There were presented: the AG (Angel-Guardian), the AD (angel-destroyer).
Witnesses: M. Svanidze, Leon Feuchtwanger, Karl Radek, A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vyacheslav Ivanov, Mikhail Sholohov, Kornei Chukovsky, Leon Trotsky, V. Kornev, Georgy Zhukov, V. Kuibyshev, V. Vakhirev, A. Marquet, Alexander Kuprin, general K. Tipelskirch.
'The woman who even in summer said that without her painted lips she felt worse than if she had come into society being bare stopped manicuring her nails, painting her lips and doing her hair. She was a daughter in law of a great man' (a fragment from the diary of M. Svanidze).
'I point out to him that even people who undoubtedly have taste put his busts and portraits in front (and what ones they are!) in places to which they have no relation, as, for example, at the exhibition of Rembrandt.
Then he becomes serious. He suggests that these are people who acknowledged the existing regime quite late and now try to prove their loyalty with redoubled zeal. Yes, he thinks it is possible that an intention of saboteurs who try to discredit him is in effect here.
'A toadying fool,' Stalin said angrily, 'does more harm than a hundred enemies.' He tolerates all this fuss, as he said, only because he knows what a naive joy a holiday bustle brings to its organizers, and knows that it all belongs to him not as an individual, but as a representative of the flow, claiming that construction of socialist economy in the Soviet Union is more important than permanent revolution' (Leon Feuchtwanger).
'Chapter 2 of the Constitution 'Political System' lists many nationalities, and when at the Moscow Congress you cab see before you a whole lot of variety of heads (Georgian, Turkmen, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Kalmyk, Yakut ones), only then it becomes clear how difficult the problem of uniting these nations under the sign of the hammer and the sickle was. The resolution of national problem took the Soviet Union some time. But now it sad finally settled one; it has proved that nationalism and internationalism cannot be combined
Love of Soviet people for their homeland is not inferior to German fascists' love for their homeland, but here is love for the Soviet Homeland, which means that this love is based not only on mystical subconsciousness, but that it is strengthened by solid cement of intellect (Leon Feuchtwanger).
From the testimony of the defendant Radek:
"If you ask about the formula, it was a return to capitalism, restoration of capitalism. It was veiled.
The first version intensified capitalist elements; it had to do with transfer of significant economic assets in the form of concessions both to Germans and Japanese, obligations to supply raw materials, food, fat to Germany at prices below world ones. Internal consequences of it were clear. Around German-Japanese concessionaires interests of private capital in Russia are concentrated.
In addition, all these policies were associated with the recovery program of individual sector, if not in the whole agriculture, then in a considerable part of it. But if in the first alternative it was a significant restoration of capitalist elements, then in the second one those were contributions and their consequences: transfer of those plants to Germans, if they would claim it, which will be specially valuable for their economy.
Since it is in the same letter he completely realized that it was a revival of private trade in large sizes, proportion of these factors looked as a return to capitalism, in which remnants of a socialist economy were lept, which would then become just state-capitalist elements'.
Radek: I spoke about the content of Trotsky's message with complete accuracy.
Vyshinsky: What questions were arisen there?
Radek: The victory of fascism in Germany, strengthening of Japanese aggression, inevitability waging war by these states against the USSR, inevitability of the defeat of the Soviet Union, the need for the block if it comes to power to make concessions.
Vyshinsky: So you were interested in accelerating the war and in the fact that in this war the Soviet Union should be defeated? As it was said in the message of Trotsky?
Radek: The defeat is inevitable, and it creates an environment for our coming to power, so we are interested in accelerating the war. Conclusion: We are interested in the defeat.
Vyshinsky: Did you support defeat or victory of the Soviet Union?
Radek: All my actions over the years show that I helped defeat.
Vyshinsky: Were these actions of yours conscious?
Radek: In my life I didn't act unconsciously, except when I slept.
Vyshinsky to K. Radek: You said that the second letter also was written in December 1935. Tell us about it.
Radek: If until this time Trotsky is there, and we here in Moscow spoke about economic retreat on the basis of the Soviet state, then in this message a radical turn was planned. Because, firstly, Trotsky believed that a defeat would be an inevitable result of territorial concessions, and called specifically Ukraine.
Secondly, a question was about division of the USSR.
Thirdly, in terms of economy, he foresaw the following consequences of defeat: not only concession of industrial facilities which are important for imperialist states, but also transfer or sale of important economic facilities to private ownership of capitalist elements, which they would outline.
Trotsky anticipated bond issues, i.e. admission of foreign capital to operate those plants, which formally would remain in the hands of the Soviet state.
In the field of agricultural policy he clearly raised a question that kolkhozes should be disbanded, and put forward an idea of providing individual farmers with tractors and other agricultural machines for a revival of a new kulak system.
Finally, a question of the need to revive private capital in the city was quite openly raised. It was clear that it was talked about restoration of capitalism.
In the political field in this new message was a question of power was raised. In his message Trotsky said: democracy is out of the question.
Working class has lived 18 years of revolution, and it has a huge appetite, and this worker will need to be returned partly to private factories and partly to state-owned factories, which will be in the most severe competition with foreign capital. So deterioration of working class's condition will take place. In the country the struggle of the poor and middle peasants against the kulaks will be renewed. And then, to hold our ground, we will need a strong power, no matter with what forms it will be covered up.
Leon Feuchtwanger:
'And to me too until I was in Europe the charges against Zinoviev didn't seemed to be trustworthy. I thought that hysterical confessions of the accused were produced by some mysterious ways. The whole process seemed to me a theatrical pretence put with an extremely awful and ultimate skill.
But when I attended in Moscow at the second trial, when I heard Pyatakov, Radek and their friends, I felt that my doubts melted away like salt in water under the influence of direct impressions of what was said by the defendants, and by how it was said by them.
If all of that were contrived or played, then I don't know what truth means.
After a thorough investigation it turned out that the behavior attributed to Trotsky by the prosecution is not only unbelievable, but even the only possible for him; it was a behavior, corresponding to his inner state... A lot of times Trotsky gave vent to his boundless hatred and contempt for Stalin. Why, expressing it verbally and in print, couldn't he express it in action?
Is it really so 'unbelievable' that he, a man who considered himself the only true leader of the revolution, didn't find every means which would be good enough to overthrow the 'false messiah' who took his place by a trick? I think it is quite possible.
Trotsky has never been a Russian patriot. 'The State of Stalin' was deeply antipathetic to him. He longed for world revolution. If you collect all responses of exiled Trotsky about Stalin and his country, you will get a bulky volume, full of rage, hate, irony and contempt.
What was the main goal of Trotsky during all those years of exile and is now? His return to the country at any cost; his return to power.
* * *
'There is no doubt that this excessive worship is sincere.... People feel a need to express their gratitude and boundless enthusiasm. People are grateful to Stalin for bread, meat, order, education and establishment of the army, providing this well-being... In addition Stalin was indeed a flesh and blood of his people' (Leon Feuchtwanger)
THE AG'S WORD ABOUT WORD:
"So, long live censorship! Moral and ideological one that opposes the kingdom of Mammon.
I have already said that, by separating church and state, Joseph took all blame on himself before God for inevitable blood, repression, violence in a revolutionary situation. Caesar should do dirty work outside church wall - honor and glory be to Joseph that he did not involve church in the bloody showdown and terror.
Censorship Caesar's is blessing of. Caesar-pastor assumes responsibility for replicated word - the most powerful weapon, which is capable of doing worst thing - murder of souls:
'And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell' (Matthew 10:28).
See that your word shouldn't ruin anyone's heart!
'O muse, be obedient to God's commandment' (A. Pushkin)
It was realized, probably by the end of their life, by all great poets shining in the land of Russia.
M. Lermontov 'A Dagger':
Like a gold toy it shines on the wall -
Alas, it is infamous and harmless!
In our overprotected age don't you think
A poet lost his destination?
Exchanging for gold the power
To which the world hearkened in silent awe?
. . .
To good and evil we are shamelessly indifferent
In the beginning of our cause we fade without any struggle;
in the face of danger we are shamefully indifferent,
And in the face of power we are contemptible slaves.
We dried our minds by knowledge
Hiding our envy of neighbors and friends
The best hopes and a noble voice
Of passions ridiculed by our disbelief.
(Mikhail Lermontov)
I know power of words, I know tocsin of words.
They are not ones, to which theatrical boxes applaud,
From such words coffins break down.
To step by their four legs.
* * *
To always shine always, to shine everywhere
Until you last days' bottoms...
(Vladimir. Mayakovsky)
Witness Vyacheslav Ivanov:
'If I were asked what was the state ideology of the writers' circle whom I had known from childhood: communist or anticommunist, I wouldn't hesitate to answer: neither one nor the other. Cynicism dominated.
For many people literature was a profitable business. Writers, actors and people of other arts intentionally agreed to deal with anything, not believing in anything and not even hiding it (as, for example, Alexei Tolstoy who often met my parents before the war and during it).
'It became the custom, and it will be so in future, comrades, that in joy and in sorrow we always mentally call to him, to the creator of a new life. With all the profound human modesty of comrade Stalin he will have to tolerate our outpourings of love and devotion, because not only hopes of ours who are living and working under his leadership, but also hopes of all the working people for bright future of mankind are inseparably linked to his name' (Mikhail Sholokhov).
Kornei Chukovsky's conversation with Tynyanov:
'I expressed him my thoughts on the collective farms. He says, I think the same thing. I am a historian. I admire Stalin as a historian. In a historical aspect Stalin as an author of collective farms is the greatest of geniuses, reforming world. If he had do nothing except collective farms, he even then would have been worthy to be called the most brilliant man of the epoch.
Tynyanov being a humble man immediately added, But please, do not tell anyone about it.
Why?
You know how many rascals are praising him now for their self-defense, and if we start praising him too loudly, we will be reckoned in the same shameless group.
Joseph tried to extract grains of gold, image and likeness out of heaps of human ore. Suppose, sometimes he did it by barbaric methods but he tried.
* * *
It is rough handling of word... My God, what are you doing, playing an atom bomb of words like football! Word serves you as a magic tablecloth, a bedroom pillow, a springboard for a career leap, but most often as a market commodity. How crazy you are, gentlemen-comrades... Do you know that Joseph the Bloody has saved you? And that strict censorship was the straitjacket, which is put on fools who like to fling bombs?
Do you call it freedom?
Stand back away from your neighbors and strangers, play with the same crazy people. Blow up yourself, after all, you have a right for this right, but you crave to blow up all around, destroy and pollute God's image in people for generations to come...
Meanwhile, you like a serpent asserts. 'Eat you shall not die but you shall be as gods'.
You multiply poisonous fruit of the tree of knowledge, forcing consumers of your product to sink into previously unknown depths of sin, surficing from bottoms of your stinking soul. And it is god that you warn, 'It is poison!'But the most often you assure yourself and the whole world that you not only are not sick, but you can treat others. And even if you are sick, then you have some rare, delightful and delicious illness, but not banal disgusting vampirism - a thirst for another's blood, flesh, strange flesh, strange life, predatoriness and cancer of fallen humanity, closing the path to the Kingdom.
You multiply fruits of evil, removing seeds from the underground of your dying soul, which is atrophied already by hellish cold and feels no pain, and cook exotic dishes of them. They are pink and blue, sadomasochistic, having fresh blood, guts, crazy and unhappy overfree girls. These are dishes, which people have not heard before, but you have cooked them. It's your treat. 'Eat, you shell not die, God told a lie'. And you call this Satanism freedom.
Do you know what are you doing, my latter-day gentlemen who tempt 'little ones' and turn them into vampires? Their blood is on your lips and your blood is on their lips. Entering into this poisonously sweet forbidding door of their readers and viewers, you will pay in full for everyone. For everyone who won't find a way back.
How will you reckon with the Master, when enormously high bills follow you into eternity? For, as we know, 'Manuscripts don't burn'.
'... And he tore out my sinful tongue, which is idle and sly...'
Gentlemen-comrades, writers who are narcissistic, greedy, vain, and voluptuous; lovers of women and drinks, talks, country cottages and troubled with a housing problem, lured by all possible sins behind a screen of atheism, for that 'everything was permitted God should be killed'. Not in pages of any demon-possessed publication, but IN YOURSELVES.
'The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God'.
Or even worse, he makes the Truth 'serve as an errand boy' in the same way as international Vampiria has tried to force it to do so for a long time.
The one of them who 'knows what he does' will get more condemnation than naive atheists of Joseph kingdom who were singing:
If you love and believe;
If your goals are clear,
You will measure oceans
An reach the Moon.
* * *
If I were asked,
'Where do you live? Say it.
I would say, 'In an avenue of happy ones
In a bright city of love!'
* * *
Or:
I will gather my friends -
Let them have everything that is in my rucksack,
And again I will travel light.
Or:
You can lose your way,
And no one will stretch out his hand to you.
You can weaken in you struggle
But a heart of a good and true friend
Will point a way to you.
Or:
What awaits us in communism,
Heart can see before eyes.
"Joseph had no 'other writers; at times he had to make 'new people' of logs. What was the use to preach to his cynical intelligentsia that it should serve as emotional and colorful rainbow between the Heaven and the earth, according to the Plan? The name of this rainbow is Beauty, Inspiration and Good. Its destination it affecting minds and hearts, when spirit and grace are silent.
Most people understood only sticks and carrots. But even those people were forced to work for the Cause by Joseph. If not for the Heaven, then at least against Vampiria.
A deadly struggle with the very prince of darkness was raging; sometimes it was done by his own methods; the wheel and the ninth wave of history rolled, sweeping and crushing everything.
That was the wave of God's wrath, for without His Will 'there shall not an hair of your head perish', and those who were innocently killed innocently receive their crowns in the Kingdom. But who, except the Creator, can determine guilt of everyone in this world, where everything is interconnected? Where 'we cannot predict' and children sometimes redeem iniquity of their fathers and grandfathers.
'It is not fair,' someone would say. But the Savior has shown us that the only way to rid or wash off sin by His own innocent blood, without which there is no transformation, and hence the way to the Kingdom is closed.
A deadly struggle for the fate of the world's first Antivampiria, which was orthodox-minded country despite all 'isms', was raging. It was a struggle for the Great Russian land. And call me at least one opus, except one of Yemelyan Yaroslavsky and a few openly antitheist booklets, which were contemptuously called 'trash' by Joseph and which you, AD, could bring to the Judgment as 'a blasphemy against the Spirit' - the only unpardonable sin?"
"There is something," muttered the AG.
"Of course, I'm talking not about 'socialist art', where there were all sorts of conditions of carrot and stick's kind; I'm talking about the essence of the matter.
What primary products, of high quality or poisoned ones, were laid as a basis for food by an author? Joseph always predicted it, which cannot be said about his overly obliging censors.
There were Gorky, Alexei Tolstoy, Sholokhov, Fadeyev, Mayakovsky, Pasternak. There were excellent movies, music, theater, ballet, painting, sculpture, architecture. And all that, if it not always was highly spiritual (what is from God), then, thanks to censorship, even it fought on our side.
'With whom are you, masters of culture?'"
"These are varnishing and lies," hissed AG.
"I repeat, son of darkness, that the method of socialist realism is an attempt of design or transform reality. Or pass the desirable for reality in the best sense of the word. A novel, A ballet, a poem or a film are not statistical or financial statements, where one cannot dream. It is a dream, a revelation, a breakthrough in the future at the level of intuition - what is the difference! The main thing is to dig treasure in the right place.
Though those dreams were often insipid and unpersuasive, they called people to the Heaven, but not to the underworld. And people until now sing, read and watch them.
Word took the lead over events and was an initiator of various movements. People imitated heroes, though they were fictitious.
'Word is a human force commander'.
Finally, from the viewpoint of such 'critics and the realists', the whole Creator's Plan about God-manhood is a utopia because an idea implicit in everyone is not implemented completely by our free sinful will. It is Word that calls us, rises from knees and gives strength to ascend.
PAGES OF JOSEPH'S LIFE
In 1938 he was elected a member of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, delivered a speech before participants of the First All-Union Conference of workers of higher school. The book 'The Short Course of the CPSU(B) was published in 'Pravda'. He held a meeting of senior officials of metallurgical plants.
In 1939 he managed the work of the 18th Congress of the CPSU(B)., was elected chairman of the committee for changing the party program, was elected a member of the Central Committee, secretary of the Central Committee, a member of the Politburo and Central Committee of the Organization Bureau. He was elected an honorary member of the All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences and an honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
'In the Soviet Union there is the ruling hierarchy which is strictly centralized and completely independent from so-called Soviets and people. Selection is done top-down. Stalin has power of an absolute monarch in his hands. He selects his Central Committee of the party, which he then destroys in an interval between two Congresses of Party of the Soviets. Congresses are convened when Stalin and his clique need to authorize an accomplished fact.
Bureaucracy has a huge income, not so much in money, but in kind: fine buildings, cars, villas, the best goods of consumption from all sides of the country. Upper layer of bureaucracy lives as big bourgeoisie in capitalist countries. The provincial bureaucracy and lower strata of metropolitan one live as petty bourgeoisie.
Bureaucracy creates a foothold around itself in the form of labor aristocracy: heroes of labor, holders of orders, etc; they all enjoy privileges for their loyalty to bureaucracy, central or local. All of them get a deserved hatred of the people' (Leon Trotsky).
* * *
"We have to hurry, literally on the move to retrain completely unqualified people and prepare them qualified, to satisfy at least the minimum needs of our businesses."
"Schools of elementary education in the current year include 11,638,000 students. The percentage of literacy in the USSR brought to 62 per cent.
What matters now go to compulsory elementary education. I say "important", since such a transition would be a decisive step in the Cultural Revolution.
/ I. Stalin /
V. Kornev witnesses:
We had large classrooms by forty men each, but no everybody came. Children often got sick, especially malaria. Many had no warm clothes in cold weather and had to stay home. Others stayed with younger children, when parents worked. For students of primary school free breakfasts were given in the canteen; they were brought there for big changes. Breakfasts were small but appetites were big. For some children these breakfasts served as lunches and suppers.
It was the lean 1934 after the lean 1933'.
In 1939 the literacy rate in the Soviet Union reached 87 per cent - the highest in the world.
'Looking back and reflecting on my school years, I cannot catch myself thinking that everything in our school was good and right. There were no sports facilities, laboratories, expensive equipment that time, but it was school with a capital S, which is in the difficult years of healthy life-affirming atmosphere taught our generation of labor, good, patriotism, and there were people who unselfishly gave their work, talents, love and lives.
Thank you for this! Perhaps, the most strong and impregnable defense, the Nazi invasion was wrecked against, was laid by you, the most peaceful, most humble people on earth - our teachers' (V. Kornev)
'In general, the Soviet Union in terms of industrial production, technical equipment of the newly-built enterprises took the first place in Europe and the second place in the world. Powerful base of defense was created' (marshal Zhukov).
"Saving of Chelyuskinites shows that at any moment the whole country would rise in defense if needed, and that it would breed many heroes. Saving of Chelyuskinites shows how far we can rely on themselves...' (V. Kuibyshev).
'The train sped as if along an avenue of flowers'
(operator N. Vikhirev about the meeting with Chelyuskinites).
'In 1934 the French artist A. Marquet visited the Soviet Union. On his return to Paris he answered questions:
'I liked it. Think, it's a big state where money does not decide fates of people! Isn't it wonderful? (V. Kornev).
'In 1935, a master plan for the reconstruction of Moscow was approved. None of major cities of the earth has never known such a great update. According to these plan whole areas of old buildings were demolished and new avenues, bridges and unique building were built. The center of the city, Gorky Street, Sadovoye Koltso and embankments were rebuilt again. Some buildings were moved as a whole without disassembly. About 60 kilometers of Moscow' river embankments and the river of Yauza were covered with granite.
Then builders had a slogan 'We build for centuries!' In just two years 10 bridges were built, including Crimean and Moskvoretsky, Novy Kamenny, Krasnocholmsky and others.
There were built: the Red Army Theatre, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. Lenin Library, the Dynamo Stadium, the Government House, the hotel 'Moscow'. There were built 400 schools, 400 kindergartens and nurseries, new hospitals, maternity homes, houses of pioneers, factories, kitchens and machine bakeries.
Beautiful public buildings were built in the capitals of Union Republics and other cities.
At the same time the capital of the Pioneer Republic - Artek in the Crimea was built up and improved. People gave the best things to children. All over the country in the most beautiful places thousands of pioneer camps were built' (V. Kornev).
'I'm in Moscow. I cannot believe it: I am in Moscow. You don't know how badly I felt guilty before Russian people who were wonderfully building a new life' (Alexander Kuprin on his return to his Homeland).
On the Moscow's metro:
'You get an impression that you are in a crystal palace illuminated by the sun, but not in deep underground'.
'The contrast of worldviews that divided the two states from each other didn't decrease as a result of their treaty in 1939. The Soviet Union remained to be an ideological enemy of Germany in Hitler's eyes (the German general Karl Tipelskirh).