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

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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.

Bourgeois Cosmopolitanism and its reactionary role

by F. Chernov

[Scroll back to end of previous Part 3: THE WORLDWIDE struggle against "cosmopolitan" imperialism.]
[4 -- SOVIET Patriotism -- a new and higher type.]

Bourgeois cosmopolitanism is chiefly aimed against patriotism. Therefore the goal of further education, development and cultivation of Soviet patriotism demands a resolute struggle against cosmopolitanism and absolute victory over such disgraceful vestiges of bourgeois ideology as cringing and servility towards the capitalist West.
Soviet patriotism, against which rootless cosmopolitans directed their criminal activity, is a powerful weapon of our Party and of the Soviet people, and is an inexhaustible source of creative forces for Soviet people.
Revealing the sources of the indestructible spiritual strength of Soviet people, of their work and military valor, so strikingly demonstrated in the years of the Great Patriotic War [ie. WW II], Comrade Stalin said:
"The valiant labor of Soviet people in the rear, just like the immortal military feats of our soldiers on the front, have their source in fervent and life-giving Soviet patriotism."
In this exceptionally profound attitude, Comrade Stalin revealed what a truly invaluable, great significance ardent, life-giving Soviet patriotism has in the life of our society, in the life and activity of all Soviet people.
Soviet patriotism, widely expanding in our country as a result of the victory of socialism, nurtured in the Soviet people by the Party of Lenin and Stalin, became a powerful moving force of development of Soviet society.
Soviet patriotism, expressing the devotion of the Soviet people to their socialist Fatherland, is cementing the foundations of the Soviet multinational State, rallying all peoples and nationalities of our country into a united, fraternal family.
Soviet patriotism serves for the people of our country as a powerful ideological booster for unselfish work and heroic acts for the fame of the socialist Fatherland, for the sake of the victory of communism. With the blazing expression of Soviet patriotism is the lofty feeling of Soviet national pride, the awareness of the immeasurable superiority of Soviet society and socialist culture over bourgeois society and its culture.
Soviet patriotism, the feeling of Soviet national dignity, is a dependable ideological barrier which breaks up all attempts of international reaction to inject Soviet people with groveling and servility before the capitalist West.
Soviet patriotism, as the sense of deepening devotion of the popular masses to their fatherland, to the Soviet social and governmental system, is a qualitatively new phenomenon. Soviet patriotism is the most precious fruit of this fundamental revolution in the consciousness of the people, which took place on the basis of the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution in our country. Soviet patriotism has no equal in all previous history in the strength of its influence on the minds and hearts of people.
The new societal attitudes, originating from the winning of their socialist Fatherland by the working masses of our country also caused a new attitude of the popular masses towards the Motherland and the state. The expression of these new attitudes was Soviet socialist patriotism, forming the most profound and most striking trait of the new spiritual appearance of Soviet people.
"One should recognize," said Comrade V.M. Molotov, that a most important achievement of our revolution is the new spiritual aspect and ideological growth of people, as Soviet patriots."
Soviet patriotism arose, grew stronger and prevailed during the heroic struggle of the Bolshevik party and of the Soviet people for the defense of the socialist Fatherland, for the construction of socialism.
Throughout the entire history of the Soviet state, the Party of the Bolsheviks educated the toiling masses of our country in the spirit of Soviet patriotism.
Already on the eve of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Comrade Stalin, unmasking the Menshevik-Trotskyite "theory" of Russia's total dependence on the capitalist West, said:
"The possibility is not excluded that Russia in particular is a country building a road to socialism... One must cast aside old notions about this, that only Europe is able show us the way" (Works, vol. 3, p. 186-7).
These prophetic words of Comrade Stalin, full of genuine patriotism, inspired steadfast confidence in the line of the Bolshevik Party and hard work, in the ranks of the Bolshevik Party and workers a firm confidence in their own powers, and in the possibility of socialist development of our country.
In 1917, the "Russian people accomplished a gigantic leap forward - vaulting from czarism to the Soviet system" (V.I. Lenin, Works, vol. XXII, p. 185). The overthrow of the rule of the exploiting classes and the establishment of Soviet power meant that the toiling masses of our country gained at last their socialist Fatherland because of the heroic struggle of the Bolshevik party. "On the 7th of November (25th of October old style)," said Lenin, "we openly said that that we are for the defense of the Fatherland, for it is indeed our Fatherland..." (ibid., p. 400). Developing the patriotic idea of the defense of the socialist Fatherland, Lenin pointed out, that in the conditions of the rule of the proletarian dictatorship, this idea acquires a new, socialist content, since, defending the Fatherland, "we are defending socialism, we defend the socialist Fatherland." (ibid, p. 382).
The Party of Lenin and Stalin led the relentless struggle against all enemies of the socialist Fatherland. The Bolshevik party gave a resolute rebuff to the so-called "Left Communists," participants in the counterrevolutionary plot of the Trotskyite-Bukharinists. These enemies of the Party and of the people attempted to give out the Socialist motherland, just recently won by the workers and peasants, to flooding and pillage by troops of foreign interventionists and, taking refuge in false phrases about "revolutionary war" and supposed "international" interests, they proclaimed "In the interests of international revolution we consider it expedient to accept the possibility of losing Soviet power."
"Strange and monstrous," - thus did Lenin call these foul, provocative and treacherous statements of the Bukharinites. Hotly and angrily Lenin unmasked this disgraceful act of betrayal and treason. Sweeping away the anti-Soviet, antipatriotic ravings of "Left Communism," Lenin tore away its deceitful mask of internationalism and showed that the true and authentic internationalism in the conditions of victory in one country consists of every possible defense of the socialist Fatherland. "Exactly in the interests of 'strengthening ties' with international socialism," Lenin wrote, "it is mandatory to defend the socialist Fatherland." (Works, vol. XXII, p. 510).
One of the favorite forms of wrecking and sabotage activity by the Trotsky-Zinoviev band was unrestrained slander on the Soviet people and their socialist achievements and unbridled propagation of servility before the capitalist West. In their antipatriotic frenzy, Trotskyite-Bukharinists smeared mud on the Russian people, calling them a "nation of Oblomovs" [Editor's note: 19th Century writer I. A. Goncharov's character "Oblomov" was noted for apathy, inactivity, and laziness.] Leninism -- the greatest achievement of Russian and world culture, the glory and pride of the Soviet people -- they proclaimed to be a nationally-limited teaching. The toadies crawling before the capitalist West aspired to kill the Soviet people's faith in the victory of socialism and proclaimed that the Soviet people are not in a condition by their own strengths to overcome the country's technical and economic backwardness, that "backward" Russia can not stand up in front of "progressive" Europe.
Unmasking the Trotskyite-Bukharinist band of enemies of the people, Comrade Stalin said that this was "a small group of spies, murderers and wreckers, groveling before foreign countries, penetrated with cringing feelings of servility before every foreign bureaucrat and willing to work in their intelligence service - a small group of people, not understanding that the least Soviet citizen, free from the chains of capital, stands a head taller than any high-ranking foreign bureaucrat, dragging a yoke of capitalist slavery on the shoulders." ("Questions on Leninism" p. 590).
In the struggle against all enemies of the socialist Motherland -- against Trotskyites, Bukharinists, and bourgeois nationalists - Lenin and Stalin pointed out that the proletariat, defending the socialist Fatherland, does not and cannot have any contradiction or divergence between its devoted service to the socialist Motherland and its international tasks.
Soviet patriotism is inseparable from proletarian internationalism, organically connected with it. It organically unites with itself national traditions of the peoples with the vital interests of all the workers of the USSR. In the strength of its socialist character, Soviet patriotism repudiates any preaching of national or racial exclusiveness; any racial or national prejudice is alien to it. Soviet patriotism is the complete opposite of bourgeois pseudo-patriotism which from start to finish is permeated with the spirit of nationalism and chauvinism, alien to the popular masses.
As Lenin pointed out, "internationalism does not mean anti-nationalism" (Works, 4th ed., vol. 21, p. 245). This observation of Lenin is of fundamental significance, because he is talking about the fact that proletarian internationalism does not have anything in common with bourgeois cosmopolitanism, today being the banner of ideological reaction.
"If, at heart, internationalism is respect for other peoples, it is impossible to be an internationalist without respect or love for one's own people" (A.A. Zhdanov).
With its preaching of indifference to the destiny and interests of its people and Fatherland, by its mockery of authentically patriotic feelings of peoples, bourgeois cosmopolitanism is only able to cultivate contemptible betrayers of the Motherland.
Throughout the entire history of socialist construction in the USSR the Bolshevik party led and leads the most resolute fundamental struggle with all antipatriotic displays, with all enemies of the Soviet people, of Soviet culture.
The struggle of the party against the enemies of Leninism always was a profoundly patriotic struggle for the socialist road of development of our nation, for its freedom and independence, for the victory of socialism. In this struggle the party fostered in the Soviet people an invincible faith in its creative strength, developed and cultivated its sense of Soviet patriotism, its awareness of its national dignity and superiority over people of the bourgeois world.
The party unmasked the antipatriotic, bourgeois-cosmopolitan essence of servility before the capitalist West. It revealed that this cringing before foreign countries inevitably leads to national treason and to betrayal of the interests of the Soviet people and the socialist Fatherland. The unmasking of antipatriotic groups of bourgeois cosmopolitans, the struggle against the ideology of bourgeois cosmopolitanism, is a striking expression of the concern of the Bolshevik Party about the education of the toiling masses of our country in the spirit of life-giving, Soviet patriotism.
The decisions and directions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) regarding ideological questions bring a shattering blow against the development of bourgeois ideology and mobilize the party and all workers on the ideological front for an indefatigable struggle against bourgeois influences, for a struggle to strengthen Bolshevik party-ness, the militant, pugnacious patriotic-Soviet spirit. These decisions and directions of the Central Committee of the ACP(B) have their goal "to strengthen, in such a way, the Party spirit of Soviet science, literature, and art and to raise to a new, higher level all instruments of our socialist culture: the press, propaganda, science, literature, art" (G. Malenkov).
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