The Poverty of Laski's Philosophy
The Poverty of Laski's Philosophy The "Positive Faith" Offered by the British Socialist Is an Apologia lor loiamarianism, Bolshevism Is Not Socialism; Laski's Book Is a Wretched Memorial to Muddled...
...t4evertheless, the ismiyr- records his t »rtasnalinaa and hasmigass Pestsrlty will judge ban by these menuaaesU srsctoe* by hinasetf...
...Viakniak kas contributed extensively te numerous American and foreign publications...
...Where the people were ao vile— g am...
...The Soviet Constitution of 1936, while proclaiming in article four "the abrogation of private ownership of the means and instruments of production" and "Socialist ownership," sanctions in article ten "the right of personal ownership" and "the right of inheritance...
...The Soviet Government has admitted the existence of various classes in Soviet society, although the non-class structure is an important feature of Socialism...
...It aceuetem* them to trample under/eat what Meg sue* r*ipeetet, to court what they once scorned, I* team themtelvea...
...the review effectively demolishes Laski's position, but the quotes, out of context, make it seem tkat Hazlitt praieee tke book...
...He makes no attempt to refute socialist writers, among them Hilferding, who argued that what Lenin himself had been trying to play up as socialism, waa in reality state capitalism...
...Harold J. Laski'a "Faith, Reaeoa and Civilization" (Viking Press, $2.58) Is aa appeal, not to science and reason, not for the preservation ef the real valuea of civilisation, bat te emotion, to prejudice, to blind faith in Bolshevism, which haa proved in action to be the negation of reason, decency, and justice It ia ironic that the book jacket quotes two sentences from a devastating review by Henry Haxlitt...
...His basic idea is that our civilization is crumbling...
...be said—tha government must have been l i t BUmte dhf not prtotrsre before Marcus A l i e n s , bat before Ttbsviae and Csrscofta...
...fay/ fly into a passion as though there were an appeeition, they baeome insulting aa though there assu- pny chance of replying...
...One of these two viewpoints glorifying the Soviet regime is plainly mistaken, but this does not prevent the Soviet government from making use of both of them...
...palien ( > e a d tutaJrtau%atom) d»sa»m • yew*** at th* tame time that it applet*si Mem...
...I.hs1.1 is not only a learned lawyer and historian, but also a politician...
...Tgnrs is no end to tyranny j ^ e b wants to drag forth tokens of consent...
...Fastidiousness has never been counted among Soviet virtues...
...But if Pares, Sorokin, Rickenbacker, the Archbishop of York, and the Russian monarchists are right in declaring that Stalinism represents a direct negation of Leninism, as well as approve Russia's reverting to her traditional, national path, then, obviously, there is something wrong in the stand taken by Laski, and by Theodore Dan, Prof...
...His distinction between the new Bolshevist civilisation, "so energetic, eo ardent, so confident in its aspirations, and "the old-Russian civilisation, atagnant, pessimistic, coavinced of its owa futility" (p...
...156...
...he is the leader of the Party's "left wing...
...It is oaly natural therefore that Laaki approvingly quotes Machiavelli and the apostle of European reaction, Joseph de Maistre...
...Laski, owing to his position as vice-chairman Of the British Labor Party, may be called "the a British Otto Bauer...
...He makes no distinction between the various periods through which Bolshevism has gone, either in time of in ideology...
...In the introduction to his Faith, Reaton and Civilization, Harold Laski points out that "it owes its origin lo a talk with Mr...
...Lenin ia the personification ef all these ideas (which are not Russian, bet Laski's own...
...When a usurper condemns innocence, he orders calumny at that, repeated, i i w iM aasjesy te^ be judgment a^ETTNSANAV jnVBaB*a*Uafat4 *a*V Caare9 pV^}und# TO an*^ATOVAT TtiM tTunte*im liberty combine* all the evils of Smjm ami ahnrnry...
...Laski's Book Is a Wretched Memorial to Muddled "liberal, ism" and Wishful Thinkinir, We Need, Not Blind Faith, But Science By Mark Visniak iS Soviet rule became consolidated, Z\ the Bolsheviks gradually dis-carded the pre-revolutionary ideals in which they had professed to believe...
...When a great Sovereign sends one of his ministers in disgrace to the scaffold, the executioner, like the victim, does his part in silence...
...OnNMsehss HTS< •yton brihsd wrismrs toko > he at it, they sasae an lhaagh it were a amsstins at taariasisg...
...With these who easmst aadaratavad the dhTermare be tweea tasaaa and Halnhrvinn It ia futile to argue...
...It was described lotuj> ago aa a special form of administration...
...Can a social order be considered a higher farm ef civifltatioo urban under thia seder mesa* of preductisa beleng to the state, but every atria* or aflMagi af work, even ia peacetime, is regalaW aa a counter rrvolutisnary act puniahahls by death...
...The seeds disseminated by the Webbs have sprouted...
...Satire ia the refuge of the artiat or the thinker who cannot past beyond the boundaries of disillusion inw/-the realm qf poaitive faith...
...Bolthemem as a new faith that ia destined to replace Christianity, as Christianity replaced the paganism of Roman civilization, Laski writes of Bolshevism aa a single -entity that has remained unmodified for ,27 years...
...What is atrihing is the similsnty hsdwsen the past and ths pristal...
...If it (the Russian Revolution) had been an experiment conducted by tender-minded men, it would not have even the remotest prospect of endurance" (p...
...Laski sanctions and- supports...
...He was Professor ef International Law ia Moscow University before end during the revolution, and later at the Academy ef International Law at the Hague Author of "the Protection ef Minorities,'' "Transfer of Populations," biographies of Lenin and ef Leea Blum, Prof...
...Whatever may be Moscow's attitude toward Laski's book, it ia doomed to become a wretched memorial of our time, demonstrating that a terrorist dictatorship —even after 27 years—can atill find justification and support not only from official diplomat*, but also among independent socialists and liberals...
...Dostoevski, for instance, was one of many who considered the whole history of mankind, including Christianity, aa a "failure...
...After the'purges which killed the main creators of the "new civilization"—most of the old Bolsheviks, the Red Army commander*, and 75 per cent of the civil end military leaders—the Webbs cast aside their previous doubts, and in the new edition of their two-volume work Sovitt Communism, a New Civilization, termed the Soviet regime as a new and higher form of civilisation...
...of the Criminal Cede af the RSSFR with modiatstttons up to Dec 1, luat>l ttona withent trial, are normal snd lawful mafhasli af government even in peace time...
...and Mrs...
...La SKI'S slim new book is more pretentious than his other works...
...Bat it ie unit* aaahhtet far tlssse who are capable af dktingujthissg hot a son beraic t nasi a nad tha lagisai utider WHICH the R nasi ass have to live and auger...
...But earlier observers, for instance the Frenchman Henri Rollin, another admirer of the Soviet regime, compared Bolshevism with Christianity7 in the period of its degradation, with the Jesuitism cf Ignatius Loyola, but never with early idealistic Christianity, a* Laski doea when he compares Lenin with Apostle Paul...
...And there ia little wonder that Laski, while remembering the murder of Mat-teotti in 1924, forgets the more recent murder of Ehr-Itch and Alter in 19421 • • • THE ^parallel between Bolshevism and Christianity had been drawn by others before Laski...
...When execution and confiscation ef property are the lot ef those who have made a futile attempt to escape from their "socialist warn m i l ids i (naarss of Jaas % IPaff...
...Despotism does away -with all forma of liberty...
...For Americana, thia article is important because we have eo many liberals ami Soeialiata who, like Laski, are enamored of Stalinism, aad who are incapable ef objective aaalyaia ef anything Rassian...
...Laski haa considerably modified meny of hia opinions...
...The doubtful honor of this discovery belongs to Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Fabians and cooper-atora...
...the Soviet idea" and "the Russian idea...
...In his role as a philosopher of history and culture Laski seeks "to interpret our time," and to find "a new system of values" to replace those lost...
...Idea* > ssi meed at the beginning ef tha last century should not ha htersdty ssmned to tha prsssnt, with different hart n i l ihiumalnuiis Perhaps Caaetoat overpainted the facta, srempUd by tha peliucsl struagls in which he waa ingagid...
...Ml, 587 a.o...
...SBSNE num the right to remain stilL Uanrpatien SSANMSMA htm to apeak...
...These facta do not deter ardent admirers of the Soviet regime from concluding that Soviet dictatorial society is the embodiment of true Socialism, and that the Bolsheviks have presented to the world a new, higher type of civilization...
...On the ether hand, he identifies Bolshevism with the "Russian Revolution...
...What is striking in Laaki'a book ia the "poaitive faith" which he docs not hesitate to recommend to harrassed and searching humanity...
...its "higher" phase, or Socialism proper, has been postponed by Stalin to an indefinite future...
...If the USSR nonetheless calls itself "a Socialist state" (article 1 of the Constitution), this is achieved with the help of a verbal dodge: Stalin has declared Socialism "the first and lowest phase" of Communism...
...Yet his aascripties kaa the wider aad deeper miaabg of a siyinssgdrel gsasiaBsstion...
...At a time when Bolshevism rehabilitates the Orthodox Saints...
...What ia sisdsd far ear gaidanaa he tab) era ef eanfusisn is net btiad faith in Bslea avians or any ether set at degatas, hot a sciewtinr approach to aff serial problems...
...What the Webbs merely hinted at, I.tski asserts now, in 1944, as an absolute truth...
...Russia, too, had her "Fhilipp It and the Duke ef ABaa," just as she had, and haa, her own "Tiherisn aad Caraealla" claintiag vrorship at their grams, the "gsaoas" of the lesdei* At to the "civianunisa" created bp the Bolsheviks, the tebVewiag sjaistmas demand an aaewer: la it a new sad higher civilisation when capital punishment is satakhuhad fsr s great usmther ef efffaaee patnJral aad criminal' When death and confiscation sre introduced for crimes agaiset yeopertm: for "plundering of poperty belonging to h ism hosts attd cooperatives," of "property belonging to state undertakings," etc...
...Laski evades some positive facts—the drive to "acquisition," the economic disparities, the formation of new social classes, on which almost sll observers of Soviet life comment, including ardent admirers of the present Soviet civilization...
...art...
...Laski finds a justification even for the fact that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union—in the course of 27 years 1 —has never submitted the basic tenet of its faith "to the chance decision of an electorate atill in the phase where the denial of tha t-cialitt idea it the rule rather than the exception" (p...
...and is considered a shining light of British Socialism...
...We do not know what the reaction will be of the Russians who survived the purges to Laski's picture of Bolshevism...
...What is Bolshevist "civilisation...
...158...
...For example Sir Bernard Pares in his recent book Hiikhio and the Peace extols Stalinism because Stalinism is the antitheais of Leninism and Trotskyism, while Laski, on the contrary, makes no distinction between Stalinism and Leninism, Trying to explain Bolshevism from the point of view of historiography, Laski invariably juitifiet it from the moral and political viewpoint...
...He does not advocate traditional democratic socialism as the antithesis for decaying capitalism...
...It is not a whim that everywhere in "poetry, fiction, criticism, music, philosophy, in all of these it is above all the satirical temper that gives them their prevailing note...
...They echo Laski'e illegic—"Soviet Raaaia kas faults —bat only the CemaauBMta offer the world unifying ideals, a common faith...
...Wham woaten de the job ef tsagsharimsa aad miners, and tha trade union bosses declare that "it hi aceferahle far them to work In coal pita rather than baiami ac net stales " That list of sjasatisaa ceaud he wads much longer...
...Alexander Nevski sad Sergii Radoneshski, the despotic Tssrs, Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great, the celebrated Raaaian military leaders, Suvorov and Kutusev, when the memory of the renowned Russian "grievance-monger" and "pessimist," Chekhov, is celebrated, when the government reeteree military ranks, with all its trapping* and medela, and reverta to tke policy of atrategic frontiers and apheres of inluence—then there ia no excase te contrast the old "Tssrist" civilixstion with the new Bolshevik civilization...
...J^B^sani n ^ l t e m i s s n s a ^ srvsesnmi' a T p r s n s LAE^^LAMNG hates m astray...
...Repeating the ideas which Otto Bauer held in the time of the debacle of the Austrian Socialist Parly, he takes no heed of Bauer in his last years, when the late leader of Austrian Marxism declared that "Stalin no longer personifies a proletarian, but at best an anti-Capitalist dictatorship...
...The existence of public sentiment being dangerous to it, and the appearance of public sentiment being necessary to it, it strikes the people with one hsnd to stifle any real sentiment, and it strikes them again with the other to compel them to the simulacrum of a pretended sentiment...
...185), is out-of-date...
...But be remains true to his former disdainful attitude towsrd the "backward" and "illiterate" Rassian people...
...Thia idea is not original...
...It is not an accident that poets and writers now appreciate form rather than content...
...Whea 181 years ago the well-known writer, Benjamin Constant, wrote his book De VEtpnt De Conquete et do luenrpation dan* fears rapportt avee la civilitation Europienne, he mimed at Napoleon, yet his juxtaposition of the absolute monarch to the new type of usurper has a much wider scientific importance...
...MARK VISHNIAK waa the first—and last-sec-rotary ef the Ceaetltueat Aeeembly, dissolved by tke Bolsheviks la November, 1817, when it appeared that they were la a minority ia this democratic aaeembly...
...it pursues him into the humnate Iq ef Wa taoughU, aad by farcing Mm to lie to his conscience, deprives him sf ths eaJy eeaselatien that resasma to the oppressed When a people have only been enslaved without J alee having been aagraend, there ia a|M a psssihilitp aha* thay ^ >**»w> a^asanarjstoto af ajsmga...
...Laski takes it for granted that socialism is being realized in Russia...
...The idea of an "immediate" realization of Socialism was brushed aside as the TJtopianism characteristic of "the infantile sickness of leftism...
...IFsurpation, in order to bring about the overthrow of what it seeks to replace, hap need of these forms, but in securing them it profanes them...
...Ernest J. Simmons and other secret and open advocates of the Soviet dictatorship, who claim that it represents a revolutionary accomplishment of a new socialist heaven...
...Lenin and his followers assumed the inevitability of civil war . . . not because they denied the validity of democratic government, but because they were convinced that democracy can only assume a form that ia real under the auspices of common ownership" (p...
...Webb at Liphook, in the summer of 1939...
...He finds corroboration of this idea not only in capitalist economics and politics, in war and revolutions, but also in the decline of our "acquisitive society, aa shown in the works of T. S. Eliot, James Joyce and Aldoua Huxley...
Vol. 27 • September 1944 • No. 40
