Monday, April 05, 2004
Thanks Uncle Joe
Sociology has its limitations. This certainly isn’t unique to that field, not at all. Yet its pioneers and practitioners contend they understand social facts like no one else. Overlooked or not appreciated is the simple reality that methodologies remain straight jacketed by extant intellectual trends. As the founders of the pursuit dealt with political issues, they seemingly could not envision any collective beyond the scope of the state, or nation-state, for the modern world. While empires lingered and were acknowledged, they were dealt with as relics of less advanced periods in human history. Transnational organizations, such as religions, were seen as almost by definition lacking the power of the state. Real societies, in other words, did not extend past state borders. Such prejudices are perhaps most pronounced in the biases and assumptions made by Karl Marx, philosopher and godfather of many who practice some form of applied sociology.
Marx’s most famous, or infamous, adherent was Bolshevik leader and father of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin. He led a revolution in 1917 that destroyed the Russian autocracy and promised to recognize and support radicals abroad. Yet his intellectual baggage compelled him to see the world system in terms of state entities, where revolutions would take place, but well within the confines of national borders. First Germany, Hungary, France and so on, would fall to internal social pressures and a Marxist-Leninist world recognizing proletarian regimes would arise, respectful of separate states defined by their borders. Perhaps Lenin’s lieutenant, Leon Trotsky, had some vision of a world without states, arguing that given Russia had collapsed even the notion of something like a foreign ministry could be consigned to the dustbin of history. His rhetoric and influence proved short lived, and among the greatest human assets the nascent Soviet government could claim were to be found in a reconstituted foreign ministry. It is fashionable to regard Lenin’s successor, Joseph Stalin, as an intellectual luddite and even poorer theoretician. Yet he took Leninism and redefined it in terms of where believed real strength was to be found in international relations—in the form of empire. Over time, Stalin’s notions of Soviet Empire succumbed to Russian interests, and some have argued that the USSR became little more than an extension of a Russian state.
My first point here is quite simple. Though the builders of the Soviet Union promised they would introduce a system so radically different, so fundamentally hostile to how the international community worked, they were bound by notions of the state that consigned all their efforts, almost from the beginning, to failure. Could creative thinking have saved the Soviet experiment? While that’s highly doubtful, it is certain that the ultimately conventional constraints of a Marxist view of nation-state world order made novel thinking impossible and helped cement the Bolsheviks’ demise. In addition, archaic internal practices that included torture, brutality, and central planning with seemingly little awareness of how economics worked, guaranteed that the leaders of the USSR were architects and visionaries only in the field of building up what we’ve come to know as failed states.
So why do I bring up any of this? Stalin, or Uncle Joe to some in the Anglo world who came to know of him through propaganda during the Second World War, may have appeared to be a threat to global democracy and international order. As long as Moscow could depend on its military and intelligence networks, there may have been a case to be made. However, as long as Lenin’s successors looked at their domain as something contained within borders, to be defended by armies, a key to their defeat rested in answers just as conventional. Prepared militaries, inter-state alliances, diplomacy and political bargaining all hastened the USSR’s passing.
How important these conventional enterprises remain can be seen when we begin to weigh the substance of foreign policy debates taking shape within our own borders. Some Canadian analysts today say that former Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s tenure represents the period in our history which saw not only the weakening, but dismantling of this country’s military and defense infrastructures. Critics of Chretien’s ten years in office stress the armed forces were cash starved to death, with some $20 billion being taken out of defense coffers during that time. However, some backers of the former Prime Minister hail him as a visionary, as someone who understood that not only Canada’s national interests but very livelihood rested not in building up arms, but in freeing up resources that could be used to support cutting-edge approaches in international affairs. Yet even the most vocal advocates of NGO work in foreign policy, and of aid to failed states, either do not or cannot envision an international order in which countries fail to play a fundamental, defining role.
Armies, defense budgets, aid to countries, and the fine work of the NGO community are in no way about to become obsolete. Yet the question remains: can we ever find ourselves in situations where the old ways of thinking and the tried and true methods of statecraft no longer help us? Could we be there now? Have we simply been fortunate that our main adversaries in the past century could be constrained by traditional methods, and that their own threats of creating a new world order were stillborn, lacking even the intellectual capital to get off the ground? Is Al Qaeda, for instance, an adversary that can be contained or constrained by the traditional tools that have served states so well for so long, or is this organization a true political and intellectual challenge? Can such a body ever be the main danger to Western democracy, or will it ultimately show itself a transnational, trans-state entity headed for oblivion? Furthermore, will settling what appear at first glance as conventional demands for statehood and territory hold the key in all cases to a safer world? Can, for example, a resolution to the question of Kosovo’s status really be the simple key that will end disputes in Southeast Europe, or can discord in that and other multi-ethnic hotspots take on a transnational, and potentially even more volatile, dimension?
In retrospect, the Soviets might turn out to have been easy opposition. So maybe it’s not too late to say Thanks Uncle Joe, thanks for being such a pushover.
Stan Markotich
Submit comments to stanmarkotich@yahoo.com
¶ 9:36 PM
Sociology has its limitations. This certainly isn’t unique to that field, not at all. Yet its pioneers and practitioners contend they understand social facts like no one else. Overlooked or not appreciated is the simple reality that methodologies remain straight jacketed by extant intellectual trends. As the founders of the pursuit dealt with political issues, they seemingly could not envision any collective beyond the scope of the state, or nation-state, for the modern world. While empires lingered and were acknowledged, they were dealt with as relics of less advanced periods in human history. Transnational organizations, such as religions, were seen as almost by definition lacking the power of the state. Real societies, in other words, did not extend past state borders. Such prejudices are perhaps most pronounced in the biases and assumptions made by Karl Marx, philosopher and godfather of many who practice some form of applied sociology.
Marx’s most famous, or infamous, adherent was Bolshevik leader and father of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin. He led a revolution in 1917 that destroyed the Russian autocracy and promised to recognize and support radicals abroad. Yet his intellectual baggage compelled him to see the world system in terms of state entities, where revolutions would take place, but well within the confines of national borders. First Germany, Hungary, France and so on, would fall to internal social pressures and a Marxist-Leninist world recognizing proletarian regimes would arise, respectful of separate states defined by their borders. Perhaps Lenin’s lieutenant, Leon Trotsky, had some vision of a world without states, arguing that given Russia had collapsed even the notion of something like a foreign ministry could be consigned to the dustbin of history. His rhetoric and influence proved short lived, and among the greatest human assets the nascent Soviet government could claim were to be found in a reconstituted foreign ministry. It is fashionable to regard Lenin’s successor, Joseph Stalin, as an intellectual luddite and even poorer theoretician. Yet he took Leninism and redefined it in terms of where believed real strength was to be found in international relations—in the form of empire. Over time, Stalin’s notions of Soviet Empire succumbed to Russian interests, and some have argued that the USSR became little more than an extension of a Russian state.
My first point here is quite simple. Though the builders of the Soviet Union promised they would introduce a system so radically different, so fundamentally hostile to how the international community worked, they were bound by notions of the state that consigned all their efforts, almost from the beginning, to failure. Could creative thinking have saved the Soviet experiment? While that’s highly doubtful, it is certain that the ultimately conventional constraints of a Marxist view of nation-state world order made novel thinking impossible and helped cement the Bolsheviks’ demise. In addition, archaic internal practices that included torture, brutality, and central planning with seemingly little awareness of how economics worked, guaranteed that the leaders of the USSR were architects and visionaries only in the field of building up what we’ve come to know as failed states.
So why do I bring up any of this? Stalin, or Uncle Joe to some in the Anglo world who came to know of him through propaganda during the Second World War, may have appeared to be a threat to global democracy and international order. As long as Moscow could depend on its military and intelligence networks, there may have been a case to be made. However, as long as Lenin’s successors looked at their domain as something contained within borders, to be defended by armies, a key to their defeat rested in answers just as conventional. Prepared militaries, inter-state alliances, diplomacy and political bargaining all hastened the USSR’s passing.
How important these conventional enterprises remain can be seen when we begin to weigh the substance of foreign policy debates taking shape within our own borders. Some Canadian analysts today say that former Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s tenure represents the period in our history which saw not only the weakening, but dismantling of this country’s military and defense infrastructures. Critics of Chretien’s ten years in office stress the armed forces were cash starved to death, with some $20 billion being taken out of defense coffers during that time. However, some backers of the former Prime Minister hail him as a visionary, as someone who understood that not only Canada’s national interests but very livelihood rested not in building up arms, but in freeing up resources that could be used to support cutting-edge approaches in international affairs. Yet even the most vocal advocates of NGO work in foreign policy, and of aid to failed states, either do not or cannot envision an international order in which countries fail to play a fundamental, defining role.
Armies, defense budgets, aid to countries, and the fine work of the NGO community are in no way about to become obsolete. Yet the question remains: can we ever find ourselves in situations where the old ways of thinking and the tried and true methods of statecraft no longer help us? Could we be there now? Have we simply been fortunate that our main adversaries in the past century could be constrained by traditional methods, and that their own threats of creating a new world order were stillborn, lacking even the intellectual capital to get off the ground? Is Al Qaeda, for instance, an adversary that can be contained or constrained by the traditional tools that have served states so well for so long, or is this organization a true political and intellectual challenge? Can such a body ever be the main danger to Western democracy, or will it ultimately show itself a transnational, trans-state entity headed for oblivion? Furthermore, will settling what appear at first glance as conventional demands for statehood and territory hold the key in all cases to a safer world? Can, for example, a resolution to the question of Kosovo’s status really be the simple key that will end disputes in Southeast Europe, or can discord in that and other multi-ethnic hotspots take on a transnational, and potentially even more volatile, dimension?
In retrospect, the Soviets might turn out to have been easy opposition. So maybe it’s not too late to say Thanks Uncle Joe, thanks for being such a pushover.
Stan Markotich
Submit comments to stanmarkotich@yahoo.com
¶ 9:36 PM
