The Growth of Toadyism

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In Pravda on December 28 of last year a collective article was published, a huge special feature section, devoted to — what would you expect? — "the anniversary of Comrade Stalin's speech at the First Conference of Marxist Agrarian Specialists." This special feature, like the similar earlier article by a certain Borilin, is, if not a striking, then certainly a vile document of academic careerism, a "platform" of small people who are transforming Stalin's scandalous speech at the conference into a cover for their own trivial slander, denunciations, intrigues, and lustful ambitions.

We subjected Stalin's speech to detailed criticism in an earlier issue of the Biulleten ("Stalin as a Theoretician," number 14) [Writings 30]. We showed that this speech was a conglomeration of rudimentary errors from beginning to end. If you did not know Stalin and his "theoretical" level, you might have thought the speech was a crude forgery fabricated by somebody else. Larin, Kritsman, and even Milyutin — people who are ready enough to line up for the leadership — did not have it in them to swallow all of Stalin's theoretical discoveries. The journal Na Agrarnom Fronte [On the Agrarian Front] had to cautiously avoid a number of burning issues in agrarian theory simply because Stalin had trodden upon these questions with his left boot. And the young Red professors sensed this caution. They understood without difficulty that the game involved no risk for them: all they had to do was launch a campaign against Kritsman, and against Milyutin — that erudite academician of platitudes — accusing them of the mortal sin: of disagreeing with Stalin's discoveries or of not accepting them with enough enthusiasm. It was impossible for Kritsman and Milyutin to agree with these ’’discoveries,” since after all they do know the ABC's of economic theory. But they could not remain silent either. Thus, the young academicians, by means of an open attack which had been underwritten in advance, were able to — arrive at theoretical truth? No. But they could secure a place on the journal Na Agrarnom Fronte and in a number of other institutions in the bargain.

And because socialist creative work must be penetrated with the collective spirit, these prize hunters gave their slander a strictly collective character. The signatures on the article were as follows: D. Lurye, Ya. Nikulikhin, K. Soms, D. Davydov, I. Laptev, Neznamov, V. Dyatlov, M. Moiseev, and N. N. Anisimov. We spelled out these names not because they are well known to us; on the contrary, they are totally unknown. But we have no doubt that one way or another they will become well known. Indeed, the name Bessedovsky was also unknown before the man who bore that name jumped over the back fence [of the Soviet embassy in Paris]. Will these gentlemen have to leap over a fence and just what kind will it be? The future will tell. But it is absolutely clear that we have before us, in these people, an academic collective made up of a far-flung faction of toadies.