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Alexander Zinoviev
In 1939, Alexander Zinoviev, a brilliant student, was seventeen years old. `I could see the differences between the reality and the ideals of communism, I made Stalin responsible for this difference'.
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This sentence perfectly describes petit-bourgeois idealism, which is quite willing to accept Communist ideals, but abstracts itself from social and economic reality, as well as from the international context under which the working class built socialism. Petit-bourgeois idealists reject Communist ideals when they must face the bitterness of class struggle and the material difficulties they meet when building socialism. `I was already a confirmed anti-Stalinist at the age of seventeen', claimed Zinoviev.
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Ibid. , p. 104.
`I considered myself a neo-anarchist'.
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Ibid. , p. 126.
He passionately read Bakunin and Kropotkin's works, then those of Zheliabov and the populists.
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Ibid. , pp. 110, 118.
The October Revolution was made in fact `so that apparatchiks ... could have their state car for personal use, live in sumptuous apartments and dachas;' it aimed at `setting up a centralized and bureaucratic State'.
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Ibid. , pp. 111, 113.
`The idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat was nonsense'.
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Ibid. , p. 115.
`The idea of killing Stalin filled my thoughts and feelings .... I already had a penchant for terrorism .... We studied the ``technical'' possibilities of an attack ...: during the parade in Red Square ... we would provoke a diversion that would allow me, armed with a pistol and grenades, to attack the leaders.'
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Ibid. , pp. 118, 120.
Soon after, with his friend Alexey, he prepared a new attack `programmed for November 7, 1939'.
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Ibid. , p. 122.
Zinoviev entered a philosophy department in an élite school.
`Upon entry ... I understood that sooner or later I would have to join the CP .... I had no intention of openly expressing my convictions: I would only get myself in trouble ....
`I had already chosen my course. I wanted to be a revolutionary struggling for a new society .... I therefore decided to hide myself for a time and to hide my real nature from my entourage, except for a few intimate friends.'
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Ibid. , p. 116.
These four cases give us an idea of the great difficulty that the Soviet leadership had to face against relentless enemies, hidden and acting in secret, enemies that did everything they possibly could to undermine and destroy the Party and Soviet power from within.
Next: The struggle against Up: How did the Previous: Frunze
Fri Aug 25 09:03:42 PDT 1995