did, that the situation in the world is difficult and the struggle against the capitalist camp will be difficult and that the most dangerous thing in this struggle is to falter, to be frightened, to retreat, to surrender. This was the most important thing that he wanted not just to say,and to introduce into those present, which, in turn, was associated with the theme of their own old age and the possible departure from life.
All this was said harshly, and in some places more than harsh, almost ferocious "[3].
Simonov did not know that by this time Stalin's right hand had already refused to obey him. It was difficult to write. Only short notes from that time have survived, according to which graphologists determined a person's handwriting after a stroke, when the writing hand has to be supported with the other hand. Despite his illness, Stalin looked vigorous and extremely focused. Having frightened to the limit his inner circle with the public sacrifice of Molotov and Mikoyan, Stalin said that due to health reasons and age he could no longer fulfill the duties of general secretary: "We are old people, we will take a nap, it is time to think to whom we will transfer the case."
Those sitting in the hall felt an unaccountable horror. Who are these old people? Molotov is 62, Mikoyan is 57, but Beria is not a boy either - 53, Khrushchev is 58. Stalin's probing gaze seemed to pierce right through. At first timidly, then loudly protesting shouts sounded: "We will not let go!" Stalin foresaw this and, having retained the powers of the general secretary, appointed 50-year-old Malenkov as his temporary "backup." Other roles were also assigned. Beria, Bulganin, Khrushchev remained in business. Until. Anyone who knew Koba in any way knew that a great purge was coming. Molotov, Mikoyan, who's next? No one could know this, except for the insidious Koba, who, as it turned out, is strong, cheerful and again ready for reprisal.
The need to shake up the ruling elite again, to bring new people into power was obvious to Stalin. Such people, according to Stalin, were the young Yuri Zhdanov, Dmitry Shepilov, Panteleimon Ponomarenko, Leonid Brezhnev. It was them that Stalin had in mind when he spoke of the transfer of affairs. It was not destined to realize the plan - there was not enough life. Stalin's intentions were realized with a delay of ten years, when the stagnation of the elite was already irreversible. It reached critical values by the 90s and led to the tragedy of the people and the state.
Continue reading.
Other parts:
Stalin. Part 1: Olfactory Providence over Holy Russia
Stalin. Part 2: Furious Koba
Stalin. Part 3: Unity of opposites
Stalin. Part 4: From Permafrost to April Theses
Stalin. Part 5: How Koba became Stalin
Stalin. Part 6: Deputy. on emergency matters
Stalin. Part 7: Ranking or the Best Disaster Cure
Stalin. Part 8: Time to Collect Stones
Stalin. Part 9: USSR and Lenin's testament
Stalin. Part 10: Die for the Future or Live Now
Stalin. Part 11: Leaderless
Stalin. Part 12: We and They
Stalin. Part 13: From plow and torch to tractors and collective farms
Stalin. Part 14: Soviet Elite Mass Culture
Stalin. Part 15: The last decade before the war. Death of Hope
Stalin. Part 16: The last decade before the war. Underground temple
Stalin. Part 17: Beloved Leader of the Soviet People
Stalin. Part 18: On the eve of the invasion
Stalin. Part 19: War
Stalin. Part 20: By Martial Law
Stalin. Part 21: Stalingrad. Kill the German!
Stalin. Part 22: Political Race. Tehran-Yalta
Stalin. Part 23: Berlin is taken. What's next?
Stalin. Part 24: Under the Seal of Silence
Stalin. Part 25: After the War
Stalin. Part 27: Be part of the whole
[1] It is interesting that the Americans, who did not know the name of the RDS and its decoding, called our bomb "Joe". “Uncle Joe” never forgot “Uncle Sam”, and although his “Christmas cards” were often late (distances!), They always reached the addressee.
[2] According to the memoirs of DT Shepilov, who "and Shepilov, who joined them."
[3] K. Simonov. Through the eyes of a man of my generation.
