Solzhenitsyn's Ex‐Wife Says ‘Gulag’ Is ‘Folklore’:
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/02/06/archives/solzhenitsyns-ex...
How the Great Truth Dawned
11–20 of 54 posts
Re: How the Great Truth Dawned
#12What a fantastic read. The sad truth is that all countries that have descended into authoritarianism, whatever their preferred political ideology, result in mass murder. Such pain and suffering caused by such misguided beliefs. Just let people be free! Stop controlling other people.
> The sad truth is that all countries ...
Probably a [citation needed] for that.
But it is a reminder that just as most people don't really grapple with the amount of good done since the agricultural revolution, they also can't grapple with the new types of evil that have been enabled since the dawn of the 20th century.
It is sunshine and roses this decade, but there are some much scarier threats in the future than, eg, climate change. WWII happened in a climate quite similar to our own.
Re: How the Great Truth Dawned
#13What a fantastic read. The sad truth is that all countries that have descended into authoritarianism, whatever their preferred political ideology, result in mass murder. Such pain and suffering caused by such misguided beliefs. Just let people be free! Stop controlling other people.
> The sad truth is that all countries ... Probably a [citation needed] for that. But it is a reminder that just as most people don't really grapple with the amount of good done since the agricultural revolution, they also can't grapple with the new types of evil that have been enabled since the dawn of the 20th century. It is sunshine and roses this decade, but there are some much scarier threats in the future than,…
Counter-examples would be welcome. Was Singapore authoritarian enough?
Re: How the Great Truth Dawned
#14I will preface this comment by saying that I am sympathetic to the author's criticism of the Soviet system which he has inherited from Solzhenitsyn, but being sympathetic to the communist hypothesis myself, I feel like there are omissions in the article worth picking up on. The article reads, >The contrary view, held by ideologues and justice warriors generally, is that our group is good, and theirs is evil. “Evil pe…
It’s frustrating to me that such a well written and informative comment has been downvoted. I understand that it’s a touchy subject but this is an interesting perspective that is worth sharing and reading.
Re: How the Great Truth Dawned
#15I will preface this comment by saying that I am sympathetic to the author's criticism of the Soviet system which he has inherited from Solzhenitsyn, but being sympathetic to the communist hypothesis myself, I feel like there are omissions in the article worth picking up on. The article reads, >The contrary view, held by ideologues and justice warriors generally, is that our group is good, and theirs is evil. “Evil pe…
> This is wrong, and a cursory investigation of Marx's late works would show that.
The focus here is on Lenin and his progeny, particularly Stalin. Marx claimed the discovery of objective laws of reality through generous application of the Hegelian world-spirit concept[1]. The Bolsheviks expanded Marx's ideas.
The expansion was thus: the Party is the agent of the Proletariat. The liberation of Proletariat is the ultimate end of History. The laws of History dictate that this is so. But if there are objective laws of history, someone must explain what those laws are and act on them: this is the Party. And if the Party observes such laws, then the concept of democracy or debate within the Party is nonsensical, so the Party must follow the doctrinal rulings of the Politburo. But it also follows that debate or democracy within the Politburo is also nonsensical, therefore, only one leader may give meaning, purpose and weight to the objective laws of history.
Leninism laid the ideological rails that Stalin used to railroad Russia straight to hell. Marx's work was not sufficient, but it was necessary.
[1] There is a view that Marx's ideas were purely economical in nature. I don't think this holds up. He was a philosopher first and an economist second. The concept of alienation for example is not just about effort or property, it is a quasi-mystical notion of a fundamental schism of persons, from themselves and from each other.
Re: How the Great Truth Dawned
#16I will preface this comment by saying that I am sympathetic to the author's criticism of the Soviet system which he has inherited from Solzhenitsyn, but being sympathetic to the communist hypothesis myself, I feel like there are omissions in the article worth picking up on. The article reads, >The contrary view, held by ideologues and justice warriors generally, is that our group is good, and theirs is evil. “Evil pe…
It’s frustrating to me that such a well written and informative comment has been downvoted. I understand that it’s a touchy subject but this is an interesting perspective that is worth sharing and reading.
I, for one, downvoted it because at some point it becomes really tiresome to see the same stale apologia of "baaah, you all just don't understand Marx properly" (and neither, apparently, did any and all leaders of any and all countries where marxists of any ilk ever came to power, because it always ended up the same) from people who had never seen it up close and personal. And this being HN most likely enjoying the lifestyle that is only enabled by "capitalists" willing to pay quite ridiculous amounts of money for poking at the keyboard all day...
Calling it well-written and informative is very much akin looking for kernel of truth in whatever logorrhea comes out of Stomfront or that Flat Earth Society.
Re: How the Great Truth Dawned
#17I will preface this comment by saying that I am sympathetic to the author's criticism of the Soviet system which he has inherited from Solzhenitsyn, but being sympathetic to the communist hypothesis myself, I feel like there are omissions in the article worth picking up on. The article reads, >The contrary view, held by ideologues and justice warriors generally, is that our group is good, and theirs is evil. “Evil pe…
> This is wrong, and a cursory investigation of Marx's late works would show that. The focus here is on Lenin and his progeny, particularly Stalin. Marx claimed the discovery of objective laws of reality through generous application of the Hegelian world-spirit concept[1]. The Bolsheviks expanded Marx's ideas. The expansion was thus: the Party is the agent of the Proletariat. The liberation of Proletariat is the ulti…
He was a philosopher first, then an economist later -- not second. Later Marx broke with early Marx. Later Marx explicitly critiqued the Hegelian stuff that he started with. You won't find much Hegel in Das Kapital, certainly not 'world spirit' or even a notion of history proceeding in stages -- tho you might find versions of that in his early writings and even in the Communist Manifesto.
Re: How the Great Truth Dawned
#18This might be also because while our writers (I am not really sure about poets (Pushkin just does not seem to travel as well as Dostoyevsky, or Shakespear) from the 19th century on actually are "world class" so to speak, Russian painters, composers and architects up until early 1900s were really quite derivative and second rate. With all the complexes Russians tend to have aboutr being compared to Europe, or being considered (or not considered) a part of Europe, idolization of writers is quite understandable.
Re: How the Great Truth Dawned
#19I will preface this comment by saying that I am sympathetic to the author's criticism of the Soviet system which he has inherited from Solzhenitsyn, but being sympathetic to the communist hypothesis myself, I feel like there are omissions in the article worth picking up on. The article reads, >The contrary view, held by ideologues and justice warriors generally, is that our group is good, and theirs is evil. “Evil pe…
> ... and failed to link it to the scientific aspect of historical materialism... Um, what "scientific aspect of historical materialism"? To me, the claim that there is any scientific aspect of it requires some evidence, because it seems to be grounded in nothing but ideological belief.
When classical Marxists speak of "scientific materialism" or "scientific socialism" they're using a 19th century convention ... not speaking of Science as we understand it today, the whole toolkit of empiricism and the scientific method. They're talking about science more generally as ordered knowledge, and in contrast to a more 'utopian' socialist view of their French predecessors.
It's an outdated phraseology that doesn't mean what it sounds like in today's context.
It's also not really Marx's term, but Engels', and borrowed from Proudhon.
Re: How the Great Truth Dawned
#20This might be also because while our writers (I am not really sure about poets (Pushkin just does not seem to travel as well as Dostoyevsky, or Shakespear) from the 19th century on actually are "world class" so to speak, Russian painters, composers and architects up until early 1900s were really quite derivative and second rate. With all the complexes Russians tend to have aboutr being compared to Europe, or being co…
Well, there was certainly much more great writers at the same time, but composers like Rimsky-Korsakov or Borodin were first class by any measure... and those are two I could recall from the top of my head, with my very limited knowledge of 19th century Russian culture, I'm sure there's more...