Re: Prince Bush wimps out against Communism

["Andrew Hagen" <xah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I don't think that's an argument against my approach. I agree that
"communism" stands for the Soviet Union and the regimes connected to it
ideologically. Nor do I deny that the Left of today follows in the wake
of communism, and is thus influenced by it. I criticize communism as
tyrannical. Thus, I criticize part of the Left's heritage as
tyrannical. This is all consistent with my perception that the Left
must re-work significantly its theories and ideas.

BTW, the article is unavailable from scienceandsociety.com. I haven't
seen the Furet book, either. I wonder what "coming to terms with" the
Left's heritage is supposed to mean.

Does anyone suggest that the Left of today should issue a blanket
apology for the crimes of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and the rest? I would be
hesitant to agree. How can activists of today be responsible for what
some of our intellectual antecedents did when most of us weren't even
born?

Best,

Andrew Hagen
xah@xxxxxxxxxxxxx



On Mon, 3 Sep 2001 15:33:22 EDT, SOncu@xxxxxxx wrote:

>Andrew wrote:
>
>>The word "communist" originally spoke to a utopian concept, where
>>tyranny did not reign. Today, however, the large majority of the
>>world's population uses the word to describe the political bosses of
>>the USSR, and all those ideologically connected in some way to them. In
>>my view, the Soviet regime was on balance much more tyrannical than it
>>was noble. Thus, I argue that the Left should castigate Communists.
>
>I saw a better approach in the summer issue of Science&Society. One of the
>articles in this issue is by  Jeffry Kaplow entitled "The Illusion of a
>Passing". It is a review article on Francois Furet's 1999 book "The Passing
>of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century".
>
>Somewhere in this article Kaplow writes:
>
>"..... It is true that the Soviet heritage is, in many respects, a heavy
>burden for men and women of the left to carry, but it is our heritage, on
>which we, precisely as heirs to its original aspirations, must come to terms
>with, if we are ever to be politically effective. A polemic like Furet's does
>not help us to do so. Treating communism as another 'totalitarian' idea in
>order the better to denounce it does not allow us to understand why the
>Soviet state and society developed as they did. ...."
>
>Don't know if the article can be found online. It is worth reading though if
>you have the hard copy, at least, in my subjective view.
>
>Best,
>Sabri Oncu
>
>