On dogmatic, doctrinaire systems. Communism.

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In a dogmatic, doctrinaire system such as one encounters in various religions (Roman Catholic, Baptist, Islam, etc.) or political ideologies such as Socialism or Communism one starts with some set of unproven assertions or basic assumptions in the form of axioms, premises, etc. and reaches by logical deduction a set of conclusions. Often an outsider who is not an adherent of such a system can look at the system and, just through intuition, common sense, impartiality, emotional distance, etc. see errors and flaws in it — errors and flaws that an adherent of the system is unable to see, is blind to. He is able to look at the system with an impartiality and objectivity that an adherent of the system simply doesn’t have. He may see flaws in the basic assumptions or he may see problems in the final conclusions. If he sees flaws in the basic assumptions then he knows that all that follows is doubtful. If he sees problems in the conclusions he knows that there are errors somewhere — either in the basic assumptions or in the logic leading to the conclusions. Whatever the source of the error, the conclusions are invalid. And the final test of such a system is reality, conformity to reality, whether it works in practice. If it doesn’t work in practice, if the observed results that one sees are far different from what is predicted from the theory, one knows that something is wrong with the theory.

Communism provides an excellent example of such a system. Communism has been tried over and over. It has been tried in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Cuba, North Korea, etc. It was tried in ancient times and Aristotle discusses its failings as compared to the usual free enterprise system. It was tried by the early settlers at Jamestown, Virginia and Plymouth, Massachusetts and was utter failures in both cases. It just doesn’t work. And there are very good reasons why it doesn’t work. Yet people just won’t give up on it. Why? Because they want it to work so badly. And the converts to it are often very poor, uneducated people who hate the rich and are attracted to the idea of taking the wealth of the rich and distributing it among themselves. That aspect of the idea appeals to them. Yet to a thoughtful, objective, unbiased person the defects of the system are very obvious. The reason it doesn’t work has to do with incentives and what induces people to work. Self-interest, money, profit, and personal advantage induce people to work. The idea of working for nothing for the good of the country or some great, nice sounding ideal just doesn’t motivate most people.

If I own a piece of land (or some other property or some business) I will work with enthusiasm from morning until night to improve it. It belongs to me, it is under my control, I am motivated. But I will not work on what does not belong to me unless I am forced to — and then not with any interest or enthusiasm.

So while the usual free enterprise system brought wealth and prosperity to the western nations over the years from 1920 to 1990 the Communist system bought, in spite of all Communist talk, theory, and propaganda, continuing poverty to the people of the Communist bloc countries of the Soviet Union. At the end of that period the standard of living, the housing, and infrastructure in the Soviet countries was far behind that of the West. In Russia the main economic rewards went to the members of the Communist Party in the top echelons of the government while the masses worked for little or nothing and lived poorly. In spite of all of the high sounding theoretical Communist nonsense, the truth was akin to that of a country consisting of a slave labor population working under the threat of a whip to support a parasitical, unproductive Communist ruling class in very comfortable style. That reality was a far cry from the great sounding Marxist ideal.

I just read, The Trip Home by Nikolai Zhdamov from Great Soviet Short Stories (Dell, 1960). A high level Communist manager named Pavel Alekseyevich Varygin living in a very comfortable way in Moscow received a letter saying his mother had just died. He immediately took a train out to the small village where he had grown up, a trip that took over 24 hours, to attend the funeral. The following is from a conversation that a lady Derevleva had with him:

“We don’t have very much to brag about here. We single women in the kolkhoz work and work and all for nothing. In a neighboring farm they gave four kilometers to each person, but ours ....” She waved her hand deprecatingly. “Things aren’t getting on so well with us,” she said guiltily. Probably she felt uncomfortable before such an important and esteemed person as Varygin that their kolkhoz had so few achievements.

“Here’s what I want to ask you,” she continued, undoing her shawl. Is it right or not what they are doing to us? This year we planted a hundred and eighty five acres of hemp. But its fiber was too tough. It had blossomed late when the spring crops were getting ripe. We were going to press and stack the hemp, but they ordered us to thresh and ship it all processed. Now what would that do? From us to the collection point is thirty-nine versts, yes, and two ferry crossings, and then you have to wait at the grain elevator! But if you don’t take tough hemp away at the right time you won’t get ‘matyorka’ the fiber from it! But the commissioners ordered: take it away, take it away! Now can’t the state, we said, let us wait about seven days? We wouldn’t have been in debt. Well, they did it their way. There was nowhere to turn. When they threshed it and took it to the grain elevator the hemp harvest slipped and the unpressed half of it was crushed. Well, the food authorities have probably listed us among the high-quota producers. But we’re without food again! Now you judge for yourself, is this right or not?”

“She thinks that everything depends on me,” thought Varygin with embarrassment, trying to recall what tough hemp and “matyorka” were, and what the connection between them was. But he was just not able to remember.

“It’s a political question,” he said aloud. “With us the state must always stand above all. Everything depends on the level of mass consciousness.”

He was silent, feeling he hadn’t said the right thing.

But Derevleva was listening to him with an expression of satisfaction on her face.

That’s just what I think — it is a political question”, she joined in readily, evidently satisfied that the conversation was a truly deep one. “That’s so true, what you explained so well. Our masses still do not have consciousness.”

Another exchange that Varygin had with a farm engineer went as follows:

“Yes, there is much work to be done here,” said the engineer. “In our region, out of nineteen kolkhozs more than half of them are lagging. Small harvests, little profit, the people work unwillingly, eat poorly.

“Why is that?” asked Varygin.

The engineer shrugged his shoulders.

“You should know better than anyone. No one wants to work without pay.”

The early Marxists who installed Marxism in Russia were definitely smart, pragmatic people. They clearly saw that their system would not last long at all unless it was supported by an extremely strong, powerful, ruthless police state. They clearly understood that the populace would not be happy for very long if their property were taken away from them and they were forced to work for nothing, like slaves. Under such a system there would certainly be a whole lot of very discontented, unhappy people. Malcontents would very quickly arise and stir up a lot of trouble. If the citizenry were allowed to say what they thought, allowed to criticize the system, a little criticism would quickly mushroom into an avalanche of criticism and their system would be quickly overthrown and they themselves might be executed. Only by the total suppression of even the most minor criticism could they hope to retain power. Only by the most draconian, ruthless, extreme punishments for the most minor offences could they hope to intimidate an entire population into total submission and silence. It is remarkable that using such measures and by heavy brainwashing techniques starting with children of the youngest age they were able to retain power for 70 years, retain such an unjust, inferior economic and political system for so many years. And in that period gigantic crimes against humanity were committed. Tens of millions of good, decent people were either executed or sent to very ugly concentration camps where huge numbers died from extremely harsh, inhuman conditions. What happened in Russia would stagger the mind of most people. It was evil on steroids. And even worse things happened in China. See After the Guns Were Removed, the Killing Fields Began

I make the observation that the origin of Marxism was the minds of atheistic intellectuals. It is to a bunch of intellectuals that we owe the devilish ideology of Marxism. It is to intellectuals that we owe some of the most evil of ideas from which so many people in so many parts of the world have suffered. (Hundreds of millions in the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, etc. suffered and died because of Marxism and millions more have died in civil wars where Marxists have attempted to overthrow governments.) Over the last 100 years literally billions of people have been deceived and suffered because of the false promises of a foolish set of ideas, a false ideology, a false dogma.

Today’s liberal Left is an ideological system closely related to Marxism and with many of the same basic beliefs, outlooks and assumptions. I do believe that there are few groups of people that are more dangerous and should be more feared than liberal leftist intellectuals. They can cause more evil than one might ever imagine. I think the world would be much better off without them. They have been responsible for a gigantic amount of mischief in this world.

What is needed is people with a Christian outlook and good common sense.

I Cor 1:17 For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect. 18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. 20 Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? 21 For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. 22 For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: 23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness; 24 But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. 25 Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: 27 But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; 28 And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:

Over the last hundred years in a time of great technical progress — of many amazing marvels such as telephone, radio, television, cars, and airplanes — an ugly, evil system has been cruelly imposed on billions of people that any sensible, thoughtful person would intuitively know would not work. I find this fact really scary. It says something about the mind of man that is spine-chilling. And the villain is modern liberal intellectualism and involved are the deceptive powers of dogmatic, doctrinaire, ideological systems.

What people fail to appreciate is how very difficult it is to intellectually escape from some philosophical system such as Communism, socialism, or modern liberalism once a person has intellectually embraced it. He becomes an intellectual prisoner of such a system. Such systems come with a whole large set of basic premises or assumptions and once these assumptions become accepted by the mind they become basic tenets on which the mind operates and it becomes impossible to see the world with good sense and perspective. The person thinks like any brainwashed person and is unable to see things from any other angle or perspective than that of this philosophical system. He will most probably remain in that philosophical system the rest of his life. His only hope of escaping the system is very gradually from doubts, thought, and reflection occurring over a period of years. Reason and logical argument just won’t jar him out of the mental fallacy he is stuck in. Once a person has become duped he will never admit it. When challenged he will always come up with some obtuse argument to defend his beliefs.

That is why a modern liberal cannot see the foolishness in his own ideas even though they seem shocking and crazy to a person with good sense looking on from the outside. Moreover, he probably only reads, listens to, and talks to other people who think like he does, people who are as brainwashed as he. His assumptions are reinforced by everything he reads and everyone he listens to because he doesn’t listen to or read anything that contradicts his beliefs. Birds of a feather flock together and he only flocks with birds of his feather.

Here we are talking about doctrinaire philosophical systems where the adherents often are fanatics and eagerly spread their ideas. Typically these systems acquire cult-like characteristics, their ideas are extreme and radical, and their followers are extremely sure of themselves.

See

Beware of indoctrination

Effects of intensive indoctrination

On indoctrination and deception

The Programming of the Mind

On Communism and socialism

Liberals are trying to install Marxism in America

Marxism is evil

Public Schools Enlist Child Soldiers in America’s Cultural Revolution

1 June 2022