Vladimir_M comments on Human Evil and Muddled Thinking - Less Wrong

40 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 13 September 2007 11:43PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_M 27 August 2011 06:40:41AM *  1 point [-]

This is misleading.

It is indeed misleading to describe Orwell's Catalonian comrades-in-arms as capital-C "Communists," since this would imply that they were controlled from Moscow, which they weren't. (They were a mix of local independent communists and anarchists.) However, in Homage to Catalonia, there are several passages where Orwell presents clear evidence of their terror, murder, vandalism, and forcible suppression of all opposition, which he however excuses and rationalizes away, never toning down his utterly idealistic appraisal of them. His general comments about the war are also clearly remote from reality and biased in the pro-communist (small-c) direction, and on occasions he obviously relays the communist propaganda as a complete dupe. On the whole, as a propagandist for his favored side, he commits pretty much all the sins for which he would later bitterly excoriate the orthodox Stalinists, if perhaps in a less blatant manner.

So on the whole, I wouldn't say that his hands are that clean. He certainly didn't deserve the place in intellectual history he was eventually awarded, in the sense of being remembered as the unwavering fighter for truth, clear thinking, intellectual honesty, and opposition to political lies and gangsterism. Certainly some of his contemporaries were far more deserving of such description, and yet hardly anyone remembers them today.

Comment author: lessdazed 27 August 2011 07:16:01AM 0 points [-]

The Republicans in general and anarchists in particular should not be conflated with the communists; communists gradually and somewhat steadily took over the leftist side from being a tiny minority at the outset of the war to being in control of a lost cause.

Orwell's unit was almost all anarchists. The communists were just one group against the fascists, his propaganda is pro-Republican generally and pro-anarchist in particular, so pro-communist is not the best description.

...on occasions he obviously relays the communist propaganda as a complete dupe. On the whole, as a propagandist for his favored side...

Fighting among anarchist allies of communists and doing as the anarchists do, until the communists turn on them and kill them, does not make him associated with communism in a very important way and especially not with Communism.

Comment author: Vladimir_M 27 August 2011 07:59:41AM *  2 points [-]

I include the anarchists (CNT) and the Catalonian independent Marxists (POUM) among the "small-c communists." We can quibble about this designation, but I think it's fair, especially since I have emphasized that they were not Moscow-controlled. I'm also sure that members of POUM would not have had any problem with this label, being self-proclaimed orthodox Leninists.

Also, Orwell served in POUM's militia, not with the anarchists.

In any case, however you choose to call them, it is indisputable that the parties for which Orwell fought were guilty of political terror and murder, that they were violently intolerant of any opposition, and that Orwell clearly excused, rationalized, and even praised these acts and attitudes, which he witnessed first-hand. Sure, they eventually ended up as loser underdogs who got crushed by even bigger and meaner political gangsters, but this is no valid reason to excuse and romanticize them the way Orwell did.

Comment author: lessdazed 27 August 2011 08:34:48AM *  2 points [-]

Orwell's unit was almost all anarchists.

Also, Orwell served in POUM's militia, not with the anarchists.

The unit's members, not its flag, hence "almost all", which would make no sense describing the unit's affiliation.

It is necessary to explain that when one speaks of the P.S.U.C. 'line' one really means the Communist Party 'line'. The P.S.U.C. (Partido Socialista Unificado de Cataluña) was the Socialist Party of Catalonia; it had been formed at the beginning of the war by the fusion of various Marxist parties, including the Catalan Communist Party, but it was now entirely under Communist control and was affiliated to the Third International...Roughly speaking, the P.S.U.C. was the political organ of the U.G.T. (Union General de Trabajadores), the Socialist trade unions.

...

In any case the loose term 'Anarchists' is used to cover a multitude of people of very varying opinions. The huge block of unions making up the C.N.T. (Confederacion Nacional de Trabajadores), with round about two million members in all, had for its political organ the F.A.I. (Federacion Anarquista Iberica), an actual Anarchist organization.

...

The P.O.U.M. militiamen were mostly C.N.T. members, but the actual party-members generally belonged to the U.G.T.

...

In Barcelona there had been a series of more or less unofficial brawls in the working-class suburbs. C.N.T. and U.G.T. members had been murdering one another for some time past; on several occasions the murders were followed by huge, provocative funerals which were quite deliberately intended to stir up political hatred.

Those are from Homage to Catalonia.

I include the anarchists (CNT) and the Catalonian independent Marxists (POUM) among the "small-c communists." We can quibble about this designation, but I think it's fair...I'm also sure that members of POUM would not have had any problem with this label, being self-proclaimed orthodox Leninists.

The minority U.G.T. Leninists wouldn't, but the Catalan draftees who were members of anarchist unions (which were strongest in Catalonia) would.

it is indisputable that the parties for which Orwell fought were...violently intolerant of any opposition

If they were so violent, they wouldn't have let the Communist minority grow in power until they killed them. They were really violently intolerant of some opposition, which is not the same quality of thing, for many are violently intolerant of some opposition, the extreme stances being violent intolerance to no opposition or all opposition.

Comment author: Vladimir_M 27 August 2011 10:30:40AM 1 point [-]

The minority self-proclaimed Leninists wouldn't, but the Catalan draftees who were members of anarchist unions (strongest in Catalonia) would [object to being called communists].

This isn't really relevant for the main point of the discussion, but the official ideological self-designation of the CNT was "libertarian communism" (comunismo libertario). See for example this declaration from the 1936 CNT congress:
http://www2.uah.es/jmc/comunismolibertario.pdf

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