In the movie "Reds", John Reed gets imprisoned in Finland on his way to Russia to join up with the Bolsheviks. When he gets to Moscow released from prison, it is in exchange for some Russian intellectuals. He is riding in a car with a young Bolshevik, who tells him "Lenin said he would trade fifty petit bourgeois professors for Comrade Reed."
On 3/26/10, Ralph Dumain <rdum...@autodidactproject.org> wrote: > Chamberlain, Lesley. Lenin’s Private War: The > Voyage of the Philosophy Steamer and the Exile of > the Intelligentsia. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007. > > Contents: The night before -- The Paper Civil War > -- The Janus year -- Arrest and interrogation -- > Journey into exile -- Joining the emigration -- > Prague -- Berlin -- Paris -- Ending up -- The > sense of what happened -- Appendix 1: GPU report > on the arrests of 16/17 August 1922 -- Appendix > 2: The lists of deportees from Moscow and Petrograd -- Appendix 3: The lives. > > “In 1922, Lenin personally drew up a list of some > 160 ‘undesirable’ intellectuals – mostly > philosophers, academics, scientists and > journalists – to be deported from the new Soviet > State. ‘We’re going to cleanse Russia once and > for all’ he wrote to Stalin, whose job it was to > oversee the deportation. Two ships sailed from > Petrograd that autumn, taking Old Russia’s > eminent men and their families away to what would > become permanent exile in Berlin, Prague and > Paris. Lesley Chamberlain creates a rich portrait > of this chilling historical moment, evoked with > immediacy through the journals, letters, and memoirs of the exiles.” > > <http://www.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0740/2007017626-s.html>Sample text > > ------------------------------------------- > > I hesitated to approach this book for the longest > time, fearing that it might constitute just > another anticommunist diabtribe. I read Berdyaev > 30 years ago and concluded that his deportation > was no loss to Russian culture. Of this > deportation I thought: Good riddance! However, > I've harbored doubts whether this was the wisest > way to handle the problem, given the bullying > habits inherited from autocratic feudal society > that ended up in the Stalinist disaster. > > AIso, I knew nothing or next to nothing of the > other deportees, and I knew I needed to know the > details of this incident as a key to getting at > the bottom of Bolshevik thought and behavior. It > was only a matter of time before I broached this > book, but some recent stimuli knocked it up > several notches on my reading list. > > As it turns out, the book is not what I feared. I > did a quick read of the first and last chapters, > and now I'm even more eager to read the rest. At > the beginning, in spite of the author's harsh > view of the Bolsheviks, she disavows any > intention of endorsing the right wing mysticism > that goes along with the rehabilitation of the > exiled idealist thinkers (p. 7) (not to mention a > reactionary exile of recent times like Solzhenitsyn). > > The final chapter is even more interesting. There > are some curious oddities. She reads Lenin as a > positivist and sees him as analogous to > Wittgenstein in philosophy. There's an > interesting exposition of her take on the lessons > of Russian structuralism and formalism. > > But key to this chapter is a triangulation of > idealism, materialism/modernism, and humanism. > Chamberlain is an unapologetic secularist. She > sees the Russian idealists as embodying an > outmoded society and world view, and she finds > their stance unnecessary and extraneous to > societies with a track record of secularism, > liberalism, and formal democracy. However, in the > oppressive world of czarist Russia, whose culture > was barely broached by the Bolshevik revolution, > the valuation of individual personhood and its > linkage to transcendent mystical and religious > ideas was a strategy to grab onto something to > preserve human dignity where it could not be > found elsewhere, and in that respect in context > was not totally superfluous as it was seen, > rightly, in the West. Nor does Chamberlain > totally condemn Lenin. He gets some props for his > quest to modernize Russia, to rid it of its > obscurantist and oppressive past. But she also > argues that the cavalier dismissal of the private > and the personal, of the humanist concerns of the > idealists, was the royal ideological road to > totalitarian despotism where there was no hiding > place for the integrity of the individual. > > I would have argued things differently, but > Chamberlain has forced me to consider this angle, > that is, admit the possibility that there was > something more generally tragic in the fate of > these exiles beyond their private personal > experience of tragedy. Her book goes into > extensive detail of the deportations and the fate > of the deportees in exile. I believe these > details will reveal sought-after nuances of how > Soviet society functioned at various levels, not > just Lenin's motivation for selecting those > individuals he was eager to get rid of, but of > how lower level bureaucrats and police agents, > hardly intellectuals, thought and behaved. In > addition to procedural details, Chamberlain > addresses the ideological dimension, particularly > the slippery slope of accusing people of being > objective class enemies regardless of their actual intentions and deeds. > > I think there are nuances to this scenario as > there are to the position of the more intelligent > Bolshevik leaders that are not so easily captured > in the usual arguments as to whether the > Bolsheviks resorted only to as much dictatorship > as they had to out of desperation or whether they > went farther than they objectively needed to--as > if these two perspectives could be demarcated. > There is a deeper question, however, that goes > beyond conscious intention or rational response > to objective situation, though not separate from > those, either. People can be both conscious of > what they're doing (even of discrepancies between > the ideal and real) and yet blind to the premises > of their behavior at the same time. It is not > possible for a revolutionary intelligentsia to > act with the notion that a peasant society can be > rationally modernized without some measure of > blindness no matter how acute the self-awareness > of the wisest leaders. Precisely by closely > inspecting the minutiae will we discover that the > failure of the Bolshevik experiment was > inevitable, not only because of the obvious > objective conditions, hashed out and rehashed > over and over, but because of the inevitability > of the subjectivities generated by the weight of > their past and present. Political actors are > forever caught up in such limitations, but when > they close off all spaces for intellectuals to > think beyond the limitations of the now, they > seal their own eventual doom and prove they deserve it. > > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
