Tuesday, June 13, 2006


He who has not absolute faith in History does not belong in the Party's ranks.

[Umpteenth revised version, sorry!]

So, still think Christianity is a loser?

You do?

Well, here's an idealistic alternative! (heh,heh!)

A mindset, at least on college and university campuses across America, that's still very much around.

Here at UTEP those with this mindset dominate a wide array of departments, from Languages and Linguistics to "some sections" of English and "some sections" of University Studies, etc. etc.


Source: Koestler, Arthur. Darkness at Noon. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1941.

This story bears an uncanny resemblance to Guatemala in the 1980s, when thousands upon thousands of campesinos died, many horribly.

Most, but by no means all, died at the hands of the Guatemalan military, and para-military vigilantes.

Because, moreover, upwards of 100 villagers (perhaps Ladinos? Or, were these villagers, too, all-Maya?) were massacred at one time by the Reds of the Guerrilla Army of the Poor [EGP].

Sub-source: Footnote 18., page 310, David Stoll's book, Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1999. "The worst such case was the EGP's massacre of more than a hundred villagers in Chacalté, Chajul, on June 13, 1982, for joining the army's civil patrol. The incident has been verified by an exhumation carried out by the Archbishop's Human Rights Office (Ana Lucía González, 'La Venganza del EGP,' Revista [Prensa Libre], August 31, 1997, pp. 8-10)."

Yet, for their part, the mostly Mayan farmers were dying, all too often, for no other reason than to gratify the whim of a few hardcorps Marxist thugs and their equally hard nosed Anglo-American and European Comrades, who themselves were only too careful in keeping away from the actual fighting and killing.

But! Like their Stalinist spiritual ancestors in the former Soviet Union, these Marxist thugs, such as the so-called comandantes, who spent so much of their time in semi-permanent residence in such places as Mexico City, had no qualms about sanctioning killings within the guerillas' own ranks.

Now, on with our story!

Adapted from Pages 43-45.

Here we see one Rubashov, a soon to be extinct Communist Party political commissar from Stalinist Russia. He is presently in Germany -- or some such place -- in the late 1930's, to censure a local Party Comrade for being politically uncorrect.

For his part, Richard, the local Communist Party stalwart, is discouraged because the enemy's police have taken a horrendous toll of his own Party faithful. Richard expresses bitterness towards Rubashov for failing to understand what is really going on.

Richard: "You talk of a strategic retreat while half of our people are killed, and those which are left are so pleased to be still alive that they go over to the other side in shoals. These hair-splitting resolutions which you people outside fabricate are not understood here... Please, you must understand. Here we are all living in the jungle..."

"Rubashov waited to see whether he still had anything to say, but Richard said nothing. Dusk was falling rapidly now. Rubashov took his pince-nez off and rubbed it on his sleeve.

"The Party can never be mistaken, said Rubashov. You and I can make a mistake. not the Party. The Party, comrade, is more than you and I and a thousand others like you and I. The Party is the embodiment of the revolutionary idea in history.

History knows no scruples and no hesitations.

History knows no scruples and no hesitation. Inert and unerring, she leaves the mud which she carries and the corpses of the drowned. History knows her way. She makes no mistakes. He who has not absolute faith in History does not belong in the Party's ranks.

"Richard said nothing; head on his fists, he kept his immovable face turned to Rubashov. As he remained silent, Rubashov went on: [and on, and on, until finally...]

"I have to inform you, in accordance with the Central Committee's decision, that you are no longer a member of the Party, Richard.

"Richard did not stir. Again Rubashov waited for a while, before standing up. Richard remained sitting. He merely lifted his head, looked up at him and asked:

Is that what you came here for?

But, then, 200 pages or so later, Ex -Comrade Commissar Rubashov gets to hear these inspiring words in a Stalinist Rubber Stamp Peoples' Court:

"[T]the Public Prosecutor will demand your life, Citizen Rubashov. Your faction, Citizen Rubashov, is beaten and destroyed."

Believe it or not, in the savage war in Guatemala in the 1980s, the Reds carried on in exactly the same self-devouring way.

In fact, the former director of Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu's Foundation, Gustavo Meoño, who had left it in 1993 for high-sounding motives, was himself accused in 1998 of former involvement in nasty goings on within the guerillas' own ranks (Stoll-271).

The charge?

He, too, had been implicated in the Stalinist-style summary trial and execution of fellow comrades in the so-called Guerrilla Army of the Poor, or as Stoll tactfully puts it, he "was among the figures accused of responsibility for the murder of three EGP members in 1982 (Stoll-271)." Plus footnote 18, page 310: 'Dos crimenes en la agenda del EGP,' Crónica, March 27, 1998,p. 28.

My, oh my! "The more things change, the more they stay exactly the same!"

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