From: kosinov@ceg.uiuc.edu (Greg Kosinovsky)
Subject: Re: Robert Conquest's _The Great Terror_
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 18:40:19 GMT

zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

>GK:
>>First, let me put an end to the discussion envolving revolutionary terror
>>with the following quote from Mr. Zeleny:

>MZ:
>>>I certainly do not deny the existence of Red Terror prior to 1921.  If
>>>we disagree, perhaps it is because I DO NOT SHARE YOUR IMPLICIT CONVICTION
>>>THAT POLITICAL TERROR, UNLIKE DECEIT, NECESSARILY ABROGATES
>>>HUMAN WRITES.

>GK:
>>              My italics, and I rest my case!!!

>Mr Kosinovsky, although I respect your "human write" to do unspeakable
>violence to the poor, defenseless English language, I request that you
>abstain from gratuitously attributing your orthographical misdeeds to
>me, by placing them under my name.

 What a powerful dictum over a spelling mistake! Mr.Zeleny, you are a king
of the irrelevant.

>Now that I got it clear, exactly what case do you propose to rest?

 My point , obvious to any intellegent person, is that there is no reason
to argue about horrors of War Communism with someone who doesn't believe
that political terror "necessarily abrogates human RIGHTS".

>>  Now, regarding the philosophy of contemporary conservatives:

>>In <1993Jan17.205437.19471@husc3.harvard.edu>
>>zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Mikhail Zeleny) writes:

>GK:
>>>> Mr. Zeleny, if you read the writings of contemporary Conservative
>>>>Western intellectuals on both sides of the ocean (Johnson, Aaron,
>>>>Revel, Kirkpatrik, Bennet ,etc.), you would know that WE accept this
>>>>notion (that the blame for French Revolution as well as for most
>>>>20th century atrocities lies almost squarely on the intellectuals) so
>>>>universally, that it's almost a truism.

>MZ:
>>>Mr Kosinovski, your dumb dogma is showing.  A consensus of fools
>>>convinces no one but another fool.  From Jean Kirkpatrick, with her
>>>remarkably specious and stupid Reagan-era distinction between
>>>"authoritarian" and "totalitarian" regimes

>GK:
>> Mrs. Kirkpatrick's distinction was basically two-fold:
>>1) Authoritarian dictators are mostly interested in robbing their population
>>while robbing's good. Totalitarian dictators do that PLUS institute a total
>>mind control apparatus which intrudes into everyones daily lives and activiti-
>>es. To most thinking people that makes a difference.

>Mr Kosinovsky, I humbly suggest that you spend some time inquiring
>into the benevolent activities of the "death squads" in the allegedly
>non-totalitarian El Salvador, especially as pertains to their frequent
>intrusion into "everyones daily lives and activitities".  To most
>thinking people, that would count as incontrovertible evidence that
>both you and Mrs Kirkpatrick are full of shit.

 The government of General Romero in El Salvador was overthrown by reform-minded
officers in 1980, in full accordance with Kirkpatrick's thesis that authoritarian
regimes tend to fall. Following that coup, El Salvador, one of Latin America's
basket cases of economics and human rights, underwent remarkable reformation,
with the US help, despite the bloody Civil War lead by Communists.
 Romero was succeded by a provisional government lead by one of his most famous
victims, Jose Napoleon Duarte. Three democratic elections within six years were
held starting in 1982, each resulting in the victory of opposition followed by
orderly transfer of power.

 Now, with the Civil War basically at an end, El Salvador's future is promissing.
Mark this one for Kirkpatrick, and, especially, Reagan.



>GK:
>>2) While authoritarian dictators fall from power regularly, giving their
>>people, at least, a fighting chance at establishing a law-abiding government,
>>communist dictators, supported by Moscow, become fixtures of the Communist
>>monolith. This thesis is supported by the fact that no major Soviet puppet
>>had fallen from power until the center itself started to collapse.

>Mr Kosinovsky, until and unless you can make a systematic distinction
>of "the center itself" starting to collapse, from the *mere* collapse
>of the periphery, such as presumably precipitates the fall of an
>authoritarian government, your "thesis" will remain bereft of any
>cognitive value.  Not that I really expect you to be able to tell the
>difference.

 I can make that distinction very easily. An average tenure of an authoritarian
dictator is less than ten years (though everyone is aware of notable exceptions,
such as Samosa, Stroessner and Pinochet). On the other hand, the "center" in
question lasted 70 years, and if the west wasn't resolute enough in opposing
its "historic" outward march (or, alturnatively, had its own leaders not lost
nerve) it could still be around for a long time, along with most of its "perifery".

>>>...safely ignoring Dan
>>>Quayle's alleged favorite author, Paul Johnson, whose "intellectual"
>>>credentials have received a sufficient trashing in this forum, I find
>>>you in a cozy company indeed.

>GK:
>> Oh my! The famous Zeleny logic again -- Dan Quayle read Paul Johnson's
>>book, therefore, Paul Johnson is a fool. But wait, another piece of evidence!
>>Zeleny had already posted a flame on Johnson before. Well, that clinches
>>it -- Paul Johnson is a fool!

>Alas, Mr Kosinovsky, you got it all wrong.  As is evidenced by my
>modest effort to converse with you, contrasted with my deliberate
>choice to ignore Mr Johnson, between the two of you, I only consider
>yourself to be a fool.  Your hero has evolved beyond mere fatuity, to
>enmire himself in a _sui generis_ morass of his own making.  The utter
>inconsequentiality of his ideas places them far beneath the threshhold
>of my concern.  By contrast, you still continue to amuse me.

 I, obviously, couldn't care less about your opinion of me personally. Howhever,
I was certainly correct in pointing out that the arguments you used (and are still
using) in putting putting down Paul Johnson are not worthy of an imbecile.

>MZ:
>>>... To be sure, your mention of Raymond
>>>Aron appears rather incongruous in this squalid and venal confederacy
>>>of brain-dead dufuses; but then it could be conjecturally discounted
>>>on the basis of your misspelling of his name, and plausibly attributed
>>>to your pillaging of the "intellectual" authority list of some
>>>outdated GOP "cultural elite" denunciation, complete with the
>>>incongruous token Jew, included to anticipate the well-justified
>>>charges of code-worded antisemitism.

>GK:
>> The reason I misspelled Aron's name, is that it's been quite a while since
>>I read In Defence of The Decadent Europe. However, you must not have 
>>read it at all, for this book is a ringing indictment of socialist (and even
>>liberal) intellectuals.

>Mr Kosinovsky, I hereby direct your attention to the trivial fact of
>intellectual communication, that one may hold the ideas of his
>interlocutor in high esteem, whilst disagreeing with every single one
>of his conclusions.

  This is beautiful!!! You say that you hold in high esteem a person who you
ADMIT has ideas very similar to the ones for which you derided Pipes, and 
accused him of all evils, including antisemitism.
 Mr.Zeleny, you have consistency of Chekhov's Chameleon.

>GK:
>> As for "the charges of antisemitism", I challenge
>>you to come up with even one (documented) charge of antisemitism levied 
>>against any of the people I sighted by even a single respected public figure.
>>The only charge ever levied against those people was that of "Zionism". If
>>anything, Aron is the least "pro-Semitic" of the lot.

>Mr Kosinovsky, a reader unencumbered by your bizarre interpretive
>disability, would hardly need further elucidation in order to
>understand that my charge of antisemitism was specifically levied
>against the GOP promoters of "family values" and denouncers of the
>"cultural elite".  Substantiation of these charges is left as a
>trivial exercise for the reader.

 Mr.Zeleny, you originally clamed that I used a "Jewish name" of Aron
in order to diffuse "deserved charges of antisemitism" for sighting
a group that, in addition to Aron, included Johnson, Revel, Bennet, and
Kirkpatrick. I understand that it was an idiotic statement, but the proper
thing to do was to refrain from making it in the first place, not to deny it now.
 Now that that's clear, can you make any rational argument for your new charge
that promotion of "family values" and denounciation of "cultural elite" are acts
of anticemitism? (For that matter, are you capable of rational arguments?)


>GK:
>> It is so amusing for me to find out that I and Pipes support Jim Baker,
>>whom Zeleny anonymously quoted above. I hate the man, both ideologically and
>>personally, and I happen to know that so does Pipes.

>And yet, Mr Pipes does, and you appear to support the Grand Old Party
>of the selfsame Mr Baker.  How poignantly, predictably odd.

 The Grand Old Party represents millions of Americans, and people like Pipes
(and miself) are now trying to purge it of temporary heavy infiltration by
the likes of Baker and Bush. This however, is only a side point. What's more
important, is yet another example of Zeleny's logic, according to which an 
anti-jewish statement by Jim Baker tarnishes even his OPPONENTS within the party.
By the same logic, everyone who voted for Democrat Clinton is an anti-Semite,
because Jesse Jackson is a Democrat.

>MZ:
>>>>>See Stephen Cohen's essay collection for *that* piece of American
>>>>>history.

>GK:
>>>> Incidentally, Pipes correctly predicted, in the early 80's that USSR
>>>>was running out of steam. At that time, Cohen & Co. were still talking
>>>>about the great strides Sovoks were making internally, and were
>>>>predicting eventual conversion of Capitalism and Socialism in the
>>>>world.

>MZ:
>>>On the chance that you mean "eventual convergence", so did Sakharov.
>>>You certainly make no secret of where you stand in choosing between
>>>him and Shafarevich.

>GK:
>>The idiotic remark about "choosing" between Sakharov and Shafarevich
>>aside, Let me point out that this is a question not of ideology but of fact.
>>The recent history shows that in predicting the course of Communism, Pipes
>>was very close to the mark, and Cohen and most other liberal "Sovietologists"
>>were way off. Sighting Sakharov is not very convincing -- he wasn't a
>>historian, and he didn't have much access to information (Gorky's public
>>library wasn't as well stocked as Harvard Library).
>>However, as far as understanding the nature of Communism, Sakharov wrote that
>>true peece wasn't possible, as long as a totalitarian, expansive USSR existed.
>>Pipes understood and wrote the same things. Cohen called that kind of talk
>>"Cold War-mongering).

>Mr Kosinovsky, I have made my point excruciatingly clear to all
>thinking readers.  If at this point you should get an inkling that I
>am not at all interested in convincing *you* of anything whatsoever,
>you may prudently opt to save the wear and tear on your terminal, or
>petulantly generate yet another frenzied, semi-literate screed, as you
>wish.

 Mr.Zeleny, I have no idea of how this vituperation relates to my paragraph you
sighted above it, but let me assure you, that my continuous response to your
posts does not mean that I have even a slightest respect for you (that is 
certainly not the case).
 I simply enjoy making fun of a pompous fool who deems himself to be an 
intellegent man

 Greg K.