Coddling a Cuddly Communist Historian - August 26, 2003
Times Watch for August 26, 2003
Coddling a Cuddly Communist Historian
A Communist Life With No Apology, Sarah Lyalls Saturday profile of Communist
historian Eric Hobsbawm, portrays him as a benign grandfather: Mr. Hobsbawm, a
gangly 86-year-old with thick horn-rimmed glasses and an engagingly lopsided
smile, spoke in his living room in Hampstead, long the neighborhood of choice
for London's leftist intellectuals, in between sips of coffee.[hes] that
unlikeliest of creatures, a committed Communist who never really left the party
(he let his membership lapse just before the collapse of the Soviet Union) but
still managed to climb to the upper echelons of English respectability by virtue
of his intellectual rigor, engaging curiosity and catholic breadth of
interests.
The Times uses that phrase in its call-out line for the article: Respectability
by virtue of intellectual rigor. Meanwhile, Hobsbawms identification with the
Stalinist Soviet Union (a sympathy all the worst in an influential historian) is
glossed over.
Lyall does brings up, rather regretfully, that the British historians Communist
cheerleading often get in the way of a full appreciation of his achievements:
Yet he will always be dogged by questions about how he can square his long and
faithful membership in the Communist Party with the reality of Communism,
particularly as it played out under Stalin. In [Hobsbawms autobiography]
Interesting Times, he denounces Stalin and Stalinism but also praises aspects
of Communist Russia and argues that in some countries, notably the former
U.S.S.R., life is worse now than it was under the Socialist system.
Lyall infers that some people just wont leave Hobsbawm be: Some people will
never forgive Mr. Hobsbawm for his beliefs. In an angry review of his new book
in The New Criterion, David Pryce-Jones said that Mr. Hobsbawm was someone who
has steadily corrupted knowledge into propaganda and that his Communism had
destroyed him as an interpreter of events. Interesting Times has gathered
mostly glowing reviews across Britain. But the book again raises the problem
that even Mr. Hobsbawm's admirers find dismaying.
The angry
Pryce-Jones
indeed criticizes Hobsbawm, noting the historian defended the 1956 Soviet
onslaught on Hungary in a letter to the Communist Daily Worker. At the time,
Hobsbawm wrote: While approving, with a heavy heart, of what is now happening
in Hungary, we should therefore also say frankly that we think the USSR should
withdraw its troops from the country as soon as this is possible.
Pryce-Jones also notes: Not long ago, on a popular television show, Hobsbawm
explained that the fact of Soviet mass-murdering made no difference to his
Communist commitment. In astonishment, his interviewer asked, What that comes
down to is saying that had the radiant tomorrow actually been created, the loss
of fifteen, twenty million people might have been justified? Without hesitation
Hobsbawm replied, Yes.
Pryce-Jones may also disagree with Lyall about Hobsbawms alleged denunciation
of Stalinism in Interesting Times. He writes: By my count, these are the only
two expressions of regret in this long book. In contrast, the October revolution
remains the central point of reference in the political universe, and the
dream of the October revolution is still vivid inside him.
Lyall tries to explain Hobsbawm: His youth, particularly as Hitler's fascists
began their rise to power, propelled him into Communism and into a lifelong
sympathy for revolutions, for contrary thinking, for the ideal of revolutionary
utopia. This took root in many ways, from his love of jazz (for a time, he was
the jazz critic for The New Statesman) to the wide range of subjects in his
books. Being a Communist intellectual was hardly contrarian in the early 40s.
(In some circles it was nearly a requirement.)
In her most galling passage, Lyall gushes: Over his many years and against
considerable odds, Mr. Hobsbawm has somehow maintained his belief in human
resilience, in man's ability to live through the most appalling personal and
public tragedies and still go on. Speaking of the blitz, he said that survival
during that time required a suspension of fear, a willful pushing aside of
reality.
This about a man who would have willingly condemned 20 million people to death
to fulfill his warped Communist ideology. Admittedly, Lyalls phrase, a willful
pushing aside of reality, is an apt (if perhaps too generous) description of
the worldview of unrepentant totalitarian supporter Eric Hobsbawm.
For the rest of Sarah Lyalls profile of Hobsbawm,
click here.
Communism
|
Eric Hobsbawm
|
David Pryce-Jones
|
Sarah Lyall
|
Soviet Union |
Josef Stalin
A Forest Brother and Survivor of Stalinism
On the same day the Times buffs the reputation of the Communist historian
Hobsbawm, it also to its credit presents a more accurate view of Communism in a
profile of an Estonian who rebelled against the Soviet occupation. Reporter
Michael Wines tells the horrific tale of Alfred Kaarmann, a man who survived the
horrors of Stalinism.
Kaarmann was one of the forest brothers of Estonia, rebels against Soviet
occupation. Wines notes in his Saturday story: Mr. Kaarmann is one of the last
of the so-called Forest Brothers, the bands of Baltic-state guerrillas regarded
as heroic figures here for spending years, even decades, in hiding from Soviet
forces, who wrested Estonia from the Nazis.
Wines tells Times readers why: The victorious Soviets ordered all former
Estonian soldiers to register. Mr. Kaarmann's brother did so, and was arrested
and sent to a Russia's most dreaded Arctic prison camp, Vorkuta. "I didn't want
that to happen to me," Mr. Kaarmann recalled. "We understood that it is better
to die in the forest with a weapon in your hands than in a Soviet camp."
After losing an arm to a Soviet rifleman, Kaarmann soldiered on: For seven more
years, disabled and mostly alone, he lived in a hole in the ground. He saw
almost no one: his mother died in 1947, and he missed her funeral. His
betrothed, Kleina, never knew where he lived; he says that he visited her
secretly only in summer, when there was no snow to leave tracks. At the time,
Mr. Kaarmann says, he was driven by the knowledge that capture would be even
worse. But he eventually was captured, in 1952, by the K.G.B. He soon found that
his fears had been understated. First, he says, he was beaten. Then a Soviet
tribunal sentenced him to 25 years' hard labor. A series of prisons followed,
including a notorious Ural Mountains prison near Perm.
One wonders what Alfred Kaarmann
would have to say to Eric Hobsbawm.
For the rest of Michael Wines interview with Alfred Kaarmann, the forest
soldier,
click here.
Communism
| Estonia
| Alfred Kaarmann
|
Soviet Union
| Michael Wines
Fickle
Filkins Flip-Flops On Iraq
Sundays front-page story from Baghdad reporter
Dexter Filkins, Chaos and Calm Are 2 Realities for U.S. in Iraq, actually
finds a few things going right in Baghdad: American soldiers, without helmets
or flak jackets, attended graduation ceremonies of the Diwaniya University
Medical School. At ease with the Iraqi students and their parents, the American
marines laughed, joked and posed in photographs. One by one, the students walked
up to thank them, for Marine doctors had taught classes in surgery and
gynecology and helped draw up the final exams.
On Monday, Filkins returns
to form in his front-page piece, suggesting Iraqis were if anything safe during
the reign of Saddams despotic government: Four months after Saddam Hussein's
government collapsed, the streets of some Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, are
still quite chaotic, with rampant robberies, kidnappings and shootings often
going unpunished. The collapse of public order that followed the fall of Mr.
Hussein's government was made worse by the disintegration of the Iraqi Army,
which made guns and munitions easily available on the streets. No doubt
Hussein made the camel trains run on time as well.
For Filkins Sunday piece on Iraq,
click here.
For Filkins Monday story on Iraq,
click here.
Dexter Filkins
|
Saddam Hussein
|
Iraq War
Too
Little Too Late In Afghanistan, the Times Reports
Mondays story by David Rohde, U.S. Said to Plan
Bigger Afghan Effort, Stepping Up Aid, assumes Afghanistan is failing while
taking the most cynical possible view on the Bush administrations stepping up
of aid to Afghanistan: But officials of aid groups here contend that the
presidential election in the United States next year will be the motivating
factor. They say the White House is eager to have Afghanistan appear to be a
success story to American voters.
Rohde takes for granted
that the cash infusion comes too late: However, questions are already being
asked here about whether a belated billion-dollar infusion of American cash and
advisers would produce the desired results. Aid workers say that reconstruction
efforts in Afghanistan have been stymied by a lack of political will in
Washington, by what they see as draconian security restrictions imposed on
American government workers here by their own security officials, by fierce
bureaucratic infighting and by an attempt to rebuild Afghanistan on the
cheap. (By the way, the U.S. is spending $900 million this year for that on
the cheap Afghanistan reconstruction.)
For the rest of David Rohdes story from Baghdad,
click here.
Afghanistan
|
George W. Bush
|
Campaign 2004
|
David Rohde
|
War on Terrorism
Jim
Wallis, Christian Marxistand Bush Supporter?
The headline of Tuesdays front-page story from
White House correspondent Elisabeth Bumiller ponders: Bush Compassion Agenda:
An 04 Liability?
Bumiller theorizes that
Bush is failing to follow through on his compassionate conservatism, due in
part to conservative pressure: But supporters, some administration officials
among them, acknowledge that Mr. Bush's compassionate conservative agenda has
fallen so far short of its ambitious goals, in a number of cases undercut by
pressure from his conservative backers, that they fear he will be politically
vulnerable on the issue in 2004.
She questions Bush's
willingness to demand financing from Congress on his signature "compassionate
conservative" issues, like education reform and AIDS, with the same energy he
has spent to fight for tax cuts and the Iraq war. Critics say the pattern has
been consistent: The president, in eloquent speeches that make headlines, calls
for millions or even billions of dollars for new initiatives, then fails to
follow through and push hard for the programs on Capitol Hill.
The opening of Bumillers
story gives Bush a strange new ally-left-wing Rev. Jim Wallis. She describes
Wallis (leader of the left-wing religious group Call to Renewal and editor of
Sojourners magazine)
as a Bush supporter, albeit one who is now (how convenient) critical of the
president. Bumiller writes: Some religious supporters of Mr. Bush say they feel
betrayed by promises he made as a candidate and now, they maintain, has broken
as president. After three years, he's failed the test, said one prominent
early supporter, the Rev. Jim Wallis, leader of Call to Renewal, a network of
churches that fights poverty. Is it really newsworthy that a left-wing activist
is critical of Bush?
Wallis never was a Bush
supporter. Thought Wallis did give a qualified endorsement to Bushs
faith-based charitable initiatives, during Campaign 2000 he organized (with
Arianna Huffington) the shadow
conventions that took place alongside the Republican and Democratic party
conventions in an attempt to shift both parties further to the left.
For the rest of Elisabeth Bumillers analysis of
Bushs compassionate conservatism,
click here.
Elisabeth Bumiller
|
George W. Bush
|
Compassionate Conservatism
|
Labeling Bias
|
Rev. Jim Wallis
