Comments on: Eric Hobsbawm and the Hitler-Stalin pact

By: KvandeKa

KvandeKa — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 05:21:54 +0000

KGrimm….”what will successful socialism actually look like?”

Either the Borg or Starfleet.

By: KGrimm

KGrimm — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 10:43:14 +0000

Little Richardjohn’s comments expose the mindset of the righteous socialist perfectly. If a socialist hero (eg. Stalin) uses mass murder to enforce the ideology then he can simply be disowned as not a real socialist. If a socialist ‘experiment’ proves to be brutal, cruel and oppressive it can be shrugged off as not true socialism. Real socialism, to the righteous socialist, has yet to be attempted anywhere in the world. It is a system which left wing intellectuals feel should be forced upon the world. It can never fail because its promoters are only prepared to acknowledge it as socialism when/if it finally succeeds. Although even here they are hedging their bets – what will successful socialism actually look like?

By: Little Richardjohn

Little Richardjohn — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:22:39 +0000

“The perennial daydream is that the Left is a happy family that includes the totalitarian left among its members. The totalitarian left may be a little wild on occasion, like an unruly teenager, but it is still a member of the family whose dirty laundry must never be washed in public. ”

Where do you pick this stuff up?
There is a perennial daydream that anyone claiming to be socialist is the real thing. This enables Stalin to stand fror all socialism in the lazy political press.
As for the errors of the past, the one thing which a progressive ideology such as socialism is not condemned to do is repeat them. No socialist today is bound by the eugenics of the Webbs or HG Wells or even the violence of Trotsky. As lifelong socialist George Orwell pointed out:
“Ideas may not change, but emphasis shifts constantly. It could be claimed, for example, that the most important part of Marx’s theory is contained in the saying: ‘Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.’ But before Marx developed it, what force had that saying had? Who had paid any attention to it? Who had inferred from it — what it certainly implies — that laws, religions and moral codes are all a superstructure built over existing property relations? It was Christ, according to the Gospel, who uttered the text, but it was Marx who brought it to life. And ever since he did so the motives of politicians, priests, judges, moralists and millionaires have been under the deepest suspicion — which, of course, is why they hate him so much.”

By: Miscellany « Poumista

Miscellany « Poumista — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 11:24:49 +0000

[...] Nick Cohen on Eric Hobsbawm and the Hitler-Stalin pact. [...]

By: Release Hobsbawm’s File! « Wizreport

Release Hobsbawm’s File! « Wizreport — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 10:39:41 +0000

[...] Cohen has posted a section of What’s Left that deals with Hobsbawm’s activities as a party member in the [...]

By: Recusant

Recusant — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 16:04:53 +0000

Is there something in the water at Winchester? Pritt seems to have a similar world view to a current Wykehamist revolutionary, Seamus Milne.

I can now tell Mr Appleyard that I have posted a comment here.