Read Online Time Will Run Back by Henry Hazlitt - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Henry Hazlitt
Ads: Link
on what they called their literature! And here too our ancestral leaders were very clever. About two weeks after the burning of capitalist economics, they announced that the whole of religious literature would have to be destroyed, but that this would end the program for the present. So on May 17—another great day—they burned every extant copy of a book called the Bible, perhaps the book that had done more than any other to hold up the spread of communism and dialectical materialism. Of course all other religious literature, including prayer books and mountains of sermons that probably no one read anyhow—but our ancestors had to play safe—was burned along with the Bibles.
“A few months later our ancestors announced that the new Wonworld regime was unfortunately not yet safe, and would not be so long as bourgeois philosophy and ethical theories and logic were allowed to exist. So these were consigned to the flames.”
“Did that mean, Your Highness, all the then existing philosophy?”
“Certainly—all of it except Marxist philosophy, for whatever was not Marxist was of course either unnecessary or pernicious.
“Well, then our ancestors burned all the books on politics and sociology. These of course were the worst of all. They used the words ‘liberty’ and ‘democracy’ in the capitalist and bourgeois sense instead of in the communist and proletarian sense, and created endless confusion. By liberty they meant liberty to starve, liberty even to criticize the State—can you imagine? And by democracy they meant secret elections, in which you couldn’t even tell who or what a man had voted for. How could you ever detect disloyalty under such a system? By democracy, in fact, they even meant the power openly to organize a recognized opposition to the existing government! Well, thank Marx, our ancestors took care of that!
“The next big bonfire was that of history and biography. All these bonfires took place at intervals of a few months, and of course the next step was never announced until the Protectors got to it. The one thing to be said in favor of ‘gradualism’ is that it lulls and divides the opposition. You tell them always that the step you are taking completes your program, that it isn’t a precedent for anything else; that they are foolish to talk of the ‘principle’ involved in a new step when every step is taken purely on its individual merits; and that they are downright hysterical to oppose what hasn’t even yet been suggested.
“Well, bourgeois history, of course, was the worst of all. It would sometimes openly contradict dialectical materialism. It would even try to twist facts so as to lead people to think, for example, that every struggle had not been a class struggle. These historians not only pretended that the world had actually grown richer under capitalism; they talked as if the poor themselves, in America, for example, had constantly become better off—whereas, in fact, they were dying off miserably like flies.”
“But how,” Peter began, “did the population grow to be—?”
Bolshekov rebuked him. “You’d better keep your questions until after I’ve finished.... Well, next our ancestors burned the essays and encyclopedias—they only needed to declare a half-holiday for that—and then they made mighty bonfires of all the poetry and drama and fiction—all of it, of course, riddled throughout with bourgeois ideology—”
“Didn’t they have any great poets or dramatists, like ourselves?”
“How could they have had, when these poets and dramatists either understood nothing, or were hired lickspittles trying to curry favor with the rich and powerful?”
“But didn’t any of their fiction attack capitalism?”
“Oh, most of it did—but incompetently. In any case, it had served its purpose. It had divided, confused, undermined and disintegrated the opposition to communism. But now that the opposition was totally destroyed, what further need was there
“A few months later our ancestors announced that the new Wonworld regime was unfortunately not yet safe, and would not be so long as bourgeois philosophy and ethical theories and logic were allowed to exist. So these were consigned to the flames.”
“Did that mean, Your Highness, all the then existing philosophy?”
“Certainly—all of it except Marxist philosophy, for whatever was not Marxist was of course either unnecessary or pernicious.
“Well, then our ancestors burned all the books on politics and sociology. These of course were the worst of all. They used the words ‘liberty’ and ‘democracy’ in the capitalist and bourgeois sense instead of in the communist and proletarian sense, and created endless confusion. By liberty they meant liberty to starve, liberty even to criticize the State—can you imagine? And by democracy they meant secret elections, in which you couldn’t even tell who or what a man had voted for. How could you ever detect disloyalty under such a system? By democracy, in fact, they even meant the power openly to organize a recognized opposition to the existing government! Well, thank Marx, our ancestors took care of that!
“The next big bonfire was that of history and biography. All these bonfires took place at intervals of a few months, and of course the next step was never announced until the Protectors got to it. The one thing to be said in favor of ‘gradualism’ is that it lulls and divides the opposition. You tell them always that the step you are taking completes your program, that it isn’t a precedent for anything else; that they are foolish to talk of the ‘principle’ involved in a new step when every step is taken purely on its individual merits; and that they are downright hysterical to oppose what hasn’t even yet been suggested.
“Well, bourgeois history, of course, was the worst of all. It would sometimes openly contradict dialectical materialism. It would even try to twist facts so as to lead people to think, for example, that every struggle had not been a class struggle. These historians not only pretended that the world had actually grown richer under capitalism; they talked as if the poor themselves, in America, for example, had constantly become better off—whereas, in fact, they were dying off miserably like flies.”
“But how,” Peter began, “did the population grow to be—?”
Bolshekov rebuked him. “You’d better keep your questions until after I’ve finished.... Well, next our ancestors burned the essays and encyclopedias—they only needed to declare a half-holiday for that—and then they made mighty bonfires of all the poetry and drama and fiction—all of it, of course, riddled throughout with bourgeois ideology—”
“Didn’t they have any great poets or dramatists, like ourselves?”
“How could they have had, when these poets and dramatists either understood nothing, or were hired lickspittles trying to curry favor with the rich and powerful?”
“But didn’t any of their fiction attack capitalism?”
“Oh, most of it did—but incompetently. In any case, it had served its purpose. It had divided, confused, undermined and disintegrated the opposition to communism. But now that the opposition was totally destroyed, what further need was there
Similar Books
