From: kosinov@ceg.uiuc.edu (Greg Kosinovsky)
Subject: Re: Robert Conquest's _The Great Terror_
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 19:35:21 GMT

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

>In article <kosinov.727641619@ceg.uiuc.edu> 
>kosinov@ceg.uiuc.edu (Greg Kosinovsky) writes:

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

>GK:
>> 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".

>MZ:
>Mr Kosinovsky, I have no idea as to what might have led you to conclude
>that I had any interest whatsoever to argue about the horrors of War
>Communism... 

 Mr.Zeleny, it may be hard for you to comprehend, but claiming, as you did,
that practice and rational of War Communism was very similar to that of death
penalty in the United States is a very queer way of avoiding argument on this
issue.


>MZ:
>The regime of Nikita Khruschev fell in October of 1964.  Before that,
>the regime of Stalin and his heirs fell in June of 1957.  I refer you
>to the text by Carl A. Linden, _Khruschev and the Soviet Leadership_,
>should these dates fall too far outside of the circle of your
>historical expertise.  Now, what was that idiocy about authoritarian
>regimes being distinguished from the totalitarian ones by their
>tendency to fall?

 Mr.Zeleny, apperantly, doesn't know the difference between a fall of the
regime and either succession or a turnover at the top of an established regime.
Stalin's death marked a transition to a more stable form of Communist
totalitarianism, which was still more oppressive and intrusive than someone
like Samosa or Pinochet at their worst. The demise of Mr.Khruschev was a non-event
as far as both Soviet foreign and domestic policy are concerned.
 Neither event threatened the hegemony of the Communist power.

>MZ:
>A couple of observations are in order.  Ms Kirkpatrick, who, like
>William Bennett, Jean-Fran\c{c}ois Revel, and Paul Johnson, -- and quite
>unlike Raymond Aron, and, to a lesser extent, Richard Pipes, -- is *not*
>regarded as a reputable scholar, blithely asserted in her famous
>_Commentary_ essay, that the right-wing "authoritarian" regimes allied
>with the West, were distinct from, and to be preferred to, left-wing
>"totalitarian" regimes, mainly because of their alleged propensity for
>incremental democratization.  Not surprisingly, the main piece of
>evidence adduced in favor of this disposition, was the (definitionally
>true) enmity of the former to (definitionally "totalitarian") communist
>influence of the latter.  (Can you say _petitio principii_?) 

 Clearly, Zeleny is unable to follow direct logic.
 In the Commentary article he refers to above, Kirkpatrik makes a fundamental 
distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes based on the two
principals I mentioned before (the relative non-intrusiveness and the relative 
instability of the authoritarian regimes relative to the totalitarian ones).
As a matter of relevant US policy, she also brought up the "enimy of my enimy is 
my friend" point. However, that was just an obvious statement from Real Politik 101.
It was clearly not used as evidence of authoritarian regimes' "alleged propensity
for incremental democratization".

>MZ:
>Upon becoming a prominent mouthpiece for the unlamented Reagan
>administration, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, along with her colleagues, and in
>accordance with her 1979 credo, resolutely abandoned the use of the term
>`totalitarian' to characterize the tyrannical political allies of the
>U.S. (which unsurprisingly tended to belong to the rightist variety of
>totalitarianism, as defined by Karl Popper and Hannah Arendt), and at
>the same time extended it to cover the "communist totalitarian state" of
>Nicaragua.

1)Could Mr.Zeleny specify which "tyranical political allies of the U.S." was Mrs.
Kirkpatrick guilty of whitewashing?

2)The example of Nicaragua which, according to Mr.Zeleny was unfairly branded a
"communist totalitarian state" is instructive indeed.
 "Samosa the third", who ruled until 1979 Revolution, was your basic third world
dictator, who stole everything in sight, but tended to leave everyone who didn't cross
his path alone. And it was fairly easy not to cross his path, considering that all
military, border patrol, and police functions in Nicaragua were exercised by approximately
8000 National Guardsmen.
 What's more, a large degree of dissent was allowed, as the nation's largest daily,
La Prensa, and its patrician Chamorro family continually blasted the regime. The
(still unresolved) murder of their head, Pedro Juaquine Chamorro Cardenal, was attributed
to Samosa, and triggered a catachism. Majority of educated people turned revolutionary
and most decided to join forces with heretofor obscure communist rebellion, whose
leaders appropriated the name of a known anti-communist, Augusto Cesar Sandino.
 With critical help from Carter Administration, Samosa was toppled in about a year.
What followed is a most classic contemporary example of how a communist clique usurps 
power from within a broad revolutionary coalition. By 1981 it was obvious that Sandinistas
were in full control.
 By 1982 Orwellian Neighbourhood Citizens' Committees were fully in place. They were
responsible for monitoring the daily lives of every individual. Food ration cards were
instituted solely for control purpose, and were distributed by the above mentioned
Committees upon certification of "good citizenship". There was no shortage of food
in the country, but controlling the distribution of food was undersood to be the surest
means of Total Control.
 The Minister of Interior Tomas Borge (one of the original Sandinista founders) and his
chief of Police, appropriately named Lenin Cerna, ran the terror apparatus that could have
put Dzerzhinsky to shame. One telling indicator is that by 1983 the number of prisoners
increased by more than an order of magnitude from Samosa's high of around 1000.

 That Jean Kirkpatrick, how dare she slander the Sandinistas !!!


>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.

>MZ:
>>>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.

>GK:
>>  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.

>MZ:
>The salient difference, which I certainly do not expect you to
>appreciate or even understand, consists in the fact that Mr Pipes'
>hidden and unargued agenda is articulated and defended by Raymond Aron.

 What a lame attempt to justify your inconsistent rambling, Mr.Zeleny! As anyone who
has seen the writings of Pipes an Aron knows, Pipes' writings are historical, while
Aron's are philosophical in nature. Your own grudging admission above that their
writings are complementary is an argument in my favor.

>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.

>MZ:
>>>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.

>GK:
>> 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.

>MZ:
>Mr Kosinovsky, I originally claimed that your GOP masterminds, such as
>they may be, were probably responsible for your little roster, insofar
>as you obviously are far too too stupid to be capable of any subterfuge,
>just as you are evidently unable to appreciate irony.  If you feel that
>I am misrepresenting my words, feel free to offer quotations.

 You want a quote? Here is a good one reprinted straight from above, with all referrals:
 "
>>>>>... 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:
>> 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?)

>MZ:
>I direct you to Lewis Lapham's editorial, dedicated to the above
>questions, in last year's _Harper's_ magazine.  The quotation from
>official GOP press releases, contained therein, should suffice to
>substantiate my charges.

 Considering that I'm not about to look through a full year of Harpers' editorials,
I'll take your word that there are other idiots, in addition to yourself, who are
capable of making such ludicrous arguments. I can imagine, however,  how convoluted
they must be, if you're incapable of summerizing a few of them here.

>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.

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

>GK:
>> 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:
>Unlike Mr Baker, Jesse Jackson has no official position in his party.
>This, however, is only a side point. What's more important, is yet
>another example of your Stalinist logic, evidenced in your trenchant
>allusion to the attempted GOP purge.  More moral ammunition for Hannah
>Arendt et Cie.

 Jesse Jackson is a much more important figure in the Democratic Party
(especially its liberal wing) than Baker is in GOP. Baker's only tie to GOP
elite is his personal friendship with Bush. Jackson's influence is a lot
more fundamental.
 As for the "purging", I would like to allay your obvious concerns for the
personal safety of Messrs Baker and Bush. What I and many others object to is coming
to power of people who have no philosophy of governance, and whose sole stimulus for
power is personal ambition.
 I am a Republican because I am conservative, not the other way around.
George W. Bush became President because he was a "second in command" of a very successful
and popular President, who put him in that position because he was afraid of loosing
the Liberal wing of the party to Anderson in '80 elections. The party and the country
have since paid for this mistake of Reagan (by far his biggest), and many of us are
determined to put an end to the damage stemming from it.
 I promise you Mr.Zeleny that througout much of your life (and beyond) this country will
be governed by allies and later deciples of Reagan.

 Greg K.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.books