54
LESZEK KOLAKOWSKI
inner party use are usually in the lower echelons and must bear re–
sponsibility for their reports, unfavorable news becomes self-denun–
ciation and is punishable, while favorable news is rewarded. Besides,
the gathering of genuine information would require the setting up of
a large apparatus entirely free and indpendent - which would be
not only an anomaly but a threat to the ruling class. Moreover,
much of this information makes for tensions and conflicts at the
higher rungs of the apparatus. There is no such thing as innocent
or neutral information; all facts are immediately used by rival groups
or cliques aspiring to higher positions, and are directed against the
occupants of these positions. Even if the universal rule of self-decep–
tion seems to be stupid, it is actually one of the system's defense
mechanisms. Though the ruling groups sometimes have to pay for
their lies, it is worth while (particularly since the cost is borne large–
ly by society) because the lies strengthen the power structure.
4. Another feature of Soviet socialism
is
the intellectual and
moral degradation of the decision-making apparatus, inherent in the
political mechanism and subject to the intentions of the rulers. As
in all despotic systems, one's career is furthered by servility, cowar–
dice, lack of initiative, readiness to denounce, and indifference to
social opinion and the public interest. And one is handicapped by
imagination, self-reliance, honesty, and concern for the public wel–
fare. Thus there is a natural selection of cadres. The fourteen years
of Gomulka's rule in Poland, for example, were highlighted by elim–
ination of competent and gifted people and the elevation of coward–
ly and submissive ones. Since March 1968, the mass promotion of
ignoramuses, denouncers, and racketeers ("an invasion of bedbugs,"
as it has been called in Warsaw) has been intensified. There are some
exceptions, but they are rare; and except in moments of crisis, few
brave and competent people can be found in the party apparatus
itself, especially in the political and propaganda sections, where
the principle of selecting the worst candidate is almost always trium–
phant.
5. Despotic governments produce the need for permanent, or at
least periodic, aggression. That war is a grave for democracy has
been known for centuries. But in the absence of an external war,
despotisms use artificial means and fi ctitious enemies to create a
psychotic state of siege. Hence acts of brutality against selected