A Battle Miss-Remembered

Poltava 1709

Battle of Poltava

In a previous post I mentioned and reviewed a rather unpleasant example of the bias of the Military Historian J. F. C. Fuller,1. Here I will discuss one of Fuller's less than stellar feats in the description of a decisive battle.

“Freedom” Under a Tyranny

Isaiah Berlin

One of the most important attributes of tyranny and living under a tyranny is that intelligent people are forced to “trim their sails” in order to survive. Thus they are forced to compromise their intellect in order to stay both safe and alive. The corollary  that goes with that is that the holders of power can dictate what is “reasonable” and “rational” and their holding of power over people enables them to enforce their views against the will and intellect of others.

Lenin

A Note on his Politics

Young Lenin

Probably the most influential politician of the 20th century both directly and indirectly was Lenin. Sadly in many respects his influence was negative and in fact his career is a perfect of example of that old cliché the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

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?

Cruel Hindsight

Map of Afghanistan

In a previous posting I briefly reviewed a book published in the Marxist Regimes series that gave an overview of then Marxist governed Ethiopia.1 In that review I mentioned that The Marxist Regimes series was stunningly oblivious to the signs of the imminent implosion of Marxist regimes worldwide. That the alleged value neutral approach basically led to obliviousness to the serious structural, institutional and economic problems of those regimes and tended towards moral capitulation in the face of evil and atrocity is also clear. The book about Ethiopia by Peter Schwab was an outstanding example of moral obscenity given its celebration of a vicious regime and its fawning over Dictator Mengistu.

Nomenklatura

Some Notes on the Soviet elite

Part I

Soviet Politburo

In 1917 when the Bolsheviks seized power practically nobody expected the emergence of a new type of society with a new type of class structure. Well that is what emerged. The few who saw in the Marxist-Leninist theory the emerging of a new elite and its ideological justification were a small minority.1

Another Napoleonic Fiasco

Napoleon and Russia

A Brief Note on Supply and Size

The French Invasion of and Retreat from Russia in 1812

In a previous posting I discussed the fiasco of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt which ended with the French being trapped in Egypt and then expelled, with the loss of a bit over ½ of the expeditionary force.1 It is now approaching the 200 year anniversary of Napoleons invasion of Russia so here I will briefly discuss some myths associated with another Napoleonic fiasco, the invasion of Russia.

Sometimes Lessing is less:

Doris Lessing and the Afghans



Doris Lessing



One of more annoying features of modern life is the writer who becomes involved in a worthwhile cause and then uses it has a platform to pontificate about stuff they know little about. A classic example is Doris Lessing. Now Doris Lessing is a very well known writer who in 2007 won the Nobel Prize for literature. Unfortunately Doris Lessing aside from writing well written books has also shown a less than sterling intellectual sense about certain matters.1

Moral Cretinism Part VII

The CPUSA, Stalin and Espionage

A Book Review

Book Cover

Ideological struggles and Academic one upmanship is as old as, well, academia and no doubt will exist as long as man exists a recent example of this is the victory dance academic one upmanship performed after the fall of Communism.

Or to give a more particular example the case of spying for the Soviet Union and the American Communist party. Case in point the book In Denial by John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr.1 In the book our heroes, (Because that is how they see themselves), pat themselves on the back and do a victory dance.

Michael Parenti and Stalin’s Fingers*

Moral Cretinism Part VI

Stalin aka "Koba the Dread"

The writer and “progressive” thinker Michael Parenti is one of the few remaining thinkers who can be described as an apologist for the, now defunct, Soviet Union. In many respects Michael Parenti is like the old style “Fellow Travellers”,1 who were endlessly suspicious of the evil Capitalists of the “West”, but very forgiving of the well meaning(?) rulers of the “East”.

Palace Shadows 

Recently I rediscovered a book I originally read more than 30 years ago. The book The Shadow of the Winter Palace,1 was written by Edward Crankshaw, 1909-1984, a British Historian whose speciality was German, more specifically Austrian, and Russian history and subjects. Among his other works was a Biography of Bismarck, a biography, virtually the only one in English of the great Austrian Empress Maria-Theresa and the classic, strongly revisionist Fall of the House of Habsburg, he also edited the book of Khrushchev's memories, Khrushchev Remembers.2

The book The Shadow of the Winter Palace is one of those surprises of historical writing, in that it is very well written and Edward Crankshaw as a talent for an interesting turns of phrase. Later I will give some samples of Edward Crankshaw’s writing in this book, but first I will give an overview of the books theme and subject.

The book is not a history of Russia over that time period it is instead an overview of Russian history during that time period that concentrates on those features related to the Revolutionary upheaval that eventually destroyed the Tsarist regime.

For unlike a great number of historians Edward Crankshaw does not view the Russian Revolution as some catastrophe that, but for ill luck, the evil ideas of intellectuals and the most unfortunate “accident” of World War I would not have happened. Neither does he have much time for the counter factual notion that if Tsar Nicholas II’s son had not had haemophilia, Rasputin would not have gained ascendancy and therefore the revolution would not have happened.3

In fact Edward Crankshaw views the Revolution as clearly the product of internal Russian developments, specifically the tension between a modernizing society and the resistance of an, at best, semi-obscurantist regime.

In order to understand the origins of the Revolution Edward Crankshaw starts his book with the Decembrist revolt of 1825. This was an attempt by army officers to overthrow the new Tsar Nicholas I and replace him with his far more liberal and progressively minded brother Constantine. The attempt ended in failure and resulted in some executions and exile for the many of the plotters. It also justified Nicholas I instituting a regime of almost absurd repression.4

In many respects the book centres around the four Tsars that ruled Russia during this time period; Nicholas I, 1825-1855, Alexander II, 1855-1881, Alexander III, 1881-1894, Nicholas II, 1894-1917.

There is in the introduction that glances backwards on the reign of Alexander I and gives a good overview of the enigma that is that very strange monarch.5

Edward Crankshaw views Russia in 1825 as suffering from the disease of Autocracy, which left it with a stifled civil society, and economy. The two chief characteristics of this disease were an autocratic, interfering bureaucracy and the socially and economically destructive institution of Serfdom. Serfdom which existed in two forms in Russia, bound the great majority of the population in servitude to either individual landlords or to the state. Serfdom proper bound peasants, called Serfs, to individual landlords, whereas peasants bound to the state were State Peasants. In either case Serfdom was oppressive and acted as a great barrier to economic advancement in the country, aside from being frequently quite brutal.6

Edward Crankshaw sees that Russian attitudes towards order as detrimental to the rule of law:

Obedience to an authority which embodies, or personifies, no matter how imperfectly, fixed principles of conduct is one thing; obedience to a ruler, or a hierarchy of rulers, lacking any guiding principles whatsoever, their conduct governed by expediency, is obviously quite another. Few Russians have shown awareness of this distinction, though many have sought unconsciously to conceal the absence of principle in their autocracy, whether monarchical or dictatorial…7

Each one of the Tsar’s during this time period recognized the need to reform the state and each one in his own way avoided dealing with the problem and thus built up the forces that led to revolution.

Nicholas I 

Nicholas I, although he recognized the need to end Serfdom was so terrified of the social consequences that he put off dealing with it except at the edges, while instituting on of the most brainlessly obscurantist regimes in European history, complete with an almost hilariously absurd Secret Police system, (The Third Bureau).8 Disaster in the Crimean War, during which Russia was defeated led to eventually in its aftermath to the abolition of Serfdom by Alexander II.9

Alexander II 

In some respects it was both too much and too little. Alexander II, called the “Tsar Liberator” for his freeing of the Serfs was in many respects a contradictory figure. Although genuinely interested in deep reform of the Russian state and economy he was very ambivalent about reform in practice and consequently blew hot and cold about it. The result was that his reforms had frequently a half hearted aspect to them, this was combined with episodes of violent, brutal repression. The result was a crisis of rising expectations which climaxed with a terrorist campaign that ended with Alexander II getting killed by a terrorist bomb.10

Alexander III 

Alexander III who succeeded his father was quite a different character. Much more decisive than his father and hardworking he completed the repression of the Terrorists and anyone else who might question the autocracy. The result was what Edward Crankshaw calls “The Peace of the Graveyard”11

The result was that in Alexander III’s reign reaction was a full throttle. The violent forces that were threatening the regime were merely bottled up and increasing in explosive potential. Thus for example Alexander pursued a suicidal Russification policy.

As Edward Crankshaw writes:

Alexander III, however cared for Russians as Russians. This was unfortunate for some 50 million non-Russian citizens of the empire – from Finns and Lithuanians in the north to Georgians and Uzbeks in the south – who, in the past ,had looked to the Tsar for protection against Russian officialdom…12

This was combined with a ruthless, and massive extension of the secret police which Edward Crankshaw believes contributed to an atmosphere of officially sanctioned lawlessness.13

Nicholas II

When Alexander III died unexpectedly of an illness in 1894 he was succeeded by his son Nicholas II. Edward Crankshaw does not mince words about Nicholas II who he describes as:

…Charming, slight, boyish (infantile his father called him to Witte), not only weak of purpose but lacking all sense of purpose – except (a large exception, of course) to carry out the will of God as his obedient adjunct on earth. This involved the assertion of absolute authority in the name of the Almighty by a man who possessed no natural authority at all.14

Towards the end of the book Edward Crankshaw writes, and this is his judgement about one of Nicholas II’s decisions before World War I even stated:

With Kokovtsev’s departure Nicholas gave the game away and displayed, once and for all unmistakably, the almost awe-inspiring shallowness, the incorrigible silliness of his mind.15

Alexandra
As for Alexandra Edward Crankshaw is if anything even harsher in his opinion. He has little respect for the idea that it was due to Nicholas and Alexandra’s son having Haemophilia that led to the decisions that helped led Russia to Revolution. In Edward Crankshaw’s eyes the relationship was a disaster from day one. With the incompetent new Tsar dominated by his even more incompetent, but strong willed, wife.16

Edward describes her has:

…a religious exaltee with a strong sexual drive – a combination which is liable to colour even the most everyday transactions with a touch of the orgiastic.17

Edward Crankshaw regards her influence as almost wholly disastrous.18 In fact Edward says the following:

The remarkable thing about this sad women is not that she came to arouse profound suspicion and hatred on a nationwide scale, so that she could be accused, quite unjustly, of acting in the German interest during the war, but that nobody in that land so inured to political murder ever tried to kill her in the interest of the dynasty, as on that occasion in November 1916 when she has been making her husband’s life miserable by urging him to retain a notoriously corrupt and idiotic minister, Protopopov, because Rasputin demanded it.19

The rest of the story is simply depressing. The great minister Stolypin desperately endeavours at what Edward Crankshaw calls the “Thirteenth Hour” to save the state after the near overthrow of the state and monarchy in the 1905 Revolution. He is undermined by the corrupt vested interests of the state and others, and shortly before he is to be officially dismissed, having been already excluded from all influence he is murdered by a Secret Police spy, in a very opaque intrigue.20

After that it is simply waiting for the end as “Official” Russia basically commits suicide, and the corruptions, contradictions and sheer obtuse stupidity of the regime doom it to violent death. With or without World War I the regime was doomed.21

Considering the horrors that the new Bolshevik regime unleashed on Russia and the world, it is comforting to assume that the revolution that gave birth to that regime was an accident. It may be comforting but according to Edward Crankshaw in this well written and argued book it is simply false.

1. Crankshaw, Edward, The Shadow of the Winter Palace: Russia’s Drift towards Revolution 1825 - 1917, The Viking Press, New York, 1976.

2. See Edward Crankshaw, Wikipedia Here.

3. Crankshaw, pp. 385-389, 385-393. For the hypothesis that the Revolution was the result of the “accident” of Alexis’ (Tsar Nicholas II’s Son) having haemophilia see Massie, Robert, Nicholas and Alexandra, The Viking Press, New York, 1969.

4. Crankshaw, pp. 13-36.

5. IBID, pp. 24-31.

6. IBID, pp. 27-31.

7. IBID, p. 39.

8. IBID, pp. 54-132.

9. IBID, pp. 165-177.

10. IBID, pp. 252-271.

11. IBID, p. 272.

12. IBID. p. 281.

13, IBID, pp. 272-285.

14. IBID, p. 304.

15. IBID, p. 388.

16. IBID, pp. 307-308.

17. IBID, p. 308.

18. IBID, pp. 306-310.

19. IBID, p. 307.

20. IBID, p. 354-273. The man apparently acted on his own, but the fact is he was a Secret Police spy and the possibility of him being set up the Secret Police to remove Stolypin who was seen as a dangerous radical by reactionaries cannot be discounted.

21, IBID, pp. 374-393.

Pierre Cloutier

Moral Cretinism Part III
Longing for Big Brother


Maurice Merleau-Ponty

In two previous postings I looked at two other examples of morally cretinistic points of view. Both of them were intellectually lightweight as well as being morally bankrupt. In this example we have something that is intellectually heavyweight but just as much morally bankrupt and yes cretinistic.

The piece I will look at today is one of the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, (1908-1961).1 The work is Humanism and Terror.2 The book is in many respects a typical work of the French twentieth century philosophical school(s). It is in many places highly obtuse and rather difficult. Further it must be remembered that Merleau-Ponty was in many respects an Existential thinker, much concerned with the issue of responsibility and how people relate to each other. Also Merleau-Ponty’s writings are extremely important for twentieth pcentury philosophical notions of reality, epistemology, and phenomenology.3

Humanism and Terror is quite simply an apologia for the Stalinist terror. The fact that it is relatively complex in argument and that then Communists also denounced the book, mainly because it was not sufficiently subservient to Communist / Stalinist shibboleths,4 should not detract from the fact that the book is basically an apologia for terror.

Now in many respects Humanism and Terror, is an aberration in Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s career. Shortly after writing it he abandoned much of its argument and reverted back to a position of being highly critical of the Soviet Union and Stalinism in general.5

It is important to set the book into its context in order to understand why Merleau-Ponty went off the rails so to speak. In this case it is important to remember that France had just emerged from the Second World having been occupied for most of it (1940-1944), and that the French Communists had been heavily involved in the resistance to the Nazi occupation. Also important was the role played by the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany. All of this gave Communism and the Soviet Union enormous prestige in the minds of many intellectuals in Europe.

To this was allied the desire to avoid entanglement in another war after the recent appearance of the last devastating one. For a while it appeared that after the war it might be possible for France and much of Western Europe to become a “third way” between the Soviet Union and America. Any strong alliance with America would foreclose this possibility. So there was intellectual resistance to a firm alliance with the rising wave of anti-Soviet antagonism. Finally in many respects many intellectuals saw in rising anti-Soviet agitation something very similar to the rise of Nazism. Of course the belief, not unfounded, among many intellectuals that there was a movement towards a preventive war against the Soviet Union was also a factor in generating pro-Soviet intellectual beliefs. This is combined with a fear that the emerging western alliance against the USSR would preclude any sort of independent policy for Europe.6

Now Merleau-Ponty, wrote his book in large part in response to Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon,7 which is Arthur Koestler’s great novel about the Great Purges in Russia. It important to remember that Arthur Koestler, a former Hungarian Communist who became quite disillusioned about Communism because of the Great Purge, was the object of sustained hysterical attack from Communists and fellow travellers because of his book. Nowadays it is rather hard to see, or more accurately read, what the fuss was about. Anyone reading the novel would note right away that compared to what we do know about the Great Terror the horrors in the novel, albeit real, are pretty tame.8

What seems to have truly infuriated Merleau-Ponty about Koestler’s novel is that Koestler’s “hero” Rubashov seems to have had a very crude and limited understanding of Marxism. Merleau-Ponty also commits the error of assuming that the alleged Marxist crudities of Rubashov are in fact Koestler’s own ideas about Marxism. In fact Merleau-Ponty seems to assume that Soviet Marxists, those in power at least, have ideas about Marxism similar to his own.

Of course Koestler’s novel has stood the test of time rather well. Merleau-Ponty’s work, not so well. So let us get started with looking at Merleau-Ponty’s work.

Let us start with the following from the Author’s Preface:

Any serious discussion of Communism must therefore pose the problem in Communist terms, that is to say, not on the grounds of principles but on the ground of human relations. It will not brandish liberal principles in order to topple communism; it will examine whether it is doing anything to resolve the problem rightly raised by communism, namely to establish among men relations that are human.9

Right away Merleau-Ponty is tipping the scale. There is no reason to automatically assume that the problem must be posed in Communist terms for to do so is to predetermine the outcome right away. This is called loading the dice and fixing the race. What is also of interest is Merleau-Ponty’s relative lack of interest in determining whether or not more “human relations”, (which he does not clearly or more than cursory defines) exist in the Soviet Union. This effort to fix the outcome before hand is intellectually indefensible.

This is the spirit in which we have reopened the question of Communist violence which Koestler brought to light in Darkness at Noon. We have not examined whether in fact Bukharin led an organized opposition nor whether the execution of the old Bolsheviks was really indispensable to the order and the national defense of the U.S.S.R. We did not undertake to re-enact the 1937 trials. Our purpose was to understand Bukharin as Koestler sought to understand Rubashov. For the trial of Bukharin brings to light the theory and practice of violence under communism since Bukharin exercises violence upon himself and brings about his own condemnation. So we tried to discover what he really thought beneath the conventions of language.10

We learn from this passage that bluntly Merleau-Ponty is not interested in the innocence or lack of innocence of the accused; nor is Merleau-Ponty interested in mere fact as it pertains to the trials. Merleau-Ponty is simply interested in what the trial tells us about high abstract theories of justified and unjustified violence. Of course this rejection of mere fact has to be done otherwise Merleau-Ponty would have to consider the fact that the statements made by Bukharin made at his show trial are complete gobblygook he was forced to utter and are no more revealing of his “real” ideas than a confession extracted under torture.

It is of interest that it is utterly clear that Bukharin’s answers, statements etc at his trial have been revealed to be concoctions stage managed to justify the trial and death sentence.11 In order to use Bukharin’s statements Merleau-Ponty must with great intellectual discipline avoid all questions of the validity Bukharin’s testimony. As it is it is valueless. At the time that Merleau-Ponty could easily have been aware that Bukharin’s testimony was likely worthless, as is testimony in all such farcical show trials, but in pursuit of his “higher” truths Merleau-Ponty choose to ignore that.

Later Merleau-Ponty says:

Thus we find ourselves in an inextricable situation. The Marxist critique of capitalism is still valid and it is clear that anti-Sovietism today resembles the brutality, hybris, vertigo, and anguish that already found expression in fascism. On the other side, the Revolution has come to a halt: it maintains and aggravates the dictatorial apparatus renouncing the revolutionary liberty of the proletariat in the Soviets and its Party and abandoning the humane control of the state. It is impossible to be an anti-Communist and it is not possible to be a Communist.12

The above quote is one of the reasons why Communists at the time disliked intensely Merleau-Ponty’s essay despite its apologetic nature. As will become clear it is also clear that at the time of writing this Merleau-Ponty longed to become a Communist and love Big Brother.

Thus later when discussing violence in Revolutions Merleau-Ponty says:

In reality the most serious threat to civilization is not to kill a man because of his ideas (this has often been done in wartime), but to do so without recognizing it or saying so, and to hide revolutionary justice behind the mask of the penal code. For, by hiding violence one grows accustomed to it and makes an institution of it. On the other hand, if one gives violence its name and if one uses it, as the revolutionaries always did, without pleasure, there remains a chance of driving it out of history.13

Aside from the absurd reference to the revolutionaries committing acts of violence without pleasure which is pure propaganda about so-called pure minded, selfless revolutionary leaders, which is nothing but suck up nonsense, it is simply not true that lawless violence is not inherently corrupting. What Merleau-Ponty is talking about is in fact lawless violence. He is right that once that, violence, becomes institutionalized it becomes dangerous, but the bottom lined is that Revolutionary violence is institutional violence also and as such rather dangerous. Especially if the practitioners of said violence are glorified as selfless, disinterested saints.

In a chapter of the book Bukharin and the Ambiguity of History,14 Merleau-Ponty examines Bukharin’s trial and testimony. Amazingly Merleau-Ponty takes it seriously! This of course involves a wilful and deliberate ignorance off the facts of the trial then ascertainable. The idea that Bukharin’s testimony can tell us much about Bukharin’s “real” ideas is absurd. It is even more absurd now that we know that Bukharin was tortured and was told that his wife and young son would be arrested and murdered if he didn’t cooperate.15

Thus on page 59 Merleau-Ponty quotes Bukharin’s “testimony” as if it is unproblematic and untainted. It is obvious that Merleau-Ponty wants very much to believe that Bukharin’s testimony is in fact unproblematic, clear and untainted by such things as torture and threats of arrest and murder of his loved ones. Neither does Merleau-Ponty want to believe that it is corrupted by being rehearsed and faked to serve a specific political purpose, i.e., justifying the “guilt” of the accused and the death sentence and thus cementing Stalin’s power. Merleau-Ponty wants to believe the all powerful, all wise, all knowing and all beneficent Big Brother.

Thus although Merleau-Ponty acknowledges that Bukharin and his fellow accused were:

…up against a persistent police force and an implacable dictatorship.16

Merleau-Ponty still quotes Bukarin as saying:

“World history is a world court of judgement.”17

Merleau-Ponty assumes that this somehow represents the “real” views of Bukharin, which again illustrates nothing except Merleau-Ponty’s desire to believe Big Brother.

The airy-fairy nonsense that Merleau-Ponty assumes that Bukharin accepts his guilt for a large constellation of highly abstract theoretical reasoning based on the assumption that “History” is the ultimate justification and excuse for human actions and that if one opposes “History” one is guilty. Merleau-Ponty wants very much to believe that “History” is the ultimate judge of what is right and wrong and that those things that help “History” towards its goal are justified and thus those historical forces and personages that work towards those ends are morally justified. To but it bluntly the ends justify the means. Thus since Communists are working towards freeing humans they are justified in doing that which furthers that goal. That this would justify all sorts of human abominations and atrocities doesn’t seem to worry Merleau-Ponty very much.

That Merleau-Ponty very much wants to believe this, and surrender his intellect to Big Brother is obvious. What is also obvious despite Merleau-Ponty’s desire is that he can’t do it. Merleau-Ponty just can’t submit to Big Brother.

Of course History as not been kind to Merleau-Ponty’s fantasies regarding Bukharin’s motivations for his testimony. Instead of Merleau-Ponty’s intellectual abstractions it boiled down to torture and threats.

Thus we have Merleau-Ponty say:

The confessions in the Moscow Trials are only the extreme instance of those letters of submission to the central Committee which in 1938 were a feature of daily life in the U.S.S.R. They are only mystifying to those who overlook the dialectic between the subjective and objective factors in Marxist politics.18

The only real mystery is Merleau-Ponty’s inability to discover the dialectic between a prisoner and his jailer, mediated by endless interrogation, starvation, sleep deprivation, beatings and sundry other variations of violent coercion.

Merleau-Ponty then closes this particular chapter by quoting Vyshinsky and Stalin.19 Now Vyshinsky was the head prosecutor of the Moscow show trial and one of the chief orchestraters of that fraud. Why should Vyshinsky’s comments about the accused be taken seriously? As for Stalin anything he as to say about this Judicial Murder is not to be taken seriously. Its of interest that Merleau-Ponty resists the idea that Moscow trials were stage managed and hence valueless as telling us much about the accused. Further it is interesting that Merleau-Ponty leaves the last word about Bukharin’s guilt to his murderers. It is obvious that Merleau-Ponty really wants to believe that Bukharin was working towards effecting a “Capitalist” restoration, and thus Stalin, i.e., Big Brother was justified but once again Merleau-Ponty can’t quite go all the way and submit.

Although Merleau-Ponty denies that he is excusing Stalin by accepting Stalin’s justifications for the terror Merleau-Ponty says thing like:

But then one can say that Stalin overruled the opposition in order to prevent German militarism from thwarting the only country in the world in which socialist forms of production had been established.20

One can say all sorts of things, but about this one can say that it is self serving propaganda, much weakened by the Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939-1941.

Another passage that indicate Merleau-Ponty’s deep longing to service Big Brother is:

Although the actions of the Bolsheviks cannot at every moment reflect the immediate sentiments of the proletariat, they must on balance and in the world as a whole hasten the advancement of the proletariat and continuously raise the consciousness of the proletariat’s condition because it is the initiation of truly human coexistence.21

A clear indication that Merleau-Ponty wants to join a cult; in other words an omnipotent organization that can do no wrong and that by definition all it does is “right” even if the people it supposedly represents reject it. In the end the party is the embodiment of “history” and the fulfilling of the “true” needs of human beings. Besides only “history” can really judge if the “right” thing as been done. Once again the longing to submit to Big Brother.

Merleau-Ponty then goes into a long and rather convoluted mystification on the Proletariat and how this gives the party and Marxism its driving force.22 That the Proletariat as the embodiment of the future inevitable course of human history and development, through its mouth piece the party excuses and justifies actions taken on its behalf and only the future can justify, or damn the means used. Thus we read stomach turning bromides like this:

It is no accident, nor, I suppose, out of any romantic disposition that the first newspaper of the U.S.S.R. was given the name Pravda. [Truth] The cause of the Proletariat is so universal that it can tolerate the truth better than any other.23

I suppose one can throw up now. Pravda got by the late twenties at the earliest and especially under Stalin a deserved reputation for outrageous official lying. Once again Merleau-Ponty just cannot help himself he wants Big Brother’s bullet in his brain. The fact is lying in the name of the Proletariat by Communists was almost derigure. So much for love of truth.

It is pointless to quote Merleau-Ponty further on his desire to submit it would only be tedious and annoying however one beautiful quote that illustrates once again Merleau-Ponty’s singularly obtuse refusal to pay attention to mere empirical fact is this:

Within the U.S.S.R. violence and deception have official status while humanity is to be found in daily life. On the contrary, in democracies the principles are humane but deception and violence rule daily life.24

Thus speaks the fellow traveller and obtuse fool who doesn’t wish to learn anything about real life in the Soviet Union at the time. Obviously Merleau-Ponty read all sorts of lying and deceptive accounts by Communists and others about life in the Soviet Union and took it seriously or wanted very much to take it seriously. The dream of the omnipotent state in which people were happy, especially to those on conducted tours is what Merleau-Ponty is indulging in here. Sorry but there was plenty of violence in everyday Soviet life. The violence of intrusive unaccountable officialdom and the violence of continual surveillance.25

In this essay the terrors and mass murders of the regime from Collectivization to the Purges and the labour camps and so forth that took over ten million lives are whisked away in a fog of philosophical abstraction. To call this morally cretinist is to merely call a spade a spade. Fortunately Merleau-Ponty regained his moral footing.26

As I mentioned near the beginning Merleau-Ponty’s flirtation remained just that a flirtation with Communism. Very soon he reverted back to a vastly more critical attitude, which included very rigorous and through denunciations of Soviet foreign policies and the Gulag.27

For a brief time Merleau-Ponty wanted Big Brother’s bullet in his brain, because accepting the omnipotence of the all wise party and Big Brother would have enabled him to avoid the very difficult task of thinking for himself.

Of course “History” as not been kind to Merleau-Ponty’s essay. The view that only “History” can really judge, held by the Communists at the time, and that the ends of “history” justify the means has produced the result that Communism has been swept away into the trash heap of history. History as cast it aside as a murderous aberration in the development of the human race. It was not the embodiment of “history” and its ends but a dead end.

1. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Wikipedia Here.

2. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, Humanism and Terror, Beacon Press, Boston, 1969. (Originally published in 1947 in French).

3. See Footnote 1.

4. See Merleau-Ponty, pp. xiii-xlvii.

5. Judt, Tony, Past Imperfect: French Intellectuals 1944-1956, University of California Press, Berkeley CA, 1994, pp. 113-115, 123-127, Caute, David, The Fellow Travellers, Rev. Edition, Yale University Press, New Haven CT, 1988, p. 331-332.

6. Caute, pp. 329-346, Merleau-Ponty, pp. xiii-xlvii, 178-189.

7. Koestler, Arthur, Darkness at Noon, Bantam Books, New York, 1941.

8. For details about the terror see Conquest, Robert, The Great Terror, Revised Edition, Pimlico, London, 1990, pp. 117-119. Much is not talked about very much in the novel, for example torture is almost entirely absent, and the horrors of the slave labour camps and of collectivization are also largely absent.

9. Merleau-Ponty, p. xv.

10. IBID, p. xv.

11. Conquest, pp. 341-398. We know that Bukharin was tortured and his wife and son threatened with death in order to get Bukharin to “voluntarily” confess see Conquest, pp. 364-365..

12. Merleau-Ponty, p. xxi.

13. IBID, p. 34.

14. IBID, pp. 25-70.

15.See Footnote 11.

16. Merleau-Ponty, p. 62.

17. IBID.

18. IBID, p. 68.

19, IBID, pp. 69-70.

20. IBID, p. 87.

21. IBID, p. 112.

22. IBID, pp. 115-130.

23. IBID, p. 123.

24. IBID, p. 180.

25. Caute, pp. 64-139.

26. See Conquest and Applebaum, Anne, Gulag: A History, Anchor Books, New York, 2003, Khlevniuk, Oleg V., The History of the Gulag, Yale University Press, New Have CT, 2004.

27, See Footnote 5.

Pierre Cloutier

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

Fomenko’s Fiction

Anatoly Fomenko
Anatoly Fomenko is a Russian Mathematician who over the last 20 years or so has been putting forward a rather far out theory regarding History it is his belief that ‘History” began c. 800 C.E., and that the Middle ages never happened.

Among many things Fomenko and his disciples believe that English history before the Normans is nothing more than a fiction and that some of Byzantine history is the same. That various dynasties and lists of rulers are nothing more than fictionalizations based on a few models.

That much history of the Ancient world is a creation of fabricators and falsifiers between 1400-1700 C.E. That various methods of dating like dendrochronology (tree rings) and radiocarbon dating are erroneous and useless.

It is of interest that in his new chronology Russia is the center of world history up too seventeen hundred; real Russian history having been falsified by Germans. The obvious hyper nationalism of Fomenko’s ideas is readily apparent.

This approach must of course toss out the astronomical data supplied from ancient Mesopotamian clay tablets and the record of eclipses by the Chinese.

Further all those Greek and Roman statutes are frauds created during the Renaissance.

Ivan the terrible was actually four rulers is another Fomenko “discovery” along with Jesus being a 60 year old Pope, (Gregory VII) and or a Byzantine Emperor (Andronikos I Komnenos).

The Peloponnesian War described by Thucydides occurred in 1384-1387, between the Kingdom of Navarre and the Catalans. And Columbus was a Cossack.1

History is divided into 4 periods. The pre-Christian period is 11th century and earlier; “bacchic” Christianity 11th-12th century, Christianity 12th-16th century and 16th century onwards the modern age.2

Fomenko’s English History, which is supposedly a duplication of Byzantine history, is described as follows:

His [Fomenko] other parallels, even after a double reordering of Byzantine monarchs (they were themselves duplicated twice, you see), are still not very accurate. Beorhtric (ruled 16 years) is equated to Justin I (ruled 9 years), an error of almost 78%. Fomenko links Aethelbert (6 years) to Justin II (13 years), an error of over 113%. He has to combine Zeno's two reigns (over a period of, but not totaling, 17 years) to match the English Cuthread (17 years).

Fomenko does manage, however, a couple of good "hits." He links Egbert, the uniter of England (ruled 38 years), to Justinian the Great, restorer of the Roman Empire (ruled 38 years). But then he combines King Edgar (16 years) with King Edward the Martyr (3 years) and claims they both represent Leo III the Isaurian (24 years). He concludes that the names Edgar and Edward are "similar and consequently their union is natural." (5) Of course, the eleven Emperors Constantine (and the additional Emperors named Constans and Constantius) were apparently readily distinguished by the barbarians.3

To quote another examination of Fomenko’s nonsense:

Fomenko assumes that the researcher can and should distinguish between history and fiction. On the other hand, his methods would not meet with approval from conservative theorists of history such as Keith Windschuttle who maintains that the professional training of historians and peer review of their work pushes history closer to the goal of establishing the truth of the past and of distinguishing what most probably happenned from what could not have happenned. Fomenko is not a historian in this sense. He provides no fair-minded view of the historical literature about a topic with which he deals, quotes only those sources that serve his purpose, uses evidence in ways that seem strange to professionally-trained historians and asserts the wildest speculation as if it has the same status as the information common to conventional historical literature.4

That is enough for now, since simply listing the conjectures of Fomenko is enough to refute him, there is much more than the above all of it fantastic and quite outrageous. Fomenko has earned some quite well deserved ridicule for his absurd ideas, but has managed to turn the issue into one of proving him wrong. Which is of course a typical pseudoscience method.

Even some people who should know better are publishing books taking this nonsense seriously.5

Sorry but when you are proposing an outlandish idea the onus is on you to prove your idea not on the doubters to prove their doubts and you wrong.

It is impossible to go into detail about what is wrong with Fomenko’s absurd ideas, however a few points are worth looking at.

1, Fomenko deliberately selects data in proving his “statistical” correlation that ‘proves” his theory and ignores data that does not.

2. Fomenko spectacularily massages his data to get his correlations, shifting dates and reign lengths and even the number of monarchs all to fit his theory. To quote Wikipedia:

Another point raised by critics is that Fomenko does not explain his altering the data (changing the order of rulers, dropping rulers, combining rulers, treating interregna as rulers, switching between theologians and emperors, etc.) preventing a duplication of the effort and therefore hinting that his results may have a pathological Science aspect to them akin to N-rays over a century ago and effectively making this whole theory an Ad hoc hypothesis.6

3. Fomenko’s rejection of radio-carbon dating, numsiatics, (coin study), dendrochronology, (tree rings), etc., is tenditious and frequently ignorant. For example with dendrochronology he argues from alleged gaps that it can’t be trusted. In fact secure dendrochronological dates go back more than 10,000 years. Fomenko must exercise a disciplined ignorance for his opinions.7

4. Further Fomenko’s dismissal of retrocalculation of astrnomical dating based on the Babylonioan tablets and Chinese recording of eclipses does not contrary to Fomenko’s assertions get dates all over the place in fact multiple analysis to these multiple recorded observations agrees with the conventional dates. For example the whole sequence of Babylonian observations, of which there are literally dozens, found on Babylonian cuniform tablets agrees with the “conventional” dating, to say nothing of other dating methods like denrochronology and radio-carbon etc.8

5. Further this is frankly an over the top conspiracy theory for which Fomenko just wildly speculates about why anyone would do it and assumes the fabrication of masses of documents, accounts etc., along with masses of inscriptions coins etc. It is frankly incredible. All those allegedly mythical Medieval kings with coins are treated with cries of forgery and fraud including the coins that are to this day being dug up.9 To quote:

For that matter, how can we expect to believe Fomenko's arguments since Imperial coinage that documents the succession of the emperors can be gathered from virtually every year from 27 BCE to 1453 CE? How do we discount written Roman history and the great reigns of the past? Further, if Fomenko is correct, we must ignore the Magna Carta of 1215, since England's King John would have been nothing more than a Byzantine fantasy.10

That Fomenko is motivated by a crude form of nationalism is obvious from his writings as one reviewer of his work has said:

The enemy for Fomenko is always the West and their corrupt Russian minions, most notably the Romanovs and the Yeltsin-era reformers. For Fomenko, World War two lives on in the war against the Germans. Not that other western Europeans are much better. Italians composed false chronicles from antiquity in order to make the Romans appear older and wiser than the rest of Europe, the French sent their mercenaries along with other European powers to protect the first Romanovs, the English and Americans always acted against Russia out odf envy that it was in reality Russia who once ruled the greatest empire the world has ever seen. For Fomenko, the Russians need Asia if they are to maintain their existence in the face of the challenge posed by the West.

...

Fomenkoism is an amalgam of disillusionment with and rediscovery of Soviet ideals, mixed with feelings of lost grandeur, hope, vengence and envy. For Fomenko, the story of Russian greatness has to be told a different way to the version favoured by Romanovs and Communists. The latter ignored the greatness of the Russian horde. All those who lived in the steppe and forests of Eurasia are automatically incorperated into Russia, according to Fomenko’s fantasy. The Russian Horde was, and remains, entitled to demand their loyalty.11

I will now briefly go into a examination of just one small part of Fomenko’s nonsense. Fomenko has the the eruption of Vesuvius occur 1631 C.E. Which faces the problem of having Pliny the Younger's account, which was printed before 1631 in Western Europe. Copies of said editions still exist with the dates. So this eruption was described before it happened!? No doubt this little problem is handeled by saying "forgery" and "fraud" over and over again.12


Vesuvius Erupting
Vesuvius has erupted on numerous occasions frequently with great destructiveness. Fromeko's idea is that the destructive eruption that destroyed Pompeii and Heracleum occurred 1631. Which of course means that Pliny's account must have been written after that eruption. Second if you read Pliny's account you would realize that the eruption described was extrodinarily destructive. It appears to have been a, (what is now called) a "Plinean" eruption. In which large sections of the mountain were destroyed and repeated "Nuee Ardente's" (burning clouds) devastated the surounding area and covered the area under many feet (more than 20 feet in places) of ash and volcanic rubble. There was of course the "Nuee Ardente" that swept across the bay of naples to Miseum and nearly killed Pliny the younger's entire family. This eruption has left massive and abundant traces including in places more than 20+ feet of ash etc. The 1631 eruption has also left traces and in comparison it was minor. One is easily distinguished from the other.13

Pompei was long buried by 1631. In fact it was so well buried that people had only a very poor idea of were it was.

In fact appears that although Vesuvius has in fact erupted on numerous occasions eruptions of the 79 C.E., variety seem to be mercifully rare occurring every few thousand years.

The other common sense problem with Fomenko is the huge difference in culture between the remains of those two cities and what we have from the 17th century. Oh and what about the virtually compete abscence of Christianity from both sites.

Oh and by the way the Laocoon after being lost for over a millenium created quite a stir when it was re-discoverd in 1506 and the result was a series of write ups by the media of the day. Now why is the Laocoon important in the context of Fomenko’s absurdities? It is because Pliny the Elder describes the statute in his massive Natural History. Now since Pliny the younger describes his uncle’s death in the eruption of Vesuvius this must mean that the Natural History was composed before the eruption.

The Laocoon
To quote Wikpedia:

Various dates have been suggested for the statue, ranging from about 160 to about 20 BC. Inscriptions found at Lindos in Rhodes date Agesander and Athenedoros to a period after 42 BC, making the years 42 to 20 the most likely date for the Laocoön statue's creation. The statue, which was probably originally commissioned for the home of a wealthy Roman, was unearthed in 1506 near the site of the Golden House of the Emperor Nero (who reigned from 54 to 68 AD), and it is possible that the statue belonged to Nero himself. It was acquired by Pope Julius II, an enthusiastic classicist, soon after its discovery and was placed in the Belvedere Garden at the Vatican, now part of the Vatican Museums.14

Now if Pompeii and Herculaneum had been destroyed in 1631 C.E. that definetly creates a problem. The other one is Pliny the Elder mentions the Laocoön in the palace of the Emperor Titus,Emperor 79 - 81 C.E.

To quote:

Beyond these, there are not many sculptors of high repute; for, in the case of several works of very great excellence, the number of artists that have been engaged upon them has proved a considerable obstacle to the fame of each, no individual being able to engross the whole of the credit, and it being impossible to award it in due proportion to the names of the several artists combined. Such is the case with the Laocoön, for example, in the palace of the Emperor Titus, a work that may be looked upon as preferable to any other production of the art of painting or of statuary. It is sculptured from a single block, both the main figure as well as the children, and the serpents with their marvellous folds. This group was made in concert by three most eminent artists, Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, natives of Rhodes. 15

So in other words someone before the alleged eruption (1631 C.E.) mentions the laocoon being lost, then Pliny mentions it being in the palace of the Emperor Titus at the time of the eruption, which creates a problem if the eruption was in 1631 C.E. And we have copies of Pliny's Natural History which contain the above passage. Oh and we have complete manuscripts of the Natural History, from the 11th century to say nothing of collections of excerpts that are earlier. Opps!16

As mentioned above Pliny the Younger letters which describe the eruption of Vesuvius and were published before 1631 C.E.

From Wikipedia:

In France Giovanni Giocondo discovered a manuscript of Pliny the Younger's letters containing his correspondence with Trajan. He published it in Paris dedicating the work to Louis XII. Two Italian editions of Pliny's Epistles were published by Giocondo, one printed in Bologna in 1498 and one from the press of Aldus Manutius in 1508.17

Isn't amazing that they were able to write a description of the eruption of 1631 C.E. before it happenned!! Yeah, right!

Fomenko is a total joke. His desperate efforts to escape the inescapable accuracy of the “conventional” history against the serpent of fact and truth are in the end as unavailing as Laocoon and his son’s unavailing struggle against their serpent.

1. New Chronology of the World History, Here. See also the multi volumed, History: Fiction or Science?, Delamere Resources LLC, 2007, Konstantin, Sheiko, Lomonosov's Bastards: Anatolii Fomenko, pseudo-history and Russia's search for a post-communist identity, Phd Dissertation, University of Wollongong, Australia, 2004, pp. 66, 208-226. Copy of Thesis at Here

2. See Wikepedia, New Chronology, Here, See also Fomenko, A. T., Nosovskij, G. V., New Chronology and new concept of the English History, Here.

3. Colavito, Jason, Who Lost the Middle Ages?, Here.

4. Konstantin, p. 21..

5. Diacu, Florin,The Lost Millennium, Knopf Canada, Toronto, 2005.

6. New Chronology.

7. Colavito, New Chronolgy, Dutch, Steven, Is a Chunk of History Missing?, Here.

8. New Chronology, Rawlins, Dennis, Recovering Hipparchos' Last Lost Lustrous Star, in Dio, V. 4. No. 3, December 1994, p. 119, Here. Espenak, Fred, Eclipse Predictions and the Earths Rotation, NASA, Here.

9. Colavito, New Chronolgy, Dutch.

10. Colavito.

11. Konstantin, p. 231 & 232.

12. Pliny, The Letters of the Younger Pliny, Penguin Books, London, 1963. The description can be found in Book Six, letters 16 and 20, pp. 166-168, 170-173.

13. IBID, and Winchester, Simon, Krakatoa, HarperCollins Pub., New York, 2003, p. 11-12, Wikipedia, Mount Vesuvius, Here.

14. Wikipedia, Laocoon and His Sons, Here.

15. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, at Perseus, Here. See Also Pliny the Elder, Natural History A Selection, Penguin Books, London, 1991, Book 36, Ch. 4, s. 37, at p. 347.

16. Wikipedia, Natural History, Here.

17. Wikipedia, Pliny the Younger, Here.

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