Socialism explained (the Friday Fungus version)

From a late Soviet TV show called The Fifth Wheel:

"I have indisputable evidence," he said, "that the October Revolution was the brainchild of people who'd been taking hallucinating mushrooms for years, and in the long run, mushrooms replaced their personalities, and they turned into mushrooms. So, I just want to say that Lenin was a mushroom. Furthermore, he was not just a mushroom, but also a radio wave."

So said Sergei Kurekhin in conversation with Sergei Sholokhov the show's presenter (it was, I hasten to add a satire not a serious argument). And, in this Reason article by Jesse Walker, we find that they weaved an elaborate conspiracy theory - akin to John Allegro's equally bizarre argument that Jesus was a mushroom - involving Mayan temple frescoes, Carlos Castenada and much else besides.

The article comments on how Kurekhin was involved with the National Bolshevik Party which may - or may not - be an elaborate spoof. The Party did pioneer some of the punkier bits of Russian opposition politics and Kurekhin was an early adopter of fake news as a propaganda (or satire - hard to tell sometimes) tool. As Walker concludes:

Either way, Kurekhin doesn't just have a famous piece of fake news under his belt—he was an early adopter of ironic fascism too. The man may be 23 years dead, but this is his world; the rest of us are just mushrooms growing in it.

Very odd.

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Historical revisionism - ideology trumps scholarship

A depressing article about his dissertation from Jack Morgan Jones. I accept it's a one-sided piece but it sets out how a simple proposal to look at something that fascinates the author became a piece of boilerplate leftist nonsense. The idea of students having real autonomy in study is undermined, the article is worth a read for that alone, but worse it shines a light on leftist revisionism:

I meet with my dissertation supervisor for the first time. She insists that the Soviet Union during the 1930s and 1940s was not totalitarian, and that using totalitarianism as an analytical framework has long since been dismantled by revisionist scholarship.

That's right folks, all those years you've been labouring under the misconception that Finer's definition of totalitarianism applied (in spades) to the Soviet Union of the 1930s. Jack goes on:

My supervisor seems peculiarly determined to render it obsolete. She firmly advises me against making totalitarianism the focus of my dissertation. She makes her case with emphatic certainty—the scholarship on this matter, she tells me, is settled. She is so dismissive that I begin to feel foolish for having even proposed it.

The scholarship is settled! So much for the spirit of enquiry, the joy of research - 1930s Russia wasn't totalitarian! I'm guessing Jack's supervisor and her pals see the Soviet Union of Stalin, with its gulags, state sponsored starvation, pogroms, murders, intrusive secret police and atmosphere of fear, as some sort of cuddly bear that we've all misunderstood. Seems to me that ideology is trumping scholarship here.

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One Hundred Years of Socialist Evil

There. I've said it. This doesn't mean that socialists are evil just that they have been seduced by the Marxist nonsense of what Deirdre McCloskey called 'this secular religion'.

Why is it evil? Because from its outset it has desired the forced transformation of man through the action of authority. There is only one socialist truth and this is owned by those who lead the people - there is no democracy here, no recognition or respect for freedom, or for the fabulous idea that we have individual identity and agency. And this - as we approach the 100th Anniversary of socialism's most extensive trial - is what it means:

"Hang (hang without fail, so the people see) no fewer than one hundred known kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers," Lenin ordered in 1918. "Publish their names. Take from them all the grain. Designate hostages. Do it in such a way so that for hundreds of versts around people will see, tremble, know, shout: They are strangling, strangling to death the bloodsucker kulaks." (The term "kulak" referred to peasants well-off enough to hire workers.) "It is necessary secretly—and urgently—to prepare the terror," he ordered shortly thereafter.

And this is not an accidental correlation between an evil man and a noble ideology, it is the direct consequence of the hatred that drives socialism. Hatred of individual success. Hatred of enterprise. Hatred of initiative. Hatred of liberalism. Hatred of free thought. Hatred of independence. As another evil man inspired by socialism said - "everything within the state, nothing without the state". You, me, all of us, are but pawns in the state's direction. A control that brooks no opposition.

If you are tempted by socialism examine your conscience. Look at the 100 years since that fateful November day in Moscow and ask whether the experiment has run its course. Look around and consider that the people living under liberal capitalism are healthier, wealthier and happier than those who languish under socialism. I know you care about justice. You want rights protected and enforced. You dislike profiteering and rent-seeking. And you feel too many people still fall through the cracks of our rich society into some form of poverty. But socialism is not the answer to these problems - it is a siren voice tempting you onto the rocks of social collapse, authoritarianism and decline. Tie your self to the mast and sail on into calmer seas where people are free, enterprising, independent, innovative and caring. Reject the evil doctrine of socialism.

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Secret Soviet maps...wow!

Fascinating article on the Russian's secret cold war maps:

The maps were part of one of the most ambitious cartographic enterprises ever undertaken. During the Cold War, the Soviet military mapped the entire world, parts of it down to the level of individual buildings. The Soviet maps of US and European cities have details that aren’t on domestic maps made around the same time, things like the precise width of roads, the load-bearing capacity of bridges, and the types of factories. They’re the kinds of things that would come in handy if you’re planning a tank invasion. Or an occupation. Things that would be virtually impossible to find out without eyes on the ground.

Awesome!

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A picture of a tractor....

...a big Soviet tractor.

I've decided to call it Gordon!

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