Lessons Not Learned

From the UK we have this OpEd from The Telegraph, titled "The lessons of the fall of communism have still not been learnt".  The writer is Ms Janet Daley.♠  The thesis is in the title.

This is a short and concise discussion of the fact that in the West we did not really draw the proper conclusions from the collapse of Communism.  In some circles the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the other Communist States, is not seen as the indictment of Communism that it should be.  An indictment of an economic system that not only didn't bring equity to all, but brought oppression of the many.  Here is one passage:

The failure of communism should have been, after all, not just a turning point in geo-political power – the ending of the Cold War and the break-up of the Warsaw Pact – but in modern thinking about the state and its relationship to the economy, about collectivism vs individualism, and about public vs private power.  Where was the discussion, the trenchant analysis, or the fundamental debate about how and why the collectivist solutions failed, which should have been so pervasive that it would have percolated down from the educated classes to the bright 18-year-olds?  Fascism is so thoroughly (and, of course, rightly) repudiated that even the use of the word as a casual slur is considered slanderous, while communism, which enslaved more people for longer (and also committed mass murder), is regarded with almost sentimental condescension.

Is this because it was originally thought to be idealistic and well-intentioned?  If so, then that in itself is a reason for examining its failure very closely. We need to know why a system that began with the desire to free people from their chains ended by imprisoning them behind a wall.  Certainly we have had some great works of investigation into the Soviet gulags and the practices of the East German Stasi, but judging by our present political discourse, I think it is safe to say that the basic fallacies of the state socialist system have not really permeated through to public consciousness.

This is a lesson the Republican candidates for office would do well to absorb.  Back to Winston.  Not perfect, but better than the other options.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  The writer:

Janet Daley is American-born, but has lived in Britain since 1965.  She was educated at the University of California at Berkeley (BA in Philosophy), and Birkbeck College, London (post-graduate).  She spent twenty years in academic life, teaching philosophy at the Open University, the external department of London University and the Royal College of Art.  She wrote art and literary criticism from the late 1960s to early 80s, and left teaching to become a freelance journalist in 1987, writing for The Times, Sunday Times, Independent, Sunday Telegraph and Spectator.