Hitler, Lenin and Stalin were not men of ideas; they were action figures; political actors timing their ascent to political power. These men were community organizers rather than independent thinkers. Rather than philosophers they were social manipulators.
Posterity has not brought humanity to regard the ideas of Hitler, Lenin and Stalin much. It is fair to say that Karl Marx was a man of ideas-yet he actually failed to be a man of political revolution in fact; Karl Marx spent much of his life working in the British Library and trying to feed his large family instead of organizing a Crystalnacht, planning a Beer Hall putsch, inventing a way to purge a society of many of its people through death or purging the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of its leaders. These acts were the works of men of act; Hitler, Lenin and Stalin.
Ideas are the currency of human liberty, of human invention, of the power to imagine possibilities before actualizing them. Oppressive governments and totalitarian regimes have forever sought to kill free thought. Today the world is rich with oppressive governments denying the freedom of expression and reading requisite for the growth of human social reason. Even corporatism inheriting the world following the collapse of Soviet Communism has tendencies to limit free speech through numerous means. Very few executives venture to express any sort of political opinion that is not sycophantic of their employer’s interest. As the networking of corporate control spreads around the globe real independent political expression may decline for replacement with tidal waves of sycophants even if bifurcated as in the U.S.A. presently.
If Christianity today in the first world needed a reorganized form of ecclesiastical structure of transition from a hierarchical to a priesthood of believers form, the hierarchical priesthood would, as in prior errors, be tempted if not obligated to supported the hierarchical concentrated economic powers of the day-especially now since the hierarchical priesthood would largely demote themselves from their pedestals and become peer Christians if they did. A Christianity dedicated to reinforcement of global corporatism is obviously one in danger of becoming the worldly church putting actual Christians out.
A global corporatism oppressing free thought by their employees and through the communications media they control as well as via sympathetic government actions such as giving radio wavelengths to the wealthy rather than for citizen podcast use is not unlike the historical economic agencies that existed within authoritarian contexts that sought to repress free thought and speech as it was rightly regarded as a danger to the concentrated wealth and power of the day.
Some might argue in error that Hitler, Lenin and Stalin were intellectually productive. Stalin for example as a youth was placed by his parents in an orthodox Christian school-the choice for the poor. He received a scholarship to an Orthodox Theological Seminary at Tblisi.
Some say that the seminaries of that era were something like Madrassa of today in poorer regions of the world; not an excellent place for education, yet Tblisi Georgia was a restive place able to provide free, unofficial readings in revolution against teh Tsar.
Stalin seemed to do well at the Theology school however he reportedly was rebellious and read forbidden materials. Also uncertain to me is the amount of time he spent there. Possibly attending from age 12, he was cast out from the school in 1899. A wikipedia article notes that he missed his final exam possibly being unable to a afford the back-loaded tuition. Alternatively, according to some sources such as Isaac Deutcher I seemed to recollect, Stalin was already involved in revolutionary meetings and was soon imprisoned. Stalin's is not the life of a sincere intellectual, but that of an opportunist, worldly promoter of his own political interests.
Adolph Hitler was not an intellectual either. As atwenty-something drafted into the first world war he was the son of an Austrian wife-beating drunk. The young Adolph walked his father home from the tavern routinely as he was too inebriated to walk the walk of the sober. Eventually Hitler did compose a book-the infamous Mein Kamp while in prison. Yet as an aspiring political party rtevolutionary he needed to write something in order to stay socially relevent while cooling his heels. The book-terrible raving that it is, was dictated to a near-genius (the guy that ended his life in Spandau Prison) who was his Alex Halley. Actually, Malcom X's telling of his story to Halley turned out much better than Adolph's.
Hitler was a man of action surging ahead with the help of the homosexual militant Ernst Rohm and his gayed up S.A. terminating social, poltiical opposition until he in turn purged Rohm and the S.A. of the gay elite in the 'night of the long knives' after cutting a deal with the elite Werhmacht to get support as the Chancellor of Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_R%C3%B6hm
Lenin would be the most close of the three to being fairly regarded as an intellectual. Actually most of his writing occurred after becoming the first among equals in the prot-Soviet state. Lenin was a solid political organizer who out-maneuvered even the brilliant poltical writer Leon Trotsky for leadership of the pre-revolutionary Bolshevik Party. lenin did not lead the Kronstaadt naval fortress mutiny however, and when the revolution occurred was far away in western Europe somplace.
Lenin was a correspondence school lawyer who's brother was executed for taking part in a plot top assassinate the Tsar. Lenin had little chance of being trusted by the Russian imperial elite and joined the revolutionary ranks against the Tsar. It is not at all certain that the Bolshevik Party would have been successful in revolting against the Tsar if the Tsar had not first completely bungled the war of Russia versus Germany. Tsar Nicholas II was a nice guy and a terrible political and military leader.
Lenin was brought through Germany on a sealed train to take over leadership of the new post-imperial communist government. The Germany elite had probably arranged for their support in exchange for Lenin's agreement to withdraw Russia from the war and give up the Ukraine to Germany in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk later.
Lenin was a clever community organizer, an intellectual of many words and few lasting ideas who did design the transformation of the imperial government into a communist government, and a synthetic man of action-political designer of middling success. Lenin was leader of the Soviet Union only until 1924, and Stalin liquidated his political structure of the New Economic Policy as well as virtually all of the Bolshevik Party veteran revolutionary leaders. Thus Lenin was a politician rather than a thinker, and not sufficiently aware of the nature of the people in the communist party. Stalin may have poisoned Lenin some have speculated, in such a way that he suffered a series of strokes, the last of which was fatal, and occurred while Trotsky was far away from Moscow and unable to attend the all-important funery proceedings and political selection of the new fearless leader-Joseph Stalin (Djugashvilli).
Posterity has not brought humanity to regard the ideas of Hitler, Lenin and Stalin much. It is fair to say that Karl Marx was a man of ideas-yet he actually failed to be a man of political revolution in fact; Karl Marx spent much of his life working in the British Library and trying to feed his large family instead of organizing a Crystalnacht, planning a Beer Hall putsch, inventing a way to purge a society of many of its people through death or purging the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of its leaders. These acts were the works of men of act; Hitler, Lenin and Stalin.
Ideas are the currency of human liberty, of human invention, of the power to imagine possibilities before actualizing them. Oppressive governments and totalitarian regimes have forever sought to kill free thought. Today the world is rich with oppressive governments denying the freedom of expression and reading requisite for the growth of human social reason. Even corporatism inheriting the world following the collapse of Soviet Communism has tendencies to limit free speech through numerous means. Very few executives venture to express any sort of political opinion that is not sycophantic of their employer’s interest. As the networking of corporate control spreads around the globe real independent political expression may decline for replacement with tidal waves of sycophants even if bifurcated as in the U.S.A. presently.
If Christianity today in the first world needed a reorganized form of ecclesiastical structure of transition from a hierarchical to a priesthood of believers form, the hierarchical priesthood would, as in prior errors, be tempted if not obligated to supported the hierarchical concentrated economic powers of the day-especially now since the hierarchical priesthood would largely demote themselves from their pedestals and become peer Christians if they did. A Christianity dedicated to reinforcement of global corporatism is obviously one in danger of becoming the worldly church putting actual Christians out.
A global corporatism oppressing free thought by their employees and through the communications media they control as well as via sympathetic government actions such as giving radio wavelengths to the wealthy rather than for citizen podcast use is not unlike the historical economic agencies that existed within authoritarian contexts that sought to repress free thought and speech as it was rightly regarded as a danger to the concentrated wealth and power of the day.
Some might argue in error that Hitler, Lenin and Stalin were intellectually productive. Stalin for example as a youth was placed by his parents in an orthodox Christian school-the choice for the poor. He received a scholarship to an Orthodox Theological Seminary at Tblisi.
Some say that the seminaries of that era were something like Madrassa of today in poorer regions of the world; not an excellent place for education, yet Tblisi Georgia was a restive place able to provide free, unofficial readings in revolution against teh Tsar.
Stalin seemed to do well at the Theology school however he reportedly was rebellious and read forbidden materials. Also uncertain to me is the amount of time he spent there. Possibly attending from age 12, he was cast out from the school in 1899. A wikipedia article notes that he missed his final exam possibly being unable to a afford the back-loaded tuition. Alternatively, according to some sources such as Isaac Deutcher I seemed to recollect, Stalin was already involved in revolutionary meetings and was soon imprisoned. Stalin's is not the life of a sincere intellectual, but that of an opportunist, worldly promoter of his own political interests.
Adolph Hitler was not an intellectual either. As atwenty-something drafted into the first world war he was the son of an Austrian wife-beating drunk. The young Adolph walked his father home from the tavern routinely as he was too inebriated to walk the walk of the sober. Eventually Hitler did compose a book-the infamous Mein Kamp while in prison. Yet as an aspiring political party rtevolutionary he needed to write something in order to stay socially relevent while cooling his heels. The book-terrible raving that it is, was dictated to a near-genius (the guy that ended his life in Spandau Prison) who was his Alex Halley. Actually, Malcom X's telling of his story to Halley turned out much better than Adolph's.
Hitler was a man of action surging ahead with the help of the homosexual militant Ernst Rohm and his gayed up S.A. terminating social, poltiical opposition until he in turn purged Rohm and the S.A. of the gay elite in the 'night of the long knives' after cutting a deal with the elite Werhmacht to get support as the Chancellor of Germany.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_R%C3%B6hm
Lenin would be the most close of the three to being fairly regarded as an intellectual. Actually most of his writing occurred after becoming the first among equals in the prot-Soviet state. Lenin was a solid political organizer who out-maneuvered even the brilliant poltical writer Leon Trotsky for leadership of the pre-revolutionary Bolshevik Party. lenin did not lead the Kronstaadt naval fortress mutiny however, and when the revolution occurred was far away in western Europe somplace.
Lenin was a correspondence school lawyer who's brother was executed for taking part in a plot top assassinate the Tsar. Lenin had little chance of being trusted by the Russian imperial elite and joined the revolutionary ranks against the Tsar. It is not at all certain that the Bolshevik Party would have been successful in revolting against the Tsar if the Tsar had not first completely bungled the war of Russia versus Germany. Tsar Nicholas II was a nice guy and a terrible political and military leader.
Lenin was brought through Germany on a sealed train to take over leadership of the new post-imperial communist government. The Germany elite had probably arranged for their support in exchange for Lenin's agreement to withdraw Russia from the war and give up the Ukraine to Germany in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk later.
Lenin was a clever community organizer, an intellectual of many words and few lasting ideas who did design the transformation of the imperial government into a communist government, and a synthetic man of action-political designer of middling success. Lenin was leader of the Soviet Union only until 1924, and Stalin liquidated his political structure of the New Economic Policy as well as virtually all of the Bolshevik Party veteran revolutionary leaders. Thus Lenin was a politician rather than a thinker, and not sufficiently aware of the nature of the people in the communist party. Stalin may have poisoned Lenin some have speculated, in such a way that he suffered a series of strokes, the last of which was fatal, and occurred while Trotsky was far away from Moscow and unable to attend the all-important funery proceedings and political selection of the new fearless leader-Joseph Stalin (Djugashvilli).
No comments:
Post a Comment