The articles, letters and book on Philby, reprinted here in full, are wonderfully well written. Professor Trevor-Roper was a stylist that few could rival. Much of it is of enormous interest but he also shows a good deal of closed mindedness of the kind he accuses his own wartime superiors and colleagues. On the whole, I'd say he never came to terms with the extent to which Communists agents of espionage and influence, penetrated various British and American institutions, displaying a certain amount of censoriousness towards anyone who tried to unravel this. (And I find it particularly infuriating that he and, I am sorry to say, his editor, Edward Harrison, refer to Russia when they mean the Soviet Union.)
The review of Andrew Boyle's The Climate of Treason, a crucial publication in the history of that unravelling is dismissive: no real need for it, nothing important in it and, in any case, the three rather sordid traitors (how right Trevor-Roper is on that adjective), Burgess, Maclean and Philby, did very little real harm.
Just as one despairs at such willful misreading one comes across this paragraph. Having analyzed why so many young people joined or supported the Communist Party in the thirties for what seemed like very good reasons at the time, he adds:
There was also another reason, less reputable, but not, I think, less real. Intellectuals often pretend that, as a class, they are advocates of liberty. This is seldom true. Intellectuals like the beauty of mathematical order. They like tidiness, symmetry. Liberty is untidy, asymmetrical. Consequently young intellectuals, even when they speak of liberty, really worship power. they generally grow out of this when they realise that they are less likely to exercise power themselves than to be the victims of it. But for a time they think that they respect it. Communism, as intellectually justified system of total power, has a fatal fascination for young intellectuals seeking short cuts to total solution.One could point to other displays of total power that intellectuals or those who think themselves to be intellectuals, support. But, when it comes to Communism and its one manifestation in the thirties, the Soviet Union (not Russia), though the same would apply to the supporters of Mao in the fifties and sixties, there is another consideration.
Even more than fascism or Nazism, Communism is a political system that purports to be constructed on an intellectually coherent base. It is not anything of the kind, as it happens, but that is what a good many people, more intelligent and intellectual than the Cambridge five and others of that ilk have believed. Even Albert Camus differentiated between the "irrational terror" of fascism and the "rational terror" of Communism. In actual fact, Stalin was often considerably less rational than Hitler and the terror introduced in Bolshevik Russia and the Soviet Union was no more rational than that introduced in Nazi Germany, though often considerably more bloody.
On top of this, it seemed that the Soviet Union really valued and cherished its intellectuals while the higgledy-piggledy Western systems did not. Somehow, it did not appear to be important to many that those intellectuals, so cherished at first, often found themselves, as was well known even in the thirties, in prisons, in torture chambers, in labour camps and execution chambers. Other intellectuals appeared to take their place and the life of the intellect was still, apparently, cherished.
Naturally, the Soviet Union's propaganda machine played on the Western intellectuals' sense of grievance and treated them as highly honoured guests as well as highly honoured agents. The easiest person to fool is the man (or the woman but more often the man) who thinks he is the only one to know the real truth but nobody appreciates it. Too much has been written about various fellow travellers for me to have to reiterate any of it (though I may well do another time) but the intricate relationship between intellectuals and absolute power or what they see as absolute power needs to be studied now just as it was by Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper.
Very well put; the smug excuses of and for leftist 'intellectuals' are still the same and the consequences of their egotistical words and deeds are still glossed over.
ReplyDeleteGood article Helen. As well as being intellectuals most of the people attracted to Communism, and the other creeds, in this country at any rate seem to be largely drawn from the upper middle classes. We see it today in the Guardian. Perhaps there is some combination of guilt for being so well off, combined with the ability this wealth gives them to indulge themselves.
ReplyDeleteI think Jarvis Cocker had it right in "Common People". "Still you'll never get it right, 'cause when you're lying in bed at night, watching roaches climb the wall, you know you can end it all, with just one call to your Dad".
What roaches? Who has them here, anyway? Actually, there is evidence that very soon after the Bolsheviks had consolidated their power they very definitely set out to recruit supporters, mostly secret ones, among the well educated classes. The policy paid off. I shall be writing about that as soon as I get through another book that is lying there, waiting for me to read: Victor Madeira's "Britannia and the Bear".
ReplyDeleteThe Solution:
ReplyDeleteProcedure By Which conservatives Could Control Parliament
If UKIP is Lucky, UKIP could get, perhaps, get ten to thirty seats
in Parliament. Do not forget, the public still regards UKIP as a
one issue party. To gain control of Parliament UKIP and (and frie-
nds) should form a new conservative party with a platform that is
close to that of the existing Conservative party, omitting, of course,
policies that are objectionable to conservatives. The purpose would
be to make a bed that would be easy for conservatives to slide into,
including the eighty percent of the Conservatives who left Conser-
vative associations. UKIP and the conservatives should then form
a political association in each parliamentary district. UKIP could
merge with the new party, thus getting rid of the one issue problem.
Every one who would have worked to form the new, conservative,
party should be prevented from joining the new party for
a period of time to prevent the impression that UKIP controls it.
The two or three conservative parties should hold a primary election
to determine who runs as the Parliamentary candidate, with the losers
to help the winner. The cost of forming new associations can be raised
by local contributors. It is suggested that the new conservative asso-
ciations and the political party be controlled by the lowest level of con-
servatives, such as teachers, small businessmen, solicitors, professionals
etc. If the above procedure can not be completed in time to get
candidates elected to Parliament, the new party must wait until
after the election and hold a petition demanding that the elected
MP resign. Note: an MP represents every person in his district, not
just members and supporters of his party. When the petition reaches
fifty percent of those who voted in the prior election, the conservatives
will be morally justified in demanding their MP"s resignation. Then the
new party could run their candidates in the following by elections.
To select a candidate, a local association should advertise for applicants
or the position of candidate for Parliament, then select the best app-
licant by using rigorous tests, including, most importantly, psychological
evaluation. psychological evaluation is an absolute necessity as the psych-
ological evaluation is the only way to tell who is honest and who is a con-
artist; members of the public cannot. Testing could be required of the
association officers, committee members and delegates, etc.
The platform, selected by new party associations, should be some what
vague in order to facilitate integration the platforms of the new assoc-
iations into one platform. It is suggested that self forming cliques of those
who are honest and trust worthy be formed; then form self forming
cliques of those who have political skills and capabilities, within the
first described clique.
The corruption in Ukip is a cause for concern. Information about the corr-
uption may bee seen on the following websites:
ukip-vs-eukip.com
unfashionista.com
eureferendum.com
John Newell
I cannot see how this can be said to be relevant to my posting or the discussion above. Please, do not do this again or I shall delete and, if needs be, block you from posting.
Delete