Comments on: The Stalinist delusion

By: Sweeney

Sweeney — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 04:29:50 +0000

Burrito Boy, TS Eliot was hardly “openly” anti-semetic, having denied it the few times his was personally confronted with the charge. Neither is “exremely” an apt adjective. Indeed, the most controversial statement (A sentence in “After Strange Gods” where he speaks of the undesirability in an otherwise homogenous society of “free-thinking jews”), he disowned later as the work of a “sick man.” There have been a few convincing articles as of late defending Eliot of this charge. Also, to compare Eliot and Pound as rightists who only differ in their degree of “rightism” is incredibly disingenuous. The two saw themselves to have nearly opposite political sensibilities. To compare Eliot’s traditionalism with Pound’s fascism is dishonest.

By: Brett Bellmore

Brett Bellmore — Mon, 02 Aug 2004 00:39:42 +0000

Why does it matter? Well, there’s that dictator just off the coast of Florida academics are still making excuses for, for one. The intellectual embrace of monsters in the name of ideology isn’t history, it’s still with us today.

By: Zizka

Zizka — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 16:55:38 +0000

Coming in late—I think that iys a bit misleading to say that Nietzsche was “clear about what he wanted” except in the basic fact that he was anti-egalitarian and believed in heierarchy. He didn’t seem to be able to get through a paragraph without deliberately undercutting or qualifying his own argument. I think that Chris B. got most of it. One factor not mentioned much except perhaps by Scott M. is the “wave of history” idea, expressed in pseudo-scientific form, which to me functionally resembles the kinds of occultist doctrines based on numerology, astrology, kabbalist readings of sacred texts, etc., which traditional Chinese revolutionaries used to ground their innovative ventures in “truth”.

By: Phill

Phill — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 04:22:43 +0000

The anti-Catholic strain seems odd because the church is not normally considered to be a legitimate target of criticism while comunists and fascists are. The point is however that Communism, Fascism and for that matter the Church of England are insigificant political forces today while the Catholic church gets to play at being a nation state. If we ask about why people become fellow travellers it seems natural to also ask the more general question of why people decide to delegate their moral responsibility to any ideology, religious or political. I suspect that the answer for the most part is that it is much easier to have others do your thinking for you than do it for yourself. The attraction of Marxism for many academics has been that it provides a ready made ideological framework in which to justify whatever prejudices you want to argue for. It does not much matter that the premises and the form of argument are obviously false, the framework is widely understood and allows for much production of academic litterature. Marxism is far more attractive than theology in this respect because the ground has been worked so much less. With the exception of certain offshoots such as the Mormons, Christian Scientists and Jehovas Witnesses contemporary theological discussion is essentially recapitulations of positions that were already well explored two hundred years ago. Even the debate over evolution is not new, people have been pointing out that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are incompatible for over a millenia. Equally St Augustine noticed that the term ‘day’ might require an alegorical interpretation since it is used before the creation of heaven, earth and the sun. Now that Marxism has become a busted flush academics have been looking for fresh ideologies to which to surrender their moral and political judgements in persuit of career. Free market economics comes to mind as an obvious example. Who can possibly believe that economics is going to come up with a grand unification theory before physics or biology? Let alone such an absolutist principle. Wait a few years and the undergrads inculcated in Libertarian politics will be establishing themselves as an academic clique. Like the Marxists they will churn out no end of litterature, grant each other tenure etc. none of which will make any sense except within its own absolutist ideological framework. At the end of the day ideas that inflate the ego tend to propagate. Academics are as susceptable to this effect as the rest of the population. Nothing quite inflates the ego as much as the belief that one has either discovered the secret of the universe or is a member of the select band that understands and accepts the unpleasant truth. People will put up with a lot to hold onto a belief like that, particularly if it is other people who are being sent to the gulag, concentration camp or burnt at the stake.

By: john c. halasz

john c. halasz — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 00:40:51 +0000

In addition, I want to comment on the equivalence between the liquidation of the khulaks and the Nazi extermination of the Jews by Bob above. Whereas I certainly don’t want to justify or rationalize either in any way, I think it is legitimate to distinguish an historical event-structure from the intentionality of ideas, rather than just reducing the former to the latter. The “eliminating of the khulaks as a class” per se could amount to an economic policy, (an immensely stupid one, to be sure), an alteration in the arrangements of production and distribution. It was, in fact, part and parcel of the policy of forced collectivization of agriculture. The fact that in its execution it was entirely brutal and resulted in mass starvation does not mean that it amounted to the production of murders for their own sake, as did the Nazi extermination. There is an ideological tendency to tote up all the deaths attributable in any way to Stalinism/Maoism over the course of their history, assigning speculatively some statistical figure, possibly inflated, and directly compare them to the deliberate and aggressive murder of millions by the Nazis over 6 years, to the perverse benefit of the latter. There is no doubt that Stalinist policies were brutally violent, exercised on behalf of a despotic and terroristic state, and are a source of moral horror and outrage to anyone with some trace of neurons in their body. But what is noteworthy about them, in terms of the intentionality of their ideas, which distinguishes them from that of the Nazis, is how self-contradictory, self-defeating, absurd, they were. Imprisoning trained engineers in the Gulag as “saboteurs” does not amount to a policy to build up the material economic infrastructure for the sake of progress in the well-being of the people. The fact that some “intellectuals” could not see that perhaps bespeaks their faith in ideas shorn of context, which is paradoxically idealism. But then Hegel did warn us that history is not the theater of happiness…

By: john c. halasz

john c. halasz — Sun, 01 Aug 2004 00:00:11 +0000

Actually, Scott Martens, my rough intuition of Marx’ view of morality was that a) morality was becoming increasingly impossible, especially because of the “amoral determinism” of capitalist exploitation and the increasing proliferation and penetration of its “norms” in modern societies, b) that traditional, (i.e. premodern), morality was itself oppressive and its Kantian transcendence ahistorical, arbitrary and illusory, and c) that “true” morality would only become thinkable, and thus possible, with the shift in historical horizons beyond capitalism that Marx identified as socialism. This is not to justify Marx’ views or their influence and aftermath, but simply to try to accurately portray their import in any such assessment. Also, the previous citation of “Hegelian amoral determinism” needs considerable qualification. Actually, Hegel’s portrayal of the moral/political requirements of the differentiated condition of modern societies in his theory of the state/philosophy of right has considerable strengths over against Marx’ criticism of it under the rubric of socio-economic alienation, which should have some bearing on reassessing Marx’ rather tortured relationship to Hegel. Though Hegel’s theodicy of Reason, with roots going back to the Protestant Leibniz, can not strike us as anything but quaint. At any rate, the moral concerns of both thinkers, however ambiguous in themselves or in the light of their subsequent effective history, are certainly non-trivial and to claim otherwise amounts to little more than smug Anglo-Saxon triviality.

By: roger

roger — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 22:23:12 +0000

The anti-Catholic strain is a little odd, here. There was a leftist type—exemplified by Grahame Greene—who felt that the historic pattern went all the other way—that the persecution of the Catholics by the reigning English protestant establishment, the seizure of the monasteries and nunneries, the capture of Jesuits from overseas and their burning, the system of secret ceremonies and hidey holes that kept the Catholic English going—that it was all rather like working against another reigning Protestant establishment—the Yanks—and for another overseas power—the Soviets. At least, this is a constant theme in the latter G.G.

By: Scott Martens

Scott Martens — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 22:09:44 +0000

Andrew, it’s not so much a matter of “tacking” moral language onto Marxism as identifying systematic moral principles in it. Marx felt that he could describe and discuss history and economics without endulging any sort of telelogical notion of the good guys always winning in the end. However, Marx’ writings imply an unexamined sense of morality. Marx posesses, and makes no effort to deny, a sense of right and wrong which long predates his ideological commitments. He dispassionately analyses capitalism and finds exploitation to be at its core. His hated of exploitation is wholly independent of his economic thought. He looks around him and sees workers suffering while the rich live large and deems this wrong entirely on its own demerits. Marx may be culpable of never taking a long hard look at what he thinks is moral, but he shows constantly that he has one and that his judgement of capitalism draws on it. As for Marx’ determinism, it’s there, but far weaker than is usualy claimed. Marx retreated somewhat from it in later years, and there are also some clues that his determinism was more bluster and wishful thinking than a core part of his system. It’s hard to say what Marx thought, but Marxism carries around some fairly strong notions of right and fairness, even if the content of those notions is inadequately examined.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 16:17:49 +0000

There are, indeed, many remarkable historic parallels. During the reign of Mary Tudor, Queen of England 1553-58, a minimum of 287 protestant heretics were burned alive at various public sites across England in accordance with her policy to restore catholicism as the established faith of her realm. An armada from Spain, with a Papal commission to restore the faith, attempted an invasion of England in 1588. Guy Fawkes and fellow conspirators tried to blow up Parliament at the state opening in 1605 – we still celebrate with fireworks displays our deliverance from that intended atrocity on 5 November each year. There is absolutely nothing new about a war against terrorism. The St Batholomew Day massacre of the protestant Huguenots in France on 24 August 1572 makes 9-11 look like a minor incident: http://www.reformation.org/bart.html

By: Andrew Reeves

Andrew Reeves — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 16:15:57 +0000

I’m jumping onto this thread a little late, but I keep seeing it said that lots of folks went in for Soviet Communism in the 20’s and 30’s because of a sense of morality, justice, and fairness. I could very well be wrong on this, but I had thought that the moral language of communism was rather tacked on, and that it was in it’s original state more about an amoral Hegelian determinism than any “bourgeois” notions of fair play or doing good.

By: Phill

Phill — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 15:41:19 +0000

Hmm good Catholics supporting Franco… Should we really be so surprised? The Vatican and the Papacy have a record of creating misery that is much longer than that of Stalin, Communism or Fascism. The current pope has appologised for the Inquisition but has reaffirmed the dogma of absolute Papal authority including papal infalibility. So the symptoms of totalitarianism are disowned but the cause is reaffirmed. Of course criticizing the Pope can be called predjudice against Catholics, just as criticizing Israel is routinely called anti-Semitism and describing George W. Bush as incompetent is attacked as anti-American. If we are asking why Communists can’t see through the lies to see the reality why not ask the same of religions? And here the bigottry of Jerry Falwell is as odious as the sanctimonous prating of a pedophile coddling Pope.

By: Bob

Bob — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 13:55:45 +0000

As Samuel Johnson put it in April 1775: “Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel” – from: http://www.samueljohnson.com/refuge.html Francis Fukuyama, one of the founding father of Neoconservatism without a Trotskyist provenance, appears to have changed his mind: http://www.roadtosurfdom.com/surfdomarchives/002552.php Does this mean he is no longer to be taken as a patriot? Reverting to Stalin, I was reflecting on his speech in December 1929: Concerning Questions of Agrarian Policy in the USSR: ” . . What does this mean? It means that we have passed from the policy of restricting the exploiting tendencies of the kulaks to the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class. It means that we have carried out, and are continuing to carry out, one of the decisive turns in our whole policy. . . ” – reproduced in translation at: http://ptb.lashout.net/marx2mao/Stalin/QAP29.html One outcome of Stalin’s policy was the terrible famine in the Ukraine during 1932-3. Estimates of the final deathtoll vary but are of similar magnitude to that of the later Holocaust inflicted by the Nazis on the Jews of Europe. Among several accounts of the famine, a particular merit of this one is the citations to such official Soviet figures as bear witness to the scale of the consequences upon the human population and farm livestock in the Ukraine: http://209.82.14.226/history/famine/gregorovich/ The perennial curiosity is that while the Holocaust is often remembered and recalled, the famine in the Ukraine of 1932-3 is not, despite the similar scale of human victims. Another notable feature is Stalin’s clear advocacy, in December 1929, of a government policy for “liquidation by category” or, in his official phrasing: “eliminating the kulaks as a class”.

By: abb1

abb1 — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 12:14:07 +0000

This may help to understand metamorphosis of the neocons: Norman Podhoretz Interview: Conversations with History; Institute of International Studies, UC Berkeley

…If I had my way, this movement—it wasn’t really a movement, it was more like a tendency—would have been called neo-nationalism because what it really represented was a rediscovery of the values and virtues of American society. And I was and am an American nationalist, an American patriot, whichever word you like to use, and so were all the other neo-conservatives.

This rediscovery of the virtues happened in the late ‘60s. Way too late for this rediscovery to be an outcome of disillusionment with Stalinism/USSR; about 15 years late. In another part of the interview he says:

…I was deeply involved intellectually in the Jewish heritage. It shaped me to the extent that it created in me a high regard for this heritage, unlike many of my friends at Columbia who thought there was nothing there and who thought I was crazy for wasting my time on it. Although I was never a passionate Zionist when I was young, later it turned me into a passionate defender of Israel when Israel came under assault, especially from the left, after 1967.

By: Randolph Fritz

Randolph Fritz — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 08:43:20 +0000

“why are we suddenly vitally interested in the issue of intellectual sympathetic to communism?” Well, I’m interested because it might help us answer the neocons, and the sort of Republicans who seem to agree that W speaks for god.

By: Dick Fitzgerald

Dick Fitzgerald — Sat, 31 Jul 2004 07:41:41 +0000

Yr. essay cd. have been published in Encounter (CIA, for those who don’t remember). You are totally ahistorical: There was the Great Slump, which led many people to wonder whether capitalism was the best of all possible worlds.