The Socialist Phenomenon 1.4

Part 4: The Socialism of the Philosophers (The Great Utopias)

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 http://robertlstephens.com/essays/shafarevich/001SocialistPhenomenon.html

Last time we were talking about the heresies:

The Socialist Phenomenon 1.3

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The Great Utopia

The English revolution of the seventeenth century was the last occasion when the heretical movement appeared as one of the major forces shaping the course of history.

In later years, the chiliastic sects that had shaken Europe became transformed into such peaceable movements as those of the Mennonites, the Baptists and the Quakers. The socialist ideas of the medieval sects live on, albeit in peaceful form, in their successors. The most graphic manifestation of these ideas are the numerous communist settlements founded by these sects in America during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Here we encounter attempts to implement familiar socialist ideals: communality of property, the ban on marriage and family (expressed either as celibacy or as communality of wives and communal upbringing of children). But the socialist ideas themselves acquire a new coloration; they lose their aggressiveness. A lesser role is assigned to propagandizing the doctrine, and the center of gravity is transferred to the life of the isolated community. Thanks to this, the influence of the socialist doctrine does not in these cases extend beyond the limits of the communities that profess them. In this form, socialist ideas lose their incendiary force and cease to inspire massive popular movements.

The development of socialist ideas continued, but not through religious sects and their social action, but through the philosopher and the publicist. Socialist ideas continued to flood Europe, now through literature, without reference to the sacred but to secular rationalism. Pitched to the literate and the learned, the socialist phenomenon won’t spill out onto the streets for several hundred years.

Stories of exploration to exotic lands where the socialist ideal has been realised became a standard literary device to nurture, at least in the imagination, of a better world, a Utopia. Very early on in this phase we see Utopia by Thomas More. Published in Latin in 1516 as “A Truly Golden Handbook, No Less Beneficial than Entertaining, About the Best State of the Commonwealth and the New Island of Utopia.” An influential fellow was More, who became Lord Chancellor of England, but, as it happens, was accused of high treason and beheaded in 1535. Nevertheless, his work Utopia managed to seize the imagination of many as it described a state, organised by the wise legislator Utopus, of perfection, while simultaneously criticising contemporary European society. The criticism, which sounds very familiar, was that contemporary European states are tools of the mercenary interests of the rich:

"When I weigh in my mind all the other states which flourish today, so help me God, I can discover nothing but a conspiracy of the rich, who pursue their own aggrandizement under the name and title of the Commonwealth."

The true source of this situation is private property and money:

"But, Master More, to speak plainly what is in my mind, as long as there is private property and while money is the standard of all things, I do not think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily." "As long as private property remains, the largest and by far the best part of mankind will be oppressed with an inescapable load of cares and anxieties."

Just like the rhetoric from socialists today, Utopia paints a gloomy picture of contemporary Europe in contrast to the ideal state of the Utopian order. This was likely written by More as satire, as the story becomes increasingly ridiculous, and it is doubtful More was actually proposing this as a serious way of life. Nevertheless, his satire struck a chord with some who later took it as a reasonable social order.

In Utopia there is, of course, no private property, all resources are common, there is uniformity in dress and every aspect of life. There is also no privacy, no private life: "So you see no loafing is tolerated, and there are no pretexts for laziness, or opportunities. There are no taverns or ale houses, no brothels, no chances for corruption, no hiding places, no secret meetings. Because they live in full view of all, they must do their accustomed labor and spend their leisure honorably." And every home has folding doors which, "easily opened by hand and then closing of themselves, give admission to anyone. As a result, nothing is private property anywhere. Every ten years they actually exchange their very home by lot."

So in Utopia there would be no Winston Smith writing Escaping Mass Psychosis Substack - the Utopian elders would be onto me immediately and I’d become a slave.

Travel beyond Utopia could only happen with the permission of the proper officials and any transgression is treated harshly and if there’s a second transgression you’re a slave.

Everyone in Utopia is equal, except for the officials - and in the final analysis Utopia is largely based on slavery. Starting to sound a little like a communist experiment?

Slaves do all the dirty work. But slavery seems to have more than just an economic function. Slaves are obtained from two sources: "Their slaves are either their own citizens who have been sentenced to bondage for some crime, or men of other nations who have been condemned to death. The Utopians buy these men at a low price, or more often obtain them free of charge and bring them home." "All kinds of slaves are kept constantly at work and are always chained. The Utopians treat their native slaves more harshly than the others, thinking them baser and deserving of greater punishment." It is thought that the labor of such people brings more use than their death would. At the same time, their example deters others. "If even after this treatment they still rebel and put up resistance, they are slaughtered like wild beasts."

What we don’t see in this Utopia, however, is the abolition of the family or communality of wives or the children being reared by the state - this is a more moderate secular take on the socialist ideals.

One hundred years after More’s Utopia came City of the Sun by Tommaso Campanella, a Dominican monk, philosopher, religious thinker and poet. In 1602, while he was in prison for organising a conspiracy against the Spaniards, he wrote Civitas Soli. In the tradition of Utopia, Campanella takes the reader on exotic journeys and is introduced to the City of the Sun. The political system is thematically like a theocracy.

"Their supreme ruler is a priest who is called Hoh, meaning 'Sun' in their language, but in our tongue we would call him the 'Metaphysic.' " This curious translation--Metaphysic for Sun--is not accidental. The role of the Sun priest could profitably be compared to the head of a technocratic hierarchy. The post is occupied by the most erudite inhabitant of the city. He knows "the history of all nations, their customs, religious rites and laws" and is well versed in all crafts, physical, mathematical and astrological sciences, and is especially knowledgeable in metaphysics and theology. He holds his office until "another man is found wiser than his predecessor and better capable to govern."

Every area of life is overseen by a hierarchy, similar to the ‘ministries’ in Orwell’s 1984, where life is directed by the central administration. All things are in common and all are equal, except for the administration of course. There is a system of dividing the people into detachments, with oversight not dissimilar to the soviet idea. Uniformity is taken to the extreme so no one stands out, and if one did dare to the community “would certainly put to death a woman who in order to appear beautiful stated to rouge her face or in order to appear tall began to wear shoes with high heels, or took wearing long dresses in order to hide her unattractive legs.”

And in the area of procreation there is a distinctly Orwellian nature of the control mixed with a good dose of eugenics:

"The production of offspring bears directly on the interests of the state, and involves the interests of private persons only to the extent to which they are part of the state. And since individuals for the most part bear offspring wrongly and bring them up badly, to the peril of the state, the sacred duty of supervising this matter, which is considered the fundamental principle of state welfare, is entrusted to state officials, for it is only the community that can vouchsafe this and not private persons."

The procreation of children is compared to the breeding of livestock: "And they mock us in that we zealously care for improved breeds of dogs and horses but, at the same time, neglect the human race. ...Therefore, male and female breeders of the best natural qualities are chosen in accordance with the rules of philosophy."

The state has complete control over who has sex with who, when, and how, in a bewildering bureaucratic process:

A series of officials--the heads of labor brigades, an astrologer and a physician--decide which man should share the bed of which woman and how often. Copulation itself takes place under the supervision of a special official. In this connection a number of rules are set forth which we will refrain from quoting. Relations between the sexes are considered to have--apart from procreation--only one other function: satisfaction of a purely physiological need. Therefore, in cases of extreme need, men are permitted to copulate with sterile or pregnant Women. This is, however, possible only with the permission of a special Chief of Childbearing and on application from lower officials of the same agency, who keep this aspect of life in the city under constant Supervision. The rights of a woman are determined by similar considerations: "If a woman does not conceive from one man she is joined with another; if she turns out to be sterile in this case too, she passes into common use but no longer enjoys respect."

Sounding like your version of Utopia? Children are brought up by the state, the state decides where they should fit in, there are no family relationships. This is a society where there is no family, property ownership, freedom of work, creativity, no autonomy at all, and a severe system of punishment for anyone diverging from the order. Sounds wonderful right? The Utopian dream where all are wonderfully happy.

Another work, published in 1652, was The Law of Freedom, by Gerrard Winstanley. This work is partly an exploration for ‘true freedom’, in which Winstanley puts forth the idea that it is the free use of land that constitutes true freedom. It is, according to Winstanley, land ownership that is at the root of humanities woes. From this basis he proposes a new social order where private interests are superseded by common interests, including the abolishment of private land ownership and doing away with trade and money. And once again we are given the formula for a centrally controlled communist system replete with harsh punishments and slavery for those unwilling to comply.

There is some semblance of a democratic process in the election of officials, but the list of disenfranchised citizens could, especially what we have seen in the 21st Century, see the process become manipulated and farcical.

Winstanley’s views are more moderate than those of More or Campanella, focusing more on the aspects of private ownership of land and issues of labor and production. There is no communal wives or communal child rearing. But he does go further in his hostility toward the Church - desiring the complete replacement of religion with scientific rationalism. This, it seems, is one aspect of the socialist phenomenon that’s shaping up to be a future utter contempt of anything religious and the total embrace of a materialistic worldview.

The Socialist Novel

At the end of the seventeenth century and into the eighteenth there was a steady stream of socialist literature being written in Europe. These came in one of two types - the entertaining socialist novel for a broad audience and the more academic philosophical and sociological literature. In 1675, Denis Vairasse published L’Histoire des Sévarambes (History of the Sevarites), a popular socialist novel following the now common formula of a travelling adventure and discovery of a civilisation living the socialist dream. The themes are the same; communal living, state ownership of everything, supervision of officials, slaves, and apparently everyone is extremely relaxed, healthy and happy (except maybe the slaves).

Then there is La Terre australe connue (The Southern Land) in 1676 by Gabriel de Foigny, another travel adventure story to Australia where their life is founded on complete freedom.

(Please note that de Foigny’s 1676 description needs a slight update since the Victorian government opened fire on unarmed families gathering in public places to oppose harsh and illegal lockdowns last year).

Similarly Les Aventures de Télémaque (The Adventures of Telemachus) in 1699 by Fenelon, also surveys the ideal socialist society where the people own nothing and are happy. And Shafarevich goes on to cite The Republic of Philosophers or the History of the Ajaoiens (Fontenelle, 1768), and The Southern Discovery by a Flying Man or the French Daedalus: Very Philosophical Novel (Restif de la Bretonne, 1781) as similar, and well known, examples of socialist literature.

The Age of Enlightenment

Jean Meslier (1664-1729) was a priest of Champagne and author of Testament - a treatise against God and any form of hierarchy or inequality. Yes, a priest, who hates worshipers of Christ!

To Meslier religion was an absurd superstition that cannot survive the slightest brush with reason. Of all the religions, the most absurd is the religion of the Christians, whom he calls Christ-worshipers. But it would be wrong to seek the reason for this attitude in an overly rationalistic turn of mind of the author. Refuting Christianity, Meslier is at the same time ready to believe the wildest superstitions and to repeat the most absurd rumours. For instance, it seems nonsensical to him that God could have had but a single Son, while much lesser creatures are much better endowed. Many animals bear ten or twelve offspring at once.

In Meslier’s rants about Christians he exhausts his lexicon of abuse. Religion, he says, is the source of social evils and that it is not devils that are the true evil against humanity, but the true devils are the noble and the rich. In typical socialist fashion he says the true cause of inequality is private property and therefore everything must be communal. Family, is also a problem for Meslier, and "It is necessary to provide the identical freedom to men and to women to come together without hindrance, following their own inclination, and the freedom also to separate and leave one another when life together becomes intolerable or when a new attraction moves them to contracting a new union."

Meslier committed suicide at the age of 65 and his work came into the hands of Voltaire who was instrumental in circulating extracts. Voltaire was impressed by Testament and wrote: “This is a composition of absolute necessity for demons, and excellent catechism of Baal-zebub. Know that it is a rare book, a perfection.” It became influential in the de-Christianisation movement with the rise of a new god - Reason.

There is much more in this chapter but I might wind up here least I become too long winded and your eyes start to glaze over. Suffice it to say that socialism was very much nurtured by the philosophy of the Enlightenment, both among the learned and the common people (at least those who could read or listen to the novels). God was being dethroned and Reason was taking His place and the modern socialist revolutionary was taking form to liberate the people.

The idea of "liberation," which was understood by the medieval heresies to be liberation of the spirit from the power of matter, is transformed into an appeal for liberation from the morality of contemporary society, from its social institutions and, most of all, from private property. At first, reason is recognized to be the driving force of this liberation, but gradually its place is taken over by the people, the poor. In the world view of the participants in the "Conspiracy of Equals," we can see this conception in finished form. As a result, new concrete features appear in the plan for the establishment of the "society of the future": terror, occupation of the apartments of the rich by the poor, confiscation of furniture, abolition of debts, etc.

The “Conspiracy of Equals” mentioned above is a book by Philippe Buonarroti, member of a secret society in Paris in 1796 that was planning a political coup and install a socialist program. The conspiracy was uncovered and Buonarroti went into exile - later he wrote down the socialist program in Conspiracy of Equals. His “Manifesto” is as much groundwork as Marx could ever hope for and Shafarevich goes into some depth detailing Buonarroti’s views.

OK, I promised I’ll stop. Stopping now.

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