Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
Roger Simon of Pajamas Media and I got to talking yesterday evening—Roger was visiting Stanford to tape a lecture series with Victor Davis Hanson—about what we both believe remains one of the central questions of the twentieth century: Why did some westerners see through the lies of fascism and Communism while so many others fell for them--or even knowingly repeated them?
Roger mentioned the contrast between two reporters, both famous in the first half of the century, Eugene Lyons of United Press International (pictured to the left) and Walter Duranty of the New York Times (to the right).
As a young man, Lyons was a convinced socialist—“I thought of myself as a ‘socialist’ almost as soon as I thought at all,” he would later write—and during his early reporting from the Soviet Union he praised Stalin and the new Russia the regime claimed to be calling into existence. “The shaggy mustache, framing a sensual mouth and a smile nearly as full of teeth as Teddy Roosevelt’s,” Lyons wrote after meeting Stalin in 1930, “gave his swarthy face a friendly, almost benignant look.” Yet by the end of the Thirties, Lyon had reversed himself. Why? Because of what he had seen. Increasing terror. Show trials. A press full of lies. Famine.
Walter Duranty saw what Lyons saw—but went right on defending the Soviet regime. “Any report of a famine in Russia,” Duranty wrote in 1933, “is…an exaggeration or malignant propaganda.”
Why did Lyons tell the truth? Why did Duranty refuse to accept the evidence of his own eyes, choosing instead to believe Moscow’s propaganda that the troubles in Ukraine merely amounted, to quote Duranty again, to “undernourishment” while millions—millions—lay starving?
The best answer I have ever come across: Dorothy Thompson’s 1941 essay, “Who Goes Nazi?”, of which my friend Stephen Schmalhofer reminded me just the other day. Thompson devotes her essay to gullibility toward Hitler rather than Stalin, but her findings apply to both:
It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times–in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis….
Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.
If you have a moment this weekend, you could do a lot worse than to read Dorothy Thompson in full. Marvelous, sharp writing combined with real profundity—an instance of truly great American journalism.
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Aug '11
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
Why did Walter Duranty choose to believe that there was no famine in Ukraine? The short answer is that he didn't believe it, though he said so for public consumption. When speaking to a British diplomat he acknowledged that millions had died of starvation. The figures he gave basically agreed with later Western estimates. Consult Robert Conquest's Harvest of Sorrow.
Dec '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
"He has been treated to forms of education which have released him from inhibitions. His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected."
Are you sure she didn't write that last week?
Jun '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
Kind is the word. If you look at a stranger only to determine if they're a help or a hindrance to you, and don't see them first and foremost as a fellow human being, then conformity to evil could be in your future. Another measure, maybe, is if you're truly grateful for what you have, however little or much that is.
Dennis Prager asks people, "if your loyal loving dog and a human stranger, don't know him from Adam, were both drowning in front of you, and you could only save one, which would you save?" Disappointingly, a lot of people say: "my dog, of course."
Mar '11
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
As egregious as the journalist examples you have provided are, Peter, I think the case of Martin Heidegger may be more instructive/terrifying.
Jun '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
The great English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, like Lyons, was a truth-teller. His description of an Easter service in Kiev at the height of Stalin’s intentional Ukranian famine in the 1930s is at once a devastating condemnation of totalitarianism and a testimonial to the power of grace:
Edited on Dec 10, 2011 at 10:38amJun '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
One more comment: Does anyone besides me believe it is a source of everlasting shame that the Pulitzer prize that Duranty won for his reporting from Moscow in 1932 has never been revoked?
Edited on Dec 10, 2011 at 10:47amRe: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
tabula rasa: The great English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, like Lyons, was a truth-teller. His description of an Easter service in Kiev at the height of Stalin’s intentional Ukranian famine in the 1930s is at once a devastating condemnation of totalitarianism and a testimonial to the power of grace:
Edited on Dec 10 at 10:38 am
Dec 10 at 10:37am
Magnificent. Can't thank you enough, Tabula.
Could you share the source or give us a citation?
Jun '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
Peter Robinson
tabula rasa: The great English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, like Lyons, was a truth-teller. His description of an Easter service in Kiev at the height of Stalin’s intentional Ukranian famine in the 1930s is at once a devastating condemnation of totalitarianism and a testimonial to the power of grace:
Magnificent. Can't thank you enough, Tabula.
Could you share the source or give us a citation?
It's from an essay entitled "A Spiritual Pilgrimage" published as chapter 10 of Conversion The Spiritual Journey of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim (Wipt & Stock, 1988).
May '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
I just read the essay - twice - and it's one that you need some time to process. But it was yet another reminder why I try to avoid cocktail parties.
Aug '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
Of course not, the only problem they associate with collectivism is not that it was done, but that it was not done right - The NYT stands by their beliefs and their reporting reflects it. The shame is that the Pulitzer Board has never repudiated the awards, but what does one expect from Columbia University? (They did invite Ahmadinejad to speak, twice, after all)
Edited on Dec 10, 2011 at 2:00pmJun '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
If you substitute "totalitarian" for Nazi, it's easy to discern the three types. Type A pursues power at any cost untrammeled by conscience. Type B is the small person who is suddenly promoted to a position of authority with a badge and a uniform: think TSA. Type C's are the utopian dreamers who assume that their anointed leaders share their good intentions (aka "useful idiots"). Duranty was likely a blend of B and C. He didn't have the uniform, but his position as a journalistic insider conferred on him the same authority. Type B's once fully ensconced are the moral cowards who become apologists for evil. If character is destiny then such people will always be with us.
May '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
The King Prawn: "He has been treated to forms of education which have released him from inhibitions. His body is vigorous. His mind is childish. His soul has been almost completely neglected."
Are you sure she didn't write that last week? · Dec 10 at 10:18am
I was struck by that, as well.
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
tabula rasa
It's from an essay entitled "A Spiritual Pilgrimage" published as chapter 10 of Conversion The Spiritual Journey of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim (Wipt & Stock, 1988). · Dec 10 at 10:52am
Got it! Thanks.
Jun '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
Peter Robinson
tabula rasa
It's from an essay entitled "A Spiritual Pilgrimage" published as chapter 10 of Conversion The Spiritual Journey of a Twentieth-Century Pilgrim (Wipt & Stock, 1988).
Got it! Thanks. ·
Muggeridge is an under-appreciated 20th-century figure. He grew up in a secular Fabian socialist home. His father was, for a time, an MP in the Ramsey McDonald period. Muggeridge's wife Kitty was the niece of Beatrice Webb, who with her husband Sidney were long-time apologists for Stalinist Russia and socialism in general.
Despite that background (which one would think would have made him an apologist), when he was sent by the Manchester Guardian as Moscow correspondent in the early 1930s, he could not shut his eyes to what Stalin was doing, and he wrote what he saw.
Later he wrote one of the best memoirs of the last century, the two parts published as Chronicles of Wasted Time. His life, which was tumultuous and parts of which are less than honorable, was a long march upstream from unbelief to fervent Christianity. And Bill Buckley was a fan.
He's a good example of Thompson's test for those who succumb to the totalitarian temptation: "Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi." His inherent goodness overcame his background.
Edited on Dec 10, 2011 at 12:43pmMar '11
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
Muggeridge's appearance on Firing Line is worth viewing (only a few minutes of one appearance in that clip).
Which reminds me: Oh, Hoover Institute, can we not get Firing Line transferred to a 21st century format. Say, downloadable through iTunes instead of DVD mail order?
Jul '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
Peter,
To depress you a bit, one of the professors I had at the University of Akron, who teaches 20th century European history to general edders, was an avowed Stalinist Communist, and who taught that the Ukranian famine was a hoax perpetrated by a cabal of Fascists, Nazis, and notably William Hearst and his newspapers. Also, Stalin was "not such a bad guy" and hey, the purges only killed 700,000 lives (so he claimed)...but hey, there were a lot of people out to get Stalin!
I never said much during class since I knew he graded opposition harshly. But I asked him one day if he had ever read Malcolm Muggeridge, Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, or Koestler's Darkness at Noon. He had never read any of them.
Apr '11
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
I don't believe that the TSA is filled with moral cowards who are apologists for evil. I'd like it if they profiled more, and I'm not a fan of their unionization, but the urge to protect America from actual evil and actual moral cowardice is a good one for which they should not be condemned. Likewise, the guys who work for the IRS are often morally decent, upstanding Americans. Conservatives don't wholeheartedly endorse "***** the police".
Jun '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
Byron Horatio: Peter,
To depress you a bit, one of the professors I had at the University of Akron, who teaches 20th century European history to general edders, was an avowed Stalinist Communist, and who taught that the Ukranian famine was a hoax perpetrated by a cabal of Fascists, Nazis, and notably William Hearst and his newspapers. Also, Stalin was "not such a bad guy" and hey, the purges only killed 700,000 lives (so he claimed)...but hey, there were a lot of people out to get Stalin!
I never said much during class since I knew he graded opposition harshly. But I asked him one day if he had ever read Malcolm Muggeridge, Orwell's Homage to Catalonia, or Koestler's Darkness at Noon. He had never read any of them. · Dec 10 at 1:03pm
He probably believes the holocaust is mostly a fraud. I'm all for academic freedom, but doesn't there come a point when what is taught is so far from documented fact that the professor should be sent out into the real world to do something productive?
Jun '10
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
Byron Horatio:
To depress you a bit, one of the professors I had at the University of Akron, who teaches 20th century European history to general edders, was an avowed Stalinist Communist, and who taught that the Ukranian famine was a hoax perpetrated... by a cabal of Fascists, Nazis...
Even today, a large portion of Ukrainians, primarily the Russian-speaking demographic, deny the famine to various degrees. I had the book Harvest of Sorrow on my coffee table when living in Odessa. Two of my Ukrainian friends freaked out when they saw it and said it was all lies. I'm willing to say that Conquest's death count was possibly overestimated based on the data he had available. However, the fact of being told that I should not read the book and that the famine was all propaganda was one of the most disturbing moments I experienced while living in the Former Soviet Union.
Also, I highly recommend Eugene Lyon's book, Assignment in Utopia, which he writes about his transformation from apologist to foe while living in Moscow for several years. It was one of the best books I've read about this topic.
Re: Who Goes Nazi? Who Lies for Stalin?
Dave Molinari
Even today, a large portion of Ukrainians, primarily the Russian-speaking demographic, deny the famine to various degrees. I had the book Harvest of Sorrow on my coffee table when living in Odessa. Two of my Ukrainian friends freaked out when they saw it and said it was all lies. I'm willing to say that Conquest's death count was possibly overestimated based on the data he had available. However, the fact of being told that I should not read the book and that the famine was all propaganda was one of the most disturbing moments I experienced while living in the Former Soviet Union.
Also, I highly recommend Eugene Lyon's book, Assignment in Utopia, which he writes about his transformation from apologist to foe while living in Moscow for several years. It was one of the best books I've read about this topic. · Dec 10 at 1:15pm
Couldn't agree more about Lyons's book.
Re Bob Conquest, my impression is that the numbers in Harvest of Sorrow have actually stood up quite well. Had a long lunch with Bob, now in his nineties, just a couple of weeks ago, btw.