Posted on 01/24/2003 4:11:27 AM PST by The Raven
They don't call it socialism any more, but that's what it is: as the American Left tries to take advantage of the war on terrorism to advance the cause of big government, you can't afford to be ignorant of what socialists really believe and their dismal track record in human affairs. That's why Joshua Muravchik's new history of this peculiarly compelling movement, Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism, is so urgently needed today.
Muravchik pulls no punches. In this novelistic and vivid chronicle, he traces the fiery trajectory of socialism through keenly etched portraits of the thinkers and leaders who developed socialist theory, brought socialist governments to power, and presided over socialism's collapse. In the process, he shows why socialism has failed wherever it has been tried (and why this will always be the case). Even better, Muravchik is unafraid to explore socialism's appeal as man's great attempt to replace religion. He explains how and why this worldly faith grew so quickly as to command (at its high-water mark) the loyalty of sixty percent of the world's population only 150 years after its first theoretical formulation.
Muravchik introduces you to numerous socialists whose influence has far outlived their fame, including the French revolutionary Gracchus Babeuf (who led the first attempt to outlaw private property) and Robert Owen (one of the first American socialists). He also sketches unforgettable portraits of the Socialist titans who forever changed the course of world history, and whose baneful influence lingers on -- notably Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Britain's Clement Attlee, and Tanzania's Julius Nyerere. Perhaps most revealing of all is his look at socialism's inadvertent undertakers: Mikhail Gorbachev, Deng Xiaoping, and Tony Blair.
But the beast isn't dead yet. Be sure you're familiar with the path it's taken thus far, so that you'll be ready for its next guise. Heaven on Earth gives you the information you need:
-Karl Marx: the truth about his vicious anti-Semitism
-How Marx preached "class struggle" but declined to live as a member of his beloved working class
-Friedrich Engels: why the world may never have heard of Karl Marx were it not for him
-Lenin: the traumatic experience of his youth that marked the beginning of his career as a political radical
-The single book that Lenin said "completely transformed my outlook"
-How Lenin contradicted Marx's doctrine in important ways as he brought socialist dictatorship to Russia
-Hitler and Mussolini: how their fascist movements were heretical forms of the socialist secular religion
-The Mussolini vogue: the facts about the days when it was as fashionable to praise his regime as it soon became to laud Soviet Communism
-Social democrats: how Britain's Clement Attlee and others differed from Communists in method, but not in end
-"The Swedish model": how much of the West came to believe the preposterous notion that the Welfare State was the sanest, most humane model of government
-Julius Nyerere: how the beloved father of Tanzania left his country the most impoverished country in Africa
-India: dismally poor - until it began to turn away from socialism
-Why Deng Xiaoping had to sacrifice socialism to keep his grip on power
-Mikhail Gorbachev: how he compelled the Soviet regime to commit suicide in order to "save socialism"
-Francois Mitterrand: how his turn to the Right in France sapped the energy of socialist parties all over Europe
-Tony Blair's apostasy: how he turned away from socialism in a move that a British Leftist likened to "a bishop tearing up the Ten Commandments"
Plus: Appendices listing socialist countries at socialism's high tide in 1985 * A complete list of Third World socialist countries (including the dates of their socialist "experiments") -------------------------------------- "Tells the story of socialism from its origins to the final debacle through the lives of its leaders. This novel personal approach - so different from the dreary abstractions of most histories of socialism - makes this book an excellent read." -- PAUL JOHNSON
And from the socialist camp:
"Even those of us who chose socialism as a conscious alternative to religion will register the odd wince at Muravchik's unsparing review of what becomes of these acts of faith and of those who perform them. We must also not forget those upon whom these acts were performed." -- Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair
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I was most struck by Muravchik's portrayal of the decidedly religious nature of socialism. Since socialists of all stripes have usually expressed antipathy for traditions and faith of the Judeo-Christian West, it is easy to misperceive the socialists as anti-religious. Muravchik exposes the true nature of socialist antipathy toward Judeo-Christianity by demonstrating that socialism is itself, a competing religious dogma rather than an anti-religious force. It seeks to supplant established religious faiths rather than destroy the irrepressibly religious instincts of man. Former socialists like Muravchik and David Horowitz seem to readily recognize that socialist dogmatics pervert the soteriological and eschatological dogmatics of the Judeo-Christian tradition through socialist messianism and utopianism. This theme is recurrent in Muravchik's fine book as he recounts the history of socialism's failed promise to bring to realization a materialistic version of the Kingdom of God on earth. - DENIS ARMSTRONG
I'm pretty sure the French- Rousseau??- were responsible for the idea. Another example of their trouble-making;^))
Yeah but after all it's the intent that counts.</sarcasm off>
Yeah and I have always considered the phrase "mixed economic system" as another way of saying "we can't make up our minds as to what the hell we want to be."
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