Wang Tingyou: The Manifestations, Essence, and Hazards of Historical Nihilism in the Soviet Union During the Gorbachev Era
Historical nihilism [1] takes on different connotations in different contexts. Within socialist countries, or from the perspective of Communists, historical nihilism refers specifically to a socio-political and historical trend of thought. By disparaging the preeminent leaders of the Communist Party, revolutionary martyrs, and heroic models, and by distorting and vilifying the glorious history created by the people under the leadership of the Party, it seeks to disintegrate socialist ideology, shake the Party's governing status, and negate the fundamental socialist system, thereby achieving the goal of subverting socialist political power and restoring the capitalist system. The country where this trend first spread and caused serious consequences was the Soviet Union. China's academic community has long focused on holistic research regarding the causes and lessons of the Soviet collapse, centering on analyses of the ideological, political, economic, ethnic, and diplomatic problems of the CPSU and the USSR. Today, thirty years after the demise of the Party and the state in the Soviet Union, exploring the degeneration of the CPSU and the USSR in fields such as ideology, politics, and diplomacy from the perspective of historical nihilism—particularly the manifestations, essence, and harm of historical nihilism during the Gorbachev period—holds great significance for the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people, who are currently committed to realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
1. Unrestricted "Glasnost" Opened the Floodgates for the Wave of Nihilating Soviet History
The term "glasnost" [2] (openness) was first used by Lenin. Lenin's original intent in advocating "glasnost" was to help the public stay informed about the development of the Party and the state through the appropriate disclosure of Party and state affairs and the "seeking truth from facts" reporting of economic and social developments. By leveraging the "natural selection effect" of universal supervision by the masses and the media, it aimed to broaden the channels through which the Party connected with the masses and guarantee the people's right to be masters of the country. However, under Gorbachev, "glasnost" turned into the unrestricted exposure of the so-called "dark side" of Soviet history and negative phenomena in Soviet society, as well as the filling in of so-called "historical blank spots" to "ensure that people fully understand their own history." The ideological floodgates of the Soviet Union were thus opened; the state and society henceforth swayed in the wind and rain, and the masses began to march toward the abyss of disaster.
If it can be said that Gorbachev’s initial advocacy of "glasnost" as an important way to promote the "democratization" of society had a certain degree of rationality, its orientation and connotation began to undergo a substantive change at the January 1987 Plenary Session of the CPSU Central Committee. This meeting called for the implementation of "maximum openness" and demanded that "there should be no forbidden zones immune to criticism in Soviet society." In his closing speech, Gorbachev proposed to "let the people know everything." A month later, while meeting with leaders of the media and propaganda sectors, he claimed that in Soviet history "there should be no forgotten figures or blank spots." In July of the same year, he further emphasized, "Let our opinions be more diverse, let the whole society participate, and let socialist pluralism fill every publication." In November 1987, in his book Perestroika and New Thinking, he proposed to "let glasnost shine brightly," arguing that the media "is the most representative and mass-based forum for openness." He stated that "any event, whether it is a painful point of today or a tragic event in past history, can become an object of newspaper analysis," and "let those who advocate that the activities of the Party, state, economic organs, and social organizations should have the character of openness go ahead and do it."
On January 8, 1988, while meeting with leaders of the media, ideological organs, and creative associations, Gorbachev overtly claimed that "democratization and glasnost are not just means of reform, but also the realization of the essence of our socialist system," and "we advocate unreserved and unrestricted openness." At the February Plenary Session of the CPSU Central Committee that same year, he again proposed to "adjust the main channel of our practical actions, which have been regarded as the norm by Communists for more than a century," and to "make objective and appropriate comments" on the path the Soviet Union had traveled for 70 years. In the report to the 19th All-Union Conference of the CPSU held in June of that year, he emphasized once more that "reform has placed glasnost at the forefront of life" and "without glasnost, there is no innovation." The conference also passed the resolution "On Glasnost," drafted under the chairmanship of Yakovlev [3], which pointed out that further developing "glasnost" was a major political task. Thereafter, the craze for slandering the history of the CPSU and the Soviet Union grew wave after wave, each higher than the last.
Anti-communist and anti-socialist forces took the opportunity to exploit "glasnost" to promote freedom of the press, media independence, and the legalization of private newspapers. On June 12, 1990, Gorbachev, in his capacity as President of the Soviet Union, approved the Press and Media Law passed by the Congress of People's Deputies of the Soviet Union, which was set to take effect on August 1st of that year. Article 1 of this law explicitly declared "freedom of the press" and that "public opinion is not subject to censorship." It stated that citizens have the "right to express opinions and views in any form," including "through newspapers and other media, and to seek, select, obtain, and disseminate information." It emphasized that no political party or organization "is allowed to monopolize any form of media" and stipulated that state organs, political parties, social organizations, religious groups, and citizens over the age of 18 "all have the right to establish media outlets." On July 15, 1990, Gorbachev issued a presidential decree on the democratization of television and radio, stipulating that Soviet state television and radio "are independent of political and social organizations" and that no political party would be allowed to monopolize them.
Four months after the promulgation of the Press and Media Law, 700 newspapers and periodicals (including 13 party publications) were registered within the Soviet Union. Opposition newspapers and various "informal" publications gained legal status, while newspapers and periodicals formerly affiliated with the CPSU broke away from their original founding institutions to become independent. The weekly Argumenty i Fakty (Arguments and Facts) decoupled from its founder, the All-Union "Knowledge" Society; Moscow News also announced its break from the Novosti Press Agency; and newspapers such as Trud (Labor) and Literaturnaya Gazeta (Literary Gazette) removed the words "organ of" from their mastheads. By the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, among the registered newspapers and periodicals, those controlled by the CPSU accounted for only 1.5%. The CPSU had completely lost its ideological front and its right to speak [4].
Because "glasnost" encouraged people to expose historical "blank spots," it stirred up old ethnic grievances and legacy issues, triggering a wave of ethnic separatism in the Soviet Union. Since 1939, it had generally been believed that the three Baltic states joined the Soviet Union voluntarily. However, under the instigation of extreme ethnic forces and Western countries, this historical fact was transformed into the claim that the three countries were "forced to join the Soviet Union," which became an excuse for separatist forces to seek national independence. Subsequently, ethnic separatist activities in the three Baltic states rose one after another until they completely broke away from the Soviet Union. Incited by "glasnost" and extreme ethnic thinking, the spirit of mutual respect, trust, and solidarity among the various ethnic groups vanished, replaced by mutual suspicion, discrimination, and constant ethnic disputes and conflicts. According to incomplete statistics, in 1988 alone, there were more than 2,600 demonstrations, marches, riots, and conflicts in more than 170 cities and regions across the Soviet Union, with more than 16 million participants; 60% of these riots were related to ethnic issues.
If the Soviet Union had not done well regarding openness in the past, and there were indeed ailments of insufficient transparency that harmed the interests of the Soviet people, then to overcome these ailments, the task of proposing an expansion of openness was necessary and correct. But the problem lies in the fact that, from ancient times to the present, no political party or state has ever engaged in "unreserved and unrestricted openness." The degree of openness of the internal affairs of any party or state depends on the needs of economic and social development as well as the will of the people. Although Lenin advocated "glasnost," he never advocated disclosing everything or engaging in "openness" without exception or reservation. On the contrary, Lenin always emphasized the principles of discipline and confidentiality in the management of Party and state affairs, advocating that what must be kept secret according to actual conditions must remain secret, and what is not suitable for public disclosure should temporarily not be disclosed. For the Soviet Union at that time—which was still surrounded by capitalism and constantly faced Western threats—engaging in unreserved and limitless "glasnost" was completely wrong and extremely dangerous.
Factually speaking, Gorbachev's "glasnost" was always a "one-way street." It only allowed for the open venting of anti-communist and anti-socialist viewpoints, ideas, and public opinions, but did not allow those who adhered to Marxist positions and principles to refute or resist them. On March 13, 1988, the newspaper Sovetskaya Rossiya (Soviet Russia) published a long letter from Nina Andreyeva [5], a female teacher at Leningrad Institute of Technology and a CPSU member, titled "I Cannot Give Up Principles." The letter criticized many practices and erroneous trends of the reform at that time, such as "using glasnost to spread non-socialist pluralism," and triggered a great public debate on issues such as reform and history. Gorbachev reacted as if facing a formidable enemy. Upon returning to the country, he convened the Politburo for two consecutive days to specifically discuss Andreyeva's article, resulting in a transcript 75 pages long. Gorbachev explicitly characterized the article as an "action program against reform" and even threatened to drag out the "behind-the-scenes masterminds." On April 5 of the same year, Pravda published a full-page editorial, written by Yakovlev and revised by Gorbachev, which severely criticized Andreyeva's views. Various newspapers and periodicals subsequently expressed their support for the Pravda article. Sovetskaya Rossiya was later forced to publicly admit its "error."
The Nina Andreyeva incident was a superb irony of Gorbachev's "double standards" regarding "glasnost," and it also marked the moment when the positions of major Soviet newspapers began to tilt toward Gorbachev's side. Russian scholars Lisichkin and Shelepin analyzed this event profoundly: "The key was not Nina Andreyeva. She was merely an excuse chosen by the Gorbachev clique to achieve an ideological rebellion. Thereafter, anyone who upheld socialism and opposed the total negation of Soviet history became an 'enemy of reform' and a representative of 'conservative forces.' For example, when Yegor Ligachev sometimes expressed dissent against Gorbachev at Politburo meetings, all sorts of rumors, slanders, insinuations, and street hearsay in the press fell upon his head. This made it clear to everyone that as long as one dared to oppose the Gorbachev line, they would suffer a double blow from above (the CPSU Central Committee) and below (the mass media)."
2. The Adverse Current of Historical Nihilism Permeated Soviet Literature, Media, and Historiography
Shortly after the implementation of "glasnost," a wave of nihilating history emerged within the Soviet Union. Initially, it manifested in literary and artistic works, subsequently spreading to the media and historiography. By early 1987, the so-called "movement to re-evaluate history" appeared, reaching its climax in 1988. Those who negated history adopted the tone of Khrushchev's "Secret Report" [6], starting with the criticism of Stalin's "crimes" and "Stalinism," and then extending further to negate the October Revolution and Leninism, negate Marxism, negate the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Soviet socialist system, and negate the Soviet military and Soviet heroes.
"Glasnost" meant, first of all, the unbanning of past literary and artistic works. With Gorbachev’s support, literary and artistic works concerning Soviet history—particularly the Stalin period—were gradually published or released. In late 1986, Alexander Bek's novel The New Appointment, which reflected the career of high-level industrial managers during the Stalin period, was unbanned and published. The Georgian film Repentance, directed by Tengiz Abuladze, was approved for public screening with Gorbachev's consent. The film, shot under the protection of Georgian First Secretary Shevardnadze, alluded to the "autocratic system" of the Stalin era in the form of a fable. Its public release in Moscow in early 1987 caused a sensation. Thereafter, literary and artistic works that had been consigned to the "cold palace" [7] by censorship departments were released one after another. Yakovlev once called the release of Repentance the "beginning of the ideological collapse" of the Soviet Union.
After the January 1987 Plenary Session of the CPSU Central Committee, not only were banned films that had long been shelved approved for public screening, but newspapers and periodicals were also allowed to publish works that sharply criticized reality, and could even reprint the works of "dissidents" and authors living abroad. From its fourth issue in 1987, the magazine Druzhba Narodov (Friendship of Peoples) serialized Anatoly Rybakov’s novel Children of the Arbat, which insinuated that the assassination of Kirov was orchestrated by Stalin himself. The novel caused a huge sensation upon publication, with the West calling it a "literary bomb in Moscow." Gorbachev affirmed that "the events surrounding Rybakov's novel help to eliminate various misgivings about exposing the consequences of totalitarianism."
At that time, the long poem The Right of Memory, written by Pavlo Tvardovsky in 1969, was also highly influential. The poem depicts the fate of the author's father, who was exiled as a kulak [8] in 1931. Its publication in the two major literary journals, Novy Mir and Znamya, caused a sensation, with circulation reaching 680,000 copies. Requiem, composed by the poetess Anna Akhmatova to commemorate her son who was arrested in 1937, was also released from prohibition and published in 1987. Furthermore, previously banned novels by authors such as Mozhayev, Dudintsev, and Granin appeared in early 1987. These works aimed at breaking through historical "forbidden zones" [9] and took the hinting at or exposing of problems from the Stalin era as their primary tone, serving as the "stepping stones" for the literary works unblocked under glasnost [10].
Newly created literary and artistic works also emerged in large numbers, sparking enormous social repercussions and prompting people—including the youth—to turn their attention to the Soviet past. Some writers, literary critics, and political commentators took advantage of the publication of such works to release an incessant stream of articles, launching unbridled attacks on Stalin's "totalitarian rule" and slandering the Soviet socialist system as a "military-feudalist dictatorship."
Various newspapers and periodicals scrambled to publish works exposing past problems, with circulation increasing tens or even hundreds of times over. The journal Friendship of Peoples saw its circulation jump from 150,000 in December 1987 to 800,000 in January 1988 due to the serialization of Children of the Arbat. Even non-literary publications were keen to publish works reflecting historical issues or to engage in political activism. Science and Life, which primarily published articles on science and technology, began in 1986 to devote a significant amount of space to anti-Stalinist bestsellers. The weekly Ogoniok, hailed as the "mouthpiece" of glasnost, organized a so-called "Week of Conscience" in Moscow in November 1988. Through activities such as hosting various lectures, screening previously "forbidden films" that distorted history, and raising funds to build monuments to the victims of the Great Purge, it attracted the masses and disturbed the public mind.
The historical community was not to be left behind. In March 1987, under the chairmanship of the historian and Rector Yuri Afanasyev, the Moscow State Institute for History and Archives opened a series of lectures themed "The Social Memory of Humanity." The first lecture was titled "Forgotten Chapters and Names in the History of the October Revolution and the Great Patriotic War." The speaker, Dr. Vasily Polikarpov, proposed many so-called "blank spots" [11] that were supposedly little known, causing a shock in the Soviet historical community. In the following years, a massive number of "blank spots" appeared in almost every stage of Soviet history. According to incomplete statistics, there were about 150 "blank spots" concerning Soviet history, with the most concentrated in the Stalin era. Meanwhile, the "Great Purge" was the central topic and focus of the Stalin period. In 1988, E.A. Malysheva compiled statistics from 32 Soviet newspapers and 97 magazines, finding that from 1986 to 1988, a total of 721 works related to Stalin were collected, of which 407 were related to the Soviet "Great Purge" and 289 were directly related to it.
Among some scholars, the number of people persecuted to death during the "Great Purge" of the 1930s increased geometrically, from several million to tens of millions. As late as 1998, A. Tsalykova, a Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, believed that 12 million people died in Soviet concentration camps between 1937 and 1950; when including executed kulaks and those suppressed or starved to death due to collectivization, the total reached 20 million. This was considered a relatively conservative view at the time. Some even believed that the number of deaths due to repression in the 1930s alone reached 16 to 20 million. As for why these individuals chose to arbitrarily expand the death toll, an article by Soviet scholar Danilov published in Pravda on September 16, 1988, perhaps revealed the underlying reason: these authors pushed the numbers as high as possible, regardless of whether they were reliable or logical, because "they hoped to shock the reader with a death toll of 13 or 15 million. From their perspective, if the number were 'only' 4 or 5 million, it would be insufficient for us to completely condemn Stalin's persecution of the peasantry."
Not only were the consequences of the "Great Purge" and problems in Soviet history arbitrarily expanded, but the root of the problems was also infinitely escalated: from individual issues such as Stalin’s "arbitrariness" and "dictatorship," it rose to the "autocratic rule" of the CPSU and the "totalitarian" system of the Soviet Union. Those nihilizing [12] Soviet history argued that the errors of the "Great Purge," including the lack of democracy in Soviet political and social life, were caused by the Communist Party's "monopoly" on power. In 1989, Dr. Alexander Tsipko published a long article titled "The Roots of Stalinism," arguing that the October Revolution was a product of "radicalism" that forcibly interrupted the normal historical process of Russian society, and that the "radicalist" ideology and social practice from 1917 to 1988 were the primary obstacles to contemporary society. On March 12, 1990, Yuri Afanasyev, who had become a leading member of the "Democratic Union," openly attacked Lenin at the Congress of People's Deputies, saying, "Our entire history is written using force and violence. If our leader and founder (Lenin) laid a foundation for anything, it was the principle of state violence and the policy of terror." Afanasyev also stated, "Lenin’s heresy regarding socialism and its specific manifestations are dubious. What is needed is not repair, but a new foundation. All revolutionist theories should be discarded. The path we have traveled is a dead end." Under the bewitchment of the trend of "de-Leninization," anti-Soviet and anti-Communist forces publicly burned statues of Lenin—the "symbol of the autocratic state"—and demanded that Lenin's body be moved out of the Mausoleum, the alleged reason being to "thoroughly clear the tradition of the cult of personality" from the consciousness of Soviet people.
In April 1991, Issue No. 4 of Literaturnaya Gazeta published a conversation between Fyodor Burlatsky, a member of the Supreme Soviet, and Academician Stanislav Shatalin, an economist and member of the Presidential Council. Burlatsky claimed: "The world has changed; the capitalism described by Marx in the 19th century no longer exists"; "Socialism throughout the world, socialism in new countries, is a dangerous utopia"; "Marx is terrifying, he proposed the concept of transforming society through violence, a concept that developed into the idea of dictatorship, which turned into the dictatorship of the Party—the dictatorship of one part of society over everyone else—ultimately becoming the autocracy of the leader." For "a large multi-ethnic country like the Soviet Union, implementing a two-party system like that of the United States is most ideal—for example, Communists and Social Democrats." Shatalin, for his part, declared: "I oppose communism, I oppose communist ideology"; "Modern social democracy based on Marxism is meaningless; such a party will be a non-constructive party with no future"; "Socialism was never established in the Soviet Union."
The spearhead of historical negation was also pointed at the Soviet military and Soviet heroes. Anti-Soviet and anti-Communist periodicals and extremist forces specialized in exposing and attacking so-called problems of the Soviet military, scapegoating the military for the consequences caused by Gorbachev's erroneous reforms. Consequently, the Soviet army became the "sinner" responsible for the tension in relations between the Soviet Union and other countries; economic recession was supposedly the result of the "monster" of the Soviet military sucking the country dry. Defaming Soviet soldiers and negating military history became fashionable. National heroes such as Zoya [13], Matrosov, Klochkov, and the Young Guard were slandered; the Soviet army was portrayed as an accomplice of a "fascist regime," and the victory in the Great Patriotic War was dismissed as merely the "greater fascist" (the Soviet Union) defeating the "lesser fascist" (Germany). Public opinion advocating for the army's "de-party-ization," "de-politicization," and "nationalization" prevailed, and the CPSU gradually lost its leadership over the military, which became a "giant with feet of clay" that could be toppled with a single blow. On November 14, 1990, Marshal of the Soviet Union Akhromeyev published an article in Sovetskaya Rossiya noting that the overall anti-military campaign had ceased to be a local issue since the middle of that year. Separatist and anti-socialist forces combined the policy of discredited the military with the marginalization of the Communist Party and launched a large-scale movement demanding the resignation of the government.
III. Support and Encouragement from CPSU Leaders as the Primary Cause for the Rampancy of Historical Nihilism
The rise and spread of the trend of Soviet historical nihilism had complex and profound social and historical roots. Undoubtedly, the CPSU’s severe detachment from reality, its loss of ideals and beliefs, the stagnation of its ideology and theory, and the prevalence of bureaucratism, dogmatism, and formalism, as well as long-standing serious problems in politics, economy, ethnicity, and diplomacy in Soviet society, all provided a breeding ground and conditions for the birth and spread of historical nihilism. Various domestic and foreign anti-Soviet and anti-Communist forces precisely exploited these problems existing within the CPSU and Soviet society, using the exposure of the "dark side" of history and negative social phenomena as a breakthrough point to incite public dissatisfaction with the CPSU and the government, create chaos, and seize power amidst the turmoil. During this process, CPSU leaders such as Gorbachev and Yakovlev took the lead in advocating for glasnost, "democratization," and "pluralism," as well as in negating the leadership of the CPSU and the Soviet socialist system. Their open support for anti-Communist and anti-socialist forces added fuel to the fire and played a decisive role in the rampancy of historical nihilism.
In the wave of negating history, Gorbachev can be said to have led the charge. Under the guise of glasnost, "democratization," and "pluralism," he not only expanded the problems in Soviet history, using the part to represent the whole and confusing right and wrong to comprehensively negate Soviet history and practice, but also viewed the socialist system as the root cause hindering the development of Soviet society. He claimed that "more than three-quarters of the Soviet experience is questionable," that "the model of the social structure created by Stalin has collapsed," and that "the model imposed on the Party and society for decades has suffered a strategic failure," asserting that what the Soviet Union practiced was a "distorted," "bureaucratic-autocratic," and "totalitarian" socialism. Therefore, he argued for a complete "farewell to the past," "blowing everything up," and "shattering Stalinist ideology and everything related to it," fundamentally transforming the entire edifice of Soviet society (from the economic base to the superstructure) and "transitioning from an autocratic-centralized social model to a humane, democratic socialism oriented toward serving the people."
Gorbachev also pointed the spearhead of his criticism at the guiding ideology of the Soviet Party and state. At the beginning of the reforms, he claimed loyalty to Marxism-Leninism and proposed "learning from Lenin." The 1986 Party Program and Statutes of the 27th Congress of the CPSU stipulated that Marxism-Leninism "holds a dominant position in spiritual life" and that the CPSU "follows the teachings of Marxism-Leninism" in all its activities. However, before long, he criticized Marxism for its "limitations," claiming it failed to foresee the vitality of capitalism; he criticized Lenin for lacking a complete program for building socialism in Russia and further declared that the social theories created by Marx and Lenin were outdated and that the "fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism" required reinterpretation.
On important occasions, such as the February 1988 Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee and the 19th All-Union Party Conference, he attacked the insistence on Marxism-Leninism as a "spiritual monopoly," advocating for the "resolute abandonment of ideological monopolism" and the implementation of "ideological pluralism" to allow various ideas to "compete freely." At the 28th Congress of the CPSU, he continued to emphasize that the "CPSU resolutely abandons its political and ideological monopoly," and that the CPSU must not only "comprehend the legacy of Marx, Engels, and Lenin" but also "comprehend the legacy of other titans of revolutionary and progressive thought." This was, in effect, an abandonment of the guiding status of Marxism-Leninism. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, he stated even more frankly: Communism is "an almost unachievable slogan," and the tragedy of Russia lies in the fact that "the ideas of Karl Marx’s later years, which were already dead, were chosen in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and introduced into real society; this was a mistake." He felt "greatly honored" that during the years of reform he could "clear the influence of communism from people's consciousness."
Gorbachev not only dismantled the CPSU's ideological armament but also fundamentally denied the Party's leading position under the banners of "humanism" and "alienation." He believed that the Soviet Union's "totalitarian socialism" had created three major "monopolies," resulting in three types of "alienation": politically, the Communist Party's leadership meant the "usurpation of state power," creating a "political monopoly" and laboring under the "alienation of man from politics and state power"; economically, the dominance of public ownership excluded the people's right to choose forms of ownership, creating an "economic monopoly" and the "alienation of man from the means of production and property"; ideologically, the guiding position of Marxism hindered the "absorption of all progressive ideas in the world," creating a "spiritual monopoly" and the "alienation of man from culture." The key to all these issues, in his view, was the Communist Party’s "monopoly" on all power, which was the root cause of "alienation." To overcome the "alienation" of socialism, it was necessary to eliminate "monopolies" in all fields, especially the Party’s "monopoly" on state power. Therefore, he argued, the CPSU's status as the ruling party must be abolished in favor of a Western-style multiparty system. The decision of the February 1990 Plenary Session of the CPSU Central Committee to amend Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution, thereby revoking the CPSU's leading position and preparing for the implementation of a multiparty system, was the practical implementation of Gorbachev’s critique of the "totalitarian socialism" heresy.
Under Gorbachev’s instigation, Aleksandr Yakovlev, the head of ideology for the CPSU Central Committee, advocated "glasnost" [14], "democratization," and "pluralism" everywhere. He encouraged society to expose "the full truth of the past," totally negated the Soviet socialist practice, and actively sought to "rehabilitate" controversial historical figures. He shook the leading position of the CPSU, negated the Soviet social system, and advocated for the removal of Marxism-Leninism as the guiding ideology. In the fourth issue of the journal Kommunist in 1990, he published an article openly criticizing "communism"—with its principle of "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"—as "Utopian." He later claimed: "In essence, not a single one of the specific economic conclusions upon which Marx built the edifice of his 'scientific socialist' worldview has been confirmed in practice." He viciously attacked the October Revolution, which he had once passionately praised, slandering it as a "coup d'état launched by a few thugs," the "most tragic event in a thousand years of Russian history," and the "prologue to the Devil's song," after which the Great Ship of Socialism "sailed upon a sea of blood and tears." He even fabricated rumors that the October Revolution was the realization of a secret plan by the German General Staff and that Lenin was a secret German agent receiving funds from Kaiser Wilhelm II to dismantle the Tsarist regime from within.
Yakovlev "faithfully" fulfilled Gorbachev’s reform line, actively implementing unrestricted "glasnost" and seizing control of the news media by appointing cronies and carrying out large-scale reshuffles of the leadership in major Soviet newspapers and media outlets. The editors-in-chief of central CPSU publications such as Pravda, Ogoniok, Moskovskie Novosti, Izvestia, Literaturnaya Gazeta, and Komsomolskaya Pravda were replaced. A large number of editors and journalists lacking Marxist literacy and firm convictions were promoted. These publications quickly became propaganda tools for liberals and mouthpieces for anti-Marxist and anti-socialist rhetoric. The famous Russian writer Yuri Bondarev pointed out with distress: "Over several years, he [Yakovlev] selected newspaper editors and radio and television personnel for the purpose of destruction, meticulously considering and arranging their replacement and transfer, prescribing tactical means, instilling pluralistic ideas that destroyed various connections, and exploiting people’s enthusiasm for glasnost by telling a modicum of truth only to immediately distort it. He fanned the flames among tens of millions of people, unscrupulously spreading skepticism and destroying trust in people’s reason, in national culture, history, and socialism. In six years, the press achieved what the best-equipped European armies failed to achieve when they invaded our country with fire and sword in the 1940s. That army possessed first-class technical equipment but lacked one thing: tens of millions of germ-ridden publications."
Under the instigation, support, and encouragement of CPSU leaders like Gorbachev and Yakovlev, and spurred by policies such as "glasnost," "democratization," and "pluralism," domestic and foreign anti-Soviet, anti-communist, and anti-socialist forces launched fierce attacks on Stalin and "Stalinism," Leninism, and the October Revolution, while negating Marxism. The momentum of rumors and slander grew wave after wave. Soviet socialist practice was described as having no merit whatsoever; the CPSU was labeled a "criminal" organization; the Soviet socialist system was said to have brought "only disaster" to the people; and the Soviet past was framed as a "disgraceful history." Yegor Ligachev, who served as a member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee during the Gorbachev era, once described it thus: "Subversive articles swept through the instruments of public opinion like a violent storm. What the ultra-right press depicted was not a multidimensional history where achievements and mistakes were contradictorily intertwined, but only dark stains... This unjust, malicious, and untruthful distorted reporting disturbed and irritated the social atmosphere. Consequently, the spearhead was aimed at Communist Party members, the CPSU, and the Party's history," and "ultimately aimed at the people, at the people's memory of history."
The total negation of the CPSU and Soviet history not only seriously damaged the image of Party and state leaders (especially Lenin and Stalin) but also greatly shook people's faith in Marxism and their belief in socialism and communism. The Russian political scientist and sociologist Sergey Kara-Murza pointed out profoundly: "During the years of reform [the Gorbachev era], many very beautiful but vague images entered the consciousness of Soviet people, such as democracy, civil society, the rule of law, and so on. None of the politicians who swore loyalty to these beautiful idols articulated the essence of the concepts." "Countless well-meaning Soviet people fell into the hands of political swindlers; thousands upon thousands followed the flickering light of illusions, not knowing whether they should support or oppose the various schemes proposed to them that would determine their own fate and the fate of their descendants." "Symbols and milestones in the nation’s history were blackened and mocked; black and white were reversed; and chaos was created in the systems of measurement and evaluation, and even in the chronological order of events constituting historical pictures. Society's ability to form collective memory was destroyed... Both society as a whole and individuals lost the ability to analyze the past and use its lessons to determine their own position in contemporary conflicts."
The status of the CPSU and its leaders in the eyes of the people plummeted. A June 1988 opinion poll of Muscovites showed that less than 1% of the people spoke highly of Stalin's role in the country's history. Many CPSU members resigned from the Party due to the loss of their ideals and beliefs. In July 1991, the CPSU Central Committee announced that 4.2 million members had left the Party in the past year, reducing the number of CPSU members from 19 million to 15 million—returning to 1973 levels. Those who did not leave the Party generally suffered from shaken convictions, a lack of trust in the CPSU and its leaders, and confusion about the future of the Party and the state. This explains a phenomenon: when Gorbachev suggested the self-dissolution of the CPSU Central Committee on August 24, 1991, there were almost no organized protests within the Soviet Union, let alone any powerful resistance. As the famous Russian critic Bondarenko pointed out: Why did not a single Communist Party member stand up to defend their municipal or district committees in August 1991? Because they were all vacillating, felt disappointed, no longer believed, and were living double lives.
IV. Western Ideological Penetration Fueled the Wave of Soviet Historical Nihilism
From the moment the Soviet state power was born, the ruling groups in the United States and other Western countries realized that this was an "evil" regime fundamentally opposed to capitalism. To eliminate the Soviet socialist system led by the CPSU and to remove the threat of communist ideology became the unwavering strategic goal of the United States and other Western countries. When they discovered that force alone could not fundamentally contain the increasingly powerful Soviet Union, launching a war of ideology without the smoke of gunpowder—using the power of the spirit to disintegrate the Soviet regime—became the primary choice for Western anti-Soviet and anti-communist forces. When Gorbachev succumbed to Western pressure, launched a capitulationist diplomatic line, and took the initiative to cater to Western values and ideology, the West believed the opportune moment for intensifying ideological penetration and subversion of the Soviet Union had arrived.
At the beginning of his reforms, Gorbachev proposed the so-called "New Thinking" in diplomacy. He naively believed that in an era when nuclear war could destroy all life on Earth, human survival was paramount, and it was necessary to "place the principle of all-humanity as the absolute imperative of the era in a priority position." He argued that "the interests of all humanity are above everything" and "the values of all humanity are above everything." Therefore, he advocated for the "humanization of international relations," the elimination of confrontation between socialism and capitalism, the achievement of "integration" between these two systems, and "all-humanity moving toward great cooperation." He emphasized that the United States and the Soviet Union should "become closer and turn toward comprehensive cooperation on the basis of universal human value standards and a balance of interests." He called for "the strategy of Soviet foreign policy to take peace, cooperation, collaboration, progress, and humanism as its starting point." He believed that "the significance of the socialist choice lies first and foremost in its promotion of values with universal significance to the primary position," making relations between people "more civilized, more humane and just, and more in line with the highest meaning of human existence—the free development of the individual in a free society."
Gorbachev ignored the long-standing struggle between penetration and anti-penetration, subversion and anti-subversion on the international stage. By advocating that the interests and values of all humanity are "above everything," promoting the "de-ideologization" of international relations and the "integration" of the two systems, and asserting that socialism should "put values with universal significance in the first place," he essentially completely abandoned the social ideals and goals of Communists. He totally discarded the basic Marxist viewpoints and principled positions on international issues and failed to see the essence of the complex international struggle. This caused the Soviet Union to bind its own hands and feet and admit defeat when faced with the offensive of the bourgeoisie. Jack Matlock, the last U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, astutely pointed out: "The theory of class struggle was the central concept upon which the Leninist view of the evolution of the state structure and the Cold War with the West were based. Without it, the reason for the Cold War ceased to exist, and the theoretical basis for a one-party dictatorship disappeared along with it." "If the Soviet leadership is truly willing to abandon this concept [the doctrine of class struggle], then it no longer matters whether they continue to call their guiding ideology 'Marxism.' It is already a different kind of 'Marxism' practiced in a different kind of society. This different kind of society is one that we can all endorse."
Western countries leveraged the "new thinking" [18] in diplomacy advocated by Gorbachev to intensify their strategy of ideological infiltration against the Soviet Union. First, they utilized mass media outlets, which they had painstakingly cultivated over many years, to vilify and smear Soviet socialist practice. They waged a "psychological war" (攻心战) [19] through public opinion to manufacture and propel chaos within Soviet society. Following the onset of the Cold War, Western countries led by the United States invested heavily in establishing propaganda media specifically targeting socialist countries like the Soviet Union, including the Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe (RFE), Radio Liberty (RL), and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). By the early 1980s, VOA had 30 million listeners in the Soviet Union, accounting for more than 10% of the population at the time. In December 1987, U.S. President Ronald Reagan praised VOA as a "huge non-military force, a force that lights a fire in the darkness of communist societies." The primary task of Western media—including radio, television, newspapers, and magazines—was to propagate bourgeois values and the civilization of the capitalist world, extolling various achievements of capitalist development while simultaneously attacking socialism, slandering Marxism, and negating Soviet socialist practice. During the Gorbachev period, Western media intensified and expanded their propaganda offensive against the Soviet Union. Flying the banners of "freedom, democracy, and human rights," they dominated Soviet public opinion, intervened comprehensively in Soviet internal affairs, and provided moral support to domestic rebel and separatist forces. To incite independence in the three Baltic republics, Radio Free Europe broadcasted three hours daily in Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian; Radio Liberty broadcasted 46 hours weekly in eleven minority languages to Soviet citizens. They questioned the legitimacy of the three republics' incorporation into the Soviet Union, asserted that Western countries had never recognized Soviet sovereignty over them, and repeatedly reported on the "Baltic Way" human chain involving two million people, which greatly fueled ethnic separatist sentiments in the Baltic region.
Second, they used channels such as cultural exchanges, economic activities, and personnel visits to conduct ideological and cultural infiltration, cultivating spokespersons for the West within Soviet society to collapse the CPSU and the Soviet Union from within. In September 1956, the U.S. government decided to exploit the opportunity presented by Khrushchev's advocacy for "peaceful coexistence" between socialism and capitalism to encourage "large-scale people-to-people exchanges" between the Soviet Union and the United States. They proactively invited 10,000 Soviet university students to study in the U.S., with all expenses covered by the U.S. government. Their intention was the hope that one day, this group of people cultivated by the United States would hold power in the Soviet Union. Subsequent facts proved that the Americans did not labor in vain. By attracting a large number of young Soviets to study in the U.S. and subjecting them to anti-communist propaganda, they cultivated a cohort of pro-American and pro-Western anti-communist, anti-socialist forces. Alexander Yakovlev [20] is a typical representative. According to disclosures by Vladimir Kryuchkov, Chairman of the Soviet KGB, he learned from several reliable sources in the late 1980s that Yakovlev had been recruited by U.S. intelligence agencies during his studies at Columbia University in 1960 and had received instructions from the American side during the Soviet "perestroika." Yakovlev himself admitted: "The transformation of my worldview began long before the social reforms."
Finally, they utilized award-granting and funding institutions such as the Nobel Prize and various foundations, as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), to influence and induce Soviet intellectual circles, cultivating a pro-Western "intellectual elite" to propagate Western ideological theories and values. The Nobel Prizes in Literature, Peace, and even Economics carry distinct Western ideological colors. The Soviet Union received a total of five Nobel Prizes in Literature and two Peace Prizes. The earliest Literature Prize was awarded in 1933 to the exiled Russian writer Ivan Bunin, whose works were known for depicting the darkness of Russia. The 1958 Literature Prize was awarded to Boris Pasternak, author of the novel Doctor Zhivago. By using the tragic life of Doctor Zhivago, the novel aimed to demonstrate that the Russian October Revolution was a "mistake" and that everything that happened after the Revolution was "evil." Thereafter, with the exception of the famous Soviet writer Mikhail Sholokhov (the 1965 laureate and author of And Quiet Flows the Don), the remaining two winners—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1970) and Joseph Brodsky (1987)—were both famous for negating and slandering the Soviet Union. Solzhenitsyn is recognized as the definitive figure of "Soviet Scar Literature" [21]; his representative work The Gulag Archipelago depicted the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin as "islands covered in prisons and concentration camps." Brodsky was a poet who emigrated to the U.S. because his works were banned in the Soviet Union; his 1987 award was a product of Western countries led by the U.S. coordinating with Gorbachev’s policy of "glasnost" (公开性).
The political intentions of the Nobel Peace Prize are even more direct and blatant. Andrei Sakharov was a famous Soviet scientist who engaged in anti-Soviet and anti-communist political activities starting in the 1970s, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1975. Sakharov later lived up to the high expectations of the U.S. and other Western countries; with Gorbachev’s support, he returned to the Soviet political arena and actively promoted the abolition of Article 6 of the Soviet Constitution [22] and the implementation of a multi-party system. The other laureate was Gorbachev himself. In 1990, the West awarded Gorbachev the Peace Prize to reward his "outstanding contributions" to the disintegration of the CPSU and the promotion of "democracy" in Eastern Europe.
Western NGOs are as numerous as the hairs on an ox. Friedrich Hayek, a representative figure of neoliberalism known for his anti-communist and anti-Marxist stance, utilized the Mont Pelerin Society [23] with the support of British financial syndicates to actively participate in the ideological infiltration of the Soviet Union in the 1980s. He focused on funding a group of Soviet scholars to study in the West, including Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais. Under the influence of Hayek and the Mont Pelerin Society, Gaidar and Chubais vigorously propagated neoliberal thinking and promoted "shock therapy" based on neoliberal theory, becoming major drivers of the collapse of the Soviet and Russian economies. George Soros, founder of the Open Society Foundations, established the Soviet Soros Foundation in Moscow in 1987. He actively funded anti-Soviet and anti-communist liberals engaged in political activities to dismantle the Soviet Union—such as the famous "dissident" Yuri Afanasyev—and in 1990 funded the working group led by Grigory Yavlinsky aimed at formulating a transition plan to a free market economy (the "500 Days Program"). The foundation also funded a large number of journalists and television anchors to engage in anti-Soviet and anti-communist activities, training a group of so-called independent TV media experts who played an important role in promoting the fall of the Party and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
V. Deeply Summarizing and Absorbing the Painful Lessons of the Spread of Historical Nihilism in the Soviet Union
On January 5, 2013, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the CPSU collapse? An important reason was that the struggle in the ideological field was extremely fierce; there was a total negation of Soviet history, of the history of the CPSU, a negation of Lenin, and a negation of Stalin. They engaged in historical nihilism; thinking was thrown into chaos. Party organizations at all levels became almost useless, and the military was no longer under the Party's leadership. In the end, the CPSU, such a massive party, scattered like birds and beasts, and the Soviet Union, such a massive socialist country, fell to pieces. This is a lesson from the past (前车之鉴)!" This important discourse is profound and hits the nail on the head, revealing the manifestations, essence, and hazards of Soviet historical nihilism.
The upheaval in the Soviet Union was undoubtedly a complex political event resulting from the combined effect of multiple factors, but the spread of historical nihilism was an unavoidable and vital factor among them. Looking at the entire process of the Soviet upheaval during the Gorbachev period, anti-communist and anti-socialist forces began precisely with ideological work, engaging heavily in historical nihilism to throw the thinking of the Party and the people into chaos, and then seized power amid the turmoil, taking the opportunity to dissolve the CPSU and systemicize the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The spread of historical nihilism brought about comprehensive and serious consequences for the CPSU and the Soviet Union. First, it dissolved the socialist ideology of the CPSU and the Soviet Union. For a long time, Marxism-Leninism was the guiding ideology of the Soviet Party and state, providing the fundamental ideological guarantee for the Soviet Union’s advancement along the socialist path. However, historical nihilism used "ideological pluralism" as a weapon to negate the guiding position of Marxism-Leninism, fundamentally dissolving the ideological and theoretical basis for the CPSU’s governance and the Soviet Union’s existence. Through reforms of "humane, democratic socialism," the CPSU was transformed into a social democratic party, and the Soviet Union was led toward capitalism in all respects, thereby completely changing the nature of both the Party and the state.
Second, it caused the CPSU to lose its governing legitimacy. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was a Marxist party with 93 years of glorious history. It was founded under the leadership of Lenin and consolidated and developed during the Stalin era. It was baptized by the fires of the October Revolution, foreign military intervention, domestic counter-revolutionary rebellions, and the German fascist invasion. In a harsh environment, it withstood the arduous tests of consolidating socialist political power and developing the socialist cause, enjoying high prestige and strong cohesive power among the Soviet people. However, historical nihilism used various means—through fabricating rumors to slander CPSU leaders, heroes, and role models, and by exposing so-called "negative social phenomena" to fill "blank spots in history"—to comprehensively negate the historical achievements of the CPSU and vilify its glorious image. This caused the CPSU to lose its governing authority and legitimacy, its influence and combat effectiveness among the masses, and ultimately its ability to resist attacks from internal and external enemies.
Third, it made the Soviet socialist system lose the necessity for its existence. The Soviet socialist system was a product of Marxism-Leninism combined with Soviet national conditions and social realities. It was gradually established, perfected, and developed by the CPSU leading the people through practical exploration. it played a huge role in promoting Soviet economic and social development, improving people's living standards, and enhancing national strength and international prestige. The Soviet socialist system was centrally embodied in the socialist economic system based on public ownership of the means of production and distribution according to work, the socialist political system based on the CPSU’s governing status and Soviet state power, and the ideological system guided by Marxism-Leninism. However, historical nihilism—under the banners of "pluralism," "humanism," and "alienation"—attacked the dominance of socialist public ownership as "economic monopoly," the CPSU’s governing status as "political monopoly," and the guidance of Marxism-Leninism as "spiritual monopoly." It advocated for privatization, multi-party systems, parliamentary democracy, the separation of powers, the presidential system, and pluralism of guiding ideologies, thoroughly destroying the foundations of the Soviet socialist system and leading the country toward capitalism in every aspect.
Historical nihilism was also the ideological weapon used by anti-Soviet and anti-communist forces to disintegrate the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a unified multi-ethnic state with the largest number of ethnic groups and an extremely complex ethnic composition; the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a unique state system. In such a large socialist country, ethnic contradictions and ethnic problems were inevitable. It required ethnic policies that conformed to the aspirations of the vast majority of ethnic groups and the interests of the vast majority of the masses, while simultaneously and actively correcting historical errors in ethnic policy based on reality to alleviate ethnic contradictions, bridge ethnic divides, and avoid ethnic conflict. However, during the disintegration of the Soviet Union, historical nihilism merged with ethnic separatist forces. Proceeding from narrow ethnic interests and exploiting the one-sided public opinion environment created by "glasnost," they incited extreme nationalism. This caused Soviet ethnic contradictions to continuously intensify and ethnic separatist activities to escalate, ultimately leading to the tragedy of the Soviet collapse.
Reviewing the process by which historical nihilism spread during the Gorbachev period, there are many lessons to be summarized and absorbed. One is that we must scientifically evaluate major events and important figures in the history of the CPSU and the Soviet Union, including leaders like Stalin. We must correctly treat problems and mistakes in socialist practice, including the personal problems and errors of leaders, and accurately grasp the themes, main threads, mainstream, and essence of the Party and state's historical development. A fundamental reason why historical nihilism spread in the Soviet Union was that the CPSU never reached a comprehensive, objective, and accurate evaluation of Stalin and the Soviet socialist practice under his leadership. It failed to fully affirm Stalin's historical contributions and status, and failed to correctly deal with Stalin's errors and the problems in Soviet socialist practice. Consequently, it could not unify the thoughts and will of the Soviet people through the formation of correct resolutions, nor could it endow Soviet socialism with new vigor and vitality through correct reforms. This provided the conditions and soil for the emergence and spread of historical nihilism within the Soviet Union, and offered an opportunity to domestic and foreign hostile forces to dissolve the CPSU and the Soviet Union.
Second, we must always uphold the guiding position of Marxism in the ideological sphere and remain firm in the ideals and convictions of Communists. Marxism is the guiding ideology and guide to action for the Communist Party in leading social transformation, while ideals and convictions are the political soul and spiritual pillar of Communists. Judging from the historical lessons of the drastic changes in the Soviet Union, the primary target destroyed by historical nihilism [24] was the guiding ideology of the Soviet Party and state. During the Gorbachev period, the principal leaders of the CPSU generally lost their ideals and convictions, abandoning Marxism-Leninism and the lofty ideal of communism; the vast number of Party members and cadres lost their sense of direction, and the CPSU lost its cohesion and combat effectiveness. The lesson of the CPSU’s demise once again demonstrates that if Marxism does not occupy the ideological high ground, non-Marxist and anti-Marxist trends of thought will. We must unswervingly uphold the guiding position of Marxism, strengthen the Party’s ideological and theoretical development, persevere in tempering Party spirit [25], and wage a resolute struggle against all anti-Marxist trends of thought to ensure that the ideological and public opinion fronts remain firmly in the hands of Marxists.
Third, we must attach great importance to ideological work and firmly grasp the leadership over ideological work. The value of ideological work lies in "nipping problems in the bud" [26] and taking precautions before they occur. Looking at the 90-plus-year history of the CPSU and nearly 70-year history of the Soviet Union, the ideological work of the CPSU and the Soviet Union underwent a process of evolution and degeneration. During the Lenin period, the Party adhered to Marxism as its guide, establishing the principles, policies, and theoretical guidance for the ideological work of the Bolshevik Party through long-term revolutionary practice, pioneering the ideological work of Marxism-Leninism. During the Stalin period, ideological work achieved major successes but also manifested significant deviations; overall, however, it maintained and developed Marxism-Leninism. Starting from Khrushchev, the CPSU’s ideological work drifted further and further off the track of Marxism-Leninism. Khrushchev's theories of the "party of the entire people" [27] and the "state of the entire people" [28] seriously violated the principles of scientific socialism. By the Brezhnev period, an atmosphere of stagnation and complacency emerged; conservatism and dogmatism became prevalent, and the ideological theory of the CPSU became increasingly ossified, losing its appeal to the masses. By the Gorbachev period, the Party embarked on the erroneous path of totally negating Marxism-Leninism, resulting in the grave consequence of the Party's demise and the state's collapse. The ideological and political origins of Gorbachev's "humane, democratic socialism" can be traced back to the Khrushchev period; its ability to be established and to replace the guiding position of Marxism-Leninism is directly related to factors such as the CPSU’s long-term neglect of ideological work, its failure to carry out ideological struggle effectively, and its tolerance of the emergence and proliferation of anti-Marxist trends.
Fourth, we must build a strong line of defense against the infiltration of Western ideology and culture to maintain national ideological security. For a long time, Western countries led by the United States exploited their contacts with the Soviet Union, utilizing political, economic, cultural, and diplomatic means to propagate bourgeois values and the superiority of the capitalist system. They negated Marxism-Leninism, denied the socialist achievements of the Soviet Union, distorted the Soviet socialist system, and fanned the flames to create chaos within Soviet society, tempting the Soviet Union to evolve in a capitalist direction. Western ideological infiltration and subversive activities played an important role in promoting the demise of the Soviet Party and state. We must remain constantly vigilant against and resist the strategy of Western bourgeois ideological infiltration, strengthen the construction of socialist ideological fronts, enhance education in socialist core values and ethnic unity, develop advanced socialist culture, and continuously increase the country's cultural soft power. This will provide powerful ideological weaponry, spiritual support, and public opinion guarantees for the development of the cause of the Party and the state.
(The author is a professor at the School of Marxism, Renmin University of China; a researcher at the Contemporary Political Party Research Platform of Renmin University of China; and a researcher at the Xi Jinping Research Institute of Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era at Renmin University of China.)
Online Editor: Tongxin Source: Journal of Political Science, Issue 5, 2021.