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PROPAGANDA_AND_EXPECTATIONS

                                           January 19, 2009


From Allen Churchill's
"The Improper Bohemians" (1959)
                                   IMPROPER_BOHEMIANS

   "As the world shuddered over tales of
   atrocities committed by bestial German
   soldiers, Reed in personal interviews could
   get no evidence of needless brutality from
   the French combat soldier.  One soldier just
   returned from the front merely shrugged off
   questions about atrocities: 'Lord help us,
   the Germans as a rule are good enough chaps.
   It's a silly business, the killing of men.' "
                 -- p.133
                                                      I wonder if the behavior
                                                      of Germany under Hitler
   The masses were whipped                            might in some weird way
   up into an anti-German                             be an example of a people
   frenzy with tales of                               choosing (unconsciously?)
   atrocities with little     Presuming for           to live up to their
   bearing on reality.        now, that what          reputation.
                              I was taught in
                              school was
                              right (always           I think this is a real
                              dicey).                 danger: it's easy to go
                                                      from ubiquitous stories
                                                      of some atrocity to the
    John Reed then covered                            perception that
    the Soviet revolution                             atrocities are "standard
    and concluded that tales                          practice", to the
    of Russian excess must       FOG                  prevalence of atrocity.
    just be more propaganda.

        My guess is that this
        is a direct result....

        It's one of the general
        problems with perceiving truth:
        When "one side" has been caught lying         As I understand it,
        you tend to assume it's always lying.         one of the reasons
                                                      that German
                                                      atrocities in WWII
                     Similarly, I think Reed          were so well
                     got pushed into an extreme       documented after
                     left-wing position because       the war is that
                     of extremism on the right.       they knew everyone
                                                      was going to
                         WAR_IN_PATERSON              suspect they were
                                                      just making it all
                                                      up again.


     But I wouldn't want to cut
     John Reed *too* much slack on
     this... notably Emma Goldman        JOHN_REED
     seems to have pretty quickly
     figured out that the Bolshevik      ANARCHY
     revolution wasn't turning out
     too well.                                  Wikipedia om John Reed --
                                                using Homberger (1990)
                     LONG_CHERISHED_DREAM       as source -- talks about
                                                Emma Goldman objecting to
                                                the actions of the Cheka
                                                (forerunner of the KGB),
                                                with John Reed taking the
                                                line that the enemies of
                                                the revolution deserve
                                                their fate.


                                                John Reed is an early
                                                example of a syndrome of
                                                apologists for communism
                                                sticking to their
                                                position long after it
                                                should've been obvious
                                                that Soviet Russia was
                                                not so nice...

                                                Once you buy-in to the
                                                philosophy of pragmatic
                                                tradeoffs, there's no
                                                limit to the present day
                                                misdeeds you're willing
                                                to accept for the sake of
                                                hypothetical future gain.

    "Several reviewers remembered
    Walter Lippmann's observation
    that when his sympathies matched
    the facts, Reed was superb."

         -- p.229, Allen Churchill,
            "The Improper Bohemians" (1959),
            about "Ten Days That Shook the World"


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