Yakovlev
When it comes to the work of creating public opinion and the role of sabotage in the ideological field in the disintegration of the Soviet Union, one cannot but recall Yakovlev, a former member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and once in charge of ideology.
Alexander Nikolaevich Yakovlev was born in 1923. He participated in the Great Patriotic War and joined the Party during the war years. After the war, he graduated from the Yaroslav Normal College and the Central Social Sciences College of the CPSU. From 1953 he worked in the central organs of the CPSU and in 1960 he went to Columbia University in the United States for further study. He served as inspector, director, first deputy minister of the Ministry of Propaganda and Agitation, and was transferred to Canada in 1973. After returning to China in 1983, he became director of the Institute of World Economics and International Relations. Shortly after Gorbachev came to power (July 1985), Yakovlev was appointed Propaganda Minister of the CPSU Central Committee, elected Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee in February 1986, alternate member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee in January of the following year, and promoted to full member in June. Since then, he has also served as chairman of the International Policy Committee of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, head of the Rehabilitation Commission, and member of the Presidential Committee.
Gorbachev admitted that Yakovlev was "promoted in the reform era" (Book Review, November 7, 1995). He reused Yakovlev in large part because Ligachev, who was in charge of ideology at the beginning of the "reforms", often sang different tunes with him, sometimes even contradicted him, in this case he wanted to replace Ligachev with Yakovlev, so that Yakovlev rose several ranks in a short period of time and became the number 2 person in the party.
Gorbachev
Gorbachev also admitted that he had "worked closely" with Yakovlev (Book Review, November 7, 1995). According to a signed article published by the Moscow News, their "cooperation" was usually: Yakovlev "first proposed advanced ideas in theory, and then these ideas became the daily slogans of Gorbachev's speech" (Moscow News, No. 26, 1990). Thus, it is well founded that the introduction of a series of political slogans (such as "democratization", "openness", "new thinking", "all human values", "more socialism, more democracy", "democratic, humane socialism", etc.) after the beginning of the "reform") and a series of "reform" measures are not without Yakovlev's active participation, and even the "right to invent" of some slogans may belong to him, at least he is a "collaborator" and an authoritative interpreter. This established his primacy in Gorbachev's think tank, and some even called him the "architect" of the "reforms."
Yakovlev, who had the title of scholar, was a doctor of history, a corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (later an academician), who could speak the Tao, write articles, and was good at theoretical interpretation, argumentation and generalization, so he was known as the number one thinker and theoretician in the CPSU. When Yakovlev came to power over ideology, he went around making reports, making speeches and articles to propagate his views.
First of all, he preached the so-called "democratization" and "openness", describing both as "the guarantee of innovative socialism". He opposed the establishment of certain limits for "openness" and encouraged unscrupulous attacks on the socialist system and the total negation of the fruits of socialism. He described democracy as the "engine" of reform, the "highest expression" of socialism, the "most effective form" of managing social life, and in fact the propagation of extreme democratization ideas. This has played a huge role in promoting the proliferation of ideas and the emergence of anarchism that negates everything. Second, he rejects the basic tenets of Marxism under the pretext of opposing dogmatism; Under the slogan of advocating "pluralism" and opposing "single thought", the status of Marxism as a guiding ideology was shaken. Thirdly, he proposed a "comprehensive" understanding of the past and demanded the disclosure of "the whole truth of the past", thus opening the door to all sorts of bizarre theories that negate the historical path and great achievements experienced by the Soviet people. Fourthly, he emphasized that "innovative socialism" was a "thorough and fundamental reform" rather than a "partial improvement", which provided a "basis" for the complete negation of the socialist system. Yakovlev's statements played an important role in confusing people's minds, shaking their faith in socialism and thus making them doubt the correctness of the historical road they had taken in the past.
In addition to making all kinds of demagogic remarks on his own, Yakovlev also instructed and encouraged others to come out against Marxism and to negate the achievements of the socialist revolution and construction in the Soviet Union. A prominent example is his interview with Chipko, then deputy director of the Institute of Eastern European and International Studies, in 1988, with the intention of publicly stating to him his opposition to Marxism (Tsipko's preface to Yakovlev's Collapse, p. 7 of the book). When Zipko touched this bottom line, he had no fear and published articles in the press successively opposing the Marxist theory of class struggle, the idea of violent revolution and the theory of the dictatorship of the proletariat, saying that these basic principles were bad and wrong; He endorsed Bernstein's revision of Marxism and deplored the "lack of revisionism" in Russia in the past; He stressed that it was not enough to negate Lenin and Stalin, but to fundamentally negate Marxism; He cursed Bolshevism and denied the October Revolution. Many of his claims coincided with those made later by Yakovlev.
The strange theories that arose at the direct instigation and encouragement of Yakovlev were strongly opposed by many old Party members, old soldiers, upright scholars, and ordinary workers and peasants, who rose up one after another to refute them. At this time, Yakovlev preached "tolerance" and asked people to engage in "dialogue" calmly, in order to prevent people from fighting back. But he himself was intolerant of what he considered to be "heretics." This is embodied in his brutal attitude towards the Leningrad female teacher Nina Andreyeva's letter "I cannot abandon principles." According to people familiar with the situation, the article criticizing Nina Andreeva published in Pravda on April 5, 1988, was written by him (the famous critic Jedkov speculated that this article was written by Yakovlev (see Free Thought, No. 9, 1995, p. 125). And according to Chernyaev, it was drafted by Gorbachev and Yakovlev's aides.) In this long essay entitled "The Principles of Reform: The Revolutionary Nature of Thinking and Action," he gave Andreyeva a number of political hats, saying that "the views of her article are completely incompatible and anti-existent from the basic policy of reform", that the article is "the ideological program and manifesto of the anti-reform forces", that the author of the article is "integrated with the position of the anti-socialist people abroad", that she is "a blind diehard who does not know how to question rigid preaching", and that she is "in a state of panic and hysteria". It was "speculation on the concept of patriotism", in defense of Stalin, in order to "preserve the methods created by Stalin to 'solve' the problems of controversy, the social and state structures he established, and the norms of party and social life". Yakovlev approved not only Andreyeva, but also the Soviet Russian newspaper, which published the teacher's letter, saying that the Communists and editors working there had "forgotten their responsibilities" and so on. Here, Yakovlev is posing in a completely intimidating posture, beating people with a stick, and in the words of one scholar, he is practicing "means of ideological terror."
Nina Andreeva
Yakovlev was well aware of the importance of the tools of public opinion and called them "the pillars of reform." His other job, therefore, was to control as many newspapers and other news media as possible. After he became the propaganda minister, he made drastic adjustments to the leadership of newspapers and periodicals, and arranged for some liberals to serve as editors-in-chief of certain newspapers and periodicals. For example, since his friend Korodzic took over as editor-in-chief (June 1986), Spark Pictorial removed the Lenin Medal from the masthead, changed the direction of its publication, and became an anti-socialist ideological front, publishing a large number of articles under the slogan of implementing the principle of "openness", distorting historical facts, attacking Marxism-Leninism, and negating the historical development path and achievements of the Soviet Union. Another example is that he maintained a good relationship with the Moscow News, which was edited by his contemporary Yegor Yakovlev at the time. The newspaper, once called a "pioneer of reform," was very aggressive in advocating liberalization.
Yakovlev also extended his hand to the literary press. Under his direct and indirect intervention and influence, 7 of the 10 major large literary magazines or editors-in-chief were replaced, or the direction of running the journal was reversed and became a liberal propaganda tool. Although the influential "Literary Journal" was temporarily edited by Chakovsky, who was known for his "conservative" views, for a period of time, the political direction changed. In accordance with Gorbachev's demand to "create public opinion for reform," these newspapers and periodicals played a leading role in a propaganda war aimed at subverting the socialist system. Since literature and art have their own characteristics, because they can be fictional and exaggerated without having to speak strictly according to historical facts, it is certainly convenient for hostile forces to use literary forms and literary positions to carry out anti-socialist propaganda.
Thus in the "Reform" years, many so-called political commentators (such as Chernychenko, Stryriane, Kostikov, Waxberg, Burlacki, etc.), economists (Gavriel Popov, Shmelev, Selyunin, Lisichkin, etc.), historians (Samsonov, Afanasyev, Medvedev, Volkogonov, Aftorkhanov, etc.), journalists (Lazis, etc.) flocked to the literary press and published a large number of so-called "political papers" and various types of works. Attack and negate socialism from all different quarters. Not to be left behind, many writers have thrown out old works that could not be published in the past and new works that have been written in a hurry, exposing and criticizing the socialist system. The works of the past that were criticized, banned, and later flowed underground or spread abroad, including many poisonous weeds that were openly and nakedly anti-communist and anti-socialist, were all published under the guise of implementing "openness" and "restoring historical truth", forming a so-called "return to literature" turbid wave.
Solzhenitsyn
1990 became the "Year of Solzhenitsyn", and in this year, many large literary magazines published various works by this vicious anti-communist, which brought the wave of "return to literature" to its peak. Looking back now at the situation in the "Reform" years, it is clear that the wave of criticism and negation of Stalin was set off by the literary press (Rybakov's novel "The Children of Arbat Street", Shatrov's play "Forward... Advance...... Advance! the publication of the book played an important role); The term "executive order system" of the Economic System of the USSR was derived by Popov from Buick's novel The New Appointment; The first attack on Lenin on Soviet soil in more than 60 years took place in the literary magazine October; The fallacy of describing the Great Patriotic War of the USSR as a struggle between two totalitarian regimes was first put forward by literary presses (see Grossmann's novel Life and Destiny, published in October magazine); Articles that openly reject the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism were first published in literary presses (e.g., Burtin's essay "The Fatal Weakness of Marx's Theory of History", Trostnikov's "Scientific Picture of the World" Science?). Zipko's Are Our Principles Good? et al.); The idea that the entire society of the Soviet Union was a "gulag" became popular after the "return" of Solzhenitsyn's work "The Gulag Archipelago". The emergence of these phenomena is inseparable from Yakovlev's "work."
In 1992, the famous writer Bondarev, in his speech at the Ninth Writers' Congress, said of Yakovlev's activities and their consequences: "In order to carry out sabotage, he used a number of newspaper editors and personnel of radio and television stations, after careful consideration and careful arrangement, to replace and mobilize a group, prescribing strategic means, instilling in the idea of pluralism that undermines various links, taking advantage of the enthusiasm of openness, telling a little truth, and distorting it immediately after speaking. Fanning the flames among millions of people, spreading doubt without scruples and undermining trust in the sanity of the people, in national culture, in history and socialism. In 6 years, the press achieved what Europe's best-equipped army had failed to achieve when it invaded the continent with fire and sword in the 1940s. That army had first-rate technical equipment, but it lacked one thing —tens of millions of bacteria-carrying publications. (Shorthand Record of the Ninth Writers' Congress, 1992, p. 35)
In his 1993 open letter to Yakovlev, Bundalev added that, with Yakovlev's encouragement and support, "the mass media and television play a major role in this terrible activity of destruction, destruction and betrayal, because it is like a percussor, hitting, destroying and destroying the walls of powerful states every hour of the day, poisoning the souls of people with stench of slander, false slogans, immoral businessmen's habits and by venting inextricable hatred against our unique national history, Mocking the bravery and suffering of the people of the mainland" (Literary Russia, September 3, 1993).
The famous critic Bondarenko also said bitterly: "Why did not a single Communist Party member stand up in August 1991 to defend his municipal and district committees?" Because all of them waver, feel disappointed, no longer believe, and live a double life. (Tomorrow, No. 7, 1996) This situation was largely caused by the sabotage carried out by the Yakovlevs in the field of thought.
In the eyes of many people, Yakovlev is an unpredictable figure. Caputo, who had served as head of the Ideological Department of the CPSU Central Committee during the "Reformation" period, also found Yakovlev's whole person unpredictable. He said that Yakovlev had been anything, an orthodox Communist, and a liberal in the Party; Have been Marxist-Leninists, but also anti-communists and advocates of social democracy; He was a propagandist of socialist theory, and finally a gravedigger of socialism. He asked: Under what circumstances does this man show his true colors? In what case is camouflage camouflaged? How can the truth of the facts be revealed? Finally, after comparing and synthesizing Yakovlev's words and deeds over the years, he came to the conclusion that this was entirely "the product of corruption and depravity", "the corpse poison that poisons people's consciousness" (Pravda, December 2, 1995).
Duplicity and lying seem to have become Second Nature in Yakovlev. Even he himself admitted it. In response to a summons in 1992, he said in response to a summons: "What we used to say was one set, what we thought was one set, and when we were doing behind-the-scenes activities, we said another set. We are infected with hypocrisy and other problems. The "we" here should refer to Yakovlev and his associates. They told all the lies during the "reform" period. At the end of 1985, shortly after Yakovlev became propaganda minister, he wrote to Gorbachev proposing the implementation of the American model of democracy, dividing the CPSU into two parties in order to compete (Yakovlev: Collapse, pp. 127-128), but in public he talked a lot about the necessity of socialist democracy and the unity of the party. As mentioned above, in 1988 he said privately to people: "Marxism has been a utopia from the beginning, it is wrong" (Yakovlev: Collapse, p. 5), and at that time he had begun to write a comprehensive criticism of Marxism, but in his speeches and articles he quoted scriptures and pretended to be a Marxist believer. He has been deliberately trying to bring down the socialist system and is "proud that he can remove the big stone of the old system" (The Independent, August 10, 1994), but almost throughout the "reform" period he talked about adhering to socialist ideas and values, about "innovating socialism", about "more socialism, more democracy". In short, he is true and false, false and real, and will never reveal his true intentions until the time has come. He famously said, "You can lie while telling the truth, and you can tell the truth while lying" (The Independent, August 10, 1994). This can be said to be a wonderful illustration of his own words and deeds.
Yakovlev was different from ordinary strategists, he was scheming, both "theory" and "strategic thinking". It has been said that he was much higher than Boulblis, who had been Yeltsin's adviser and an associate professor of Marxism-Leninism in the past. He once said such a wonderful thing: in the fight against Bolshevism, "if we take a simple, straightforward approach, despise compromises, concessions, etc., we must fail." Such an approach is honest on the surface and morally noble, but it is egoistic under the specific conditions of the struggle against Bolshevism. It is necessary to tell lies, to take the method of deliberate omission, to play tricks and tricks, so that it is often possible to achieve what cannot be achieved through 'noble' struggle" (Yakovlev: A Glass of Bitter Wine, reprinted in Pravda, December 22, 1994).
In the years of the "reform", Yakovlev skillfully applied this tactic, telling all his lies, constantly changing slogans according to the changes in the situation and people's ideological mood, and gradually leading people to the road of capitalist restoration. It has been said above that at the beginning of the "reform" Yakovlev affirmed in successive speeches that the socialist choice made by the Soviet people was correct, which is obviously a false statement that covers the ears and ears. Immediately afterwards he stressed that what was before him today was the question of what to build socialism into, and vigorously advocated "democratic and humane socialism"; at this time he did not dare to throw away the socialist banner in his hand, but he had already tampered with the content of socialism. As the chaos in the Soviet Union intensified and people's belief in socialism had been shaken, he changed his mind in time. In a conversation with the same French journalist, he raised the question of not having to stick to names. He said: "I don't accept a formulation like 'we are moving toward social democracy', 'toward socialism', 'toward capitalism' or anything else... First of all, we need to build such a 'normal' society, where people have food to eat, everyone can buy what they want, can choose their own home, have a sense of security. Then sit down and think about what to call this society. (Yakovlev: What would we like to see in the Soviet Union?) This passage indicates that he intends to abandon socialism as useless.
It was not until around the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union that Yakovlev began to openly and bluntly repudiate the socialist system, preaching private property, saying that "private property, the market, and democracy are the genetic code of normal civilization" (Pravda, December 22, 1994). He argued that private property is "sacrosanct" and that only by practicing private property can "parasitism be eliminated"; "Man is a slave without property", "There is only one way: 'The Union of Labor and Capital'" (Culture Daily, November 19, 1994) and so on. Yakovlev also rejected the historical path that Russians have experienced in this century, asserting that at the beginning of this century Russia "made a mistake in the choice of social path, took a fancy to the mad revolution rather than the evolution of nature." He viciously attacked the October Revolution, which he had enthusiastically praised in the past, calling it "the most tragic event in Russia's thousand-year history", "the prelude to the devil's song", and from then on "our great ship sailed on the sea of blood and tears" (Culture, November 19, 1994). In a new book, he recently concentrated his fire on Bolshevism, enumerating its 16 counts, demanding that this "idea and practice of promoting violence" be outlawed, and appealing to the President of Russia, the Russian Government, the General Prosecutor's Office, and the Federal Assembly to prosecute "fascist Bolshevist ideas and their actual embodiments" (Yakovlev: "Dry corpses are also smeared with holy oil", reprinted from the "Culture Newspaper", December 9, 1995).
Kryuchkov
The greatness of Yakovlev's figure is also that in his struggle against socialism he used the tactic of sabotage within the party and the core of the leadership. In a tone summing up experience, he said: "The totalitarian system should destroy it through a totalitarian party, and there is no other way ... For it is only by taking advantage of the totalitarian character of this party, which manifests itself as organized and disciplined, that the totalitarian system can be destroyed. (Yakovlev: "Dry corpses also smear holy oil", quoted in the "Culture Newspaper" on December 9, 1995) That is to say, he believes that to destroy the socialist system, it is necessary to start with the usurpation of the leadership of the ruling proletarian party, and use the party's organization and discipline to proceed from top to bottom. The soviet union, which has a history of more than 70 years and was once a strong fortress of world socialism, finally and rapidly disintegrated almost overnight, which can be said to be the successful application of the strategy preached by Yakovlev.
Looking at what Yakovlev did throughout his life, especially his various performances during the "Reformation" years and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it can be seen that this is a very simple figure. He is capricious, and his ability to change color quickly with changes in climate and environment is astonishing: he is yin and yang, two-sided and three-bladed, lying in order to achieve the set goal, playing tricks, and some behaviors can be said to be beyond the imagination of ordinary people. The performance of such a character cannot be explained by the general idea of fame and fortune and the philosophy of pursuing high-ranking officials and houlu. At the 28th Congress of the CPSU, many deputies criticized him for being "hypocritical" and "dishonest." It seems to be true, but his performance does not seem to be a general personal quality problem. His somewhat perverse activity makes people feel that there is a deeper reason.
On February 13, 1993, the Soviet Russian newspaper published a fragment of Kryuchkov's memoir "Messenger of Disaster" by the chairman of the Former Soviet State Security Council, revealing another aspect of Yakovlev's activities. Kryuchkov said that in the second half of the 1980s, he learned from several reliable sources that Yakovlev bought off U.S. secret services during his studies at Columbia University in 1960 and received instructions from the U.S. side during the "reform." At that time, Kryuchkov reported to Gorbachev that Yakovlev was "colluding with foreign countries to carry out activities endangering national security", but the latter did not express his position and did not take any measures, so the matter was put on hold. On December 1, 1995, a group of intelligence officers who had worked abroad published an open letter to Yakovlev in the Russian newspaper Pravda, announcing that they had credible evidence of Yakovlev's treason and were ready to go to court to accuse him. On April 11, 1996, The Russian newspaper Pravda again published a fragment of Kryuchkov's memoirs about Yakovlev's suspicion of espionage. Judging from these circumstances, saying that Yakovlev was an American spy is not entirely a shadow catch. If this is the case, then Yakovlev's performance is easier to understand. It turned out that this person who had stolen important posts in the Party, dressed as scholars, quoted scriptures, preached incessantly, and issued various orders and instructions was actually an agent of the CIA, who, as the Open Letter said, was engaged in the work of "undermining the Soviet system from within, and not from anywhere else, but from within the Politburo.", as the Open Letter said. The struggle is really acute and complex, and it prompts us to further observe and understand the tragedy of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the context of the international class struggle. It seems that the famous scholar and writer Zinoviev is justified in saying that the overthrow of the socialist system in the USSR was not due to internal reasons within the system itself, but was artificially undermined by hostile forces at home and abroad in collusion with each other (Pravda, 12 January 1995).
When Yakovlev carried out his activities, he seemed to be relatively calm on the surface, but in fact he was very weak-minded. In a 1990 conversation with a Moscow News reporter, he pointed to the manuscript of his comprehensive critique of Marxism on the shelves and said, "I know that if it is published, people will hang me from the first poplar tree." (Moscow News, No. 28, 1990) Indeed, people hated his betrayal, calling him "the most abhorrent figure" in Russian history. When he was in Saratov at the launch of one of his books, a woman slapped him in the face. The shadow of fear of punishment had always been with him, making him fidgety. Therefore, he adopted the strategy of attacking and defending, constantly writing articles and publishing books continuously, further denigrating Marxism-Leninism and denying socialism, attacking the political program put forward by the left forces, and trying in vain to prevent the development of the left forces. Recently, in particular, he has become doubly mad as he sees the Growing Support of the Communists and the possibility of returning to power. He also united with a number of people, organized a Social Democratic Party to confront the Communist Party, and called on the various factions of the "Democrats" to abandon their past grievances, unite and concentrate their forces on the "non-Bolshevization of the state" (Yakovlev: "Dry Corpses Also Smeared with Holy Oil", reprinted in the "Culture Newspaper" of December 9, 1995). That is to say, we all need to work together to thoroughly develop capitalism.
Although Yakovlev has been performing very hard recently, it seems that his play is coming to an end. He, like all traitors, will not have a good ending. Future historians, when writing about the history of the collapse of the Soviet Union, will probably not forget the important role played by Yakovlev and his sabotage activities in the ideological field to the collapse of the Soviet Union, and will illustrate the extreme importance of ideological work in consolidating and defending a political regime through the accounting of his activities, reminding people to maintain a high degree of vigilance against "political monsters" such as Yakovlev, to see through their disguises in time, and to prevent them from usurping leadership.
Editor's Note: Yakovlev died on October 18, 2005, after suffering from illness. Gorbachev said: "This is the loss of all those who struggle for freedom and democracy.". The famous neoliberal fighter Chubais lamented that "an era has come to an end". Rabbit death fox sorrow, it is called 欤!
(Source: Yesterday and Today of Russian Writers, China Federation of Literary and Art Publishing House, 2000)