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Reflections on the Failure of Socialism

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The main thing to know here is that Max Eastman, in his youth, was a brilliant, passionate, flaming Communist. He went to Russia to help the revolution. He learned Russian. He was a complete (and brainy) servant of this new idea. Right or wrong, he was there from the beginning and he didn't hold back. This was in the 1920's.

Eastman lost his faith over many years. Joe Stalin revealed himself to be what Eastman called a "gangster god." By World War II, Max Eastman had completely flipped. He published this short book in 1955.

Eastman is part of a very interesting phenomenon: some of the century's best minds went far to the left and then snapped back. They were inside the monster, saw too much, changed their minds. Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, George Orwell--these are some of the names. (Also see "The God That Failed.") When Eastman explains why he is an anti-Communist, and why Communism is dangerous and can't work, you have to respect that this judgment is based on "inside" experience. It's based on the man's whole life.

Eastman said something interesting about nomenclature in this book. He said, having left the Communist ranks, he wanted to call himself a liberal, but the Communists had stolen the word! He supposed he was a conservative but didn't like the term. He thought of himself as a Jeffersonian liberal. This is still a problem for many of us. But names aside, the important thing is to understand that totalitarian theories usually lead to vast landscapes of dead people. Eastman explains why.

I'm surprised to see this book has no reviews. So I'll add a short one.

The main thing to know here is that Max Eastman, in his youth, was a brilliant, passionate, flaming Communist. He went to Russia to help the revolution. He learned Russian. He was a complete (and brainy) servant of this new idea. Right or wrong, he was there from the beginning and he didn't hold back. This was in the 1920's.

Eastman lost his faith over many years. Joe Stalin revealed himself to be what Eastman called a "gangster god." By World War II, Max Eastman had completely flipped. He published this short book in 1955.

Eastman is part of a very interesting phenomenon: some of the century's best minds went far to the left and then snapped back. They were inside the monster, saw too much, changed their minds. Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, George Orwell--these are some of the names. (Also see "The God That Failed.") When Eastman explains why he is an anti-Communist, and why Communism is dangerous and can't work, you have to respect that this judgment is based on "inside" experience. It's based on the man's whole life.

Eastman said something interesting about nomenclature in this book. He said, having left the Communist ranks, he wanted to call himself a liberal, but the Communists had stolen the word! He supposed he was a conservative but didn't like the term. He thought of himself as a Jeffersonian liberal. This is still a problem for many of us. But names aside, the important thing is to understand that totalitarian theories usually lead to vast landscapes of dead people. Eastman explains why.

Of all the Libertarian classics I found were in my father's library, Max Eastman's is the most poignant.

Eastman, originally from Canandaigua New York, traveled to Moscow in 1922 and personally knew both Lenin and Trotsky. Like Howard Fast`s "Naked God" 1957, "Failure" is an exposition by a True Believer who came to see the inevitable nexus of Socialism and Tyranny . Eastman's is the more powerful book.

Writing in my blog at the time I read the book in 1999, I commented: "Interestingly , like Alan Greenspan in Ayn Rand`s 1967 'Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal', he devotes a chapter to 'The Religion of Immoralism' in Eastman`s phrase, 'The Assault on Integrity' in Greenspan`s. Eastman quotes Lenin: 'We must be ready to employ trickery, deceit , law-breaking, withholding and concealing truth'. We see this now with the Clintons` total amorality." To which we have now seen Bush's escalating of the Clinton's venial lying to the truly mortal.

Eastman`s presents Hilaire Belloc`s 1912(!) "The Servile State" idea of the Distributive State in which 'free citizens are normally found to be possessors of land or capital, or both.' This clearly is what is coming to pass thru stock and home ownership, etc.

A true classic.

The main thing to know here is that Max Eastman, in his youth, was a brilliant, passionate, flaming Communist. He went to Russia to help the revolution. He learned Russian. He was a complete (and brainy) servant of this new idea. Right or wrong, he was there from the beginning and he didn't hold back. This was in the 1920's.

Eastman lost his faith over many years. Joe Stalin revealed himself to be what Eastman called a "gangster god." By World War II, Max Eastman had completely flipped. He published this short book in 1955.

Eastman is part of a very interesting phenomenon: some of the century's best minds went far to the left and then snapped back. They were inside the monster, saw too much, changed their minds. Arthur Koestler, Ignazio Silone, George Orwell--these are some of the names. (Also see "The God That Failed.") When Eastman explains why he is an anti-Communist, and why Communism is dangerous and can't work, you have to respect that this judgment is based on "inside" experience. It's based on the man's whole life.

Eastman said something interesting about nomenclature in this book. He said, having left the Communist ranks, he wanted to call himself a liberal, but the Communists had stolen the word! He supposed he was a conservative but didn't like the term. He thought of himself as a Jeffersonian liberal. This is still a problem for many of us. But names aside, the important thing is to understand that totalitarian theories usually lead to vast landscapes of dead people. Eastman explains why.