Eternal revolutionary. Ivan Franko. "Eternal revolutionary

Fidel Castro and Che Guevara are the two most notorious leaders of the Cuban revolution. However, dreaming of the flames, if not of the world, then of the general Latin American revolution, Che Guevara, unlike Fidel, failed to adjust to the peaceful everyday life of the builder of Cuban socialism. Only one captain was to remain on the captain's bridge.

For the first time with the Cuban revolutionaries, the son of the Argentine bourgeois, who had recently received a diploma in surgery, Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna, met in January 1954 in Guatemala. Members of the Cuban underground from the M-26 movement, Antonio Lopez (Nyiko), Mario Dalmau and Dario Lopas, told the Argentine about their struggle against the protege of the United States, Cuban General Fulgencio Batista y Saldivar. Guevara, who already then had leftist views, expressed a desire to take part in this struggle.

The next meeting between the Cubans and Che took place in June 1955, when Nyiko, already familiar to him, came to the city hospital of Mexico City, where Ernesto worked as an allergist. He said that Mexico City had become a gathering place for Cuban revolutionaries who were going on a revolutionary expedition to Cuba. At the same time, Nyiko asked if Che's offer to participate in their struggle still stands. Che, without hesitation, answered: "Yes!"

For the freedom of Cuba!

A few days later, Nyiko introduced Che Guevara to Raul Castro, and on July 9, 1955, in the house of Maria Antonia Gonzalez, the Argentine met with the leader of the Cuban underground, Fidel Castro.

After the conversation, Ernest and Fidel immediately fell in love with each other. Fidel recalled that Che at that time had more mature revolutionary ideas compared to him. He enrolled the Argentine as a doctor for a revolutionary expedition. On November 25, 1956, 82 rebels sailed to Cuba from the port of Tuxpan.

Already at the height of the revolution, on June 5, 1957, Fidel appropriated Ernesto military rank comandante (major) and appointed him to command a column of 75 rebels. By the end of the year, the barbudos ("bearded men") already controlled the Sierra Maestra mountains. On January 1, 1959, Castro's troops took Santiago, and the next day Havana. General Batista fled the country, the revolutionaries celebrated their victory.

After the last pockets of resistance were crushed, it was the turn to build a new peaceful life on the Island of Freedom. Rumor has it that when Fidel, having gathered his inner circle, asked them: “Is there at least one economist among you?” Che raised his hand. True, he later admitted that he heard instead of "economist" - "communist". But when everything turned out, it was too late to retreat. Castro appointed Guevara President of the National Bank of Cuba and Minister of Industry.

Alas, the fearless revolutionary was not able to manage a peaceful industry. For a little over a year that Che was in the post of head of the National Bank, the Cuban peso, previously converted on a par with the dollar, depreciated catastrophically.

Che was also the Minister of Industry of the new Cuba. Taking the Stalinist industrialization of the 1930s as an example, he decided to repeat the Soviet experience. But the slogan "Accelerated industrialization!" collapsed again. Guevara's deputy, Ernesto Betancourt, recalled that Che "had no idea of ​​the most elementary principles of economics."

Merciless Punisher

Knowing his merciless hatred of class enemies, Fidel appointed Che "the punishing sword of the revolution." And he was surprised by the cruelty of Guevara. As head of the La Cabaña prison, Che liked to watch executions from the window of his office. Sometimes he himself went out into the courtyard to execute the condemned. “You should have seen the expression on his face as he watched the prisoners being dragged out of their cells and tied to a firing post. He was clearly not all right with his psyche, ”recalled one of the prisoners of the Castro regime, dissident Roberto Martin-Perez.

By order of Guevara, large-caliber bullets were used for executions, and the execution itself was carried out from a distance of five steps. This was done so that the blood, brains and bone fragments of the executed would splatter the wall behind them. Then the commandant liked to bring a relative of the executed prisoner who came to the prison to meet and report what kind of substance had dried up on the wall.

“In order to put a person against the wall, no legal evidence is required. All these procedures are an archaic bourgeois relic, Che wrote in the Havana newspaper. “The revolutionary must become a cold-blooded killing machine, driven by pure, unclouded hatred.”

Che initiated the creation of a network of concentration camps for "hooligans" and "anti-social elements." Thousands of Cubans got there, suspected not only of anti-communist activities, but also of addiction to Western values ​​- be it rock music or homosexuality. Hundreds of thousands of Cubans perished in these camps, including women and teenagers as young as 14. Che himself personally executed more than 180 people, although some give a much higher number.

Guevara explained his cruelty by devotion to the cause of the revolution: “By killing enemies, I am preparing myself for the cherished battle in order to meet the triumphant proletariat with a wild howl!” But it is unlikely that any of his associates, including Fidel, did not catch themselves thinking that for the sake of the same revolution, Guevara could turn his weapon against them.

As long as the threat of crushing the revolution remained in Cuba, Che's activity played into the hands of Fidel. But after the destruction of the old system, it was necessary to create a new one. And Che, as his deeds showed, was completely incapable of this. He still wanted to seek out and kill enemies. “After the revolution, it is not the revolutionaries who do the work,” Guevara once said. - It is made by technocrats and bureaucrats. And they are counter-revolutionaries.”

Rebellion for export

Despite the fact that the leaders of the Cuban revolution continued to maintain the illusion of friendship, their paths had already parted. Che decided to leave to make a revolution in the countries of Central America. Knowing that the Argentine could no longer be stopped, Fidel offered him the leadership of a detachment that was supposed to go to the aid of the revolutionaries in the Congo.

On April 24, 1965, Guevara, under the assumed name of Ramon, arrived in the Congo along with a detachment of dark-skinned Cubans. But in the first battle on June 29, 1965, his detachment was defeated.

Meanwhile, unrest began in Cuba over the disappearance of one of the first persons of the state. Fidel, who was questioned about Che, remained silent for some time. It was like he was considering the consequences of his move. But when Castro learned that Che managed to recover from the defeat and create a combat-ready detachment, he decided to make the departure of his ally in the Congo public. So much so that it was almost impossible for the proud and ambitious Che to return to Cuba after that.

On October 3, 1965, at a meeting of communists, Fidel read out a letter from Ernesto Guevara, which he had to read only in two cases: the death of Che or his victory in the Congo. Neither of these happened at the time.

"Fidel! At this hour, I remember a lot, about how I met you ... - Castro began to read the first lines. - ... I feel that I have partially fulfilled the duty that connected me with the Cuban revolution on its territory, and I say goodbye to you, to your comrades, to your people, who have already become mine. I officially renounce my position in the leadership of the party, my post as minister, my title of commandant, my Cuban citizenship. Officially, nothing ties me to Cuba anymore, except for ties of a different kind, which cannot be renounced in the same way that I renounce my posts ... "

After such a renunciation of Guevara as a man of honor, the way to Cuba was already booked. Did Fidel understand this? Many who knew Castro well say that - more than.

After the failure of the Congolese mission, Ernesto flew to Prague and did not want to return to Havana. But, according to Castro, he persuaded him to return. Of course, secretly. Fidel now believed that Che needed to lead the revolution in Bolivia. Convince of the need for this trip to a person who believed that "the whole Latin America pregnant with the revolution,” was unnecessary.

With the money of the Cuban leader, the Bolivian communists bought plots of land in the jungle, where partisan training bases were created. According to Manuel Pineiro, the head of intelligence of communist Cuba, “Bolivia was planned to be used as the initial center of the guerrilla movement with the subsequent development of military operations in Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina. Guevara's partisans were supposed to deliver the main blow in Argentina. Bolivia, on the other hand, was chosen as a convenient place for the accumulation of forces and as a starting point for the deployment of these operations ”On October 23, 1966, Ernesto Che Guevara left Cuba.

Last Stand

In Bolivia, the commandant was already waiting. The plan to destroy his squad, code-named Operation Cynthia, was personally approved by US President Lyndon Johnson and CIA Director Richard Helms. That's just who informed the United States about the arrival in Bolivia of one of the symbols of the Cuban revolution, history is silent.

Over the villages of the province of Vallegrande, where the Che detachment operated, the planes scattered leaflets with information about the bonus for indicating the whereabouts of the partisans. And for the head of Che himself, a reward of $ 4,200 was promised - crazy money for local peasants. Even the owners of Bolivian pharmacies, under pain of arrest, were ordered to report all purchases of drugs for Che's asthma. Naturally, the question of his capture was only a matter of time.

In August-September 1967, the Bolivian army defeated two groups of partisans, killing Che's ally Joaquin. On October 8, 1967, thanks to the denunciation of the informant Ciro Bustos, a detachment of partisans led by Che fell into a trap. In the battle of Quebrada del Yuro, soldiers shot Che in the leg, and another bullet shattered his rifle. When the Comandante shot all the cartridges from the pistol, the soldiers surrounded him, pointing their weapons. "Do not shoot! Ernesto held out his hand. “I am Che Guevara, and I am worth more alive than dead.”

Many experts believe that Castro, having learned about the failures of the Guevara detachment, could organize a landing operation in Bolivia and save a friend. But he did not do this. On the evening of October 8, 1967, Che and his people were escorted to the village of La Higuera. In captivity, Guevara arrogantly refused to answer questions, and spat in the face of the Bolivian Rear Admiral Ugarteche. Nevertheless, the military understood what kind of bird they had caught and did not mock the captive.

At noon on October 9, an order from President René Barrientos Ortuño came from the capital of Bolivia, La Paz: "Proceed to destroy Senor Guevara." The order was given despite the desire of the CIA, under whose patronage the operation was carried out, to transport Che to Panama. At 13:10, 31-year-old Bolivian army sergeant Mario Teran carried out the sentence.

When on October 15, 1967, Fidel Castro announced the death of Guevara to the public, he looked tragic and mournful. In memory of Che, Castro declared a 30-day mourning in Cuba, and proclaimed October 8 as the Day of the Heroic Guerrilla.

The remains of Che were found only in 1997 under the runway near Vallegrande. The body of the commander was returned to Cuba and on October 16, 1997, he was buried with military honors in a specially built mausoleum in the city of Santa Clara. At the ceremony, Raul Castro read a message from his brother Fidel: “I thank him for what he tried and failed to do in his home country because he was like a flower, prematurely plucked from the stem ... "

Undoubtedly, Che deserved the highest honors at the burial by his struggle for Cuba. But Guevara rendered a much greater service to the Cuban revolution with his heroic death. Dead Che immortalized both himself and the revolution. And who, if not his friend Fidel, was to know this.

Alexey MARTOV

Already at the dead body of Che Guevara, both hands were amputated. This was done on the orders of the Bolivian dictator René Barrientos Ortuño, who needed proof of Che's death. It was assumed that the hands would later be transported to Argentina, where the fingerprints of the fiery revolutionary were kept. It is said that Barrientos demanded that the head of the dead Che Guevara be cut off in order to send it to Cuba as a sign of contempt. But this was opposed by American consultants who oversaw the Bolivian dictator.

In general, the Americans were terribly dissatisfied with the death of Comrade Che - he could have been much more useful to the CIA alive. Apparently, therefore for a long time there was a stable legend that Che was nevertheless kidnapped by "specialists" from Langley and ended his days in a secret American prison. However, these rumors are refuted by an examination conducted on the severed hands of the hero. A careful study of the prints showed that in 1967 Che Guevara was indeed killed in Bolivia.

Ivan Yakovlevich Franko is often called the "Eternal Revolutionary" - for his most famous poem "Hymn" ("Eternal Revolutionary"), written by him in his youth, in 1878. I believe that the Russian reader will easily understand the text of the first stanza of this work (translation of some difficult-to-understand words into Russian is given in square brackets).

Eternal revolutionary -

The spirit that died before the battle,

Rve for the act [progress], chasing the will, -

You are alive, you are not dead yet.

Nі popіvskії tortury [torture],

No royal prison muri [walls],

Any military drill,

Nі garmati lashtovani [guns equipped],

No spy craft

In the mushroom [coffin] yogo has not yet sounded.

IVAN FRANKO WAS BORN ON August 27, 1856 in the village of Naguevichi (now Ivana Franko village) near Drogobych in the family of a rural blacksmith - this year we will have another anniversary of his. He went through a very difficult life, creative and ideological path. The fact that in the second half of his life he largely moved away from the socialist movement, wrote a number of articles critical of social democracy, is now being used with might and main by ideologists of the right, nationalist persuasion to present Franco as “their own” - an anti-communist and nationalist.

It turns out that, however, they are clearly unconvincing. Yes, and in the certificate on the UNESCO website, prepared 10 years ago, when the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Ukrainian writer, scientist and public figure was celebrated, to the incredible gnashing of teeth of Ukrainian nationalists, Franko was presented as "the founder of the socialist movement in Ukraine." Therefore, in today's Ukraine, they try to hush up Ivan Franko more - just as Lesya Ukrainka is hushed up, who wrote one of the first translations of the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" in Ukrainian language(Lvov edition of 1902).

And this year anniversary events pass quite quietly, quite imperceptibly, without much pomp - in contrast to last year's celebration of the anniversary of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, who was approved for the role of the main spiritual light of Galicia (and already the whole of Ukraine!), replacing his antagonist Ivan Franko in this role. Those in power and their ideological servants are well aware that Ivan Franko is “not in their spirit”, that he is ideologically alien to them and should be “touched less”.

Moreover, today in Ukraine any left movement (even the most moderate, “pink”, social-democratic, so to speak, “European flood”) is being so thoroughly purged that such major figures of the national movement as V. Vinnichenko and M. Grushevsky, because they represented the left wing of this movement and started out as Marxists. Now the heroes in Ukraine are exclusively far-right figures of the past.

I. Franko came out of the peasant environment and was always closely connected with it. IN difficult period of his life, when the writer, abused by the authorities and the "national intelligentsia", found himself practically without a livelihood, he was forced to return to his native village and engage in agricultural labor there. Ivan Yakovlevich was not an armchair scientist, he knew life, knew firsthand about suffering common people and therefore subordinated his activity to the struggle for the interests of the oppressed peasantry. In 1895, 1897 and 1898, being a member of the radical party, he was nominated by the peasants to the Austrian Reichstag and the Galician Sejm, but the reactionaries sought his failure.

The working class of Galicia, a backward agrarian province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was still quite small and weak; in addition, one must take into account the fact that it was concentrated only in large cities, such as Lvov and Stanislav (present-day Ivano-Frankivsk). In addition, the Ukrainian workers who worked, say, in the oil fields of Drogobych and Boryslav, were still too strongly attached to the countryside, they still retained a peasant, petty-bourgeois psychology. In many respects, the insufficient level of development of industry and the working class of Western Ukraine should be explained by the fact that the peasant son Ivan Franko was not a consistent supporter of Marxism.

The greatest merit of Ivan Yakovlevich is the writing of one of the first works in all world fiction that vividly and realistically depicted the strike struggle of the working class - the story "Borislav laughs" (1881-1882). Here it should be noted that in late XIX centuries, the Carpathian region, in particular the city of Borislav, located near Drohobych and Truskavets, was one of the world's largest oil-producing regions. It was even called "Galician California". And the workers of Borislav really showed brilliant examples of the class struggle, showing no small heroism.

In 1904, the workers of the ozocerite mines went on strike, and the oil workers joined them. Demands: reduction of the working day from fourteen to eight hours, salary increase, improvement living conditions. The strike, involving 9,000 people, lasted four weeks and was crushed by the gendarmes and the police. Moreover, which is significant, during the strike the owners accepted all the demands of the workers, except for the reduction of the working day. But precisely because of this, the proletarians continued the strike.

As a native of the common people, and besides, a representative of the most oppressed nationality, Ivan Franko made titanic efforts to get a good education. He did not succeed in graduating from the Faculty of Philosophy of Lviv University due to the first arrest for revolutionary activities in 1877. Forced to leave the university, he became even more actively involved in the workers' and socialist movement and was elected editor of the workers' newspaper Praca (Labour), which was published in Polish.

Become one of the most educated people Western Ukraine, he was able to work hard on himself, reading the leading fiction different countries and peoples, including Russian literature, by studying the works of socialists. Only at the age of forty Franco, already being a world famous writer, formally completed his education, first at Chernivtsi, and then at the University of Vienna, defending his thesis for the title of Doctor of Philosophy. There is an opinion that, losing with age the former revolutionary energy of youth and often experiencing financial difficulties, Franco wanted to “settle down” in every sense. During this period, he not only started a story with acquiring a diploma, but also publicly renounced socialism (judging by the reports, the Austrian police did not believe this and, apparently, were right). However, Franco failed to "arrange life": obscurantists did not allow him to become a teacher at Lviv University. In the same way, by the way, his candidacy was failed in 1907 when A. Shakhmatov and F. Korzh nominated her as a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Franco paid great attention enlightenment of the people. As early as 1878, he organized the publication of the so-called "Dribnoi Biblioteka" ("Little Library") - a series of 14 books with an accessible presentation of the natural sciences, the basics of economic knowledge, etc. Young Ivan Franko, as a student, became acquainted with the teachings of Marxism and became a socialist revolutionary. In 1878 he translated into Ukrainian the 24th chapter of the first book of Capital and some sections of Anti-Dühring. At the same time, the young man gave lectures to workers on political economy, collaborated in the Praca newspaper. In 1880, he participated in writing the "program of the Galician socialists", which reflected the ideas of K. Marx and F. Lassalle. In 1892, Franko and his socialist comrade Mikhail Pavlik were accused of publishing in Lvov a banned pamphlet by F. Engels Utopian and Scientific Socialism (in Polish).

A prominent place in the ideological and scientific heritage of Franco is occupied by his works “On Labor” (1881) and “Conversations about Money and Treasures” (1883), dedicated to the situation of workers and the popularization of the Marxist doctrine of the essence and functions of money. The Franco-economist studied the process of stratification of the peasantry of Galicia and its impoverishment, found out the causes and consequences of the emigration of Galicians overseas.

By the way, there is information - in the memoirs of V. Bonch-Bruevich - that Ivan Franko read the first issues of the Iskra newspaper, which were sent to him and M. Pavlik in Lvov. From the same source it is known that Ivan Yakovlevich received books by V.I. Lenin "What to do?" and "One step forward, two steps back."

The thinker paid considerable attention to the national question. In one of the discussions, he stated: "Not a single clever man who has at least a drop of political common sense, and even more so M. Drahomanov, could not even in the most violent fantasy imagine the possibility of "separating and fence off the Ukrainian land from Russia." Anyone who knows at least a little the ethnographic boundaries between the Ukrainian and Great Russian and other peoples adjacent to them can only be surprised at the naivety of a publicist who passes off such a fantasy as a postulate of a smart politician.

And yet, as mentioned above, at the end of the 1890s, Franco departs from socialism, criticizes the teachings of Karl Marx. In our time, anti-communists and nationalists seize on this in every possible way, arguing that the mature Franco “broke with the mistakes of youth”, “recovered his sight”, etc. Indeed, in last period his views become contradictory and confused. Franko does not seem to be completely breaking with socialism, but, say, in a polemic with Lesya Ukrainka in 1897, he declares that the first place in the Ukrainian movement should be national objectives, socialist ones are derivatives.

Sometimes he looks frankly helpless when he begins to invent "Marxism" himself and criticizes what he himself "composed", which has nothing to do with Marxism. For example, he attributed to F. Engels and criticized him for the theory “ people's state”, although Engels himself mercilessly smashed her!

Moreover, Franco’s criticism is usually not carried out from the “right”, from where it is led by those who would like to “catch on” to the legacy of the thinker today, but rather from the “left”, from radical petty-bourgeois positions. The reasons for the change in his worldview are clarified by one of his phrases from a review of Faresov's book "Narodniks and Marxists", published in St. Petersburg in 1899. In it, Franco is upset by the fact that "German social democracy", brought to Russia by Plekhanov, Struve and Tugan-Baranovsky (?!), is becoming more and more popular in Russian society, especially among young people. And this, they say, at a time when Marxism "both from the point of view of its scientific foundations and from the point of view of politics, as a party, in Europe is close to bankruptcy."

This is the whole point of his remark: the old European social democracy, which had embarked on the path of social betrayal, at that time was indeed already close to bankruptcy! Extremely Negative influence The development of the socialist movement in Galicia was played by the erroneous national program of the Austrian Social Democracy, which did not suit the Rusyn population of Western Ukraine in any way and thus discredited the ideas of Social Democracy. The socialist movement did not receive serious development and gave way to a purely nationalist direction, especially since the Austrian authorities, pursuing a policy of "divide and rule", used Ukrainian nationalism as a counterbalance to the national aspirations of the Poles.

However, Ivan Yakovlevich himself did not slip into nationalism. And it's not even that he was alien to the ideas of national superiority or hatred of other peoples. The main thing is that he clearly understood all the difference in the interests of the working people and the “lords” and did not accept the idea of ​​“ national unity”, and yet it is precisely in this - in the “reconciliation” of the working people and exploiters of one nation against others - that the essence of nationalism and its harm lies. Ivan Yakovlevich equally spoke out both against the pro-Austrian Ukrainian nationalists-“Narodovites” and against the “Muscovites” who were guided by Russian tsarism, rightly considering both of them to be carriers of interests hostile to the aspirations of the peasants and workers.

In his youth, I. Franko was greatly influenced by the novel by N.G. Chernyshevsky "What to do?" When the young man became a member of the editorial board of the democratic Lvov student magazine Friend in 1876, the novel was soon published there in translation.

I. Franko welcomed the revolution of 1905-1907, emphasizing its importance for Galicia. In his article "Maxim Gorky" he protested against the persecution of the proletarian writer.

It is the legacy of the Franco-revolutionary that remains relevant for the left movement of Ukraine, which should unite the working people of all nationalities.

Ivan Yakovlevich Franko is often called the "Eternal Revolutionary" - for his most famous poem, written by him in his youth, in 1878: "Hymn" ("Eternal Revolutionary"). I believe that the Russian-speaking reader will easily understand the text of the first stanza of this work (translation of some difficult-to-understand words into Russian is given in square brackets):

Eternal revolutionary

The spirit that died before the battle,

Tear for the deed [progress], pleasing the will,

You are alive, you are not dead yet.

Nі popіvskії tortury [torture],

No royal prison muri [walls],

Any military drill,

Nі garmati lashtovani [guns equipped],

No spy craft

In the mushroom [coffin] yogo has not yet sounded.

Ivan Franko, who was born on August 27, 1856 in the village of Naguevichi (now the village of Ivan Franko) near Drohobych in the family of a rural blacksmith - this year we will have another anniversary of his! - went through a very difficult life, creative and ideological path. The fact that in the second half of his life he largely departed from the socialist movement, wrote a number of articles critical of Marxism and social democracy, is now being used with might and main by right-wing, nationalist ideologists to present Franco as “their own”: an anti-communist and a nationalist.

It turns out, however, they are not at all convincing. So, when 10 years ago the 150th anniversary of the birth of the great Ukrainian writer, scientist and public figure was celebrated, in the certificate on the UNESCO website - to the incredible gnashing of teeth from Ukrainian nationalists - Franko was presented as "the founder of the socialist movement in Ukraine." Therefore, in today's Ukraine they try to hush up Ivan Franko more - just as Lesya Ukrainka is hushed up, whose cares appeared one of the first translations of the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" into Ukrainian (Lviv edition of 1902).

It can be expected that this year the jubilee events will also be held quietly, imperceptibly, without much pomp - in contrast to last year's celebration of the anniversary of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, who was approved for the role of the main spiritual light of Galicia (and indeed the whole of Ukraine!), replacing in this role his antagonist I. Franko. Those in power and their ideological servants are well aware that Ivan Franko is “not in their spirit”, that he is ideologically alien to them and should be “touched less”.

Moreover, in modern Ukraine every leftist movement (even the most moderate, “pink”, social-democratic, so to speak: “European flood”) is so thoroughly cleansed that such major figures of the national movement as V. Vinnichenko and M. Grushevsky are relegated to the background - since they represented the left wing of this movement and started as Marxists. Now the heroes in Ukraine are exclusively far-right figures of the past.

I. Franko came from a peasant environment, was closely connected with it. In a difficult period of his life, when the writer, abused by the authorities and the "national intelligentsia", found himself practically without a livelihood, he was forced to return to his native village and engage in agricultural labor there. Ivan Yakovlevich, unlike many others who came from the "panism", was not an armchair scientist, he knew life, knew firsthand about the suffering of the common people and therefore subordinated his activities to the struggle for the interests of the oppressed villagers. In 1895, 1897 and 1898, being a member of the radical party, he was nominated by the peasants to the Austrian Reichstag and the Galician Sejm, but the reactionaries sought his failure.

The working class of Galicia - a backward agrarian province of the backward Austro-Hungarian Empire - was still small and weak; in addition, one must take into account the fact that in large cities, such as Lvov or Stanislav (present-day Ivano-Frankivsk), the majority of the proletariat was not Ukrainians, but Poles and Jews. And the Ukrainian workers who worked, say, in the oil fields of Drohobych and Boryslav, were still too strongly attached to the countryside, they still had a peasant psychology. In many respects, the insufficient level of development of industry and the working class of Western Ukraine should be explained by the fact that the peasant son Ivan Franko did not manage to make the path from revolutionary democracy to scientific socialism - and subsequently retreated from this path.

Nevertheless, the greatest merit of Ivan Yakovlevich is his writing of one of the first works in all world fiction that vividly and realistically depicted the strike struggle of the working class - the story "Borislav laughs" (1881-82). It should be noted here that at the end of the 19th century, the Carpathian region, in particular, the city of Borislav, located near Drohobych and Truskavets, was one of the world's largest oil-producing regions. It was even called "Galician California". And the workers of Borislav really showed brilliant examples of the class struggle, they showed no small heroism in it.

In 1904, the workers of the ozocerite mines went on strike, and the oil workers joined them. Requirements: reduction of the working day from 14 to 8 hours, salary increase, improvement of living conditions. The strike, involving 9,000 people, lasted 4 weeks and was put down by the gendarmes and the police. Moreover, which is significant, in the course of the strike, the owners accepted all the demands of the workers, except for the reduction of the working day, after which the proletarians continued the strike.

As a native of the common people, and besides, a representative of the most oppressed nationality, Ivan Franko made titanic efforts to get a good education. He never managed to graduate from the Faculty of Philosophy of Lviv University - as a result of his first arrest for revolutionary activities in 1877. He was able to become one of the most educated people in Western Ukraine by working hard on himself, reading advanced fiction from different countries and peoples, incl. and Russian literature, studying the works of socialists. Only at the age of forty Franco, already being a world famous writer, formally completed his education, first at Chernivtsi, and then at the University of Vienna, defending his thesis for the title of Doctor of Philosophy. There is an opinion that, losing with age the former revolutionary energy of youth and often experiencing financial difficulties, Franco really wanted to “settle down” in every sense. During this period, he not only started this whole story with acquiring a diploma, but also publicly renounced socialism (judging by her reports, the Austrian police did not believe this and, apparently, were right!). However, Franco failed to "arrange life" - obscurantists did not allow him to become a teacher at Lviv University. In exactly the same way, by the way, his candidacy was failed in 1907 when A. Shakhmatov and F. Korzh nominated her as a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Touching upon the question of the education of Ivan Yakovlevich, it must be remembered that he paid great attention to the education of the people. Back in 1878, I. Franko organized the publication of the so-called. "Dribnoi Library" ("Little Library") - a series of 14 books with an accessible presentation of the natural sciences, the basics of economic knowledge, etc. This question, in my opinion, is extremely relevant even today, since a huge mass of the population is in a state of “semi-literacy”, terrifying ignorance, which is what the powers that be, who cleverly manipulate people, use.

Young Ivan Franko acted as a socialist revolutionary. As a student, he became acquainted with the teachings of Marxism. In 1878 he translated into Ukrainian the 24th chapter of the first book of "Capital" ("The so-called initial accumulation") and some sections of "Anti-Dühring". At the same time, the young man gave lectures to workers on political economy, collaborated in the Lvov Polish workers' newspaper "Praca" ("Labor"). In 1880, he participated in writing the "program of the Galician socialists", which reflected the ideas of K. Marx and F. Lassalle. In 1892, Franko and his socialist comrade Mikhail Pavlik were accused of publishing in Lvov a banned pamphlet by F. Engels Utopian and Scientific Socialism (in Polish).

A prominent place in the ideological and scientific heritage of Franco is occupied by his works “On Labor” (1881) and “Conversations about Money and Treasures” (1883), dedicated to the situation of workers and the popularization of the Marxist doctrine of the essence and functions of money. Franco - an economist - studied the process of stratification of the peasantry of Galicia and its impoverishment, found out the causes and consequences of the emigration of Galicians overseas.

By the way, there is information - in the memoirs of V. Bonch-Bruyevich - that Ivan Franko read the first issues of the Iskra newspaper, which were sent to him and M. Pavlik in Lvov. From the same source it is known that Ivan Yakovlevich received V. I. Lenin’s books “What is to be done?” and "One step forward, two steps back."

And yet, as mentioned above, at the end of the 1890s, Franco departs from socialism, speaks very critically about the teachings of Karl Marx - and anti-communists and nationalists seize on this in our time in every possible way, proving that the mature Franco "broke with mistakes youth”, “saw the light”, etc. In fact, in the subsequent period, his views become contradictory and confused. Franko does not seem to break completely with socialism, but, say, in a polemic with Lesya Ukrainka in 1897, he declares that national tasks should come first in the Ukrainian movement, while socialist tasks are derivatives.

Sometimes he looks frankly weak and helpless when he begins to invent "Marxism" himself and criticizes what he himself "composed", something that has nothing to do with Marxism! For example, he attributes to F. Engels and criticizes "his" theory of the "people's state", although Engels himself mercilessly smashed it!

Moreover, criticism is usually conducted by Franco not from the "right" - from where it is led by those who would like to "catch" on the legacy of the thinker today - but rather from the "left", from petty-bourgeois-radical positions. The reasons for the change in worldview are clarified by one of his phrases from a review of Faresov's book "Narodniks and Marxists", published in St. Petersburg in 1899. In it, Franco is upset that "German social democracy", brought to Russia by Plekhanov, Struve and Tugan-Baranovsky (Sic!), is becoming more and more popular in Russian society, especially among young people. And this, they say, at a time when Marxism "both from the point of view of its scientific foundations and from the point of view of politics, as a party, in Europe is close to bankruptcy."

That's the whole point: the old European social democracy, embarking on the path of social betrayal, at that time was really close to bankruptcy! An extremely negative influence on the development of the socialist movement in Galicia was played by the erroneous national program of the Austrian Social Democracy, which in no way suited the Rusyn population of Western Ukraine and thus discredited the ideas of Social Democracy. The socialist movement did not receive serious development and gave way to a purely nationalist direction, especially since the Austrian authorities, pursuing a policy of "divide and rule", used Ukrainian nationalism as a counterbalance to the national aspirations of the Poles.

However, Ivan Yakovlevich himself did not slip into nationalism. And it's not even that he was alien to the ideas of national superiority or hatred of other peoples. The main thing is that he clearly understood all the difference in the interests of the working people and the “lords” and did not accept the idea of ​​the so-called. "national unity", and it is precisely in this - in the "reconciliation" of the working people and exploiters of one nation against other nations - that the essence of nationalism and its harm lies. Ivan Yakovlevich equally spoke out both against the pro-Austrian Ukrainian nationalists, the "Narodovites", and against the so-called. "Muscovites", who were guided by Russian tsarism, rightly considering both those and others as carriers of interests hostile to the aspirations of the peasants and workers.

In his youth, I. Franko was greatly influenced by the novel by N. G. Chernyshevsky “What is to be done?” When the young man became a member of the editorial board of the democratic Lvov student magazine Friend in 1876, the novel was published there in translation.

I. Franko welcomed the revolution of 1905-07, emphasizing its importance for Galicia. In the article "Maxim Gorky" protested against the persecution of him.

It must be said that the legacy of the Franco-revolutionary remains relevant today. After all, today Ukraine is in exactly the same sad situation in which it was a century ago.

Anthem

Deputy Prologue

Vichny revolutionary -
The spirit that roared before the battle,
Tear for the deed, happy will,
Win is alive, wine is not dead yet.
No popivskii torturi,
No royal prison muri,
Ani viiska drill,
Nі harmati lashtovani,
No spy craft
Yogo hasn't run into the mushroom yet.

Win is not dead, wine is still alive!
Hoch vid thousand litas born,
That already vchorovyvsya
I about the power of power go.
I get cold, mitzniye,
I write to you, de days;
With a strong word, I speak with a pipe
Millions of stars with you -
Millions are happy to go,
More than a voice of the spirit a little.

The voice of the spirit is slightly creaking:
In the chicken huts of peasants,
According to the verstats of the remisnitskys,
According to the mischief, the mucus is not enough.
I will give away children's wines,
Squeal tears, sum, misfortune.
The power to be born and zazyattya
Do not rip, but get,
Hoch sinam, yak not sobi,
I am redeeming my share in the struggle.

Vichny revolutionary -
Spirit, science, thought, will -
Do not give way to the fields.
Don't get confused now.
The evil ruin collapsed,
The avalanche rolled
I de retinue that power,
Shchob in bigu її spinila,
Shchob extinguished, mov fire,
A rising day?
anthem

Yourselfers revolûcjoner -
Duh are tilo wrestling to Bou,
Rve for postup, SAST j ox,
Vin live, wines will not vmerla.
No popivsʹkií̈ torture
No tûremni caesarean muri,
Ani vijsʹka mustrovani,
Ni Garmata lastovani,
No spyware crafts
The fungus will not Velo yoga.

Vin does not vmerla, wines will live!
Hoč vision tisâč lit giving birth,
This až Vcore rozpovivsâ
I jde o vlasnij emergency.
I prostuêtʹsâ, micniê,
I spišitʹ also de DNIe;
Letter Strong, mov tubes
Millions learn to head
Millions of happy jdutʹ,
Will the voice of the spirit cut.

Voice spirit feels skriz:
after kurnih hatah musical,
After Verstat remisnicʹkih,
After Misc improper j sliz.
I rozdastʹsâ vin de Tilke,
Ŝeznutʹ agrees, believing nesasto.
Sila roditʹsâ j zavzâttâ
Do not blubber, a dobuvatʹ,
Sinam Hoch, yak no room,
KRAS stake in wrestling.

Yourselfers revolûcjoner -
Spirit Sciences, Dumka, ox -
Do not dispose of pitʹmi field.
No DAST sputatisʹ teper.
Rozvalilasʹ evil ruin,
Pokotilasavalanches,
I de switi taâ in force
Sat in bigu II Spin
Sat quenched, mov Ogen,
Rozvidnâûŝijsâ day?

Corvo, stay away or I'll jump,” Havelock threatened, clutching Emily violently.

Things were bad. They were at the lighthouse, on the site, around which there was a continuous cliff. The distance to the traitor is about eight meters, you can’t get it by transfer. Either he, Corvo, will be shot, or Havelock will have time to jump off, killing the girl.

Corvo! Save me! Emily screamed, looking hopefully at him and trying to break free from the admiral's hold.

Quiet! He won't save you, will he, Corvo? You missed your chance to be a hero. In a minute, your track record will be one more bloody page.

While Havelock tried to show Corvo how hopeless the situation was, the man himself thought out a plan in a hurry. The settlement also will not work, there is an opportunity to get into Emily. Just seemed to shoot best solution. But is it?

Deciding not to hesitate any longer, the former Lord Protector instantly took out a pistol and, with a movement practiced over the years, fired. The bullet quickly flew through the distance separating them, hitting the traitor right in the head.

But not everything was as smooth as it might seem. A moment before the shot, Havelock, as if having foreseen the killer's actions, took a step back, pulling the girl with him.

Nooo! Corvo! cried young Kaldwin, falling into the depths of the ocean.

The named one was already rushing to the edge, but did not have time. Both Havelock and Emily were already halfway to the water. Another couple of seconds passed, and they are no longer visible under the thickness of the liquid.

The survivor looked down in disbelief. It was his mistake, he knew it. Such a stupid oversight led to such horrific consequences.

Still not quite aware of his actions, the man stood up straight, took off his mask and peered again at the place where his daughter had disappeared. Tears rolled down his face. Despair took over completely. And what do the completely desperate do? That's right, either they are waiting for help, or they commit suicide.

Since Corvo was not a fool, he understood that there was nowhere to wait for help. All the people he loved died. They can't be returned... So, there is only one option left.

The man took a step, thereby confirming his thoughts. Another step, and he is already flying towards the water, like the two previous victims of the elements.

The wind hits him in the face, and when he had already closed his eyes, waiting for a collision, he felt that he was no longer falling. When he opened his eyes, he immediately wanted to close them. He was exactly where he would never want to be again. Abyss. And if he is here, it means that somewhere nearby and ...

I don't know about you, Corvo, but I had a lot of fun. Intrigue, secrets, massacre, betrayal. Empire in its death throes! You were the spirit of vengeance, you wreaked havoc. The city devours itself: liars, merchants, nobles - they are all like worms on a corpse. Soon there won't even be anything left for the rats. And well, the Empire was dying anyway. She was rotten, and a man was needed who would push her to death. And now you want to float over the horizon like a corpse. I wonder if you're chasing something - or are you trying to run away?

The man just stood, or rather, hung in the air, and looked with hatred at the creature standing in front of him. Yes, it looked like a human, if not for the black eyes made of emptiness. This creature took on the appearance of a man in order to deceive himself into the trust of people, to give his mark.

I know, - Korvo answered shortly.

But I'm not here for ridicule. It's too uninteresting. You have done well, one of my most successful followers. Perhaps even the most. I'm not ready to lose such great entertainment.

Everything is over.

Here - yes. Unfortunately, it is impossible to fix what has been done. I can only give you the opportunity to start a new path. Not here. Where before there was no foot of people with my mark. Start over, live a different life. Well, what do you say, Lord Protector, or, better now, a masked assassin?

I agree.

- A good choice. Especially since you didn't have a choice.

The last thing Corvo Attano heard was the words of the creature that gave him extraordinary abilities and a second life:

- Let's see how you show yourself in such a situation. And will you repeat your fate, or will you live good life? Will you become revolutionary?