Marxism Triumphed First in Russia Because Its Core Value, the Denial of Freedom, was ‘Characteristic of Russian National Consciousness,’ Tsipko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 9 – Many Moscow commentators and politicians are suggesting that Russia’s future should involve the restoration of the Soviet system, a view that reflects their ignorance of what Soviet Marxism was about, how many different forms it took, and why it ultimately failed, Aleksandr Tsipko says.

            Typically, the senior Russian political commentator says, advocates of a return to the Soviet past “do not say which socialism we should return to,” something important because of the enormous differences between Stalin’s socialism and Khrushchev’s (mk.ru/social/2026/07/09/nazad-k-socializmu-chto-stoit-za-prizyvami-vernut-sovremennuyu-rossiyu-v-proshloe.html).

            For some reason, those calling for a return to Soviet socialism “never say anything good about Khrushchevian socialism.” Instead, they routinely insist that “the tragedy is that Khrushchev began to reform the Soviet system as created by Stalin and therefore allegedly opened the way to the death of the USSR.”

            “All the currently fashionable ideologists who are calling for a return to socialism do not take into account that, as Marx insisted, a socialist economy is to be build on the principle of militarization” and the authoritarianism needed to keep the system in that state, Tsipko continues.

            One reason that Stalinist socialism is so attractive to such people is that the Marxist “utopia,” with “its denial of freedom, morality and the value of human” are congruent with “our native Russian nationalism.” That is why it was in Russia that Bolshevism arose in that country and why the Soviets were the first to try to realize the ideas of Marx.

            Soviet socialism survived as long as it did, the commentator says, largely because it was imperfect. It was saved by the private plots of peasants who raised much of the country’s food and by the sale of oil and other natural resources abroad. When the latter failed to bring in enough money, the entire house of cards collapsed.

            Anyone who seriously wants to advocate Russia’s return to Soviet-style socialism, Tsipko says, needs to address these questions and ask himself and others seriously whether Russians really want to go through another cycle of repression, suffering and ultimately collapse.

            Although the fact that Marxist utopianism and Russian national consciousness have so much in common is clearly the reason why there are so many advocates in Moscow today for the revival of such a disastrous project, the senior Russian commentator who lived most of his life in Soviet times suggests.