Text: PORTRAIT OF 19 MILLION

by Yevgeniy Fiks

Non-contradiction
I will begin with two different descriptions of the state of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -- one from the left and another from the right on the political spectrum.

The first statement comes from Leon Trotsky's 1936 book "The Revolution Betrayed," where among many points of criticism of Stalin's regime, Trotsky introduced his fierce critique of the state of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Stalin's policies in regards to Party life. According to Trotsky, Stalin stroke a fatal blow to the CPSU by easing admission into the Party, which resulted in tens of thousands petit-bourgeois and ideologically-immature workers joining the Party ranks, and as a result, dramatically weakening it. Trotsky viewed this policy of "democratization" of admission into the Party as a fundamentally counterrevolutionary act. Trotsky stated that Stalin, a grave-digger of the Revolution and a petit bourgeois himself, purposely opened up and simplified admission procedures into the Party for general population in order to neutralize the Party's revolutionary potential by bringing in a very large unprepared and/or indifferent to the Revolutionary cause element into the Party ranks.

According to Trotsky, by mid 1920s the true Communists were in the minority in the Party. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was no longer a revolutionary party, but a convenient tool in the hands of Stalin's bureaucracy. By then, CPSU was no longer the party of Lenin, Trotsky assures us. And from his forced exile and shortly before his violent death in 1940 from the hands of Stalin's henchman, Trotsky longs for the old Party, which was a small and highly ideologically-mature group of advanced working class -- a party, admission to which before the Revolution was no trivial matter.

FAQ: Портрет 19 Миллионов

1) Должны ли все участники быть бывшими членами КПСС?

Любой человек может участвовать. Однако, герои портретов (люди, изображенные на портретах) должны были состоять в КПСС в последнии годы существования Советского Союза.

2) Зачем ты делаешь этот проект?

Этот проект о людях, о судьбах. Общество по-прежнему сваливает всю ответственность за трудности настоящего, за советское прошлое на коммунистов. Так кто же эти мифические "коммунисты"? Это чья-то бабушка, учительница химии, чей-то дедушка, вступивший в партию во время войны. Среди них были и люди, верившие в коммунизм. Были и конформисты-карьеристы. Там были и обманутые. Партия была очень неоднородна. На начало перестройки в Ком. Партии было почти 19 миллионов человек. Это действительно огромное количество, и разница между просто советским субъектом и членом Ком. Партии была на практике минимальна. Как тогда говорилось -- народ и партия едины - и это видимо действительно было так. Это были одни и те же люди. "Портрет 19 миллионов" - попытка разделить ответственность за прошлое. Мы не можем сваливать всю ответственность на членов компартии СССР. Я хочу, чтобы мы узнали собственные черты в портретах 19 миллионов: наш собственный конформизм, собственную боязнь власти, наши собственные надежды на лучшее будущее и т.д.

Приглашение к участию: Портрет 19 Миллионов

Приглашение к участию
«Портрет 19 миллионов» – это открытый для участия проект, организованный художником
Евгением Фиксом, который будет представлен в рамках выставки «Невозможное сообщество»
(куратор Виктор Мизиано) в Московском музее современного искусства осенью 2011 года
(сентябрь-октябрь).

Согласно официальной статистике в период Перестройки в Коммунистической Партии Советского Союза состояло 19 миллионов человек. Это были люди, вступившие в партию в разное время и при разных обстоятельствах. КПСС не была гомогенной структурой ни социально, ни идеологически. Кем же были члены партии тогда? Что их объединяло, а что могло отчуждать друг от друга? Кто они теперь? «Портрет 19 миллионов» обращается к судьбам конкретных людей, используя как чисто художественные, так и социологические инструменты в своей попытке осмысления советской и постсоветской субъективности.

FAQ: Portrait of 19 Million

1) Must every participant be a former member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union?

Anybody can participate and contribute portraits. However, the subjects of the portraits (the ones depicted in the portraits) must have been members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union during the last years of Soviet Union's existence.

2) Why are you doing this project?

This project is about people, about human narratives. The society still dumps much of the responsibility for the difficulties of the post-Soviet present and for the Soviet past on the former Communists. So who are those mythical "Communists"? Somebody's grandmother, a high-school chemistry teacher, a grandfather, who joined the Party during WW2, etc. Among Party members, there were people who believed in Communism. There were also conformists and opportunists. There were also those who were cheated. In reality, the Party wasn't homogeneous.There were 19 million people in the Soviet Communist Party by the beginning of Perestroika. This is a huge number and the difference between simply Soviet subjects and members of the Communist Party was minimal in practice. And when the official ideology postulated that "the people and the Party are one," it was probably true. They were the same people. "Portrait of 19 Million" is an attempt to share responsibility for the past and present. We cannot dump all the responsibility on the Communist Party. I want everyone, myself included, to recognize our own features in the portrait of 19 million--our own conformism, our own cowardice, our own hopes for a better future.

Call for Participation: Portrait of 19 Million

Portrait of 19 million is an open participatory project organized by artist Yevgeniy Fiks. This project will be presented in the Viktor Misiano-curated exhibition, The Impossible Communities, at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art (MMoMA) in Fall 2011.

According to official Soviet statistics, 19 million people were members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the Perestroika period. These were people who joined the Party at different times and under different circumstances. CPSU was not homogeneous with regards to its social make up nor ideology. Who were the members of the Party then? What united them and what could alienate them from each other? Who are they now? Portrait of 19 million focuses on the fates of concrete individuals, using purely artistic and sociological tools in an attempt to understand the Soviet and post-Soviet subjectivity.