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Aleksandr Zinovyev

Russian writer

Aleksandr Zinovyev (29 September 1922 – 10 May 2006) was a Russian philosopher, sociologist and writer

QuotesEdit

InterviewEdit

Alexander Zinoviev on Stalin and the dissolution of the USSREdit

  • A western citizen is being brainwashed much more than a soviet citizen ever was during the era of communist propaganda. In ideology, the main thing is not the ideas, but rather the mechanisms of their distribution. The might of the Western media, for example, is incomparably greater than that of the propaganda mechanisms of the Vatican when it was at the zenith of its power. And it is not only the cinema, literature, philosophy – all the levers of influence and mechanisms used in the promulgation of culture, in its broadest sense, work in this direction. At the slightest impulse all who work in this area respond with such consistency that it is hard not to think that all orders come from a single source of power.
  • After the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, a massive attack on the social rights of citizens was launched in the West. Today the socialists who are in power in most European countries are pursuing policies of dismantling the social security system, destroying everything that was socialist in the capitalist countries. There is no longer a political force in the West capable of protecting ordinary citizens. The existence of political parties is a mere formality. They will differ less and less as time goes on. The war in the Balkans was anything but democratic. Nevertheless, the war was perpetrated by the socialists who historically have been against these kinds of ventures. Environmentalists, who are in power in some countries, welcomed the environmental catastrophe caused by the NATO bombings. They even dared to claim that bombs containing depleted uranium are not dangerous for the environment, even though soldiers loading them wear special protective overalls. Thus, democracy is gradually disappearing from the social structure of the West. Totalitarianism is spreading everywhere because the supranational structure imposes its laws on individual states. This undemocratic superstructure gives orders, imposes sanctions, organizes embargos, drops bombs, causes hunger. Even Clinton obeys it. Financial totalitarianism has subjugated political power. Emotions and compassion are alien to cold financial totalitarianism. Compared with financial dictatorship, political dictatorship is humane. Resistance was possible inside the most brutal dictatorships. Rebellion against banks is impossible.

"Der ewige Dissident"Edit

  • Although Russia was the first victim of the global Americanisation, one should realise, that the whole Western Europe is affected. The liberal democracy belongs to the past. So does classical Capitalism. We are already situated in a post-democratic era: The new ruling class has realised that one cannot solve the problems of mankind through democracy.

OthersEdit

  • Communism was so organic for Russia and had so powerfully entered the way of life and psychology of Russians that the destruction of communism was equivalent to the destruction of Russia and of the Russian people as a historic people. [...] In a word, they [the anti-communists] aimed at communism but killed Russia.
  • I consider him [i.e Stalin] one of the greatest persons in the history of mankind. In the history of Russia he was, in my opinion, even greater than Lenin. Until Stalin's death I was anti-Stalinist, but I always regarded him as a brilliant personality.

Problems of the Logic of Scientific Knowledge, 1964Edit

  • New knowledge [of] the objects of investigation comes not through observation and experiment (as happens on the empirical level) but through logical judgments in the framework of a given or newly developed theory (i.e., special groups of concepts and statements united by rules of logic)
    • Foundations of the logical theory of scientific knowledge (Complex Logic). Reidel Publishing Company. trad : Guidi Kûng and David Dinsmore Comey. 1973. page VII. part editorial introduction
    • Logical and Physical implication, p.91 in Problems of the Logic of Scientific Knowledge (1964)

On the Social State of Marxism (1978)Edit

Lecture at the University of Alcalà, (December 1978)
  • Marxism emerged not only with the intention of explaining scientifically everything in the world, but in addition to this, as a representative of the ‘hurt and injured’ classes of the world, expressing thus the centuries old dream of an earthly paradise. But dreams and wishes have nothing to do with science.
  • All in all, Engels talked so much rot of every kind, that now all the world’s academies of science should be directed to rectify his mistakes and idiocies.
  • One physicist writes a study on microphysics, but another writes a book on the importance of Lenin’s and Engels’ works for the development of physics; one mathematician proves theorems, another publishes demagoguery on ingenious mathematical ideas of classical Marxists.
  • None of the Marxist concepts (literally – not a single one!) matches the logical rules of scientific concepts.
  • The firmest proof that Marxism is not science but an ideology is Marxism’s attitude to the experience of the real communist (or socialist) societies.
  • But the [communist] authorities acquire from Marxism a splendid method and abounding phraseology to justify whatever piggery.
  • Historically, Marxism was born with the ambition of explaining everything in the world scientifically. It is known, that Marx even dealt with mathematics. Although he could not solve problems which are nowadays clear for even asinine pupils, Marx left behind for the future generations his smart tips.
  • Marxism disguises itself as science and owing to this it is easier for Marxism to portray the existing society as acting on the basis of scientific laws of his history, to portray the leadership’s selfishness and idiocy as ingenious scientific foresight etc.
  • Unlike science, an ideology is constructed of conventional ambiguous expressions, which require interpretation. It is impossible to verify or experimentally confirm an ideological statement, one cannot refute these for they are meaningless. […] While arising, an ideology may have pretensions to be scientific. But having become an ideology, it loses all the major characteristics of science.

Katastroika (1988)Edit

  • But the Party had declared merciless war on drinking and that’s why those two remarkable party leaders had to confine themselves to the most trivial non-alcoholic drink. Had their fathers and grandfathers lived up to that moment and had they got to know it, they would have regarded it as a betrayal of Russian traditions and a trick by masons and Zionists.
  • The members of the commission flew to Partgrad the very next day – it was an unprecendented case in the Soviet Union. During the Brezhnev era, it would have taken a couple of months for all the discussions, after which the commission would have flown for a holiday to the Crimea or Caucasus in a body. And really, why should one fly to a certain Partgrad if everyone knows that all those ‘Lighthouses’ are mere swindle.
  • ‘More and more centres of population are joining the socialist competition to acquire the name of the place where prince Oleg was stung by a snake and former czarina Maria was strangled.’
  • After the death of Stalin the town was renamed Grazhdansk. But this name didn’t hold out more than a couple of years: then was the town given the name of Khrushchev himself. For a certain period after the deposal of Khrushchev the town didn’t have any name at all.
  • When Andropov became First Secretary of Central Committee of CPSU, he ordered the town renamed Partgrad. It’s hard to guess, how long will that name endure.
  • The first words of the inhabitats of Partgrad were offensive words.
  • On the palace of the Prince, there was a slogan: ‘Long live feudalism – the bright future of the whole humanity!’ The slogan on the first sanctuary read: ‘Forward to the victory of serfdom!’
  • It was prince Igor who decided already many years before Peter the Great to cut an opening to Europe. But as he didn’t know where Europe was, he cut it in a wrong direction, namely to Asia.
  • The Stalin Square and Stalin Prospect were renamed Lenin Square and Lenin Prospect. The statue of Stalin was remade into statue of Lenin.
  • The oblast head of Church disproved the claim in a party newspaper. At the same time he condemned the president of the US as a warmonger.
  • Having taken advantage of the carelessness of the KGB, the true communist ran to Moscow, with the intention of announcing the Western journalists that communism in Partgrad is being built in a wrong way and to begging the Western leaders to exert pressure on Soviet leadership so that the latter would rectify the Soviet communism and he, a true communist would be taken back in the party.
  • She is well known as an ardent supporter of whatever the party’s main direction is. She used to be a passionate Brezhnevist. Now she is an even more passionate Gorbachevist.
  • Khrushchev’s perestroika ended without any bloodshed. Khrushchev’s companions abandoned their leader in time and turned Brezhnevists.
  • They new the old folk wisdom: what has been built might be really crap and therefore it doesn’t make any sense to dig it, for the smell could make the life really impossible. They regarded Gorbachev exactly that kind of a fool, who had broken the rule.

Gorbachevism (1988)Edit

  • Gorbachevism, carried out by mediocre but ambitious party bureaucrats, is an attempt not only to outdo the people but also the objective laws of human society.
    • 4th article
  • The scientific approach uncovers, that Communism does not eliminate the inequality between men, the social injustice, exploitation of man by man and other evils of society – communism merely changes their form and gives birth to new evils, which become eternal fellow-travelers of communism.
    • 5th article
  • Perestroika is nothing but a spectacle organized from above.
    • 32nd article

Occidentism - an essay on the triumph of an ideology (1995)Edit

  • L'Occidentisme - essai sur le triomphe d'une idéologie, Alexandre Zinoviev (trad. Galia Ackerman et Pierre Lorrain), éd. Plon, 1995 (ISBN 978-2259-183-178)

Occidentism and CommunismEdit

=> Last chapter not published in the French edition by Plon

  • In reality, the occidentist state system is not reduced to democracy. It is not even its main element. It is in the public eye, it makes a lot of noise and serves as a showcase. But it is only the façade of real power

The Great rupture - Sociology of a changing world (2000)Edit

  • La grande rupture - sociologie d'un monde bouleversé, Alexandre Zinoviev (trad. Slobodan Despot), éd. Éditions l'Âge d'Homme

The great ruptureEdit

  • The mechanism of financial totalitarianism is constituted by the giant financial system of society, which is now conditioned above all by the infinite number of financial exchanges extending over all aspects of human life and society as a whole, including everything connected with capitalism.
  • The income of the financial mechanism does not come from the exploitation of wage earners: the individuals who are part of it receive their wages without producing anything. They are servants of a government apparatus similar to that of the state. [...] In reality, its type of financing is similar to that of the state, which produces nothing. It takes the tribute of those it serves, that is to say, that it exploits.

Last interview in the West, 1999Edit

  • the end of communism also marked the end of democracy, our era today is not only post-communist, it is also post-democratic. Today we are witnessing the establishment of democratic totalitarianism, or if you prefer, the establishment of totalitarian democracy.
  • Communist totalitarianism was sensitive to criticism from the West, and the West was also influenced by communism, particularly through its communist parties. Today we live in a world dominated by a single ideology, a single fact, by a single globalist party.
  • Totalitarianism is spreading everywhere because the supranational structure imposes its law on nations. This non-democratic super structure gives orders, sanctions, bombs, and starves.
  • Financial totalitarianism has subjugated the political powers. Financial totalitarianism is cold. It knows neither pity nor feelings. Political dictatorships are pitiful compared to this totalitarianism. A certain resistance was possible within the hardest dictatorships, no revolt is possible against a bank.
  • Democratic totalitarianism and financial dictatorship exclude social revolution.

The Global Suprasociety and Russia (2000)Edit

  • La Suprasociété globale et la Russie, Alexandre Zinoviev (trad. Gérard Conio), éd. L'Age d'Homme, 2000

On the way to the supra-societyEdit

  • Concrete historical processes are always a mixture of two types of processes: 1) the spontaneous, unplanned and undirected type; 2) the conscious and volitional, planned and directed type. Their proportions and roles vary within certain limits. When the second type is dominant, the whole process is, for the most part, planned (programmed) and directed, although some of its components remain unplanned and undirected.
  • In order to describe a spontaneous historical process, one must appeal to dialectics. To describe conscious-voluntary processes, another methodological apparatus must be used. In this case it is indispensable to know what the social plans (projects) are; how and why they are decided, how they are realized, how, by what means and according to what rules, the social management of people is practiced. This is not in contradiction with the dialectic, it is another orientation of the study of social objects.
  • ... in the social tragedy the judge pronounces a verdict against the victim.

The Russian tragedyEdit

  • ... Russia has made a breach in the world evolutionary process, discovering a new direction of social evolution, qualitatively different from the Western direction. On this way Russia has achieved colossal successes. It has found the solution to the most fundamental social problems, in principle unsolvable in the Western way. It has become a real communist competitor to the Western variant of human evolution.
  • ... the masters of the global supra-society continue Hitler's work, but using the much more powerful means of contemporary science and masking their aims under the label of democracy.
  • We can consider that the era we have just entered is not only post-communist but also post-democratic.
  • ... as far as the conquests of science are concerned, they are the foundation on which an obscurantism flourishes, with which the obscurantism of the Middle Ages pales in comparison.

Quotes about Aleksandr ZinovyevEdit

  • The articulation of universalism with the sense of Jewish identity took varying forms depending on the different revolutionary currents: for internationalists such as Leon Trotsky, Aleksandr Zinovyev, Karl Radek and Rosa Luxemburg, the assimilation of a Jewish revolutionary into the concrete universal party, the dissolution of the 'little difference' into the status of equality of the militant, anticipated the society for which they fought; they did not consider the little difference' as called on to crystallize one day in terms of national identity. Were they blind? Blinkered, certainly, in the sense that they underestimated the national dimension of the Jewish problem in Eastern Europe.
    • Alain Brossat and Sylvia Klingberg, Revolutionary Yiddishland: A History of Jewish Radicalism (2016)

External linksEdit

 
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