Totalitarianism

In this paper I would like to address one of the main features of communist ideology which is its one-dimensional conception of the person that totally undermined the spiritual dimension of human beings and that resulted in a rationally constructed political and social order. Such an approach can be called an anthropological error.  It accorded with instrumental Cartesian rationality that gave primacy to a self-liberating intellect – the constructor of both the person and the world outside. I look at some philosophical and political consequences of this type of reasoning about humans and their goals in Soviet-type systems that produced what Milosz aptly called the captive mind. This conception proved to be destructive and self-refuting, both politically and morally. The intellectual foundations of communism can be found in modernity, in mass consciousness, and in philosophical and political rationalism. The rise of science and rationalism provided the scientific foundation for the social and political order and, consequently, led to a perspective that combined Enlightenment rationalism with Hegelian historical determinism. Totalitarianism represents the culmination of a modern historical trend towards the elimination of the political; it treats the commonwealth as a product of human construction.

Recently, there has been a renewed focus on analyzing post-Soviet memory, including the rekindling of debate on contemporary perspectives of Josef Stalin. Most notably, the publication of The Stalin Puzzle has helped bring attention to the persistence of positive accounts and admiration, along with ambivalent and contested images, of the former dictator of the Soviet Union. Using survey data and multivariate statistical methods, we test five broad hypotheses – socialization, structural, ideological, nationalist, and gender – to ascertain what factors might shape people's attitudes toward Stalin in Georgia. Our analysis reveals that elderly, poor men from rural areas have the most positive associations of Stalin, whereas young, wealthier women from cities, those who are open to privatization, and perceive Russia as Georgia's biggest threat judge Stalin negatively. Counterintuitively, non-Georgian minorities show higher esteem for Stalin than Georgians. We envision that the effects of cohort replacement, economic development, and urbanization will decrease positive perceptions of Stalin in years to come.

There must be something special and fanciful in the land of Gujarat to attract Hindutva intellectuals to come out with their bizarre theories once they land there. The latest being Supreme Court judge A.R. Dave. Dave while addressing a distinguished gathering which included Chief Justice of Bombay High Court, Mohit Shah at Gujarat University, Ahmedabad on August 2, 2014 said that the Bhagwad Gita and the Mahabharata should be introduced to students from Class I. He wanted to be a dictator to decree the enforcement of these two epics. To quote him, “Somebody who is very secular...so-called secular will not agree…Had I been the dictator of India, I would have introduced the Gita and the Mahabharata in Class I. That is the way you learn how to live life. I am sorry if somebody says I am secular or I am not secular. But if there is something good, we have to get it from anywhere”.
            Presently not going into the merit or demerit of having these as school curriculum, his above quoted utterances are in direct violation to the oath which he must have taken as judge for upholding a democratic-secular Constitution of India. How could a member of the highest court of justice of the country express wish to be a dictator, denigrate secularism? Should the President of India remain a mute spectator to these totalitarian ideas of a sitting judge of the Supreme Court?
Justice AR Dave is not the first person to lay down fantastic scheme while present on the lands of Gujarat. It was in Gujarat that M. S. Golwalkar, the second Sarsanghchalak of the RSS and its most prominent ideologue till date, laid down his shameful theory of cross-breeding among Keralite Hindus. He was invited to address the students of the School of Social Science of Gujarat University on December 17, 1960. In this address, while underlying his firm belief in the Race Theory, he touched upon the issue of cross-breeding in Kerala. He said:
“Today experiments in cross-breeding are made only on animals. But the courage to make such experiments on human beings is not shown even by the so-called modern scientist of today. If some human cross-breeding is seen today it is the result not of scientific experiments but of carnal lust. Now let us see the experiments our ancestors made in this sphere. In an effort to better the human species through cross-breeding the Namboodri Brahamanas of the North were settled in Kerala and a rule was laid down that the eldest son of a Namboodri family could marry only the daughter of Vaishya, Kashtriya or Shudra communities of Kerala. Another still more courageous rule was that the first off-spring of a married woman of any class must be fathered by a Namboodri Brahman and then she could beget children by her husband. Today this experiment will be called adultery but it was not so, as it was limited to the first child.”
[M. S. Golwalkar cited in Organizer, January 2, 1961, p. 5.]

Essay über die abgestufte Vergangenheitsbewältigung in ehemaligen Ostblockstaaten und die unterschiedliche Schuldauffassung in westlicher Zivilisation und orthodoxer Überlieferung ("heilige" Schuld - expliziert an Dostojevskis Romanen), welch letztere eine  ernste Vergangenheitsbewältigung unmöglich macht. Die besten Chancen dafür werden in der Ex-DDR gesehen.
In: Wolfgang Kraus – Zukunft Europa. Aufbruch durch Vereinigung. Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1993, str. 128–138