YAKOV KROTOV

HOW TO UNDERSTAND RUSSIAN COLLECTIVISM

American missionary activities in Russia led first of all to introducing Russians to Americans, and only after that (and not always) to Christ. The interaction was very painful: there were conflicts in terms of living, maintaining interpersonal relations, and building churches. Certainly, for anthropologists and those engaged in academic pursuits or for just curious people, the Russian/American interplay was a priceless gift.

Cultural differences became most obvious in the question of salaries. Americans brought with them the principle that salaries were to be kept secret. Those Russians who informed their colleagues about the amount of their wages have sometimes been immediately fired in order to prevent jealousy and gossip. Russians have been shocked, and openly proclaimed that knowledge about each other's salaries is essential to them. "To say that a person should practice salary confidentiality and be fired immediately for comparing salaries is too harsh. ... Low standards of pay actually served to unite us." (Alexander Zaichenko. East-West Church & Ministry Report. Spring 1994. Vol. 2, No. 2). People prefer to have salaries lower, but equal and known, than not to know how much others' receive.

Ignorance about the salaries of each other helps Americans to preserve teamwork. Knowledge about the each others salaries helps Russians to preserve the collective existence. What is the difference, then, between the teamwork, which Americans strive to achieve, and the Russian collective idea?

The team is born and exists in society with a high level of individualism. The team spirit counterbalances individualism and makes it a positive and productive force. The collective spirit is at once a consequence and at driving force of the society which denies the person's right to be a separate unit. This urges man/woman to open all sides of their existence, including salary, to the knowledge of others.

A team always is organized around some external focus: to preach the Gospel, to make pornography or pizzas. Collectivity is a goal in itself. Its existence is its main and, practically speaking, its only purpose. In collective the missionary will tolerate his ineffective helpers until the mission is closed by some external force. The pornographers will make films which nobody wants to buy.

The whole economic system of Russia is of a collective type: people and their government are busy not with productivity, or with gaining profit, but with supporting the existence of different collectives, beginning with the collective farms and to the government itself. Only death, mass hunger, or the Second Coming seem to be a viable detriment against such collectivism.

Collectivism is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It produces more than teamwork emotionally. Here is a typical example of American reaction to collectivity:

"As an American, I would think nothing of telling a guest that a meeting had to end because of a previous commitment, and there would be no insult in the statement. We dismiss people for other appointments, not to mention ministry activities. For better or worse, Russians are more polite than many of their Western guests. On Russian soil, a host would rarely make such a statement to a guest for fear of being impolite. Often Western visitors never realize the difficulties they impose." (Wil Triggs. Walking in Russian Shoes / East-West Church & Ministry Report. Vol. 2, No. 1. Winter 1994. P. 16.)

"Politeness" in this case is not as good as real politeness should be. Such politeness is based on the presupposition that a man to whom you are so polite, for whom you do so much good, is automatically included in some collective unit with you. He becomes something more of a friend, than an acquaintance. Whoever receives such politeness -- coming from the depths of another man soul -- must respond not only with money (although money will never be rejected, no!) but also with sharing some of his/her privacy. Such politeness includes you with or without your will and often against it in the context of lifelong mutual obligations. These obligations are most uncertain, you will never understand how they can be concretely formulated. These are unpronounced feelings, vague and dim. This vagueness makes them as dangerous and obligatory as quicksands or swamps. You must pay these obligations with personal cost.

Collectivism demands denies collective responsibility. Collectivism enslaves you against your will, without a battle, you become a prisoner. Collectivism assumes that if you are not one's enemy, you an arm-keeper of this one. The culture of collectivism assumes the extreme and doesn't understand that people can be equal to each other or peers and be only partly engaged in some enterprise.

Collectivist spirit is naturally associated with some patriarchal (matriarchal as well) times, when a person was not taken as personality. The individual was dispersed in the life of genus, of family. It took several millennia to give birth to the "personality". This was done, not by human progress, but by the appearance of Christ and His Gospel, which is addressed to individual, not to the collective. The collective spirit is a spirit in itself and it can be awakened in everybody's soul, or in any nation under certain conditions -- when the person or nation wills it. The collective spirit exists in the West, for example, in religious cults or in overgrown corporations, where management itself becomes the goal.

The team and collective are not synonymous to virtue and vice. Team spirit has dark sides also. The goal can be defined wrongly. Cosa Nostra is a team: it is very non-patriarchal in its cruelty. The worst side of team spirit is alienation: individuals feel themselves to be too pragmatic, too utilitarian, the victims and rulers of utilitarianism. The problem is, is there something positive in between alienation and enslavement. Can you combine pleasant qualities of each and exclude the negative?

Theoretically and practically, most certainly, no: it will be too good for our world. It is more important to point out that Americans and Russian are equally conscious of negative sides of their style living. There is in Russian Orthodox theology and psychology a term which designates an ideal quality of life with other people: "sobornost." This is usually what collectivism pretends to be. But "sobornost" is a quality characteristic to the Church as Christ's Body. Its theological antecedent is "catholicity." But catholicity usually means "universal." The Church is "Catholic" because all the ends of the earth, and all nations, are united in it. Russian term "sobornost" stresses not the diversity of those who are gathered in the Church, but the fact that they are gathered in and with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one and only cure of both aggression and cowardliness of the human spirit. His presence makes two or three a "meeting" in Christ, without lessening the freedom and fullness of each one who are gathered. Americans must remember about this and not try to replace the Holy Spirit by their ideal of teamwork. That doesn't mean that Russians must remain in collectivity. That mean that only Russians themselves can find way out of the dangers of collective idea with the help of traditional Russian understanding of the Church.

1995