Knowing Better

Gulag Camp

In 1956 Khrushchev gave his secret speech outlining and denouncing the crimes of Joseph Stalin and the Stalinist regime.1

Many people, usually Communists, reacted with shock and horror. Thus the Communist party of the USA and it members said such things as referring to: 

...the shocking disclosures... 

Mr. Foster, the party chairman mentioned: 

...the sweeping revelations of the Stalin cult of the individual.

 Another figure  in the Communist party, Max Weis, of the USA claimed:

...the disclosure of the mistakes made under Stalin's leadership came as a stunning surprise to our Party leadership and membership,... 

Finally the party leader, Mr. Dennis said: 

... the facts disclosed about the errors of Stalin ... are of course, new to us.2 

Was any of this reaction the least bit credible? Or was it nothing more than evidence that the minds of members of the Communist party of the USA were set in concrete like true - believing fanatics?

Notes on 1984

1984 is more of a cultural phenomena than a work of great literature, but since a generation has past since the actual 1984 perhaps it can be examined without political / mythological blinders.

I can remember that when 1984, the year, arrived we were treated to a deluge of books and articles, TV specials etc., about the book and the phenomena, and it had been steadily growing for years. I can remember when 1984 references were much more common than they are now. The year has come and gone and it lost its “cachet” so to speak. In fact I took the novel in High School, (Grade 12)!

Still from 1954 BBC Film of 1984

There are not very many critiques of 1984 from the point of view of Science Fiction, but there are a myriad of critiques from a political point of view.

To get this out of the way first. It is a wearying, but basically an omnipresent view that Orwell’s novel is an attack on Socialism. This view is of course has been and is very “Politically Correct”, and depends on a studied, deliberate and willful effort to ignore what Orwell said about his novel. The mental discipline required to hold this opinion is quite formidable and depends on a carefully cultivated ignorance into which contrary facts may not intrude. For example:

1984, like Animal Farm, was a deep embarrassment to
leftists. Orwell, a socialist disgusted and disillusioned by the excesses of Stalin's regime, wrote both works in protest. Despite many attempts to re-spin 1984 as being "really about the alienation in all modern societies," the references to socialism in 1984 are pervasive. Oceania (the Americas and British Empire) is ruled by a system called Ingsoc (English Socialism), and Eurasia (Russia and Europe) is ruled by Neo-Bolshevism. The lessons of 1984 might be applicable to any totalitarian system, but the novel is first, last, and foremost about socialism.1

No doubt what Orwell had to say is irrelevant since our quoted writer “knows” that the “the novel is first, last, and foremost about socialism”. No doubt hoping that by repeated emphatic, statements to convince himself and his readers. Our author forgets that Orwell died a convinced Socialist. Would it not be more accurate to say that “the novel is first, last, and foremost about Stalinism”? One of the reasons that the novel is a “deep embarrassment to leftists” is that certain intellectuals insisted and still insist that it is a deep embarrassment to the entire left of the political spectrum, but of course deny that Nazism and such novels as The Iron Heel are a “deep embarrassment” to the right of the political spectrum, or to capitalism. This is obviously pure polemics, and its use is to score debating points.

Orwell’s comments in the novel about systems of exploitation and ruling classes in the past are of course ignored, including the rather frightening idea that to Orwell the society of 1984 is the “perfect” class rule, in which the ruling class has apparently found a “perfect” way to stay in power forever. O’Brien seems to be almost frighteningly clear eyed about what this new society is actually trying to do. Just how is that “Socialist”?

I’m referring to all that stuff about staying in power, the endless crushing of people; boot in the face forever stuff. Sounds not very “Socialist”, but has certain affinities to Fascist ideas about endless struggle, and only struggle making life worth while.

In 1949 in a letter to the New York Times about his novel Orwell said:

"My recent novel [1984] is NOT intended as an attack on Socialism or on the British Labour Party (of which I am a supporter) but as a show-up of the perversions ... which have already been partly realized in Communism and Fascism. ...The scene of the book is laid in Britain in order to emphasize that the English-speaking races are not innately better than anyone else and that totalitarianism, if not fought against, could triumph anywhere.”2

But then Orwell’s novel, like his work Animal Farm, served an extremely useful purpose in the Cold War of being used not just to attack Stalinism but the “left” in general, (which could include anyone to the left of extreme conservatives). That Orwell was less than enamored with capitalism was of course forgotten down the memory hole. (How Orwellian!)3

A side issue is why Orwell named the novel 1984. One story is that Orwell originally was going to call it 1948 but was talked into calling it 1984 to give it an less immediate and more prophetic tone. Another story was that Orwell was debating whether to call the novel The Last Man in Europe or 1984 and was told to go with what was then considered a more marketable title. Its also possible that the title was a tribute to the Jack London novel The Iron Heel, which is about a Fascist like movement taking power, in 1984!, and delaying the onset of a Socialist world for centuries. Which casts an interesting light on the supposed anti-socialism of Orwell’s novel.4

Regarding the prophetic value of 1984. Well let’s just say 1984 is not very prophetic. The society described in 1984, with its run down buildings, shortages of everything, like razor blades, shoelaces, and its dreadful gin and tobacco is obviously modeled on a view of Stalinist Russia, although it also carries more than a small resemblance to ration ridden Britain of the war and post war period. So much for seeing what the real 1984 would be like.

As Isaac Asimov said in a review of 1984:

Orwell had no feel for the future, and the displacement of the story is so much more geographical than temporal. The London in which the story is placed is not so much moved 35 years forward in time, from 1949 to 1984, as it is moved a thousand miles east in space to Moscow.5

The story in the novel is a repeat of the Russian Revolution, with Big Brother having a moustache like Stalin, and Emmanuel Goldstein not just being a version of Leon Trotsky but looking like him complete with goatee. In fact Orwell has a real difficulty imagining a realistic future, in this case everything is always breaking down and everything including electricity is intermittent and rationed. And there is an omnipresent black market, shades of not just Stalinist Russia but wartime and post war Britain. In other words it is indeed 1948 and its Stalin’s Russia.

A classic example of that is this from 1984:

Winston fitted the nib into the penholder and sucked it to get the grease off. The pen was an archaic instrument, seldom used even for signatures, and he had procured one, furtively and with some difficulty, simply because of a feeling that the beautiful creamy paper deserved to be written on with a real nib instead of being scratched with an ink pencil.6

This is of course the exact reverse of the truth. Old style pens scratch and the “ink pencil”, probably a ball point pen, does not! This passage does of course indicate a sort of nostalgia for the “good old days”.

Certain criticisms by Asimov do not work for example Asimov’s statement that no can be observing everyone through the two way telescreen at all times is irrelevant. The point is that at any one time someone COULD be observing you doing whatever and you can not be sure when you are being viewed or not viewed. So you would not need to be viewed all the time. So the argument that you would need c. five people to view each person and hence the system would be unworkable doesn't wash. All you would need is each person thinking that they might be being watched at any time. This would require a small group of watchers watching people randomly so that no one could be sure they wern't being watched at any particular time. Orwell was perfectly aware of this. This could potentially be very effective has a means of oppression.

As for Asimov’s criticism that having a system of volunteer spies not working because everyone would eventually report everyone is beside the point. The fact is Stalinist Russia had such a system and so did Nazi Germany and also the Stasi of former East Germany had something similar; so it can work. Asimov is right though in all those cases the system had a tendency to create an overwhelming amount of paperwork and files that tended to bog down the work of the secret police.

As for prophecy Orwell seems to be unable to conceive of computers for record keeping and the writing machines he does conceive of are rather crude for the real 1984. Orwell’s people use razor blades for example: electric razors don’t seem to exist.

Orwell doesn't seem to have been aware that such systems that he described in 1984 are by their very nature self destructive. For example it appears that corruption is rampant and everything either doesn't work or breaks down. Yet amazingly the telescreens work perfectly and the Thought Police and various ministries work without corruption. We now know that corruption, nepotism was very common and got increasingly common over time in the Communist party of Russia; indeed it got common in all Communist one party states to say nothing of regimes like Nazi Germany.

Orwell’s idea about Newspeak, a language that constricts meaning to the point of making heretical thought impossible is of interest. It is also extremely unlikely. Just how do you prevent the meaning of words being modified or changed over time? How would you for example prevent the technical vocabulary of Newspeak from bleeding into everyday words? Just how would you enforce rigid definitions of words and prevent modification through everyday use? It won’t work.

Then there is of course O’Brien’s fulminations. We are supposed to be awed by O’Brien’s statements and be terrified by their “awesome” implications.

For example:

When finally you surrender to us, it must be of your own free will.7

This after O’Brien has began to torture him and of course Winston afterwards “freely” converts after extensive hideous physical and mental torture. O’Brien thus proves that the possession of virtually unlimited power over someone provides an ample scope to inflict these sorts of intellectual stupidities on helpless victims.

Or another example:

O’Brien silenced him by a movement of the hand. “We control matter because we control the mind. Reality is inside the skull. You will learn by degrees, Winston. here is nothing that we could not do. Invisibility, levitation – anything. I could float off this floor like soap bubble if I wished to. I do not wish to, because the Party does not wish it. You must get rid of those nineteenth-century ideas about laws of nature. We make the laws of nature."

...

“Nonsense. The earth is as old as we are, no older. How could it be older? Nothing exists except through human consciousness”8

O’Brien has a whole string of similar stupidities all dependent on the fact that Winston is his helpless victim. Of course O’Brien cannot really believe his idiocies otherwise he would be insane with monomania. It is to be wondered at, if O’Brien really believes this nonsense why is he torturing Winston? If reality is all in the head, why bother?

O’Brien’s philosophical justification for his stupidities is the notion of doublethink the idea of holding two contradictory notions in your head at the same time. Of course people do that sort of thing all the time. But in extreme cases such contradictory thinking would produce disordered thinking even insanity. In O’Brien’s case he uses the notion of doublethink to excuse extreme disordered thinking i.e., willful stupidity. The fact that he has to torture Winston to make Winston accept his insane pontifications is proof that O’Brien’s idea of reality being all in your head is wrong. O’Brien is able to inflict such nonsense on Winston only because he has extreme coercive power over him, if O’Brien was the victim would he magically be able to wish the torture away has being all in his head? I think not! Of course O’Brien never explains how doublethink enables you to not just have two contradictory notions in your head at the same time; but how do you avoid tension between them? How do you avoid situations about having to choose one idea over the other?

O’Brien’s verbal vomit is only terrifying because he has power over another human being and is able to terrorize that human if he refuses to accept his ravings. Otherwise it is intellectually empty.

At the end after torturing Winston most hideously O’Brien breaks him, which is hardly surprising. O’Brien makes some idiot comment about Winston no longer being human because of the way he, Winston, looks physically. This is of course shoddy nonsense. It is O’Brien who has done this to Winston which of course means that O’Brien is less than human. It is fascinating that O’Brien continually says that Winston is responsible for what is happening to himself and that he, O’Brien, is carrying out the "Party's" will. What a fascinating evasion of responsibility. Why such cowardice? After all this is from a man who claims reality is all in the head.

It is curious that Orwell in his novel seemed to be unable to conceive of people being able to resist the tortures of the Thought Police even though the techniques used are very similar to techniques attributed to the NKVD and Gestapo,9 which some people were able to resist. Orwell seems to have a pretty negative view of people.

The aim of the Thought Police torture to convert the unbeliever seems to be similar to the arguments and ideas of the Moscow Show trials of the 30’s where the accused confessed their guilt and admitted their crimes and at the same time said they believed that the Party / Stalin was always right. Once again Orwell does not predict the future but recapitulates the recent past.

Of course Orwell didn't anticipate that after Stalin died the whole system would thaw. It appears that O’Brien’s vision of a boot stamping into a human face forever could not be maintained without tearing everything apart and generating to much instability. The systems rulers decided to turn down the pressure by several notches in order to have some stability instead of risking an explosion.

Its of interest that in Orwell’s novel the “Proles” are looked upon with barely disguised contempt by everyone including the author, yet they are left relatively, (at least compared to party members), “free”. This is obviously going to be a source of future conflict because given the continual terror in the “Party”, the rampant shortages and corruption to say nothing of the overall general decay just how is the emergence of some sort of “middle layer” to be avoided that would eventually challenge the “Party”. Despite O’Brien’s philosophical idiocies nothing he says indicates that the “Party” is immune to decay or that it can avoid presiding over a decaying and failing regime.

Regarding the idea that the regime needs war to burn up surplus production? Well building pyramids would do the same thing, to say nothing of a simple steady increase in population or another of a myriad of substitutes that are more easily controlled.

The idea that a society would need to endlessly rewrite history and spend enormous effort to do so is a simple waste of resources. It is of course simply not necessary people simply don’t require that degree of manipulation to be convinced. This of course owes itself to the Stalinist Russian practice of writing people out of history. For example removing Trotsky from photographs. However the massive continual effort portrayed in 1984 to rewrite history is a simple waste of time.

The fact is has Asimov says:

He [Orwell] did not have the science fictional knack of foreseeing a plausible future and, in actual fact, in almost all cases; the world of 1984 bears no relation to the real world of the 1980’s.10

1. Two Literary Non-Mysteries, Steven Dutch, Here

2. 1984, Wikipedia, Here

3. See The Cruel Peace, Fred Inglis, HarperCollins Pub., New York, 1991, pp. 103-106, for a overview of the Cold War uses of 1984.

4. Ibid. Footnote 2.

5. Asimov on Science Fiction, Isaac Asimov, Avon Books, New York, 1981, p. 249.

6. 1984, George Orwell, The New American Library, New York, 1949, pp. 9-10.

7. Ibid., p. 210.

8. Ibid., p. 218.

9. The Russian and German Secret Police during the Stalinist and Nazi eras.

10. Asimov, p. 259.

Pierre Cloutier

"Original sin"?

Lenin giving a speech

One of the great problems of modern Russian history is the origin of the authoritarian regime that the Bolsheviks established after the revolution. Certainly during the Cold War and after anything like "objective" analysis was very difficult. The fact that the collapse of 1984-1991 entirely discredited the regime hasn't helped.

The Cold War led to a pronounced bias concerning the Soviet Regime in both the West and Soviet Bloc. In one case, the West, leading to a demonization of the regime and in the Soviet case leading to a glorification of the regime. The Soviet glorification of the regime does not concern me in this essay except to note that it was embarrassingly simple-minded and consisted of the repeated chantings much of the time of ritual shibboleths.1

In the West two schools gradually emerged to explain the origins of the one party state. The first and undoubtedly most influential, even now, is the "original sin", idea of Bolshevism. This was the opinion that within the ideology crafted by Lenin was the blueprint for the creation of an authoritarian one party regime. Thus the ideology of Bolshevism impelled, required that once it seized power it must establish autocratic rule. This view sees Bolshevism as an ideology for gaining power. Thus conspiracy, coup-d'etat, secret police, in a word, coercion is the essence of Bolshevism. Thus Bolshevism because of Lenin's idea of a "Vanguard Party" would inevitably become a dictatorship. In this view the October Revolution of 1917 is a coup d'etat of a small group of single minded conspirators.2

The second idea was the idea that the Bolshevik autocracy emerged as a result of factors associated with the Revolution, such as foreign intervention, civil war, the collapse of the economy, general chaos and the need to safeguard the revolution both externally and internally. In this view the social chaos that enveloped Russia from 1917 onwards compelled the resort to coercion and violence in a desperate bid to overcome and deal with significant problems. For example the extreme grain shortages that developed in the the cities in the late winter / spring of 1918. In this view The Revolution of October 1917 was largely popular and ad hoc.3

The view that the Revolution turned into an authoritarian state has a result of contingent factors goes back to to the early days of the Revolution. Leon Trotsky4 for example viewed autocratic rule as a solution to the problems of backwardness, social chaos, civil war and revolutionary isolation. Basically the idea is that if, the social breakdown, had not happened or if the new regime had not come under attack from forces without or within, or if the revolution had spread, if Russia had not been so backwards then the the revolution would not have degenerated into an authoritarian state.

The "original sin" idea takes it for granted that Lenin's doctrine of a "Vanguard Party",5 led inevitably to the growth of a authoritarian one party state upon the seizure of power. Certainly Lenin's idea that the "Proletariat", (working class), needed to be led by a party of professional revolutionaries with the right consciousness, was in this opinion bound to lead to an authoritarian solution once power was attained.

The problems with the "original sin" approach begin with the fact it is basically a post-hoc approach; it sees the results of the revolution and projects back into the past those developments and sees them has inevitable. for example it ignores that the Bolshevik party was faction ridden, subject to massive internal disputes and certainly the pre-revolution rhetoric of the Bolsheviks does not indicate any overt belief in authoritarian political management. Analysis of actual Bolshevik practice in 1917, pre October Revolution does not indicate very much if any authoritarian practice.6 In fact the party was divided by a host of issues, including whether or not to seize power, the suppression of the press etc., it was a far from a monolithic, tightly unified instrument for wielding political power. Further many of the steps leading to the creation of the one party state were bitterly opposed within the party.7 Further this notion ignores contingent factors like the existence of vocal violent opposition, the catastrophic economic situation which certainly helped to ensure / encourage the use of coercion and authoritarian means.

In some cases this is characterized by blaming the opposition to the Bolsheviks forcing the Bolsheviks to resort to violence and coercion by the hostility of the various opposition groups.8 The main idea being that Lenin and his associates were forced into suppression by the hostile acts of various parties.

In terms of evaluating the above two ideas hindsight must be avoided at all costs. The tendency to see things through the prism of what did happen resisted at all costs. In this case the fact, and it is a fact, that the Bolshevik Party was not, before the attaining of power, an authoritarian dictatorial party run on either Stalinist or Dictatorial lines is clear. And it is easy to find comments indicating a sincere belief in free elections, freedom of the press, etc., etc. So what happened? Bukharin explained it thus; that in the past the workers:

was forced to demand, not freedom of assembly just for workers, but freedom of Assembly in general..., freedom of the press in general... etc. But there is no need to make a virtue of necessity. Now that the time has come for a direct assault on the capitalist fortress and the suppression of the exploiters, only a miserable petty-bourgeois can be content with arguments about "the protection of the minority".9

An apt response to this sort of nonsense is:

In the past you see, we had to mask our real view so that our opponents would not know that we were lying when we pretended to support democratic rights on principle; we had to conceal that we demanded minority democratic rights only for ourselves and would deny them to others once we got the whip hand . . .What a gigantic conspiracy it must have been, for the entire Marxist movement to have carried out this fraud! Bukharin claimed that the movement had lied in the past, and he was telling the truth now: but in fact, of course, no such absurd conspiracy had ever existed - Bukharin was lying now, to cover up a 180, [degree], turn in his view of democracy. In any case, with this line of argumentation, no one could believe him and his likes then or now. A movement that printed this drivel was discredited for the future as for the past.10

I suppose when Bukharin was being tried in his infamous show trial during the purges of the thirties and then executed, he might have paused a bit over some of the foolishness he uttered earlier during his years in power.

The problem with the contingent arguments is that they assume that humans are programed to respond in certain ways to given situations. Accepting that the Bolsheviks took power without the intent to create a dictatorship, and that democratic norms existed even flourished in the party, and that no evidence, unless its conjured up through hindsight, supports the idea that Lenin was planning to establish a one party state beforehand; we still have the problem of why the Bolsheviks did what they did.

Certain things confound the issue. It is for example very hard to believe and what evidence we have refutes it, that the other Socialist parties, or the Anarchists / Greens would have resorted to mass permanent coercion if they had attained power. We have for example the events of 1917 before the Bolsheviks took power. Given that the standard justification for the Bolsheviks in using coercion was violent opposition, then no one should have a problem with the coercive means sometimes used to crush the Bolsheviks. In fact its quite obvious that the opposition was far too lenient and loose in its measures from this point of view. But then its seems to come down to double standards, the idea being that it was unjust to crush the Bolsheviks and just for the Bolsheviks once they were in power to crush violent opposition. That doesn't wash. If it was just or permissible for the Bolsheviks to violently oppose the Provisional government then by what moral calculus was violent opposition to the Bolsheviks NOT permissible or moral, but beyond the pale? And just why should one be indignant about the rather clumsy attempts to suppress the Bolsheviks but approve or accept has permissible their attempts to crush opposition?11

Also we have to remember that well before the Bolsheviks seized power there were other Socialists who saw dictatorial ideas in Lenin's notions of the Vanguard Party.

The revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg reviewing several of Lenin's works in 1904, severely criticized, Lenin's idea of the party has being conspiratorial, dictatorial and dangerous:

But here is the "ego" of the Russian revolutionary again! Pirouetting on its head, it once more proclaims itself to be the all-powerful director of history - this time with the title of His Excellency the Central Committee of the Social Democratic Party of Russia.

...

Let us peak plainly. Historically, the errors committed by a truly revolutionary movement are infinitely more fruitful than the infallibility of the cleverest Central Committee.12

Another example is Leon Trotsky in a pamphlet he published in 1904 called Our Political Tasks said:

In the first case, it is more difficult to “cheat”: history, having placed a definite task on the agenda, is observing us sharply. For good or ill (more for ill), we are leading the masses to revolution, awakening in them the most elementary political instincts. But in so far as we have to deal with a more complex task – transforming these “instincts” into conscious aspirations of a working class which is determining itself politically – we tend to resort to the short-cuts and over-simplifications of “thinking-for-others” and “substitutionism.”

In the internal politics of the Party these methods lead, as we shall see below, to the Party organisation “substituting” itself for the Party, the Central Committee substituting itself for the Party organisation, and finally the dictator substituting himself for the Central Committee; [emphasis added] on the other hand, this leads the committees to supply an “orientation” – and to change it – while “the people keep silent”; in “external” politics these methods are manifested in attempts to bring pressure to bear on other social organisations, by using the abstract strength of the class interests of the proletariat, and not the real strength of the proletariat conscious of its class interests. 13

Needless to say once Trotsky joined Lenin this little work disappeared down the memory hole. Trotsky's desperate efforts to refute the idea that Stalinism was his and Lenin's monstrous bastard child had to ignore this amazingly prophetic statement, especially the truly amazing section emphasized above. Trotsky spent much of his life in exile denying that he and Lenin were in anyway responsible for Stalin and Stalinism. The above statement refutes Trotsky out of his own mouth.

One can multiply those statements from other people involved in doctrinal disputes among the Russian Social Democrats. One could also list in very great detail the complaints among Lenin's colleagues about his dictatorial behavior and his tendency to demand obedience and submission before the revolution.14

Lenin's capacity to engage in polemical excess, (He regarded anything has permissible) and his belief that opposition had to be annihilated, crushed, destroyed, speak of a personality that isn't leery about using excessive means.15

Given the above it cannot be considered an accident that once the Bolshevik's took power they rapidly adopted authoritarian solutions to the problems they faced.16

Even if it is accepted that the external and internal situation encouraged or perhaps even required authoritarian solutions it does not explain the particular solutions used or the fact has the quotation from Bukharin above indicates, that these solutions had a tendency to be seen not just as temporary expedients but has more or less permanent, and in some sense "ideal", and a tendency for those solutions to be maximized in terms of effect. Further the tendency existed for force to be used as a substitute, i.e., "shortcut" for dealing with intractable problems.

It appears that Lenin and many of his colleagues had a tendency to devalue, things like freedom of the press, fair elections etc., even before attaining power, and to be fixated on the issues involved in holding and retaining power in and of itself. There was further a tendency to think that the ends justified the means and a great difficulty in seeing that the means used would affect the ability to get to the goal or make the goal impossible of attainment. It should be said that those tendencies had formidable opposition within the Bolshevik party itself and Lenin was never without vocal opposition within his party.17

It is also worth mentioning that Lenin's conception of politics was shall we say limited. As one critic has said while discussing Lenin's The State and Revolution:

Further, of course the implications here are major, there is no conceptual space for a parliamentary opposition. Delegates are described as being representatives, legislators and executives. A delegate who is only a representative, who wishes to bear no responsibility for legislation with which he or his constituents disagree, but claims the right for his opposing and critical arguments to be heard, who refuses both a legislative and executive role, is not catered for in such a system. In fact he is specifically ruled out: he it would be who conceived parliament as a "talking shop" and his job as going there to talk persistently against those who were "doing". So here again we have the insistent emergence of the theme of the impossibility of divisions among the people: the people must have a unitary set of interests and possibility of political conflict - which can result only from representatives becoming careerists - is to be avoided by the tight bonds between representatives and electors. Here the very possibility of party - that is organizations expressing diverse views and value orientations - is abolished long before any exigences of the 'particularly hostile' conjuncture persuaded the Bolsheviks to get around to it in practice. 18

The idea is that Lenin's own theoretical views, shared by many of his colleagues led to a view that opposition to his / their opinions, in fact opposition of any kind, was somehow illegitimate. Certainly his tendency to view those who disagreed with him, or advanced positions contrary to his, has motivated by prospects of material gain in one form or the other with only his position has free of such motives and therefore 'pure' is easily authoritarian in result.19

If its clear that the possibility of Bolshevism degenerating into authoritarian rule because of certain ideas and attitudes of mind that were common among the Bolsheviks and a good deal less prevalent in other Socialist political parties and groups in Russia was a very real one.

Regarding the unfortunate conjuncture of events after the Bolshevik seizure of power. Unfortunately a lot of it seems to be complaining that it rains sort of logic. The argument not only attacks the opponents of the Bolsheviks for opposing them, which makes the assumption that opposing Bolshevik policy was somehow wrong / illegitimate, but assumes that the external situation was somehow perverse, and accidental.

Has Evan Mawdsley has said:

It is, however, going too far to say that without the Civil War things would have developed differently. The crucial point is whether the "Revolution" and "Civil War" were two distinct things. They were not. In the first place, many developments that might seem to come from the Civil War were really indirect, inevitable, and delayed consequences of the seizure of power. The Bolsheviks were great partisans of class conflict, and of class conflict pursued to the death. It is utopian to think that after the seizure of power one's opponents will simply lie back and think of the inevitability of human progress. The Bolsheviks were less afraid of civil war than they should have been. When Soviet power was so weak and thinly based, when the Bolshevik party and class in whose name it ruled were so small, it is hard to see how the enemies of Bolshevism could not have had considerable success.

...

Given the nature of Russian society and given the ideology of the party that took power, Civil War was implicit in the October Revolution. The costs of the Civil War were the costs of the Revolution.20

In the aftermath of October 1917, the Bolsheviks demonstrated a striking tendency to rely on coercion to solve problems. From the break-up of the Constituent Assembly in February 1918 to dealing with general industrial decline and lack of food in the cities. The Bolsheviks showed a readiness to use the short cut of coercion. If the Constituent assembly is a problem disperse it! If food in the cities is a problem send armed workers to seize it from the countryside! If industry is in decline; regiment the workers by force! No doubt the situation was bad but this tendency helped smooth the way to one party rule.

Just has the Bolsheviks benefited from a massive increase in popular support in 1917, such that when they overthrew the Provisional government in October 1917 they had considerable probably massive, popular support. In the first half of 1918 faced with a massive decline in popular support due to the worsening economic situation, which many Bolshevik policies probably helped to make even worse, the Bolsheviks resorted to coercion. Faced for example with the massive rise of support for the Mensheviks, independent Socialists etc., in the local Soviets during the first part of 1918, and a corresponding decline in Bolshevik fortunes in those elections. The Bolsheviks resorted to purges, violent dispersal of the Soviets, fraud; in some cases massive. Faced with the prospect of losing power the Bolsheviks substituted coercion for popular support. Such Bolshevik measures in turn created more opposition which in turn helped justify / excuse more coercive measures.21

So to get back to the question that started this essay. Did Bolshevism have an original sin? There was certainly no plan to establish a one party authoritarian dictatorship beforehand and certainly circumstances played a powerful role in helping to determine this outcome. However ideology did play a role; even before the seizure of power, tendencies within Bolshevism in an authoritarian direction were noted by some with some fear for the future. This was combined with a attitude towards opponents that was authortarian and a tendency to disparage certain civil rights. Also an inability to see how ends could be corrupted by the means used.

In the end Lenin and Trotsky and their associates ended up rationalizing with a sort of false consciousness, a mystification, of what they did to sanctify their acts, and to cloak their desire to retain power. Bolshevism become a ideology to justify the exercise and rule of one party, a form of mystification to justify the power and privileges of a new ruling elite.

Towards the end of his life Lenin realized that something was wrong and Trotsky after he was forced out of power and then into exile realized also. Lenin's solution was stupefyingly simpleminded and did not involve giving up one party rule, that was of course rationalized away. Trotsky spent his later years engaging in prolonged apologetics, dedicated to the idea that he had nothing to reproach himself for and that his acts had nothing to do with the rise of Stalinism.22

If Bolshevism did not have an out and out "Original Sin" it certainly had a tendency in that direction. Of the two ideas looked at here it appears that the "Original Sin" idea is unpleasantly close to reality. Given both the tendencies within the Bolshevik party and the forces that would almost certainly be unleashed by the seizure of power a descent into authoritarian rule was virtually inevitable, despite the declared intentions and frankly sincere beliefs of most Bolsheviks. External factors while creating the opportunity for the seizure of power also virtually perscribed the outcome, authoritarian rule, when combined both Bolshevik tendencies and the virtually certain response to the seizure of power.

Thus does history behave like a bastard and Revolutions defeat themselves through success.

Bolshevik Poster

1. This does not mean that useful work was not done in the Soviet Union on early Soviet history, however the need even in serious historical work to pay at least lip service to Marxist-Leninist cant could not but be an impediment to serious historical analysis.

2. The best example recently of this approach is The Russian Revolution, Richard Pipes, Vintage, New York, 1991 and Russia under the Bolshevik Regime, Richard Pipes, Vintage, New York, 1995.

3. Good examples of this approach are The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd, Alexander Rabinowitch, Pluto Press, New York, 1976, and The Russian Revolution 1917 - 1932, Sheila Fitzpatrick, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1982.

4. See for example The History of the Russian Revolution, Leon Trotsky, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI, 1957.

5. The key text being What is to be Done?, V. I. Lenin, 1902, can be found at Here. This text outlines Lenin's theory of a Vanguard Party.

6. Prelude to Revolution: The Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July 1917 Uprising, Alexander Rabinowitch, Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN, 1968.

7. See for example The Bolsheviks come to Power:... and The Bolsheviks in Power, Alexander Rabinowitch, Indiana University Press, Bloomington IN, 2007, also Before Stalinism, Samuel Farber, Verso, London, 1990.

8, For example Leninism under Lenin, Marcel Liebman, J. Cape, London, 1975.

9. The Politics and Economics of the Transition Period, Nikolai Bukharin, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, 1979, (original Pub. date 1919), p. 47, quoted from item in Footnote 10, pp. 141.

10. The "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" from Marx to Lenin, Hal Draper, Monthly Review Press, New York, 1987, pp. 141-142.

11, See The Mensheviks after October, Vladimir N. Brovkin, Cornell University Press, Ithaca NY, 1987.

12. The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism, Rosa Luxemburg, The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor MI, 1961, pp. 107, 108. Originally published in 1904, the article quoted being Leninism or Marxism.

13. Our Political Tasks, Leon Trotsky, from the Trotsky Internet Archive. The Chapter the quote is located in is Part II:Tactical Tasks in the section From pedagogy to tactics, at Here.

14. See Before Stalinism, and Three who made a Revolution, Bertram D. Wolfe, Bell Publishing Co., New York, 1964. for examples of rather unpleasant behavior and attitudes from Lenin before and after the Revolution see The Unknown Lenin, Richard Pipes, Yale University Press, New Haven CONN., 1996, a collection of rather unpleasant documents by Lenin kept secret until after the fall of the regime.

15. See Three who made a Revolution, pp. 353-355.

16. See Before Stalinism for the depressing details.

17. see Three Faces of Marxism, Wolfgang Leonhard, Paragon Books, London, 1970, pp. 47-94.

18. Lenin and the end of Politics, A. J. Polan, University of California Press, Berkeley CA, 1984, pp. 81-82. The State and Revolution, published originally in 1917, can be found Here.

19. Lenin and the end of Politics, deals with this in depth.

20. The Russian Civil War, Evan Mawdsley, Allen & Unwin, Boston, 1987, pp. 289, 290.

21 see Before Stalinism. The Mensheviks after October, is especially rich in detail about the tactics and strategies for holding onto power by various forms of coercion.

22, See both Before Stalinism and Lenin and the end of Politics. Lenin's solution of having workers oversee party bureaucrats and having more workers in both party and state bureaucracy are breath taking in terms of naivety and of course preserve one party rule.

Pierre Cloutier

"Authoritarian Future"

I read Starship Troopers first when I was 12 years old and I loved it! It was action packed exciting and well written. Later I read about and from Heinlein his Anti-Communist views and a few things began to go together in my mind.

Firstly I did not even at twelve much care for the Human society Heinlein created; it struck me as rather rigid and doctrinaire.

Frankly the story is written from the point of view of a rather callow young man who is quite effectively made into an instrument of his society. In other words he is brainwashed. The Philosophical arguments for this new "Scientific" morality are pretty silly. It reminds me that both Communism and Nazism claimed a "Scientific" basis for their undemocratic rule. The stupidity about disputes being settled by force neglects the obvious rejoinder that what force proves is only that you are stronger than your opponent not that you are right.

It is interesting that Heinlein who was an Anti-Communist, and who had nothing but contempt for liberals for being weak on Communism, should have so fully embraced a Communist-Fascist system even in fiction. Like many ideologues of the cold-war Heinlein’s solution amounted to the destruction of American ideals and the victory of Communist-Fascistic ideals and practice. The society in the book is anti-democratic to the core, despite the lip service to Democratic ideals, no-one has rights by virtue of being human they must be earned. Democracy does not exist. Society is ruled by a caste of soldiers, like ancient Sparta. All other humans are less than fully human. They are civilians, without honor and not worthy of respect.

It seemed to me obvious that this "Democracy" was modeled after Ancient Sparta where a military caste ruled over a large subject population which they regarded with basic contempt. In Heinlein's society the ruling Military elite "votes" like the Spartans, after being suitably "indoctrinated", and therefore very unlikely to upset the status-quo and they are quite programmed to obey orders. That and their sense of "Class" solidarity with each other is hardly democratic. (I'm aware that Heinlein provides avenues for all sorts to enter the elite, but like Spartans promoting Helots it doesn't change the nature of the System).

The old Communist parties that ruled the Soviet Union and other states proclaimed that their unique "selflessness", "sense of duty", etc., entitled them to rule. I take the official propaganda of the State in this book about as seriously. Our hero swallows the whole thing indicating he isn't very bright.

In the book we are supposed to celebrate Rico’s acceptance of his “duty” and his incorporation of the life denying, death-worshiping ideals of his society into his tiny mind. Some celebrate this as Rico no longer being a “callow” young man. I see Rico as being similar to the “idealists” of Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia, shallow, callow individuals who tortured, oppressed and slaughtered millions for reasons of “Scientific Morality” and cowardly notions of “Duty”.

The problem of how it is even possible to create a “Scientific Morality” is scarcely addressed by the book. Certainly the society in the book does not allow detailed, critical examinations of its “Scientific Morality”. In that respect it is like Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia. Why Heinlein did not see or know that this idea is a centre-piece of both Communism and Fascism is beyond me. Certainly the refusal of Heinlein fans to see this is incredible. If the society in Starship Troopers is indeed based on “Scientific Morality”, I would chose to be “Immoral” and dedicate all my efforts to destroying it. Such a society is evil by definition regardless of whether it is “Scientifically Moral”. If this century has taught us anything it is that when someone talks about “Scientific Morality”, gas-chambers, forced labour, mass executions, terror, and numerous other horrors are waiting to be made real.

Regarding the books celebration of war, which despite denials is what the book does. I can only quote the following "A military man is in the only profession where he hopes not to use his skills". I just found it fascinating how an Anti-Communist replicated a Communist society in so many ways as somehow "ideal". When I was 12 I got the idea, that I still hold that the "icky" bugs were the good guys.

The glorification of violence is a feature of both Nazism and Stalinism both the most extreme and murderous forms of Fascism and Communism. So is the vision of only one true “Scientific morality”. The give and take of contemporary Democratic politics, the distrust of violence as a problem solver, the tolerance of dissent, the “liberal” belief that human freedom is a positive value is treated with contempt. Humans have value if they serve the state. I am amazed that Heinlein fans do not, or cannot see, that Heinlein’s “ideal” society is an abomination to anyone who believes in Liberty and Democracy.

All in all a wonderful read, especially the battle scenes, getting through boot camp, and the wonderfully conceived battle suits that allow the soldiers to devastate and occupy large areas single handed. Mankind’s Alien enemy is an Insect like species with that have a similar level of technology. Both humans and aliens are engaged in a genocidal war against each other. After all since mankind is fighting bugs. Let’s squash them!

Allegedly the society provides for freedom of speech and elections although given the nature of this society I don't take those comments seriously in the novel. Such a society does not allow for real dissent or freedom and the people involved in voting have been, if the book is any guide, quite effectively indoctrinated. I rather doubt that much difference of opinion exist among the various media from the military or that the "electors" are anything less than largely unified in their opinions. And certainly the classroom lectures give a picture of a unified, cohesive and authoritarian society.

Heinlein wrote Starship Trooper as a cautionary fable about how weak the west was, and unable to combat the superior strength of the Communist-Fascist enemy, which Heinlein, at least in this book, so clearly admires. Like so many he feared the west would succumb unless it abandoned its most basic ideals. We now know that the Communist-Fascist enemy was much weaker then us and the very things in the west that were supposed to weaken it, in the eyes of people like Heinlein, were in fact its strength. Heinlein as turned into a false prophet and his prescription, if carried out, would have been a fatal poison.

So do read it just don't take the society described seriously.

Pierre Cloutier