F. Chernov, "Bourgeois Cosmopolitanism and its reactionary role", 2/4

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Source: Bol'shevik: Theoretical and Political Magazine of the Central Committee of the ACP(B), Issue #5, 15 March 1949, pp. 30-41.
Russkij tekst
Original Russian text

Bourgeois Cosmopolitanism and its reactionary role

by F. Chernov

[Scroll back to end of previous Part 1: Bourgeois Cosmopolitianism infiltrates Soviet culture.]
[2 -- THE PARTY Counterattacks..]

With the liquidation of the exploiter classes, Soviet society achieved unprecedented moral-political unity which found its most brilliant expression in the strong flowering of Soviet patriotism. But one must not forget that the imperialistic camp in every way possible strives to revive and renew the remnants of capitalism in the consciousness of Soviet people.
At the 17th Party Congress, Comrade Stalin pointed out that "one should not say that we have overcome all vestiges of capitalism in the consciousness of the people. One should not say this, not only because the development of the consciousness of the people lags behind their economic situation, but also because there still exists a capitalist encirclement which seeks to revive and support the remnants of capitalism in the economy and in the consciousness of the people of the USSR and against which we, Bol'sheviks, must at all times keep our powder dry." ("Questions of Leninism," 11th ed., p. 466).
Comrade G. M. Malenkov said in his report to an Informational Meeting of representatives of some Communist Parties:
"Since the crushing defeat and liquidation of the remnants of the exploiter classes in our country, the international bourgeoisie lost all support within the Soviet Union for its struggle against the Soviet state. However it aims to use for its purposes the remnants of capitalism in the consciousness of the Soviet people - remnants of the mentality of private ownership, vestiges of bourgeois morals, reverence of individuals for the bourgeois culture of the West, display of nationalism etc."
In the calculation of our foreign enemies they should divert Soviet literature and culture and Soviet science from the service of the Socialist cause. They try to infect Soviet literature, science, and art with all kinds of putrid influences, to weaken in such a way these powerful linchpins of the political training of the people, the education of the Soviet people in the spirit of active service to the socialist fatherland, to communist construction.
The Party of Lenin and Stalin leads a decisive attack against bourgeois ideology, inflicting blow after blow on all displays of bourgeois influence on the various sectors on the ideological front.
The Central Committee of the CPSU revealed the danger of empty ideological content and indifference to politics in art, which had cleared channels for penetration of the bourgeois worldview into the environment of Soviet people. The well known decree of the CC-CPSU regarding "Zvezda" ["Star"] and "Leningrad" magazines mobilized the Party and leaders of Soviet literature and art in the decisive struggle against apolitical attitudes and ideological emptiness, in the making of literature of a high ideological content, able to instill into the builders of communism a courageous spirit and confidence in the triumph of their great cause. On the foundation of the decisions of the CC-CPSU, Soviet literature and art achieved great successes, enriched by works which, as Comrade V. M. Molotov pointed out: "In their ways they show the ideological meaning of the events and work of people of the Soviet era."
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) firmly criticized the developing among independent Soviet scientific workers of bourgeois-objectivist concepts. Comrade A.A. Zhdanov in his statement on the discussion of Comrade G.F. Alexandrov's book "The History of Western Philosophy," noting the flaws of that book and its objectivist concepts, pointed out that such concepts, had they influenced our development, would have necessarily led to servility before bourgeois philosophy and to exaggeration of its merit, to the detriment of our philosophy of the aggressive, fighting spirit, which would have implied a retreat from basic materialism, from its directions, and from its Party spirit. In his statement in the discussion, criticizing Comrade Alexandrov's book, Comrade A.A. Zhdanov noted the failure to include in it the history of Russian philosophy is in no way justified, and that this omission is of a fundamental character.
The debate on G.F. Alexandrov's book centered on the workers on the philosophy front in the struggle against decadent bourgeois philosophy, in overcoming disparaging attitudes towards Russian philosophy, in further elaboration of Marxist-Leninist philosophy and in strengthening its bonds with the practical work of building communism.
The decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) about the opera by V. Muradeli "The Great Friendship" struck a blow against formalists and other putrid influences of bourgeois art on individual figures in Soviet music that were leading to a division between Soviet music on one hand, and the people, and their needs and demands, on the other. In this resolution, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) subjected to a scathing denunciation the direction of some composers who had neglected the great musical legacy of the brilliant Russian composers. The above-mentioned decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolshevik) revealed broad areas for uplifting Soviet musical culture, embodying in all work the socialist life of the Soviet people and the deep national traditions of music of the Russian people and of other peoples of the USSR.
Achieved under the direction of our Party, the destruction of Weisman-Morgan school of biology, and the historic August session of VASKhNIL were shattering blows against the attempts of our foreign enemies to drag into Soviet science reactionary ideology and metaphysical theory, causing damage to science, making it sterile and useless, and separating it from the needs of the people. Thus were assured the triumph of Michurinist materialistic biology in our country, the well-being of Soviet biological science, transforming nature.
The Central Committee of the ACP(B) unmasked attempts of the imperialist bourgeoisie to use such vestiges of the old regime, still found among individual representatives of our intelligentsia, as groveling before bourgeois culture. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party mobilized the party and Soviet intelligentsia in the struggle against each and every remnant cringing before the Western bourgeoisie, against every attempt to hide the priority of Russian scientists in many areas of science and technology, against the bare-faced attempts by bourgeois scientists to appropriate to themselves the priority belonging to Soviet scientists. The Party called upon the Soviet intelligentsia and the whole Soviet people to carry high the banner of Soviet national pride, raised still higher by the Soviet intelligentsia's patriotic consciousness of the great Soviet culture and its superiority over bourgeois culture.
The Party struck a blow against all manifestations of the influence of bourgeois ideology in the area of literature, art, science, and smashed the attempts of the imperialist bourgeoisie to shake the morale and mental firmness of Soviet people and, in such a way, to disturb the successful progress of our country towards communism, the growth and strengthening ofdevotion of the Soviet people to their socialist Motherland.
The most poisonous ideological weapon of the hostile capitalist encirclement is bourgeois cosmopolitanism. Consisting in part of cringing before foreign things and servility before bourgeois culture, rootless-cosmopolitanism produces special dangers, because cosmopolitanism is the ideological banner of militant international reaction, the ideal weapon in its hands for the struggle against socialism and democracy. Therefore the struggle with the ideology of cosmopolitanism, its total and definitive unmasking and overcoming acquires in the present time particular acuity and urgency.
[Scroll ahead to following Section 3, on the world-wide struggle against cosmopolitan imperialism.]
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