Bring Ideological Work to the Level of the Party’s Requirements Today.
Report by Comrade M. Gapurov, First Secretary of the Turkmenian Communist Party Central Committee, at the Plenary Session of the Turkmenistan Communist Party Central Committee ‘On the Tasks of the Republic’s Party Organizations in the Further Intensification of Ideological-Political Work and the Internationalist Upbringing of the Working People in the Light of Comrade L. I. Brezhnev’s Report “On the 50th Anniversary of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.” (Excerpts)
Original Source: Turkmenskaia iskra, 3 April 1973, 1-2.
… The main speaker reported that a few days ago the Bureau of the Turkmenian Communist Party Central Committee examined the question of work on the internationalist upbringing of students in the Turkmenian Polytechnic Institute. The consideration and discussion of this question showed that there are serious shortcomings and omissions in the institute’s work on the internationalist upbringing of the student body and the professors and instructors.
There is no clearness of purpose in this highly important matter. Questions of the upbringing of students in a spirit of socialist internationalism have not become the main element in the process and content of instructional, ideological-political and upbringing work. Certain students do not understand the internationalist essence of our social system or the fact that the Turkmenian Republic’s achievements are the result of the joint efforts of all the Soviet peoples.
Under the influence of various kinds of fabrications by bourgeois propaganda and a poor knowledge of the life, policies and struggle of the Communist Party in the international arena and within the country, certain teachers and students in the higher schools have been guilty of making unhealthy, politically immature statements….
In today’s conditions, scientific-atheistic propaganda is one of the most important sectors of ideological-political work, a sector that furthers moral and internationalist upbringing. It would be wrong to say that no such work is being conducted in our republic, but it is being done unsatisfactorily in a number of places.
In many cities and districts the Party and Soviet agencies have still not worked out a well thought-out system for this work. The extent of the population’s religious affiliation is not being studied; as a result, scientific-atheistic work is often conducted blindly, in an undifferentiated way, and so misses its target. There has been no decline in the number of persons who observe religious rituals in our republic.
The number of pilgrims to the so-called “holy” places is diminishing slowly in the republic, and a large number of un-official ministers of religion are still operating; they preach reactionary ideas, draw believers away from socially useful labor and work for the observance of the fasts of Uraza, Kurban Bairam, Shakhsei-Vakhsei and others. Such instances occur in Karabekaul, Dargan-Ata, Kalinin, Tashauz, Kunya-Urgench, Farab, Mary, Murgab, Bakharden and a number of other districts.
The need to intensify the struggle against religious survivals is especially insistent because they form the basis of very harmful customs that are alien to our socialist system. They engender an incorrect attitude toward women, give rise to crimes denigrating women’s honor and dignity and frequently lead to serious consequences.
What is needed is an insistent and persistent struggle against the exponents of survivals of the past.
We cannot help being disturbed by the Moslem cult because of its specific features. Like any other religion, Islam often plays the role of “custodian” of reactionary national customs and traditions, stirs up feelings of national exclusiveness and serves as a cover for nationalism.
In the struggle against religious rituals in local areas, little attention is paid to replacing them with civic, socialist rituals or to giving all-round support to new internationalist holidays and traditions instead of religious holidays.
The time has come to eliminate kalym [bride money] from our reality. We can do this if we speak frankly to the people, call upon them to refuse to pay kalym and put this matter under the strictest possible control by the broad public….
We are heartened by the successes achieved by the republic’s writers, artists, composers and theater and film workers. Their creative work is more and more coming to reflect our times, our splendid reality, the spiritual world of Soviet man. the ideas of socialist humanism and communist morals….
While acknowledging the positive elements in the development of literature and the arts, we must note that the creative works of our writers and artists do not fully reflect the grandeur of our epoch and the progressive movement of the Soviet people along the path of the creation of communism.
Certain writers sometimes lose a class and Party approach in evaluating the remote historical past. In their works on historical subjects, these writers, in defiance of the truth, create portraits of the Khans that exaggerate the enlightened aspects of their lives and play down their anti-popular activity.
In our view. the writers’ organization itself still lacks the necessary atmosphere of comradeliness based on Party devotion to principle.
In the field of music. no good new operas are being written. Song art is lagging. Revolutionary songs and songs of the fraternal peoples are being translated very inadequately.
In some works, the republic’s artists do not portray the image of our contemporary in sufficient depth; elements of the deliberate coarsening of images. shortcomings in professional skill and stylization in imitation of Eastern miniatures are manifest.
The repertoires of our theaters are also not fully satisfactory. Very rarely do we see on the stage a work that poses deep social problems of our time and re-creates vivid, full-fledged images of Soviet people. Out of commercial considerations, the theaters frequently offer audiences entertaining plays with little real content instead of staging the classics or significant works by Soviet playwrights.
Few good feature films are being created by our cinematographers. Except for “The Decisive Step” and “The Daughter-in-Law,” which have won favor with audiences, one can say that there are no interesting films.
Many shortcomings in the development of literature and the arts can be explained by the weakness of literary and art criticism in the republic. Critics often evaluate works unobjectively. allowing themselves to be guided not by considerations of principle but by who their friends are. A significant number of the works of literature and art that appear receive no appraisal from the critics whatsoever. This leads to complacency and self-satisfaction and to the appearance of ideologically and artistically feeble works…
Source: Current Digest of the Soviet Press, Vol. XXV, No. 16, p. 10.