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PaperclipPerfector  6mo ago (text post)   27717 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of May 13, 2024

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Great post. I have a couple of quibbles:

  1. Describing the approach the communist leaders adopted towards their enemies as "identity politics". As I and many others use the term, "identity politics" refers to politics based on immutable identity characteristics (race, sex, caste, ethnicity etc.). It appears that (with the possible exception of the aristocracy, depending on how hereditary privileges worked at the time), none of the groups targeted by the communist regime meet this description: kulaks can sell their land and immediately become non-kulaks, industrialists can sell their factories. By contrast, even non-practising Jews were targeted for extermination by the Nazis; nothing a Tutsi does can make him any less of a Tutsi.

  2. Describing the Reign of Terror as a "pogrom". I've only ever seen this term used to describe a systemic mass killing of Jews. I understand that you're using it figuratively, but it seems ripe for misinterpretation.

As I and many others use the term, "identity politics" refers to politics based on immutable identity characteristics (race, sex, caste, ethnicity etc.). It appears that (with the possible exception of the aristocracy, depending on how hereditary privileges worked at the time), none of the groups targeted by the communist regime meet this description: kulaks can sell their land and immediately become non-kulaks, industrialists can sell their factories.

We are not fighting against single individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. Do not look in materials you have gathered for evidence that a suspect acted or spoke against the Soviet authorities. The first question you should ask him is what class he belongs to, what is his origin, education, profession. These questions should determine his fate. This is the essence of the Red Terror. -Martin Latsis

The communists considered "kulak", "industrialist", and "capitalist" to be immutable characteristics. Their whole ideology was built on the idea that social conditions shaped individuals immutably. that was the whole point: to create a system which made immutably-good people, which would then self-perpetuate. New Soviet Man.

Thanks for the feedback.

I am surprised you didn't cite a dictionary in your semantic "quibbles". According to Webster's online dictionary, for example,

  • Identity politics: politics in which groups of people having a particular racial, religious, ethnic, social, or cultural identity tend to promote their own specific interests or concerns without regard to the interests or concerns of any larger political group
  • pogrom : an organized massacre of helpless people. specifically : such a massacre of Jews

and per dictionary.com:

  • identity politics: political activity or movements based on or catering to the cultural, ethnic, gender, racial, religious, or social interests that characterize a group identity
  • pogrom: an organized massacre, especially of Jews

In light of that, I left in the reference to "identity politics", but changed "pogrom" to "campaign of political violence" to avoid the suggestion (though not the strict denotation) of a pogrom specifically against Jews.

Describing the approach the communist leaders adopted towards their enemies as "identity politics". As I and many others use the term, "identity politics" refers to politics based on immutable identity characteristics (race, sex, caste, ethnicity etc.). It appears that (with the possible exception of the aristocracy, depending on how hereditary privileges worked at the time), none of the groups targeted by the communist regime meet this description: kulaks can sell their land and immediately become non-kulaks, industrialists can sell their factories.

This doesn't really hold within the Soviet system.

First, birth-class was not so easily washed away for many. It was probably true that a lower-class Kulak could slip into the category of Laborer easily enough by divesting himself of his goods, but he would not have the option of selling them for cash, he would need to donate them or otherwise expropriate himself while carefully avoiding accumulating anything.

Second, the Soviet system did not entirely allow people to renounce their prior statements. If you were once a Capitalist, and made any public statements to that effect, it was difficult if not impossible to "convert." You might succeed, but you might fail, you would never be truly safe.

Consider the Duc D'Egalite:

In 1792, during the Revolution, Louis Philippe changed his name to Philippe Égalité. He was a cousin of King Louis XVI and one of the wealthiest men in France. He actively supported the Revolution of 1789, and was a strong advocate for the elimination of the present absolute monarchy in favor of a constitutional monarchy. Égalité voted for the death of Louis XVI; however, he was himself guillotined in 1793 during the Reign of Terror. His son, also named Louis Philippe, became King of the French after the July Revolution of 1830. After Louis Philippe II, the term Orléanist came to be attached to the movement in France that favored a constitutional monarchy.

Describing the approach the communist leaders adopted towards their enemies as "identity politics". As I and many others use the term, "identity politics" refers to politics based on immutable identity characteristics (race, sex, caste, ethnicity etc.). It appears that (with the possible exception of the aristocracy, depending on how hereditary privileges worked at the time), none of the groups targeted by the communist regime meet this description: kulaks can sell their land and immediately become non-kulaks, industrialists can sell their factories.

I would too hesitate in calling it "identity politics" (feels intuitively wrong), but I would not say the rest. In the Soviet system the circumstances of your birth were not so easily washed away. One might become a "reformed" ex-noble or ex-bourgeois who is a true believer in the promise of Communism, yet somehow these people always tended to be the first ones swept up in any new or recurring wave of paranoia. There were also in practice discriminatory measures applied against people who had "class traitor" backgrounds, even multiple generations past.

Also the Soviet state effected very real ethnic discrimination, either purposefully or via other less deliberate means. Ethnic minorities were perpetual sources of paranoia and distrust; in the lead-up to WWII and during for example there were a number of purges, forced displacements, mass imprisonments, killings, etc. that might not qualify as genocide but come very very close (and morally deserve little distinction). The Holodomor is the most famous but there are probably some you've never even heard of like the Polish Operation or the deportation of Tatars. These are just some of the more notable ones, there was a whole history of "population transfers" which sounds like a sort of benign planning thing but in reality was often a very brutal form of ethnic violence.

And this is without getting into the more passive bigotry within the Soviet system of preferences towards certain groups over others with respect to everything from university spots to food allocation. Systemic racism is kind of a big deal when the system is a totalitarian one that controls almost every aspect of your life.

none of the groups targeted by the communist regime meet this description

Not all, but some, including large numbers of Red Army soldiers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_transfer_in_the_Soviet_Union

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_history_in_the_Soviet_Union#LGBT_history_under_Stalin:_1933%E2%80%931953

Never underestimate the capacity of communist regimes to target a wide range of people.

Thanks, I should have said "none of the groups targeted by the communist regime and specifically listed in the OP".

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