April 2017 | Issue 3 www.theconservative.online

THEA QUARTERLY JOURNAL CONSERVATIVE BY THE ALLIANCE OF CONSERVATIVES AND REFORMISTS IN EUROPE

ONE

Garry Kasparov HUNDRED Roger Scruton Alexandr Vondra YEARS OF Daniel Johnson Hannes Gissurarson Nigel Biggar SERVITUDE Ayn Rand THE COMMUNIST LEGACY ISSN 2565-7062

9 772565 706000 IMPRESSUM TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE CONSERVATIVE EDITORIAL BOARD

The Conservative is a quarterly Journal in EDITOR-IN-CHIEF print and online, sponsored by the Alliance Daniel Hannan MEP of the Conservatives and Reformists in

Europe (ACRE). ADVISORY BOARD Arthur Brooks Roger Kimball Read The Conservative online at www.theconservative.online Professor Ryszard Legutko MEP Rich Lowry Professor Madhav Das Nalapat 14 UNDER THE INTERROGATION Dr Andrew Roberts SPOTLIGHT by Roger Scruton Professor Pedro Schwartz Professor Sir Roger Scruton

MANAGING EDITOR Themistoklis Asthenidis

SUB-EDITOR Andrew McKie

ILLUSTRATOR Michael Daley

18 TRANSITION: HOW TO CONTACT US 6 THE DEMOCRACIES ARE SLEEPING DO IT QUICKLY 97 MARXISM LIVES ON - IN THE WEST - An interview with Garry Kasparov by Marian L. Tupy by Alexandr Vondra

ADDRESS: Alliance of Conservatives and 5 EDITORIAL: 35 COLUMN: CONSERVATIVE MUSIC Reformists in Europe (ACRE) A HUNDRED YEARS OF SERVITUDE by Jay Nordlinger Rue du Trône 4, B-1000 by Daniel Hannan Brussels, Belgium 38 STARTING IN MURDER, TEL: +32 2 280 60 39 6 THE DEMOCRACIES ARE SLEEPING ENDING IN INEFFICIENCY - An interview with Garry Kasparov by John O’Sullivan WEB: www.theconservative.online by Themistoklis Asthenidis EMAIL: [email protected] 42 MARX IN A COLD CLIMATE 14 UNDER THE by Hannes H. Gissurarson INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS INTERROGATION SPOTLIGHT by Roger Scruton 47 COLUMN: CONSERVATIVE BOOKS Please address submissions and by James Delingpole REPRODUCTION RIGHTS: All content and materials 18 TRANSITION: DO IT QUICKLY of The Conservative are copyrighted, unless otherwise letters to the editor to: stated. For permission to republish articles appearing in by Marian L. Tupy 50 OUTING YOURSELF AS The Conservative, please contact the Managing Editor at A RIGHTIST ISN’T EASY [email protected]. ADDRESS: 25 COLUMN: CONSERVATIVE ICONS by Nigel Biggar DISCLAIMER: ACRE is a Belgian ASBL/VZW No: Editor–in-Chief, The Conservative by Roger Kimball 0820.208.739, recognised and partially funded by the 54 WITHOUT THE RULE OF LAW, European Parliament. Its views are not reflected by the Alliance of Conservatives and European Parliament. Reformists in Europe (ACRE) 31 WHY YOUNG PEOPLE, STATES ARE DOOMED TO POVERTY The views and opinions expressed in the publication are LIKE THE YOUNGER ME, by Daniel J. Mitchell Rue du Trône 4, B-1000 solely those of individual authors and should not be regard- KEEP FALLING FOR TROTSKY ed as reflecting any official opinion or position of the Alliance Brussels, Belgium of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe, its leadership, by Janet Daley members or staff, or of the European Parliament. EMAIL: [email protected]

2 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS THE CONSERVATIVE EDITORIAL: A HUNDRED YEARS OF SERVITUDE

oped a lifelong immunity, con- 57 TRUMP MIGHT NOT DRINK n 1917, a radical group known by Daniel Hannan - BUT HE’LL DRIVE UP SALES as the Bolsheviks seized power siders those who became infected by Iain Martin I in Petrograd. As revolutions go, it – infected to the extent that they was a pedestrian affair. The Pro- inhabited an alternative reality in visional Government that had order to cling to their beliefs. taken over from the Tsar was in Which brings us to the true no position to put up a fight. paradox of Communism. Karl Its leader, a democratic socialist Marx saw himself as a scientist called Alexander Kerensky, fled rather than an ideologue. His fol- Petrograd in a Renault borrowed lowers treated his turgid writings, from the American embassy. not as a series of opinions, but as Even the storming of the Win- a catalogue of empirical truths. ter Palace, later portrayed in Soviet Yet every prediction he made – 50 OUTING YOURSELF AS 66 LEFTIST TEACHERS, Daniel Hannan MEP A RIGHTIST ISN’T EASY SNOWFLAKE STUDENTS iconography as an epic battle, was every single one – turned out to is Secretary-General of the by Nigel Biggar by Dominic Green bathetic. As the British military be false. Alliance of Conservatives ­attaché, General Knox, recalled: Free markets, Marx wrote, and Reformists in Europe and The garrison of the Winter Pal- would destroy the middle class, Editor of The Conservative. ace had dwindled owing to deser- concentrating wealth in the hands @DanielJHannan tions, for there were no provisions of a tiny number of oligarchs. In and it had been practically starved fact, free markets have enlarged for two days. No one had any stom- The horrors abated after 1989; the middle class everywhere they ach for fighting; and some of the but the pain lingered. Roger Scru- have been allowed to exist. ensigns even borrowed great coats of ton describes the way in which The revolution, he wrote, soldier pattern from the women to Marxist regimes systematically would occur when the proletar- enable them to escape unobserved. demolished all civil institutions, iat became sufficiently self-aware, The Red Guards enteredfrom the Boy Scouts to the vil- something he expected to hap- through a back door that had been lage band, making it hard for pen first in Britain and then in left open and roamed, lost, in the post-Communist governments to Germany. In fact, as the working vast interior until they stumbled rebuild. The ones that have moved classes in those countries became 104 THE CRIMINALS HAVE ESCAPED JUSTICE upon the remnants of Kerensky’s on successfully, as Marian Tupy more educated, they shored up by David Pryce-Jones cabinet. Being illiterate, the rev- shows, are those which made a the established order. olutionaries ordered the hapless quick and brutal transition. Capitalism, he believed, ministers to write out their own Yet, incredibly, the radical was doomed: it would collapse 57 COLUMN: CONSERVATIVE WINE 87 COLUMN: FREE MARKET ADVANCES arrest warrants. It was, all in all, a chic lingers. It is still fashionable under the weight of its own by Iain Martin by Kristian Niemietz tawdry, if bloodless, affair. to wear a Che Guevara tee-shirt – contradictions. In fact, when he 61 RADICAL CHIC: HOW GENOCIDE 90 RIGGED ELECTIONS AND The blood came later – gush- something which, morally, ought wrote those words in 1848, mar- REMAINS FASHIONABLE PETTY CORRUPTION ing in such cataracts that we can to be in the same category as wear- kets were already working their by Daniel Johnson by Peter Oppenheimer barely take in what happened. ing an Adolf Hitler or Osama bin magic. During the malign old Communism killed a hundred Laden tee-shirt. A third of Amer- cadger’s lifetime, the real income 66 LEFTIST TEACHERS, 97 MARXISM LIVES ON - IN THE WEST million people: some shot into ican millennials, Marion Smith of the average British family in- SNOWFLAKE STUDENTS by Alexandr Vondra pits, some arrested at night and soberingly tells us, think that creased by 300 per cent. by Dominic Green tortured to death, some starved to George W Bush killed more peo- Yet his disciples, like members 101 COLUMN: CONSERVATIVE CULTURE enforce collectivization. As Dan- ple than Stalin did. Marxism may of some doomsday cult, continue 69 COLUMN: CONSERVATIVE INDIA by Damian Thompson iel Johnson notes in this issue, the be utterly discredited in the lands to fit the facts to their opinions. If by Madhav Das Nalapat where it was practiced, says Alex- anything, they became even more 104 THE CRIMINALS HAVE United States and Russia had sim- 75 THE OVERLOOKED COLONISATION ESCAPED JUSTICE ilar populations in 1917. Today, andr Vondra; but it remains intel- dogmatic after the fall of the Ber- by Edvins Snore by David Pryce-Jones following a century of asym- lectually fashionable in the West. lin Wall. How apt, a hundred years metric migration, abortion and What is its appeal? Janet Daley, on, that Marx should have become 81 PUTIN IS NO CONSERVATIVE 108 OUR ALLEGED COMPETITOR death, there are twice as many who was exposed to the Trotskyist the thing he most loathed: the by Marion Smith by Ayn Rand Americans as there are Russians. bacillus as a student, and devel- prophet of a false religion.

4 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 5 THE DEMOCRACIES ARE SLEEPING An interview with Garry Kasparov

For the centenary of the Bolshevist Revolution, The Conservative’s Themistoklis Asthenidis interviews Garry Kasparov, former World Chess Champion and now a leading voice in Russian politics.

THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: Soviet Communism taught us that 2017 marks the centenary year of the Bol- if the system didn’t work, we had to follow it even more strictly, to shevist Revolution. Yet much of the evil be more obedient slaves. The free done in the name of Communism has been world – democracy and the free forgotten, and the true picture of this his- market – is the opposite. It says that toric failure is fading away. if you have successful individuals, a successful state will result.

GARRY KASPAROV: We are getting far enough from the fall of them, whether it’s a Communism regime or the USSR to more accurately evaluate the a strongman dictator. Soviet Communism deeper impact of totalitarian Communism taught us that if the system didn’t work, we on a society. It’s like a virus that attacks the had to follow it even more strictly, to be more immune system, weakening it and making obedient slaves. The free world — democracy it vulnerable to more lethal infections, like and the free market — is the opposite. It says dictatorship and nationalism. You can see it that if you have successful individuals, a suc- in how poorly post-Communist countries cessful state will result. History has shown us have recovered compared to post-Right- which method works better. wing dictatorships. Obviously any dictator- ship is bad, but Taiwan, South Africa, and Chile, for example, all quickly became suc- THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: cessful free-market democracies, while most What elements of Communist rule do we post-Communist countries are still mired in see today in post-Soviet and other despotic authoritarianism of different kinds. The ex- states? ceptions in Eastern Europe required massive investment, encouragement, and enforce- GARRY KASPAROV: ment from the free world. Soviet Communism was always about power, It’s a long discussion to get to the roots, but right from the start. Yes, there was an un- I believe it’s because Communism weakens derlying ideology, even a utopian one, but it the sense of the individual and responsibility. was always about control and crushing the Instead of looking out for themselves, people regime’s enemies. That mentality prevailed instinctively look for a strong regime to guide in most of the post-Soviet states, with a

6 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 7 The democracies are sleeping - An interview with Garry Kasparov

GARRY KASPAROV: I’m optimistic in general, in that I believe we will reach a better place, with more free- dom and prosperity, and that Russia will also be included in that brighter future. But that does not mean it is inevitable, that it will happen on its own or that it will happen soon. Russia is just as capable of democracy as any nation or people, of course. There is no genetic predisposition toward dictator- ship or democracy, as you can see in North and South Korea, in China and Taiwan. But Putin is poisoning the minds of Russians against democracy, and against individual freedom in general, and many of our most capable people are leaving, which will make the eventual transition even harder.

THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: Who are the enemies of the free world and how can they be stopped?

GARRY KASPAROV: The steady decrease in global THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: The enemies of the free world are the ene- freedom is a threat in and of What are the threats to liberal democracies few brief exceptions in Russia under Yeltsin mies of modernity, those who want to live itself, because democracy today? and prosperity worldwide is and Georgia with Saakashvili, for example. in the past. Putin wants to go back to the the only real lasting security. The mandate continues to be “the state is ev- Eighteenth Century of great regional powers Authoritarianism is the source GARRY KASPAROV: erything” and that leads to inevitable repres- that ruled by force. ISIS and the radical mul- of most of the world’s ills, from The steady decrease in global freedom is a sion whether or not there is an ideology like lahs want to go back to an Islamic caliphate. poverty to terrorism. threat in and of itself, because democracy and socialism behind it. What they have in common is the realisa- prosperity world-wide is the only real lasting tion that the modern world of democracy, them or destroy them. The free world still security. Authoritarianism is the source of most freedom, and prosperity would be the end has a huge military and economic advan- of the world’s ills, from poverty to terrorism. THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: of their power, and so they attack to defend tage – culturally too – if not as big as it Moral relativism is a mortal threat, pretend- You rose to fame as World Chess Champi- that power. was in 1992. But if the world’s democra- ing that dictatorships and brutal theocracies on, but you are also known as a political The free world took it for granted that cies came together to set standards and to should be treated with equal respect to de- activist and one of the most prominent this battle was over when the USSR fell. defend them, it would be more prosperous mocracies that protect human life and human and influential Russian dissidents. In your The strategies that won the Cold War were and secure, and it would also lead to more rights. More concretely, as Putin is illustrating most recent book Winter Is Coming, you dropped almost immediately, and there is freedom worldwide as pressure mounted very clearly, dictatorships now have the abili- discuss the autocratic regime of Putin and no appetite to bring them back. But they on the dictators. Instead, the dictators and ty to attack targets anywhere in the world very the threat it poses to freedom. Are you op- worked, and they are still needed. You don’t thugs have ready access to western markets easily thanks to digital weapons and misinfor- timistic that Russia can transition into a engage with dictators, you isolate them. and riches, so they have no incentive to mation. It’s a massive effort, and the free world democracy? You don’t appease terror sponsors, you deter reform. is still pretending it can ignore it.

8 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 9 The democracies are sleeping - An interview with Garry Kasparov

THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: wanted to put the Cold War in the past, (HRF), Thor Halvorssen. It’s the most im- “Regime change” is such a big and Francis Fukuyama, who has highly praised ignoring the new challenges ahead. The portant fight in the world, and should be tainted phrase, but of course we your book, argued that the collapse of USSR United Nations was designed to freeze treated as such. Instead, at best the free should desire and press for the end of the many brutal regimes that cause would give way to the domination of West- conflicts, not solve them, or to project de- world’s leaders and citizens deal with the so much suffering. Reagan called ern liberal democracies. Yet Communism mocracy values. It became obsolete when symptoms here and there. “Regime change” the USSR “the evil empire” and was and authoritarianism persist in large parts the Cold War ended, but nothing new was is such a big and tainted phrase, but of totally correct. Today, few are willing of the world. “The U.S.S.R. Fell – and the built to consolidate the gains of the fall of course we should desire and press for the to call evil what it is, and so it grows. World Fell Asleep”, you recently noted. Has the Iron Curtain. And for a decade we’ve end of the many brutal regimes that cause Western leadership since 1990 failed to been sliding backward. so much suffering. Reagan called the USSR THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: make the world more free? “the evil empire” and was totally correct. Many of President Trump’s critics suggest Today, few are willing to call evil what it is, that he has authoritarian tendencies and GARRY KASPAROV: THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: and so it grows. that he poses a threat to democracy. Some Absolutely failed. It was understandable, to All global problems — poverty, social exclu- You fight inside and outside, but first even compare him to Vladimir Putin. Can a degree, to want to celebrate, to be friends sion, environmental degradation, religious you have to recognise it’s a problem and the president of one of the world’s most ad- with everyone, and to think that even the extremism, lack of innovation, conflict, end the hypocrisy of treating these regimes vanced democracies ever become a threat to last holdouts like Cuba, China, North abuse of human rights — are found in coun- like normal allies. Do business with them if liberty and democracy? Korea, et al, would simply fade away in tries with authoritarian institutions. These you must, I understand economic necessity, the tide of liberal democracy. But this was are symptoms of failing institutions, and but never stop pressing for reforms, whether GARRY KASPAROV: naïve and lazy, at best. Instead, the early yet the root cause of this failure is hardly it’s with hostile states like Russia and Iran Any democratic leader can become an enemy 1990s desperately needed the leadership addressed. or supposed allies like Saudi Arabia. Put of global democracy simply by doing noth- like Harry Truman showed after the Sec- human rights in the centre and you will get ing. Inaction is also a choice, as epitomised ond World War in constructing the insti- GARRY KASPAROV: results. If it’s just another side issue, it’s eas- by Obama’s eight years of failure on the tutions of a new world order. But Clinton, I’ve written about this extensively, includ- ily ignored. international front. His mandate to be the president of the world’s unmatched super- ing a recent article with the founder and ­“anti-George W Bush” was clear, but his re- power at the time, had no vision, and just director of the Human Rights Foundation treat from the world was too far, too fast, and THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: we see the results everywhere. How does the HRF protect human rights? Domestically, it’s very easy for an elect- ed leader to distort democratic institutions. GARRY KASPAROV: As Trump’s opponents are now discovering, HRF focuses on uniting, educating, and sup- much of a democracy is based on tradi- porting dissidents and dissident movements tion and habit, not law. People keep being in unfree states – and raising awareness of shocked, “Can Trump really do this? Can their fights elsewhere. The Oslo Freedom he really do that?” Well, yes, because people Forum is our centrepiece event, bringing to- trusted that he would act more or less like gether dissidents and speakers from all over every other president before him. Instead, the world to share their stories and tech- because of who he is – a man with no scru- niques for resisting. It’s a remarkable event. ples, no experience, and no past in public Another area of focus is calling out the hyp- service – he is exposing all the cracks in the ocritical democratic governments and west- system everyone took for granted. In a way ern institutions that often provide aid and it’s good, because Americans should use this comfort to dictatorships instead of holding lesson to repair those institutions against fu- them to account. ture abuses.

10 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 11 The democracies are sleeping - An interview with Garry Kasparov

When the pie shrinks, when THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: If you like it when Obama abuses growth slows, the big guys have an Ronald Reagan famously said: “Freedom is executive power but then complain advantage in fighting for the pieces. about it when Trump does the same, never more than one generation away from you are part of the problem. extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children This is always the key, and it’s the lesson in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, from what happened to Russia with Yeltsin. protected, and handed on for them to do the the opposite, a lack of ambition and a lack We were so afraid of a Communist return that same.” What is the role of the conservative of big thinking that created the boom in we weakened democratic institutions to sup- movement in this discussion? How can the the first place. When the pie shrinks, when port one man, one party. This always backfires, conservative movement defend, preserve and growth slows, the big guys have an advan- because then Putin got in and continued to promote freedom. tage in fighting for the pieces. Inequality rip up those fragile institutions. Focus on the tably happens with massive increases in state drops when everything is growing because law, strengthen the institutions, not the per- power and control of resources. You never get GARRY KASPAROV: labour is in demand, wages rise, the virtuous son or party in charge at the moment. If you that power back, at least not without a fight. It’s about values and sticking to them regard- cycle. When you have financial tricks and like it when Obama abuses executive power Americans and other rich nations talking less of the person or party. It means stand- political favours instead of real growth, of but then complain about it when Trump does about socialism is a luxury paid for by the ing up for these values at home and abroad, course the average worker is going to lose the same, you are part of the problem. success of capitalism, never forget that. So- all the time, not just when and where it is out, and that’s been happening in general cialism isn’t a synonym for being generous or convenient politically. Conservative doesn’t since the 1970s. empathetic, as many young people want to mean being against change in the world. This is as much a cultural shift as a policy THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: believe. It gives up individual freedom, first You can be quite liberal on social issues, one, and it will take time to change the timid Twenty-five years after the collapse of one of and foremost, and that’s fine for some as long for example, as I generally am, while being culture that we live in today. We went from the most murderous systems ever devised by as the government is doing what they want. strong and consistent on individual freedom, wanting a better life for our kids to want- human intelligence, the ills of Communism But that never lasts for long. free markets and trade, and other civil and ing to guarantee our own gains, and that tend to be forgotten. Regressive socialism as human rights. A modern conservative move- short-sighted, selfish mentality has limited well as populism are on the rise in the US and ment should realise that and promote that growth and freedom as well. If people start in Europe. We are even witnessing an attempt THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: truth. People want strength and stability, but dreaming big again, the politicians and com- to whitewash the crimes and atrocities of Is there a moral obligation on Western lib- make the error of putting that desire into panies will follow. Communism; after Cuba’s long-ruling dicta- eral democracies to promote democracy, and individual leaders and parties instead of val- tor Fidel Castro died in November 2016, the what is the best way? ues and policies, which leads to erosion and President of the European Commission Junk- corruption. er called him “a hero for many” and Canada’s GARRY KASPAROV: Prime Minister Trudeau praised the ruthless Having lived it from the other side, I feel very tyrant as “a remarkable leader”. Hundreds of strongly that Western democracies have a THEMISTOKLIS ASTHENIDIS: millions of people today still live under similar moral obligation to project and defend those How can free markets and economic insti- oppressive regimes in North Korea, Venezuela, values elsewhere. Not just a moral obligation, tutions lead to global liberty and prosperity, Taiwan and many other countries. Is the rise but it makes them safer and more prosper- and create freer people and nations? of socialism a threat to individual freedoms ous as well. Building walls, moral relativism, and democracy? America First, these are all excuses for coward- GARRY KASPAROV: ice and weakness that always end badly. Small The free market has brought billions of peo- GARRY KASPAROV: outreach efforts aren’t enough. Aid should be ple out of poverty. It is the greatest engine Garry Kasparov Yes, because people don’t understand what increased massively because it’s more moral, of prosperity ever created. The massive in- is a Russian pro-democracy leader, global human- it means. Obviously the socialism of Ber- more effective, and a lot cheaper than the ter- equality we are seeing today, and it’s grow- rights activist, business speaker and author, and nie Sanders isn’t the totalitarianism of the ror attacks and military interventions that in- ing, is a huge problem but it is not the result former world chess champion. USSR. But many have forgotten what inevi- evitably occur when there is a power vacuum. of the ambitious, unfettered free market. It’s @Kasparov63

12 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 13 Solovetsky Monastery on the Solovetsky Islands, scene of the most notorious Soviet prison camp

UNDER THE INTERROGATION SPOTLIGHT by Roger Scruton People living under Communism had been ­People living­ under Com- private association of volun- of Hungary in 1948, Janos deprived of the most important of all human munism had been deprived teers, devoted to education Kádar, as minister of home ast September a group of with organising the trip, but goods, which is the of the most important of all and outside the control of affairs, was given the task of L boys from Eton managed through the various societies freedom to associate human goods, which is the the state, but the roof under abolishing every association to arrange a secret meeting to which they belong. Mr for purposes of their freedom to associate for pur- which a hundred smaller ini- not controlled by the Party. in the Kremlin with Vladi- Putin, puzzled, asked: “What own, including the purpose of having no poses of their own, includ- tiatives are sheltered: debat- In the course of a year he de- mir Putin. Mr Putin asked are societies?” purpose save this one. ing the purpose of having no ing societies, houses, drama stroyed 5,000 of these “little them how they had set about The question brought purpose save this one. And groups, teams, all the clubs, platoons”. Churches, schools, achieving this, and the boys home in the most direct rule – the rule that Putin the question also brought trusts and traditions of a religious establishments and replied that they had not possible way what the Rus- had exercised, and which home what the English peo- vital civil society. charities were followed by worked through the school, sian people principally he and others had main- ple enjoy in a school such When the Communists sports teams, chess clubs, which had nothing to do lost through Communist tained over Eastern Europe. as Eton, which is not just a took over the government brass bands, orchestras, theatre

14 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 15 Under the interrogation spotlight

studying the disaster, will tablished by capitalism. a brass band – were either for- recognise that the abolition This nonsense was spouted bidden or dangerous. And if of the rule of law was both an continually by the Commu- you fell on hard times there inevitable part of the totali- nists. They took it to autho- was no group of citizens, not tarian project and the cause rise both the destruction of alms-giver or rescue operation, of irreparable fractures in the civil society and the ampli- to which you could turn for community that emerged. fication of the state, while help. In everything that affect- But not everyone is aware of at the same time removing ed your comfort and survival the attack on civil society, or all the legal, civil and moral you were on your own. of its consequences for social barriers between the indi- That, to me, was the great and political order, because vidual and the Party. This sin that lay at the heart of the the lesson that it teaches is was the true origin of Com- Communist system – the sin one that we still have to learn. munist enslavement. of isolating individuals from The distinction between Individuals stood isolated their fellows, and then turn- state and civil society was and alone in the predicament ing the spotlight of interroga- spelled out carefully by defined for them by the ap- tion on them so as to watch Hegel, and was in the back paratus – their jobs, housing, them squirm. of Marx’s mind when he ar- education and opportunities gued that under Commu- were controlled from on high, nism we would see a “with- and the spotlight of official ob- ering away of the state”. But servation followed them wher- Communism isolated ­groups, women’s­ institutes… ety”, conducted by the Party before that could happen, ever they went. The normal individuals from their Marx wrote, there would ways of recreation – meeting until the social landscape was fellows, and then that promised the “withering entirely laid bare, and not an turned the spotlight of away of the state”. have to be a “dictatorship in the pub, forming clubs to institution was standing. Pri- interrogation on them Educated people will of the proletariat”, in order pursue hobbies and education- so as to watch them to oversee the dismantling al activities, joining a church, vate charity was made illegal, squirm. know from The Gulag Archi- and no group of people could pelago and subsequent stud- of the oppressive order es- a scout troop, a dining circle, hold funds in trust to help Catholic Church the Poles ies something of the terrible Sir Roger Scruton their fellows. Everything had had a centre of resistance to cost of Communism in terms is a writer and philosopher to pass through the Commu- the Communist dictatorship, of human life and suffering. who has published more than nist Party, which seized all civic which permitted them to lift They will know of the geno- forty books in philosophy, aesthetics and politics. He endowments and applied them the corners of the tent that cides and the forced enslave- is widely translated. He is a to goals of its own. the Party had thrown over ments of whole populations. fellow of the British Academy The Czech lands and Slo- them, so as to let in a chink Readers of Doctor Zhivago and a Fellow of the Royal vakia likewise lost their civic or two of light. The Catholic will be aware of the total Society of Literature. He inheritance, and no private University of Lublin retained chaos that was the inevitable teaches in both England and educational initiative exist- its independence, though consequence of the Bolshevik America and is a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy ed in those countries apart starved of funds, and reli- takeover in Russia, when all Center, Washington D.C. He from those conducted in gious orders could offer social private initiative was forbid- “What are is currently teaching an MA in secret by people who risked consolations of their own. den, and individual account- Philosophy for the University societies?” imprisonment should they But the Poles too suffered the ability was driven from the of Buckingham. be discovered. Thanks to the “withering away of civil soci- system. And many people, @roger_scruton

16 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 17 TRANSITION: DO IT QUICKLY by Marian L. Tupy Professor Walter Williams of George Mason University once said that lmost a hundred years War. Unfortunately, the coun- travelling from West have passed since the try was soon plunged into Berlin to East Berlin A in the 1980s was like coup d’etat Bolshevik on Oc- a civil war, Stalinist purges, stepping into a black- tober 24 1917. The overthrow the Gulag and the man-made and-white movie. of the Russian Provisional famine in Ukraine. And those Government under Alexander were the good days! tal combat with Germany Kerensky provided the Rus- Weakened by internal that would cost the Soviet sian people with temporary bloodletting, the country Union 27 million lives. As relief subsequent to Russia’s found itself unprepared a testament to the dogged withdrawal from the Great for another round of mor- perseverance of its people,

18 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 19 Transitions do it quickly the USSR emerged out of Communist putsch of 1948. to East Berlin in the 1980s to pass that my parents most balconies. On Friday My parents and I the smouldering ruins of the Show trials were no longer was like stepping into a and I found ourselves cele- evenings, the people mar- found ourselves celebrating Christmas Second World War not only held and people were no lon- black-and-white movie. The brating Christmas in Vien- velled at the conspicuous con- in Vienna – a city victorious, but also in pos- ger murdered by the state. same could be said about na – a city that seemed to sumption of the Ewing family that seemed to session of a number of col- Exhausted, the regime had the whole of the Commu- me, a 13-year-old boy, Dis- in the reruns of the American me, a 13-year-old onies in central and Eastern lost confidence in its ideals nist Bloc: grey streets, grey ney-like in its beauty and soap opera Dallas, while late boy, Disney-like Europe – and it is here that and itself. My grandparents’ houses, grey people, grey extravagance. on Saturday they could catch in its beauty and extravagance. the author enters this story. generation associated Com- food – grey everything. It was not long before the a naughty movie on German Growing up in 1980s munism with unimaginable Thus, when the Berlin Wall blessings of freedom could television. Political parties Czechoslovakia, I witnessed deprivations and rivers of came down on November 9 be felt in my native country. and, more importantly, po- and More Political Freedom. Communism’s final decade. blood. My generation asso- 1989, the first sensation the Within weeks after the re- litical differences sprang up The paper has identified two The people around me were ciated it with annoying but newly liberated East Ger- moval of price and wage con- – with monumental conse- approaches to transition from still afraid of eavesdropping manageable food shortages mans experienced was the trols, and after the first round quences for ex-Communist communism to capitalism by the secret police, jail time and with the grey monoto- colourful effervescence of of trade liberalisation, shops countries that continue to the that emerged after the fall of for anti-socialist activities, ny of everyday life under a capitalism: freshly painted miraculously filled with a present day. the Berlin Wall. On the one professional ruin and social dictatorship. houses, neon signs of com- mind-boggling array of previ- Last year I co-authored side were those who favoured ostracism. But Communism Professor Walter Wil- merce, colorful food pack- ously unimagined goods. The a paper entitled 25 Years of rapid economic reforms. On no longer inspired terror in liams of George Mason aging, etc. Our own “Velvet end of censorship led to a vast Reforms in Ex-Communist the other side were those the way it had in the early University once said that Revolution” followed eight array of new publications, and Countries: Fast and Extensive who wanted a more gradual years after the Czechoslovak travelling from West Berlin days later, and thus it came satellite dishes appeared on Reforms Led to Higher Growth approach.

Figure 1: Gross domestic product per capita, 2011 US dollars adjusted for purchas- Figure 2: Democracy versus autocracy, scale -10 to 10, 1989-2013. ing power parity, 1990-2015.

10 30000 8

25000 6

4 20000 2

0 15000 -2

10000 -4

-6 5000 -8

0 -10 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

CENTRAL EUROPE BALTIC COUNTRIES FORMER USSR GRADUAL REFORM FORMER USSR LAGGED REFORM CENTRAL EUROPE BALTIC COUNTRIES FORMER USSR GRADUAL REFORM FORMER USSR LAGGED REFORM

20 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 21 Transitions do it quickly

Figure 3: Corruption perception index, scale 0 to 100, 1995-2016.

70

60

50

40

30

20

10

0 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

CENTRAL EUROPE BALTIC COUNTRIES FORMER USSR GRADUAL REFORM FORMER USSR LAGGED REFORM

Political elites that their Western counterparts, is that fast and extensive favoured gradual Central European and Baltic reforms led to much better reforms often did so in order to extract countries are full-fledged de- economic and political out- maximum rents mocracies (see Figure 2). Un- comes than slow and limited from the economy. like their Western counter- reforms. The other lesson is One consequence parts, both ex-Communist that it is easier to make peo- of gradualism was regions continue to struggle ple rich than it is to make the emergence of oligarchic classes. with corruption and other them virtuous. institutional weaknesses. The situation is much worse of gradualism was the emer- in countries that opted for gence of oligarchic classes. Of The gradualists argued tries chose the gradual path. formed gradual reformers gradual reforms or eschewed course, rich capitalists arose that rapid reforms would Some, like Belarus, Uzbeki- on measures of institutional most reforms (see Figure 3). in all transition economies, cause too much social pain, stan and Turkmenistan, es- development, such as quali- Evidence shows that it is but their concentration and as loss-making enterprises chewed most reforms. ty of democracy and control easier to legislate economic degree of political influence shut down and unemploy- As Figure 1 shows, rapid of corruption. reforms than it is to build appears to be far higher in ment grew. Their opponents reformers experienced much In general, political elites sound institutions. Eco- slowly reforming countries, argued that in the absence of shorter recessions and grew that favoured economic lib- nomic growth is a conse- in general, and in large econ- rapid reforms, special inter- much faster than gradual eralisation also favoured quence of removal of barri- omies of the former USSR in ests would come to monopo- reformers. Rapid reformers institutional development. ers to exchange between free Marian L. Tupy particular. lise both the political process also received much more for- Conversely, political elites people. But how does one is the editor of That said, institutional HumanProgress.org and a and the economy. Central eign direct investment, and that favoured gradual reforms make a society less corrupt development in the whole senior policy analyst at the Europe and the Baltic coun- ended up with lower rates of often did so in order to extract and more law-abiding? One of the former Soviet bloc Center for Global Liberty and tries opted for rapid reforms. poverty and income inequal- maximum rents from the lesson of the transition from Prosperity at Cato Institute. remains unfinished. Like Other ex-Communist coun- ity. Moreover, they outper- economy. One consequence­ Communism to capitalism @humanprogress

22 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 23 CONSERVATIVE ICONS

RAYMOND ARON Study in English, Live in Prague! by Roger Kimball he French philosopher rice Merleau-Ponty and, es- T Raymond Aron, who pecially, of Jean-Paul Sartre, died in 1983 in his late sev- his classmates at the École enties, is a half-forgotten co- normale supérieure. In part, lossus of Twentieth Century that was because of his in- Philosophy, intellectual life. Part philos- tellectual style, which lacked opher, part sociologist, part braggadocio. He also lacked olitics, journalist, he was above all a the appetite for celebrity, P spokesman for that rarest form which is another way of say- of idealism, the idealism of ing he did not prize brilliance Economics common sense. He was, Allan Aron understood over truth. He certainly did Bloom wrote shortly after that political not lack ability. By many wisdom rests in the Aron’s death, “the man who ability to choose the measures, Aron was the most (PPE) for fifty years… had been right better course of action accomplished of his peers, about the political alternatives even when the best in breadth as well as solidity actually available to us… [H] course is unavailable – of knowledge. He took first which is always. e was right about Hitler, right place at the agrégation in that prof. Michael Munger about Stalin, and right that most distinguished class, and Director, PPE at Duke University, our Western regimes, with all it is a nice detail that in the Roger Kimball Chairman of CEVRO Institute’s their flaws, are the best and early 1940s Sartre humbly PPE International Academic Board is editor and publisher of only hope of mankind.” The New Criterion and presented Aron with a copy Over the course of his ca- President and Publisher of of Being and Nothingness as reer, Aron occupied various Encounter Books. He is a an “ontological introduction” exalted academic posts – at frequent contributor to many to Aron’s earlier book on the publications in the US, Europe, the Sorbonne, the École pra- philosophy of history. International World-Class and Australia and writes tique des hautes études, the the Roger’s Rules column From the 1950s to the Master’s Program in Prague Collège de France – but he for PJ Media. He is author early 1970s, Aron was reg- was never merely an academ- of several books, including, ularly calumniated by the — Oxford-style PPE degree in the intersection of political ic. He wrote some 40 books most recently, The Fortunes radical Left – by his erstwhile­ – on history, on the conduct of Permanence: Culture friends Sartre and Mer- and Anarchy in an Age of philosophy, political science, and political economy of war, on the cultural and leau-Ponty, for starters, but Amnesia. @rogerkimball political prospects of France also by their many epigoni and — A unique understanding of current economic and political – and was an indefatigable intellectual heirs. In 1963, processes political commentator, for Although showered with for example, Susan Sontag some three decades for Figa- honours, Aron never en- dismissed Aron as “a man — Taught entirely in English by faculty from leading universities ro and then, at the end of his joyed the dazzling celebrity deranged by German phi- in the US and Europe life, for L’Express. that came the way of Mau- losophy belatedly converting — Duration: 3 Trimesters 24 cevroinstitut.czwww.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 25

CI_PPE_03_2016_A5 _EN.indd 1 02.03.16 11:09

Roger Kimball CONSERVATIVE ICONS

to Anglo-Saxon empiricism ideals but a maturing recog- “In defending the freedom of and common sense under the nition that ideals worth cher- religious teaching,” he wrote, name of ‘Mediterranean’ vir- ishing are those that can be “the unbeliever defends his tue.” In fact, it would be dif- fulfilled without destroying own freedom.” Aron’s gen- ficult to find anyone at once what they profess to exalt. erosity of spirit was a coeffi- more knowledgeable about In this context, Shils cient of his recognition that and less deranged by German spoke of Aron’s “discriminat- reality was complex, knowl- philosophy than Raymond ing devotion to the ideals of edge limited, and action es- Aron. His was a sober and the Enlightenment”. The ide- sential. Aron, Shils wrote, penetrating intelligence, suf- als in question prominently “very early came to know the ficiently curious to take on featured faith in the power of sterile vanity of moral de- Hegel, sufficiently robust to reason; Aron’s discrimination nunciations and lofty proc- escape uncorrupted by the showed itself in his recogni- lamations, of demands for encounter. perfection and of the assess- The fact that Aron was The fact that Aron ment of existing situations was hated by the Left hated by the Left does not does not mean that according to the standard of mean that he was a partisan of he was a partisan of perfection.” As Aron him- the Right. On the contrary, he the Right. self wrote in his masterpiece, always to some extent consid- The Opium of the Intellectuals ered himself a man of the Left, tion that reason’s power is al- (1955), “every known regime but (in later years anyway) it ways limited. That is to say, is blameworthy if one re- was the pre-Marxist Left of if Aron was a faithful child lates it to an abstract ideal of high liberalism. (Bloom aptly of the Enlightenment – its equality or liberty.” subtitled his essay on Aron secularism, its humanism, its The leitmotif of Aron’s ca- “The Last of the Liberals.”) opposition of reason to su- reer was responsibility. Not Aron’s criticism of the Left perstition – he also in many the whining metaphysical or was not a repudiation but an respects remained a faithful “ontological” responsibility extension of his liberalism. grandchild of the traditional that Sartre was always going As the sociologist Edward society that many Enlighten- on about – the anguished “re- Shils noted in an affectionate ment thinkers professed to sponsibility of the for-itself”­ memoir of his friend, Aron despise. burdened by groundless free- moved from being a declared Enlightened thinking dom – but the exercise of that socialist in his youth to be- tends to be superficial think- prosaic, but indispensable, coming “the most persistent, ing because its critical ar- virtue: prudence. Aron under- the most severe, and the most moury is deployed against stood that political ­wisdom learned critic of Marxism and every faith except its own ­rests in the ability to choose of the socialist – or more pre- blind faith in the power of the better course of action cisely Communist – order reason. Aron avoided the even when the best course is of society” in the Twentieth besetting liability of the En- unavailable – which is always. Century. lightenment by subjecting its “The last word,” he insisted, Again, this shift tokened ideals to the same scrutiny it “is never said and one must not a repudiation of youthful reserved for its adversaries. not judge one’s adversaries as

26 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 27 Roger Kimball CONSERVATIVE ICONS if one’s own cause were identi- formed in the fiery crucible Like its chemical subject of politics, Aristo- of the real in the face of the gate imperfection. fied with absolute truth.” of revolutionary activity. counterpart, the first tle noted, is “the good life blandishments of the ideal. Unlike the Marxist, the effect of the opium It is worth noting that Combined with the doctrine of the intellectuals for man.” What constitutes The prospect of ideal – that classical liberal regards men among Aron’s favorite terms of historical inevitability – a is unbounded the good life? Aron cannily is, total, complete – emanci- as: “basically imperfect and of commendation were “pro- monstrous idea that Marx exhilaration. reminds us that the more pation bewitches susceptible resigns himself to a system saic” and its cognates, while took over from Hegel – the Only later does the extravagant answers to this souls because “it contains in where the good will be the stupefaction he consistently used “poetry” Myth of the Revolution is a question are often the most itself the poetry of the un- result of countless actions become evident. and its cognates pejoratively. prescription for totalitarian malevolent. They promise known, of the future, of the and never the object of a In his Memoirs (1983), Aron tyranny. What does the liqui- and might be undone; it is everything; they tend to de- absolute.” The problem is conscious choice. In the last wrote that in The Opium of the dation of the Kulaks matter piecemeal because ideals are liver misery and impoverish- that the poetry of the abso- resort, he subscribes to the Intellectuals he attempted “to in the face of the necessary never achieved all at once, ment. Hence his rejection of lute is an inhuman poetry. As pessimism which sees politics bring the poetry of ideology unfolding of the dialectic? but only approached step by Communism: Aron drily observed, in real as the art of creating the con- down to the level of the prose Like its chemical counter- faltering step; and it is im- “Communism is a degrad- life ideal emancipation turns ditions in which the vices of of reality.” What Aron called part, the first effect of the perfect because the recalci- ed version of the Western mes- out to be “indistinguishable men contribute to the good the “Myth of the Revolution” opium of the intellectuals trance of reality – including sage. It retains its ambition to from the omnipotence of the of the State.” Aron acknowl- (like the “Myth of the Left” is unbounded exhilaration. the messy reality of human conquer nature, to improve edged that this prosaic model The rule of law; and the “Myth of the Prole- Only later does the stupefac- nature – guarantees slippage, the lot of the humble, but it economic vitality; lacks the grandeur of utopia. tariat”) is so seductive pre- tion become evident. frustration, incompleteness, sacrifices what was and must respect for tradition; “Doubtless the free play cisely because of its poetical Unlike the revolutionary, and sheer perversity. remain the heart and soul of freedom of speech: of initiative, competition be- charm: it induces the illusion the reformer acknowledg- The ideal of the reform- the unending human adven- out of such prosaic tween buyers and sellers, would elements are the that “all things are possible,” es that genuine progress is ist, Aron noted, “is prosa- ture: freedom of enquiry, free- be unthinkable if human na- seemingly miraculous that everything – age-old contingent, piecemeal, and ic,” that of the revolution- dom of controversy, freedom of successes of Western ture had not been sullied by institutions, the structure of imperfect. Progress is con- ary “poetic”. Equally, one is criticism, and the vote.” society forged. the Fall. The individual would society, even human nature tingent because it depends real, the other fantastical. In Such freedoms may seem give of his best in the interests itself – can be utterly trans- upon individual initiative his Memoirs, Aron acknowl- pedestrian in comparison State.” of others without hope of rec- edged that: “I do in fact with the prospect of a class- The issue is “not radical ompense, without concern for think that the organisation less society in which liber- choice, but ambiguous com- his own interests.” of social life on this earth ty reigns and inequality has promise”. Aron continually But that “if” issues an un- turns out, in the end, to be been vanquished once and came back to man as he is, redeemable promise. Aron’s rather prosaic.” The rule of for all. But such an idea, not as he might be imag- twofold task was to remind law; economic vitality; re- Aron noted, “is no more than ined. Yes, some individuals us, first, that there is no spect for tradition; freedom an illustration in a children’s are honourable and trust- human nature unsullied by of speech: out of such pro- picture book.” worthy. But, Aron writes, “at the Fall and, second, to sug- saic elements are the seem- To say that Aron was sus- the risk of being accused of gest, as does orthodox Chris- ingly miraculous successes picious of the poetical is not cynicism, I refuse to believe tianity, that what prophets of of Western society forged. to deny that his sober vision that any social order can be the absolute decry as a disaster (One thinks of Walter Bage- of human fulfillment exhib- based on the virtue and dis- was in fact a “fortunate fall,” hot’s observation that “the its a poetry of its own. Aron, interestedness of citizens”. a condition of our humani- essence of civilisation… is one might say, was a poet of Following Adam Smith and ty. The utopian is optimistic dullness… an elaborate in- the realm of prose. Anoth- other classical liberals, he about man, pessimistic about vention… for abolishing er way of putting this is to looked to the imperfections particular men and women: the fierce passions.”) The say that he was a champion of man for the fuel to miti- “I think I know man,”

28 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 29 Chancellor Sewell calls in police who use tear gas to clear protestors at Roger Kimball the Dow Chemical Co. from the Commerce Building on October 18 CONSERVATIVE ICONS

­Rousseau sadly wrote, “but as cation, not refutation. the philosophies of Marx and for men, I know them not.” ­ It is the same with Sartre, Nietzsche are incompatible. The anti-utopian is pessi- who championed totalitar- But for intellectuals under mistic, or at least disabused, ian regimes from the Soviet the influence such distinc- about man; this forgiving Union to Cuba but who ex- tions count for naught. As pessimism frees him to be hibited an implacable hatred Aron notes, the descendants optimistic about individuals. of America and liberal democ- of Marx and Nietzsche (and In his foreword to The racy. (“America is a mad dog,” Hegel and Freud) come to- Opium of the Intellectuals, he exclaimed in one effusion; gether by many paths. The Aron noted that he directed “it is the cradle of a new Fas- existentialism of Sartre, the his argument “not so much cism.”) Sartre’s “ethical rad- nihilism of Derrida or Fou- against the Communists as icalism,” Aron wrote, “com- cault, all exhibit a similar against the communisants,” bined with ignorance of social intellectual incontinence. against those fellow travellers structures, predisposed him to What unites them is not a co- for whom the West is always verbal revolutionism. Hatred herent doctrine but a spirit of wrong and who believe that of the bourgeoisie makes him opposition to the established people can “be divided into allergic to prosaic reforms.” order, “the occupational dis- two camps, one the incarna- ease,” Aron notes, “of the tion of good and the other of The existentialism intellectuals.” of Sartre, the evil, one belonging to the fu- nihilism of Derrida or George Orwell famously WHY YOUNG PEOPLE, ture and the other to the past, Foucault, all exhibit remarked that there are some one standing for reason and a similar intellectual ideas so absurd that only an LIKE THE YOUNGER ME, the other for superstition.” incontinence. intellectual could believe KEEP FALLING FOR TROTSKY Marxism is a primary al- them. The Opium of the In- lotrope of the opium of the In insulating its victims tellectuals provides a kind of by Janet Daley intellectuals because its doc- from reality, the opium of the aerial survey of the higher trine of historical inevitabil- intellectuals at the same time gullibility that Orwell dis- t was my generation which Why did that neo- tribution of leaflets and the ity insulates it from correc- insulates them from the re- paraged, analysing its appar- famously – or notoriously, Marxist position wearing of badges), not only I retain such a hold tion by anything so trivial as bukes of contradiction. This ently perennial attractions, depending on your point of on civil rights issues but on factual reality. When Mer- has allowed for some pecu- describing its costs, mapping over so many, when it view – invented the inter- had apparently failed the Vietnam War and Amer- leau-Ponty assures us that in liar intellectual hybrids. For its chief roadways and point- national student revolution. as a political system ican foreign policy, was a clear the modern world the prole- example, the philosophies ing out some escape routes. Back in the day at Berkeley, in all the countries breach of the constitutional tariat is the only form of “au- of Nietzsche and Marx are For this reason, The Opium of this was not a Marxist re- of the world where liberties of people who hap- thentic intersubjectivity” or diametrically opposed: one the Intellectuals was a seminal it had actually been volt in its first incarnation. installed? pened to live and work on when he writes that Marxism celebrates the lonely genius, book of the Twentieth Cen- It began as an expression of university premises. So, in the “is not a philosophy of histo- the other the collective; one tury, an indispensable contri- outrage at the banning of all nesses tired of being picket- first instance, this campaign ry, it is the philosophy of his- looks for a new aristocracy of bution to that most patient political activity on campus ed by University of Califor- may have been driven by peo- tory, and to refuse to accept Übermenschen, the other for and underrated of literatures, property announced by the nia students protesting over ple who had Left-of-centre it is to blot out historical rea- the institution of the classless the literature of intellectu- university authorities at the their racially discriminatory political views but it was not a son,” no argument will wean society. For any unintoxicat- al disabusement. Raymond beginning of the 1964 aca- employment practices. specifically Marxist – or even him from his folly. What he ed person, such differences Aron was its high and most demic year, almost certainly The shutting down of all socialist – movement. It was, needs is intellectual detoxifi- are essential: they mean that eloquent priest. at the behest of local busi- political activity (even the dis- in the true sense, a fight for

30 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 31 Why young people, like the younger me, keep falling for Trotsky

But the second part of Ironically, what Marx revolution – properly speak- this historical examina- created and Lenin ing – had not failed: it had tion is more problematic. brought to fruition never been tried. was not an antidote Why did so many veterans to religion which they But there was another, of those early uprisings re- saw as oppressive more abstract reason why main in the Marxist fold superstition, but a the facts did not get in the even after grotesque reve- new variant of it: a way of true belief. Marxism lations about Soviet gulags belief system which is not a product of scientific cannot, in its own and Chinese tyranny were terms, be disproved. observation: it is theolog- common knowledge? When ical. Once you accept the it became apparent that the went even further than this premises, it realigns your great Leninist and Maoist in their analysis, arguing perception of the human revolutions had produced that the revolution had hap- condition. If the workers do persecution and terror, or at pened in entirely the wrong not accept its diagnosis, then best, simply economic pov- place. Marx had never ad- they are in a state of “false erty and political corruption vocated a Communist take- consciousness” which can – in the face of all the avail- over in Russia because it was only be altered by action. If able evidence, how did those a totalitarian country which facts seem to contradict the considerable numbers of ac- had not passed through a Marxist analysis, then they olytes maintain their belief? period of bourgeois free- must be dismissed as a mass There are two quite dif- dom. What he had expect- delusion: “objective truth ferent kinds of answer to ed was that those Western is a bourgeois construct”. this. The first is historical. nations which had passed Ironically, what Marx cre- Almost all of the influen- through democratic revo- ated and Lenin brought to tial Marxist activity in the lutions would proceed to fruition was not an antidote free speech and the right of ently failed as a political sys- being hurled down the stairs 1960s and ’70s was led by Communist rule as the next to religion which they saw as assembly as guaranteed by the tem in all the countries of the of buildings or summarily ar- Trotskyists: the old diehard phase of historical progress, oppressive superstition, but First Amendment. world where it had actually rested produced a mass epiph- Communists who remained their populations realising a new variant of it: a belief When, exactly, did this been installed? any: a revelation of what the attached to the official Sovi- that popular ownership of system which cannot, in its change? When did the student The first puzzle – when Left would call the repressive et state interest were regard- the economy was as im- own terms, be disproved. rebels at Berkeley, and later at did demands for simple free- nature of the capitalist state. ed as absurd. portant as popular control the LSE and the Sorbonne doms turn into systematic (if It was all too credible to see What followed from of government. (What did and eventually throughout schismatic) Marxist commit- the oppressive actions of legal this was that the Soviet not seem to occur to him the universities of Ameri- ments? – is fairly clear in my authorities as malign: a con- Union and all of its crimes was that once people had ca and Europe, begin to iden- recollection. The brutal reac- spiracy of the rich and pow- and failings could be dis- experienced the “bourgeois tify themselves with a much tion of the police to peaceful erful determined to protect counted. Stalin had de- freedoms”, they would be more hard-core ideology demonstrations was a tipping their own interests. From that stroyed the integrity of the unlikely to give them up, which came to be called the point. The sight of students shocking disillusionment, it revolution and therefore even temporarily, for a dic- New Left? And perhaps the who refused to desist from was not a huge leap to the what went on in Russia and tatorship of the proletariat.) more difficult question: why gathering in areas which had conclusion that the political its satellites was a betrayal So it was relatively easy to did that neo-Marxist posi- once been open arenas for po- and economic system under of the true goals and val- conclude that empirical ev- Janet Daley tion retain such a hold over litical meetings, or who staged which you lived was incorrigi- ues of the Marxist cause. ­­ idence of Soviet infamy was is a columnist for The Sunday so many, when it had appar- non-violent sit-down protests, bly unjust. A good many comrades neither here nor there. The Telegraph and a broadcaster.

32 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 33 CONSERVATIVE MUSIC

COMPOSING UNDER THE GUN by Jay Nordlinger

Curating the best in n the old days, you some- ingrad Philharmonic for 50 I times read about “Soviet” years. He was barely known art and culture in the musicians. Kirill Kondrash- in the West. in, for example, was a “Soviet Consider, now, Rodion conductor.” But was he? He Shchedrin, the composer. Western world. was Russian, right? Nobody He was born in 1932. He was “Soviet.” says that he was fairly lucky Well, Stalin was. A Geor- in the following respect: he gian, he could not be Rus- was but 20 when Stalin died. sian, though he found it Listen to the That gave him some breath- convenient to talk a lot about Shostakovich ing room, but still the air string quartets. They Russia after Hitler broke his tell you something was not free. In 1991, when pact with him. Dmitri Ka- about life under the the Bolsheviks left, he could balevsky, I would say, was Bolsheviks, something really breathe. The music a Soviet composer. He was deep and terrible. poured out of him. He com- Russian, to be sure – Peters- posed more than ever. At age burg-born – but he was a 60 or so, he was virtually loyal Party member and a Jay Nordlinger reborn. faithful apparatchik, earning is a senior editor of National Prokofiev was a weird his three Stalin Prizes, his Review and the music critic of case. He was out – free – in four Orders of Lenin, and The New Criterion. He is the the West. And he returned to so on. He also wrote some author of Peace, They Say: ­ the Soviet Union, in 1936, A History of the Nobel Peace lovely music, particularly for just in time for the Great Prize (Encounter Books). His children. latest book is a study of the Terror. Famously, he died the The Soviet Union lived sons and daughters of dictators: same day as Stalin: March 5 from 1917 to 1991. Some Children of Monsters (also 1953. There were no flowers people in Soviet lands had Encounter). available for his funeral. unlucky birth dates. They He lives in New York. Often, composers in the @JayNordlinger never had a chance to do Soviet Union wrote under Receive weekly recommendations on art and much living, or any, before great pressure, and, often, or after the Bolsheviks. Take 1975, they had more than 15 you can hear this in their culture through a conservative lens with Shostakovich, who was born years to go. Yevgeny Mravin- music. I think of Mendels- in September 1906. He was sky, the great conductor, lived sohn, of whom it is some- The Critic’s Notebook email newsletter. 11 when the Bolsheviks came from 1903 to 1988. He was times said that he was handi- to power. When he died in music director of the Len- capped by happiness. His life

Visit newcriterion.com/newsletter to sign-up. 34 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 35 Jay Nordlinger CONSERVATIVE MUSIC was not carefree, needless to actions. For instance, he al- Shchedrin signed a letter ­ballerina, who died in 2015. In 1939, Prokofiev a large degree, of its bloc. wrote Hail to Stalin, say (and it was also relative- lowed himself to denounce against Andrei Sakharov, the (They were arguably the most About ten years ago, I in- a cantata. It was ly brief: 38 years long). But Stravinsky as “decadent” great physicist and great dis- talented couple on earth, in honour of the terviewed René Pape, the it was apparently basically (though he admired Stravin- sident. So did Shostakovich rivaled by the tennis play- dictator’s sixtieth German bass. He grew up happy. And his music is not sky’s music). Shchedrin has and Khachaturian, among ers Andre Agassi and Steffi birthday. One lyric in Dresden (East Germa- marked by struggle. said, “In a totalitarian sys- others. But Shchedrin points Graf.) Plisetskaya’s father was goes, “He hears all, he ny). I said, “Did you always sees all” – which, in a Composers in the Soviet tem, relations between the out that he had better mo- murdered by the regime, and way, was true. want to be a singer? Or did Union had no such handicap. artist and the regime are al- ments – as in 1968, when her mother was sent to the you want to be an athlete or Many of them made ways extremely complex and he refused to sign a letter Gulag. In 1964, Plisetskaya Twenty years after his something else? What were compromises, and some were contradictory. If the artist supporting the invasion of accepted the Lenin Prize. wife, Shchedrin accepted his your hopes and dreams?” ashamed. Shostakovich was sets himself against the sys- Czechoslovakia. It was a strange place, the own Lenin Prize. He also He looked at me like I was a good man. He was deep- tem, he is put behind bars or He was married to Soviet Union, as well as a wrote Lenin Is Among Us, an the stupidest, most pathet- ly ashamed by some of his simply killed.” Maya Plisetskaya, the prima brutal one. oratorio. He did that in 1970 ic person on earth. “It was for the founder’s centenary. A a Communist country,” he lot of composers did that sort said. “We didn’t have hopes The Leningrad première of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7, while the city of Leningrad was under siege by Nazi German of thing. In 1939, Prokofiev and dreams. We were think- forces. Most of the musicians were starving, with musicians wrote Hail to Stalin, a can- ing about surviving until the frequently collapsing during rehearsals, and three dying. Despite this, the concert was highly successful, prompting an tata. It was in honour of the next week.” When he first hour-long ovation. The symphony was broadcast to the German lines by loudspeaker as a form of psychological warfare. dictator’s 60th birthday. One came to the West, his eyes lyric goes, “He hears all, he bulged at the food. sees all” – which, in a way, Several years later, I re- was true. counted my exchange with Cold War competition Pape to Angela Gheorghiu, did odd things to people. the Romanian soprano. Bris- Svetlana Stalin tells a story tling, she said, “The shops in one of her memoirs. At a in Romania – not like in concert, she was seated in a Germany, excuse me – were box with Lazar Kaganovich, completely empty. Just white. the Old Bolshevik. David Just white.” Oistrakh, Odessa-born, You can learn about the and Yehudi Menuhin, New Soviet Union and its satel- York-born, were playing lites through books, mov- Bach’s Double Violin Con- ies, conversations, etc. You certo. Svetlana, along with can also learn a bit about others, was entranced. In the them, as I have suggest- middle of the performance, ed, through music. Listen Kaganovich turned to her to the Shostakovich string with glee and said, “Do you quartets, for example. They see how our boy is beating tell you something about their boy?” life under the Bolshe- What was true of the viks, something deep and Soviet Union was true, to terrible.

36 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 37 When Communism coll­ apsed, the entire world could see that it had created an eco- nomic wasteland. Throughout the Eastern bloc the shelves of stores were full of unsaleable goods that nobody wanted – and also full of queues of peo- ple waiting for goods that weren’t being produced. There were vast mega-facto- ries employing millions, but they were producing goods for which there was no gen- uine market because their quality was so low. The smoky, stuttering, unreliable little Trabant is now the object of Ossie nos- talgia. But no one would have bought a Trabant if any of its Western competitors, such as the Mini, had been STARTING IN MURDER, available. They had to be ex- ENDING IN INEFFICIENCY ported to other COMECON by John O’Sullivan countries which were, quite The smoky, stuttering, ciency, bad service, ill man- literally, captive markets. unreliable little ners, the loss of every social And because they were cap- Trabant is now the grace, and a society pervad- tive markets, waiting lists for wenty years ago at the mind than humour. She was civility, the breakdown of civil object of Ossie T Congress of Prague trying to describe in suitably society in matters large and nostalgia. But no one ed by rampant egoism. And Trabants stretched into years. which was held to speed the apocalyptic terms the com- small. A dour Russian parable would have bought a the social desert thus created This extraordinary chaos entry of Central and Eastern prehensive destructiveness on the history of Soviet com- Trabant if any of its was unpromising ground for of socialist production should Europe into full membership that Soviet Communism had munism says it all: Western competitors, the economic transition to a not have shocked us. As early such as the Mini, had of the Euro-Atlantic com- on Russia and Europe. That’s how it is with a man. been available. market economy.” the 1960s Khrushchev had munity, Mrs Thatcher made “Where socialism has left He makes a bad start in his It was important to make been complaining about the a speech and told a joke. As its deepest impression,” she youth by murdering his parents. enters a room without knocking this point even as early as absurdities that arose when we shall see, she didn’t tell the said, “in most of the former So- After that he goes downhill: he at the door first.” 1996, when there was as yet production was organised not joke very well. In particular, viet Union – we see not West- takes to robbing people in the She then drew her moral: very little nostalgia for the in response to markets and she warned the audience in ern-style democracy and free streets. Soon he sinks to telling “That’s how it was with Com- ideas of either Communism price signals but to the brute advance that it wasn’t very economies, but corruption, lies and spreading gossip. Final- munism. It began in terror or socialism. No young peo- instructions of central plan- funny. So nobody laughed. cartels and gangsterism. There ly, he loses all shame, descends and mass murder and it ended ple told polls, as they do now, ning. He told of one factory But she had more on her is a pervasive lack of trust and to the depths of depravity, and in petty corruption, ineffi- that they favoured ­socialism. making chandeliers which met

38 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 39 Starting in murder, ending in inefficiency

vacuumed decent moral val- The attacks on ited a crude, vulgarian, and ues out of people, but they religion and coarse sensibility. In short, conventional morality were not replaced by the sup- via a corrupted the moral and human legacy posedly higher moral values educational system of Communism was hardly of Marxism – propaganda vacuumed decent less terrible than its economic appeals to such values were moral values out impact. What began in mur- widely mocked in a great vari- of people, but they were not replaced der ended in social rudeness. ety of anti-Communist jokes. by the supposedly Twenty years ago Mrs The result was widespread higher moral values Thatcher said to me in the anomie and self-contempt. of Marxism – Green Room: “I’m sorry I The general scarcity of ma- propaganda appeals messed up the joke. I was un- to such values were terial goods, not surprisingly, widely mocked in a easy about it.” I said: “I know made people more materialist great variety of anti- you were. It was too harsh, than ever before – by the end Communist jokes. The too cynical, for your taste.” a girl would sell herself for a result was widespread She replied: “Oh, no. That anomie and self- pair of jeans, alcoholism was contempt. wasn’t it. The problem was it rampant, smuggling was a was too painfully true.” big business, and corruption But those who rose to the its quotas,­ expressed in the matters for the last 30 years These material disasters, flourished to meet demands top of the Communist sys- amount of raw material in- of the system, reform was however, were much less se- that Communism denied. tem performed none of the puts, by making chandeliers so always slow or ineffectual rious than the human costs Above all, it was a fraud. social duties that aristocrats large and heavy that wherever because it would soon run – which arose both from the When the immediate fervour and high bourgeois families they were installed, the ceilings up against the state’s hostili- economic failure of Com- of the October Revolution have often performed in lib- fell in. An economic reform- ty to private property, private munism and from the banal had faded, leading Com- eral capitalist societies. They er himself, Khrushchev once investment, material incen- hypocrisy of its moral claims. munists – indeed, an entire founded no universities, admitted wryly that when the tives, “kulakism,” or whatever It’s well known, of course, New Class of them – rigged commissioned no great artis- entire world was fully Com- ideological bugaboo current- that the attitude of ordinary the system to benefit them- tic works, gave no grants for munist, the Soviets would still ly ruled. But when we saw workers under Communism selves and their children medical research. The Com- need to keep Switzerland cap- the out-of-date factories, the was: “They pretend to pay with “special hard currency munist ideology discouraged John O’Sullivan italist in order to know what low-quality goods, the drab, us and we pretend to work.” shops,” country dachas, and such giving, of course; the is a journalist, author, lecturer the price of anything was. dirty and polluted environ- They saw Communism as privileged access to foreign state was meant to have a and broadcaster. He is National But though he and oth- ment, and much else, we un- a gigantic conspiracy to de- travel. In 1974 I asked one monopoly on charity, as on editor at large of Review ers talked constantly of such derstood the legacy of Com- fraud them of their proper re- attendee at a Mont Pelerin magazine, President everything else. of the Danube Institute in munism in a much acute and ward. That led over time to a conference what he did for a But accounts of how se- Budapest, Associate Editor Khrushchev once painful way. work culture that encouraged living. He replied: “I will tell admitted wryly that nior Communist bureaucrats of the Hungarian Review, And it has taken almost absenteeism, thieving, work when the entire world you but you will then realise lived and thought do not International Editor of was fully Communist, a quarter of a century for go-slows, contempt for skills why I can tell you no more.” suggest they would have be- Quadrant Magazine in the Soviets would nations formerly under the and efficiency, and a more I suppose I looked puzzled. haved more generously and Sydney, Australia, a Fellow of still need to keep Soviet heel to unlearn the general cynicism. He smiled and said: “I man- the National Review Institute, imaginatively even if permit- and co-founder and director Switzerland capitalist lessons of Communism in The attacks on religion and in order to know age the private hard-curren- ted to do so. Most – there of 21st Century Initiatives in what the price of order to learn how to flourish conventional morality via a cy accounts of Soviet leaders were great and heroic excep- Washington DC. anything was. in free economies. corrupted educational ­system in the West.” tions – seem to have exhib- @JohnOSullivanNR

40 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 41 The Fighting Force of the Icelandic Communists marching with their truncheons. Reykjavik, May 1, 1936. Photo: Efling Archive.

MARX IN A COLD CLIMATE by Hannes H. Gissurarson

ven in remote, sparse- 1918 when two Icelandic countries, the Swede Fredrik E ly populated Iceland, students at Copenhagen Uni- Ström, who sponsored their the epic Twentieth Century versity, Brynjolfur Bjarnason trip to the 2nd Comintern struggle between Commu- and Hendrik S. Ottosson, Congress in Moscow in 1920. nism and democratic capital- participated in a street riot There they heard Vladi- ism played itself out. The or- in Copenhagen, and became mir Lenin comment on the igin of Iceland’s Communist political radicals. They got increased strategic impor- movement can be traced all into contact with the main tance of Iceland in a potential the way back to November Soviet agent in the Nordic war in the North Atlantic,

42 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 43 Brynjolfur Bjarnason (the first and only Marx in a Cold Climate chairman of the Icelandic Communist Party, 1930–38) giving a speech in Moscow on Lenin’s 100th anniversary in tablished in November 1930 Archives in Moscow re- Olgeirsson, frequently went only example I have found of 1970. Fifty years earlier, with Brynjolfur Bjarnason veal that the Icelandic Com- to Moscow, giving reports the Socialist Unity Party not the Icelandic delegates to the 1920 Comintern as its chairman. During the munist Party was closely and receiving advice (and adhering to the Moscow line Congress had listened to Lenin discuss Iceland’s Depression, the Communists monitored and financially money). The party also toed was that it refused to con- strategic importance. organised various violent supported by Comintern, the Soviet line in internation- demn those Communist par- clashes with the police, most- by then tightly controlled al affairs, defending the infa- ties which had fallen out with ly in connection with labour by Stalin and his clique. The mous show trials in Eastern the Kremlin leaders, such as disputes. A Comintern agent, Party faithfully followed Europe and the Communist the Yugoslavian party in the Willi Mielenz, was sent to changing directives from invasion of South Korea. late 1940s, and later the Al- Iceland in 1932, probably Moscow, fighting against The Socialists staged violent banian and Chinese parties. to advise on illegal activity, Social Democrats as “social demonstrations in the spring After the 1968 Soviet which had been his specialty fascists” until 1934, but try- of 1949, when Iceland joined invasion of Czechoslova- in the German Communist ing after that to establish a Nato. Archives in Moscow kia, those Icelandic social- Party. The Icelandic Com- “United Front” with them. ists who wanted to sever ties In today’s money, munists even organised a Unlike its counterparts in the donations from with Moscow gained the fighting force, modelled on other Western European Moscow amounted upper hand in the Socialist as a result of new technolo- Communists had close ties the German Rot Front (Red countries, it succeeded in to €2.5 million a Unity Party. In the autumn gy, including aeroplanes and to Comintern, sending repre- Front, the Communist fight- luring some leading social year on average, a of 1968 the People’s Alli- significant sum indeed ing force), and sent at least democrats into its camp, and ance – which had previously submarines. The two Iceland- sentatives to all its congresses, in a country where ers also received some funds not only in 1920, but also in 23 Icelanders, from a tiny na- in October 1938, the Com- the population was existed as a loose electoral to use for propaganda in 1921, 1922, 1924 and 1928. tion of only 100,000 people, munist Party was dissolved by that stage only just alliance – began to operate Iceland. In Moscow Bjarna- Moreover, Comintern sent for revolutionary training in and the Socialist Unity Party reaching 200,000. as a party, while the Socialist son and Ottosson met some agents to Iceland to help or- Moscow. established. Its first chairman Unity Party was dissolved. future leaders of the inter- ganise a Communist party: One of those trainees, was social democrat Hedinn reveal that in the 1950s and The considerable properties national Communist move- Olav Vegheim in 1925, Hugo Hallgrimur Hallgrimsson, Valdimarsson, but the Com- 1960s, the Socialist Unity that the Socialist Unity Party ment, such as the German later fought in the Spanish munists controlled the party, Party received substantial had accumulated, most likely propaganda master – from In the next few years a Civil War, besides two other as became obvious in late financial support directly with Soviet money, remained small but determined whom Goebbels learned a Communist nucleus – Icelandic Communists. In 1939, when Valdimarsson from the Soviet Communist in the hands of the old lead- lot – Willi Münzenberg, consisting mostly of the 1937 elections, the Party and some of his followers left Party, and important assis- ership of the Socialist Unity later killed on Stalin’s orders. university students received 8.4 per cent of the in disgust over the Commu- tance from it and from other Party, but were later sold to They also befriended Mátyas returning home votes. By now, it was strong- nists’ unwavering support of Communist parties in Cen- solve a financial crisis in the from Denmark and Rákosi, who was to become ly supported by many Ice- Stalin’s policies, including tral Europe, in particular the People’s Alliance. Germany – formed the notorious Hungarian in Iceland, becoming landic intellectuals, includ- the Non-Aggression Pact East German Socialist Unity Some leading members of despot. the radical wing of ing novelist Halldor Kiljan with Hitler and the invasion Party, SED. the People’s Alliance, includ- In the next few years a the Social Democratic Laxness, who was to receive of Finland. The Communist In today’s money, the ing Ludvik Josepsson (chair- small but determined Com- Party. the Nobel Prize in literature. Einar Olgeirsson became donations from Moscow man 1977–80) and Svavar munist nucleus – consisting Laxness wrote an influen- chairman of the Socialist amounted to €2.5 million Gestsson (chairman 1980– mostly of university students Sillén in 1928 and 1930, and tial travelogue on the Soviet Unity Party. a year on average, a signifi- 87), discreetly maintained returning home from Den- Haavard Langseth, Harry Union, defending the 1938 The close ties with Mos- cant sum indeed in a country ties to the Soviet Union, for mark and Germany – formed Levin and (possibly) Viggo trial of Bukharin and other cow remained. Leading where the population was by example in visits to Moscow. in Iceland, becoming the Hansteen in 1930. old Bolsheviks, which he members of the Socialist that stage only just reaching In 1967-8, Gestsson had at- radical wing of the Social Finally, the Icelandic attended as guest of Soviet Unity Party, such as Kris- 200,000. Needless to say, this tended a special cadre school Democratic Party. Those Communist Party was es- authorities. tinn E. Andresson and Einar was kept strictly secret. The in East Berlin, Institut für

44 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 45 Marx in a Cold Climate CONSERVATIVE BOOKS

Gesellschaftswissenschaften bei There were probably three volunteered to harvest sugar ZK der SED (the Institute for main reasons why the Ice- cane in Cuba in the 1980s, THE ILIAD, BY HOMER Social Sciences of the Central landic Communists gained proudly defending the op- Committee of the Socialist more support than their Nor- pressive regime there. (TRANSLATED BY E.V. RIEU, PENGUIN CLASSICS) Unity Party), supposed to dic comrades: Iceland, like Significantly, also, the by James Delingpole be the highest educational Finland (where the Commu- very last act of the People’s institution for the country’s nists were also strong) was Alliance, in November 1998, In each issue, James Delingpole reviews a book which may not be communist elite. After 1968, a new state, gaining sover- was to accept an invitation recent in its publication, but which conservatives should read. however, Gestsson and other eignty only in 1918, so civic from the Cuban Communist leading socialists increasingly traditions were weaker than Party. The Icelandic delega- century ago this re- boring or worthy. For lovers turned to Ceausescu’s Ro- in the three Scandinavian tion to Cuba included the A view would have been of literature it’s a thrilling mania and Castro’s Cuba for countries; in this period she former chairman and govern- unnecessary. As a civilised, opportunity to witness the inspiration. was also, like Finland, much ment minister, Svavar Gests- educated person you would birth of the canon, for movie During its lifetime, be- poorer than her Scandina- son, and the last chairman already have been more buffs it’s a chance to meet tween 1938 and 1968, the vian neighbours; thirdly, the (from 1995), Margret Fri- than familiar with Homer’s those Greek gods and he- Socialist Unity Party was generous support from Mos- mannsdottir. The Icelandic Iliad – probably in the orig- roes in their original incar- stronger than its counterparts political pilgrims had hopes inal Greek. Perhaps, like the nations, for war enthusiasts doomed poet Rupert Brooke, it has violence that makes in most other Western Euro- Significantly, also, the of seeing the dictator, Fidel pean countries. It received, very last act of the Castro, who did not how- you would have declaimed Saving Private Ryan look like for example, 19.5 per cent of People’s Alliance, in ever bother to receive them. it across the Aegean on your Written sometime Mary Poppins, and for drugs the votes in 1949 and 16 per November 1998, was Thus, the history of the Ice- way to Gallipoli; or carried between 760 and connoisseurs it’s quite possi- to accept an invitation the copy you won as a school 710 BC, and originally bly the trippiest thing you’ll cent in 1953. Its chairman from the Cuban landic Communist move- designed, of course, to the end, Einar Olgeirsson, Communist Party. ment ended, in the poet’s prize to the trenches, as both to be recited rather experience outside the influ- remained a staunch support- words, not with a bang, but consolation and inspiration. than read, The Iliad ence of LSD. er of the Soviet regime. The a whimper. It is, after all, the first and came before the main It’s a strange, fragmen- People’s Alliance, mostly cow may have had a real im- arguably greatest work in Greek philosophers, tary work which begins ­ the Roman Empire, Western literature about men in medias­ res. The Trojan wars controlled by the socialists, pact on this tiny island. Christianity, the participated five times in While the Socialist Unity and war. Renaissance and the have been raging for years in government during the Cold Party was in effect a Com- So why is it so relatively Enlightenment. This is virtual stalemate, with the War, in 1956–8, 1971–4, munist party, the same can- little-read today? One reason, Western civilisation in Greeks still camped by their perhaps, is that it has become its rawest, wildest, most ships on the beach, and the 1978–9, 1980–83, and not be said about the People’s untutored state. 1988–1991, and some of its Alliance, which operated as a a victim of its own near-leg- Trojans still secure in their ministers were old Stalinists, party between 1968 and 1998 endary status. It has a reputa- city of Ilium. including Ludvik Josepsson when it split, with some join- tion so dauntingly huge that James Delingpole At this point the Greeks and Magnus Kjartansson, ing a new Social Democratic few dare broach it for fear of is a conservative columnist are in trouble. Though fate neither of whom ever repent- Alliance and others founding Hannes H. Gissurarson being either tragically disap- and novelist who has written has decided they’re eventually ed publicly. While the social- a Left Green Party. However, is Professor of Politics at pointed or bored rigid by its for publications including the going to win, they’ve just lost Daily Mail Daily Express The ists failed to move Iceland many in the People’s Alliance the University of Iceland epic worthiness. , , their best fighter – the arro- Times, The Daily Telegraph, into the Soviet orbit, they had sympathy with the Com- and author of many books, But The Iliad, which I gant, petulant, angry, fickle, including a history of Icelandic and The Spectator. He is remained influential both in munist states. Some of my read only in full (and in E.V. cruel and deeply unlikeable Islenskir also the executive editor of communism, Rieu’s Penguin translation) Achilles – who has downed the labour movement and on Left-wing colleagues at the kommunistar 1918–1998, Breitbart London. His latest the cultural front. University of Iceland even published in 2011. myself the other day, is not book is Watermelons. tools and retired to his tent remotely disappointing, @jamesdelingpole in an epic sulk, ­having been­

46 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 47 James Delingpole CONSERVATIVE BOOKS

No man dies in The slighted by King Agam- What, then, are its pri- an open fire, put on skewers ple, having killed their enemy predatory wild beasts – you Iliad without your emnon, who has stolen his orities? One, definitely, is and offered to gods. “Wow,” in single combat their aim is can tell the preoccupations of being told precisely what the spear did mistress. piety. Neglect the gods, who you think. “This is litera- to strip him of his valuable the era by the detail lavished to his teeth or the We have entered a world control everything, and you ture’s first kebab barbecue.” armour and then mutilate his on them – The Iliad has an sword to his entrails. whose values and outlook are doomed. Show them Equally important is per- body. In order to avoid this obsession with the physical You’re struck by predate almost all the cultur- real devotion, on the other sonal courage. This, remem- collective dishonour, those details of death bordering on how intimate both al influences that have shaped hand, and they’ll see you ber, is the Age of Heroes and on the opposing side will re- the surgical, or autoptical. No author and audience would have been the way we think. Written right, as for example Zeus wars appear to be won not sist with equal ferocity. “But man dies in The Iliad without with the niceties of sometime between 760 and does to his beloved Achil- by massed troops in disci- he’s dead, it’s over!” you want your being told precisely what violent death, inured 710 BC, and originally de- les. (Well, until Achilles’s plined formation, but rather to protest. No one’s listening the spear did to his teeth or the almost to the point of signed, of course, to be recit- luck runs out – as the Fates by the extraordinary prowess to you, though. Their world, sword to his entrails. You’re indifference. ed rather than read, The Iliad have decreed it must, for of mighty individuals. They their weird code. struck by how intimate both came before the main Greek not even gods can overrule operate according to a pagan Apart from quality ar- author and audience would philosophers, the Roman the Fates). There’s a delight- rule book rather shocking till mour, horses, weaponry, an- have been with the niceties of Empire, Christianity, the Re- ful moment in Book One, you get used to it. For exam- cestry, extreme weather, and violent death, inured almost naissance and the Enlighten- where Homer describes in to the point of indifference. ment. This is Western civili- loving detail how an ox is Almost. There’s a won- sation in its rawest, wildest, ritually slaughtered and its derfully moving moment to- most untutored state. choicest bits are cooked over wards the end when Andro- mache, wife of the recently slain Hector, prophetically laments the miserable future of poverty and loneliness now to be endured by their son Astyanax “who used to sit on his father’s knees and eat nothing but marrow and mutton fat and when he was drowsy and tired of play slept in his bed, softly cradled in his nurse’s arms, heart full of contentment”. This moment of human empathy reaches to us across the millennia in a way the stylised battle clashes never can. Deep down, you realise, our ancestors were just like us, really. They just needed a couple of thousand years more civilisation to polish up a few rough edges.

48 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 49 OUTING YOURSELF AS A RIGHTIST ISN’T EASY Growing old has its by Nigel Biggar advantages. One is that we come to know our own mind more was certainly in the sixties, Nevertheless, my Inner clearly; the other, but I was never of them. Edwardian refused to vacate that we cease to care I so much what others Born in 1955, I grew up my soul, and so I found the think of it. alongside the post-war emer- cultural changes swirling gence of pop culture, the around me painful and un- not that I am always sure of rumble of resentment against settling, and I resisted swal- myself; it’s rather that I feel Americans as they waxed and lowing the New Narrative that I have a vocation and a we waned, the flourishing of whole. But observing that the duty to say it as I see it. If I’m utopian flower-power, and tide was against me, I went proven wrong, then we’ll all the associated debunking of into inner exile. learn through the proving. all the old certainties and he- Growing old has its ad- But if I’m right, then what I roes. While Blackadder didn’t vantages. One is that we say needs to be heard. Either dare to mock the Battle of come to know our own mind way, the truth wins out. Britain pilots, he was merci- more clearly; the other, that I first started making less in his caricature of their we cease to care so much trouble in 2013, when I fathers. what others think of it. It’s published a book called ­­

50 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 51 Outing yourself as a rightist isn’t easy

Sneering at whole simply because I believe it. Then came the First World he targeted the class of Chris- students, that amounts to no interest. History, it seems, tribes is what we call And rather than tackle the War. Late in 2013 I had pub- tian theologians, and because about 10 per cent of the stu- is merely an armoury from “bigotry”. Had he chosen Jews, blacks argument, they preferred to lished an article in Stand- he is an eminent Man of the dent body. They were a small which to ransack politically or gays, it would tackle my integrity. point, which argued that that Left, it was fair game. minority, but an intimidat- expedient weapons. have cost him his The same thing hap- Britain was right to go to war And then there was ing one. During the debate, So what are the morals of job. But because he pened the following year in 1914. Early in the New Rhodes. Because of my sym- every statement by an RMF my story? One, that academ- targeted the class of when I produced a book that Year Michael Gove praised pathy for the British empire, proponent met promptly ics – despite their self-percep- Christian theologians, and because he is an argues – with oodles of qual- it in the Daily Mail, provok- and because I’d been reading with a storm of cheers and tion – are no more morally eminent Man of the ification – in favour of the ing the Cambridge historian about the history of British in- applause. If you weren’t pay- virtuous than any other class Left, it was fair game. nation-state, a certain sort of Richard Evans to enter the volvement in South Africa for ing attention, you’d have of people. The fact that aca- patriotism, the Anglican es- lists in the New Statesman, the past four summers, when demics are unusually clever In Defence of War. My paci- tablishment, and (even) the where he dismissed what I’d the Rhodes Must Fall (RMF) The fact that academics doesn’t make them unusually are unusually clever fist confrères were, of course, British empire. In response, written as “absurd”, declining movement started to besiege doesn’t make them honest, just, or charitable. aghast. But even others a colleague of 30 years, who to offer reasons while sneer- Oriel College in the autumn unusually honest, just, The second moral is more baulked at my defence of has never once taken the ing at the “self-importance of of 2015, I felt moved to act, or charitable. hopeful. The zealous certain- military intervention with- trouble to engage me in con- his [ie, my] tribe”. Sneering first of all in print and then in ty of a minority can tie the out UN authorisation. One versation on these matters, at whole tribes is what we call a debate at the Oxford Union. thought the audience over- tongues of an uncertain ma- whispered to me that I was published a review in which “bigotry”. But in this case About that debate two whelmingly supportive. But jority. But when someone abusing my authority as an he described my opinions as Evans was shrewd in lining things are remarkable. First at one moment I decided to dares to stand up and out, eminent professor; another, “glorying in their unfashion- up the victims of his preju- was the opening sally of one of look rather than listen, and others begin to find their that I was just being “contrar- ability”. No responsible, ra- dice. Had he chosen Jews, my opponents, Richard Dray- observed that, during the voices, reassured that what ian”. Somehow they couldn’t tional engagement. Not even blacks or gays, it would have ton. Drayton argued that, if thunderous applause, most they think can be said in compute that I say what I do charity. cost him his job. But because he were to presume to offer of those present were actually public without risking social his opinions on the theolo- sitting on their hands. death. For, despite appear- gy of the eucharist, he, as an But the most shocking ances, they are not alone in historian of Africa, wouldn’t revelation of the whole con- thinking it. deserve to be taken seriously. troversy was that the RMF Therefore, nor should mine activists had no interest in on Rhodes, I being a mere the truth. I laid out my views theologian. Had there been in the London Times in De- time to respond, I’d have said cember 2015, in the Oxford that, had an Africanist shared Union debate in January his views on the eucharist, I’d 2016, and in Standpoint that have treated them on their March. Those views included merits, and that it was dis- a demonstration that the quo- appointing that he wouldn’t tation usually cited as proof of extend the same justice to me. Rhodes’ genocidal racism is a Nigel Biggar Then there was the intim- mixture of fiction, distortion, is Regius Professor of Moral idation. The RMF group in and fabrication. No one at all and Pastoral Theology, and Director of the McDonald Oxford was little more than has challenged my account, Centre for Theology, Ethics, 2,000 strong. On the gen- either then or since. The and Public Life at the erous assumption that they truth about the past, and the University of Oxford. were all Oxford University duty to do justice to it, is of @NigelBiggar

52 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 53 between Western Europe and deficiencies in this area are Politicians play too Eastern Europe (nations that unlikely to prosper regardless of large a role in the allocation of capital were part of the Soviet Bloc) their policies in the other four in former Communist is that the former get much areas.” nations. better scores for “Legal Sys- To be sure, looking at av- tem and Property Rights.” erages for entire regions bur- still some vestigial suspicion Indeed, the average ranking ies some important details. of markets. of Western European na- Estonia, which is part of To make matters worse, tions is 20.6 (with 1 being Eastern Europe, ranks 23rd the transition away from the best) while the average in this key category. Italy, Communism often exac- ranking of Eastern European meanwhile, is ranked only at erbated that scepticism. In countries is 67.1 (Economic number 70, notwithstand- some cases, the process of Freedom of the World ranks ing the fact that it is part of privatisation created wind- 159 jurisdictions). Western Europe. And Po- fall gains for those with Why does this matter? land ranks 45th, much better special connections to gov- The Fraser Institute argues than Greece, which ranks ernment. And in cases when that a bad score for this 62nd. privatisation didn’t occur, variable makes widespread But this actually rein- that meant governments prosperity much harder to forces the argument. Esto- providing subsidies to state- achieve: nia and Poland are two of owned enterprises. Yet those “The key ingredients of a the more successful nations subsidies generally get tar- legal system consistent with to emerge from the wreck- geted to insiders. To the de- WITHOUT THE RULE OF LAW, economic freedom are rule of age of Communism. Italy gree that these examples of law, security of property rights, and Greece, by contrast, are cronyism are perceived as STATES ARE DOOMED TO POVERTY an independent and unbiased plagued by moribund and being part of the capitalist by Daniel J. Mitchell judiciary, and impartial and anaemic economies. These system, it’s understandable Most nations that effective enforcement of the nations confirm that the that ordinary people are less emerged have law… Security of property rule of law (which is basi- than enthused about the ommunism was an government-run industries done a decent job of establishing rights, protected by the rule of cally what is captured by market economy. C awful system for peo- were among the policies that democracy. law, provides the foundation “Legal System and Property How pervasive is the ple trapped behind the Iron resulted in a debilitating Establishing genuine for both economic freedom and Rights”) is critically import- problem? Once again, the Curtain. The political cost misallocation of resourc- capitalism, though, the efficient operation of mar- ant for a prosperous market database from Economic was enormous. Personal es. And because labour and has been a bigger challenge. kets… Perhaps more than any economy. Freedom of the World is very rights and individual liber- capital were poorly utilised, other area, this area is essential Culture also matters. Peo- instructive. If you examine ties were sacrificed to pro- living standards lagged far for the efficient allocation of re- ple behind the Iron Curtain the overall ratings for “size tect the power of the state. behind Western nations. lishing genuine capitalism, sources. Countries with major were subjected to decades of of government”, Eastern Eu- Human rights were abused, The eventual collapse of though, has been a bigger propaganda about the sup- ropean nations are actually dissidents were imprisoned, the Soviet Empire freed hun- challenge. Part of the prob- People behind the posed inequity and iniquity ranked significantly better, and some killed. Commu- dreds of millions of people lem is policy. And to be more Iron Curtain were of the capitalist system. And with an average ranking of nism also imposed huge eco- from political tyranny. And specific, data from the Fras- subjected to decades of propaganda about even if they intellectually un- 89.2 compared with 129.2 nomic costs. Collectivised most nations that emerged er’s Institute’s Economic Free- the supposed inequity derstand that they are better for Western European coun- agriculture, central plan- have done a decent job of es- dom of the World shows that and iniquity of the off today because the Soviet tries. This is because tax ning, price controls, and tablishing democracy. Estab- the major difference today capitalist system. Union disintegrated, there’s rates tend to be lower (many

54 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 55 Without the rule of law, states are doomed to powerty CONSERVATIVE WINE

is important, according to vours in exchange for power Economic Freedom or the and money. World, because it: However, there is no TRUMP MIGHT NOT DRINK “…measures the extent to alternative to reform in a which countries use private competitive global economy. - BUT HE’LL DRIVE UP SALES investment and enterprises Nations that maintain statist by Iain Martin rather than government in- policies will lose jobs, invest- vestment and firms to direct ment, and entrepreneurs to resources. Governments and countries where there is bet- olitics right now is America has a compli- state-owned enterprises play ter protection of the rule of Penough to make any- cated relationship with by rules that are different law and less economic inter- one turn to drink, although alcohol rooted in religion from those to which private vention. For Eastern Euro- perhaps not the teetotal and a phobia of fecklessness enterprises are subject. They pean nations, which already President of the United – it is a country defined by are not dependent on con- face severe demographic States. Although it is highly the search for self-improve- sumers for their revenue or challenges because of age- questionable whether “the ment. In the Progressive era on investors for capital. They ing populations and falling Donald” is in any respect a there were assorted moral often operate in protected birthrates, the loss of pro- conservative (it seems not) panics about booze. Then markets. Thus, economic free- ductive resources – especial- it is beyond doubt that he the theory of abstinence dom is reduced as government ly the emigration of young never drinks alcohol. America has a was tested to destruction enterprises produce a larger people – is a crippling blow. I am not sure how I complicated during the Prohibition era ­former Soviet Bloc nations share of total output.” The bottom line is that feel about this. Watching relationship with alcohol from 1919 to 1933, when rooted in religion and a have flat tax regimes, for in- In other words, politi- post-Communist nations Trump’s antics on Twitter phobia of fecklessness. the effect was quite the op- stance) and welfare states ar- cians play too large a role need to choose genuine and in the Oval Office from posite of that intended by en’t as burdensome. in the allocation of capital capitalism if they want a a distance, the thought oc- puritanical reformers. But if you dig into the in former Communist na- brighter future for their curs that a martini at the bar Iain Martin The ban on alcohol is a commentator on politics details and examine the var- tions. And when you com- citizens. of New York’s Carlyle Hotel, forced imbibing under- and finance. His latest book ious components that de- bine low scores for rule of or even a glass of excellent Crash Bang Wallop: the ground, giving it an illicit termine size of government, law with poor scores for Californian pinot noir at the inside story of London’s attraction. Arguably, this there’s one area where East- government control of in- Trump hotel in Washington, Big Bang and a financial lust for the allure of the ern Europe lags behind. The vestment and allocation of might help him cope. Would revolution that changed the forbidden hard liquor even numbers for “Government capital, this underscores the it have a calming effect on world is published by Sceptre. helped fuel the incredible the President and introduce He is based in London. intensity of the late 1920s Enterprises and Invest- need for further reforms in @iainmartin1 ment” are better in West- Eastern Europe. However, a little introspection to his economic boom, by mak- ern Europe. This variable such changes are difficult in limited emotional reper- ing the search for the party nations where people incor- toire? On second thoughts, plate. The military implica- a defining pursuit among Nations that maintain rectly think that cronyism is even in the initiated drink tions do not bear thinking the rich and the aspiration- statist policies will lose jobs, investment, part of capitalism. Particu- can exaggerate pre-existing about. Mr President, sir, al. America went, merrily, and entrepreneurs to larly when politicians don’t personality traits and flaws. step away from the drinks mad. The resulting hang- countries where there have much incentive to re- Daniel J. Mitchell The notion of that first ever cabinet. It is imperative for over in the Depression was is a libertarian economist and is better protection form policies, since genuine martini making Trump even the future of mankind that something to behold. of the rule of law senior fellow at the Donald Trump remains and less economic capitalism means they have Cato Institute. more boastful and combat- In the modern era it is intervention. less ability to hand out fa- @danieljmitchell ive is too much to contem- teetotal. quite normal to hear an

56 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 57 Iain Martin CONSERVATIVE WINE

American acquaintance in human race has not yet de- ed to drink to forget, pos- business or politics say that vised any way of dissolving sibly to forget the weather they do not really drink. By barriers, getting to know and so on. this they mean that they the other chap fast, break- Developments in recent will never drink at lunch- ing the ice, that is one- decades have left the Brit- time. But they will meet tenth as handy and effi- ish the most confused of you at their favourite bar cient as letting you and the the lot, as northern Europe- in Manhattan at the close other chap, or chaps, cease ans who have fallen for the of the working day where to be totally sober at about charms of southern Europe. they will in the course of the same rate in agreeable The beery English ale tra- 45 minutes demolish three surroundings.” dition, and hard drinking martinis, while you sip a Scottish culture, has been small glass of wine, before The fetishising of the supplemented by the mass they high-tail it to Grand cocktail and fussiness market discovery of wine, Central Station in New about ingredients thanks to European travel York for the commuter is an American and the search for a cosmo- speciality. train home to Greenwich politan lifestyle. In the UK, where they collapse in front lager louts co-exist with of Netflix. Amis was a chap writing stressed middle class types The fetishising of the when women were far less glugging gallons of appall- cocktail and fussiness about likely to drink. And ulti- ing Pinot Grigio. ingredients is an American mately he himself was not The emphasis on health, speciality, and as Kings- a good advert for drinking. and the continual pressure ley Amis said in Everyday It got him in the end, as his from the state to watch it, Drinking – one of his three friend Christopher Hitch- means that even those of us studies of the subject – ens said, robbing him of his who admit we enjoy good there are cocktail bores as “wit and charm as well as wine do sometimes make a well as wine bores, who can health.” sustained effort to abstain. be defined as people who Today, we are encour- I have just experienced one take more interest in the aged to be much more of my pathetic and doomed technicalities than in the mindful of the impact of annual attempts at drink- taste. excess. Even in southern ing only mineral water for The technicalities mat- Europe, with its traditions a while. Once again, after ter, of course they do, but of supping slowly and ven- a week, my campaign col- the universal core aim erating the connection be- lapsed, leaving my efforts a should be the possibility tween food and wine, there complete failure. of transcendence through is an emphasis on reducing The blame lay with a pleasure, or short of that intake. The Northern Euro- brilliant friend, a well-con- just relaxation conducive to pean hordes – German wine nected wizard at the tech- conversation or comrade- connoisseurs apart – are nology investing game, ship. As Amis put it: “The different because they tend- who hosted a dinner­ in

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As we ate and drank lower taxes and deregu- at times apocalyptic dis- properly mature wine lation. It is in the arena cussion was improved by we discussed the possibility that the of foreign policy and de- the wine, and after several immature Trump may fence, and the frighten- glasses laughter about the succeed. ing power a US president President’s peculiarities has in an emergency, that filled the room. Wine had honour of a senior editor the far greater concern helped us see the funny from an esteemed Amer- lies. This fascinating if side. ican newspaper passing through London on a Brexit tour. My resolve was unshakeable, until our host ordered an unafford- able (unaffordable for me, not him) jeroboam (large format) of Chateau Latour 1986. Good wine is sent to test us, just like Donald Trump, and I failed the test and nodded in the af- firmative to the offer of a glass. Latour is one of the greatest of the Bordeaux wines, and this one, drink- ing beautifully, was made in one of my favourite years. So much that is in- RADICAL CHIC: HOW GENOCIDE teresting and significant REMAINS FASHIONABLE happened in 1986 in Brit- ain. It was the high water- by Daniel Johnson mark of Thatcherism, and a vintage period for Brit- ommunist chic is back. tivates countless academics first edition ofDas Kapital ish theatre and pop music. C Or rather, it never re- and intellectuals in the West. now costs more than £1.3 As we ate and drank ally went away. When Fidel For them the ideology is a million. In February the properly mature wine we Castro died last year, he was vocation; in China or North British Communist news- discussed the possibility eulogised by the coolest of Korea that ideology is still a paper, the Morning Star, that the immature Trump Western leaders, Canada’s matter of life and death. featured an eight-page sec- may succeed on the econ- Justin Trudeau, among many This nostalgia for Com- tion to mark the death of omy, with his policy of others. Nostalgia for the munism may take a highly a nonagenarian comrade, heyday of Marxism still mo- commercial form. A signed Kevin Halpin, whose widow

60 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 61 Anita just happens to be the heiress to a large fortune. One of the works of art she inherited recently sold for £20 million. Nothing, as Communists used to say, is too good for the workers. The public sector is also gullible. For instance: a collection of agitprop footage from the USSR, China, Cuba, Vietnam and Eastern Europe – assem- bled by Stanley Forman, a British Communist, “from his personal contacts in the socialist world” – has just been acquired by the publicly-funded British Film Institute to “provide a counter-view to Western perceptions of Commu- nist states and their ac- tions”. How would taxpay- ers feel about their money being used to buy Nazi propaganda? For anyone who remem- bers the Cold War, or who knows countries where Communism is still the es- tablished religion, the per- sistence of its glamour and 94 million. That number million, were killed by the the universe gave Mr Xi a who did was Xu Hongci. Party’s] countless politi- influence into the Twen- has not been seriously chal- Chinese Communist Party. rapturous reception. How He spent 14 years in a cal campaigns, and an in- ty-First Century makes one lenged and the total has Last January, the elite of many of them had given a labour camp under Mao, credibly lucky survivor.” shudder. Communism’s risen since, perhaps to 100 the capitalist West gath- thought to the thousands but escaped in 1972. The odds against Xu’s sur- death toll may never be million, as old estimates ered in Davos to listen to still incarcerated in China’s His memoir, No Wall Too vival were a million to one. definitive, but the interna- are revised upwards and the leader of that party, Xi equivalent of the Soviet High, has been posthu- Harry Wu, who wrote the tional team of scholars who Communism claims new Jinping, extol the virtues Gulag, the Laogai? mously translated and history of the Laogai, said compiled The Black Book of victims. of globalisation, in an im- Unlike the Gulag, few edited by Erling Hoh. that escape was impossible: Communism two decades More than half of all plied contrast to President ever survived the Laogai, “I am one of the tens of “All of China was a prison ago put the grand total at these victims, some 60 Trump. The masters of let alone escaped. One millions of victims of [the in those days.” Though

62 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 63 Radical chic: How genocide remains fashionable much else has changed in Half of 16-24 year destruction that Commu- who were never even born A century later, even taking Nostalgia has conse- China, its totalitarian the- olds have never nists left behind, but the because their parents dared into account the breakup of quences. About one in seven ory and practice have not. heard of Lenin; human cost paid by more not bring them into the the Soviet Union, the Rus- Germans have convinced seven out of ten In the late 1980s, I know nothing than a billion people over world under such a system. I sian population has stag- themselves that the Com- served as Daily Telegraph of Mao. the past century who lived am not just thinking of Chi- nated while the American munist regime under which correspondent in Germa- under these evil empires. na’s cruel One Child policy, has more than doubled. The many of them lived for 40 ny and Central Europe. In obvious contrast in wealth Those who survived had but of the fall in birthrates contrast is even greater if liv- years was “not all bad”, to 1989 I had a ringside seat between the Eastern and their lives blighted by Lenin’s and life expectancy in Sovi- ing standards are taken into the extent that they are pre- to watch the 1917 revolu- Western sides of the Iron legacy just as surely as those et Russia. In 1917, Russia account. pared to vote for Die Linke, tion go into reverse. What Curtain, nor even the who did not. And there are and the United States had Yet we are failing to a party that brazenly de- haunts me is not just the bloody trail of death and hundreds of millions more populations of similar size. learn the lessons of this all fends that regime. It is quite too recent history. A recent possible that after Septem- report by Dennis Sewell ber’s federal election these revealed that among Brit- crypto-Communists could ons born since 1989, most be in government as part of know little about the Cold a coalition of the Left. War, much less about Com- What this means is that munism. Half of 16-24 those of us old enough to year olds have never heard bear witness to what Com- of Lenin; seven out of ten munism did in the past, know nothing of Mao. and is still doing to mil- They are less likely to asso- lions, have a duty to en- ciate crimes against human- sure that future generations ity with Communist dicta- never forget the results of tors than with Tony Blair. this inhuman experiment. In British universities If we do not, then human- where, as a recent Adam ity is doomed to repeat Smith Institute report demon- them. strated, only 10 per cent of academics vote Conservative, students live in a monoculture which is blind to the carnage done in the name of the Left. Academics are more likely to romanticise the 1960s than to teach undergraduates how Castro was then putting gay Cubans into concentration camps, or how Mao’s Cultur- Daniel Johnson al Revolution did the same to is a British journalist who professors, while vandalising is the founding editor of the art and architecture of an- Standpoint. cient China. @DanBJohnson

64 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 65 ­getting health insurance.” has spent so long in the eco- is that he admits to being a In the accompanying pho- nomic doldrums. No genera- socialist, albeit of the demo- tograph, Krupp cups his hot tion since the invention of the cratic variety. Elizabeth War- chocolate and wears a one- nuclear family has returned to ren, his rival and inheritor, piece romper suit in black the parental basement in such insists that she is not. She is and red plaid. He looks like numbers. a progressive – progressing, he has been rescued from a The rhetoric of protec- that is, back to the ’30s, when backwoods fetish party. tion recurs in the cant of big-state liberalism began. A In the New Deal and environmentalism and social Trotskyite like Sanders would the Civil Rights Act, Dem- justice. From whom are the probably like to be too. ocratic administrations used young to be protected? The Where children have ide- the state’s power to aid the capitalists who, not satisfied als, the parents have ideolo- poor and guarantee the legal with despoiling the plan- gies. The young believe they equality of minorities. The et, then exclude minorities are moving forward, but power of the state grew ac- from the chance to share in the leaders of the Left are cordingly – and with it, the the profits. Who will protect marching backwards. Social- temptations to intrude into the children and preserve ism always did mask nostal- private life, and to engineer gia for simpler times in the The Pyjama Boys and social outcomes through Girls of tomorrow are sheen of technology; here corporatist economics. By being indoctrinated again, Sanders, the urbanite the second Obama term, it with an expensive who went back to the land LEFTIST TEACHERS, seemed reasonable to sug- form of propaganda. in Vermont, has the virtue of It may, like Twentieth gest that children should his defects. Century socialism, SNOWFLAKE STUDENTS use Christmas dinner, one fail when tested by The revival of socialism in by Dominic Green of the last family rituals, to reality. America in the early Twenty-­ Back in 1989, the First Century should not be year that socialism convince their parents of the was supposed to government’s wisdom. It was the future? Only the state a surprise. The emotional hildren, as Whitney the six-year-old black girl have died, the elite electorally sensible, if not bi- possesses the legal powers, impulse that attaches itself Houston observed in who goes to school with a universities of New ologically plausible, to rede- the bureaucratic resources, to socialist ideas will always C England had five The Greatest Love Of All, are police escort in the 1964 fine childhood, by allowing and the necessary reservoir be with us. Socialism of- the future. To understand painting The Problem We liberals for every conservative. children to remain on their of other people’s money to fers managerial solutions to the decline of the Demo- All Live With. The sight of parents’ health insurance change the quality of our metaphysical problems, and cratic Party and the future Ethan Krupp in his pyjamas, handful of unaccountable until the age of 26. air or the composition of it gives political answers to of socialism, compare the however, alarms in a differ- insurance companies. In De- Previous generations our boardrooms. Complete emotional questions. If that children in the political art ent way. cember 2013, as America’s chafed at parental control. To- protection requires complete sounds like university life, it of Walker Evans, Norman Mr Krupp, for those who students prepared to take day’s overgrown children de- control. is not by accident. The mod- Rockwell, and Ethan Krupp. have repressed this image, their laundry home, a pro- mand protection. Rather than If this is socialism by an- ern socialist revival was incu- In the 1930s, Evans’ pho- was the face and body of Obama group named Or- take their chances in a difficult other name, it is because bated on campus. tographs of pinched-faced the Obama administration’s ganising For Action tweeted economy, Pyjama Boy’s gen- the name of socialism is still In the 1980s, the Left Okie children in the De- pitch that the best way to an idea for discussion over eration has chosen moral and fouled by the history of the lost the economic battle, pression challenged the con- provide America’s poor with the turkey and trimmings: economic infantilism. The Twentieth Century. Perhaps but it won the cultural war science. So did Rockwell’s health care was to contract “Wear pyjamas. Drink price is arrested development. the only good thing that can of attrition. Gramsci’s talk portrait of Ruby Bridges, the whole business out to a hot chocolate. Talk about No generation since the ’30s be said of Bernie Sanders of the “march through the

66 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 67 Leftist teachers, snowflake students CONSERVATIVE INDIA

INDIA IS HELD BACK BY THE ANTI-WESTERN BACKWARDNESS OF HER RULING BROWN SAHIBS by Madhav Das Nalapat

n the thirty-fourth para- tastes, opinions and intel- I graph of his 1835 Min- lect”, although more than ute on Education, Thomas a few did adopt the moral Babington Macaulay visual- hypocrisies of the Victorian ised the creation of a class of era, a tendency still flour- individuals “Indian in blood ishing in a country that has and colour but English in been presumed independent tastes, in opinions, in morals for 70 years. and in intellect”. Anchored Contrary to those in post- ­institutions”­ was, like most have died, the elite uni- ganda. It may, like Twenti- to the worldview of his era, 1947 India who argued that socialist talk, a euphemism. versities of New England eth Century socialism, fail Politicians and Macaulay declined to recom- knowledge of English or fa- Marx had promised to expel had five liberals for every when tested by reality. But officials who mend that such individuals miliarity with the ways of the those who got in the way conservative. that, we now know, is not were the successors be given the same right as to the former British people of that island would of the revolution. In the Today, the ratio is 28:1. enough to annul socialism’s “blood and colour” English- rulers transformed result in what Macaulay fore- ’80s and ’90s, his followers These figures reflect faculty emotional appeal, or the ex- men in ruling India. How- themselves into British cast – a walking away from purged the universities. Now, as a whole. From personal ploitation of that appeal by colonial officers in ever, because of Macaulay’s India’s native traditions and they are trying to reverse the experience, I would suggest the people that the Stalinists attitude and behaviour, emphasis on the English lan- ethos – most English-speak- outcome of the economic that the ratio is even more used to called careerists. As if not entirely in guage and his rejection of the morals. ing Indians retained their battle of the 1970s. skewed in the Social Scienc- Whitney Houston sang, “If I view that education in India affinity towards their own Last December, Boston es. And in the Humanities, fail, if I succeed / At last I’ll be confined to languages na- traditions, including in mat- magazine published an in- you are more likely to spot live as I believe.” Madhav Das Nalapat tive to the land or to its previ- ters of cuisine and lifestyle, vestigation into political bias a white rhino than a liberal is a Professor and the ous conquerors, the Persians, though a few did so only in in American universities. Republican. Director of the Department within years hundreds and the seclusion of their homes. Samuel Abrams, a professor Socialism, to paraphrase of Geopolitics & International later, thousands and eventu- Relations at Manipal Indeed, beginning in the at Sarah Lawrence College Noam Chomsky, manufac- ally hundreds of thousands of University, UNESCO Peace 1890s, the higher echelons of in New York, crunched 25 tures consent. The univer- Indian subjects of the British Chair and the Editorial the independence movement years’ worth of data from the sities of New England are Director of The Sunday Empire began to get a facsim- were composed of those who Higher Education Research the training grounds for to- Guardian-India and NewsX ile of the education available were educated in the manner Institute. In the South, the morrow’s bureaucrats, as the channel. @MD_Nalapat in parts of Britain. that Macaulay had favoured. ratio of liberal to conserva- monasteries were for the me- Unfortunately for much lesser extent, science Across the subcontinent, tive professors was 3:1. On diaeval clergy. The Pyjama Dr Dominic Green Macaul­ay, ­knowledge of and technology) did not make the English language acted the West Coast, it was 6:1. Boys and Girls of tomorrow is a Fellow of the Royal England’s ­lan­guage, his- the overwhelming majority as an equaliser and a homo- Back in 1989, the year that are being indoctrinated with Historical Society and teaches tory­ and­­ society­ (and to a of such students “English in geniser, bringing together socialism was supposed to an expensive form of propa- Politics at Boston College.

68 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 69 Madhav Das Nalapat CONSERVATIVE INDIA

into British colonial officers in Minister Narendra Modi who technically oversee them attitude and behaviour, if not characterised as “Mini- distance themselves from the entirely in morals, thereby ful- mum Government”. In- rest of the country much as filling the wishes of Macaulay. stead, what has persisted the British in India did in the The consequence is that is a system of governance past, by separate rules and the present-day administra- that in many particulars is procedures applicable only tion in the Union of India even more restrictive than to them, and by pomp more remains tethered to the pre- when India was ruled from suited to Middle Eastern roy- 1947 postulate that the peo- London. If flights to Delhi alty than to the elected lead- ple of the country are unfit from other big cities in ers of the world’s most popu- to exercise control over their India are full, the reason lous democracy. own destinies – and that is that the national capi- Small wonder that the government has to have tal has in effect made the the British-era focus on the final word on almost rest of the country its the collection of reve- any individual decision of colony. nue is still regarded by the consequence. “post-colonial” bureaucracy It needs to be remem- Officials and the as the central task of gov- politicians who bered that the colonial prac- technically oversee ernment. Without consid- tices of Britain were the op- them distance eration of the effects on fu- posite of what was carried themselves from the ture growth, the potential out at home. If the British rest of the country short-term revenue-raising people could build an em- much as the British in segments of the economy are India did in the past, pire, the reason lay in the fact by separate rules and assessed and matched against that they permitted much procedures applicable the year’s expenses of depart- people from different re- tant of the subcontinent and Knowledge of the inter- less intrusion into their lives only to them, and by ments and projects. Wher- gions, castes and religions, another would have ensured national link language did not from the Monarchy, taking pomp more suited ever possible, additional rev- to Middle Eastern thereby enabling the Twen- the balkanisation of the sub- result in a metamorphosis of over for themselves tranches royalty than to the enues are squeezed out from tieth Century campaign for continent long before the the Indian into a (tanned) of individual discretion un- elected leaders of the private entities, in the process independence to be pan-In- colonial power packed its Briton. However, once the known elsewhere on the con- world’s most populous often stunting future growth. dian in scope in a way that bags and sailed away. Union flag was lowered from tinent of Europe. Individual democracy. India is probably the only the 1857 revolt – carried out The development ofthe Viceregal Palace and re- Britons used this freedom country where the price of in disconnected territorial commerce, the growth placed with the Indian Tri- to win colonies and come Very little activity can be petrol at the pump has actu- segments and by uncoor- of the middle class (with colour, a metamorphosis up with inventions, each of attempted by businesses, for ally risen despite the cost of dinated entities – was not. its dilution of much of did take place. This was the which they loyally ascribed to example, without formal ap- a barrel of oil falling to less Relatively few joined in the the caste, regional and seeping into the psyches of the monarch, although both proval from the central gov- than a third of the level it 1857 effort to throw out the sometimes even religious the successors to the Raj that knew such a claim to be a tri- ernment and its agencies. As was four years ago, with the British: most either remained differences distinguishingthe colonial system remained fle inaccurate. for transparency in the pro- difference going in taxes and passive or actively opposed citizens from one anoth- as a continuum. As a conse- The post-Independence cesses of government, this revenues to the state. Any the armed campaign against er), and the popularisation quence, the politicians and Government of India need- remains much less evident sector showing impressive the Raj. The absence of edu- of English, form the trio officials who were the suc- ed to accept that the people in India than in other major growth attracts a high tax cation in a language that was of conditions that has en- cessors to the former British would be most productive democracies. Meanwhile, demand, thereby slowing its neutral between one inhabi- sured the unity of India. rulers transformed themselves in conditions that Prime officials and the politicians expansion. An example is the

70 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 71 Madhav Das Nalapat CONSERVATIVE INDIA services sector, which slowed crucial for the creation of but bribes to the pockets of those lurking on the bound- India from participating in to block the system from re- down after taxes were first jobs for the 11-13 million the successors to the colo- aries of indigence pay at least the economic spinoff of geo- leasing the population from slapped on it in 1994, and new entrants to the job mar- nial bureaucracy. Even the some tax to the state beyond political events in the way the constrictions of the state. by still more after taxes were ket each year. most poverty-stricken stall- the bribes they are liable for. Japan or South Korea did, Both these groups share increased in 2006 and again, Collection of revenue holder or handcart vendor The level of “rent” in the or in membership of entities the view of their colonial-era particularly harshly, in 2012. was the central objective of has to pay the latter “rent”. form of bribes and looting such as ASEAN. The closer predecessors that the people Since then, tens of millions the colonial state, and re- And now, with measures of the economy by crony the “inner selves” of India’s cannot run their own lives, of jobs have been foregone in mains so for its successors, such as the demonetisation capitalists takes place on a post-colonial (though hy- and have therefore continued the sector, with the Narendra who too are fixated on them- of 86 per cent of the coun- scale that make British pick- the pre-Independence prac- Modi government continu- selves rather than the people try’s currency by value, the ings in the era of Clive seem Collection of revenue tice of the state taking deci- was the central ing the upward trajectory of as a whole. Enterprises and formerly business-friend- derisory. objective of the sions that in more evolved tax rates and thereby stunt- individuals in India pay not ly Modi government is Given the complex they de- colonial state, and governance systems has re- ing the growth of a sector only taxes to the exchequer seeking to ensure that even veloped on being “Brown Sa- remains so for its mained the prerogative of the hibs”, individuals from Nehru successors, individual. Instead of “mini- on down rejected any strategic mum government”, what is alliance with the West, even per-colonial) rulers were to seen is the reverse, a steady while they themselves were far the West, the more they cam- lowering of the threshold of more comfortable in London ouflaged that by keeping the individual freedoms, includ- than in Mumbai, far more country away from the Allies ing speech. Even the Election themselves in New York than and in the orbit of the USSR. Commission of India frowns in Lucknow, and far happier to Only genuine nationalists on any expressions other than socialise with a European than (who incidentally remain flu- those that would be approved a native of India. A geopolitical ent in English and in knowl- by the headmistress of a girls’ distance was created between edge of the West), safely an- convent school. the West and India by such in- chored in their traditions, In India, as during the dividuals, despite the fact that were open in acknowledging British era, both government a robust support of the Allies the need for India and its and the judiciary regard during the Second World War Anglospheric partners in par- themselves as empowered to or with the US during the ticular to work closer togeth- decide for the citizen on prac- 1960s and beyond would have er, especially in matters of tically any matter. Getting rid generated far better results security. of the adherence of the ruling than the policy choices actu- Naturally, those seeking establishment on colonial-era ally pursued, which between to prevent modernity (in the practices and powers is essen- 1939-45 gave MA Jinnah and form of education in English tial for the very survival of his Muslim League an edge or in the expansion and pro- the nation. What India needs over the Congress Party in de- tection of individual free- is another freedom struggle, cision-making levels in White- doms on the scale seen in the this time in defence of those hall and led to Partition. US or the UK) are “Brown rights of the citizen that have The West-phobic policy Sahibs”. They have allied been ignored by the post-co- continued by Indira Gand- themselves with troglodytes lonial hyper-state throughout hi and her successors in the anchored to Sixteenth and the seven decades of India’s 1960s until 1984 prevented Seventeenth Century ways “free” existence.

72 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 73 THE OVERLOOKED COLONISATION by Edvins Snore

n 2005 in Moscow Jean dom and democracy if the millions of Europeans were I Claude Juncker said: Russian people had not done locked behind the Iron Cur- “Since the Second World what they did for us”. tain and denied freedom and War, we know how much What Mr Juncker failed democracy. In Soviet-occupied we are indebted to the Red to mention was that the Red Europe Nazi concentration Army. We, Luxembourg, like Army kept half of Europe camps were not destroyed. other European countries, under a brutal occupation The Soviets continued to use could not have gained free- for nearly 50 years. Tens of them to persecute dissidents

74 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 75 The overlooked colonisation and members­ of resistance What Mr Juncker The year 1940 marked Nearly half of the deportees States. The youths print- A massive program of Sovietisation and movements. “This is certain- failed to mention the end of independence for did not survive. ed leaflets and encouraged was that the Red colonisation was ly not the Liberated Europe Army kept half of Latvia, as it was invaded by When the Soviets re- their fellow countrymen not launched to seal we fought to build up. Nor is Europe under a brutal the Red Army following the turned in 1945, people had to lose hope. Latvians were the Soviet conquer it one which contains the es- occupation for nearly Nazi-Soviet pact. The initial no illusions about the Rus- listening to Western radio of Latvia. Nearly sentials of permanent peace,” 50 years. Soviet occupation lasted only sian “liberators”. Many Lat- stations in anticipation of a million Russian- speaking settlers Churchill noted in 1946. one year, until 1941. But vians fled to the West, while a showdown between the were moved from A British diplomat who happy under the restored the events which took place thousands took to the forests West and the Soviets that Russia and other visited Riga, the capital of Soviet regime and still look during that year were so horrif- and joined the ranks of par- might bring an end to the Slavic republics of the occupied Latvia, in 1945 to the United Kingdom and ic that it was later called “The tisans. The resistance move- Soviet occupation of their USSR to colonise the Baltic country of two reported to London: “First the United States for resto- Year of Horror”. Many Latvi- ment involved more than homeland. million. anniversary of liberation of ration of their independence. ans were brutally murdered. 20,000 people both in cities Armed resistance of Riga by Red Army was not Emotions are however most- Thousands were rounded up and in the countryside. Nu- Latvians, Lithuanians and and other Slavic republics made occasion of any pub- ly passive, as the spirit has and deported. Entire families merous underground youth Estonians against the Sovi- of the USSR to colonise the lic manifestation... Latvians been ground out of people by were loaded into cattle cars organisations scattered et occupation went on for Baltic country of two million. of all classes seem most un- events since 1940.” and ­transported to Siberia. throughout all three Baltic more than a decade, until the The unprecedented influx of mid-1950s. It was a bloody Russian immigrants com- and merciless war which pletely changed the tradi- left thousands dead on both tional ethnic composition of sides. Cut off from the rest of Latvia in a couple of decades. the world by the Iron Cur- The share of Latvians in Lat- tain, the desperate fight of via decreased to an all-time the Baltic partisans was large- low – 52 per cent in 1989. ly unknown in the West. Re- In Riga the Russian-speaking ceiving no tangible aid from group increased from 10 per outside, the resistance move- cent in 1940 to 70 per cent ment depended on the sup- in 1989. By the end of the port of the local population, Soviet occupation in 1991 which provided food and the Russian-speaking settler shelter. The Soviets deported community became the dom- tens of thousands of ordinary inant population group in the peasants, women and chil- seven largest cities of Latvia dren in their pursuit to cut and made up approximately support for the partisans. one-third of the whole popu- Eventually the Soviet lation of Latvia. occupiers prevailed. A mas- The sheer scale of the sive programme of Sovieti- Baltic colonisation was so sation and colonisation was alarming that in 1983 the launched to seal the Soviet European parliament ad- conquest of Latvia. Nearly a opted a resolution, in which million Russian-speaking set- it suggested submitting the tlers were moved from Russia issue of the Baltic States to

76 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 77 The overlooked colonisation the Decolonisation subcom- However, the Russian aggression and ex- mittee of the UN. In 1987 consequences of 50 pansion.” Nowhere in the years of Soviet rule the Parliamentary Assembly were grave. Tens of world was this demonstrated of the Council of Europe ad- thousands of killed better than in Latvia. A QUARTERLY JOURNAL IN PRINT AND ONLINE, SPONSORED BY THE opted special resolution 872 and deported, a Communist rule method- ALLIANCE OF THE CONSERVATIVES AND REFORMISTS IN EUROPE (ACRE). on the situation of the Baltic generation brought ically turned Latvia into a

up in isolation, a January 2017 | Vol.2 | Issue 2 peoples. It pointed to the fact ruined economy and a part of the so-called “Russian that “as a result of forced im- polluted environment. world” (Русский мир) – ul- migration into their area, the Seven hundred timately the gravest and the www.theconservative.online www.aecr.eu/theconservative Baltic peoples are brought thousand Soviet most dangerous consequence settlers, including under pressure to assimilate, of the Soviet occupation. As September 2016 | Vol.1 | Issue 1 tens of thousands THEA QUARTERLY JOURNAL BY THECONSERVATIVE ALLIANCE OF CONSERVATIVES AND REFORMISTS IN EUROPE THEA P E R I O D I C A L P U B L I C A T I O N B Y T H E ACONSERVATIVE L L I A N C E O F E U R O P E A N C O N S E R V A T I V E S A N D R E F O R M I S T S and that the lack of possibil- of Russian military we see today, wherever there ities for education and cul- personnel, remained is the “Russian world”, the tural expression of their own in Latvia after 1991. Kremlin may invade to “pro- is leading towards the loss of Nearly half a million tect” it. Europe has seen this of them voted against national identity”. restoration of Latvia’s pattern already, during the The national identity of independence in two 1930s. Hitler invaded coun- Latvians could indeed have referendums in 1991. tries to “protect” the “Ger- EUROPE IN been lost, had the Soviet man world” – the Volksdeut- REVOLUTION occupation lasted 10 more Nevertheless after Latvia sche. At that time there were HOW BREXIT AND MIGRATION ARE OVERTURNING THE OLD ORDER years. Latvia would have been became independent they those who appeased Hitler totally Russified and would were granted rights to stay in and who bought his “human- resemble Belarus today. The Latvia and to naturalise. Sev- itarian” arguments. It ended demise of the USSR in 1991 eral hundreds of thousands in a world war. Today we made it possible for Latvia used this opportunity. They must learn from this lesson in to regain its independence. learned the Latvian language order not to make the same However, the consequenc- and became Latvian citizens. mistake again. es of 50 years of Soviet rule However, about a quarter TONY ABBOTTDANIEL Roger HANNAN Scruton • PAUL VALLET• SAM BOWMAN LEON LEVY Roger Kimball• TED BROMUND• JAY NORDLINGER were grave. Tens of thou- of a million Soviet-era im- • PETR FIALA JOHN HULSMAN • Matt Ridley • DANIEL MITCHELL CHRISTOS BAXEVANIS• JAN ZAHRADIL sands of killed and deported, • MARIAN TUPY migrants chose not to do it. HOW • BERND KÖLMEL• ULRIKE TREBESIUS Jay Nordlinger • ROBERTS ZĪLE a generation brought up in Even today they prefer their CONSERVATIVES Orri Vigfússon isolation, a ruined economy current status of non-citi- MAKE THE BEST James Delingpole and a polluted environment. zens, which gives them the Seven hundred thousand So- privilege of travelling (and CONSERVATIONISTS viet settlers, including tens working) visa-free in both the of thousands of Russian mil- EU and Russia. itary personnel, remained In the early 1950s Ronald in Latvia after 1991. Nearly Reagan said: “Communism, Edvins Snore half a million of them voted the greatest hoax of the cen- is author of the award-wining against restoration of Latvia’s tury, was perpetrated on the documentary The Soviet Story independence in two referen- and a member of world to cover nothing more Latvia’s Parliament. dums in 1991. or less than a programme of @EdvinsSnore

78 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | Aprilwww.theconservative.online 2017 | Issue 3 79 PUTIN IS NO CONSERVATIVE by Marion Smith The unresolved legacy of the Soviet era is a clear and present n the United States (and While the stories of mur- danger to freedom in the Twenty-First I in the United Kingdom), dered innocents, tortured Century. conservatives enjoy the dis- farmers, slaughtered aristo- tinct benefit of conserving a crats, and martyred priests But their stories are more liberal political tradition that filled the free peoples of the than mere history. values individual rights, eco- West with horror, they found On this 100th anniversary nomic and religious freedom, even greater inspiration in year of the Bolshevik Revo- the rule of law, and tradition- the emergence of samizdat lution we must examine how al morality. Thus in America, literature and underground European nations were made temperamental (small “c”) universities, in the almost captive in the first place and conservatives and political impossible courage of the how they became free and in- movement (capital “C” Con- authors and painters whose dependent once again in 1989. servatives) are often the same frozen hands kept hope alive We must also look honestly at people. even in the Gulag, and in the why in 2017 we as free people In continental Europe, battles waged by young stu- are tolerating the whitewash- on the other hand, the ravag- dents against Soviet troops ing of Soviet crimes, the spread es of the Twentieth Century in the woods of Lithuania of blatant Russian propaganda meant that many conserva- and the streets of Budapest. and revisionist history in Eu- tives, fighting for the same Those who suffered behind rope, and the reemergence of ideals, had to become radi- the Iron Curtain proved that Communist-era tactics from cals, revolutionaries, or dis- totalitarian Communism was Moscow. This is not a quibble sidents. Such was certainly ultimately no match for the over the past. The unresolved the case for conservatives in national culture, language, legacy of the Soviet era is a clear the former captive nations of religion, family, music, and and present danger to freedom central and Eastern Europe. love of their home countries. in the Twenty-First Century.

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We must also look Republics would make the After Hitler broke the replaced Hitler as the great- nist Parties and secret police In 1949, Truman declared honestly at why world safe for socialism. The agreement in 1941 and in- est threat to the Free World. forces and used them to de- America’s opposition to the in 2017 we as free people are tolerating Communist Party would be vaded the USSR, Stalin con- Stalin revealed his true in- stroy families, religion, civil “false philosophy” of Com- the whitewashing the people’s vanguard. Lenin veniently became anti-fas- tentions when he broke the society, and whole nations. munism, a philosophy that of Soviet crimes, the would be their god. cist and joined the Allies in promise he had made at Yalta Stalin’s increasingly cruel “purports to offer freedom, spread of blatant In the name of equality, World War II. When the war and annulled the outcome and aggressive tactics con- security, and greater opportu- Russian propaganda Vladimir Lenin instituted a ended, the Nazis were defeat- of free elections held in Po- vinced President Harry Tru- nity to mankind” but which and revisionist history in Europe, new form of slavery on earth. ed, but the Soviet Empire land. The Soviet troops that man to begin the fight against in reality brings “deceit and and the reemergence Stalin took the helm upon lived on. had “liberated” the Nazi-held international Communism by mockery, poverty and tyran- of Communist-era Lenin’s death and sought to By the time Winston territories of central Europe launching a military build-up ny.” The Cold War had begun. tactics from Moscow. expand the Soviet Empire. Churchill delivered his 1946 were there to impose Com- and establishing the North America became the lead- Among many other mach- “Iron Curtain” address in munist rule on unwilling Atlantic Treaty Organization er of the free world and a The 1917 February Rev- inations, this included the Fulton, Missouri, he was populations. To accomplish (Nato), the CIA, and the place of refuge for the hun- olution was sparked by the 1939 non-aggression pact convinced that Stalin had this they installed Commu- National Security Council. dreds of thousands who fled deplorable working condi- with Nazi Germany. The sin- tions and worsening social ister pact, negotiated between Winston Churchill problems in major cities of Hitler and Stalin by their delivering his “Iron the Russian Empire. Tsarism foreign ministers Vyacheslav Curtain” address in Fulton, Missouri is accurately understood as Molotov and Joachim von tyranny and it is important Ribbentrop, along with its not to romanticise it. The secret provisions, provided political movement that for a conquered and divided began in Petrograd had the Europe, half Nazi and half necessary elements to make Communist. Russia a constitutional mon- Days after signing the archy or a republic. But by Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, October 1917 the Bolsheviks Hitler’s armies invaded Po- had overthrown the Russian land, and over the next few Provisional Government and months, Stalin invaded Fin- seized power. Lenin’s Cheka land, Estonia, Latvia, and state security force tortured Lithuania. For nearly two and killed thousands of mid- years, the Nazi SS and Sovi- dle- and upper-class Rus- et NKVD worked together; sians. The Tsar and his family the NKVD even rounded were murdered. up German Jews who had Almost immediately it escaped to the Soviet Union was apparent to Lenin that and returned them to the Marxist theory required up- SS. Both Nazi Germany and dates. The Communist uto- the Soviet Union committed pia would take longer than war crimes on a massive scale expected. For the time being, and systematically murdered the Union of Soviet Socialist mill­ions of civilians.

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takeover of the 1917 Russian ed by YouGov (commis- and condemned. The crimes revolution was over. sioned by VOC) found that committed by Communists More than 40 million one third of US millennials in the name of a false notion people died as the result of believe that George W Bush of equality deserve to be un- Soviet policies, including killed more people than Sta- derstood as well. Today, this is man-made famine, purg- lin. The vast majority under not the case. Certainly, this is es, political assassinations, the age of 35 were unaware a failure of education, but is forced deportations, Gulag of the death toll in Commu- also a matter of power politics. deaths, and the military in- nist regimes. The survey also This moment is no accident. vasions of independent coun- found that 45 per cent of 16- The situation in Europe tries. The Soviet Union also to 35-year-olds would vote is even worse. Too few Euro- inspired, imposed, or funded for a “socialist”; 21 per cent pean socialists have come to Communist rule in nearly terms with their own com- The Soviet Union also 40 nations. The total death inspired, imposed, or plicity in birthing, aiding, toll caused by Communist funded Communist and then excusing Commu- rule in all of these countries rule in nearly 40 nism in Europe. Too many is over 100 million. And nations. The total Western journalists, politi- while Communism collapsed death toll caused by cians, and academics who de- Communist rule in all in Europe, it lives on in the of these countries is fended the Soviet Union have single-party Leninist states over 100 million. And carried on unrepentant. of China, Cuba, Laos, North while Communism Significantly, the ideas of Korea, and Vietnam. Today, collapsed in Europe, Marxism are still exonerat- it lives on in the these Communist regimes single-party Leninist ed of any connection to the rule over 20 per cent of the states of China, Cuba, deeds of Marxists in power. world’s population. Laos, North Korea, Although some socialists The American engage- and Vietnam. Today, today concede that concep- these Communist ment in the Cold War that tually Marx and many other regimes rule over 20 began under Harry Truman per cent of the world’s early Communists had too ­Communist ­­countries around tries to contain and then roll mering down the symbol of was brought to completion population. rosy a picture of human na- the world. The Captive Na- back Soviet power. Communist oppression. by Ronald Reagan, who ture, most blame the failed tions movement in the Unit- In August of 1989, Hun- Over the next two years, aimed to consign Commu- of 16- to 20-year-olds would experiments of Twentieth ed States and Europe lobbied garian authorities allowed the economic failures of cen- nism to the “ash heap of vote for a “Communist.” Century socialist regimes on Western governments to con- the barbed wire of the Iron tral planning and Soviet lead- history.” Today, Reagan’s The United States, which the excesses of their leaders front Soviet expansion around Curtain on the Austria-Hun- ers’ lack of confidence in their warning that one generation spent more more blood and and on the tenacious forces the world and countered the gary border to be cut. Soon own system led to the dissolu- is all it takes to lose freedom treasure than any other coun- of nationalism, all of which lies spread by Communist thousands of Hungarians, tion of the Soviet Union and is still pertinent, especially in try to confront international worked against true Com- embassies in dozens of West- Czechs, Slovaks, and Ger- the independence of other the face of young Americans’ Communism, has suddenly munist ideals. Many social- ern capitals. The moral rec- mans were pouring through. captive nations, including astounding ignorance of the forgetten what the Cold War ists today, therefore, argue ognition of Communism’s In November, East German Ukraine (which legally con- basics of Twentieth Century was and why it was worth that the practical path for- barbarity was vital in main- officials allowed an opening tained Crimea). The costly ex- history, including the crimes fighting. The crimes of the ward is to fight against the taining the political will of the in the Berlin Wall. Within periment in Marxist ideology of Communist regimes. An Nazis against Jews in the nation-state in all its forms United States and Nato coun- hours Berliners were ham- that began with the Bolshevik October 2016 poll conduct- Holocaust are rightly known and to foster globalism.

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Certainly, the collectivist The countries of emissaries, and his paid apol- ideas that took hold in 1917 the former Soviet ogists in the West. Vladimir Union, with the had roots in European histo- exception of the Putin is a cool, calculating, GOOD GOVERNANCE AND ry, most notably in the Jaco- Baltic states, have Communist-trained Cold War bin’s reign of terror following not yet succeeded veteran who believes he can PROTECTING PROPERTY RIGHTS the French Revolution. Lenin in overcoming the reclaim the power of Soviet made the Bolshevik’s political toxic legacy of times and challenge the West. ARE AS WELCOME AS TAX CUTS Communist rule. patrimony clear by erecting Costly gains made by the AND PRIVATISATION statues of Robespierre in St Pe- propaganda success was con- generations who fought tyr- by Kristian Niemietz tersburg and Moscow shortly vincing some European tra- anny in Europe must not be after his party seized power. ditionalists that – compared reversed because of apathy, The countries of the for- corruption or cowardice. to the hyper-liberal, globalist, his is a column about Such seemingly boring, mer Soviet Union, with the When it comes to the past and sometimes even social- free market reforms, so technical issues often repre- exception of the Baltic states, crimes of the Soviet Union, T ist agenda of the European you would probably expect sent “reform bottlenecks”, in have not yet succeeded in the current tactics of Vladimir Union and the administra- stories about tax cuts, pri- the sense that improvements overcoming the toxic lega- Putin, or the West’s growing tion of US President Barack vatisation programmes, de- in other areas count for little cy of Communist rule. The vulnerability to the false hope Obama – Vladimir Putin regulation initiatives, trade as long as countries fail to people of Ukraine, Moldo- of socialism, European con- was a modern-day champion liberalisation, or other ways get these basics right. As Prof va, and Georgia must fight servatives must have the cour- of traditional Western val- of transferring power and Martin Ricketts of Bucking- the overbearing power of age to fight for truth, justice, ues. Russian cash made the resources from the state to ham University explains: Moscow today, even as they and historical memory. We claim easier to swallow. The the market and civil society. “Capitalism fails where struggle to reform their sys- too can live in truth. To do election of President Donald This is what we normally the supporting institutions temically corrupt institutions otherwise is to risk cursing the Africa would be Trump and the emergence have in mind when we talk are absent. Accordingly, pol- and rebuild civil society. In of his coalition of conserva- next generation with a new well advised to about “market reforms”, model the CFTA more icy changes unaccompanied Ukraine, a powerful symbol era of captivity. tive, nationalist, EU-sceptic because these are the head- on EFTA, and less on by some remedial action to of this struggle has been the supporters obviously throws line-grabbing, controversial the EU. address this underlying insti- demolition of the hundreds a wrench in Putin’s narrative examples. tutional weakness cannot be of statues of Lenin and So- that Russia is the conserva- But there is also a less expected to bring the hoped- viet stars that lingered for Dr Kristian Niemietz tive champion and suddenly high-profile category of mar- for results.” 24 years after the collapse is Head of Health and Welfare throws new light on Putin’s ket reforms, namely reforms Indeed – and this is the of the USSR. Their choice is real intentions – the creation at the Institute of Economic aimed at improving the legal Affairs (IEA), London. He main reason why, for ex- contested by Putin and has of a modern Russia based on framework within which mar- studied Economics at the ample, large parts of East- required blood to defend. a fusion of the Tsarist and So- ket exchange takes place. This Humboldt Universität zu ern Europe and the Balkans Russia’s forced annexation viet traditions, free from any means strengthening the pro- Berlin and the Universidad have not been able to fully of Crimea and invasion of de Salamanca, and Political illusions of freedom as a fun- tection of property rights, the capitalise on the relative lib- eastern Ukraine is an attempt Marion Smith Economy at King’s College damental right of individuals transparency of property re- eralisation that has taken to reverse some of the conse- is executive director of the London, where he also or peoples. lations, the ability to enforce place since 1991. However, quences of Soviet defeat. Victims of Communism taught Economics. At this moment of geo- contracts and swiftly settle @K_Niemietz judging from the latest edi- When Western nations Memorial Foundation in political crisis, it is imperative legal disputes, the impartiality tion of the Heritage Foun- objected to Moscow’s actions Washington, DC and president that European conservatives of the Common Sense of courts, and the consistency dation’s Economic Freedom of in Ukraine, the Kremlin see through the false conser- Society in Hungary and The of the legal system. the World index, this may be struck back with information vatism of Vladimir Putin, his Netherlands. warfare in Europe. One clear co-opted Russian Orthodox @SmithMarion

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barriers are underway. If all what we currently observe in out of fashion, but the eco- goes according to plan, a pre- Europe. Africa would be well nomic arguments for it have liminary version of the CFTA advised to model the CFTA never been refuted. Flat taxes will be operational by the end more on EFTA, and less on do not just improve work of this year. the EU. incentives; they also reduce It is tempting to assume On a different note: re- distortions. Under a flat tax, that in an era of global mar- member the flat tax? The (especially high-income) kets, regional trade blocs idea of replacing the income taxpayers dedicate less ener- are no longer that import- tax code with one single rate gy to rearranging their activ- ant, but this would be a (above a tax-free allowance), ities in “tax-efficient” ways, mistake. Geography still with no exemptions, no and more energy to creating matters. The website “Our deductions, and no differ- wealth. Add the reduction World in Data” illustrates entiation between different in compliance, enforcement this with a map of France income sources? Tax policy and revenue collection costs, that shows the location experts used to get very ex- and you have a solid eco- of French companies, ac- cited about the concept, and nomic case. cording to their main ex- in the late 1990s, several Since 2008, there has port destination. It turns (mostly post-Communist) also been a backlash against out that companies which private, pre-funded pen- mainly export to Belgium The flat tax may have sions. Several countries that fallen out of fashion, really do tend to cluster but the economic had previously moved to- near the Belgian border, arguments for it have wards such a system have U- companies which mainly never been refuted. turned, especially Argentina export to Spain really do and Hungary. However, the tend to cluster near the countries began to adopt latest OECD figures show about to change. A number sold off state assets (at least other round of privatisation Spanish border, and so on. it. After the 2008 crash, that elsewhere, the role of of countries in that region not recently). But, as Heri- or deregulation would have Still, economists are gen- the concept slipped off the private pensions continues have recently made large im- tage reports: been. erally ambivalent about trade radar. to grow. In the US, Canada, provements in strengthening “Latvia has made contract Meanwhile, Africa has blocs. While they reduce But the flat tax is not Australia, the Netherlands, the protection of property enforcement and property been making progress on the trade barriers between the dead yet. Two US states, Switzerland, Denmark and rights, especially Armenia, transfers easier by restructur- way towards the establish- participants, they can also Georgia and West Virgin- Iceland, the value of the as- Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the ing its courts and introducing ment of its Continental Free lead to a more protectionist ia, are about to turn their sets accumulated in pension Kyrgyz Republic, Macedo- other new procedures […] Trade Area (CFTA), which trade policy vis-à-vis non-par- state income taxes into flat funds now exceeds 100 per nia, Uzbekistan, Kosovo and, judicial independence is gen- will create a pan-African sin- ticipants, especially when ac- taxes of 5.4 per cent and cent of the respective coun- perhaps surprisingly, Belarus. erally respected and property gle market in goods, services, companied by the creation 2.65 per cent respectively. try’s GDP. A particularly interesting rights are protected.” labour and capital. The idea of a customs union (as is The economic effects will So it’s not all doom and example is Latvia, which has From a classical liberal is not new, but this time, they currently envisaged for the not be huge, because state gloom. Despite the vir- improved its overall econom- perspective, the improve- seem to mean it. Intergovern- CFTA). In a customs union, income taxes are not nearly ulence and pervasiveness ic freedom score by more ment in governance indica- mental working groups have the more protectionist-mind- as important as the federal of anti-capitalist rhetoric, than four points (out of 100), tors across the region consti- been established, and nego- ed members can hold back income tax. But as far as it green shoots of growing even though the country has tutes real progress; it is every tiations over the removal of the more free-trade-minded goes, it is a welcome move. market freedoms can still be neither slashed taxes, nor bit as welcome as, say, an- tariffs, quotas and non-tariff members, which is, of course, The flat tax may have fallen found.

88 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 89 the mid-1990s) were effected through violent revolution without any comprehensive and civil war, and under- prior definition of individ- went further disruptions in ual property rights. Rather, the course of its subsequent local government bodies es- development. The same ap- tablished so-called TVEs, plies in large measure to the township and village enter- lesser examples of North prises, owned by their com- Korea and Cuba. This does munities. These structures, not, however, invalidate the however, have since been distinction between autono- superseded by full-blooded mous and imposed regimes, capitalist institutions; and it a distinction of primary sig- is arguable that the People’s nificance for Europe, where Republic of China, while the Soviet Union, itself dat- retaining its authoritarian ing from the aftermath of character, is nowadays Com- the First World War, came munist only in name. to rule over most of cen- tral and eastern Europe for The global appeal of nearly half a century after Communism, and of the Second World War. authoritarian regimes more broadly, was It accomplished this part- enhanced by the ly through the network of economic adversities national Communist Parties; of the 1920s and partly through the specific 1930s, which the RIGGED ELECTIONS AND customary economic institutional arrangememts policies of liberal of COMECON, founded in PETTY CORRUPTION governments seemed 1949 as the Soviet riposte to unable to remedy. by Peter Oppenheimer Marshall Aid, for economic relations, and the Warsaw individual enterprises and The third key distinction Pact, founded in 1955 as the raming this topic are perspective it is (or would be) between politics and eco- co-ordinated through the is between Communism as military counterpart to Nato; F three key distinctions. no less important to consid- nomics. Politically one can- price mechanism – rath- a home-grown system and and ultimately through the The first is between Europe er Asia – preponderantly of not speak in the Chinese er than command-based or as a regime imposed from threat of armed intervention and other parts of the world. course China, but also Viet- case of a Communist “rem- centrally planned. outside by compulsion or (a threat realised in Hungary Communist (or Marxist-­ nam and North Korea – as nant” or “legacy”, since the Before the Chinese ex- occupation. “Home-grown” in 1956 and Czechoslavakia Leninist) ideology originat- well as Latin America, which country remains an avowed- ample it would scarcely have need not of course imply in 1968). For most of East- ed in Europe in the Nine- means essentially Cuba, plus ly one-party Communist been imagined that any Com- that the process is smooth ern Europe, therefore, un- teenth and early Twentieth the Salvador Allende episode state. But its economy has munist politics could co-ex- or peaceful. On the con- like for Russia, dismantling Centuries. And as European in Chile in the early 1970s as for several decades been mar- ist in this way with capitalist trary, in the two key cases of Communism after 1990 was citizens we naturally focus a footnote. ket-based – meaning that de- economics. Interestingly, the the Russian Empire/Soviet synonymous with escape on the situation in our own The case of China points cision-taking on a wide range early stages of transition or Union and China, Com- from alien domination or continent. But from a global to a second key distinction, of output is decentralised to reversion to capitalism (up to munism was established oversight.

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State power sooner tutions of its own volition notably Nikita Krushchev. of technology justly across than promoted is finance, phenomenon, not confined or later gives rise to after the Second World War, This led him to a closer rela- the entire population. In particularly banking. This is to Communist states. It has its own incentives. but almost simultaneous- tionship with Maoist China, practice, the vision caught because the nature of the sec- been a factor in the dissolu- An obvious one is ly rejected Soviet hegemony both ideologically and in mat- the incentive for on predominantly in coun- tor’s business makes it prone tion of colonial empires, and individuals to seek and later joined the group of ters of economic linkage. tries – notably Russia and to herd behaviour; and at is currently exemplified by employment in the “non-aligned” nations. The We come now to the core China – where spontaneous the same time, any multiple Catalan, Quebecois and Scot- state apparatus in neighbouring regime of Enver of our topic. In Karl Marx’s economic deveopment had collapse of banking institu- tish nationalist movements. pursuit of personal Hoxha in Albania was at odds vision the Communist rev- comfort or ambition. lagged behind and where tions is liable to cause serious The exceptionally envelop- with Yugoslavia over Kosovo olution would supervene state control could be in- collateral damage (“negative ing and oppressive nature of and related issues. Hoxha re- at a high point of capital- voked as a means of forcing externalities” in the jargon) Communist authority tend- For most but not all of mained unshakeably loyal to ist economic development, the pace. The global appeal to the economic system at ed to obscure the existence Eastern Europe, that is. Yu- Josef Stalin and (after 1953) to to expropriate the owners of Communism, and of au- large. Remarkably, the lesson of such forces. The demise goslavia under Marshal Tito his memory, but rejected the of capital and to spread the thoritarian regimes more has had to be re-learned from of Communism, fundamen- espoused Communist insti- “revisionism” of his successors, fruits of accumulation and broadly, was enhanced by time to time by governments tally on economic grounds, the economic adversities of and the economics profes- brought them to light. the 1920s and 1930s, which sion alike. Yugoslavia broke up after the customary economic pol- 1990 into its several constit- icies of liberal governments The alternative to uent republics, with parts of seemed unable to remedy an absolutist or the process involving bru- (extreme instability of prices totalitarian regime tal civil strife. A little later, and price levels, collapse of is democratic Czechoslovakia was divid- sovereignty – in financial institutions, shrink- other words, limited ed into the Czech Repub- age of international markets, government, subject lic and Slovakia. Much the mass unemployment). to regular democratic most striking case, of course, But in the second half of election. has been the Soviet Union, the Twentieth Century the fragmenting after 1989 into market economy became the State power sooner or its 15 member republics, all mixed economy. Its enlarged later gives rise to its own in- but simultaneously with the public sector and welfare centives. An obvious one is freeing of the former satellite state safeguarded stability. the incentive for individuals states in Eastern Europe. And the mechanism of com- to seek employment in the In the cases of the three petition proved to be far bet- state apparatus in pursuit of Baltic republics (Estonia, ter than central planning at personal comfort or ambi- Latvia and Lithuania) the fulfilling the diverse and vari- tion. Another is the incen- only surprising aspect of this able aspirations of consumers tive for geographic or cultur- process was that it came as in conditions of prosperity; ally distinct units within the a surprise. They had been and in parallel, at nurturing state to seek independence, incorporated, or reincorpo- technological innovation either partial (devolution, rated, into the Soviet Union and consequent productivity federalism) or total, in order as recently as 1940, and sub- gains. The one critical area to pursue their specific group sequent population move- where competition needs interests more closely or ef- ments had not been large to be circumscribed rather fectively. This is a general enough to eliminate their

92 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 93 Rigged elections and petty corruption, also change caption in the picture distinct languages or sense democratic election from a one feature of contemporary of nationhood. At the other plurality of political parties western societies most clearly temporal extreme, Ukraine, or programmes – combined matched, or indeed exceed- together with much of to- with the rule of law under an ed, in some ex-Communist day’s Belarus and parts of the independent and incorrupt- states is inequality of income Russian Federation, formed ible judiciary. and wealth. the original Ninth Centu- The latter requirement To be sure, corruption, ry Russian state of Kievan is primary, for two reasons. intimidation and fraud are Rus’. From the Fourteenth First, a reliably independent not absent from societies Century onwards, with the judiciary as the ultimate that escaped the Communist expulsion of the Tatars, the means of resolving disputes experience. These phenom- centre of gravity shifted to between private persons is ena too are universal. But Moscow. However, linguistic the basis of trust and honest not everywhere on the same and cultural diversities were dealing across society, and scale. Quantity matters. An perpetuated and indeed mul- hence the basis of economic occasional mishap or bad tiplied over the centuries, as cooperation and efficiency. apple may be allowed for in the frontiers of the Russian Secondly, politicians and a firm’s provision for con- state fluctuated widely with public servants must them- tingencies; but when these the ebb and flow of political selves be subject to the law, “contingencies” are so com- fortunes and conflicts. and be unable to interfere in mon as to have measurable As recently as the dawn any way with the process of effects on the generality of of the Soviet era, Russia, by law enforcement, including costs and profit, it is quite the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in (or especially!) laws govern- another matter. 1918, surrendered its Polish, ing the exercise of democrat- Finnish and Baltic territories, ic sovereignty. as well as, for a brief interval, It is in this respect that Trans-Caucasia (Georgia, ex-Communist states, par- Armenia, Azerbaijan) and ticularly in the former Soviet Ukraine. It is consistent with Union, are most liable to fall this history that the Russian short. Elections are (frequent- Federation under Vladi- ly) rigged. Politicians and mir Putin should be sniff- bureaucrats use their offices ing around its borders with to enrich themselves. Busi- Peter Oppenheimer Ukraine, with Georgia and ness enterprise is hampered has been a Fellow of Christ with the Baltics in search of by fear of criminal attacks Church, Oxford. Until opportunities to re-expand in the form of protection April 2000 he was Tutor its territorial control. rackets, asset seizures (“reidy- in Economics (partially The alternative to an ab- erstvo” in current Russian specialising in international finance and trade), thereafter solutist or totalitarian regime parlance) or financial fraud. President of the Oxford is democratic sovereignty – Restructuring and economic Centre for Hebrew and Jewish in other words, limited gov- progress are slowed, and ex- Studies, until his retirement in ernment, subject to regular pectations disappointed. The September 2008. Rue du Trône 4, 1000 Brussels +32 (0) 228 06 039 [email protected] www.acreurope.eu @ACREurope ACREurope 94 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 95 MARXISM LIVES ON - IN THE WEST by Alexandr Vondra

he collapse of Com- al democracies and even ad- tury had provided a fertile T munism in 1989 and mired (at least in the early ground for Marxists who the dissolution of the Sovi- stage) by many Leftist in- offered an alternative “reli- et Union in 1992 were the tellectuals. As Robert Con- gious” doctrine: an expla- most profound and positive quest, the greatest historian nation of current sorrows, events in the history of the of the Twentieth Century, a vision of a redemptive last three generations in wrote: “Ideas that claimed future, and a definitive ac- Europe. Communism – as to transcend all problems, count of human history. an illusionary and utopi- but were defective or de- Marxists in Europe believed an idea that promised to lusive, devastated minds, that the First World War, as achieve a paradise on the a clash of “ancient regimes”, earth through common Bolsheviks proclaimed provided the real opportu- ownership and the absence that they were nity to turn their idea into setting the example of a societal stratification, for all Europe. This political practice. money or even a state – left pretension wasn’t new However, the only coun- the world stage. in Russian history; it try where revolutionaries Marxist theory, which had appeared before won was the Soviet Union, claimed to be scientific, has in a form of Slavic and the successor state of the Russian messianism. been fully discredited in old Russia. This autocratic practice. Communist dic- country had no concept of tatorships, from Moscow to and movements, and whole private property at all (as Prague, from Tallin to Vlad- countries, and looked like the historian Richard Pipes ivostok, had left behind plausible contenders for explained) because every- millions of people executed, world supremacy. In fact, thing was regarded as the forcibly resettled, or sent to humanity has been sav- property of the Tsar. Peo- concentration camps. The age and trampled by rogue ple had no civic experience system of state ownership ideologies.” and, in fact, had nothing to and planning left behind Communism as an ide- defend. devastated economies and ology had its roots in West- When Leftist think- ravaged environments. Rad- ern Europe – as a mixture ers like Eduard Bernstein ical ideology contributed to of the idea of equality stem- observed that economic the destruction of cultural ming from the French Rev- development was contra- heritage and religious mon- olution, and of Hegelian dicting Marx’s prophecy, uments. Yet despite this philosophy in Germany on Marxist theory was res- horrible legacy, the Soviet the “logic of history”. The cued by Vladimir Lenin, Union was taken as a stan- secularism and progressiv- the leader of the October dard partner by many liber- ism of the Nineteenth Cen- Revolution of 1917, who

96 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 97 Marxism lives on - in the West kept it alive by performing The West served as a Soviet regime also inherited in 1968). Vaclav Benda, a In 1989, everything argued that it was not a rev- a heart transplant surgery magnet of liberty and the old imperial expansion- dissident from Charter 77, changed. Soviet Commu- olution in the true sense of a “return” to Europe (as the American writer became a natural ism of Russia. At the end expressed this feeling sim- nism in central and Eastern the word. The western Left, Joshua Muravchik argued), programme of change. of the Second World War, ply: “For the majority of us, Europe collapsed – primar- based on the philosophy of replacing the proletariat by totalitarian Communism Communism is identical ily because it had ceased Jürgen Habermas, which in the vanguard. Bolsheviks But new Octobers did was imposed on central and to Satan or the Antichrist.” to be competitive with the the 1970s had promoted var- proclaimed that they were not happen abroad and thus Eastern Europe by the Red However, due to the oppres- West’s liberal capitalism. In ious new social movements, setting the example for all Lenin and Stalin replaced Army. sive nature of the regime, neither Prague nor Warsaw but in the 1980s was margin- Europe. This pretension Russia’s state totalitarism The nations of central Eu- only a limited number of could one find anybody se- alised by the success of Mar- wasn’t new in Russian his- with their own form of party rope always considered Sovi- people found the courage to riously willing to fight for it garet Thatcher and Ronald tory; it had appeared before totalitarism. Their party, et Communism an import stand up publicly. And when any longer. The West served Reagan, and which perhaps in a form of Slavic and Rus- based on an organisation- by force. Many had no illu- the Polish Solidarity move- as a magnet of liberty and saw the revolutions of Cen- sian messianism. The tradi- al and command system, sions regarding any possibil- ment expressed its dissatis- a “return” to Europe be- tral Europe as a new chance tion of Moscow as the Third served as a model for Fas- ity of reforming the system faction in a massive way in came a natural programme for itself, was disappointed. Rome was replaced only by cists and Nazis in their as- (especially after the Soviet 1981, the regime responded of change. The result was a Ninety eighty nine did not the Third International. cent to power in 1930s. The invasion of Czechoslovakia with military force. political revolution. Some deliver any new ­ideals ­or

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­vision, merely a restoration an extension and mutation increasing pressure because of Western capitalism. of classic human rights be- they are seen by progressives Over two decades after yond their original scope as an obstacle to achieve the SOVIET MUSIC KEPT ITS 1989, Western democracy and frame. The noble idea “brave new world”. While and free market capitalism of dismantling discrimina- traditional Marxists claimed CLASSICISM - THANK GOD were ahead of their challeng- tion has been transformed the economic equality as by Damian Thompson ers everywhere. Countries of into a widespread concept their goal, the modern pro- central and Eastern Europe of “equality” that con- gressive doctrine is more were free to choose their for- stitutes not only a moral ambitious: it wants to enin once told Maxim vealed thrillingly taut and eign policy orientation and but also the legal claim to change human nature and L Gorky that he loved Bee- savage readings of famous many managed to become achieve equal status within its identity. As a result, this thoven’s Appassionata sonata symphonies by the Lenin- Nato and EU members. particular societal group. social engineering will make so much that he could listen grad Philharmonic Orches- While Communism had left However, the ideal of equal- Western societies less cohe- to it every day. But, instead, tra, as unmistakably Russian a heritage of ruins, not only in ity is out of reach in a free sive and more vulnerable. he chose to limit his exposure in Beethoven as it was in the economy, environment, Perhaps the current po- to great music because “such Tchaikovsky. When tensions health and politics, but also – We see the extension litical earthquakes in Europe miracles” distracted him from eased enough for Soviet mu- of individual and above all – in the minds and in the US are just an ex- the all-consuming struggle sicians to tour the West, the liberties into such for socialism. “It gets on my violinist David Oistrakh’s of citizens, these nations areas as the right pression of the continuing Soviet purists quickly realised necessary po- freely choose sexual vitality of liberal democra- nerves. I would like to stroke toyed with the combination of tonal sump- litical and economic reforms. identity. Traditional cies. A gap between the es- my fellow beings and whisper idea of suppressing tuousness and technical institutions such as sweet nothings in their ears the classical canon, wizardry made jaws drop; And in Russia, Communism, tablished elites and ordinary but Stalin decided that family or church are for being able to produce likewise Sviatoslav Richter’s if not the expansionist nature exposed to increasing people has simply widened solid citizens, deprived of the country, is dead too. pressure because more than is endurable. It such beautiful things in spite of religion, needed supremely reckless Appassio- However, Marxism is they are seen by is high time to wake up and of the abominable hell they these “miracles”. nata, greeted with explosive not dead in the West. It has progressives as an start to work for a conserva- are living in.” applause at Carnegie Hall obstacle to achieve These are not – quite – in 1960. These were musi- changed its form and battle- the brave new world. tive renewal. Damian Thompson the words of a cold-eyed fa- cians who had never been fields – the arena is not the is an Associate Editor at The economy but culture and natic squashing his private Spectator and Editorial director detached from their Rus- social affairs. But it has not society, for it is permanently passion to further the revo- at the Catholic Herald. sian roots (Russian-Jewish changed the naïvety of its contested by different indi- lution. Lenin sounds genu- @holysmoke in the case of Oistrakh: the beliefs, despite the numerous viduals in an unequal en- inely conflicted. Beethoven, Soviets, unlike the Nazis, re- Stalin decided that solid lessons of history – just like vironment. This “equality” together with Bach, Mozart, alised that the quickest way citizens, deprived of reli- Georg Lukacs, the old ideo- could be only enforced by a Chopin, Wagner, Brahms to impoverish music was to gion, needed these “mira- logue of European Marxists, state power. As a result, the and Tchaikovsky, were fig- expel Jews). cles”. Wagner was culled, who once said that even if society will become less free ures of vast cultural signif- But they were also, of but the other masters were every empirical assumption and less competitive. icance in pre-revolutionary course, cultural ambassadors venerated – Beethoven espe- were invalidated, he would On the other hand, we Russia. Their works were per- for a murderous dictatorship Alexandr Vondra cially, though concert­goers still hold Marxism to be true. see the extension of individ- formed not just in theatres that, among its lesser crimes, is a Czech former Senator and were instructed to regard the On the one hand, the ual liberties into such areas and concert halls but in every bullied its finest creative spir- Minister, currently serving as bourgeois parlour. finale of the Ninth Symphony its. Richter, terrified that his progressive forces of the as the right freely choose the Director of Prague Centre as a proto-Communist anthem. West initiated a far-reach- sexual identity. Traditional for Transatlantic Relations at Soviet purists toyed German ancestry or his ho- This was a sensible pol- ing human rights revolu- institutions such as family CEVRO Institute in Prague. with the idea of suppress- mosexuality would catch up icy. Soviet recordings re- tion. They have promoted or church are exposed to ing the classical canon, but with him, kept his nose clean

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by avoiding all controversy The Soviet Union did Union until their dying day. and just playing the piano. itself little harm by But that’s not a charge that preserving Russia’s For his much older men- musical traditions should be levelled at most tor Prokofiev and his friend and then unleashing people in the audience at the Shostakovich there was no them on the West. Festival Hall. They were hop- easy way out. They were Its motives may have ing for a superlative perfor- composers and therefore had been deplorable, mance of a masterpiece and, but the music that AMERICAS to go through the motions of emerged was not. as the BBC recording reveals, writing Stalin-worshipping that is what they got. The drivel. of the Eighth Symphony was applause at the end seems en- Imagine if a great Ger- not only a response to Hit- tirely justified. man composer had addressed ler’s barbarities; Stalin guessed The Soviet Union did it- similar hymns to Hitler; his as much and after its initial self little harm by preserving name would be permanent- success it was suppressed. But Russia’s musical traditions ly blackened. But the Nazis only briefly: by September and then unleashing them were unlucky in this respect: 1960, when Mravinsky con- on the West. Its motives may MAY 26-27 the Austro-German tradition ducted its British première at have been deplorable, but the was moribund and they were the Royal Festival Hall, the music that emerged was not. MIAMI 2017 reduced to bribing the an- Eighth could once again be And now that performing cient Richard Strauss. The represented as a triumph of styles have become depress- Soviet Union, in contrast, Soviet art. ingly homogenised, so that had Shostakovich, perhaps Some Western listeners a violinist trained in Beijing the most important compos- were naïve enough to swallow sounds much like one trained er of the Twentieth Century. this line; certain British com- in Basingstoke, we can at least In retrospect it is easy to posers, in particular, were be sure that the trick won’t be REGISTER AT: argue that the devastating grief quiet apologists for the Soviet repeated. www.conservativesinternational.org

102 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 103 for survival. Altruism was a while the state was becoming rational scientific lines. Suc- form of self-harm. Detached steadily stronger and more cessive Five Year Plans were from any idea of human ful- centralised. Marxist-Leninist presented as guarantees that filment, culture and the arts ideologues were in the posi- the Communist economy served the exclusive purposes tion of witch-doctors blinding would outstrip its capitalist of the state. with mumbo-jumbo. competitor. Mikhail Gor- Josef Stalin standardised The real Stalin gave him- bachev, the final General the supporting doctrine in two self away when he said in Secretary, is known to have books, Dialectical and His- his inner circle: “To choose admitted that the statistics torical Materialism and The one’s enemies, to prepare he received were falsified Foundations of Leninism, both one’s plan minutely, to slake through and through, which of them more or less compul- an implacable vengeance, was one of the causes of his sory reading, much as Hit- and then to go to bed… downfall. Dissembling and ler’s Mein Kampf was in Ger- there is nothing sweeter.” lying thus began at the top. many. Supposedly, a dialectic In the archives are lists of Catherine the Great’s operates whereby history is an names that he signed off chancellor, Prince Potemkin, irredeemable process of class in red ink with the invari- built a village consisting only warfare bound to end in the able command, “Shoot” or of facades in order to deceive dictatorship of the proletar- “Shoot Immediately.” To anyone inquiring into the iat. This would be a perfect the world at large, however, misery of the nation. The So- society, so perfect that the he and Communist leaders viet Union and every one of state withers away. At one in- everywhere covered reality its satellite states were Potem- THE CRIMINALS HAVE ternational conference in the with the claim to be mod- kin fictions. Immense num- 1930s, a Communist official ernising society on strictly bers of visitors from capitalist ESCAPED JUSTICE Interviewed on the won a certain immortality by by David Pryce-Jones BBC, EJ Hobsbawm, saying that in this perfect so- a professor with a ciety no child would ever be long career of Soviet killed accidentally. ore than a poet, every country under Com- apology, went so far as to say that he would In the Soviet Union and Heinrich Heine was munist rule. It is generally M still approve the death every country with a Com- a prophet when in 1842 he estimated that a hundred of 20 million people munist Party, classes were wrote, “Communism pos- million defenceless men and in order to set up a held in which some unfortu- sesses a language which every women paid with their lives Communist state. nate hack had to unfold this people can understand – its for being what they were, not dialectic to Party members elements are hunger, envy for anything they had done. collective, no longer to him- who might well be examined and death.” Here, he held, Marxism-Leninism, the self. This demand for a new to see what sense they made was a sombre hero in a mod- ideology that transformed identity gave rise to disas- of it. Nobody could explain ern tragedy. And so it proved, Russia into the Soviet Union, trous psychological repercus- why the proletariat should with the deportation from violently redefined the rela- sions. Whoever dared to crit- be favoured by history, and their homelands of whole tionships of person to per- icise or tell the truth risked there was no attempt to de- populations, genocide, en- son, and of everyone to the denunciation and punish- scribe how they would man- forced famine, slave labour, state. The individual was sup- ment. Dissembling and lying age their dictatorship. Mean- and concentration camps in posed to be responsible to the were obligatory strategies

104 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 105 The criminals have escaped justice

Communist leaders in Po- land, East Germany and former Czechoslovakia have been brought to court. Nothing like that has occurred in Russia, where thousands of KGB brutes and concentration camp guards enjoy tranquil lives. EUROPE’S LEADING REFORMIST POLITICAL FOUNDATION Appearing on a television Promoting Conservatism, Small Government, Private Property, Free Enterprise, Lower Taxes, Family Values, Individual Freedom and Strong Defence. countries have spent a week could write about “the solid programme during the or two on tours of the Soviet well-being of the people on Boris Yeltsin presidency, Union and come away deeply the streets,” and the success Lieutenant-General Dim- impressed, to spread far and of the system. Interviewed itri Tokaryev described his wide the news that the So- on the BBC, EJ Hobsbawm, command of one of the ex- viet Union was wonderfully a professor with a long career ecution squads at Katyn in progressive in one field or of Soviet apology, went so far 1940, shooting so many another. Poles in the back of the Often fellow-travellers At one international head that his trigger finger rather than Party members, conference in the became sore and swollen. 1930s, a Communist they had in fact seen only official won a certain Boasting of murder, he what the authorities were immortality by saying should have been arrested willing to show them. In- that in this perfect in the studio, not driven explicably suspending their society no child home by a chauffeur. In the would ever be killed critical faculties, George Ber- absence of trials that oblige accidentally. nard Shaw and H.G. Wells, known murderers and crim- Romain Rolland, Jean-Paul inals to submit to the law, Sartre, Emil Ludwig from as to say that he would still the intellectual and moral Germany, Walter Duranty, approve the death of 20 mil- disgrace of Communism the Moscow correspondent of lion people in order to set up continues to fester. The New York Times, and Jo- a Communist state. seph E Davies, the American In post-war Germany, ambassador, are among influ- surviving Nazi leaders were ential opinion-makers whose put on trial and those found misleading reports about the guilty were hanged. Former splendid achievements of SS men were also tried, some Communism expose them to were hanged and others im- mockery and cynicism that prisoned, and a great many still needs addressing. were permanently excluded Credulity persisted right from any public position. David Pryce-Jones up to the collapse of Com- Khmer Rouge leaders re- is a British author and munism. In 1984, the promi- sponsible for genocide in commentator and a senior JOIN US nent economist JK Galbraith Cambodia and a few selected editor of National Review.

www.europeanreform.org @europeanreform 106 www.theconservative.online April 2017 Issue 3 107 New Direction – TheTHE Foundation CONSERVATIVE for European Reform, a non-for-profit| organisation| (ASBL/VZW) registered in Belgium and partly funded by the European Parliament. Registered Office: Rue Du Trône 4, Brussels, 1000, Belgium. Director General: Naweed Khan. The European Parliament and New Direction assume no responsibility for the opinions expressed in this publication. Sole liability lies with the author. The article was first published in The Los Angeles Times, October 14 1962. ©Ayn Rand. Published in The Ayn Rand Column by The Ayn Rand Institute Press.

hose who still believe If, 45 years ago, the altru- foreign imperialists. Industrial- T that altruism is moral ist-collectivists could claim isation, they promised, would and collectivism is practical some excuse for their alleged make up for it all, and Soviet will do well to consider the ideals – for the belief that progress would surpass the meaning of the current news government planning would decadent West. from Soviet Russia. abolish poverty, ease the bur- Look through the news- On September 24, the So- den of toil and create pros- paper files for the 45 years viet government announced perity for all – what excuse since. You will find a succes- that it was “postponing” an- have they now? sion of five-year plans and other one of its “five-year In 1917, at the start of the failures, and bloody purges of plans”: the abolition of the revolution, the Russian stan- scapegoats to account for the income tax. That plan had dard of living was unspeakably failures. The Russian people’s been proclaimed, with thun- low. The Soviet system brought standard of living (“standard derous publicity, in 1960 and it still lower. The misery of So- of dying” would be more had promised to abolish in- accurate) has not changed; Industrialisation is OUR ALLEGED COMPETITOR come taxes gradually over a not a static goal; it shoes, wristwatches, cosmet- by Ayn Rand period of five years. is a dynamic process ics are still luxuries; the pro- With the same noisy with a rapid rate of duction of sufficient food is bluff, Khrushchev had an- obsolescence. still an unsolved problem. FOREWORD by Yaron Brook nounced that the Russians’ Nothing has changed Ayn Rand was born in Tsarist from Communism’s policy of ed for the good of the society. per capita consumption viet existence is incommuni- – except the production Russia in 1905 and witnessed breaking a few eggs to make an Elsewhere Rand argued that of meat and butter would cable to Americans. One can of public monuments. the Communist Revolution be- omelette, but from capitalism’s this same moral premise was surpass the Americans’ in a merely suggest it by saying that The starved, ragged Sovi- fore fleeing to America in 1926, policy of liberating the individ- behind the growing regulato- few years. Instead, what the the whole of a man’s mental, et wretches drag themselves eventually becoming one of the ual to pursue his own happiness. ry-welfare state that was slow- Russian consumers got, last physical and emotional ener- now, servicing some giant earliest and most outspoken Throughout her career, ly chipping away at progress summer, was a 25 percent gy, in Soviet Russia, is devoted factories, some hydro-elec- critics of Communism during Rand opposed Communism and prosperity in America. increase in the prices of meat to an agonised struggle for his tric dams, a marble-vaulted the Twentieth Century. In this not, primarily, on economic What Communism re- and butter. next meal. subway, a hideous skyscraper column, originally published grounds, but on moral grounds. veals, in her view, is not only But the Soviet govern- But the Soviet rulers as- representing a university, and in The Los Angeles Times on Whereas most people regarded the evil and destructiveness of ment’s expenditures for “the sured the people that this was countless parades in honour October 14 1962, Rand argued Communism as a noble theory, totalitarianism – but the evil public interest” – for in- only temporary. They bran- of conveniently photogenic that the basic rationalisation Rand saw the root of all Com- and destructiveness of collec- dustrial development, space dished slogans, banners, post- young men who return from used to justify Communism’s munism’s failures and crimes tivism, in whatever form and projects and foreign aid – will ers and mass executions, ex- travels in “outer spaces.” failures – that temporary sac- as following logically from its to whatever degree. If we are go on, uncut. horting the people to patience At first, it might have rifices will eventually lead to basic moral premise: the collec- to truly learn the lessons of Here is your pure, classic and self-sacrifice for the sake of seemed plausible that one collective prosperity – had been tivist notion that the individu- Communism’s history, it is the example of general self-sac- the country’s industrialisation. should sacrifice oneself (and shown by decades of experience al had no right to exist for the moral premise of collectivism rifice. This is what the doc- They blamed all hardships on others) for the sake of help- to be a lie. Progress and prosper- sake of his own happiness, but that Rand asks us to question trine of “the public interest” Russia’s economic backward- ing the poor in one’s own ity, she observed, did not come was a resource to be exploit- and reject. means, is and does. ness and on the plotting of country. Now, with the entire

108 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 109 Our Alleged Competitor

chine they invented, thus raising their productivity and yours – thus moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way. Observe that with the growth of statist controls, the rate of our economic growth has been declining. Yet it is capitalism that our politi- country (except the ruling an unprecedented standard of cal-intellectual leaders regard elite) reduced to the lowest living for all classes. And with as “immoral” – and it is so- level of misery, those same every subsequent decade, with cialism that they regard as poor, unhelped, are drained every scientific discovery or “practical” (!) by further sacrifices – for the technological advance, that If you saw a drunken sake of helping the poor of standard of living kept rising. bank robber squandering the Cuba and Africa. Under capitalism, prog- savings of millions of people At first, it might have ress and prosperity were not on a single Champagne-or- seemed plausible that the opposites, but corollaries. gy at the Waldorf-Astoria sacrifices were temporary and you would not regard him as that industrialisation would Under capitalism, economically sound nor as a progress and bring abundance for all. prosperity were dangerous threat to a produc- But industrialisation is not not opposites, but tive industrialist. Yet this pre- a static goal; it is a dynamic corollaries. cisely is the moral meaning, process with a rapid rate of the economic position and obsolescence. So the wretched And whenever anyone asks the competitive “threat” of serfs of a planned economy, a nation for sacrifices, it is not Soviet Russia’s alleged tech- who starved while waiting for progress that he will achieve. nological progress. steam engines and tractors, America’s magnificent are now starving while wait- achievements – which the ing for atomic power and in- Soviets are copying, borrow- terplanetary travel. ing and stealing – were not Thus, in a “people’s state,” created by public sacrifices, the progress of science is a but by the productive genius threat to the people, and of free men who pursued every advance is taken out of their own “selfish” interests the workers’ shrieking hides. and the making of their own This was not the history private fortunes. of capitalism. They did not tax you for Yaron Brook Emerging at the turn of America’s industrial develop- is an award-winning finance the Nineteenth Century, cap- ment. They gave you jobs, professor and President of the italism transformed the world higher wages and cheaper Ayn Rand Institute. in a few brief decades, creating goods with every new ma- @yaronbrook

110 www.theconservative.online THE CONSERVATIVE | April 2017 | Issue 3 111 THE LIBERTY SUMMIT IN EUROPE THE DAMAGING LEGACY OF COMMUNISM TIRANA, ALBANIA, 7-9 APRIL, 2017

thelibertysummit.org 112 www.theconservative.online