The Nature of the Soviet System

Abstract

If the mind is obligated to obey the word of command, it can at any rate feel that it is not free. But if it has been so manipulated beforehand that it obeys without even waiting for the word of command, it loses even the consciousness of enslavement. All modern societies involve mass manipulation, especially now since the masses have become economically and politically important. Whether it is an election or merely a matter of consumption, the crucial factor is the behavior of the activated mass. Motivation research and public opinion polls are a way of gauging the anticipated reaction of the consumer and the voter. The asymmetry in decision-making between the masses and the businessman or the politician is thus diminished. Andre Gide, the writer quoted above, had, however, something far more ominous in mind. He was pointing to the possibility of a society's maintaining a total political-social conformity, wherein the leadership does not just anticipate the mass reactions but the masses in effect almost anticipate the desires of the leadership. A self-enforcing unanimity and conformity would be the consequence. But for such a condition to arise, there would have to be some overt, systematized framework of socially instilled values, which could guide-almost without command -the behavior of the masses. And if that were to come to pass, perhaps one would be safer not to raise the baffling question whether such a society was in fact free or enslaved. Compared to it, Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia of the nineteen-thirties and China of today would be examples of admirably simple tyrannies, with the continuous use of force leaving little doubt as to the internal essence of their systems.