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| QUOTATIONS 1670-1682 |
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| 1670. In India, they say, a tiger that has tried human flesh once, gets addicted to it and becomes a man-eater. Approaching the twin problem of totalitarianism and mass murder and recognizing the symbiotic relations between them ( like the two sides of a coin one is inseparable from the other, i.e. totalitarianism cannot survive without mass murder and mass murder can only be engaged into in the totalitarian state) we, nevertheless, shouldn't get entangled in all this abstract terminology and always keep in mind Aristotelean warning that Universals have no independent existence and that reality belongs only to the Particulars. And the particulars in this case of totalitarianism and mass murder are the particular totalitarian states and the particular mass murderers. The particular instances of the modern totalitarian states are well known and indisputable. It is Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Communist Russia and more recently Red China, to name just a few, the most infamous ones. (Judging by what little information reaching the outside world the North Korea must be the latest member of this exclusive club.) But who were the actual killers and the creators of the states dedicated to mass killing is not very clear. I found my answer while reading autobiography of commandant of Auschwitz - Rudolf Höss. In 1914, as a very young man, he enlisted into German army. In the same year, during the actions in the Middle East, Rudolf Höss killed his first man - a Sigh soldier of the British army. He describes this first killing as a very traumatic experience. But then during the next 4 years of World War I he killed many more men, each time feeling less and less compunctions. He also saw a lot of his comrades-in-arms killed as well. Rudolf Höss emerged from the war as a man desensitized to death and killing. After trying several jobs and failing at all of them he joined the other German war veterans who like him have been transformed by their prolonged bloody war experience during their formative years into "men of brutal deeds and active bestiality" to use Hanna Arendt expression. These veterans (Hitler was one of them) having no other skills but killing people couldn't find, like Höss, any place for themselves in the post-War Germany. Disgruntled and embittered and taught by their war experience to see killing as the solution to all problems they formed the nucleus of Nazi Party and using intimidation, violence and murder against their political opponents- socialists, communists and unionists - eventually seized the power and created the totalitarian state - Nazi Germany which, driven by the imperative of the totalitarian state and by the real psychopathological addiction to murder of its main protagonists, continue killing on the ever increasing scale until its final collapse in 1945. For as in the case of an individual mass murderer who will continue killing until caught so the murderous totalitarian regime will go on killing on greater and greater scale until it is destroyed. Also, for this ever increasing killing the totalitarian regime needs ever increasing number of executioners - the initial nucleus of war veterans is quantitatively insufficient for such an enormous task and has to conscript the new murderers, who after their own experience of mass killing become eventually like their "mentors", i.e. desensitized to death and addicted to killing. And this is the second, collateral crime of the totalitarian regimes and their founders - as if by "infection" they turn the greater and greater portion of population into the heartless mass murderers. The similar phenomenon with the similar players could be observed in post-World War I Italy. Despite the obvious differences between the two countries due to historical, economical and political background, like in Germany, the disgruntled and embittered Italian veterans (Mussolini was one of them), made practically insensible by the horrific experience of 4 years war to death and killing (read "Farewell to Arms" by E. Hemingway for description of the summarily and arbitrary executions of army officers, caught up in the chaotic retreat, by the military police - it took just a few minutes to arrest, condemn and shoot a man) and not being able to find any place for themselves in a peacetime economy, formed the nucleus of Fascist Party. Using intimidation and brutal force, the only things after 4 years of fighting the war they were good at, they seized the power and created the Italian totalitarian state. For 3 years, 1918-1921, the Civil War raged in Russia between Monarchists (Whites) fighting to restore Russian Empire and Bolsheviks (Reds) defending the new Communist State - the outcome of the Revolution of 1917. Like all civil wars ( in England from 1642 till 1649, in America from 1861 till 1865) it set father against son, brother against brother. The White Terror was met by the Red Terror and millions have perished. The Bolshevik cadre (Stalin was one of them), who at the end emerged victorious, were only in form but not in essence, origins and personal experience different from German Nazis and Italian Fascists. For they also, desensitized by the war to death and killing and believing that all political, economic and social problems could be solved by physical extermination of their opponents, created totalitarian state - the Soviet Union. The Civil war in China between Kuomintang Nationalists under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek and Communists lead by Mao Zedong lasted 20 years. The most celebrated event in this war was so-called Long March (1934-1936) during which the retreating Red Army fought its way across China to the west and then north. Like all wars it produced the special type of a veteran, made insensible to killing and death and accustomed to solve all problems by mass murder. In 1949 when Nationalist resistence collapsed these veterans assumed the power and created the totalitarian state of Red China. In is worth remembering that until quite recently all leaders of this state were the veterans of the Long March. Their grip on power was only relinquished when all of them died. It must be clear by now that the preceding war, producing a special class of war veterans, is the necessary precondition for creation of the totalitarian state. (It goes without saying that in all the above presented cases the war these veterans come from must be considered by their respective nations as a glorious and heroic event). But are these factors sufficient enough? One may and should ask the question why in England and France, whose young men went through the similar experience during the 4 years of WWI, killed and watched their comrades killed, were inevitably desensitized to death and killing and were as bitter and disillusioned as their German and Italian counterparts, they haven't become instrumental in turning England and France into totalitarian states? And while both countries had various popular fascist movements comprised, as usual of war veterans and their civilian followers, they never managed to seize the power. I see the answer to such a legitimate question in this old unresolved problem of the role of personality in History. I believe that similarity of the objective causes are necessary but not sufficient to produce the similar historical outcome. The role of the subjective factor, the personality of the Leader, seems to be the crucial element. In social movements the spontaneous combustion is unheard of. Even when the pot is on the stove, with all the necessary ingredients in it, someone has to strike a match to start a fire. All things being equal (and they, by the way, never are) without Hitler Germany would have never become Nazi totalitarian state, without Mussolini Italy would have never become Fascist totalitarian state, without Stalin and Mao, respectively, neither Russia nor China would have become Communist totalitarian states. Even the form and scope the mass murder took in each of these states was determined by the special character of each leader. Hitler, a homicidal psychopath, turn Germany into the efficient extermination factory which first "processed" the communists, socialist and union leaders , then proceeded to the euthanasia of mentally ill and physically disabled and ended by the extermination of Jews. At the end, killing for the killing sake became Nazi Germany's the only raison d'etre. Mussolini, a romantic megalomaniac, was obsessed with reviving the glory of ancient Rome and saw himself as its latest emperor. Most of mass murder his regime committed was done overseas during the wars to regain the "lost" territorial possessions of the Imperial Rome. Stalin and Mao suffered from obsession (bordering on paranoia) with the inferiority and backwardness of their countries via-a-vis West, and were determined to catch up with it whatever the cost. What took England 200 years Stalin and Mao wanted to achieve in 20. We all know the amount of suffering and depravation caused by Industrial Revolution. But the "collateral damage" of speedy transformation of Russia and China, both underdeveloped agricultural societies, into the modern industrial states was on the scale never before experienced by mankind. The English equivalent of Stalin's favorite saying was "you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs". Stalin and Mao broke millions of "eggs" trying to reach their humanly impossible dreams. Nevertheless, whatever these men were called, Fuhrer, Il Duce, or Secretary of Communist Party, they share a lot in common. They all had insatiable apatite for self-glorification. Driven by the monstrous innate vanity, some men of humble origins possessed by, they used people either as "cannon fodder" of the World conquest or "furnace fuel"of industrialization with complete disregard for the value of human life . Yet, despite that, they saw themselves as fathers of their nations, almost semi-gods and were treated and worshiped as such by their frightened and mesmerized subjects who exaggerated the little good and turned the blind eye on the enormous harm they did. Finally, considering the origins and experience of these four totalitarian states - Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Soviet Russia and Red China- we come to the inescapable conclusion that the main culprit in the emergence of totalitarian state is War. For the outcome of War is not only death and destruction but also the creation of men, the war veterans, who are turned by the War into the killing machines and thus the ever present danger to society. It's a terrible paradox that the greatest threat to liberty and security of the people comes from those who as the young men were called upon to sacrifice their lives for them: the saviors of the nation become its worst enemies. 1671. Judaism was a religion for people who were planning to live here and now, Christianity for those who were about to die and pass into another, better world. In the conflict between these two opposite visions that lasted 2000years the Christian spared no efforts to convince the Jews that they are wrong by making Jewish life on this earth as unbearable as they could. As the things stands now, judging by their relative experience, it would be more appropriate for the Jews to accept Christian point of view and to look for happiness in Heaven, and for Christian - Jewish and try to make the best of it here, on earth. For if not here the only place they deserve to go for what they did in the last 2000 years is Hell. Sometimes I feel... By Nick Gurevich Sometimes I feel as ancient as the hills Some other times as young as morning dew One sunny day the soaring spirit wills The next - by darkness my weak flesh subdued. A hope is born with knowledge of its death A laughter is a prelude to a cry The first step of a new life leads to the last breath Will ever be another one like I? The slightest happiness evokes impending doom A glimpse of love reveals an ugly face of hate The ray of joy is eclipsed by foreboding gloom When will I get a reprieve from my cursed fate? Somewhere deep in my body death has made a nest And there waits patiently its hour and its day A heart imprisoned for a long time in my breast Shall break its rusty cage and soon fly far away. 1673. When Israel negotiated with PLO the terms of peaceful coexistence it always dismissed the PLO pronouncements on peace as mere words for as long as PLO Charter contained the call for destruction of Israel. Israel repeatedly insisted that without removal of this call from PLO Charter no agreement between Israelis and Palestinians is possible. Now, Christianity has its own Charter - the New Testament. It is well known and undeniable by both Christians and Jews fact that the New Testament contains the explicit anti-Jewish statements which have been responsible for two thousand years of Christian anti-Semitism. Therefore, by analogy with Israel - PLO negotiations, there seems to be no point for Jewish religious leaders to have a dialogue with their Christian counterparts unless they agree to remove from the New Testament anti-Jewish statements. If they refuse than all their well-meaning pronouncements about rejecting the past negative attitudes and treatment of Jews are mere words. For the Christian and the Jews to achieve any meaningful reconciliation the Christian Charter, the New Testament, must be revised and cleansed from all anti-Semitic statements. 1674. There is a connection between one's knowledge and one's pattern of social interaction and public behavior. When these are combined people could be divided roughly into three types. To the first type belong those who know very little and fully aware of it. Sometimes they are ashamed of their ignorance but not excessively so and usually would freely, even cheerfully, admit of it. Due to such sincerity and simplicity of manners they could be very pleasant in conversation and social intercourse. To the second type belong those who know a lot, but not everything, because of natural human limitations. Occasionally, they could be insensitive by assuming that everyone is supposed to know as much as they do. Some could be arrogant. But in general they are quite tolerable in public interactions for they prefer the company of people like them. And then there is a third type, the most vexing and annoying. They read something here and heard something there. Because of that they imagine they know everything. But their knowledge is so superficial that they are prone to generate the continuous flow of incongruities and non-sequiturs. On the top of this, they are very touchy if not vicious when corrected. They are the perfect example of the maxim that superficial knowledge is worse then total ignorance. In company they are the worst and should be avoided at all cost. 1675. And when I die on my headstone write down simply "Wasted life." 1676. The well known phenomenon that some people naturally abhor any vagueness, ambiguity and imprecision of speech and concepts, while the others, on the contrary, are simply incapable of functioning without exhibiting some sort of logical shortcomings in their discourse must be attributed, in the final analysis, to the some fundamental differences in the neurological structures of their brains. (Of course, we are not talking about those who are somewhere in the middle of "the continuum"but rather those who are located at the opposite ends of it. And there are enough of them to warrant this exercise.) The reason for such a physiological explanation of the apparent psychological dissimilarities among the individuals is that they manifest themselves from an early childhood and all attempts by upbringing and education to transform the vague and ambiguous into the clear and precise invariably end in failures. The poetic never become prosaic, the rationalist- prone to fantasies, the believers - skeptical, etc. One who starts life as the rational pessimist never ends up as the dreaming optimist. The first seems to possess some kind of mechanism inside his brain that automatically detects any incongruities and non-sequiturs and simply cannot accept any statement containing them, often at the risk of antagonizing the second who is equally incapable to avoid them. Needless to say, these two highly pronounced opposite types do not mix very well, and, if possible, should shun each other company. When it isn't possible the conflict is unavoidable. 1677. In my view and by my standards a true writer is one who does what he writes about perfectly clear and transparent - he shows the essential simplicity of things that appear to be complex, and reveals the hidden complexity of what seems to be simple. He anticipates all possible questions and provide the reader with the exhaustive and unambiguous answers. After he finished writing no stone is left unturned, no curtain un-pulled, no door still locked, no window un-opened. When a true writer is through with his work no analysis is necessary and no dissertation is called for. It is a joy to the readers and a disappointment to critics and academics. 1678. It seems to be a law of history that regardless of the initial conditions sooner or later both power and wealth eventually belong to the smaller and smaller group of people. There are enough historical evidences to suggest that at the dawn of civilization all societies had been run more or less democratically and that land, the main source of wealth then, was divides more or less equally. But with the passage of time power and wealth had the clear tendency to concentrate in the fewer and fewer hands which always led to tensions and confrontation within these societies. To decrease these tensions and to avoid the worse consequences of confrontations periodically the redistribution of both, power and land had to be undertaken. Often the alterations to the balance of power were purely symbolic and redistribution of wealth was affected to a very slight degree. Nevertheless, in human relations the symbols are important and degrees counts and where and when this hadn't been done the bloody and destructive revolutions took place. 1679. What moves some men of science to embrace later in life Religion but the longing to exchange the strenuous rigor of probing rationalism for the comforting restfulness of unquestioning faith. 1680. Any religion, any ideology, any policy is as good or bad as the people who actually believe, embrace and implement them. 1681. While it seems to be obvious that we treat those we like well and those we dislike much less so or even badly, the reverse could be also true, i.e. we tend to like those we treat well and usually dislike ones we treat badly; for the first are the living testimony of our fairness and kindness while the second of quite the opposite traits - harshness and vengefulness, not the kind of things one wants to be known for. Hence the resentment and ill will toward people who "make us" to act in such a manner and gratitude toward those who "help us" to show out best qualities. 1682. The entire lives of many a man are spent (and even wasted) trying to recapture what they missed in youth and to reverse the results of the fateful decisions they made when still too young to foresee the far reaching consequences. |
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