The tragedy of Communism – all those who were duped
Several days ago (http://blogs.salon.com/0001476/2002/09/09.html), I promised to talk about people who may have been Communists, but also happened to be decent human beings. Today I’d like to touch upon a German writer by the name of Lion Feuchtwanger. If there are any Russians (as in ex Soviets) who are reading this blog (along with any friends to whom I have probably raved a bit about him) they readily know who Feuchtwanger is. They probably remember the 13 volume collected works edition with that lovely reddish brown hard cover, with the golden Russian L and F making up the austere design.
For information about Feuchtwanger, you can go to the site of his memorial Library – http://www.usc.edu/isd/locations/ssh/special/fml/ where you will get a comprehensive biography along with a full bibliography of his works. Feuchtwanger wrote extensively, primarily historical novels, many of them out of the Roman antiquity. As a matter of fact, he used to be a best seller in the 40’s here in the States. Used book stores are more likely than not to have his books, especially “Proud Destiny” – a Viking 1947 edition in a blue hard cover with a black ship on the back (must be the reason it ended up in the nautical section of “Avenue Victor Hugo,” one of my favorite haunts in Boston – a gem of a book store with a bit of an over zeal for book categorization).
Besides writing about Nero, Josephus Flavius, Goya, Beaumarchais, and a slew of other historical characters, Feuchtwanger published a little non-fiction book in 1937. The book contained his impressions from his trip that year to the USSR. History buffs will recall that ’37 was the year of the great Stalinist terror and the show trials that were conducted, with many of Stalin’s old comrades in arms in the main role. It has been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the show trials were a sham, that the accusations were totally drummed up, emanating out of Joseph’s Stalin’s paranoid brain. The trials were hotly debated in the West, with some people recognizing them for what they were – cold blooded purges, intended to consolidate Stalin’s grip on power – while others felt that they were valid prosecutions of counter revolutionaries, interventionists and agent provocateurs. The Soviets, always PR conscious, invited quite a few sympathetic Western intellectuals to come and see for themselves how the trials were conducted. Feuchtwanger was one of these intellectuals. And this man was duped. This man of the highest intelligence and learning, whose books reveal an incredibly acute understanding of people, human motivation, human pitfalls and triumphs, this man was “Led by the nose.”
Monday morning quarterbacking is easy and hindsight is always 20/20 (any other clichés are welcome). Nevertheless, one would like to at least start to understand how a delusion on such a scale is possible, and especially on the part of such intellectual heavy hitters as Feuchtwanger (to be followed by Sartre, Rodari and others). I think that for Feuchtwanger, as well as many others, Communism was being positioned vis-à-vis fascism and Nazism (granted, we have had such enlightened souls as Ezra Pound who embraced fascism, but that is another kettle of fish). While Gobles’s ravings were clearly balderdash, Marx’s gobbledygook could pass for science and reason. The sense was that a truly enlightened and scientific system for governing human affairs was actually being implemented in a real country by real people. Maybe if more people were to read such works as Ludwig Von Mises’s “Socialism,” they would have been disabused of the notion that Marxism is an actually workable socio-economic theory, but if wishes were fishes, we’d all be casting nets. As usually, I digress, so back to our rams, as Russians are fond of saying.
With Nazi Germany on the one hand and the memory of the Great Depression on the other, it appeared that Communism was the only truly humane system that was being offered to mankind. In such a context one could understand why all those who championed reason, humaneness and kindness would view Communism as the best of all possible political, social and economic systems. In Russia, all these Utopianists had their playing fingers broken, but in the West the delusion lived on until the invasion of Czechoslovakia in ’68.
I am currently reading Philip Roth’s “I married a Communist.” I hope to discuss Roth in a future blog, but for now I can say that many of the true believers of the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s were very decent human beings that wanted the best for those who had the least. While the notion that peace-loving USSR was cold-heartedly manipulating Communist organizations around the world appeared ridiculous, it was true – Russia penetrated every type of world peace organization filled with starry eyed young people who were all for changing the world while engaging in free love. I had the children of these people as my High-School teachers in Brooklyn of the mid to late 80’s.
The first tragedy of Communism that I am bringing up is the fact that so many brilliant, educated, well meaning people were so mercilessly duped by coldly calculating brutes. I find the notion insulting personally, as I have the gravest respect for such people as Feuchtwanger. Reading him extolling the Soviet system during the trials of ’37 is as embarrassing as hearing our current president pronounce NUCLEAR as NUKELAR (It’s not as bad, but just as embarrassing).
There is a point here somewhere. As we are faced with today’s reality and debate regarding putative terrorists and supposed dictators we wish to topple, we have, in the final account, to take a firm stance. If we can learn anything from the past, the conclusion I would draw is that we have to base our judgment purely on facts and consequences. Who are the people we are dealing with? What motivates them? What kind of worldview they have (versus ours), what kind of countries they run (versus ours)? What we should not let happen is to allow our dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in our own backyards in any way glorify those who happen to oppose us. Yes, there is social injustice, inequality in purchasing and political power, as well as a bunch of dunces running the show. But just because where we live does not necessarily live up to the Utopian standards we were taught in grade school (I did not go to grade school here, so I am making a bit of a stretched assumption), does not mean that the people who clamor against us are paragons of virtue, morality and brotherly love. Too often the US made the mistake of confusing the enemies of our enemies with our friends. I would hate to see the thinking population of this country make the same mistake.
8:55:37 AM 
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