The best should rule
Article 52
The first thing we must do when discussing the structure of the Russian state is to shake off the hypnosis of political formulas and slogans. Let's provide the "believers" with democrats - to believe in the necessity and salvation of this regime and free ourselves for impartial observation and experimental research. And one more thing: let’s leave it to people who seek success from the crowd to vilify the “aristocrats” or completely ignore the idea of aristocracy, as supposedly “reactionary”, “counter-revolutionary”, “old regime” etc. When we think about the coming Russia, then we must be free, completely free from the fear of not pleasing someone and receiving “condemnation” from someone, be it Western Europeans or our own, home-grown ones - left-wing radicals or right-wing radicals . We are guilty of God and Russia - the truth, and if someone doesn’t like it, then so much the worse for him.
Usually "democracy" as the rule of "favorite" people both chosen by the people, and the “aristocracy”, as the rule of people “hereditarily privileged”, are opposed to each other. This is a mistake that must be understood and rejected. It is the product of political passions, demagoguery and bitterness. The best people in the country should rule the state, and the people often choose not the best, but flatterers they like and unscrupulous demagogues that worry them. It is the best who should rule the state, and they often come from the state-educated and through generations of educated strata of the people. Democracy deserves recognition and support only insofar as it realizes true aristocracy (i.e., it elevates the best people to the top); and the aristocracy does not degenerate and does not harm the state precisely insofar as the truly best forces of the people enter its composition.
Let's make sure of this.
"Aristos" means "best" in Greek. Not “the richest”, not “the most well-born”, not “the most influential”, not “the most dexterous and cunning”, not privileged, not the oldest in age. But precisely the best: a sincere patriot, state-minded, politically experienced, a man of honor and responsibility, sacrificial, intelligent, strong-willed, organizationally gifted, far-sighted and educated. Other qualities could be added to this, for example. brave, warm-hearted; but it is difficult to discard at least one of the above and classify them as the “best” a greedy, corrupt, internationalist, dishonest person, devoid of state intelligence and experience, a weak-willed fool, an organizational loser or a naive ignoramus. It is the best who must rule in all states and under all regimes. Any regime is bad if it is ruled by the worst. It is absurd and unnatural to say: “We demand democracy, at least in it weak-willed fools, corrupt ignoramuses, dishonest scoundrels and similar social scum are elected, promoted and ruled.” On the contrary, it is necessary and correct to answer: “A democracy that does not know how to highlight the best does not justify itself; it is destroying the people and the state and must fall.” It is crazy to introduce democracy in a country in order to destroy the state and people, as was done in Russia in 1917. And what the rule of truly worst people leads to, the Russian people have been experiencing for themselves for the past thirty-two years... A harsh school!
One could call our demand a political axiom (i.e., a self-evident truth): the best must rule. You can make mistakes in recognizing these best people in life, you can agree and disagree in your assessments of them, but the task of highlighting them is indisputable and fundamental... One could express this in the form of a slogan: make way for honest and smart patriots! Make way for them - regardless of whether they belong to any estate, class, or to any party or not! The quality of the person is important; its political value and its political will; and it doesn’t matter his origin, his profession, his class and party affiliation. It is his moral and mental strength that is important, not his ancestors; What is important is his loyalty to his homeland, what matters is the direction of his will, and not his party card. Party affiliation (any party affiliation!) does not certify a person’s qualities, but only replaces or obscures it. And the quality of a person is first and most precious.
Therefore, every election must have in mind a single, main and necessary goal: highlighting the qualitatively best sons of the people and entrusting them with political affairs. It is stupid and blind to be seduced by demagogues who, hiding behind a party label, fiercely defend the interests of some class, estate, national minority, territorial district, or simply their own!
Firstly, because the state business seeks a single, common, national interest, and not private lusts, and a demagogue who inflames passions precisely in the direction of private lusts openly testifies to his political unworthiness: he is a falsifier in politics; he is like a gypsy praising a fake horse; in relation to the naive and gullible people, he acts as a corrupter of children, building his well-being on fraud and lies.
Secondly, because his very demagoguery testifies to his qualitative failure; he inflames passions in order to advance and destroy the state's cause, turning it at best into a matter of private lust, and at worst into a matter of his own personal gain.
Russia can only be saved by highlighting the best people who defend not party or class interests, but the interests of the whole people. Everyone should agree and focus on this. This must be explained to the Russian people themselves, first of all. For this, all measures must be taken, such as: liberation of the people from all and any parties; the introduction of voting by constituency with the nomination of personal, personally known candidates; and, most importantly, the development of a special type of competitive cooperation in finding and nominating the best people - cooperation between the state center and voters. This proposal will be substantiated and outlined in further issues of Our Tasks.
Democratic elections are only a conditionally appropriate means for an absolutely correct goal (selection of the best). If such an end and such a means collide, then the conditional means must yield to the unconditional end. The requirement that the best rule relates to the very nature, to the very idea of the state; a system in which the worst are in power will be doomed and will collapse sooner or later, with more or less shame. Every state is called to be an aristocracy in our sense of the word: monarchical, dictatorial, and democratic; and it could be said with confidence that if historically legitimate states had been at the political heights, they would have extracted these truly best from all strata of the population; and then professional revolutionaries would have nothing to do in the world.
Therefore, the question of "popular elections" (according to the fourfold formula - universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage) is a question of means, and not of a higher indisputable goal or dogma. This means may be expedient in one state and in one era, but inexpedient in another country and in another era. It is childish to believe in this remedy as a political “panacea”. Not every nation is and is not always capable of selecting the best to power through such elections. The question must be posed differently: which people and when, with what size of state, at what level of religiosity, morality, legal consciousness, education and property wealth, under what election system, in calm or turbulent periods of life, really solved this problem successfully?
Let us therefore ask: what grounds do modern émigré democratic parties have for believing that the Russian people after the all-corrupting, spiritually devastating and corrupting era of communism, after the introduction of widespread poverty in the country (rich soviet careerists don’t count!), after thirty-two years of slavery, after having lost the habit of independent thinking, after complete and long-standing ignorance in matters of politics, economics and diplomacy, after the ingrained habit of fear, theft, denunciation and saving one’s life by groveling, will he be able to carry out such elections? If they have serious reasons, they should not be kept silent; and if there are none, but there are reasons to the contrary, then why irresponsible programmatic idle talk?
Russia needs an election system that would give it a sure way to find and select its truly best people for power. Members of the international party, notorious destroyers and executioners of the Russian people, “dives”, cannot and should not participate in these elections of the best people. communists, repainted traitors, etc. This means that these elections can be neither general nor direct. The best people can be found only by those who have not lost honor and conscience, by those who have suffered, and not by those who tortured the sufferers. Otherwise, Russia will again be given over to the power of the political rabble, which will turn from the red rabble into the black rabble in order to create a new totalitarianism, a new hard labor and a new decomposition. God save us from this!