To draw the peasant masses into an active struggle for national liberation, revolutionaries must advocate a radical change in the basis of land ownership
When, about a year earlier, these exact same people had overthrown the Social Revolutionaries, the actually democratically elected party of actual peasants that had actually radically changed the basis of land ownership; and a decade later (mostly) the same people would be systematically starving those same peasants. This is why I hate communists.
Also, great summary and I appreciate all the extra education on CPSU history.
I hate communists
Apparently everyone else does too, since they're all avoiding the thread.
I knew that the Chinese communists had been purged by Chiang, but I didn't know how thorough the job was. I don't have my copy with me, but I was surprised when Tooze mentioned how many Chinese communists were left alive after Chiang was finished.
I really appreciated the extra context--thanks Chris!
I too was surprised at the degree of success that coherent working together achieved in China. The China intervention--and later clawback of concessions--was particularly interesting.
3: Skipping ahead, Tooze says Chiang killed 50,000 out out of 60,000 party members, including virtually all the urban/labor elements. And most of the survivors were killed by Mao's incompetence later that year, so not many left at all. (Or were you surprised in the other direction?)
Enver Pasha may be the 20th century's best combined score winner in "genocidal monster" and "preposterous loser" categories (there are bigger winners in each individual category, but he rates high on the combined score).
Very nice summary. I don't totally get the difference between third-worldism and using the third world to fuck with one's capitalist enemies in the First World. The latter approach seems like it was basically the Soviet plan from 1920 to 1991, but maybe I'm missing something.
Anyhow, my main takeaway (from my half-remembered reading long ago, still haven't started rereading) was that the Comintern and Communists just weren't that important for understanding the period as a whole, at least if you didn't live in the Russian Empire. A more competent international system probably could have strangled Bolshevism in the cradle, but even the cobbled-together one probably could have managed to contain it into collapse and irrelevance with a bit more luck and skill.
It seems curious that Tooze, who announced in beginning his book that combined and uneven development was the key to understanding this period, fails to recognise it when it's invoked by someone active at the time
It's interesting where the cracks appear in the book. So far, AFAICR, people have taken issue with details about Russia and China, and to a lesser extent inter-British Empire politics. Meanwhile, his Japanese narrative is checking out pretty convincingly in other books I'm reading, albeit ones cited by Tooze himself. It seems to me Tooze is telling a world systems/combined and uneven development story that works quite well for the core developed world, but much less so for the more peripheral countries. I said at the outset I thought Deluge was the worse (/less good) of his two books, and this is why. He reaches very far outside his specialties and probably makes a broader claim than he can support, but the narrower defensible claim is still hugely important.
6.1: Oooh, ooh, I have my vote for our century's version!
Chris, this was great. You added a lot of context and pulled it together clearly. I am completely exhausted and have nothing to add, but will read again later and see if I've come up with anything.
6/7/OP: the Comintern and Communists just weren't that important for understanding the period as a whole
I'm getting this too. Tooze's basic argument is that there was a potential American-centered progressive world order. The 'War grave of Russian democracy' chapter (tried to) show there was a chance for Russia to join that order, but once the Bolsheviks consolidated power that door was closed, and Russia/USSR was doomed to being a failed insurgent power until 1991. I think Tooze could have basically cut off his Russian narrative there. Like Chris said, the key to the failure of revolution was mostly internal to the developed countries, having nothing to do with Russia/Comintern.
even the cobbled-together one probably could have managed to contain it into collapse and irrelevance with a bit more luck and skill.
This would have involved basically starving the place, right? Not clearly the right thing to do without the benefit of hindsight..
I meant something a little different, that if the depression hadn't been quite so awful and there was no Hitler, you probably would have had a collapse of communism in the Soviet Union by 1950 or so. That's obviously an unknowable hypothetical, but that's what I meant.
I'm not sure that starving the Bolsheviks out in the 1918-1925 period would have worked even assuming that the horrible human consequences could conceivably be "worth it" (probably not a realistic calculation that people can make, anyway), at least not after 1920.
6.3 is, I think a good point. Tooze seems to credit the Cominter with powers of black magic, writing somewhere about them "forcing their ideas down the throats of the workers" or words to that effect, when in fact, outside the borders of the USSR they weren't in a position to force anything down anybody's throats. They could, and did, intervene in the leadership of the various Communist parties to change their policies and personnel, but this directly affected a few hundred people worldwide. In one case (Poland) they actually dissolved and reconstructed a party, though this was a bit later.
But outside the Soviet Union, party membership was obviously entirely voluntary, and illegal as well in a good many countries. If the workers didn't like the party line they quit the party: membership tended to fluctuate quite a bit.
Also, the old Second International parties didn't vanish in a puff of smoke. The SPD remained the largest single party in Germany until 1933 and is still the second largest, even if its claims to socialism look a bit thin these days; the French Socialist Party continued to be call itself officially la Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière until 1969; the Labour Party in Britain formed the most radical government in the country's history after WWII; Scandinavian Social Democracy was a bye-word for a generation. So where were all these Communists calling the shots?
a collapse of communism in the Soviet Union by 1950 or so
Interesting. What mechanisms are you thinking? From what little I know, the NEP stabilized by suspending central planning, then Stalin got industrialization moving by trading grain for technological imports. That is, just what the Tsars had been doing, but faster (?) by virtue of starved peasants. Do you think the USSR could have been choked off just by embargo? Or that their system really needed the addition of the Eastern bloc economies post-1945?
Basically the latter. The NEP, if it had continued, would have morphed within a generation or two into a basically capitalist system with some very hefty state intervention, maybe like China today, and when the leadership generations changed the pretense of world revolution would be over. If Stalin's crash collectivism/industrialization had happened without the war, you'd still have millions of dead bodies but the result of the industrialization would look way worse, you wouldn't have looted Eastern Europe/prestige of the victor to rely on (plus a hypothetically more stable and successful West) so the Soviets would be likely to join the West much earlier
11.3: Tooze claims most of those parties as the pillars of the liberal order that failed post-WWI and succeeded post-WWII. Which suggests the revolution didn't really fail after WWI, but rather that WWI was the revolution, producing universal manhood suffrage and generally much more left wing governments in most of the belligerents.
13: "Looking worse" wasn't really an issue for Stalin. And I'm not sure WWII was a net gain for the USSR; IIRC their GDP actually shrank overall (their population certainly did; as far as anyone can tell, on both counts) and the war produced massive internal instability. They essentially had to re-fight the Civil War everywhere except Russia itself. And how much was the loot worth? IIRC trade with the eastern bloc was a net loss to the USSR by the 1970s or so, don't know about earlier.
Right, but I'm not talking about the prosperity of the country, I'm talking about whether state communism run by the Soviet CP would have collapsed under internal pressures (basically, the internal pressure of being a really dumbshit idea). Their system did sort-of kinda-OK in the 70s and 80s, certainly better than the disaster of WWII, but collapsed soon after. Letting the country go onto a war footing, and then giving the Communist Party the prestige of having won the war (plus all the other mechanisms of state repression) kept the system going until 1991. Without war (and without the severity of the depression/collapse of the international order in the West in the 30s) state communism looks a lot shittier to your average powerful Russian technocrat and therefore gets dumped earlier. A richer Russia makes that more, not less, likely to happen. That's my half-assed theory anyway.
The SPD remained the largest single party in Germany until 1933 and is still the second largest, even if its claims to socialism look a bit thin these days; the French Socialist Party continued to be call itself officially la Section Française de l'Internationale Ouvrière until 1969; the Labour Party in Britain formed the most radical government in the country's history after WWII; Scandinavian Social Democracy was a bye-word for a generation. So where were all these Communists calling the shots?
And that part is totally right. Socialism was a totally huge thing that in fact succeeded in much of the world and persists today in having a huge, beneficial influence. It just wasn't moronic Leninism/Stalinism/Marx-fetishization communism.
state communism looks a lot shittier to your average powerful Russian technocrat and therefore gets dumped earlier
That does make a lot of sense. The nomenklatura's loss of faith was ultimately what brought it down.
15/16 Maybe the next reading group should tackle Francis Spufford's "Red Plenty". CT did it a while ago.
I thought Red Plenty was really great. Also the essay from Cosma on Red Plenty on Crooked Timber is one of the great internet pieces of writing of all time.
19: Good idea but, for the love of god, we need something more upbeat first. Conquest's Harvest of Sorrow helped push me out of grad school by sheer misery.
3: Malraux's Man's Fate deals with Chiang's (1926?) massacre of most of the CCP. I read it too many decades ago in college and have (a few remaining) fond memories of the story told there . IIRC, pretty much every major and minor Communist character in the tale dies by the end of the book, boiled or burned to death in steam locomotives, at least those who didn't have cyanide to take matters into their own hands.
See what I mean? Not upbeat.
The book referenced in 22 is deeply deeply weird.
Reminds me, Chris, what did you read about Sun/Chiang/the Northern Expedition?
19: Following that link makes me really want to read his memoir about reading, but I don't know that it would be the sort of thing that would work for a reading group.
Still waiting to hear your genocide*loser nominee, Thorn. I'll toss in Laurent Kabila for the 20th century.
Was that not clear enough? I'm looking to be first against the wall under Halfordismo by speaking out now!
Ah. But we all have cabinet posts under Halfordismo, right? So it's the long knives you have to watch out for, not the wall.
So googling for Cosma's essay (here), one of the autosuggests was "costa shalizi iq".
And if you actually search for that (s/costa/cosma/, anyway), the first page of search results has an article about the "g-spot". (Not really, but.)
From 19 link: "What do you call Khrushchev's hairdo? Harvest of 1963."
Back to OP: Outfits with global ambitions which last a generation or less are two a penny
I shared your WTF about the Comintern, but I think Tooze has a point in that they weren't just an outfit with global ambitions, but an outfit seeking to pursue a global agenda within multiple states mostly by non-state means, and that is more distinctive. The only comparisons I can think of in modern times are the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, and maybe the Murdoch media. I don't know if the church would even count there: are/were all the Catholic parties actually co-coordinating their agendas, beyond say reproductive rights?
The coordination was never without internal competition, but you've got things the Crusades, the Treaty of Tordesillas, Jesuit proselytization along the Portuguese trade routes, and the Counter-Reformation all working to globally expand Catholic reach.
Hence 'modern times'. Before the modern state there are all manner of factions crossing polity lines.
24: Please elaborate. IIRC I read a chapter or 2 in my freshman French lit class (along with all of Camus' The Stranger) & decided to read the rest on my own over the summer. I don't recall thinking it strange then, but given that I was 17 at the time (and it was the early seventies), I probably didn't have a lot to go by. I was then under the impression that it was considered a minor 20th C. classic.
My bad, misread the antecedent of "there." Yeah, that's harder to say.
Also, my reading it in French gave it an exotic air which I may have confused with the deep weirdness that you have identified.
Also, my reading it in French gave it an exotic air which I may have confused with the deep weirdness that you have identified.
36 - I just remember it as being in sum total BEHOLD THE STRUGGLE OF HUMANITY AS REPRESENTED BY CHINESE PEOPLE WHO ARE TOTALLY DYING. NOW BEHOLD MORE CHINESE PEOPLE DYING. STRUGGLE. CHINESE PEOPLE. DYING. SUCH IS THE WAY OF MAN.
And more specifically, thinking that the reason why the book was set in China by its French author (or why the book was written at all) was extremely mysterious and generally the book was a huge WTF.
But the foregoing could be 100% unfair -- I read it 20 years ago, also in mostly-but-not-completely-understood French (look at me!).
42 sounds a good deal like this thing, though I read it in English.
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Certainly a blog that celebrates, or blames on Moscow (their own damn fault!) the massacre of tens of thousands of Leftists in Shanghai can be considered a hostile environment. Picked up Harold Isaacs, and at least Trotsky is sane enough to explain that Chiang KS was a liberal
Robin on Fallows on Trump on Khan
Robin does note that by the time Welch created the cliche, most of the damage had already been done, and also recognizes and discusses moderate and liberal complicity, but doesn't see the obvious conclusion that the worst actual state oppression and persecution of dissidents, from Palmer raids to blacklisting to imprisonment of draft resistors to persecution of leakers like Manning and Snowden happens during Democratic administrations
As I said the upcoming Clinton Wars will create an atmosphere physically real-life dangerous for dissidents, much worse than anything (was there anything?) that occurred 2001-2008. I know that will be fine patriots around here eager to assist the effort.
So I stay scarce.
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I think if we're going to have an ongoing reading group we should probably talk about what our goals are with it and similar boring stuff, not to mention whether heebie wants to wrangle a guest post every Monday for the rest of her life. But I'm not the boss!
talk about what our goals are with it and similar boring stuff
I say "create an atmosphere physically real-life dangerous for dissidents, much worse than anything (was there anything?) that occurred 2001-2008," but that's just me. Jackboot of neoliberalism Mondays.
I'm hoping to make a return for the last few threads once my Wednesday deadline is over. Also, I had to return the book to the library but I liked it enough that I'll probably buy it at this point.
Or just send money to the publishers.
Robin on Fallows on Trump on Khan
That is a good post -- well written and it makes a fair point. But, after thinking about it for a while, it seems worth noting that, "liberals hardly covered themselves in glory during the McCarthy years" isn't a controversial point. It is worth taking a moment to use the references to McCarthy to point out that most of the country behaved poorly; but it seems like stretching the point to claim that's particularly characteristic of liberals.
An ongoing reading group is a good idea. I'd suggest future books be shorter than this one (mea culpa, mea maxima culpa) and maybe that posts be midweek rather than Mondays. I get the feeling commenting is more active then.
Wait, there's a "Tank Biathlon" and I'm only just hearing about it now? This needs to be in the Olympics.
25. I honestly can't remember. I hadn't given it a moment's thought for 30 years. Articles here and there; probably quite a bit of Trotsky at that time (Is anybody going to explain to Bob that Trotsky meant something rather different by "liberal" in 1927 to what Democrats mean now?)
21. Oh God, yes. How about A Pelican at Blandings?
the upcoming Clinton Wars will create an atmosphere physically real-life dangerous for dissidents
BEGUN THESE CLINTON WARS HAVE.
At least tell me there will be mechas. It will all be worth it if there are mechas.
52 is terrific. I like the T-72s painted in jolly primary colours.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_biathlon
I seem to remember suggesting something similar for the Olympics a few years back - the Armoured Pentathlon.
54 last. The other Olympics (776 BCE - 393 CE) included a foot race (about 400 metres or a bit less) wearing helmet and greaves and carrying a shield. Not sure what the modern equivalent would be.
We could always add the field gun competition from the Royal Tournament to the Olympics, I suppose.
I don't want to think what might be included in the ISIS Pentathlon. Pillage, rape, murder, torture, and you finish by desecrating an ancient monument of your choice?
While I appreciated Corey Robin's McCarthy post, my instinctive response was "don't underestimate the value of a good fairy tale".
Looking for a specific starting point for the Polish-Soviet War may not be very productive. Poles started out fighting in the armies of all three empires engaged on the northern part of the Eastern Front; they took some time for rearranging. The German Army held quite a lot of territory in the East, for a Kaiser who was no longer there to care. And so on. It's closer to say that the fighting that started in August 1914 continued in Europe's northeast until 1921.
Next year's tank biathlon sounds like an excellent unfogged field trip. My Russian is rocky, but I can manage basic communication about the location of alcohol or coffee, or the price of a bribe.
Adam Tooze's twitter feed has a bunch of great images of Italian fascism, including this one:
https://twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/760100020607676416
Next year's tank biathlon sounds like an excellent unfogged field trip.
One can actually buy a second-hand tank remarkably cheaply, though I fear the main gun would probably have been disabled.
the economic usage of the word deflation itself, as the opposite of inflation, appears to have come into use in English only in 1919. The first references given by the Oxford English Dictionary are for that year, when deflation was being spoken of as a necessity, and for 1920, when it became a fact.
Interesting tidbit from Metzler.
"Inflation" in the monetary sense itself only dates back to 1838 in the same source, and many of the mid-19th-century quotations talk about it as a concept with other terminology.
1841 in X. D. MacLeod Biogr. F. Wood (1856) 75 We have been periodically visited by panics, revulsions, and distresses, inflations and reäctions.
1863 W. S. Jevons Serious Fall in Value of Gold i. 14 A revulsion occasioned by a failure of the national capital must cause..a collapse of credit, and of any inflation of prices due to credit.
But I suppose that's not deliberate deflation as policy.
Talk about deflation as a concept with other terminology, that should be.
Interesting. Per Metzler, modern goldbuggery was getting entrenched in Britain around that time.
I finally caught up on the Tooze, just in time for the book to be almost over.
I remember in some of the previous threads that there was some skepticism that a return to the gold standard was avoidable. Having now caught up, it seems to me like an incredibly contingent event. To a certain extent, deflation was the goal and the gold standard was the tool, rather than vice versa. The UK deliberately deflated, as did Italy, for example.