The politics of Josef Stalin? Sounds like a two word paper.

The Marxist version of utopia may be the most difficult for its adherents to abandon. It is based on 19th century rationalism with scientific pretensions unlike any other form of utopianism. The intellectual commitment has been too great among too many. The rationalists among us believe that human nature can be re=engineered like concrete matter and they will continue in their attempts. The denial of human nature is the greatest sin and, sorry to say, the secularist program in the west.

What David said.

When I was in the Army, I'll never forget listening to another soldier holding court with several of us decribing what was in Mao's Red Book (? or something) and the phrase that has stuck was his statement that Mao might not be perfect, but we would have to admit he was a great politician. The word politician just didn't seem to decribe the situation. I was in Vietnam at the time.

I once bought a copy of an English translation of Mao's LIttle Red Book, with the idea of lifting a few quotations. A few is putting it mildly. I think I found a couple of obvious tautologies among a load of turgid incomprehensible minutiae. That anyone could get inspiration from it tells you all you need to know about the admirer.

Raoul-

Why is Das Kapital still so popular? Loved, in fact, by so many who have never bothered to read it?

I haven't noticed that the Japanese have shown much contrition.

Harry:

Fifty years of constitutional pacifism?

The Japanese school system makes sure every kid knows about Hiroshima and Nagasaki but they are totally silent about Nanking, Pearl Harbor, the treatment of Koreans, Filipinos and others under their 'Japan East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.'

Now, all nations have a penchant and a right to whitewash their national stories but the Japanese go a tad overboard.

In Japan, pacifism is entirely for export. Good, in a way, I guess.

Regret is not contrition.

Tom C

In From Dawn to Decadence, Jacques Barzun has a great chapter on the "Eutopians"--mainly More, Bacon and Campanella, which shows how there are strong pre-19th roots to all this. Europeans have always embraced the ideal of the reasonable, enlightened society toiling away in peace, cooperation and harmony without private property and with loose and rational marriage rules. Whether there is a universal aspect to this dream, and what it means if there is, is a very interesting question. You can certainly see strains of anti-individualism and property in some interpretations of Christianity.

Here is a quote that must rank as the historical understatement of all times"

"Just as the Eutopians take pleasure in lavishly describing houses, temples, clothing and domestic customs, so they all delight in telling us how healthy their people are, how handsome, kindly and completely reasonable. For example they work briskly and faithfully, because they have figured out that slacking on the job will reduce the common stock of goods and everyone will have less. Soviet experience showed that this intricate reasoning does not always take place."