"It's hard to beat her"

Victor Pelevin wrote a new book - "Secret Views of the Year of Fuji". I read everything that Viktor Pelevin publishes, because I include him, like Vladimir Sorokin, among the best writers of my contemporaries who write about modern Russia.

But even for Pelevin, the last book is an undoubted success. And it's not that it retains all the attractive features of Pelevin's work: language, style of presentation, deep generalizations. What is worth, for example, Pelevin's assessment of those "disputes" that fill the screens of all television channels. He writes that in telespores “there is no element of actual debate, that is, finding out the truth, - they become just a way to offer themselves to the information market ... demonstrating their service potential to potential employers. They have no other content. And how lonely among these smart, subtle, beautifully speaking, immaculately dressed sellers of the soul! Alas, the soul in our century is no longer bought. At best, it will be rented by the hour.” Pelevin has a lot of such generalizations.

True, I must honestly warn readers that Pelevin's new book is not easy to master. It is felt that not only the heroes of the book, but also the author himself are very tense by parting with the truths of Buddhism that they once acquired and their individualistic principles.

Writer and modernity

I have long been waiting for large, large-scale works of literary masters, in which there would be reflections on the great changes that our country and its peoples went through in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

I have long come to the conclusion that, firstly, it is the writers who give the true understanding of the era. And secondly, they do it only after at least a decade.

Thus, the best book about the civil war of the XIX century North and South in the United States - "Gone with the Wind" - appeared only at the beginning of the XX century. And the best books about the 1917 revolution in Russia - Quiet Flows the Don, Doctor Zhivago, Going Through the Torments - appeared years after the events described in them.

And now I was patiently waiting for the writers to start writing serious works about the Great Anti-Socialist Revolution of 1989-1991, about Yeltsin's attempts to look for ways out of Soviet socialism.

And here is Pelevin's book. Behind a competent analysis of the subtleties of Buddhist ideology, behind excessive attention to the erotic side of life (apparently to please those who are called the general reader), the writer attempts to begin an analysis of the fundamental problems of the era of Russia's exit from socialism.

In general, the main problem can be formulated as follows.

Why, having freed itself from the shackles and dogmas of state-bureaucratic socialism, did our country not join the ranks of the first states of the era in terms of the level of economic efficiency and the standard of living of the population?

Why do we - as it was under the tsar in the 19th century, and in the 20th century under the communists - remain in the 21st century in the role of "catching up"?

Why did the people, who found the strength to abandon the most important, original foundations of their existence and crushed the seemingly eternal, incredibly powerful strongholds of the old system, at the same time could not replace the rejected with a new model of life that would be really effective in an economy free in political life, with all the social conditions for the development of the human Personality?

Why did the huge surge of popular enthusiasm and spiritual upsurge during the years of the revolution of 1989-1991 not become as powerful as the upsurge after 1917? How did it happen that this popular enthusiasm was nipped in the bud and practically suffocated?

Why in the people's consciousness and subconsciousness, which are the only basis for fundamental changes, the problem of what kind of future is needed was replaced by a passive, dependent expectation of something from someone, but not from one's own efforts?

Why was the dream of creating something completely new on the ruins of socialism replaced by the primitive idea of ​​catching up with someone, equaling someone, fitting in with someone?

Apparently, because the denial of bureaucratic socialism in the popular mind could not ignore the fact that Soviet socialism included not only bureaucratic fetters and restrictions, but also some kind of bonds, some kind of support, albeit unsuccessfully made, but obviously necessary for modern society. The denial of the Soviet model in 1989 did not become as long and powerful as the denial of the feudal past of Russia in 1917, apparently because Soviet socialism created separate blocks in the country, and even entire structures that the people needed for their life in the 20th century.

What was needed was not an elementary denial of the past, not only the renaming of streets and rehabilitation, but a denial along the dialectical triad of the great Hegel. "The negation of the negation". What the best Chinese communists are trying to realize in the light of the thousand-year experience of their civilization.

The historical weakness of the popular masses allowed the bloc of reform-minded bureaucracy and emerging business that became the head of the new Russia to dampen the popular enthusiasm for the revolution of 1989-1991.

Pelevin takes from the whole mass of problems one, but an important one. He does not analyze the intelligentsia. Does not consider bureaucracy and nomenklatura. He also has no foreign policy. Pelevin took only one problem of our recent past - the problem of Russian business, or rather, the upper layer of this business. The one that is called monopoly and oligarchic.

Pelevin is very logical. After all, it was precisely the top of the emerging business that was to become one of the main driving forces for the creation of a new society. After all, one could not expect leadership in the creation of a new system from the decomposed Soviet bureaucrats and the intelligentsia, which has been settling down for decades at the state trough.

Both me and any thinking contemporary are keenly interested in such questions. Why, like a hundred years ago, in 1917, big Russian business was unable not only to lead the transformation of Russia, but even to make a significant contribution to these transformations? Why did the smart, thinking and responsible part of the top of the Russian business find itself somewhere in the backyard of history, or, using the bright image of Pelevin, settled on yachts in the oceans far from Russia?

Pelevin does not take those uneducated oligarchs who hire a plane and take a squadron of beauties to Courchevel. He does not even consider those nimble oligarchs who are rushing into the offices of the Kremlin and the White House in order to cover up power with tinsel, in the words of Chatsky from Woe from Wit, "reason poverty." Pelevin is also not interested in fans of auto racing, sports competitions, or art collectors. There are many among the top business. But, Pelevin correctly believes, something serious cannot be expected from them.

Pelevin takes those owners of billions who have realized the meaninglessness of both their success and their very existence.

Pelevin takes three. Takes a typical alignment for Russia. One Russian, one Jew, one Muslim. They are connected not by a common business, but by a common ideological position: why and for what now, having made millions, to live?

Pelevin in an artistic, most convincing form gives his answers to this question.

Dead end of honest oligarchs

All three heroes of Pelevin are at the top of wealth and at the bottom of a deep crisis.

Although the third, Fedor, did not reach the level of a billionaire, he almost became one. All three have a symbol of Russian wealth - luxury yachts. All three have women and drugs.

All three are away from the Russian authorities, from the Russian nomenklatura. Again, it is not clear: did they “go” to “government”? But neither the offices of the White House nor the corridors of the Kremlin are of interest to them. Why is not clear, but it is a fact. And here is a dead end for them.

They are looking for a way out in the ancient philosophies of Buddhism.

This is a very characteristic phenomenon of the late XX - early XXI century. For the main part of the 20th century, mankind saw the meaning in organization, structure, collectivity. In organizing a society for the elite. For the chosen class - the proletarians - in the communism of Marx and Lenin. For the chosen nation of Aryans - in National Socialism. Yes, and capitalism plunged into the collectivism of the conveyors of Ford or Bathy, into the state regulators of Roosevelt and the European Social Democrats.

All these models of collectivism hated both the Personality and its Freedom. I remember my student days. In order to move on to a bright future - communism - it was necessary to destroy everything that required an independent and active Personality. To overcome the differences between town and country and to abolish the independent peasantry as a class. Overcome the differences between physical and mental labor and destroy any intelligentsia.

But the scientific and technological revolution of the late twentieth century began to drastically reduce the proportion of workers among the population. She demanded creative people. As a result, Personalities were required. There was a basis for the revival of a new Individualism.

But the centuries-old ideology of individualism, which included Fichte's "Clear as the sun message ...", Stirner's "The Only One" or the teachings of Zarathustra Nietzsche, did not correspond to the realities of the twentieth century.

But in Eastern ideologies, primarily in Buddhism, there was more material for finding answers to the question of what a Personality should do when left alone with God. Pelevin just writes about the attempts of the Personality to find himself on the platform of Individualism. He, demonstrating deep knowledge of Buddhist wisdom, nevertheless admits that his heroes remain at an impasse. The general problem of all individualist philosophers is "if I am the only one, then why should I live?" - even the janas of Buddhism do not decide. Pelevin leads us to the conclusion that behind the personal crisis of the three Russian oligarchs are the most important crises of the era of globalism of the twentieth century.

But in Pelevin's book, in parallel with the crisis of billionaires, the crisis of an ordinary person from the people in modern civilization, Tanya, is unfolding. And she, unlike the oligarchs, finds a way out. She agrees that it is necessary to change the foundation itself, the entire Civilization.

The essence of the changes is the rejection of the domination of men (patriarchy) and a return to what humanity has lived for tens of thousands of years - to the civilization of matriarchy.

Unfortunately, Pelevin, outlining the convincing advantages of matriarchy over patriarchy (for example, the elimination of the need for women to "get" a man and follow the "fashion" for this), bypasses the main problem of matriarchy, and all models of utopian socialism, all "balanced" societies. If an idyll is achieved, then why develop? Crises, the most terrible, but related to development, in a just society will be replaced by a crisis of suspension, a crisis of stagnation. Development crises are replaced by a halt crisis.

And yet, Fedor, one of the three heroes of Pelevin's book, is more inclined towards what the Man from the People, Tanya, came to.

In this readiness to abandon all modern civilization, the great sparks of the global Russian experiment of 1917 were preserved. Characteristically, both Tanya and Boris, according to Pelevin, are Russians. In this readiness to go, in the words of Mayakovsky, "until the days of the last bottom", in the readiness to look for a New Civilization, in the readiness to "give the helm" of human development to women, is one of the merits of Pelevin's analysis.

Looking for a way out

The undoubted merit of Pelevin is that he is an optimist. He believes that there is a way out of this situation.

First, you need to stop digging into yourself. Stop looking for a way out only for yourself and personally for yourself. Fedor abandons his "self-immersions" and goes to his Tanyusha. This seemingly purely personal step means a lot. It means the end of throwing in your "I" and the transition to actions in the sphere of "we". Tanya is already the end of "I", this is already "we". Tanya is the people.

Secondly. Pelevin believes, like Fedor, that in the people one should look not for what he has in the past, but for something new, to which the best people from the people are moving. It is in the new Tanya that there is only a prospect for Fedor. This will save Fedor, and the best part of the business, and the best part of the intelligentsia.

And what has Tanya now become and, again, in general, the best part of the people?

The answer to this question is the third conclusion of Pelevin's book. He believes that the people are approaching a global, super-radical conclusion.

It is necessary to change not some parts of the modern structure of civilization, but this civilization itself. And Pelevin finds an exceptionally capacious formulation of the way out: we must return to the era of matriarchy.

Marx and Engels wrote that the rejection of the civilization of property would be something super grandiose. They have a formula for the transition of Mankind from its Prehistory to History.

Many scientists, writers, science fiction writers have written about various features of the New Civilization in the last century. Suffice it to recall the works of Bestuzhev-Lada. On the developments of the Club of Rome. About how Ivan Efremov and the Strugatsky brothers saw the future.

I wrote about it too. My recently published book Reflections on the Future brings together my writings from the past two decades. Here are some of their titles: "The Great Alternative of the 21st Century", "On the Civilization of the 21st Century", "On the Way to the Future", "The Problem of the Russian Elite".

About thirty-five years ago, extensive material for the analysis of state-bureaucratic socialism was accumulated both in scientific and journalistic literature. But it was Alexander Beck's work of fiction The New Appointment that allowed me to review it, and the term "administrative command system" almost immediately became accepted. And now, Victor Pelevin's term "matriarchy" can become the start of an overdue detailed discussion about the New Civilization.

Victor Pelevin considers the key to the transformation of women into the leading force of society. I would agree with this if matriarchy included efforts to develop science and technology. The problem of concentrating scientific and technological progress on the general task of humanity on Earth - the task of preserving in the Universe a spark of that Mind that will appear on our Earth in the endless worlds of dead matter.

The transition to such a New Civilization will solve the whole knot of the problems of modern mankind: the preservation of the environment; bridge the gap between the "golden billion" of the planet and its vast majority; eliminating inequalities in developed countries; the "stupefaction" of the youth; growth in the proportion of "gray-haired"; "dispossession" of financial capital and its expulsion from the layer of "leaders" of civilization; the need for a Civilization in which the main decisions are made not by representatives of the "majority" elected for five years, but by the best people of the intellectual elite of mankind.

Today, for the best minds, it is becoming more and more obvious that even the full implementation of the idea of ​​“living well” will make only primitive, limited people happy - plankton: entertainment plankton, office plankton, sports plankton, “near-creative” plankton, “near-scientific” plankton, factory plankton and farms.

Victor Pelevin's trip to Fuji was useful and fruitful. He came to the correct, in my opinion, conclusion that it is necessary to change the very foundation of modern civilization. A global revision of all its postulates is needed. Refusal to focus on one's "I", from the consumer society.

Pelevin correctly believes that only the synthesis of the popular, collective ideology of Tanya and the highest forms of Fedor's individualism promises prospects. Only the unification of the best that the socialist, collectivist ideology and the anarchist, existential ideologies of individualism gave, promises the formation of a platform that will help humanity “swim”, like Homer’s Odyssey, between Scylla and Charybdis of the 21st century. In the "foggy distance" loomed the prospect of a civilization that would combine both the New Collectivism and the New Individualism. New Organization and New Free Personality.

Very simply, the people need land and freedom.

The people cannot live without land, and without land it is impossible to leave them, because it is their own, blood. The land does not belong to anyone, as to the people. Who occupied the land that is called Russia? Who cultivated it, who for centuries won it back and defended it against all enemies? The people, no other than the people. From time immemorial, the people actually owned the land, in fact shed blood and sweat for the land, and the clerks signed this land on paper with ink to the landowners and to the royal treasury. Together with the land, the people themselves were taken into captivity and they wanted to assure that this is the law, this is the divine truth. However, no one was convinced. They flogged the people with whips, shot them with bullets, sent them to penal servitude so that the people would obey the decreed law. The people were silent, but they did not believe. And out of a wrong deed, a right deed did not come out. Oppression only ruined the people and the state. Now they saw for themselves that it was impossible to live as before. We thought about fixing the issue. For four years they wrote and rewrote their papers. Finally, they decided the matter and declared freedom to the people. Generals and officials were sent everywhere to read the manifesto and serve prayers in churches. Pray, they say, to God for the king, and for his will, and for your future happiness. The people believed, rejoiced and began to pray. However, as soon as the generals and officials conceived to interpret the "Regulations" to the people, it turns out that the will was given only in words, and not in deeds. What is in the new "Regulations"), the former mandative laws, only on a different paper, in other words, are rewritten. You should serve the landowner as before; if you want to get your land and a hut, redeem them with your own money. where the landowner will flog through the "bosses", where the court will do the authorities, where everything is mixed up so that if in these royal "Regulations" there were some kind of preferential grain for the people, then it would be impossible to use it. And the state peasants, as before, were left with their bitter fate, and the same officials were left to own the land and the people, but if you want to be free, redeem your land. The people listen to what the generals and officials are explaining to them about the will, and they cannot understand what kind of will it is without land under the rods of landlords and bureaucrats. The people do not want to believe that they have been so dishonestly deceived. It can’t be, he says, that the tsar for 4 years caressed us with freedom with his word, and now in reality he would give us the same corvee and dues, the same rods and beatings. Well, who did not believe, but kept silent; and those who did not believe and began to grieve about the unfulfilled will, they came to reason with whips, bayonets and bullets. And innocent blood poured across Rus'. Instead of prayers for the tsar... groans of martyrs falling under whips and bullets and exhausted under glands along the Siberian road. So, again, with whips and hard labor they want to make the people believe that the new order law is divine truth. Yes, even the king and nobles mock, They say that in two years there will be freedom. where will she get the will from? They will cut the land, but for the cut down they will make you pay exorbitant prices, but they will give the people under the authority of officials, so that in addition to these triple money they will squeeze out another three times by robbery; and almost someone will not let himself be robbed, so again whip and hard labor. They will do nothing, not like in two years, but they will never do anything for the people, because their benefit is the slavery of the people, and not freedom. And why is it such a misfortune for the people that they live, live, work, work "But he can't live up to the truth, and they always trade in the people? How from where? Why did Judas sell Christ? For the sake of greed. The same greed makes tsars, and landowners, and officials trade in people's land, people's blood and deceive the people so that they have Excessive luxury for all, people live in poverty, captivity, ignorance. Land from the people Unsubscribed to themselves. Everything that the people work out - give to the palace, and to the treasury, and to the nobles; "Freedom has been taken away. Don't you dare take a step without the OFFICIAL's permission, without a passport or a ticket, and pay for everything. The people weren't taught anything. The money that is collected for public education is squandered on the royal stables and kennels, on OFFICIALS and unnecessary JJOYSKO, which would shoot by the people .. No! its dishonorable and criminal. Isn't trading land and the will of the people the same as Judas trading Christ? No, the cause of the people must be decided without bargaining, in conscience and truth. The decision should be simple, frank, understandable to everyone; so that the words of the decision, once uttered, could not be interpreted by either the tsar or the landlords and officials. So that for the sake of stupid, stupid, treacherous words, innocent blood is not shed. What do the people need? Land, freedom, education. In order for the people to actually receive them, it is necessary:

1) To announce that all peasants are free with the land they now own. Those who do not have land, for example, the yards and some factory workers, will be given plots from state lands, that is, people's lands, which have not yet been occupied by anyone. Which of the landowner peasants does not have enough land, cut off the land from the landlords or give land for settlement, so that not a single peasant is left without a sufficient amount of land. The peasants shall own the land jointly, i.e., by the communities. And when in a community too many people are born, so that it becomes crowded, give that community for the peasants how much land is needed for a settlement from empty convenient lands. In a thousand years, the Russian people have settled and conquered so many lands that it will be enough for them for many centuries. Know be fruitful, but there can be no refusal in the land.

2) As all the people will own the common people's land, so, therefore, all the people will pay for the use of this land and taxes for the general people's needs in the common state (people's) treasury. For this purpose, the peasants liberated with land shall be subject to the same tax as the state peasants are now paying, but no more. Give tribute to the peasants together, for mutual guarantee; so that the peasants of each community are responsible for each other.

3) Although the landowners have owned the land wrong for three hundred years, the people, however, do not want to offend THEM. Let the Treasury give them annually as an allowance or remuneration, as much as they need, at least about sixty million a year, from the general state taxes. If only the people were left with all the land that they now plow for themselves, on which they live, from which they feed and heat themselves, from which they feed and water their cattle, but only if taxes were not increased in any case, otherwise the people would count the remuneration to the landowners I agree from the submissions. And how many of the money calculated for THIS from taxes comes to, the landlords themselves among themselves in the provinces can agree. The people don't care, as long as they don't raise taxes. According to the latest revision, there are only 11,024,108 souls of landlord peasants. If they impose the same tax with the State. peasants, i.e., seven rubles per soul a year, then, counting from these seven rubles, about 1 p. 60 k. silver, which the landowning peasants now pay to the treasury (by head and various duties), will then remain about 5 r. from each soul. 40 kopecks in silver, and from all the landlord peasants in Russia about sixty million rubles in silver. This means that there is something to help and reward the landowners; more than this they are ashamed to wish, and should not be given.

4) If, with such a tax, up to the full sixty millions going to the landowners, which is not enough, then all the same, no extra taxes need to be demanded to cover the shortfall. And you should reduce the cost of the army. The Russian people LIVE in peace with all their neighbors and want to live in peace with them, so they don't need the OrpOM army, which only the tsar amuses and shoots at the peasants. Therefore, the army should be reduced by half. Now one hundred and twenty millions are being spent on the army and the fleet, and all to no avail. They collect a lot of money from the people for the army, but little comes to the soldier. Of the one hundred and twenty millions, forty millions go to military officials alone (to the military administration), who, moreover, themselves notably plunder the treasury. How to reduce the army by half, and even reduce military officials in particular, so the soldiers will be better off, and there will be a large surplus from spending on the army, forty millions of silver. With such a surplus, no matter how great the remuneration to the landowners, there will be something to pay. Taxes will not increase, but they will be distributed more reasonably. The same money that the people are now paying for an extra army, so that the tsar shoots at the people with that army, will go not to death, but to the life of the people, so that the people can calmly go free with their land.

5) And the tsarist government's own expenses must be reduced. Instead of building stables and kennels for the tsar, it would be better to build good, expensive, handicraft, agricultural, and all kinds of schools and institutions suitable for the people. Moreover, it goes without saying that the tsar and the tsar's family have nothing to uselessly appropriate for themselves the appanage and factory peasants and the INCOME from them; it is necessary that the peasantry be one and pay the same tax, and from the tax they will count how much can be paid for management.

6) Rid the people of officials. For this it is necessary that the peasants, both in the communes and in the volosts, should govern themselves, by their elected representatives. Rural and volost foremen would be determined by their choice and dismissed by their own court. They would sue each other by their own arbitration court or in peace. The rural and volost police would be supervised by their own elected people. And, so that in all this, as well as in who is engaged in what kind of work or trade and fishing, from now on not a single landowner or official would interfere, if only the peasants would pay their tribute on time. And for this, as said, mutual responsibility is responsible. For the sake of ease of mutual responsibility, the peasants of each community will make a pool among themselves, that is, they will constitute worldly capital. If trouble happens to anyone, the world will lend him out of this capital and will not let him perish; if someone is late with a tax - the world will bring a tax for him on time, give him time to recover. Whether it was necessary for the whole community to build a mill or shop or buy a car, social capital will help them to manage the common good. Social capital will also help the rural economy, and it will also save it from officials, since if taxes are paid properly, not a single official can oppress anyone. This is where it is important that everyone stand for one. If you hurt one, they will hurt everyone. It goes without saying that it is not necessary for an official to touch this capital with his finger; but those to whom the world entrusts it, they will give an account of it to the world.

7) And in order for the people to receive land and freedom, he would preserve them for eternity; so that the tsar would not arbitrarily impose heavy taxes and duties on the people, would not keep extra troops and extra officials who would crush the people with the people's money; in order for the tsar to not be able to squander the people's money for feasts, but to spend it conscientiously on the people's needs and education, it is necessary that taxes and duties be determined and distributed among themselves by the people themselves through their elected ones. In each parish, elected

z:\CorvDoc\tutorial245\New Folder\doc.htm - 0#0

z:\CorvDoc\tutorial245\New Folder\doc.htm - 0#0

z:\CorvDoc\tutorial245\New Folder\doc.htm - 0#0

z:\CorvDoc\tutorial245\New Folder\doc.htm - 0#0

z:\CorvDoc\tutorial245\New Folder\doc.htm - 0#0

z:\CorvDoc\tutorial245\New Folder\doc.htm - 0#0

z:\CorvDoc\tutorial245\New Folder\doc.htm - 0#0

z:\CorvDoc\tutorial245\New Folder\doc.htm - 0#0

z:\CorvDoc\tutorial245\New Folder\doc.htm - 0#0

Chernyshevsky was sentenced to seven years of hard labor and an eternal settlement. May this immeasurable villainy be cursed on the government, on society, on the vile, bribe journalism that incited this persecution, fanned it out of personalities. She taught the government to kill prisoners of war in Poland, and in Russia to approve the maxims of the wild ignoramuses of the Senate and the gray-haired villains of the State Council ... And here miserable people, people-grass, people-slugs say that this gang of robbers and scoundrels should not be scolded, who governs us!

"Invalid" 128 recently asked where new Russia, for which Garibaldi drank. It can be seen that she is not all “beyond the Dnieper”, when the victim falls after the victim ... How can one reconcile wild executions, wild punishments of the government and confidence in the serene peace of his hacks? Or what does the editor of Invalid think about a government that, without any danger, without any reason, shoots young officers, sends Mikhailov, Obruchev, Martyanov, Krasovsky, Trouvelier, 129 twenty others, and finally Chernyshevsky, into hard labor.

And this reign we welcomed ten years ago!

P.S. These lines were written when we read the following in a letter from an eyewitness to the execution: “Chernyshevsky has changed a lot, his pale face is swollen and bears traces of scorbut. They put him on his knees, broke his sword and put him up for a quarter of an hour at the pillory. Some girl threw a wreath into Chernyshevsky's carriage - she was arrested. The famous writer P. Yakushkin shouted "goodbye!" and was arrested. Exiling Mikhailov and Obruchev, they made an exhibition at 4 o'clock in the morning, now - in broad daylight! .. "

Congratulations to all the various Katkovs - they triumphed over this enemy! Well, is it easy for them?

Chernyshevsky was put up by you for a quarter of an hour * 18 - and you, and Russia, will remain tied to him for how many years?

Damn you, damn it - and, if possible, revenge!

Herzen A.I. Sobr. op. At 30 t.

M, 1959. T.18.S.221-222.

to the begining

N.P. Ogarev

(1813-1877)

What do the people need?130

Very simply, the people need land and freedom.

The people cannot live without land, and without land it is impossible to leave them, because it is their own, blood. The earth belongs to no one else like a people. Who occupied the land that is called Russia? who cultivated it, who for centuries won it back and defended it against all enemies? The people, no other than the people. How many people died in the wars, you can’t count that! In the last fifty years alone, far more than a million peasants have died just to defend the people's land. Napoleon came in 1812, he was kicked out, but not for nothing: too eight hundred thousand of his people were put to death. Now the Anglo-French were coming to the Crimea; and here too fifty thousand people were killed or died of wounds. And besides these two big wars, how many people were killed in other small wars in the same fifty years? What is all this for? The kings themselves told the people: “in order to defend your land." Do not defend the people of the Russian land, there would be no Russian kingdom, there would be no tsars and landowners.

And it always has been. As soon as some enemy comes to us, they shout to the people: give soldiers, give money, arm yourself, defend your native land! The people defended. And now both the tsar and the landowners seem to have forgotten that the people shed sweat and blood for a thousand years in order to work out and defend their land, and they say to the people: “buy, they say, more of this land, for money.” No! this is iscaria. If you trade land, then trade it with the one who got it. And if the tsars and landowners do not want to own the land together, inseparably with the people, then let them They they buy land, not the people, for the land is not theirs, but the people's, and it came to the people not from tsars and landowners, but from grandfathers who settled it at a time when there was still no mention of landowners and tsars.

People, from time immemorial, In fact owned the land In fact poured for the earth sweat and blood and orders on paper with ink unsubscribed this land to the landowners and to the royal treasury. Together with the land, the people themselves were taken into captivity and they wanted to assure that this is the law, this is the divine truth. However, no one was convinced. They flogged the people with whips, shot them with bullets, sent them to penal servitude so that the people would obey the decreed law. The people were silent, but they did not believe. And out of a wrong deed, a right deed did not come out. Oppression only ruined the people and the state.

We have now seen for ourselves that it is still impossible to live. We thought about fixing the issue. For four years they wrote and rewrote their papers. Finally, they decided the matter and declared freedom to the people. Generals and officials were sent everywhere to read the manifesto and serve prayers in churches. Pray, they say, to God for the king, but for the will, but for your future happiness.

The people believed, rejoiced and began to pray.

However, how did the generals and officials conceive to interpret the people Regulations 131 , it turns out that the will is given only in words, and not in deeds. That in the new provisions - the former mandative laws are only on a different paper, in other words, rewritten. And serve the landowner as before, and if you want to get your own hut and land, redeem them with your own money. Invented a transitional state. Either for two years, or for six, or for nine years, a new serfdom was determined for the people, where the landlord will flog through the authorities, where the authorities will do the court, where everything is mixed up so that if in these royal positions there was some preferential grain for the people, then it cannot be used. And the state peasants were still left with their bitter fate, and the same officials were left to own the land and the people, but if you want to be free, redeem your land. The people listen to what the generals and officials are telling them about the will, and they cannot understand what kind of will it is without land under the rods of the landlords and bureaucrats. The people do not want to believe that they have been so dishonestly deceived. It can’t be, he says, that the tsar, with his word, caressed us with freedom for four years, and now, in fact, he would give us the same corvee and dues, the same rods and beatings.

It’s good that those who didn’t believe, kept silent: and those who didn’t believe, but began to grieve according to an unfulfilled will, they came to reason with whips, bayonets and bullets. And innocent blood poured across Rus'.

Instead of praying for the tsar, the groans of the martyrs were heard, falling under whips and bullets and exhausted under glands along the Siberian road.

So, again, with whips and hard labor they want to make the people believe that the new order law is divine truth.

Moreover, the tsar and nobles sneer, they say that in two years there will be freedom. Whence same she will will something? They will cut the land, but for the cut-down they will make you pay exorbitant prices, but they will give the people under the authority of officials, so that in addition to these triple money they squeeze out another three times by robbery; and almost someone will not let himself be robbed, so again whip and hard labor. Nothing they are not what in two years, - but never they won’t do it for the people, because their benefit is the slavery of the people, and not freedom<...>

Land from the people unsubscribed for themselves. Everything that the people work out - give to the court, and to the treasury, and to the nobles; but he himself always sit in a rotten shirt, and in holey bast shoes.

Freedom has been taken away. Don't you dare take a step without official permission, without a passport or ticket, and pay for everything.

The people were not taught anything. The money that is collected for public education is wasted on the royal stables and kennels, on officials and an unnecessary army that would shoot at the people.

They themselves understand that it is impossible to be like this, that with such iscariotism you will destroy the people, and destroy the kingdom, and leave yourself with nothing to do with it. They themselves confess to the people that they must be allowed to recover, but when it comes down to it, they cannot overcome their greed. It is a pity for the king of his countless palaces with thousands of lackeys and araps, it is a pity for the queen of her brocades and diamonds. They have not yet managed to love the people more than their hunting dogs, than gold dishes, than feasts and fun. So they cannot dismiss and appease their nobles and officials, who help them collect millions of rubles from the people, and they pull the same amount for themselves. They cannot overcome their greed, so they are double-minded. And the tsar writes such manifestos that the people cannot understand. In words, he seems to be kind and speaks with the people according to his conscience; but as the words in fact have to be executed, he keeps with the nobles all the same greed. In words, from the royal kindness to the people, joy and fun, but in reality, all the former grief and tears. In words, the Tsar will give the people, but in reality, for the same will, the tsarist generals flog the people and exile them to Siberia, and shoot them.

No! to be double-minded with the people and to deceive them is dishonorable and criminal. Trading in land and the will of the people is not the same as Judas trading in Christ? No, the cause of the people must be decided without bargaining, in conscience and truth. The decision should be simple, frank, understandable to everyone; so that the words of the decision, once uttered, neither the tsar, nor the landowners and officials could reinterpret. So that for the sake of stupid, stupid, treacherous words, innocent blood is not shed.

What do the people need?

Land, freedom, education.

In order for the people to actually receive them, it is necessary:

1) To announce that all peasants are free with the land they now own. Those who do not have land, for example, the yards and some factory workers, will be given plots from state lands, that is, people's, that have not yet been occupied by anyone. Which of the landlord peasants does not have enough land, so cut the land from the landowners or give land for settlement. So that not a single peasant is left without a sufficient amount of land. The peasants shall own the land jointly, i.e. communities. And when in a community too many people are born, so that it becomes crowded, give that community for the peasants how much land is needed for a settlement from empty convenient lands. In a thousand years, the Russian people have settled and conquered so many lands that it will be enough for them for many centuries. Know be fruitful, but there can be no refusal in the land.

2) As all the people will own the common people's land, so, therefore, all the people will pay for the use of this land and taxes for the general people's needs, into the general state (people's) treasury. For this purpose, the peasants liberated with land shall be subject to the same tax as the state peasants are now paying, but no more. Give tribute to the peasants together, for mutual guarantee; so that the peasants of each community are responsible for each other.

3) Although the landowners have owned the land wrongly for three hundred years, the people, however, do not want to offend them. Let the Treasury give them every year, as allowance or remuneration, as much as they need, at least about sixty million a year, out of the general state taxes. If only the people were left with all the land that they now plow for themselves, on which they live, on which they feed and heat themselves, on which they feed and water their cattle, but if only taxes would not be raised in any case, otherwise the people would have to count the remuneration to the landowners I agree from the submissions. And how much of the money counted for this from the taxes falls, the landowners themselves can agree among themselves in the provinces. The people don't care, as long as they don't raise taxes. According to the latest revision, there are only 11,024,108 souls of landlord peasants. If they are taxed with the same tax as the state peasants, i.e., seven rubles per soul a year, then, counting out of these seven rubles about 1 rub. 50 kop. silver, which the landowning peasants now pay to the treasury (per head and various duties), then there will remain about 5 rubles from each soul. 40 kop. ser., and from all the landlord peasants in Russia - about sixty million rubles in silver. This means that there is something to help and reward the landowners; more than this they are ashamed to wish, and should not be given.

4) If, with such a tax, up to the full 60 millions going to the landlords, which is not enough, then no extra taxes need to be demanded to cover the shortage. And you should reduce the cost of the army. The Russian people live in peace with all their neighbors and want to live in peace with them; therefore, he does not need a huge army, with which only the tsar amuses himself and shoots at the peasants. Therefore, the army should be reduced by half. Now 120 million are spent on the army and the fleet, but all to no avail. They collect a lot of money from the people for the army, but little comes to the soldier. Of the one hundred and twenty millions, forty millions go to military officials alone (to the military administration), who, moreover, themselves notably plunder the treasury. How to reduce the army by half, and in particular to reduce the military officials, so the soldiers will be better off, and there will be a large surplus from the expenses for the army - forty millions of silver. With such a surplus, no matter how great the remuneration to the landowners, there will be something to pay. Taxes will not increase, but they will be distributed more reasonably. The same money that the people are now paying for an extra army, so that the tsar shoots at the people with that army, will go not to death, but to the life of the people, so that the people can calmly go free with their land.

5) And the tsarist government's own expenses must be reduced. Instead of building stables and kennels for the tsar, it is better to build good roads, as well as handicraft, agricultural and all kinds of schools and institutions suitable for the people. Moreover, it goes without saying that the tsar and the tsar's family have nothing to do in vain to appropriate for themselves the appanage and factory peasants and the income from them; it is necessary that the peasantry be one and pay the same tax, and from the tax they will count how much the tsar can pay for the administration.

6) Rid the people of officials. For this it is necessary that the peasants, both in the communes and in the volosts, should govern themselves, by their elected representatives. Rural and volost foremen would be determined by their choice and dismissed by their own court. They would sue each other by their own arbitration court or in peace. The rural and volost police would be supervised by their own elected people. And so that in all this, as well as in who is engaged in what kind of work or trade and fishing, from now on not a single landowner or official would interfere, if only the peasants would pay their tax on time. And for this, as said, mutual responsibility is responsible. For the sake of ease of mutual responsibility, the peasants of each community will make a pool among themselves, that is, they will constitute worldly capital. If trouble happens to anyone, the world will lend him out of this capital and will not let him perish; if someone is late with a tax, the world will bring a tax for him on time, give him time to recover. Whether it was necessary for the whole community to build a mill or a store, or to buy a car, social capital will help them to manage the common good. Social capital will also help the rural economy, and it will also save it from officials, since if taxes are paid properly, not a single official can oppress anyone. Here it is important that all stand for one. If you hurt one, they will hurt everyone. It goes without saying that it is not necessary for an official to touch this capital with his finger; but those to whom the world entrusts it, they will give an account of it to the world.

7) And so that the people, having received land and freedom, would preserve them for eternity; so that the tsar would not arbitrarily impose heavy taxes and duties on the people, would not keep extra troops and extra officials who would crush the people with the people's money; in order for the tsar not to be able to squander the people's money for feasts, but to spend it conscientiously on the people's needs and education, it is necessary that taxes and duties be determined and distributed among themselves by the people themselves through their elected ones. In each volost, the elected representatives from the villages will decide between themselves how much money should be collected from their people for the general needs of the volost and will choose among themselves a trusted person who will be sent to the county, so that, together with the elected representatives from other volosts, both landowners and city dwellers, decide what taxes and duties are needed in the county. These elected officials at the county meeting will select trusted people from among themselves and send them to the provincial town to decide what duties the people should accept in the province. Finally, the elected representatives from the provinces will gather in the capital to the tsar and decide what duties and taxes should be served by the people for the needs of the state, i.e. common to the Russian people.

People trusted by the people will not let the people be offended, they will not allow them to take extra money from the people; and without extra money, there will be nothing to support both extra troops and extra officials. The people, therefore, will live happily, without oppression.

Trusted people will decide how much taxes to pay to the people and how to pay them so that no one is offended. As soon as the elected representatives gather and collide, it will be possible for them to decide that the tribute is paid not from the soul, but from the land. Which community has more land and better land, that means that taxes will have to be paid more; and those who are poorer in land will pay less. Here the landowners will pay from their land. This means that things will be fairer and more favorable for the people. The trustees will decide how to fairly serve the recruiting service; how to fairly serve the road, lodging and underwater duties; they will value them with money and spread them harmlessly throughout the people. They will take into account every penny of the people, for what particular business she should go: how much money for the government, how much for the army, how much for courts, how much for public schools, how much for roads. And what they decide, it will only be. As the year goes by, give an account to the people in every penny - where it was spent. This is what the people need, without which they cannot live.

But who will be such a friend to him that he will deliver all this to him?

Until now, the people believed that the current king would be such a friend to him. Unlike the previous tsars, who signed off the land from the people and gave it into captivity to the nobles, landowners and officials, the new tsar will make the people happy. As soon as the generals came with soldiers to shoot the people for their will and flog with gauntlets, they had to say the same about the new king that the prophet Samuel said to the people of Israel when he advised them to do without the king: “And (the king) will appoint you hundreds and thousands; and he will take your daughters as world cooks and cooks; and your villages and your vineyards and your oilseeds he will take and give to his servants; and your seeds and your vines shall be ten; and your good flock will take and put ten for his works; and your pasture will be ten, and you will be his servants” * 19 . In other words: do not expect any good from the king, but only one evil, since, due to their greed, kings and the will and prosperity of the people are inevitably robbed. And our tsar, who orders to shoot at the people, turns out to be the tsar of Samuil. Togo and see that he is not a friend, but the first enemy of the people. They say that he is kind: but what could he do worse than now, if he were evil? Let the people wait to pray for him, and with their intuition and common sense look for more reliable friends, real friends, devoted people.

Most of all, the people need to draw closer to the army. And whether the father, whether the mother, equips the son as a recruit - do not forget the people's will, take an oath from the son that he will not shoot at the people, he will not be the killer of fathers, mothers and blood sisters, no matter who gives the order to shoot, even the tsar himself, because such an order, even though it be royal, is still a cursed order. For that, look for friends and higher.

When an officer is found who will teach the soldiers that it is a mortal sin to shoot at the people - know, people, that this is his friend, who stands for the land of the world and for the will of the people.

Is there a landowner who will immediately set the peasants free with all their land, in the most favorable way and will not offend in anything, but will help in everything; whether there is a merchant who will not spare his rubles for liberation; is there such a person who has neither peasants nor rubles, but who all his life and thought, and studied, and wrote, and published only in order to better arrange the land of the world and the will of the people - know the people: these are all his friends .

There is no point in making noise to no avail and crawling under the bullet at random; but it is necessary to silently gather strength, look for people who are devoted, who would help with advice, and leadership, and in word, and deed, and treasury, and life, so that it would be possible to cleverly, firmly, calmly, amicably and strongly defend the land against the king and nobles worldly, the will of the people, but the truth of man.

Ogarev N. P. Fav. socio-political and philosophical works

M., 1952. T. 1. S. 527-536.