Another One Bites the Dust

Thoughts on the fall of Gaddafi

Gaddafi in better days

One of the common historical tropes of the last two centuries or so has been the rise and fall of the dictator. We recently have been given a veritable feast of falling and fallen dictators with the ongoing Arab Spring. Bloody and chaotic though it has been it has removed many of the world’s longest lasting dictators.1

Frederick the Overrated I
Frederick II and the Outbreak of the Seven Years War.

Frederick the “Great”

One of the joys of historical research is finding out that some historical personages who are celebrated to the skies may not be quite as wonderful as their legions of worshipers / hagiographers, opps1 sorry, biographers / historians, claim that they are. Just recently I came across a book about the Seven Years War that in between describing the battles and campaigns of the Seven Years War in Europe manages to take assorted pot shots at Frederick the “Great's’” reputation. Those more than occasional interludes of truly cattish scratching are thoroughly enjoyable and frankly about time.2

Frederick is called the “Great” because he was successful at war, or should I say thought to be successful at war, and because he succeeded in conquering territory and making Prussia one of the great powers of Europe. Basically he is a “Great” man because he succeeded. The actual manner by which he achieved his success and the cost of his success for others is as per usual in these things downgraded / ignored. This worship of military success leads to the idea that Frederick was “Great” in all sorts of things and a fawning, hero worship that writhes in ecstasy at his “glorious” victories and genuflects at his shrine.3

One can go into the rather puzzling question about how a King who massively strengthened the militaristic nature of the Prussian state, and its Police State apparatus and in effect completed the process of turning the Prussian state from a State with an army to an Army with a State could for a moment fool anyone into thinking he was an “Enlightened” monarch. But then military success does tend to dazzle. But then Frederick easily put on “enlightened” airs and dazzled the literati of his day with a lot of words and pretty speeches about “enlightened” values while increasing the subordination of society to the state and its army. That Frederick was also incredibly vain, arrogant and loath to take responsibility for things if things went wrong, (blaming other people was a fine if childish art with Frederick). That Frederick was also in many respects a reckless diplomat and frequently engaged in political and other acts of fairly dubious morality is often forgotten.4

For example when Maria-Theresa inherited the Austrian throne in 1740, Austria had been going through a long term period of decline and it was only with difficulty that Maria-Theresa’s father Charles VI was able to arrange for the myriad domains of the house of Habsburg to accept the succession of his daughter Maria-Theresa; who became the only female ruler of the house of Habsburg. This so-called Pragmatic Sanction was then accepted by the various major powers of Europe through the tireless diplomacy of Charles VI who was anxious to avoid a diplomatic crisis upon the accession of his daughter. Also there was his concern that the other powers would seek to take advantage of Maria-Theresa’s accession to attack Austria and attempt to partition the empire between them.

Despite the anticipation of crisis Maria-Theresa succeeded her father in 1740 and at first it looked as if the various powers would accept the Pragmatic Sanction and let Maria-Theresa reign in peace. Frederick who had recently come to the throne of Prussia decided that given that so many powers were just waiting to attack Austria and carve her up that he would start the whole process, this was after he had signed a treaty saying he would respect the Pragmatic Sanction.5

The result was the war of Austrian Succession an interminable 8 year war during which Prussia was able to wrest the province of Silesia from Austria. Despite the serious decay of Austrian institutions and military during Charles VI’s reign, (Charles was a good diplomat but not a good administrator and Austria fell behind and looked like ripe pickings for the other powers), Maria-Theresa, who had not been educated or trained in any fashion to rule proved to be a very capable if not great ruler, and despite her almost total lack of experience rose to the challenge.6

Frederick went to war, made peace and unmade alliances almost at will with little regard to any moral imperatives or even his word. Frederick blithely betrayed his allies twice by making separate peace treaties with Austria and broke his agreements with Austria with equal facility. In the end though Frederick ended up with Silesia a province that increased the population of Prussia by more than 50% and a even larger increase in wealth. In fact Prussia’s pretensions of being a great power were dependent on possession of Silesia.7

Frederick had inherited from his father, Frederick William I, (a man whose behavior indicated a psychopathic personality), an excellent, large standing army that by means of the most draconian exploitation of the country he was able to extract from his fairly small country. Frederick had great ambitions and from the first wanted to take Austrian lands to further those ambitions.8

Austria was able fight off this attempt to partition her. Aside from Silesia Austria lost very little territory. But the war convinced Maria-Theresa of the urgent need to reform and revitalize the state. As an “enlightened” monarch Maria-Theresa easily puts Frederick in the shade and unlike him the challenges that she faced and difficulties she had to overcome were quite significantly greater. Further unlike Frederick Maria-Theresa had real moral scruples which did affect her behavior and policies. The idea of subordinating the state to the army was anathema to her. If Maria-Theresa had inherited a ramshackle state she was with remarkable skill able to hold the great majority of it together despite everything.9

Despite the ohhs and awws of the literati Frederick’s double dealing in this period had left a bad taste in the mouths of many including that of Frederick’s allies, especially France. Although many were dazzled by Frederick’s military victories, Frederick had a serious enemy in Maria-Theresa, who wanted Silesia back and it would have been prudent for Frederick to make every effort to remain an ally of France in order to hold Austria back from a war of revenge. Well to put it bluntly Frederick muffed it.10

The story of the long diplomatic intrigues that eventually resulted in the alliance of Russia, France and Austria against Prussia belongs in another essay suffice to say Frederick proved a clumsy and basically inept diplomat at the time. The fact that he was suspected of having further massive territorial designs especially on the lands of the Austrian monarchy, which were in fact true, increased the determination of Maria-Theresa to cut him down to size. Prussian schemes to annex parts of Poland increased Russian anxieties and France was utterly infuriated by Frederick’s behavior during the war of Austrian Succession and felt it could not trust him at all.11

In the end France, reversing a policy of long standing (centuries) signed an alliance with Austria and Russia joined in. Now this alliance, which was only formalized after Frederick attacked Saxony, was defensive in nature and frankly neither France nor Russia was really all that interested in a war to gain Silesia back for Austria, but all three powers were determined to contain Prussia, and its King who they viewed as a loose cannon liable to go off in any direction.12

Frederick muffed it again. In 1756 he invaded Saxony and then Austria deliberately starting a war with France, Austria and Russia.

Faced with a circle of enemies Frederick decided to attack. Frederick’s defenders have from that day to this have defended his action as a preventive strike designed to anticipate his enemies and hence a move a great boldness.

Further Frederick is congratulated for trying to break up his enemies by attacking first and trying to drive Austria out of the alliance and thus breaking up the coalition against him. This is of course to take Frederick’s self serving apologia at face value. What is forgotten is that Austria, Russia and France had a defensive alliance not an offensive one. Neither France nor Russia were terribly eager to fight a war solely for Austria to get back Silesia. Further Frederick attacked Saxony an ally of Austria, not Austria. What is forgotten is also that Frederick did indeed want to defeat Saxony and Austria quickly, and then impose on both a peace that would satisfy his long standing desire for much more territory from both of them. In other words Frederick attacked Austria and Saxony in order to extract from both has much territory as possible not just to break up a coalition against him. He also had plans to impose a heavy indemnity on both. What happened is that both Russia and France pursuant to their alliance with Austria declared war on Prussia. Thus Frederick had, with great efficiency, created a powerful coalition against himself.13

Having thus set himself up for failure and being crushed by a much more powerful coalition, Frederick would spend most of the next seven years desperately trying to save himself from the predicament he had so expertly put himself in. Needless to say the Frederick gawkers would spend centuries afterwards writhing in ecstasy at Frederick’s “greatness” in holding off a much more powerful coalition and repeating Frederick’s self serving apologia that the war was inevitable and that he was thus justified in attacking first, carefully avoiding the fact that the so-called inevitable attack was NOT inevitable. Further that Frederick’s behavior was in effect a self fulfilling prophecy and that Frederick had very ambitious territorial ambitions, against Austria, Saxony and Poland, which he was most anxious to satisfy. In other words Frederick's attack was an act of aggression designed to seize territory, at least in part.14

It takes real incompetence to put your head in the noose the way Frederick did. Frederick in the end was only saved one of the most bizarre strokes of good fortune ever, for which he could take no responsibility. Another time I will go into that stroke of fortune. Meanwhile the people of Prussia, Saxony, Austria, Russia, Germany, and France would pay for Frederick’s incompetent diplomacy, lack of scruple and ambition in spades.15

1. The number of suck-up biographies of Frederick the “Great” is legion perhaps the most stomach turning, at least in English, is Carlyle, Thomas, History of Frederick the Great, Six Volumes, Robson and Son, London, 1858-1865. Google Books, Here, see also Fuller, J. F. C., A Military History of the Western World, v. 2, DaCapo, New York, 1955, pp. 192-215.

2. Szabo, Franz A., The Seven Years War in Europe 1756-1763, Pearson, Longman, London, 2008.

3. See Carlyle above and Duffy, Christopher, Frederick the Great: A Military Life, Routledge, London, 1985 for many examples.

4. See Duffy, pp. 195-196, Szabo, pp. 87-88, 238-240, 253-255, Williams, E. N., The Ancien Regime in Europe, Penguin Books, London, 1970, pp. 372-398, Waite, Robert, G. L., The Psychopathic God, Signet, New York, 1977, pp. 306-311, Ogg, David, Europe of the Ancien Regime 1715-1783, Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1965, pp. 212-217, Hufton, Olwen, Europe: Privilege and Protest: 1730-1789, Fontana Books, London, 1980, pp. 191-219.

5. IBID, Waite, Williams, pp. 430-432, Ogg, pp. 124-127.161-168.

6. No really good biography of Maria-Theresa exists in English, but see Williams, pp. 435-459, Ogg, 206-211, Hufton, pp. 160-73.

7. Hufton, pp. 191, 206.

8. See Williams, pp. 335-351, Waite, 306-307, Williams, 376-378, Hufton, 205-206, Ogg, 161-168.

9. Ogg, pp. 210-211, Williams, 435-459, Hufton, 160-173.

10. Williams, pp. 437-438, Ogg, pp. 138-143, Duffy, pp. 82-85, Szabo, pp. 8-18.

11. IBID.

12. IBID.

13. IBID, and Szabo, pp. 10, 37, 82.

14. IBID.

15. Duffy, pp. 242, 244, Hufton, pp. 211-212. Prussia for example lost 400-500 thousand people.

Pierre Cloutier

Dianaohroea

Flowers for Diana, Kensington Palace 1997
On August 31, 1997 died in a car crash in a tunnel in Paris Diana Spencer, former Princess of Wales and the resulting wave of mass mourning was one of the most remarkable mass phenomena’s of the Twentieth century. It was also one of the most stomach turning displays of cheap sentimentality ever. It became a wonderful excuse for people to indulge in a display of emotional excess. It served as an excuse to narcissistically put on a display of “sincerity” that cost little and in the end meant little.

The desire to wallow in a show of mourning was evident; complete with tears and theatre performances of “heart felt loss”. It was like the widow who carefully plans what to wear for the funeral and carefully calculates every tear, every sigh and every wail and melodramatically has fits etc., all designed to impress everyone with the depth of her feeling about her loss.

The object of this display of cheap, self indulgent, narcissistic sentimentality was of course not around to enjoy or be appalled by so much emotional kitsch. However let us briefly review the life of Diana Spencer former Princess of Wales.

Diana aside from being born into a very blue blooded English aristocratic family had done little of any note, or in fact worth mentioning until she was selected by the royals (mainly Prince Phillip) to be wife of Charles Prince of Wales. Charles apparently was very reluctant to marry her given her age (He was 33 and she 19) and the fact they were very different people.

The marriage proved to be a disaster. Diana however because she was very pretty, had great fashion sense and was very good at media manipulation was almost at once a media superstar. The media and much of the public could not get enough of her. Certainly Diana seemed to be a breath of fresh air compared to the rest of the rather staid royal family.

Soon it became rather clear that there were serious problems with the marriage. Within a few years began the tired soap opera of the “fairy Princess” versus her “wicked” in-laws. The media with embarrassingly few exceptions, aside from wasting its time with microscopically absurd coverage of Diana’s every move, portrayed Diana as a poor victim of the wicked royals.

Diana fed the process by strategic leaks and manipulation to an all too willing media that pandered to her self image as a poor victim. It was pure soap opera and like a soap opera about as close to reality.

Diana never got that the royals, whose benchmark was set by the Queen, had responsibilities as well as rights. Diana believed in her right to personal fulfilment and happiness in a situation in which no such rights existed. The Queen expected everyone in the “family firm” to accept that their duties as members of the royal family trumped everything else. Personal happiness / fulfilment were just not as important as fulfilling one’s duties and responsibilities. I do not think Diana ever got that. The fact that the Queen who very clearly in the public performance of her duties fulfilled this ideal of public service and was therefore even less willing to indulge Diana’s whining, hysterics and crass self indulgence should not be a surprise.

In all fairness it should be mentioned that Diana was married to a much older man who was rather staid and very conservative in many of his ways. The fact that he was apparently still in love with someone else did not help matters.

Diana soon proved to an absolute natural at charming the press and getting people to ohhh and ahhh over her. The press started it’s rather absurd infatuation with her which continued until Diana died.

It is pointless to go over the relentlessly reported details of the collapse of Charles and Diana’s marriage except to note the very expert way Diana manipulated the press into seeing things as Diana versus the heartless royals. Diana was especially good at making he husband look like the villain in the piece. I can remember an episode of the Donahue T.V. show where he was interviewing some royal watchers that when ever they said anything even slightly negative about Diana the audience would loudly murmur its distress.

When the marriage finally fell apart and Diana’s antics finally provoked the Queen into ordering Charles and Diana to get a divorce the media continued it’s infatuation with “St.” Diana of Spencer. Diana also continued her relentless campaign to both embarrass the royals and to cater to her seemingly endless need for personal self indulgence and attention.

A then friend of mine claimed with all seriousness that the Queen was “clicking her heels with joy” that Diana was dead and that Royals had been out to “destroy” Diana. Of course there was and still is no evidence to back up this rather silly notion. However the story of the “Fairy Princess” requires a “Wicked Step Mother” or mother in law in this case, to keep the fantasy going.

This nauseating spectacle of turning the Royals into villains reached its height with Diana’s brother's self serving and nauseating eulogy at the funeral, which seemed to consist of spitting in derision at them. That Lord Spencer was in no position to throw stones was largely ignored.

So eventually we get to the crash in the Paris tunnel. With the driver apparently, if not drunk, nearly so. The hordes of bloodsucking paparazzi chasing the car. The mangled corpses and the Paparazzi disgracing themselves by interfering with the Paramedics.

Then came the mourning, a wave of what amounted to public hysteria, in Britain and much of the rest of the world. It was amazing how so many who the day before would have dismissed Diana as an air head now went through paroxysms of grief; it was also cheap and easy entertainment for people bored with their lives.

So many had brought the idea that Diana was a victim and therefore her death was just the culmination of her victimhood. It is distressing to note that because of Diana’s death and the over the top campy mourning that took place afterwards the death of Mother Theresa, which took place at about the same time, was entirely eclipsed.

At her death Diana changed from:

… the ‘simpering Bambi narcissist’ became not only the loveliest woman of the century but also the Queen of Hearts, the Nabob of Sob.1

Members of Parliament seriously suggested that Heathrow be renamed Diana Airport among other over the top responses. We of course got endless displays of histrionic playing for the audience grief.

Of course those people who thought that the whole thing was too much where hooted down by the hordes of Diana gawkers. The B.B.C., for example got an enormous number of phone calls from people complaining that coverage was excessive. Those who said they thought the whole thing was over the top where treated like lepers or someone who had just loudly farted at a wedding.

The Queen was roundly attacked for not being emotionally extravagant enough; for not putting on a show of hysteria and fake “sincere” emotionalism. The nonsense about the Royal ensign not being flown at half mast was stomach turning. The fact is the Royal ensign is NEVER flown at half mast even when the monarch as died seemed to pass people by.

Such stomach turning examples of dishonest or frankly mawkish statements about Diana’s death as a man who said that he cried far more a Diana’s funeral than at his own father’s; tell us far more about the cult of celebrity and emotional immaturity than they do about anything else.

Basically Diana’s funeral was an episode of mass hysteria, a good excuse for people to come together for a good cry and to feel sorry for themselves. In other words an example of self-indulgence, that I hope 12 and ½ years later people are embarrassed about it. What people where mourning was the passing of their fantasy and the waking up to real life.

The whole absurd mythology about was Diana murdered, which led to an expensive and useless investigation of her death was a further example of the desire of so many even after Diana’s death to engage in fantasy. Of course the investigation found no evidence of a murder, which was apparent right from the beginning.2

Indulging in sentimental tosh can be quite pleasant and that was what the Diana funeral hysteria was mainly about. Of course saying so at the time was considered both heresy and bad taste. Periodically people want an excuse to have a good self-indulgent cry.

Far from being signs of “greatness” or emotional maturity, the periodic swellings of emotion in England over the past couple of centuries were the anguished pleas of a lonely and atomized populace, desperate for company.3

In other words it was not about Diana it was about us.

As for my own opinion about Diana. I personally at the time thought she was an upper class twit, who although she did some good work, was self centred and shallow. Further I saw her as a manipulative bitch. The celibrityitis around her appalled me, and I was sick to death about hearing of her.

However although I still see in her a far too shallow twit and manipulative bitch I do see that she was less the airhead I thought she was. After her death I found out that she used to take Prince William and Harry to hospitals to see and meet with chronically ill patients with diseases like Aids, Cancer and so forth all without the media being around; in order for her very privileged sons to get a dose of reality. So it appears that her concern for these people was not just for the photo ops she would get.

I did watch the funeral, (what can I say the hype got to me), and I must admit that I was genuinely moved when I saw the close up of the card on the coffin which said simply MUMMY. But then someone would have to have a heart of iron not to have been moved by that. It was a very forceful reminder that two young men had lost their mother. Beneath all the sentimental, self indulgent hogwash was that painful truth; two boys who had just lost their mother.

1. Wheen, Francis, How Mumbo-Jumbo conquered the World, Public Affairs, New York, 2004, p. 193.

2. See Coroner’s Inquests into the Deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales and Mr. Dodi Al Fayed, Here.

3. Wheen, p. 199.

Aside from my own, not entirely reliable memory, I used pp. 192-204 of Wheen’s book.

Pierre Cloutier

“Development”?

One of the problems of the historiography of modern Europe is the “westernization” and “modernization” of Russia and why this process which started with Peter the Great seems to have had at best only a partial success? Why as Russia in so many ways proved to be resistant to the process of “westernization” and “modernization”?

Maybe the question should be phrased differently; perhaps the reason why Russia failed to “westernize”, “modernize” more than particially is precisely the effects of the process of “westernization” and “modernization”.

Yet if the Russian experience warns against any single, linear theory of modernisation, the concept nevertheless helps to bring into focus crucial interrelationships between government, economy, and society. Russia’s kinship-dominated peasant communities were not the casual detritus of government-led modernisation: they were its direct consequence. As the state counted the cost of its new standing army, its extensive multi-national territories, its administrative institutions, and its glittering cosmopolitan capital, the people paid the price. Risk-averse peasants relapsed into intensified collective responsibility as the only safe way to meet the government’s increasing fiscal demands. The more Russia’s rulers tried to modernize their state, the more backward their empire became.1

This opens up a whole new area of thought. Usually the “modernizers” of Russian History like Peter the Great, Catherine the Great, are celebrated has great visionaries and bearers of progress and enlightenment. The above quote asks us to think again about the real legacy of such reform from above.

Aside from the issue of exaggerating Russia’s isolation from the “west” and Russia’s “backwardness”, and locating “all” “good” in adopting the attributes of the “west”, this approach systematically ignores certain features of Russian development. Of course such an approach flatters the chauvinistic assumptions of “westerners” and also plays into the assumption that some how Russia really isn’t part of the “west”.

For example Peter the Great’s reformation of Russian society, economy and culture was accomplished through a vast strengthening of the forces of coercion and violence. It was a top down operation. Even today we have little idea of the sheer scale of violence and bloodshed required to effect these changes. Peter the Great used a vast Secret Police network and mass terror. I could give a long list of Peter’s myriad atrocities. I will simply mention that the building of St. Petersburg on a delta of the Neva river cost the lives of who knows how many forced labourers.2

Peterof palace near St. Petersburg

In fact due to violent oppression, massive fiscal demands etc., it appears that the population of Russia actually fell during Peter’s reign.3 In many respects Peter was similar to Stalin in that much of the modernization accomplished was through violent, coercive means in a process that was frequently costly and wasteful in lives and money. It was also accompanied by a massive extension of state power. If anything society became far more rigid, intrusive and authoritarian than before.4

Russia under the old regime was in many ways a centralized, authoritarian state with some truly unpleasant features, but it appears in many respects Peter the Great’s reforms massively strengthened these features of the state.5

The creation of a bureaucratic system of police surveillance with a vast array of police spies and intrusive bureaucratic system went hand in hand with a systematic regularization of procedure, including the systematic use of torture. Hand in hand with this process went the vast expansion of the internal passport system and similar measures to control internal movement. Censorship and other forms of detecting and destroying thought-crime also were regularized. And of course the use of such means of punishment has exile; forced labour and execution were also systemitized.6

To quote:

The Peterine reforms were also the apotheosis of statism that in practice left no place until now for other (nonstate) forms of social existence. The era of the Peterine reforms was the time of the foundations of the totalitarian state, the graphic preaching and inculcation into mass consciousness of the cult of the strong personality – the boss, “the father of the nation,” “the teacher of the people.” It was also the time of the start-up of the “eternal prime mover” of a native bureaucratic machine that worked until now according to its own internal laws alien to society.7

If Peter the Great left behind a legacy that can be described as ambiguous what can one say about Catherine the Great?

Of course Catherine the Great has a huge horde of modern “western” fans who once again, like with Peter, writhe in ecstasy at the “reformer’s” feet. The legion of biographies taken in by her posturing and building, and very successful wars of conquest are characterized by fawning hero worship.8

The fact is Catherine continued the process of enforced “westernization” of Peter although with vastly less overt brutality. The power of the state was largely undiminished and so was the way in which the state operated. What changed was that Catherine decided to make the nobility her ally in the ruthless exploitation of Russia. Her “reforms” and “freeing” of the nobility were accompanied by giving to the nobility vastly greater autocratic powers over the peasantry. These powers already very large before Peter were increased by Peter and reached their apogee under Catherine. Even her founding of hospital’s orphanages etc., and of course the Noble Bank, which was basically nothing more than means to allow the nobility to loot the treasury.9

It is the peasantry that paid most of the price for the “westernization” of Russia and Russia’s development into a great power.

The fiscal and social exploitation of the peasantry by the state increased massively under the “westernization” regimes. This was accompanied by an increase in exploitation by the nobility, who like the state had to pay for their efforts to “westernize”.

Before Peter the Great became Tsar the overwhelming majority of Russian peasants had through state coercion become Serfs. Either serfs proper, bound to particular nobles, or state peasants. They had gradually over a period of several centuries been striped of their rights and partially enslaved. Eventually in fact serfs could be bought and sold.10

The great symbol of fiscal oppression by the state was the soul tax, which flagrantly disregarded the ability to pay, which each adult male was required to pay to the state. It was regressive and each village community or Mir was made responsible for the tax. The tax was devised and was implemented in the reign of Peter the Great. It was part of a whole series of taxes and impositions (labour, men for the army etc.) that imposed themselves on the peasantry and which the peasantry dealt with by reinforcing and strengthening ideas of communal responsibility. Further this constant and quite sustained fiscal etc., pressure from the state and landlord created among the peasantry a situation in which individual initiative was not rewarded but in fact punished. The result was the creation of a risk adverse culture among the peasantry, a lack of interest in rural development and especially agricultural development. The result was the backwardness of Russian agriculture.11

One of the most interesting features of the development of Russia during this time is the lack of interest by the state in developing roads. Why this is so is subject to much debate. It was perhaps the huge cost radically improving the road system combined with a reliance on water transport.12 It is possible that this neglect was in part because an improved road system although it would reduce the cost of moving goods considerably would also ease the flight of peasants away from their bondage.

The other taxes imposed by the state were similarly regressive and fell heavily on the peasantry that took refuge from the onerous obligations to state and landlord through collective responsibility. The fact that the state later on created institutions that gave massive largess to the nobility in return for their support further increased the fiscal oppression of the state. If you add in labour corves etc., the fiscal oppression of the peasantry was severe. To add to the peasantries woes the soul tax and other taxes increased substantially over time as well as the landlord’s demands.13

Everything else in Russian society was coloured by the ruthless fiscal oppression of the peasantry. The idea that the west could be emulated by obedience and coercion, that people could be regimented to be free was omnipresent. The habits of pre-peterine Russia of slavish obedience and the capricious and oppressive nature of authority that was not bound by agreed upon rules was if anything increased under the “westernization” regimes. Education produced not the autonomous individuals of the west but technocrats whose basic attitude was slavish subordination. The result was a continual need to import experts from the west. In many respects the backwardness of Russia was noticeably increased as “westernization” including a dynamic and expensive foreign policy, created such demands on society as to drain away the money and initiative to actually transform society.14

A classic example of the massive extension of state power under the “westernization” regimes was the treatment of the Church. In the pre-peterine period the Church had a certain degree of real autonomy; the result of Peter’s “reforms” and the actions of certain of his successors, especially Catherine the Great, was to turn the Church into a adjunct of the state and to greatly if not fatally damage the Church in spiritual terms. Basically the Church became an object of manipulation and abuse by the state. It became a cash cow of the state and another way of squeezing the population. If the Church had serious problems before Peter they became immeasurably worst under Peter and his successors.15

Economic and commercial development proceeded to a large extent without the creation of a self aware, self confident middle class / bourgeoisie, dependence on state help and manifold interference by the state was omnipresent and oppressive.16

The end result was a state and society whose “westernization was to a large extent superficial and based on intense coercion and oppression. In many respects features of pre-peterine Russia were intensified by “westernization”. Certainly not intended, but the actual results of the reformers efforts. Instead of freeing their society from the straight jacket of the past Peter and Catherine in fact basically reinforced and added new and brutal features to the oppressive system they had inherited. Behind the glitter was a rigid authoritarian system that was by the standards of the day uniquely oppressive, coercive and wasteful. And in the end it in the long run added further impediments on Russia’s ability to modernize.

In 1839 a Frenchman, the Marquis de Custine, visited Russia for a few months. Despite the brevity of his visit he produced what many regard has one of the greatest travel / political science books of all time.17 He also produced this verdict on the work of the “westernizers”:

Peter I. and Catherine II. have given to the world a great and useful lesson, for which Russia has had to pay: they have shown to us that despotism is never so much to be dreaded as when it pretends to do good, for then it thinks the most revolting acts may be excused by the intention; and the evil that is applied as a remedy has no longer any bounds. Crime exposed to view can triumph only for a day; but false virtues for ever lead astray the minds of nations. People, dazzled by the brilliant accessories of crime, by the greatness of certain delinquencies justified by the event, believe at last that there are two kinds of villainy, two classes of morals,, and that necessity, or reasons of state, as they were formerly called, exculpate criminals of high lineage, provided they have so managed that their excesses should be in accord with the passions of the country.18

Also Custine says:

In Russia, the government interferes with every thing and vivifies nothing. In that immense empire, the people, if not tranquil, are mute; death hovers over all heads, and strikes capriciously whom it pleases: man there has two coffins, the cradle and the tomb.19

Finally:

I must correct myself — there is no people of Russia: there is an emperor, who has serfs, and there are courtiers who have serfs also; but this does not constitute a people.20

De Custine went to Russia in the hope of finding an Autocracy that worked, what he instead found was an autocracy whose glittering surface features disguised and in fact reinforced it’s backwards autocratic features.

When in 1725 Peter the Great died someone produced a woodcut of mice burying the cat. The cat is clearly Peter and the sense of relief of the “mice” that the tormenting cat was no longer around is palatable.21 Like the rule of Stalin Peter’s reign had had great accomplishments but at a truly terrible price.

The people of Russia paid in spades for the “modernization”, and “westernization” of Russia because it was done as the first quote emphasizes by means which at the same time it pushed Russia forward pushed Russia backwards.

The Mice bury the Cat

1. Dixon, Simon, The Modernization of Russia 1676 – 1825, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1999, p. 256.

2. See Anisimov, Evgenni V., The Reforms of Peter the Great, M. E. Sharpe, London, 1993, for a detailed description of this process. For St. Petersburg see pp. 239-243.

3. Anisimov, p. 177-178, 291-292.

4. Anisimov, p. 184-202, and Pipes, Richard, Russia under the Old Regime, Penguin Books, London, 1974, pp. 112-138.

5. For an overview of the pre-Peterine state see Pipes, pp. 85-111.

6. Anisimov, pp. 217-243.

7. IBID, p. 296.

8. Just Google you will find acres of such “biographies”, although hagiographies is more accurate.

9. Blum, Jerome, Lord and Peasant in Russia, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1961, pp. 382-385, 424-425, 428-431.

10. See IBID, pp. 247-276, 414-441.

11. Dixon, p. 64, Anisimov, pp. 170-183.

12. IBID, pp. 240-241.

13. IBID, pp. 64-65.

14. IBID, pp. 152-156, Anisimov, pp. 184-202.

15. Dixon, pp. 209-220, Blum, pp. 364-366, Pipes, pp. 221-248.

16. Dixon, pp. 225-255, Anisimov, pp. 170-183.

17. de Custine, Astolphe, The Empire of the Czar, (in three volumes), Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, London, 1843.

18. IBID, v. 3, p. 317.

19. IBID, v. 3, p. 305.

20. IBID. v. 3, p. 328.

21. Anisimov, pp. 288-290.

Pierre Cloutier

A Fanatic for all Seasons

Thomas More

The play A Man for All Seasons,1 is a most interesting play in that it is of a man who never existed. That man is of course Thomas More. The More in the play is to be polite a lie and fabrication. The heavy handed play and its lugubrious and highly painfully earnest film version are parts of the lie that is the popular mythology about Thomas More that flourishes to this day.

Thomas More was born on February 7, 1478.2 Thomas More studied at the various Inns of Court and became a Lawyer. Thomas More wanted to be a Priest or Monk but decided reluctantly to get married to a woman named Jane Colt. When Jane Colt died in 1511, Thomas More almost immediately married a rich widow by the name of Alice Middleton who survived him. He served as advisor to the great Cardinal Wolsey and made friends with the great Humanist, Renaissance scholar Erasmus with whom he had a life long friendship.3

Of course Thomas More wrote Utopia, 4, (meaning no place), which was published in 1516. Much as been made of the religious tolerance of the Utopians. For example:

…for this is one of their most ancient laws, that no man ought to be punished for his religion. At the first constitution of their government, Utopus having understood that before his coming among them the old inhabitants had been engaged in great quarrels concerning religion, by which they were so divided among themselves, that he found it an easy thing to conquer them, since instead of uniting their forces against him, every different party in religion fought by themselves; after he had subdued them, he made a law that every man might be of what religion he pleased, and might endeavor to draw others to it by force of argument, and by amicable and modest ways, but without bitterness against those of other opinions; but that he ought to use no other force but that of persuasion, and was neither to mix with it reproaches nor violence; and such as did otherwise were to be condemned to banishment or slavery.

This law was made by Utopus, not only for preserving the public peace, which he saw suffered much by daily contentions and irreconcilable heats, but because he thought the interest of religion itself required it. He judged it not fit to determine anything rashly, and seemed to doubt whether those different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire men in a different manner, and be pleased with this variety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for any man to threaten and terrify another to make him believe what did not appear to him to be true. And supposing that only one religion was really true, and the rest false, he imagined that the native force of truth would at last break forth and shine bright, if supported only by the strength of argument, and attended to with a gentle and unprejudiced mind; while, on the other hand, if such debates were carried on with violence and tumults, as the most wicked are always the most obstinate, so the best and most holy religion might be choked with superstition, as corn is with briars and thorns.

He therefore left men wholly to their liberty, that they might be free to believe as they should see cause;…5

This passage and several others have been used as evidence that Thomas more was a tolerant man however it ignores that the Utopians were not tolerant of atheists:

…only he [Utopus] made a solemn and severe law against such as should so far degenerate from the dignity of human nature as to think that our souls died with our bodies, or that the world was governed by chance, without a wise overruling Providence: for they all formerly believed that there was a state of rewards and punishments to the good and bad after this life; and they now look on those that think otherwise as scarce fit to be counted men, since they degrade so noble a being as the soul, and reckon it no better than a beast's: thus they are far from looking on such men as fit for human society, or to be citizens of a well-ordered commonwealth; since a man of such principles must needs, as oft as he dares do it, despise all their laws and customs: for there is no doubt to be made that a man who is afraid of nothing but the law, and apprehends nothing after death, will not scruple to break through all the laws of his country, either by fraud or force, when by this means he may satisfy his appetites. They never raise any that hold these maxims, either to honors or offices, nor employ them in any public trust, but despise them, as men of base and sordid minds: yet they do not punish them, because they lay this down as a maxim that a man cannot make himself believe anything he pleases; nor do they drive any to dissemble their thoughts by threatenings, so that men are not tempted to lie or disguise their opinions; which being a sort of fraud, is abhorred by the Utopians. They take care indeed to prevent their disputing in defence of these opinions, especially before the common people; but they suffer, and even encourage them to dispute concerning them in private with their priests and other grave men, being confident that they will be cured of those mad opinions by having reason laid before them.6

Further it is clear from Thomas More’s comments that one of the signs of the Utopians superiority is that they are eager to listen too and be converted to Christianity. Further since the Utopians are non-Christians they would have to be religiously tolerant to be able to more easily receive Christianity.7

There is no question that Thomas More believed utterly and completely in the absolute truth of the Catholic version of Christianity

Perhaps the best indication of the “true” Thomas More is in his myriad writings about heresy.

We have for example the fate of James Bainham. Thomas More while Lord Chancellor of England was involved in his arrest, questioning and imprisonment. James Bainham was charged with heresy and had after his first arrest been given the choice of being burned or recanting. James Bainham had not surprisingly recanted. After all who wants to die? Afterwards, filled with guilt, James Bainham recanted his recantation and soon afterwards was arrested again. As a relapsed heretic he was shortly afterwards burned. Foxe in his Book of Martyrs, claimed that Thomas More, who had been involved in questioning James Bainham, had him tortured and whipped. These claims are doubted today yet Thomas More wrote about the death of Bainham and other “heretics”:

And for heretics as they be, the clergy both denounce them. And they be well worthy, the temporalty doth burn them. After the fire of Smithfield, hell doth receive them where the wretches burn forever.8

Another example of Thomas More’s victims was Thomas Hitton a priest who was sympathetic to various aspects of Protestantism. Thomas More writes that Thomas Hitton was:

…an apostle, sent to and fro betwene our Englysshe heretykes beyonde the see and such as were here at home. The spirit of errour and lyenge hath taken his wretched soul with him strayte from the shorte fyre to ye fyre ever lastyng. And this is lo sir Thomas Hitton, the dyuyls [devil's] stynkyng martyr, of whose burnynge Tyndale maketh boste.9

When a man named John Twekesbury was burned Thomas More stated:

burned as there was never wretche I wene better worthy.10

While he was Lord Chancellor Thomas More violated rules of English law to get at heretics and he continued to rejoice until his own death in the destruction of heretics.11 He carried out until his death a vicious vendetta against William Tyndale the translator of the New Testament into English. Thomas More described William Tyndale as:

beste oute of whose brutyshe bestely mouth cometh a fylthy fome.12

Eventually Thomas More played a role, even though Thomas More was in the tower at the time awaiting his own execution in William Tyndale’s horrible death by fire.13.

The Execution of William Tyndale

Thus does Thomas More crow in hateful joy at the hideous death of other human beings judicially murdered for their opinions.

Thomas More in 1529 published a book called A Dialogue Concerning Heresies,14 In it we find such good words as:

The Author showeth his opinion concerning the burning of Heretics and that it is lawful, necessary, and well done.15

In A Dialogue concerning Heresies, we get such bon mots as this concerning Martin Luther.

…a fond friar, to an apostate, to an open incestuous lecher, a plain limb of the devil, and a manifest messenger of hell.16

For in More’s eyes regarding heresy:

there is no fault that more offendeth God.17

Finally Thomas More wrote in a letter to Erasmus as follows:

...with deep feeling. I find that breed of men [heretics] absolutely loathsome, so much so that, unless they regain their senses, I want to be as hateful to them as anyone can possibly be for my increasing experience with these men frightens me with the thought that the whole world will suffer at their hands.18

Richard Marius says this about Thomas More and his campaign against heresy:

To stand before a man at an inquisition, knowing that he will rejoice when we die, knowing that he will commit us to the stake and its horrors without a moment’s hesitation or remorse if we do not satisfy him, is not an experience much less cruel because our inquisitor does not whip us or rack us or shout at us.

...

But in the same work, [More’s, Apology, 1533] More - by then out of office – exhorted the bishops not to falter in their zeal to suppress heretics by any measures at their command.

His own labour was utterly single-minded and not mitigated by any flash of mercy or tolerance. Heretics were enemies of God, servants of Satan, minions of hell, and beyond all that, they were usually lower-class, people without roots resolved to root out the grand old faith which was the only guarantee of meaning in the universe. More believed that they should be exterminated, and while he was in office he did everything in his power to bring that extermination to pass. That he did not succeed in becoming England’s Torquemada was a consequence of the king’s quarrel with the pope and not a result of any quality of mercy that stirred through More’s own heart.19

Thomas More as a man of tolerance is a myth. The tolerance in his ideal society described in Utopia is a function of the fact that the Utopians are non Christians that More wants to become Christians so of course they are tolerant,; but not of atheism which More abominated. The tolerance of the Utopians tells us zero about More’s own attitudes in this matter. Instead his large corpus of written writings is full of hatred against so-called heretics and zealous in calls for their violent suppression by terror and painful death right to the end of More’s life. All this makes an interesting contrast with More’s friend Erasmus whose tolerance and dislike of violence make it manifest that he would almost certainly have never have overseen the judicial murder of individuals for so-called heresy.

It is ironic that Thomas More who believed it was right to murder men, and had in fact done so, for their opinions was murdered for his own.20

1. Bolt, Robert, A Man for all Seasons, Vintage, New York, 1990, see the following critique, O'Connell, Marvin, A Man for all Seasons: an Historian's Demur, at Here

2. Marius, Richard, Thomas More, Fount Paperbacks, New York, 1984, p. 3.

3. IBID. pp.14-83.

4. A copy of Utopia can be found at the Oregon State website Here.

5. IBID. Utopia, in Book II: Of the Religions Of the Utopians, at Here

6. IBID.

7. IBID. also Marius, pp. 152-183.

8. IBID. Marius quoting Thomas More p. 406.

9. Moynahan, Brian, Thomas More: Zero Tolerance, Part II, at Here, quoting Thomas More.

10. IBID.

11. IBID.

12. IBID. and Moynahan, Brian, Thomas More: Zero Tolerance, Part I, at Here

13. IBID.

14. See More, Thomas, The Complete Works of St. Thomas More; volume 6: A Dialogue Concerning Heresies, ed. Louis A. Schuster, Richard C. Marius, James P. Lusardi and Richard J. Shoeck, Yale University Press, New Haven CT., 1973.

15. Quoted in Marius, p. 347.

16. See More, Dialogue..., p. 346.

17. IBID. p. 407.

18. More, Thomas, St. Thomas More: Selected Letters, ed. by Elizabeth Frances Rogers. Yale University Press, New Haven CT., 1961, pp.180.

19. Marius, p. 406.

20. For more about Thomas More has fanatic see Marius and Ridley, Jasper, The Statesman and the Fanatic, Constable, London, 1982.

Pierre Cloutier

“St. John of Kennedy”

John Kennedy

The above is of course meant sarcastically. The cult around John Kennedy is in so many ways similar to the cult around Princess Diana Spencer.1 Reality may not intrude and fantasizing about a mythical iconic figure blows rational thought out the window and it is replaced by sentimental glop.

Other overrated and largely inexplicable icons have existed and will continue to exist and emerge from time to time. The cult around James Dean is a truly outstanding example. He stared in a mere 3 movies, although he had unaccredited roles in several more.2 Yes he was a good actor but to any remotely rational human being his iconic status is wildly out of proportion to his talent or to his actual acting career. Certainly when People magazine listed him has the 4th greatest actor of all time years ago they were capitulating to “iconitis” and nothing rational.3

The same is true of John Kennedy. Any rational analysis of his actual achievements would reveal that yes he was a handsome man, very photogenic, and a good speaker but his actual achievements were not exactly major. But of course here is where the myth making takes off. Worshipers of St. John wax eloquently about the great and wonderful things he would have accomplished if he had lived. Exactly what those great achievements would have been is basically expressed by a haze of sentimental hogwash.

The very word used to describe his term in the White House, “Camelot”, shows not reality but a craving for mythical, heroic fantasy and that is what Kennedy groupies provide in abundance. During his presidency Kennedy provided lots of airy flighty rhetoric but much less concrete action.

The myriad of Kennedy hagiographies is seemingly endless. The cult of Lenin in the former Soviet Union provides a useful parallel. It is clear that so many long to fall on their knees and adore a Monarch by divine right. One can find in book stores row upon row of books writhing in ecstasy about St. John and the Kennedy royal family. This myth making reached a height off absurdity with the frankly over the top coverage of the death of John Kennedy Jr. The absurd level of T.V. coverage, the massive number of magazine cover stories about it vastly exceeded any importance of the event. What the hell had John Kennedy Jr. done to merit such wall to wall coverage of his death? The answer is virtually nothing.4

It’s all part of the cult of the Kennedys in which hallucination replaces reality and mental masturbation acts like heroin on the mind.

Books or articles that disparage the Kennedy legend are few and far between and frequently get a hysterical response for the crime of lese majestie. St. John is immune from mere criticism.

Let us look at one particular mythos the idea that Kennedy was planning to withdraw from Vietnam before he was killed.5

The book that outlined that idea got rave reviews from Kennedy acolytes like Arthur Schlesinger who waxed eloquently about how convincing the book was and how he knew at the time that Kennedy was planning to withdraw.6 But Noam Chomsky, annoying party pooper that he is, bothered to check the sources and found out some very interesting things.

What Chomsky found out was that Kennedy was a “Cold War Liberal”, that yes he was planning to withdraw from Vietnam, but only when they, the Americans, had won. This, incidentally, was the position of Lyndon Johnson up to 1968. That Kennedy had supported a massive increase in American aid to Vietnam, including assisting troops and air attacks. Further Chomsky found that not a breath of this alleged withdrawal could be found in Schlesinger massive book A Thousand Days, 7 published before it became fashionable to attack America’s commitment in Vietnam. When Schlesinger says that he knew about the alleged plan to withdraw at the time he is simply not telling the truth. Further he did not turn against the war until 1968 and not earlier.8 This fantasy was subsequently used by Oliver Stone in his movie J.F.K. as the reason for Kennedy’s assassination by the “Military Industrial Complex”; which on Oliver Stone’s reading seems to include millions of people.

Carefully elided from the hagiographies is the involvement of the Kennedy administration in such things as Operation Mongoose, a terrorist campaign against Cuba in which many civilians were killed and much damage done. And in regards to Cuba Kennedy ordered carried out several assasination attempts against Castro. Basically the United States functioning has a terrorist state.9

Books like Gary Will’s The Kennedy Imprisonment,10 which criticize the Kennedy Administration for being all form and little substance and for being an exercise in macho posturing do not get much read or used. St. John of Kennedy is simply beyond serious criticism of any kind.

Of course the apogee of St. John worship is the movie mentioned above by Oliver Stone J.F.K. As a movie it is brilliant, entertaining fiction. As history it is a joke. Stone’s distortions and out and out falsehoods are incredible.11 He buys for example the St. John intending to withdraw from Vietnam mythos, and Stone’s portrayal of William Garrison is quite simply a lie. The movie’s view is that if Kennedy had not died, God’s one and only begotten son, (John Kennedy of course), would have ushered in the golden age. This is frankly a Fascistic view of the world. That conspiracies rule and that “Great Men” can save us and institutions, social arrangements make little difference because only a “Great Man” can save us.

Of course the key element in this cult is Kennedy’s assassination. The idea that a lone nut bar could have killed him is anathema to Kennedy’s iconic, mythic status. God’s one and only begotten son must be killed by a vast satanic conspiracy of the forces of darkness. St. John must be martyred by evil secret cabals who wish us ill. It just can’t be that petty insignificant people like Lee Harvey Oswald could do it. Of course it would be nice if the conspiracy fanatics could just make up their mind about who and why and how. But the flood of conspiracy literature will probably never end and vast numbers of people will waste vast intellectual resources on this sterile endeavor. Just who did it? It seems the list of participants, (from the Mob to the KGB etc.), is endless in length.12 I rather doubt that the “Military Industrial Complex”, was involved because Kennedy was their zealous servant, (Just see his increases in military spending).13

So in the end the cult of St. John of Kennedy is a typical savior cult with the young God who dies in order to save us from our sins combined with the idea of the fall from primordial innocence into a corrupt world due to the machinations of the forces of evil.

Kennedy was no such savior he was a typical politician of no earth shaking ability with a great deal of charisma that vastly exceeded his actual accomplishments and a remarkable ability to charm the intelligentsia. Lots of flash and little substance. Kennedy’s death put the seal on his deification and was the deus ex machina that created his iconic status. It is because of his iconic status that the cults most bizarre feature the conspiracy abscess that rots the minds of so many is considered to be so reasonable by so many. Only a vast conspiracy could take away the godlike savior who would have ushered in the golden age.

In the end St. John’s status is only of interest to students of mass psychology and hysteria. Kennedy’s accomplishments remain paltry compared to his publicity.

1. This particular cult of personality is particularly annoying given what a whinny little airhead Diana was. Feel free to disagree.

2. Wikipedia, Here

3. I’m working from memory here, clarification would be welcome.

4. For more about John Kennedy Jr. see Wikipedia, Here.

5. See Newman, John, JFK and Vietnam, Warner Books, New York, 1992, for a presentation of this fantasy.

6. Chomsky, Noam, Rethinking Camelot, South End Press, Boston, 1993, pp. 125-126.

7. Schlesinger, Arthur, A Thousand Days, Houghton Mifflin, New York, 1965. I checked A Thousand Days Chomsky is right there is no mention of withdrawal without victory. For Kennedy’s escalation of American involvement in Vietnam see, Chomsky, 1993, pp. 49-104.

8. Chomsky, 1993, pp. 105-127.

9. Chomsky, 1993, p. 145, See also Chomsky, Noam, Understanding Power, Edited by Michell, Peter R., Schoeffel, John, The New Press, New York, 2002, pp. 7-10, see also the Footnotes to Understanding Power, Footnote 21, pp. 12-14 available at Here. See also, Reitzes, Dave, The JFK 100: Oliver Stone's portrayal of John F. Kennedy, at Here.

10. Wills, Gary, The Kennedy Imprisonment, Mariner Books, New York, 2002. Originally published in 1982. Other examples of items critical of Kennedy and the Kennedy mythos are Vidal, Gore, The Holy Family, United States: Essays 1952-1992, Broadway Books, New York, 1993, pp. 809-826, (Originally Published in Esquire, 1967), and Hersh’s JFK, The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000, Vintage Books, 2001, pp. 220-237, (Originally Published in The New Yorker, 1997). A book that truly enraged the worshippers at the Kennedy shrine was Hersh, Seymour M., The Dark Side of Camelot, Little Brown, New York, 1997. Hersh's total failure to grovel before the shrine just infuriated the true believers.

11. See Reitzes, Dave, The JFK 100, Here See also Lambert, Patricia, False Witness, M. Evans and Co. Inc., New York, 1998, pp. 211-226.

12. For a demolition of conspiracy crap see Bugliosi, Vincent, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy, W.W. Norton, New York, 2007. This massive book of over 1600 pages goes over conspiracy fantasy like a glacier.

13. Chomsky, 1993, pp. 142-144, See also Footnote 9, Reitzes, Dave, The JFK 100, Oliver Stone's portrayal of John F. Kennedy.

Pierre Cloutier

Propaganda

An example courtesy of an IRA Stooge

Front Cover

Nothing but an Unfinished Song,1 shows that once again the propaganda apparatus of the IRA has produced, indirectly in this case, a celebration of IRA terrorism and violence. We learn in the book in great detail about Bobby Sands upbringing, about his fears and wants, about what a good boy he was when he was younger. Much is made of his friendships and what a likable young man he was. We learn in excruciating detail about just how terrible his death was from hunger. We learn what a nice idealistic young man he was and how much he suffered and what a martyr he was for the cause.

We do not of course learn much if anything about the lives of those who were killed by the bombings he was involved with. Their hopes, fears, aspirations, what their childhoods were like. Who loved them. All that is absent. Neither are details of how unpleasant their deaths were. About what it was like to be blown to pieces to be horribly injured and die agonizingly of those injuries. The horror of being crippled, blinded, brain damaged for life are all ignored. Bobby Sands is in this world a worthy victim, his victims and other victims of the IRA are unworthy victims to which every effort must be made to forget. Such are the implications of this book.

The fact is the IRA deliberately hijacked the Catholic civil rights movement has part of a deliberate strategy to provoke a crackdown which would lead to British intervention. This would in turn lead to repression against Catholics and support for a terrorist campaign against the British and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Eventually the British would leave in disgust and the Republic of Ireland would intervene to save the Catholics in the North from savage Protestant attack. This leading to the unification of Ireland. Afterwards the IRA would target the government in Dublin for overthrow. The eventual aim being the establishment of a one party "Leninist" state in all of Ireland.2

One doesn't know how to react to such bald faced cynicism and gall. In 1969 the Catholics had a great deal to complain about in terms of their treatment in Northern Ireland; rightly called the "Orange State", dedicated to preserving and enshrining the Protestant ascendancy. A civil rights movement was an obvious response, but the IRA manipulated it for their own purposes deliberately hoping and acting so has to create an inevitable repressive response which would further, they thought, their long range goals.

In pursuit of its aims the IRA murdered, bombed and committed numerous vile atrocities. Including much killing within its own ranks of those who who "betrayed" the movement. Including those who got sick of the massacres. The possibility that Bobby Sand had no choice in going on the hunger strike, the alternative to doing so being death puts a new light on the matter. For over 25 years the IRA tried to terrorize the Protestants into accepting forcible unification and the British into abandoning Northern Ireland. Despite countless despicable outrages they failed.

What the IRA until the end never seemed to get was faced with the intractable opposition of the majority of the population of Northern Ireland their chances of success were slight. Further that their atrocities would only cement that opposition. The result was failure. The IRA was quite simply defeated as mentioned in the following review of the book examined in this essay:

This year marks the 25th anniversary of those awful months. Sands may have started his protest to vindicate republican violence, but the hunger strike's paradoxical effect was to bring the armed struggle to an end — and, ultimately, to persuade the IRA to accept the legitimacy of Northern Ireland, the state that Sands and his dead comrades had dedicated their lives to destroying.3

Nothing but an Unfinished Song, of course doesn't dwell on much less acknowledge that the end result was a defeat of the IRA and the binding of Northern Ireland even more firmly to Britain. Neither does the book mention in much detail how what was finally achieved could and would have come about, almost certainly, much sooner if it had not been for the violence, of which the IRA was so heavily involved. Instead the book surrounds with a haze of sentimentality and nostalgia the memory of the hunger strikers carefully ignoring so much and eliding the simple fact of failure. It was all such waste. Such reflections are not for this book which celebrates a fantasy of "success".

It is in the nature of so many terrorist movements and movements that use terrorism to create a rhetoric of heroic success even in the face of failure and this book buys into that rhetoric. Along with that is of course a basic hypocrisy of means.

The IRA and its supporters believed that they were entitled to commit myriad revolting outrages, while at the same time shrieking at the top of their sanctimonious lungs about the outrages of the other side. Thus Bobby Sands terrible death was somehow an outrage while IRA assassinations and outrages were somehow excusable. Like the murder of people in their beds. This book accepts this mindset implicitly and fully, by going on and on about Bobby Sands terrible death. Perhaps one could mention a few of the people crippled for life by IRA bombs and describe their current suffering?

The gall and hypocrisy were and are appalling. Bobby Sand was involved in outrages no doubt for a cause he considered good, just like the Protestants Ultras considered their cause good and their outrages permissible also.

The hunger strike was a huge propaganda victory for the IRA and served to attract many Catholic youths to the IRA cause. The Protestant generation is not part of the generation that the book talks about being ignited. But not being IRA believers their opinion doesn't count I guess. Various reviews talked about people from all sorts of backgrounds being politicized, by the hunger strikes just like it says in the book. Just like the book such reviews deliberately down play to the point of total erasure the fact of the sectarian basis for that support; that it was Catholic support that was galvanized not Protestant and if anything the hunger strikes and their effects further polarized the Catholics against the Protestants and if anything galvanized Protestant support against unification with Ireland and antipathy against both Catholics and unification and increased Protestant support for the continued link with Britain.

The result of this victory was more than a decade more of murder and slaughter by the IRA all to no useful end and fruitless.

No doubt many of those who had relatives and friends among the victims of Bobby Sand and his colleagues thought his suffering and death entirely well deserved.

One can't leave it at that, Bobby Sands did not commit his evil acts out of desire to be evil but out of a sense of idealistic outrage at real and perceived wrongs. It was his fate to be used and to continue to be used long after his death has a propaganda factoid. It was and remains a sadly tragic fate for a young idealist. This book is merely another part of the continued propaganda campaign.

The story of the myriad victims needs to be told, and not forgotten. But then books like this one are dedicated to the purpose of erasing the victims from history.

Perhaps the final word on this book should be given by a relative of Bobby Sands:

In response to an article headlined 'New Book is First Study of Bobby Sands', which appeared in a recent edition of the Andersonstown News, I wish to put the record straight.

According to the article, the author of the book, Denis O'Hearn, "thanks the hunger striker's sister Marcella for her help with the book." This suggests that I had "helped" or participated in some way in the compilation of this book and, therefore, endorsed it. This is misleading and untrue.

I wish to state categorically that neither I, nor any of my family, helped Mr O'Hearn with his book in any way, nor does my family endorse the book. Indeed, the opposite would be the case as his book contains numerous factual inaccuracies.4

MARCELLA SANDS

1. O'Hearn, Denis, Nothing But an Unfinished Song: Bobby Sands, the Irish Hunger Striker Who Ignited a Generation, Nation Books, New York, 2005.

2. Geraghty, Tony, The Irish War: The Hidden Conflict Between the IRA and British Intelligence, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 2002.

3. Moloney, Ed, Review, Washington Post Book World, 2006, can be found at Powell's Books, Here

4. From Amazon, Here

Pierre Cloutier

Simon de Montfort
Some Thoughts

Between 1209 C.E., and 1229 C.E., the south of France was convulsed with the war known as the Albigensian Crusade. The Crusade was formally against the so called Cathar heretics of southern France1 but turned rapidly into a mass pillaging campaign in which northern French nobility sought to gain fortune and fame.

The main leader of the Crusaders during the first part of this Crusade was Simon de Montfort, (1160-1218 C.E.). Simon was born near Paris and was the inheritor of the Montfort estates near Paris upon his fathers death in 1181 C.E. Simon de Montfort went on the infamous 4th Crusade although he did not reap much benefit from his participation.2

Drawing of a Stained Glass Portrait of Simon de Montfort

Simon’s great claim to fame is his military leadership of the Crusade against the Cathar heretics in southern France, which turned into a campaign of conquest and looting of the southern French nobility.

Map of Southern France before the Crusade

Simon’s extraordinary military ability was in evidence through much of this time period along with his iron determination to succeed. His greatest victory was his incredible victory in the Battle of Muret in 1213, which he achieved over Pedro II of Aragon, (who was killed) and the southern nobility and city militia of Toulouse.3

To quote:

(466) After this – and the death of about twenty thousand of the enemies of the faith, some by drowning, some by the sword – our most Christian Count walked barefoot from the place where he had dismounted to the church, to render thanks to Almighty God for the victory He had been granted, since he recognized that this miracle had been wrought by God’s grace and not the efforts of men His horse and his armour he gave as alms for the poor.4

So speaks Peter about his near “perfect” Christian hero after the battle.

Unfortunately Simon’s great military ability was not matched by much ability in the realm of statecraft or administration and the organized looting, disinheriting and exploitation of the domains that Simon conquered soon earned Simon a great deal of hatred and the almost extraordinary brutality of the crusade did not help. For example:

(227) Soon Aimeric, the former lord of Montreal, of whom we spoke above, was led out of Laveur with up to eighty other Knights. The noble Count [Simon] proposed that they all should be hanged from fork-shaped gibbets. However, after Aimeric, who was taller than the others, had been hanged, the gibbets started to fall down, since through excessive haste they had not been properly fixed in the ground. The Count realized that to continue would cause a long delay and ordered the rest to be put to the sword. The crusaders fell to this task with great enthusiasm and quickly slew them on the spot. The Count had the Dame of Laveur, sister of Aimeric and a heretic of the worst sort, thrown into a pit and stones heaped on her. Our Crusaders burnt innumerable heretics, with great rejoicing.

Another account of the same event.

(ch. 16) Having thus achieved the unconditional surrender of Laveur. Count Simon had the noble lord Aimeric hanged, together with a few knights; he put to the sword some other nobles and certain others who had mingled with them in the hope that knights would be spared, about eighty in all. He consigned about three hundred robed heretics to everlasting fire by having them consumed by the flames of the material world. He had Giraude the mistress of Laveur thrown into a pit and stones heaped on her. The ordinary people were spared, on conditions.

A final account of the same events.

(s. 71) They had taken this place, [Laveur] as the book says. There they burned at least four hundred evil heretics, heaping them all onto one great funeral pyre. Sir Aimery was hanged, along with many other knights – four Score they hanged there like thieves on the gibbets, some here, some there. Lady Girauda was taken and she shrieked and screamed and shouted. They held her across a well and dropped her into it, I know this for certain, and threw stones on top of her. This caused great dismay. But the other noblewomen were all set free by a kind and courteous Frenchman.5

What makes those reports even more damning is that they are from sources that approved of that sort of horror, and thought of Simon has a great hero. Unfortunately this sort of atrocity was hardly unusual but very common indeed during the Crusade.6 Indeed Peter especially is notorious for excusing and exalting in the murderous, vile atrocities of the Crusaders but if the southerners respond in kind he is quite indignant and angry. A rather interesting example of hypocrisy, but one so blatant and barefaced that I doubt that Peter was even aware in any sense of it being hypocrisy. After all his attitude seems to have been its all right if my side does it but utterly evil and wrong if the other side does it. William of Puylaurens seems to have been if pro-crusader much less of an apologist for their crimes and aware that excesses didn’t help the crusader cause.

Well sometimes in human affairs the wicked are punished, Despite Papal approval of the dispossession of Count Raymond of Toulouse, Raymond VI and his son, who became Raymond VII, continued to fight back. Toulouse, despite capitulating, to Simon was restive under his rule. Previously to quell the inhabitants of Toulouse Simon had sacked the city and razed its walls to the ground.

On the 13th of September 1217 C.E., Count Raymond VI with a tiny group of supporters entered Toulouse after a long ride from the border of Aragon. Toulouse rose in rebellion in support of the Count. To quote a contemporary account:

(s. 182) When the count [Raymond VI] entered through the arched gateway all the people flocked to him. Great and small, lords and ladies, wives and husbands, they knelt before him and kissed his clothing, his feet and legs, his arms and fingers. With tears of delight and joy they welcomed him, for joy regained bears both flower and fruit.

...

“Now we have Jesus Christ!” They said to each other, “now we have the morning star risen and shining upon us! This is our lord who was lost! Through him worth and paratge are freed from their graves, are healed and restored, and our whole kinship regains power for ever!”7

Page from a Manuscript of The Song of the Cathar Wars

Thus speaks an unabashed supporter of the southerners. Peter has a different view of the matter.

(s. 600) For at this time the citizens of Toulouse – perhaps we should say “the deceivers” - were inspired by the Devil to secede from god and the Church and revolt against the Count de Montfort. They welcomed into their city Raymond, their erstwhile Count and lord, who had been deservedly deprived of his possessions and exiled on the authority of the Pope and the Second Lateran Council.8

In October of 1217 C.E., Simon appeared in front of Toulouse and he besieged the city for eight months. The siege was fought with great determination on both sides. The Toulousians amazingly where able to rebuild their walls to a defensible state in the short time before Simon arrived.9

Despite repeated attempts Simon fails to take Toulouse and in the meantime his grip on his possessions throughout the south is slipping. On June 25 1218 C.E., while fighting a sortie from Toulouse Simon is killed. To quote The Song of the Cathar Wars:

(s. 205) As Sir Guy [Simon’s brother] was speaking and beginning to shout and yell, there was in the town a mangonel built by a carpenter and dragged with its platform from St. Sernin. This was worked by noblewomen, by little girls and men’s wives, and now a stone arrived just where it was needed and struck Count Simon on his steel helmet, shattering his eyes, brains, back teeth, forehead and jaw. Bleeding and black, the count dropped dead on the ground.

...

But a messenger brought the news [Count Simon’s death] into Toulouse and such was the joy that all over the town they ran to the churches and lit candles in all the candlesticks and cried out, “Rejoice! God is merciful and paratge shines forth, victorious forever! The cruel and murderous count is dead, dead unshriven because he was a man of blood!” Trumpets, horns and universal joy, chimes and peals and clamouring bells in belfries, drums, tabors and slender clarons rang through the town tell every paving-stone re-echoed.10

An allegoric painting of the Lamb of the Languedoc killing the Lion of de Montfort

A popular ballad was composed at this time by the southerners and it goes as follows:

Montfort
Es mort
Es mort
Es mort!
Viva Tolosa
Ciotat gloriosa
et poderosa!
Tornan lo paratge et l'onor!
Montfort
Es mort!
Es mort!
Es mort!

A translation into English is:

Montfort
Is dead
Is dead
Is dead!
Hooray for Toulouse
Glorious city
and powerful!
Honour and paratge return!
Montfort
Is dead!
Is dead!
Is dead!11

Peter, not surprisingly, has a different response to Simon’s death and composed the following epitaph.

(612) Suddenly a stone from an enemy mangonel struck Christ’s knight on the head. The blow was lethal. Twice beating his breast he commended his soul to God and the Blessed Virgin. Like St. Stephen – and stoned to death in that Saint’s city – he went to rest in the lords keeping. Before he received the fatal wound the Lords brave knight – say rather, if we are not mistaken, his most glorious martyr – was five times wounded by the enemy archers, like the Saviour for whom he now patiently accepted death, and by whose side he now lives in sublime peace, as we believe.12

William of Puylaurens says the following:

(ch. 28) So, the man who inspired terror from the Mediterranean to the British sea fell by a blow from a single stone; at his fall those who had previously stood firm fell down. In him, who was a good man, the insolence of his subordinates was thrown down. I affirm that later I heard the Count of Toulouse (the last of his line) generously praise him – even though he was the enemy – for his fidelity, his foresight, his energy and all the qualities which befit a leader.

God then gave a signal that those who arrogantly sought to govern unwilling subjects and gave no thought to purging the land of heresy (for which the whole enterprise had been started), had departed from his way.13

That is the semi-positive verdict of William of Puylaurens who is also, we must not forget, a whole hearted supporter of the inquisition and hater of heretics / heresy.

In the end despite the subsequent recovery by the southerners of virtually everything from the Crusaders and the abandonment of the whole enterprise by Simon de Montfort’s son it was all for naught. The intervention of the King the France beginning in 1226 finally broke southern resistance and in 1229 C.E., forced the Count of Toulouse, Raymond VII son of Count Raymond VI, (who had died in 1222 C.E.,) to sign a humiliating peace, (Peace of Paris 1229 C.E.,). Subsequently the Inquisition was introduced into the south and Catharism brutally suppressed. In the end the lands of the Count of Toulouse were incorporated into the royal domain of the French king.14

So in the end all did not turn out well but an alternative epitaph exists for Simon de Montfort and it is entirely appropriate unlike the epitaphs of William of Puylaurens or Peter. Both of whom, especially Peter, are far too enamored of the brave fighter against heresy. It is from the Anonymous contributor to The Song of the Cathar Wars, that we get the words that damn Simon de Montfort for all time, and they go as follows:

(s. 208) Straightway they bore him to burial in Carcassonne, and celebrated the funeral service at the monastery of Saint-Nazaire. And those who can read may learn from his epitaph that he is a saint and a martyr; that he is bound to rise again to share the heritage, to flourish in that state of unparalleled felicity, to wear a crown and have his place in the Kingdom. But for my part I have heard tell that the matter must stand thus: if one may seek Christ Jesus in this world by killing men and shedding blood by the destruction of human souls; by compounding murder and hearkening to perverse counsel; by setting the torch to great fires; by destroying the Barons and dishonouring Parage; by winning lands through violence, and working for the triumph of vain pride; by fostering evil and snuffing out good; by slaughtering women and slitting children’s throats – why, then he must needs wear a crown, and shine resplendent in Heaven.15

Tombstone of Simon de Montfort at Carcassonne16

1. For accounts of the Cathar “heresy” see The Perfect Heresy, Stephen O’Shea, Douglas and McIntyre, Vancouver, 2000, pp. 17-31, Massacre at Montsegur, Zoe Oldenbourg, Phoenix Press, London, 1961, pp. 28-81, The Cathars, Malcolm Lambert, Blackwell Pub. Ltd., London, 1998, pp. 131-170, The Cathars, Malcolm Barber, The Cathars, Longman, Toronto, 2000, pp. 6-33, 71-126, The Origins of European Dissent, 2d edition, R. I. Moore, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1985, pp. 197-240, The Medieval Manichee, Steven Runciman, The Viking Press, New York, 1947, pp. 116-170. See also The Birth of Popular Heresy, R. I. Moore, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1995, pp. 9-26, 113-154. for an interesting collection of essays about aspects of "Heresy" and "Crusading" see Crusaders and Heretics, 12th - 14th Centuries, Malcolm Barber, Variorum, Aldershot, Britain, 1995.

2. See Wikipedia article Simon de Montfort, 5th Earl of Leicester at Here.

3. For contemporary accounts of the battle see The History of the Albigensian Crusade, Peter de Les Vaux-de-Cernay, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, England, 1998, pp. 206-219, (s. 453-486). (Peter accompanied Simon on the Crusade has a chronicler). A copy in Latin can be found Here. The Song of the Cathar Wars, William of Tudela & Anonymous, Scolar Press, Aldershot England, 1996, pp. 67-71, (s. 133-141). (This is from the part written by Anonymous who is very anti-Crusader and almost certainly attached to the court of the Counts of Toulouse) A copy can be found in French Here. The Chronicle of William of Puylaurens, William of Puylaurens, The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, England, 2003, pp. 43-49, (ch. 20-21) (William of Puylaurens was an aide to Bishop Fulk of Toulouse and then to Fulk's successor in the period 1225-1260.) A copy can be found in Latin Here. Modern accounts are O’Shea, pp. 132-149, Oldenbourg, pp. 165-170.

4. Peter, p. 213.

5. The Three quotes in order are from, Peter, p. 117, Williams of Puylaurens, p. 40, Song of the Cathar Wars, William of Tudela section, p. 42. Laveur fell in 1211 C.E.

6. See O’Shea and Oldenbourg for more of the disgusting details.

7. Song of the Cathar Wars, Anonymous section, p. 122-123.

8. Peter, p. 270.

9. The best account of this siege is in Song of the Cathar Wars, pp. 122-176, (s.182-207).

10. Song of the Cathar Wars, Anonymous, p. 172.

11. Oldenbourg, p. 201. Translation by Pierre Cloutier.

12. Peter, p. 277.

13. William of Puylaurens, pp. 61-62.

14. For the unpleasant story see William of Puylaurens, pp. 64-125, (ch. 30-50), For the Treaty of Paris, 1229, a copy can be found in Chronicle of William of Puylaurens, pp. 138-144, For more discussion of these events see Oldenbourg, pp. 207-309, O’Shea, pp. 179-238.

15. I use the translation of this passage from Oldenbourg, pp. 199-200, which I like the best. The passage can also be found in Song of the Cathar Wars, Anonymous, pp. 176. The passage can be found on the website Languedoc at Here. Positive accounts of Simon de Montfort are few and far between An example of this is Simon de Montfort (1165-1218), His Life and Work: A Critical Study and Evaluation based on the Sources, Robert John Kovarik, Phd, St Louis University, 1963, a copy can be found Here. Aside from excusing, rationlizing Simon's behavior and attitudes. (The old saw about the "times" etc., ignoring the tolerance of the South for example). The author quite selectively uses data. For example he quotes (p. 348), the first part of Anonymous' epitath but excludes all of the stuff from "But for my part..." The author also manages to elide all the stuff indicating the great hatred with which Southerners regarded Simon de Montfort.

16. The body of Simon de Montfort is no longer there. Simon's son removed it in 1224 C.E., to prevent it from being violated by the resurgent southerners. See Oldenbourg, p. 207.

Pierre Cloutier