The Socialist Phenomenon 1.1

Part 1: Chiliastic Socialism; The Socialism of Antiquity

The following is part of a series looking at The Socialist Phenomenon by Igor Shafarevich (1923-2017), first published in 1975 under the title Sotsializm kak iavlenie mirovoi istorii by YMCA Press. My intention is to offer summaries only - I cannot hope to provide robust commentary - Shafarevich provides a masterful historical analysis of socialism in a rare systematic and scientific manner. He was a mathematician of some significance in Russia and applied a similar disciplined and objective approach in his study of socialism. He, like Solzhenitsyn, believed that socialism was ultimately nihilistic and motivated by a death drive that destroys individualism.

For those interested you can find the full English translation here

Introduction

The word “socialism” often implies two quite different phenomena:

1. A doctrine and an appeal based on it, a program for changing life, and

2. A social structure that exists in time and space.

The Marxist experiments of the U.S.S.R. and the People’s Republic of China are the two obvious examples of socialism at work. A supposed scientific theory and strategy to attain a transformative social state, but in reality, according to the perspective of Marx, is nothing but a perpetual preparing for the seizure of power. As H. G. Wells wrote in Russia in the Shadows: “Marxist Communism has always been a theory of revolution, a theory not merely lacking in creative and constructive ideas but hostile to creative and constructive ideas.” There is a great disconnect between the socialism that is a doctrine and the socialism that actually exists. Yet one has led to the other.

The doctrine of Marx, as with all revolutionary doctrines, seek to reject, even destroy, the social structure of the moment and replace it with utopia. Shafarevich borrows the term chiliasm, referring to the thousand years reign of Christ - the millennium, and uses it to describe the socialist doctrine - a type of “chiliastic socialism”. Such doctrines have been with us for a very long time.

The Athenian comedy by Aristophanes in 392 B.C., Ecclesiazusae or The Congresswomen, depicts the overthrow of the government by women who install new measures, socialist in nature. Here are some quotations from a dialogue between Praxagora, the leader of the women and her husband Blepyros.

PRAXAGORA:

Compulsory Universal Community Property is what I propose to propose; across-the-board Economic Equality, to fill those fissures that scar our society's face. No more the division between Rich and Poor. ...

...We'll wear the same clothes, and share the same food. ...

...My initial move will be to communalize land, and money, and all other property, personal and real.

BLEPYROS:

But take the landless man who's invisibly wealthy...because he hides his silver and gold in his pockets. What about him?

PRAXAGORA:

He'll deposit it all in the Fund. ...

...I'll knock out walls and remodel the City into one big happy household, where all can come and go as they choose. ...

...I'm pooling the women, creating a public hoard for the use of every man who wishes to take them to bed and make babies.

BLEPYROS:

A system like this requires a pretty wise father to know his own children.

PRAXAGORA:

But why does he need to? Age is the new criterion: Children will henceforth trace their descent from all men who might have begot them. ...

BLEPYROS:

Who's going to work the land and produce the food?

PRAXAGORA:

The slaves. This leaves you just one civic function: When the shades of night draw on, slip sleekly down to dinner. ...

...The State's not going to stint. Its hand is full and open, its heart is large, it'll stuff its menfolk free of charge, then issue them torches when dinner's done and send them out to hunt for fun.

The features of Praxagora’s new society, in this spoof on socialist ideas, are strikingly Marxian: abolition of private property, the family (communality of wives and separation of child and parent), and communal living while seeking purely material prosperity. Ecclesiazusae departs from Marx by stating “slaves” will do the work. Maybe of menial work? What about other work? Herbert Marcuse, points out that “Fourier did not flinch where Marx was insufficiently bold. He spoke of a society where work would become play.” (Marcuse, The End of Utopia). So maybe most will not be “working”, but playing, and it will be slaves who will do the dirty work? The dream of the 4th industrial revolution no doubt.

It is clear now that was once the subject of derision by Aristophanes in 392 B.C., became the subject of serious pursuit in the Communist Manifesto.

The Socialism of Antiquity

Plato sketches what he thought was the ideal state structure in The Republic, and in the dialogue Laws he details a pragmatic vision of such ideals.

We begin with an overview of the picture of the ideal society that is given in The Republic, a work that Sergius Bulgakov calls "wondrous and perplexing." Indeed, the ten books of this dialogue reflect almost all aspects of Plato's philosophy--his conception of being (the world of ideas), cognition (the visual world, the world accessible to the mind), the soul, justice, art and society. The Republic may at first sight seem too narrow a title for such a work. Nevertheless, it is fully justified, since the question of the structure of society is the center around which Plato's many-sided philosophy revolves, as well as serving as the principal illustration of his teaching. Understanding the concepts of Good and Beauty is essential for ruling a state. The doctrines of the immortality of the soul and of retribution after death promote the development of the spiritual qualities essential for rulers, the state must be founded on justice, and art is one of the major instruments for the education of citizens.

The perfect state, is a state of justice, whereby “each man must perform one social service in the state for which his nature was best adapted.” This perfect state would be divided into three groups (castes):

1. philosophers (“the righteous men”, or “saints”, who are somehow never corrupted by their status of power),

2. guardians/soldiers (under the philosophers’ command - a pack of hard and wiry hounds),

3. artisans (strictly censored however) & peasants.

The children of artisans and peasants belong to the same group as their parents and may never become guardians. The children of guardians as a rule inherit their fathers' occupation, but if they show negative inclinations they are made into either artisans or peasants. But the philosophers may supplement their numbers from the best of the guardians, but not until the latter reach the age of fifty.

Plato describes how each of the castes are to be educated and nurtured to serve the perfect state well - there seems little of free will, except maybe by the philosopher caste, and the story tellers, the poets, musicians and artists are to be kept under surveillance and censorship, lest they lead the society astray. In the case of music and the craftsmen…

Other arts are also to be kept under surveillance. "It is here, then, I said, in music, as it seems, that our guardians must build their guard-house and post a watch." (424d) Polyphony and the combining of various scales are forbidden. There are to be no flutes or makers of flutes in the state; only the lyre and the kithara are permitted. Plato expands on these principles: "Is it, then, only the poets that we must supervise and compel to embody in their poems the semblance of the good character or else not write poetry among us, or must we keep watch over the other craftsmen, and forbid them to represent the evil disposition, the licentious, the illiberal, the graceless, either in the likeness of living creatures or in buildings or in any other product of their art, on penalty, if unable to obey, of being forbidden to practice their art among us? ..." (401b) The answer is obvious for Plato.

While old ways are censored, new myths are created to reinforce the collective state and the divisions of the castes. But not all is equal in utopia - children caught lying in the guardian caste is severely punished, but the philosopher caste it is not so. “It seems likely that our rulers will have to make considerable use of falsehood and deception for the benefit of their subjects.” (459d)

Plato thought the downfall of society was the lack of unity among the people - not just unity over broad topics but uniformity in everything. Everyone must agree. Ownership, too, was a problem in Plato’s mind (especially property that would distract the guardian from his duty to the state) and so; the guardian is not to have any private possession but his own body, his house and treasure should be open to all - they are to own nothing and be happy! (sound familiar?)

And family is also a cause of disunity, apparently, and should be eliminated -

"These women shall all be common to all these men, and that none shall cohabit with any privately, and that the children shall be common, and that no parent shall know its own offspring nor any child its parent." (457d) Marriage is replaced by a temporary union of sexes for purely physiological satisfaction and propagation of the species. This aspect of life is carefully regulated by the philosophers, which permits the introduction of a perfect system of sex selection. The union of couples is conducted solemnly and is performed to the accompaniment of songs composed by poets especially for these occasions. Who is to be joined to whom is decided by lot so that no one can blame anyone but fate. But the leaders of the state carefully manipulate the process to achieve the desired results.

As could be expected, the education of children is in the hands of the state. "...the children...will be taken over by the officials appointed for this. ..." (460b)"...but the offspring of the inferior, and any of those of the other sort who are born defective, they will properly dispose of in secret, so that no one will know what has become of them." (460c) As for a child born of unregulated sexual union, the following is indicated: "...to dispose of it on the understanding that we cannot rear such an offspring." (461c) Parents ought not know their children: "...conducting the mothers to the pen when their breasts are full, but employing every device to prevent anyone from recognizing her own infant." (460c) As to the question how parents and children shall recognize one another, the answer is as follows: "They won't ...except that a man will call all male offspring born between the seventh and the tenth month after he became a bridegroom his sons, and all female, daughters, and they will call him father." (461d)

So without the distractions of family, children or property, the guardians can devote themselves to the state. If there’s dissent then the guardian could become an artisan or peasant or eliminated - physicians and judges “…will care for the bodies and souls of such of your citizens as are truly well-born, but those who are not, such as are defective in body, they will suffer to die, and those who are evil-natured and incurable in soul they will themselves be put to death.” (410a)

Plato doesn’t say much about the artisans and peasants, but it’s clear that the philosophers call all the shots, then the guardians are the next tier down, and the rest are subject to them.

Almost everyone who has written on Plato's Republic has remarked on the ambiguous impression produced by this dialogue. Plato's scheme for the destruction of the subtlest and most profound features of human personality and the reduction of human society to the level of an ant hill evokes revulsion. And at the same time one cannot help being impressed by the almost religious impulse to sacrifice personal interests to a higher goal. Plato's entire program is founded on the denial of personality--but on the denial of egoism as well. He understood that the future of mankind is not dependent on the victory of this or that contending group in the struggle for material interests, but rather on the changes within people and on the development of new human qualities.

During the Hellenistic epoch (323-30 B.C.) extensive literature based on the socialist utopia sprung up as partly serious, mostly entertainment. From the first century writer Diodorus comes a tale of a socialist state consisting of communes of 400 people in each. They all served together, and for one another, everything is equal, marriage is unknown and they have communal wives, children are brought up in common. The incurably ill or physically defected obediently committed suicide as did those who reached a certain age.

During the first century A.D. the sect of the Nicolaites adopted communality of property and wives, and the gnostic sect of Carpocratians taught similar doctrines and practiced complete communality, including wives. A great number of such sects arose through the first four centuries A.D., affecting many people through the socialist phenomenon. Not the least of the problems, apart from not possessing anything to guarantee a semblance of security and livelihood, was that fathers did not know their sons, nor sons their fathers.

Next week we will consider the evolution of chiliastic socialism in Western Europe in the Middle Ages - the socialism of the heresies!

The Socialist Phenomenon 1.2