[lit-ideas] Bolshevism and Khomeinism
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Lit-Ideas" <Lit-Ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2007 10:32:02 -0800
A number of people of the 1919 committee could see the danger in Russian
Bolshevism, but no one was willing to bear the expense of opposing them.
"'How much will France give?' asked Lloyd George when the question of
expanding military intervention came up in February 1919. 'I am sure she
cannot afford to pay; I am sure we cannot. Will America bear the expense?
Pin them down to the cost of any scheme before sanctioning it."
There was a lot of confusion about Bolshevism in 1919. The Revolution had
taken place in 1917 and there wasn't that much known about its teachings.
On page 73, MacMillan writes, "The Allied intervention in Russia was always
muddled by differing objectives and mutual suspicions. The Americans were
officially against intervention, yet they kept troops in Siberia after the
end of the war, to block Japanese designs." Wilson called for diplomacy
with the Russia, whoever its leaders were.
On page 75 MacMillan writes that Lenin's "first commissar for foreign
affairs, the great revolutionary theorist Leon Trotsky, saw his new post as
a simple one: 'I will issue a few revolutionary proclamations to the peoples
of the world and then shut up shop.' (In an unconscious parallel to
Wilson's call for open diplomacy, he had much fun rummaging through the old
tsarist files and publishing, to the considerable embarrassment of the
Allies, secret wartime agreements carving up, for example, the Middle East.)
The only question for Lenin and Trotsky was one of tactics. If world
revolution was going to happen immediately, there was no need to deal with
the enemy. If there was a delay, however, it might become necessary to play
off one capitalist nation against another. In 1917, the Bolsheviks assumed
the first was true; by 1919, even though Lenin summoned a founding congress
for a world revolutionary headquarters, the Communist International, they
were starting to have doubts."
There is an obvious parallel to Iran here. There are those urging
negotiations with Iran just as in 1919 there were those who urged
negotiations with the Bolsheviks. We now know that the Bolsheviks had no
intention of negotiating as though they were just another sovereign nation.
Russia's leaders in 1919 believed that their revolution would soon be the
World's revolution. We have their writings. After all this time there can
be no confusion about what they believed and sought. Now we are engaged in
a similar confrontation with Iran. Is anyone confused about what Khomeini
taught? His teachings are well known and Ahmadinejad has embraced them.
Khomeini taught that his revolution should be exported throughout the entire
Islamic civilization.
How do you negotiate with a force (Communism in 1919) (Khomeini's Islamism
in 2007) that believed prior to negotiations that "if world revolution was
going to happen immediately, there was no need to deal with the enemy"? We
might say that this was Khomeini's belief in 1980 but after Khomeini's death
in 1989 that belief was no longer widely held, but is that true?
Ahmadinejad has announced that he is a believer in the teachings of
Khomeini. Shall we not take him at his word? Or should we assume that Iran
has mellowed in the 27 years between 1980 and 2007. How mellow had Stalin
become in the 27 years after the Russian Revolution?
Lawrence
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