Suicide of the Liberals

For this blog post, I am indebted to Professor Gary Saul Morson of the Department of Arts and Humanities at Northwestern University for his essay of the same name, which appeared in First Things of October 2020. Many of the ideas expressed in the blog come from that essay.

Prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917, Russia was wracked by unprecedented social chaos, terror, and violent street protests. The protests were instigated by opposition to the authoritarian regime of Czar Nicholas II.  Between 1905 and 1907, 4500 government officials and private individuals were killed or injured. Between 1908 and 1910, authorities recorded 19,957 terrorist acts which included terrorist robberies, acts of extortion, and murder. Chaos abounded and finally resulted in the 1917 Revolution, which was the culmination of public opposition to Russia’s involvement in World War I.

The rioters were self-identified “intellectuals” from the upper working class. These so-called “intellectuals” were not the kind of people we, in America, usually call intellectuals. Our ideas of intellectual persons are those who understand history and who are educated in fields of literature, culture, and science. This classical definition of intellectuality requires that an intellectual person must practice weighing the pros and cons of various viewpoints and be able to assess each viewpoint by considering its advantages and drawbacks objectively. Truly intellectual thinking examines experimental data whenever possible to know what is right and true.

The Russian revolutionary and rioter was certainly not the kind of intellectual described in the above paragraph. He was, rather one of very limited education who was fully convinced that his own ideas and the ideas of all really worthwhile associates were the same. Those rioters agreed upon the premise that violence was the only way of proper behavior for the true citizen. His mind was absolutely closed like the proverbial “steel bear trap.” No alternative ideas were to be considered! Anyone who disagreed with these “intellectuals” was considered anathema.

Far from regretting the maiming and death of innocent bystanders, terrorists in Russia boasted of killing as many people as possible, either because the victims were likely members of the hated bourgeoisie or because any murder helped bring down the old order. The need to inflict pain was transformed from an abnormal irrational compulsion experienced by unbalanced personalities into a formally verbalized obligation for all committed revolutionaries.

Revolutions like that in Russia do not succeed without the support of wealthy, liberal, educated society, which provides the money and the sympathetic control of public opinion changers, e.g., the communication media. Political officials in Russia, provided that necessary support. The Constitutional Democrat Party in the Russian Duma did not engage in terrorism, themselves, but they aided the terrorists in any way they could. They contributed their money and their social influence. Not just lawyers, teachers, doctors, and engineers, but even industrialists and bank directors raised money for the terrorists. Doing so signaled advanced opinion and good manners.

In Russia prior to 1917, social pressure was applied to anyone who was courageous enough to even hint that the terrorist/”intellectual” mantra might be wrong. Compliance with the politically correct viewpoint was the only acceptable way to think. Dissidents were shunned, ignored, and pushed out of expressing their thoughts in print.  Alexandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in his book November 1916 that people were made to fear if they expressed anything even slightly out of the popular thought pattern; and they almost always retreated into the practice of repeating current pieties to keep from being socially punished. He noted that soldiers who had been courageous under fire cowered under progressive opinion. Solzhenitsyn wrote that compliance pressure was like a contagious disease—there was no resisting it if you came too close.  

Radicalism was king during that period in Russia. When Pyotr Stolypin, a member of the Duma, offered to enact the entire radical, “intellectual,” program into law, the dissidents refused to cooperate. Evidently their professed beliefs were less important than their emotional identification with radicalism, and violence of whatever sort.

When the Bolsheviks gained control of the country in 1923, they turned on their erstwhile supporters in the Duma as well as their wealthy supporters in business and industry. Those people were considered to be timid bourgeoisie and deserved to be eliminated. The suicide of the liberals was beginning. All questions were considered to be political. Anyone who dared to challenge public opinion was accused of being “reactionary.”

 It is my opinion that today, in the United States, we are facing an analogous situation marked by street violence, arson, business destruction, even killing. Protesters claim they want to eliminate the police. Our thoughts are even monitored for politically correct tendencies. If we try to swim upstream in this awful thought management system, we are not called “reactionary,” as dissidents were called in Russia. In America we are called “racists.” It is a terrible thing, but in this country Black Lives Matter and Antifa, along with progressive politicians, teachers, the media, and the courts seem to be molding the “acceptable” thought patterns. Chaos, here we come!

I think the time is long overdue when the BLM protests over such killings as that perpetrated on George Floyd in Minneapolis should be stopped. Although that killing was   something that deserved public attention, the protests in Portland, Oregon have now been going on for over 100 nights, and more protests seem to pop up daily! It seems to me that the cause of the protests has long ago devolved into something other than simple racism. I believe these street protests are naked statements calling for downfall of our government and our democratic system. In that vein, it seems to me that the protests in pre-1917 Russia are analogous to the protests in America, today. 

We have had too much poor thinking in our country in places that need clear thinking. Our government must be concerned for all people’s welfare, not just opposing the other side and accruing power. Newspapers should report news accurately and veritably, not simply opinions printed on the front page. Our universities must aim toward actually educating our younger citizens, instead of passing on bad information or no information from a variety of thoughts and over charging for it. If we don’t oppose this kind of action now, we will have lost the greatest governmental design and best way of living history has ever known. Our courts must follow the Constitution and not popular opinion. Most important we must trust and believe in the true Christian God to guide us.