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Ten years ago, in the autumn of 2014, Pavel Boyko, a Tver communist, a smart and well-read guy, a talented organizer, died. His life and work for many years were connected with the Russian Communist Workers' Party and its youth wing, the RKSM(b). Pavel's death - from electricity in his own home - seems strange to many. It is still difficult to say whether the tragedy was connected with someone's evil intent or whether some kind of absurd accident occurred. Pavel was buried in a closed coffin. In addition to relatives, many Tver communists, young trade union members, and comrades who came from other cities gathered at the funeral.
The man lived, tried to carry out political work among ordinary working people, and died. It would seem that what else can be said about a communist who did not write books, did not have influence on millions, and did not become one of the leaders of the revolution?
But in fact, we, Pavel's comrades, have something to remember about him, and we will not miss the opportunity to draw conclusions from the experience of a comrade who passed away so early.
Pavel Boyko (real surname - Semikov) was born in 1979 in the city of Kalinin (Tver). His family was the most ordinary Soviet family. And Pavel himself was no different from other schoolchildren who witnessed the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The young people of that time had rather vague prospects. Normal human professions (turner, pilot, teacher, doctor, etc.) under the influence of the thieves who seized power began to be considered extremely unprestigious. At the same time, television was wildly romanticizing the activities of criminal structures. Bandits, businessmen and "tough guys" came out of the shadows and tried to establish themselves as new masters.
In the second half of the nineties, Pavel experienced a short period of right-wing political convictions. However, he did not stay in the "skins" for long and, through studying the ideas of his political opponents, unexpectedly for himself came to Marxist convictions. Interestingly, Pavel always retained a passion for the skinhead style of clothing. Around the same time, he graduated from school and went to study to become a lawyer. This profession was also considered fashionable at that time. Many lawyers cover up the activities of various kinds of "entrepreneurs", for which they receive fat crumbs from the master's table. But comrade Boyko already had a completely different motivation.
Not all graduates of Soviet schools at that historical moment forgot the basics of Marxism and the heroic history of the Soviet people. Those who understood from a young age that the rejection of socialism is a catastrophe that must be fought, already then, in the nineties, were looking for like-minded people. And Pavel, who, in the conditions of harsh bourgeois propaganda, realized himself as a communist, joined the common cause, became a member of the RKSM(b), a youth organization that, together with the RCRP, did not make ideological compromises and said directly: capitalism brings death, and the future belongs to socialism.
How can a young communist with a law degree help his comrades? Yes, very many things. Registration of documents, disputes with the bureaucratic machine of the Russian Federation, legal support for trade unions in court cases. This is the kind of activity Pavel aimed himself at, and not at serving the bourgeoisie who came into conflict with the justice system.
It took courage to stand under the red Leninist banners in the conditions of Yeltsinism and the triumph of militant capitalist ignorance. Anti-Sovietism was then the basis not only of state policy, but was also considered a completely natural worldview among millions of ordinary people who suddenly could not think about anything except their own enrichment. A communist in such an environment immediately doomed himself to contemptuous looks and a biased attitude from all those who followed the path of the mirages of consumer society. It was necessary to ignore the laughter and shouts of "Calm down, for you Soviets, everything is in the past!".
Young communists at that time distributed newspapers and leaflets, learned to write articles, mastered the Internet, which then seemed like a territory of unlimited freedom.
By the beginning of the 2000s, there was a lively and debate-filled organization of the RKSM(b) in Tver. Of course, the emergence of the Komsomol was the result of long, systematic work by the local party organization of the RKRP. People who, from the very beginning of the capitalist degeneration of the country, intercepted the red banner from the hands of the disappeared CPSU, understood well that without the youth the spark would go out. In a few years of work, honored Tver communists such as Murzov Gennady Ivanovich, Novikov Vyacheslav Dmitrievich, Spiridonov Valentin Vladimirovich, Nechaeva Inna Vasilievna, Skvortsov Vladimir Vladimirovich, were able to revive the Komsomol.
But it is always difficult with young people. They search, they are passionately carried away by some untested ideas, sometimes rushing from side to side. At one time, Maoism became popular in the Tver Komsomol organization, understood not as a teaching with Chinese specifics, having Marxist roots, but as, supposedly, a development of Marxism that had assumed global significance. Other disagreements arose, sometimes hindering any systematic activity.
One of those who did not let the Tver Komsomol drown in all this controversy was Pavel Boyko, who often took an adequate pro-party position in such disputes. Discussions are possible, useful and necessary. But only those that contribute to the development of the cause, and do not turn any meeting into endless verbiage.
The main thing should not be lost in any disputes - the need to work with people, with workers. Let them listen to us reluctantly now, it is not a problem. It is important not to give up trying to find like-minded people, to plant a seed of doubt in workers in relation to the current capitalist world order. It would be best if it were possible not only to knock out from the apolitical masses individual individuals who decided to participate in the struggle for socialism, but to gain a foothold in the work collective. This idea did not leave Pavel during all his conscious political activity.
In those years, Pavel was often seen at plenary sessions of the Komsomol Central Committee, congresses of the RCWP and RKSM(b), and at all-Russian "Anti-Capitalism" events.
In the second half of the 2000s, a moment came in the Tver party organization when the need to introduce young leadership cadres was clearly felt. After the death of Vyacheslav Dmitrievich Novikov, Comrade Boyko was elected secretary of the Tver branch of the RCWP. For several years, Pavel headed local party work, not forgetting about Komsomol affairs.
In 2010, Pavel Boyko suddenly made a sharp decision to leave the party. We then and now critically perceive his leap, his departure for purely trade union activities. If you take on a task, don't say that you are not strong. Once you have joined the party and, especially, once you have been entrusted with the leadership of a regional cell, be kind enough to justify the trust.
But Pavel had his own serious motives. He was not at all disappointed in the communist idea and was acutely aware of his political turn. However, the idea that had captured Comrade Boyko really required verification. What if literate, highly motivated communist activists gave up all other work for a while and went to the people, to the factories, to raise the workers, to create trade unions and other forms of workers' unity? What if the workers could suddenly rise up right now, to realize themselves as an all-powerful and militant working class? Maybe we just need to convey this idea to them, to do the work in the right way, not from somewhere outside, but right on the territory of the factory, being one of them, the same worker?
Pavel got a job as a slinger at the Wagon Plant and for several years tried to direct people to the struggle. And yes, a miracle did not happen. Practice has shown: if the workers are not yet ready, not mature enough to manifest an organized uprising for their rights, then no one and nothing will be able to invigorate them.
Perhaps Pavel managed to sow some seeds of doubt in the souls of his comrades who surrounded him inside the enterprise. But objective circumstances are objective because they do not depend on the activities of individual individuals. It was not possible to create a militant trade union.
Can we say that Pavel failed in this trade union-field impulse of his?
Not at all. Comrade Boyko conducted an experiment on himself that needed to be tested. There have been quite a few such enthusiasts in recent decades. Some even managed to create functioning trade unions for a short time, having local successes. But then everything died down again. The activists dropped everything, even their own personal lives. And they made a titanic effort, tried to do the impossible, to awaken the working people during their protracted historical reboot.
Thanks to this experiment, now everyone who has at least a drop of brains understands that work must always be built in accordance with objective circumstances and conditions. Trade union activity is necessary and one can devote one's life to it. But one should not expect people who do not yet feel the need to fight for small things to be ready to make sacrifices for the sake of goals they have not yet suffered for. Pavel Boyko took the path that, as we now clearly see, has turned out to be a dead end at the moment. But at that point in time, at the turn of the 2000s and 2010s, there were many doubters. What if the workers are ready for an upsurge right now, but the communists simply cannot find the right words to suddenly start up all this dormant national potential like a giant motor?
Pavel Boyko burned out on this matter, having given up everything. And it is not just necessary to remember him. It is necessary to always follow this determination, to realize that communists, leftists, any progressive politicians - they are not on their own. They are only worth something when they are part of the people, when they try to work with the masses without boasting and narcissism.
But it is better, of course, to do this without throwing yourself headlong into the vast sea of routine, but by checking Marxism as a science and the logic of history.
Comrade Boyko remained an organizer to the end, gathering around him young people who were trying to learn the methods of trade union construction. Some of the young people who were with Pavel in the last years of his life are now participating in the work of the Tver Marxist Circle and are in the ranks of the Tver organization of the RCWP, which has been renewed in composition, rejuvenated, but preserves the traditions of the recent past.
Pavel has been gone for ten years. Fascism is rising before our eyes. Not some kind of caricature, not peeling, like the burnt corpse of the German Fuhrer. But the real thing, revealing itself as an instrument of modern world imperialism. Fascists, Banderites - these are not just some kind of armchair bloodthirsty ideologists. The most dangerous thing about fascism is that it often knows how to find an approach to the masses, and specifically to the workers. If Marxists try to awaken reason in the average person, to find the most human in them, then fascist field activists, on the contrary, try to extinguish all reason. Their intoxicating arguments are simplification and hatred. A common man tired of the hardships of capitalism can easily fall for this trick. They will promise him that he, so small and inconspicuous, can soon become a gentleman, a "white man", a wealthy European, trampling on other peoples. Some are ready to believe in such a thing.
Only those who are not afraid of the masses themselves can resist this field work of right-wing activists. The struggle for minds and souls at certain moments in history does not take place in offices and television studios, but on the streets and on the territories of enterprises. We must not forget the way to the factories, to the gateways and even to those neighborhoods that seem disadvantaged. If we forget this road, the way there will be paved by those who can cause trouble. Such troubles as the fraternal Ukrainian people have already suffered, believing in delusional fascist promises.
Here are the important and useful conclusions we can draw from the life experience that Pavel Boyko, our comrade who prematurely fell into eternal sleep, showed us.
Vyacheslav Sychev