5. First Commentary
If we look at the cosmopolitan (Trotskyist) party from the perspective of the theory of ethnogenesis, we see that it represented a typical anti-system.
“Anti-system” Gumilyov called a group of people united by negative perception of the world (sharp rejection of reality), aimed not at creation, but at destruction, i.e. simplification of the system. Such anti-systemic communities, detached from their ethnic groups and in fact without nationality, have manifested themselves more than once in history. As a rule, they emerged as a result of the formation of ethnic chimeras at the junction of two or three incompatible super-ethnoses, provided that one of them experienced a passionate decline (especially during the change of phases of ethnogenesis). The formed chimeras "as if widening the cracks between the plates" of super-ethnoses, filling them with destructive content.
“Chimera” is a union of the incompatible at the super-ethnic (ethnic) level, when there is a mass mixing of representatives of incompatible, and negatively complementary ethnic groups. That is - a combination of alien stereotypes of behavior, value systems, worldviews (at the deep level - archetypes). Figuratively speaking, it is an ethnic cacophony, "sounding" in a particular territory.
Gumilyov wrote: "Emerging at the boundary of two or three original super-ethnoses, chimera opposes them all, denying any traditions and replacing them with constantly renewed "novelty". Consequently, chimera has no fatherland". And further: "...in the areas of ethnic clashes, where behavioral stereotypes are unacceptable from both sides, everyday life loses its daily obligatory purposefulness and people begin to rush in search of the meaning of life, which they never find. And this is where philosophical concepts that deny the goodness of human life and death, that is, dialectical development, come into play. The antipodes of the materialist dialectic is an anti-system, that is, a simplifying system.
This is one of Gumilyov's most important discoveries!
Anti-system is a rigid type formation. It is automatically excluded from natural self-development, i.e. ethnogenesis, so it has no age. At the same time it is always very active, i.e. Passionarna with minus sign. And this activity can grow at the expense of meetings with the passionate environment. "The anti-system pulls the passionarity out of the ethnos like a ghoul, its goal is not creation, but ... annihilation (i.e. complete disintegration. - Auth.)"
If the ethnos is strong and healthy, then it is difficult for the anti-system to take root in it. If it is sick and weak, then the anti-system develops in its body like a cancer. This is characteristic, first of all, for the crisis phases of fracture and obscuration. Such anti-systems, Gumilyov noted, were the communities of Gnostics, Manicheans, Ishmaelites, Bogumilians, Cathars (Albigensians) and others. All these organizations (mostly sects) had one thing in common: life-negation. That is, a categorical rejection of reality, which was often considered only an illusion.
Gumilyov wrote: "What the Manicheans called Light, the Gnostics called Pleroma, the Kabbalists called En-Sof (The Infinite and Infinite Nothingness), and some Scholastics called "Divine Darkness", is now described in theoretical physics as vacuum, stealing photons (particles of light), black hole, i.e. performing the functions of medieval Lucifer.
People included in the anti-systems disliked the world around them to such an extent that they declared everything material evil and a generation of Darkness. They believed that the pure soul was "tormented in the grip of matter" (Manicheans). To free the soul, it was necessary to destroy matter! People who joined the sect, emphasized Gumilyov, were freed from all traditional values and moral constraints. Lying and betrayal became the norm of behavior for the initiates. They were allowed everything - to kill people and nature, to destroy temples and palaces, to destroy works of art and icons. It was allowed, and with the Gnostics it was even necessary, to kill themselves! For the bodies of men are also material. The sectarians were given complete freedom to destroy, which was "joyous and pleasing" to them, but they lost all personal freedom in the process. Strict discipline subordinated them to the Master, the Elder, the Organization.
In this case, the most important condition for the existence of anti-systems was their secrecy. After all, if people learned about their true purpose, then the destructive organizations would be destroyed. Therefore, for the outside world (the uninitiated) always invented attractive slogans and ideas - from religious (salvation in the kingdom of "divine light") to the educational ("improvement of morality" in the Masonic propaganda of XVIII - XIX centuries).
Thus, the lie was used twice: 1) we are, as it were, not there; 2) we are good, and seek to help people (and sometimes even to make all mankind happy!). "And here," Gumilyov wrote, "the evil will get the space it needs. It can act not directly, which always has its share of risk, but indirectly, through deceived fools." (This, by the way, to the question of "Maidans," old and new.)
If the conditions became unfavorable, the anti-systems could migrate - flow from one ethnic group to another, thereby maintaining their activity for many centuries. "And if they had to change their creed and dogma to do so, no harm. The principle of striving for destruction remained the same."
Gumilyov wrote: "When two behaviorally alien and incompatible super-ethnoses combine, there comes a period of tumultuous collisions. Immeasurably more tragic is the situation when in a country experiencing a change of behavioral stereotype (phases of ethnogenesis) there is not just an alien ethnic group, but an already established anti-systemic community". And further: "When you combine not two systems but a system with the anti-system, the war becomes even more cruel and unjustified. (This is a reference to the disastrous XX century for Russia.)
Why did not these life-negative anti-systems win? After all, at certain periods of history, they became an influential force, and even seized power in some lands. As, for example, the terrorist organizations of Ismailis led by the "Mountain Elder" in the Middle Ages, or the Trotskyites-cosmopolitans after the revolution of 1917. Gumilyov answers this question as follows: "Denial was their strength, but also their weakness: denial helped them to win, but did not let them win.
Ideologically, anti-systems never win. Apparently, nature itself has a mechanism of self-preservation, resilience. Biosphere has the ability to release energy, including passionate energy, which protects it. If this resistance did not exist, humanity would have died long ago.
This is Gumilyov's main point!
Gumilyov did not write about those anti-systems that appeared in the body of the Russian super-ethnos in the phase of fracture, but if we draw an analogy, we will see that they were there. In the early twentieth century it was, firstly, the Masonic organizations, imported from Europe and found their liberal admirers in Russia - among the overcomplicated aristocracy, the intelligentsia and the big bourgeoisie. Second - the cosmopolitan majority in the leadership of all revolutionary parties (Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, Social Revolutionaries, anarchists). Thirdly, all destructive totalitarian sects (Khlysts, Skoptzy, etc.) and, perhaps, the most radical part of the Old Believers, the Unbelievers.
There were other smaller anti-systems. In culture - associations of decadent and avant-garde artists of the early twentieth century; in church - a liberal grouping among the priesthood and professors (future renovationists and ecumenists); in society - numerous occult and "philosophical" circles, homosexual communities (mainly in the "upper classes"), organized crime and other anti-social elements, where anti-systemism is already intertwined with sub-passionarity.
If we take a broader approach to the phenomenon of antisystemism, then we can quote a statement of St. Paisii Svyatogorets, who said: "Some people are like a bee, and others like a fly. Those who are like a fly, in every situation they look for something bad and do only that. They don't see the least bit of good in anything. Those who are like the bee find only the good in everything." Let us add in parentheses that people who look like a fly can sometimes be recognized by their tone - they talk like they scold.
It should be noted that in reality, the anti-system is not necessarily an organization. In a broad sense, the anti-system includes all people who dislike, hate the world around them. "Metaphysical nihilists," as Gumilyov said. Or "small people," as Academician Shafarevich called them. (Who independently of Gumilyov came to the same conclusions at the same time.)
Such anti-systemicists in our time can be: a university professor, pouring mud on the history of "this" country, a deputy who justifies juvenile justice, a businessman who takes pleasure in robbing "this" people. It could be a director who disfigures classical plays, an "artist" who chops up icons, a TV presenter who propagandizes debauchery, a human rights activist who defends "colored revolutionaries". Yes, in general, anyone at all. For example, if one such anti-systemist becomes a member of a labor collective or a study group, then the entire collective will soon begin to feel feverish.
People of this type perceive the surrounding world in some hateful, dark light. This is a property of the psyche. For example, an anti-systemic person wakes up in the morning, looks out the window and sees not the beginning of a new day, but a "horrible" sky, "ugly" trees, a "nasty" dog in the yard. Then goes out into the street and encounters the most unpleasant - "those disgusting people around". In psychiatry, this is called sociopathy. And there is no cure for it.
Such hateful human types live in a constant state of inner discomfort, and the most rabid of them live in a constant state of mental withdrawal. And they are only relieved when they do something evil. Life for them is really so painful and excruciating that in revenge they want to destroy it as such. (Well, how much agony is enough!!) At the same time, the anti-systemicists are perfectly capable of masquerading as "intelligent people". But not all: when you see a person on the street with the persistent stamp of evil on his face, you are likely to encounter a representative of the anti-system. In all positive religions this phenomenon has long been known and described. In Orthodoxy it is the forces of hell. The army of Satan.
But back to the subject of the elites. It is important to emphasize that after the overthrow of the autocracy in February 1917, the ruling elite was radically renewed twice. First, after October 1917, when, in addition to the foreigners, many ordinary Russian peasants from the peasantry and the loom came to power - mainly in the middle and lower ranks. They were not very literate, but very energetic and quick to learn. The second renewal came after 1937-38, when almost all of the old International-Bolshevik top brass were removed. They were replaced by about 500,000 young leaders - most of them passionaries from the grassroots - who were already more educated, though inexperienced. But most importantly, they were not torn from their people, from their national soil. And this allowed to solve those super-tasks, which then faced the country.
Thus, in terms of ethnogenesis, there was not just a change of the ruling class, but its, if I may say so, Russification. That, however, did not at all exclude the presence in power structures of representatives of other (indigenous) nations - Russia is, after all, a multinational country.
If we look at Stalin's commissars, the marshals of the Great Patriotic War, the factory directors, and many other Soviet leaders of that era, we see that the vast majority of them came from the people, from simple Russian workers and peasants. (As D. Ustinov, who became Commissar of Armaments in the 33 (!) years, recalled: "Stalin removed these ... and called us, Russians ...") Well, how not to recall the famous Stalin's toast to the Russian people at the banquet in honor of the Victory.
But most importantly: under Stalin, for the first time since Peter I, prevailed the unconditional installation on an independent civilizational development. On their own, without reference to the West or anyone else, the Russian way. And it is not so important that then it was called Soviet socialism and was held under the Communist flag. In essence, it was a return to historical Russia, to its ethnic tradition under new historical conditions. It was a return to the messianic idea of humanity's salvation and to the traditional - communal-monarchical way of life (which, although it began to crumble since the 19th century, but far from exhausting itself). The "Iron Curtain" was lowered at just the right time! It became a necessary condition for the survival of Russian civilization in a difficult time of breakdown.
It was then that the most powerful reserve of strength, on which what is left of the superpower, is still held today ...!
Despite the communist rhetoric, the national, patriotic prevailed over the class, the international since the end of the 1930s in the USSR. Had this not happened, we could not have won the war. Because the international solidarity of workers, which orthodox Marxists insisted on, is certainly a good thing, but as practice has shown - not feasible: during World War II, workers of all countries beat each other without regard to class solidarity. We can say that under Stalin, Marxist, international socialism began to turn into national socialism. Russian socialism. It was this ideology that allowed our country to make a breakthrough unseen in history and in the shortest possible time to become a superpower.
Of course, there were losses. And chief among them was the loss of the state religion - Orthodoxy and the ensuing repression against priests, Russian patriots, Black Hundreds and the right-conservative intelligentsia. But this is a phase of fracture, and in fracture, alas, no one is without losses, especially in the era of the advent of globalization and the proliferation of large and small anti-systems. Again, in a fracture, there is always violence against the ethnic tradition and the dominant religion. So it was in Europe (Reformation), Byzantium (Iconoclasm) and other civilizations of the Ancient World (with their own characteristics). Therefore, let us note in parenthesis, to impose exaggerated requirements on people acting in this era, as many "experts" do today, is to show historical short-sightedness.
Thus, from the point of view of ethnogenesis, the communists-Stalinists carried out the same social restructuring, which, as we remember, "did not keep up with the sharp decline in passionarity" in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
They did not try, like the monarchists and liberals, to jump to another phase; they did not try, like the Trotskyites, to get out of ethnogenesis and arrange a world pogrom; they simply saved the country in concrete-historical conditions, that is - in the extreme conditions of Russian breakdown, hardened by the intervention of external forces.
If we look at the problem from an ethnological standpoint, i.e., if we look at the root, we see that in the first half of the twentieth century, two major tasks were accomplished:
1) Removing the liberal-Masonic grouping from the political system at the hands of the Bolshevik-revolutionaries.
2) The removal of the Bolshevik-revolutionaries from power by the hands of the Communist-Stalinists.
These were counterattacks against the most dangerous anti-systems at the time, which had taken shape well before the collapse of the empire: liberal at the end of the 18th century, and revolutionary in the second half of the 19th century. The algorithm is as follows: system - anti-system - anti-system - system. (Well, and at the end of the XX century - again...)
We must add to these positive moments a sharp decline in the number of sub-passionaries, which largely coincides with the waves of 1917 -1920, and 1928 - 1933. (They were killed, by authority and by each other.)
As for the "horrors of Stalinism" and the "tens of millions" who died of repression, we should note the following. Firstly, there were no tens of millions. The real figures out of declassified archives have long been included in the textbooks. During the entire Stalinist period (1921 - 1953) 3.8 million people were convicted for political (counter-revolutionary) crimes, which amounted to 20.2 percent of the total number of prisoners, most of the others were criminals. During the same period, nearly 780,000 people were sentenced to execution. The number of prisoners in the camps and colonies ranged from 1.7 million in 1940 to 2.5 million in 1953. (plus 2.5 million exiled settlers in the early 1950's.) The population of the Soviet Union before the war was 196 million people. Only 0.4%, four tenths of one percent were executed.
To compare: today, there are about 700,000 prisoners per 140 million population of the Russian Federation. (5 hundreths of one percent, in prison - not killed) And this despite the fact that there are almost no corrupt chiefs and other state criminals among them... Not yet. (An interesting parallel: as Professor Katasonov aptly noted, many of the party leaders repressed in 1936-1938 were not only ideological and political opponents of Stalin's course, but were also a kind of "offshore aristocracy." The fact is that from 1917 to 1925, the leadership of the CPSU (b) withdrew large sums of money to Western banks: one part to the accounts of the sponsoring bankers, another part to the accounts of the Comintern, and a third part to the accounts of bearers. Sverdlov and Trotsky, associated with "Fininterntn", tried their best. After the NKVD organs in 1936 - 1938 received confessions from the "bearers," much of the money was returned to Russia). (When (b) is in parentheses, it means Bolsheviks.)
Thus, we must admit: Stalin's command-mobilization system, for all its flaws, was the most suitable system for survival in the extreme conditions of economic backwardness (in the twenties) and a hostile external environment. But most importantly, the system was effective in conditions of an ethnic split that had not been overcome to the end after 1917, primarily within the ruling elite. When the family is not firmly united, it needs a strict master. This is how Stalin was called in his inner circle - "The Master".
Otherwise we simply would not have survived. Hitler broke his teeth on this very system. In 1941, the Russian soldier faced a powerful military machine, retreated, but survived. And in 1917, with less danger, the same Russian soldier shamefully fled the German front, and even robbed on the way. Why? Because for 25 years he almost did not change biologically. The ethnic and with it the socio-political system has changed!
To make it clearer what the Russian breakdown is, we make the following comparison. In the first Patriotic War of 1812 there was no need to call for patriotism - all the people rose against the enemy. And a hundred years later, at the end of World War I, the fifth column, (traitors) was already in full force in the country, and Russian soldiers did not fight, but held rallies, forgetting about any patriotism.
In the Great Patriotic War, we survived, and there was patriotism. But there was also anti-patriotism. We should not forget that not only Baltic, Ukrainian, Caucasian and other nationalists (which were unavailable in 1812 for obvious reasons), but also quite a few Russians defected to Hitler's side. It was from them that Vlasovtsy, Politsai and other traitors were recruited, mostly kulaks (anti-collectivist farmers), and sub-passionarians. Therefore, during this period a serious apparatus of violence was needed, including the NKVD troops, barrier troops and camps.
With regard to the fifth column, Molotov quite rightly said that if it had not been for the 1937 purge, there would have been many more Vlasovs during the war. (And the point here is not in the "anticommunism" of the Vlasovs, and not even in their skunk-works, but in their anti-systemicism.)
And when by the autumn of 1941 hundreds of thousands of Soviet soldiers and officers were in captivity - with many surrendering voluntarily - Stalin said: "we don't have prisoners, we have only traitors to the motherland. Certainly, in defeats of 1941 - 1942 there was a large share of Stalin's own fault. But there was another - then a well-known law worked: if the stock of patriotism is not enough, then some part of the people had to be forced to save themselves. The skinheads and sub-passionaries must be clamped in fierce gloves and coerced with the butt, the fifth column must be shot. This is the essence of a rigid, mobilization system. Otherwise it is simply unnecessary.
However, all these troubles of the nadolomnaya could not overshadow the main thing - the victory in the Great Patriotic War. The main source of the Great Victory was the Russian people, who united around themselves the majority of the peoples of our country. "Our passionarity was higher than the German," said Gumilyov on the root causes of the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Obviously, for all the importance of military technology and the professionalism of military commanders, the main force in war was and remains the common soldier. War is a constant super-tension, work at the wear and tear. Both at the front and in the rear. It is chronic sleep deprivation, sometimes malnutrition, nights under the open sky, 30-kilometer marches, hard earthworks and a lot more. That is why the war is won, as a rule, by the more hardy, that is passionate people. Gumilyov recalled: "I fought in places where only Russians and Tatars survived. Wars are won by those peoples who can sleep on the bare ground. Russians and Tatars can, but Germans cannot. The Germans fight by the hour, and only when they have coffee, but we always fight.
Stalin's "command" system probably lasted as long as possible - 25 years. But when the main task of restoring the war-ravaged economy and strengthening the defense was fulfilled, there was a natural need for further modernization of the existing social system. The mobilization model had to give way to another, more flexible and less centralized model. After all, as we know, any social system (a rigid open-ended system) has its limits in time. In the early 50s, it was time to make repairs. And it was also time for a breather. It is impossible to strain people who have not fully recovered for so long - they will not endure. And apparently pragmatist Stalin understood all this. But... he did not have time.
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Under Khrushchev, instead of repair-modernization, the deformation of the social system, or rather - its first stages, was made. Instead of a healthy respite, people got an unhealthy "thaw" that prolonged until the "reforms" of the 90s... Why did this happen?
If we look at it all from the viewpoint of ethnogenesis, it turns out that the painful operation of 1917-20, and then another one in 1936-38, did not lead to a full recovery of the national organism, that is, to overcoming the ethnic division and removing the anti-system from the ethnos. Therefore, the internal unity and harmony was not achieved. These two operations brought only temporary, albeit very significant, relief, which was achieved by mopping up the liberals (bourgeois type) and Trotskyists. And also at the expense of a sharp reduction in the number of parasitic sub-passionarians, who were taken into the "iron gauntlets" and forced to work for the common cause.
In ethnological terms, Stalinism - an attempt to get out of the crisis at the expense of mobilization of the reserve forces of the Russian people. The Stalinist period - an ethnic regeneration, but not complete, but partial. In the ethnic system, again, there remained foreign, conflicting elements: the same liberal Westerners and dissident cosmopolitans. The disease kept smoldering inside, and by the end of the twentieth century, it was out again. The underlying reasons for the collapse of the USSR were rooted in this very "domestic" ethnic schism, which had not been fully overcome and was aggravated by the presence of an anti-system.
In general, practice shows that stability in the "schismatic" phase of breakdown can only be maintained by force. And since it (i.e. passionarity) in the conditions of energy decline for a long time is not enough, sooner or later the ethnic system again goes out of balance and begins to seek disintegration. This first imperceptible, and then increasingly growing, internal disintegration we see from the second half of the 1950s to the mid-1980s, from Khrushchev to Gorbachev. (Stalin's therapy helped for fifty years (from the '30s to the '80s), which is quite a lot for a breakdown...)
Under Khrushchev, who was not only a shortsighted politician but also an orthodox Marxist, there is an over-the-top liberal coup. It has Trotskyist overtones - the national line is once again changed to the "international" line. The movement along the path of Russian socialism, begun under Stalin, stops before it has gained the necessary momentum. At the same time, a window to the West is opened, and, as usual, it immediately begins to blow in all sorts of contagion.
At the end of the 1950s, the persecution of the Orthodox Church began: half of the 14,000 churches opened under Stalin were closed. At the same time, a special project is launched to corrupt the Church from within with the help of agents - "traitors in cassocks". It strikes a blow to the village, that is, the traditional Russian way of life (Khrushchev's dream - the transformation of villages into agrotowns (?!)). The liberal intelligentsia is once again revived, which, as usual, begins to denounce "despotism" and bow down in favor of the West. The unscrupulous Trotskyites crawl out of the cracks. At this time, they already call themselves differently - "children of the thaw" and "fighters for freedom.
There is yet another regularity in the Russian breakdown: as soon as the "thaw" comes to us and more "freedom" appears, there is less patriotism and more Russophobia. And at the same time, the most insatiable, "reformist" part of the ruling class begins to steal from the public state with twice as much force as before. This was also the case in the nineteenth century: under Alexander I, Alexander II, and especially under the last Tsar, Nicholas II.
When the post-Stalinist "democratization" goes too far, there is a reaction - Khrushchev is dumped. But the beginning has already been made and "the process has begun". Under the early Brezhnev (second half of the 1960s), just as under Alexander III, moderate conservatives-presidentialists briefly gain the upper hand. ("We must freeze Russia so it does not rot.") But from the mid-1970s, the same liberal, anti-national line is clearly manifested and begins to intensify.
This turn can be clearly seen in the liberalization of culture (bards, the "avant-garde", "experimental" theater, etc.) and especially in cinematography. Whereas the early to mid-1970s saw a slew of heroic, patriotic, and "folksy" films (notable examples being the epic Liberation and Kalina Krasnaya), the late 1970s saw the switch to films in which the hero was an eternally depressed intellectual or an "unnecessary person".
(Flights in Dreams, Holidays in September, and Autumn Marathon). Some anti-system paintings also appear, disguised as allegories, but in essence they are anti-system. Marc Zakharov and his fable-movies come out on top.
The late Soviet system is rotting from within. And much faster than the tzarist system rotted away, since the margin of safety at the end of the breakdown is no longer the same. The symptoms of decay are all the same. There is a spiritual and moral crisis: disbelief in a new religion - communism. The erosion of traditional values; from patriotism and collectivism, to respect for the elderly. Degradation of the ruling party elite: corruption, blat, irresponsibility and detachment from the people. The split among the intelligentsia - into liberal-westerners (they are in the majority again), and Russians-sovereigntists. All the same questions: "What is to be done?" and "Who is to blame"?
Passionarity is noticeably declining. Ordinary people are becoming more and more impoverished, slacking off and getting drunk. It is no longer a crime to steal "from the state", as a whole layer of "thieves-necuns" emerges, taking away everything from a nut and bolt to finished products. In the 1960s and 1980s, the number of sub-passionarians increased sharply and became especially noticeable in large cities. These are homeless people, layabouts, alcoholics, petty criminals, who, as mentioned above, were not treated with much ceremony during Stalin's time, but were sent to the White Sea Canal and other "construction sites of Communism.
Along with this, in the post-Stalin era, the enterprising philistine, the so-called bourgeois man, began to gain strength. (In the late Soviet era, the bourgeois man does not yet constitute the majority of the ethnos, but he is the man of the future, the entrepreneur and accumulator of money from the next, inertial phase. This urban fist, along with sub-passionarians and "kitchen dissidents," corrodes the system of "developed socialism. It is the first to be seduced by the material abundance of Western consumer society. It was with his active support that liberal-bourgeois reforms of the early 90s began in Russia.
It is symbolic that Yeltsin himself came from a family of dispossessed peasants. There were already many such hidden anti-communist kulaks among the Soviet elite. Having attained power, they began to strive for "emancipation from the fetters of the command system," that is, to obtain large-scale property and free access to the goods and pleasures of the "civilized world".
Thus, bourgeois man is maturing here, or, to be more precise, continuing to do so in the depths of the anti-capitalist Soviet system. The first to become bourgeoisized is the party nomenklatura, which, under Khrushchev, gets a monopoly on power and ceases to be afraid of the Gulag. Then it was the turn of the lower and middle classes. The children of the proletarians, having reached a certain level of prosperity, very quickly turn into petty bourgeoisie.
And what is characteristic - a significant part of these harmonious urban residents begins to break away from their native Russian soil and adopt Western values, that is, to turn into "Westerners. Some of them do not break away too much and get more into aping (imitating) the Western manners, some do it halfway, and some do it completely and wholeheartedly. Emphasize that we are not talking here about representatives of the higher classes of Soviet society and the upper stratum of the intelligentsia, as it was in the 19th century (they are supposed to break away from the soil), but about those who came from the ranks of ordinary workers and peasants. As already mentioned, the average citizen is weak before the temptations of a beautiful and rich life ("like theirs," over there) especially the urbanized average citizen, who has fallen out of the rural, traditional culture. And especially in the age of radio and television. The "Iron Curtain" at this time is transformed into a curtain with big holes, and the seductive Western picture comes to the Soviet citizen right into his home.
Thus, in the late Soviet era of the 1970s and 1980s, we are once again faced with the same scourge: the passionate depression, the split of the ethnic system and the activation of anti-systems. On one side are the same money-hungry and freedom-hungry "democrat reformers," on the other are the conservative co-religionists (non-Russian-Russians and the real Russian Russians), and the third group is the dissident revolutionaries (mostly non-Russians). And all of this - against a background of increasing numbers of bourgeois people (modernized Russians) and multiplied parasitic sub-passionarians (degenerated Russians). In the family-system after the death of Stalin's strict father image, a lot of dissenters and freeloaders reappear. This creates fertile ground for internal strife. This is immediately exploited by the enemies.
Since the late 1980s, under the "Westernizer" Gorbachev (who was also descended from ordinary workers and peasants) the decay of the old Soviet system accelerates sharply - quantity transforms into quality, and in the 90s, under Yeltsin, there is a catastrophic collapse of the half-decayed ethnic system. The country is sinking into a pit. The lowest point - the default of 1998.
The events of the late 1980s and 90s deserve a separate conversation, but one observation can be made. If we look carefully at the radical democrats of the 1990s and their neoliberal followers, we will see that they have much in common with the Trotskyists of the 20s and 30s. The same dislike of Russia, ultimate extremism in their actions, and an outward orientation - some of them are focused on the world revolution, others on liberal globalization. Flags are different; the essence is the same - anti-systemic.
After Stalin's purge of the "old Bolsheviks", the negative anti-system had suffered considerable damage, but the anti-system hasn't gone anywhere. (The kids are all grown up!) It hung in there, then waited for Khrushchev's "thaw" and continued its "development". It manifested itself at this time in various ways. Its representatives under Brezhnev were, on the one hand, dissidents, on the other - "moles" and "agents of influence" in the government and special services. Under Gorbachev, they were "perestroika" from the liberal wing of the CPSU (the Yakovlevs and Shevardnadze). Under Yeltsin, it was the Gaidar-Chubais-type "reformers”. And under Putin, the most outspoken part of the anti-system was the "colored revolutionaries" along with representatives of the liberal media. And its most influential part - the pro-Western oligarchs, liberals in power structures and "financiers”. At first glance - a powerful force! But ... But the laws of nature (ethnogenesis) were stronger.
In the late 90's it seemed to many that the anti-system in Russia took over and defeated the system unconditionally, - just a little more and that's it, the country is finished. However, to the surprise of the reformers and their overseas mentors (representatives of the global anti-system!) this did not happen. The Russian bear was badly wounded, but not killed. And since 2001 - 2002. "Suddenly" began imperceptible at first regeneration of the ethnic system. Not economic, not social, and not even political, but ethnic system! In the middle of the "noughties" (2005) there were the first glimmers of hope, and by 2012-2014 it was clear that some kind of internal turning point had occurred. The instinct of self-preservation kicked in again! Our people did not want to die. It’s the most conservative part of the political elite, which conditionally can be called liberal-patriotic, very few felt it and went step by step with the history.
It is difficult to predict how the process of national revival will go further in our country. Most likely, it will not be smooth, but will go with stops and "liberal" retreats. The "fifth column" still retains its position in power structures and the media. (In fact, the first stoppage takes place in 2008-2011, during Medvedev's presidency.) At present, however, 25 years after the beginning of the "reforms," we are faced with a situation in which "liberals" can no longer cope with Russia, and Russia is still unable to cope with "liberals. If you look at the process not from the "mouse's perspective" (all is lost...), but from the "height of the eagle's flight," then the dynamics are positive.
And there is no doubt that this dynamic will only increase in the strategic perspective. Despite everything!
And here we must once again emphasize that the anti-system has its weak point, which was pointed out to us by Gumilyov: Denial helps it to win, but does not give it the final victory. In practice, this means that after any revolutionary upheaval that abolishes the old order, not only pathological destroyers (too few of them) but also potential creators aimed at specific managerial and economic work come into power structures. Over time, the logic of a peaceful, creative life inevitably brings them into conflict with the "destroyers," who, by nature, are incapable of living a peaceful life.
At the same time, one should not idealize the "creators"; as a rule, there are no sacrificial idealists among them. Most of the new leaders and "strong businessmen" simply do not want to lose what they have managed to acquire while in power. And that is where the pragmatic interests of the conservative part of the bureaucracy, which despite its shortcomings aims to live not in "this" country but in its own, and the common people coincide - both need stability and a new project for the future for basic survival. And denial alone will not build either one. And so if passionarity in ethnic system is not lost, and external conditions are favorable, sooner or later "creators" supported by people start to squeeze out "destroyers" from management structures and strengthen the vertical of power. That is - to conduct a step-by-step conservative revolution. From this turning point, overcoming the post-revolutionary crisis becomes a matter of time. According to the same scheme: system - anti-system – system.
I would like to believe that the further process of reconstruction of the country will go forward peacefully. However, this will only be possible if no external forces interfere in our internal affairs. But there are no fewer enemies in Russia now, and in fact there are more. And it is obvious that in these conditions their activity will only increase. But, ... But on the other hand history teaches us that when a cold war turns into a hot one, then, given the positive dynamics of ethnogenesis, all the internal restoration processes in the state are sharply accelerated. And in the first place - the process of liberation from the "fifth column"!
We conclude. If we look carefully at the whole, almost two hundred year phase of breakdown in Russia, we will find that this painful phase has a number of aggravating features.
The Russian fracas was aggravated by:
1) The invasion of Western ideology and culture, which led to the formation of ideological chimeras.
2) Overcomplication of the system, caused by a large influx of foreigners from uncomplementary super-ethnoses, both at the level of the ruling elite and at the level of the entire ethnic system, which led to the formation of ethnic chimeras.
3) The development in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the body of the super-ethnos of an active anti-system, or rather, two anti-systems: liberal and international-revolutionary.
4) Violent class contradictions caused by the abrupt growth of Russian capitalism in the second half of the 19th century.
5) Globalization (since the beginning of the 19th century), which almost coincided in time with the Russian breakdown, and which destructively influenced both Russian ethnogenesis and all significant ethnogenesis of the 20th century.
6) The influence of the NTR and, above all, the revolution in information technology in the second half of the XX century.
This is basic, the series can be continued.
It turns out that we got not just a simple fracture, but a very heavy, protracted fracture. So we should not be surprised that "in Russia, everything is not like people", but that we are still alive and hope to live on. And this, in turn, means that the Russian passionarity is far from being squandered. According to Gumilyov's theory our passionarity is on optimum average level. The forces are there. But the problem is that these forces are still fragmented into large and small groups under different flags. (The main problem of nadokhloma is schism!) Therefore, the political task of today is to get rid of the long-standing red-white and other contradictions, and determine the vector of development, i.e. the ideology of rebirth. But this will only be possible if the main, ethnic task is solved, which is not to let themselves be killed at the exit from the crisis.
Our ethnic task today is to survive to a stable phase of inertia. To hold on until everything goes by itself. Yes, yes - by itself! Because ethnogenesis is a natural process, which cannot be undone by politicians' directives. And it can't be spurred on! This does not mean that you should give up and do nothing. This means that we must keep up with history and not run ahead of the locomotive. Everyone must be in his or her place, do his or her job and not relax - ethnic time is working for us.
Today, it appears that our shattered super-ethnos is undergoing a painful phase transition. It is likely that most of this "path over the abyss" has already been passed; however, the section that remains to be overcome could stretch for years. And it is possible that these will be very turbulent years. But if we do survive this last crisis, and finally emerge from the phase of breakdown, then ahead of us awaits a safe and calm phase of inertia - the "golden autumn of civilization" - the best time for a harmonious majority. Then we can finally come to our senses and get some rest.
But this, without correction for globalization, digitalization and other outrages of the modern world, which, of course, will bring our people a lot of trouble, but will not be able to cancel the iron laws of ethnogenesis!
We are on the threshold of a new, great period of Russian History.
"Good wife, good home,
what else does a man need
to face old age."
From a famous movie
Inertial Phase (Golden Autumn)
At the beginning of this phase, the ethnic system recovers and regains stability. There is less energy in this period than in the previous phases, but it is quite amenable to coordination by the authorities. Which allows to consolidate the ethnos, to restore order in the country and even to make a leap forward. In ancient Rome, the phase of inertia lasts from the end of the first century BC to the second century AD, when, after the civil wars, Rome begins its expansion, becomes rich and becomes an empire. In Byzantium it is the ninth to eleventh centuries, - a time of pacification after the religious clashes of the eighth century and a period of economic growth. In Western Europe it is the seventeenth to twentieth centuries, - era of capitalism and colonial wars, during which “civilized Europeans” robbed half the world.
The inertial phase is a time of stability, when there is a rapid development of production (technosphere), accumulation of material and cultural values, improvement of everyday life, growth of comfort, increase in the standard of living.
"Ethnos is getting fatter and gradually weaker". But this happens so slowly that contemporaries do not notice this growing weakness. And if, some DO notice, as, for example, Spengler in "The Decline of Europe" (early XX century), it causes a storm of indignation.
"In this phase we observe the triumph of individuals of harmony - philistines," Gumilyov wrote. Mediocrity becomes the ideal. The number of passionaries is small, and it gradually decreases. However, the sub-passionarians are also going into the shadows. In the phase of inertia there is a new imperative: "Be like me! This is the ideal of the average person to be imitated. In Rome it is the "golden mediocrity of Augustus". In nineteenth-century Europe it is the "gentleman bourgeois," in the twentieth century it is the "mass man" of the middle class.
In Europe, at the early stages of ethnogenesis, the role model was the noble knight, who did not save money, but drank away all his booty with his friends ("Why save? You'll get killed in the next war anyway, or in the next one if not that one"). Then the inertia phase is dominated by people of the bourgeois type, who are careful, industrious, and "emotionally passive" accumulators of money. You can call such people skunkworkers, kulaks, peddlers, etc., but they are the protagonists. "At this time," Gumilyov wrote, "risk is already avoided. Profits are placed in the bank. Internal wars are replaced by voting in parliament." Instead of a challenge to a duel, the offender is sued. Foreign wars become a matter for the military, not the people as a whole.
From the usual, socio-economic point of view, the phase of inertia in Europe is the bourgeois phase; from the cultural point of view, the era of "modernity". The few ideological passionaries in this epoch are bored and even disgusted with life; they often find no use for themselves in life and turn into "unsuccessful" people. Many of them have a question: what was it all for? The great Russian thinker Konstantin Leontiev said well of this: "Was it not awful and offensive to think that" ... apostles preached, martyrs suffered, poets sang, painters painted and knights shone at tournaments only so that the French, German or Russian bourgeois in their ugly and comical clothing could "individually" and "collectively" indulge in the ruins of their past greatness...?"
However, "the philistine likes this epoch so much," Gumilyov wrote, "that he has invented for it the honorable name 'civilization,' a state, in his opinion, infinite. But the end comes sooner or later. History teaches us that it was the civilized empires of antiquity, ("colossi on clay feet") that collapsed with terrifying ease, under the pressure of the few and "backward" barbarians.
In the civilized era, especially near the end of it, immorality and lawlessness increase. At the previous increase of passionarity characteristic features were sternness, firmness, demanding of themselves and others. "At the decrease" - characterized by "humanity", forgiveness of weaknesses, then it’s neglect of duty, then crime. The level of morality of an ethnos is the same phenomenon of the natural process of ethnogenesis, as the predatory destruction of wildlife, "- emphasized Gumilyov.
The lawlessness that grows in this period stems from the excessive softness and "democratization" of the law, its constant changeability in favor of an impudent ruling class and a maximum consumption-oriented, pleasure-seeking mass of people.
Impunity gives "the right to outrage," which is widely enjoyed by sub-passionarians. This "right to outrage," Gumilyov wrote, is transferred to the surrounding nature, which is ruthlessly destroyed. It was at this time that the "theory of progress" developed in Europe, according to which man should take as much as possible from nature. After all, it was created for the "king of nature" to conquer and exploit it.
It should be noted that such a "progressive" approach to nature existed in ancient times as well, but since pre-industrial technology was much weaker, ruined landscapes had time to recover. As happened after the collapse of the Roman Empire. But nature is vengeful. Fifteen thousand years ago, Gumilyov noted, there were almost no deserts on Earth, and now everywhere you look - a desert. Today it is already obvious that if things go on like this, "civilized" man will bury himself.
"But the worst thing in the phase of civilization," Gumilyov wrote, "is the stimulation of unnatural migrations, or rather, the relocation of entire populations from natural landscapes to anthropogenic landscapes, i.e. to cities. They may be inhabited by aliens from very different countries. Therefore, sooner or later, migrants begin to displace the natives. Cities lose their national image and become multi-ethnic.
A striking example is the Roman Empire and its capital, Rome, which at the end of the inertial phase was a huge city with a multinational population, among whom native Romans were almost nonexistent. The inhabitants of the ancient metropolis had almost completely broken away from their roots, i.e., their land and native ethnicities.
By the end of the second century, Roman society was beginning to show symptoms of impending decline. The number of sub-passionarians, who do not want to work, but rather want "bread and circuses," is rapidly increasing. The state makes concessions to them - gives them food and free spectacles. "In a well-fed time of civilization," Gumilyov wrote, "for everyone there is a roof over his head, a piece of bread and a woman. On this basis, social apathy grows, the level of crime, especially street (sub-passionary) crime, the "oldest profession" - prostitution - becomes popular.
A characteristic sign of the civilization phase is a decrease in population growth. Married women in the cities of the Roman Empire do not aspire to have children. They take care of their figure and attend to far more important matters - that is, themselves... Homosexuality is coming into vogue. Men begin to get manicures, curl their hair, and touch up their eyes. The relaxed Roman of the Late Empire is very different from his ancestor, the stern warrior of the Republic.
The next sign of the decline of Rome is the gradual degradation of culture, or rather, the decline in the quality of cultural works and the increase in their number. There are almost no masterpieces at this time (and not at all at the end), there is a replication of what has already been worked, - noted Gumilyov. In the II-IV centuries, the production of statues and frescoes increases, but the quality of these works of art is low. But most importantly, classical culture was replaced by mass culture. Cultural life is centered on the spectacles and sports. A whole industry of spectacles is created, designed for the tastes of the sub-passionate crowd. These include bloody shows in circuses, primitive and vulgar performances in theaters. The apotheosis of cultural life was the drunken celebrations, which, at times, spilled over into mass orgies.
It must be said that the late Romans had a rather vile entertainment. Gluttony and drunkenness became the norm. For example, at feasts, the guests would push a goose feather down their throats, induce vomiting, and after clearing their stomachs, they would start eating and drinking again - prolonging their pleasure. And such feasts could last for weeks.
Debauchery and sexual perversion became commonplace at this time. Collective sex no longer embarrassed anyone. Wealthy people have harems of not only girls, but of boys as well. Slaves in Rome are cheap, imported from all over the world. You can make fun of them out of boredom. And if you get bored, you can go to the circus and watch people being torn to pieces by wild beasts.
In the age of "civilization," there is a gradual decline in religion. At the end of the phase of inertia comes the time of faithlessness. In second- and third-century Rome, no one believes in the pagan gods anymore, although their statues stand on every corner. Pagan religion, Gumilyov wrote, acquires luxurious forms, but loses its inner content. On this ground of faithlessness a variety of false doctrines and life-negating concepts flourish; many sects, including totalitarian sects, emerge. The number of anti-systemic people who do not like the world around them is increasing. They transfer their anger to society and nature.
Having begun so well, the phase of inertia ends ugly. "In this phase," Gumilev wrote, "the ethnos, like Antaeus, loses touch with the soil, i.e. with life, and the inevitable decline sets in. The appearance of this decline is deceptive. It wears a mask of well-being and prosperity.
Gumilyov did not talk about the phase of inertia in Western Europe and the United States in detail, but it is obvious that the same processes took place there. In the early to mid-inertia phase (17th - early 19th centuries) - stabilization, expansion, strengthening of the system; then, from the second half of the 19th century - progressive decline. What Spengler described in The Decline of Europe. And what Dostoyevsky called "a dear cemetery," in which every stone speaks of a "hot past life”.
Signs of the West's passional decline are faithlessness, immorality (the loss of the "soul of culture" according to Spengler) and the cult of money. Plus, in the 20th century, there was total urbanization, the triumph of "mass man" and mass culture, intensive migration, and the displacement of the national by the cosmopolitan. But here, again, it is necessary to make a correction for globalization (since the 19th century) and technological progress, which accelerates many processes, for example the process of urbanization.
In the middle of the inertia phase, the Western economy is rapidly developing on the rails of industrial and commercial capitalism. Europe is turning into a "workshop of the world", becoming the undisputed economic leader, accumulating enormous material values. However, from the beginning to the middle of the 20th century the priorities change - the economy transforms from national-industrial to increasingly international and usurious.
Gumilyov did not specifically address economic issues, but it is clear that in the late "civilized" era, the economy of "general welfare" is not an indicator of prosperity, but rather an indicator of ethnic decay, i.e., the beginning of the end. On the one hand, at this time, the fat that had been accumulated over the centuries burns up, on the other hand, the pressure on nature intensifies.
In general, from the point of view of ethnic history, the economy is always secondary, the natural process of ethnogenesis is primary, which generates and destroys, together with peoples, the economies they have created. (At the same time, of course, the economy also has its fluctuations and cycles ("downward", "upward", etc.), but these things are tactical, i.e. from the point of view of Big History - rather superficial.)
Another thing is that since the emergence of the first agricultural civilizations of the 4th-3rd millennium B.C. the development of the technosphere went its own way, always increasing. All super-ethnoses that ever created cultures - starting from Ancient Egypt and Ancient China - contributed something of their own to the human scientific and technical piggy-bank. The accumulation took place over many millennia, and finally, the quantity turned into a new quality. There was an explosion - the scientific and technological revolution of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. (from the invention of the steam engine to the computer).
And here it is important to emphasize that this global technological breakthrough coincided in time with European ethnogenesis in general and the phase of inertia in particular. This gave an additional, powerful impetus to the development of Western civilization (and at the same time pushed globalization, which also had its own long financial and economic genesis). A great deal was built, invented, discovered. European culture certainly reached an unprecedented flowering, far surpassing all other cultures (civilizations) in science, education, and art. And it seemed to be forever. On this ground arose the hitherto fashionable "theory of catching-up civilizations," according to which the whole world should follow the West, copying its models. And, we must agree, that for the time being this was the case, especially when it comes to scientific and technological borrowings. But everything comes to an end. Today it is time to pass the baton to other civilizations, first of all to China, India and Islamic countries. Russia also has time to stop aping in the Western manner and concentrate on its own civilizational development.
As they say, nothing personal - pure ethnogenesis: "The end and the beginning again"!
History teaches that it teaches nothing.
historical wisdom
All men are liars, and so am I.
folk proverb
The phase of obscuration (the twilight of ethnicity).
If at the beginning of the phase of inertia, according to Gumilyov, an emotionally passive, but industrious philistine dominates, then at the end of it, subpassionarii - un-creative, unloving, emotionally and mentally inferior, but with higher requirements for life. Passionarity declines to a critical point: the phase of obscuration begins.
"In heroic epochs of growth, subpassionarians have little chance of surviving. They are bad soldiers, not workers, and the path of criminality in austere times quickly leads to the scaffold." But in the mild times of civilization, with general material abundance, the "sub-passionarians" begin to multiply without restraint. Having obtained a majority, they immediately create a new imperative: "Be like us," i.e., an amoral, asocial egoist consumer, indifferent to everything that goes beyond animal needs. Such people do not think about the future, they live for the day.
"Hard work is ridiculed, intellectuals are frowned upon. It’s not abilities that are valued, but their absence, not firm convictions, but unprincipled," Gumilyov wrote. In art there is a decline in style, science is focused on technical inventions and improvement of everyday life. Original scientific works are displaced by compilations. In political and public life corruption is legalized. "In the army soldiers keep officers and generals in submission, threatening them with mutinies. Everything is corrupt, no one can be trusted, no one can be relied upon, and in order to rule, the ruler must apply the tactics of an outlaw attacker: to suspect, hunt down and kill his associates."
Moral decay at this time permeates all strata of society. Religious tension is not simply reduced to zero, it often turns negative. Along with the majority, who no longer believe in anything but animal instincts, there are many people who begin to "pray the opposite," that is, to worship the forces of evil. Everything is turned upside down: believers in God are declared criminals and deceivers, and believers in all kinds of evil are proclaimed righteous and teachers. Traditional religion, both pagan and monotheistic, loses its influence over people and is often declared by sectarians to be a "hotbed of obscurantism" and an enemy of "freedom. Along with the loss of religious faith come a dramatic increase in mental illness and a related increase in suicide. Life denial rules the ball.
As the spiritual and moral crisis worsens in the phase of obscuration there is a demographic decline. Family life is replaced by "free love", or cohabitation in a "civil marriage". The number of abortions is growing, and the number of abandoned children is increasing. And those children who do have parents often do not receive proper care and affection. The family, as a system that binds loving people, practically ceases to exist. After all, no one owes anyone anything.
We remember that the most striking signs of high passionarity of an ethnos are militancy, patriotism, religiosity and a strong family with many children. In the phase of obscuration, we observe everything with the opposite sign: no patriotism, no religiosity, no family. And this is at best, the worst of, anti-patriotism, anti-religiosity and anti-family (same-sex marriages).
The last phase of ethnogenesis is destructive. If an ethnos does not disappear completely, small "peripheral sub-ethnoses" remain of it. They either flounder as relics or become part of other ethnoses as second-rate.
"Sub-passionarians can only parasitize on the fat body of a people that has been fed up with civilization. They themselves can neither create nor preserve. They corrode the body of the people, like the cells of a cancerous tumor, but, defeating, that is, killing the body, they themselves perish." This is what happened in Ancient Rome in the III - V centuries AD - not even a relic remains of the Romans. This does not mean that the entire population has physically disappeared, some part of it survived as a population. But the ethnos as a system was gone.
Seventeen emperors were assassinated between 235 and 285 A.D. Ordinary people, Gumilyov noted, were killed much more: "Instinctive reactions, irritation, greed, laziness, having no counterbalance in the lost passionarity, made the Roman army a hoard of villains and traitors.
Almost the entire Roman army was manned by foreigners by the beginning of the third century. The Roman ethnos, having lost its passion, ceased to supply voluntary defenders of the homeland. Emperor Diocletian, coming to power in 285, realized that only a "backward" province could save him, and surrounded himself with troops of Illyrian and Thracian highlanders who had not yet lost their fighting ability. "He created a rigid system of bureaucracy, because with good reason he did not trust the corrupted society. He used the inertia not of the ethnos, for such had dried up, but of the culture created by previous generations. But he, too, capitulated to the power of things. In 305 he abdicated and went home to Illyria."
In the fifth century, the few but passionate barbarians finished off a dying Rome, which, it should be noted, agonized for quite a long time. There was a powerful reserve of strength, laid down in the heroic era. But the eastern part of the Roman Empire - Byzantium - not only survived, but also lasted for another thousand years! This happened, stressed Gumilyov, because its core were passionate Christians, who gave rise to a new Byzantine super-ethnos. The phase of the rise in Byzantium almost coincided with the phase of obscuration in Rome. "In the East the barbarians were repulsed, but in the West they simply replaced the vanished Roman citizens..."
The same process of obscuration took place in Byzantium in the second half of the XI - XII centuries and ended with the fall of Constantinople in 1204. The symptoms of the decline of the thousand-year-old Orthodox empire were less disgusting than in Rome, but no less pernicious. The same growing weakness of the central government was the dominance of the oligarchs, the anti-patriotism of the intelligentsia, and the shift of the economy and finances to the control of foreigners, (mostly Italians and Jews). All this was against a backdrop of moral decay, declining birthrates, and displacement of the indigenous population by migrants from neighboring countries.
In the end, after the Catholic Uniate of 1274, the Byzantines lost their most important value - God. And with it, lost the meaning of life. The descendants of the valiant Romans, like the Hellenes a thousand years before them, simply "stopped wanting to live". Some went mad, some committed suicide; some fell into a severe depression, and most indulged in pagan orgies - debauchery and hopeless drunkenness. The agony of Byzantium lasted until 1453 (the maximum term), when the city of half a million people, which had no will to defend itself, was seized by the Ottoman Turk army.
In this connection the following episode is very revealing. When the Turks entered Constantinople, they found the state treasury completely empty. At the same time they found a huge wealth among the local rich oligarchs. The astonished Turkish sultan asked the captive oligarchs: "Why did you not give money to defend your own city? They slyly replied, "We were saving it for you!" The Turkish sultan was out of his rising phase, so he became disgusted. He ordered that the heads of the oligarchs be cut off and the bodies thrown to the dogs.
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