Hat tip to reader James A Foleyи for reminding me of a prominent but seemingly forgotten voice from the recent past, Alexandr Zinoviev, major heavy-duty philosopher and socio-economic analyst who was deemed a Soviet Dissident and exiled only to return to his shattered homeland to write about what was done to it and how—the and how part being the most important for our understanding and deeper analysis of what’s happening today.
Indeed! I find it "profound" as you wrote it. I find it a essential reading. I begun to read Zinoviev when I was 16 years old, meaning 50 years ago, and wherever I go or move in, he follows me... His works are always on my shelves and I read him again and again regularly. He was, for me, at that time and even today, a kind of visionary. His words and thoughts have proven to be accurate and acutely correct and are highly relevant today... I am grateful indeed... Who really read him today? Few...unfortunately. So! Your article is a great gift. Thank you!
Given his content, I hope he sees a resurrection in patronage, which I expect will happen once his concept of Westernism is more fully read, discussed and understood. For me, it augments what is meant by "The West" for it's not just the Outlaw US Empire that's driving the train to the broken bridge over the chasm. Nor did it arise after WW2, which IMO is another very important point. You're fortunate to have known him for many years. Although I've long had my own ism, I didn't get exposed to philosophy as a discipline until I was in my early 40s. mid-1990s. Thanks for your feedback!
This is truly a gem. It is incredible how prophetic this interview from 1999 is! Indeed there are many parts/section worth of emphasis. A few comments:
- "There is no longer a political force in the West capable of protecting ordinary citizens. The existence of political parties is a mere formality. They will differ less and less as time goes on."
This is so true, especially now in countries like US, UK, Italy
- "Environmentalists, who are in power in some countries, welcomed the environmental catastrophe caused by the NATO bombings."
Like the Greens in Germany, one name above all: Annalena Baerbock
- "I believe that the monstrosity of the 21st century will surpass everything that mankind has seen to this day."
I think he was very right. What Israel is doing in the Middle East (first with the genocide of Palestinians and now with the weaponization of common items in Lebanon) and the Paris Olympics are the epitomy of monstrosity!
- "these days, people are so well shepherded that they react only the way that the purveyors of propaganda want them to."
Luckily this is not true - see pro-Palestine demonstrations across the world.
- Finally, I would have emphasized most of the answer to this question: "According to Marx, apart from violence and cruelty, colonization also brought with it the blessings of civilization. Perhaps the history of mankind is simply repeating itself at this new stage?"
IMO, colonization didn't bring anything of benefit to those conquered by it. Ghandi's quip about Western Civilization--that it would be great if it ever happens--was quite correct. Otherwise, yes an additional essay could be written just parsing his main points, which would have made it twice as long and a potential turn-off for readers who can't take it all in. My goal is to have readers read, not open the article, sniff at it, then decide it's too much, or they don't have time, or whatever and fail to return to read and learn.
Thank your also for this Zinoviev interview - a very deep thinker he was. It invites to a discussion about the societal values, who imposes the values, the use of global resources, the future of mankind. Will the globalization lead to disappearance of nations? Will the administration of societies be made simpler for ruling classes with the use of artificial intelligence, i.e. will the percentage of society needed to keep control over the entire population be actually lower than Zinoviev projects? no matter how you slice it, it makes me see dark. Zinoviev has in some respects seen farther in the future than many. His thoughts remind me of the words of S. Lavrov, who stated -paraphrasing- that world without Russia would not be worth living in.
He was not the only one who has seen the danger of americanism/westernism - I remember from my youth, that in the 1960-70s there were voices in the West warning about the "Coca Cola" neon signs all over the world.
I see Zinoviev's thinking resonating within the BRICS philosophy of resistance and within Putin's philosophy of governance. The discussion within Team Putin to recognize his centenary was probably fascinating. The "voices" began vocalizing soon after WW2 in films and Broadway productions that would never be produced today.
The interview was done at the height of Western Dominance and contains what amounts to prophecy, but I think Zinoviev underestimated India and China’s growth, Russia’s resiliency and the decay over time of the Western Globalist System.
Predictions are hard things to make. Geopolitically, the shift geoeconomically began with the Dot.Com bust and so-called Asian Financial Crisis of 1998-9 that showed the great instability of the US banking system and subsequent ability to support Empire over time. I was studying China's economic rise at the time and saw what was happening and what would be possible for China. The drain on the Empire with its wars is marked by its deindustrialization over the subsequent period of time. As I understand it, Zinoviev's Westernism also seeks to dominate the Outlaw US Empire which is why it's been "tricked" into that behavior. A new system is forming to displace Westernism.
What Zinoviev tells us is an old story, much of which is true- the destruction of the Soviet Union was deliberate and the culmination of a campaign which lasted throughout the existence of the country, indeed as Zinoviev suggests, it was the shaping force which determined the nature of the Soviet Union.
On the other hand, and the interviewer was not much help, much of what Zinoviev trots out particularly on the nature of western society is Frankfurt Scholasticism. Far from being lost Liberalism is triumphant- the world according to imperialism is liberalism which is the theory of capitalist class rule.
The great 'miracle' of western economic progress in the post war period was one side of a coin, on the obverse was the unprecedented immiseration of the "south" an immiseration mobilised by the wars against the poor, against democracy, against progress, against all those 'values' that idiots still convince themselves are associated with the imperialist 'west' , the Empire and its clients, sub feudatory agents in the reduction of Latin America, Africa and Asia to serfdom under the American lord.
The interview is old, in hindsight we know better: since 1999 we have seen the break up of the consensus in the imperial metropoli, the attacks on the masses that Zinoviev rightly saw as consequences of the defeat of Soviet 'Communism' have come to be recognised by the very people whose agency both Zinoviev and his interviewer write off: the possibility of social revolution is increasing all the time, the energy of mass disilusionment, fear of the future and resentment of elites simply requires a vehicle, an organising principle, a political fulcrum and nothing, short of Armageddon can stop it coming.
There were many telling remarks but none perhaps more than Zinoviev's insistence that the weight of India and China in the world was inconsiderable by comparison with that of the imperium- nobody could possible subscribe now to such a proposition.
Already China has, in many indices, including that of military force, come to a material (no need to speak of moral) parity with the US and its creatures. And India despite its neo-Nazi RSS guides cannot but play the role that history has assigned it as one of the original victims of capitalist imperialism. Nor is it coincidental that the founders of liberalism and fascism, Bentham and the Mills notably among them, feasted off the exploitation of India and justified the ruthless regime established over it by the City of London and Parliament in Westminster.
Nothing more exemplifies the moral and political confusion of the Cold War and the western academy in which the likes of Zinoviev found refuge and succour than the interviewer's, obviously sincere, contrasting of the 'totalitarian ruthlessness' of the Soviet state, one of whose greatest sins was to assist the popular government in Kabul, with the liberal generosity and consideration exemplified not only in the serial genocides in Indo China, Indonesia and every inch of Latin America, not to mention Africa and Palestine but in the wars against poor people, trade unions, social movements, indigenous uprisings in which tens of millions were killed and hundreds of millions made victims of the pillage of their resources.
The nature of both systems is easily measured by the life expectancy of those who lived within their realms: in the imperialist sphere the average life expectancy declined in the 'socialist' world, despite the distortions forced upon governments by the requirement to provide against military aggression, it rose pretty generally.
It was this that obviously shocked Zinoviev when he returned to Russia under Yeltsin/Clinton, relieved of its 'totalitarianism' and its adherence to the most basic rules of decency, and found that life expectancy had plummeted and his fellow countrymen had been reduced to famine mitigated only by the war of all against all.
Thanks for your critique bevin. I only have one of his translated works that will be examined later in perhaps as many as three parts given its length. The next is a shorter piece published in 2015 that deals with a discussion by the Zinoviev Club about his Westernism concept.
You're welcome. Kind of you to call mine a critique.
Among the other errors that I think Zinoviev (any relation?) makes was his characterisation of Marx's views on India and the effects of imperialism- it has long been a staple among vulgar marxists to claim that Marx was unaware of the devastation that Capitalism caused in rural communities and insensitive to the human suffering that 'modernisation' caused. This makes it very easy for environmentalists to dismiss him and his ideas as just another brand of C19th positivism celebrating the rise of industry, which takes us half way to concluding that class analysis and critiques of capitalism are out of date and unproductive. We have seen the way in which generations of Greens have abandoned socialist critiques of capitalism and slipped, effortlessly, into becoming greenwashing consultants for corporations.
Anyway keep up the great work that you do. You don't need to be told that it is important and that its importance lies in the fact that the ruling class cannot, in the end, ever succeed in getting even the youngest and most ill-educated of people to support their own destruction. The idea that the masses are or can be 'brainwashed' is just a way of saying that we are too tired or distracted to carry on telling power the truth and questioning everything.
As to Zinoviev if he was indeed the son of peasants he was one of many in the Soviet Union- Russians and others- who became philosophers after generations in which there was virtually no possibility of anyone not born to a wealthy or noble family attaining literacy, let alone a knowledge of philosophy. Zinoviev's wonder at the scientific prowess of the imperialists is all the more peculiar when one considers the enormous achievements of Soviet Science, engineering and medicine.
Thanks again bevin. Zinoviev made it to 84 surviving WW2. That experience surely colored his further life and outlook. And the technological advances during his time were amazing drastically changing life.
Thank you for this great article... I am grateful.
You're welcome! Did you find it profound? The next articles about his work will need to share space with current events, but they will come.
Indeed! I find it "profound" as you wrote it. I find it a essential reading. I begun to read Zinoviev when I was 16 years old, meaning 50 years ago, and wherever I go or move in, he follows me... His works are always on my shelves and I read him again and again regularly. He was, for me, at that time and even today, a kind of visionary. His words and thoughts have proven to be accurate and acutely correct and are highly relevant today... I am grateful indeed... Who really read him today? Few...unfortunately. So! Your article is a great gift. Thank you!
Given his content, I hope he sees a resurrection in patronage, which I expect will happen once his concept of Westernism is more fully read, discussed and understood. For me, it augments what is meant by "The West" for it's not just the Outlaw US Empire that's driving the train to the broken bridge over the chasm. Nor did it arise after WW2, which IMO is another very important point. You're fortunate to have known him for many years. Although I've long had my own ism, I didn't get exposed to philosophy as a discipline until I was in my early 40s. mid-1990s. Thanks for your feedback!
I had pretty much forgotten him - many thanks. The interview is greatly appreciated.
This is truly a gem. It is incredible how prophetic this interview from 1999 is! Indeed there are many parts/section worth of emphasis. A few comments:
- "There is no longer a political force in the West capable of protecting ordinary citizens. The existence of political parties is a mere formality. They will differ less and less as time goes on."
This is so true, especially now in countries like US, UK, Italy
- "Environmentalists, who are in power in some countries, welcomed the environmental catastrophe caused by the NATO bombings."
Like the Greens in Germany, one name above all: Annalena Baerbock
- "I believe that the monstrosity of the 21st century will surpass everything that mankind has seen to this day."
I think he was very right. What Israel is doing in the Middle East (first with the genocide of Palestinians and now with the weaponization of common items in Lebanon) and the Paris Olympics are the epitomy of monstrosity!
- "these days, people are so well shepherded that they react only the way that the purveyors of propaganda want them to."
Luckily this is not true - see pro-Palestine demonstrations across the world.
- Finally, I would have emphasized most of the answer to this question: "According to Marx, apart from violence and cruelty, colonization also brought with it the blessings of civilization. Perhaps the history of mankind is simply repeating itself at this new stage?"
IMO, colonization didn't bring anything of benefit to those conquered by it. Ghandi's quip about Western Civilization--that it would be great if it ever happens--was quite correct. Otherwise, yes an additional essay could be written just parsing his main points, which would have made it twice as long and a potential turn-off for readers who can't take it all in. My goal is to have readers read, not open the article, sniff at it, then decide it's too much, or they don't have time, or whatever and fail to return to read and learn.
Because our species doesn't learn from its mistakes🤦♀️ We're witnessing exactly how Hitler did it.
Well, that's true for some. But as we see from Russia and elsewhere, learning is certainly ongoing and in a different direction from Westernism.
Thank your also for this Zinoviev interview - a very deep thinker he was. It invites to a discussion about the societal values, who imposes the values, the use of global resources, the future of mankind. Will the globalization lead to disappearance of nations? Will the administration of societies be made simpler for ruling classes with the use of artificial intelligence, i.e. will the percentage of society needed to keep control over the entire population be actually lower than Zinoviev projects? no matter how you slice it, it makes me see dark. Zinoviev has in some respects seen farther in the future than many. His thoughts remind me of the words of S. Lavrov, who stated -paraphrasing- that world without Russia would not be worth living in.
He was not the only one who has seen the danger of americanism/westernism - I remember from my youth, that in the 1960-70s there were voices in the West warning about the "Coca Cola" neon signs all over the world.
I see Zinoviev's thinking resonating within the BRICS philosophy of resistance and within Putin's philosophy of governance. The discussion within Team Putin to recognize his centenary was probably fascinating. The "voices" began vocalizing soon after WW2 in films and Broadway productions that would never be produced today.
The interview was done at the height of Western Dominance and contains what amounts to prophecy, but I think Zinoviev underestimated India and China’s growth, Russia’s resiliency and the decay over time of the Western Globalist System.
Predictions are hard things to make. Geopolitically, the shift geoeconomically began with the Dot.Com bust and so-called Asian Financial Crisis of 1998-9 that showed the great instability of the US banking system and subsequent ability to support Empire over time. I was studying China's economic rise at the time and saw what was happening and what would be possible for China. The drain on the Empire with its wars is marked by its deindustrialization over the subsequent period of time. As I understand it, Zinoviev's Westernism also seeks to dominate the Outlaw US Empire which is why it's been "tricked" into that behavior. A new system is forming to displace Westernism.
Interesting, but hardly profound.
What Zinoviev tells us is an old story, much of which is true- the destruction of the Soviet Union was deliberate and the culmination of a campaign which lasted throughout the existence of the country, indeed as Zinoviev suggests, it was the shaping force which determined the nature of the Soviet Union.
On the other hand, and the interviewer was not much help, much of what Zinoviev trots out particularly on the nature of western society is Frankfurt Scholasticism. Far from being lost Liberalism is triumphant- the world according to imperialism is liberalism which is the theory of capitalist class rule.
The great 'miracle' of western economic progress in the post war period was one side of a coin, on the obverse was the unprecedented immiseration of the "south" an immiseration mobilised by the wars against the poor, against democracy, against progress, against all those 'values' that idiots still convince themselves are associated with the imperialist 'west' , the Empire and its clients, sub feudatory agents in the reduction of Latin America, Africa and Asia to serfdom under the American lord.
The interview is old, in hindsight we know better: since 1999 we have seen the break up of the consensus in the imperial metropoli, the attacks on the masses that Zinoviev rightly saw as consequences of the defeat of Soviet 'Communism' have come to be recognised by the very people whose agency both Zinoviev and his interviewer write off: the possibility of social revolution is increasing all the time, the energy of mass disilusionment, fear of the future and resentment of elites simply requires a vehicle, an organising principle, a political fulcrum and nothing, short of Armageddon can stop it coming.
There were many telling remarks but none perhaps more than Zinoviev's insistence that the weight of India and China in the world was inconsiderable by comparison with that of the imperium- nobody could possible subscribe now to such a proposition.
Already China has, in many indices, including that of military force, come to a material (no need to speak of moral) parity with the US and its creatures. And India despite its neo-Nazi RSS guides cannot but play the role that history has assigned it as one of the original victims of capitalist imperialism. Nor is it coincidental that the founders of liberalism and fascism, Bentham and the Mills notably among them, feasted off the exploitation of India and justified the ruthless regime established over it by the City of London and Parliament in Westminster.
Nothing more exemplifies the moral and political confusion of the Cold War and the western academy in which the likes of Zinoviev found refuge and succour than the interviewer's, obviously sincere, contrasting of the 'totalitarian ruthlessness' of the Soviet state, one of whose greatest sins was to assist the popular government in Kabul, with the liberal generosity and consideration exemplified not only in the serial genocides in Indo China, Indonesia and every inch of Latin America, not to mention Africa and Palestine but in the wars against poor people, trade unions, social movements, indigenous uprisings in which tens of millions were killed and hundreds of millions made victims of the pillage of their resources.
The nature of both systems is easily measured by the life expectancy of those who lived within their realms: in the imperialist sphere the average life expectancy declined in the 'socialist' world, despite the distortions forced upon governments by the requirement to provide against military aggression, it rose pretty generally.
It was this that obviously shocked Zinoviev when he returned to Russia under Yeltsin/Clinton, relieved of its 'totalitarianism' and its adherence to the most basic rules of decency, and found that life expectancy had plummeted and his fellow countrymen had been reduced to famine mitigated only by the war of all against all.
Thanks for your critique bevin. I only have one of his translated works that will be examined later in perhaps as many as three parts given its length. The next is a shorter piece published in 2015 that deals with a discussion by the Zinoviev Club about his Westernism concept.
You're welcome. Kind of you to call mine a critique.
Among the other errors that I think Zinoviev (any relation?) makes was his characterisation of Marx's views on India and the effects of imperialism- it has long been a staple among vulgar marxists to claim that Marx was unaware of the devastation that Capitalism caused in rural communities and insensitive to the human suffering that 'modernisation' caused. This makes it very easy for environmentalists to dismiss him and his ideas as just another brand of C19th positivism celebrating the rise of industry, which takes us half way to concluding that class analysis and critiques of capitalism are out of date and unproductive. We have seen the way in which generations of Greens have abandoned socialist critiques of capitalism and slipped, effortlessly, into becoming greenwashing consultants for corporations.
Anyway keep up the great work that you do. You don't need to be told that it is important and that its importance lies in the fact that the ruling class cannot, in the end, ever succeed in getting even the youngest and most ill-educated of people to support their own destruction. The idea that the masses are or can be 'brainwashed' is just a way of saying that we are too tired or distracted to carry on telling power the truth and questioning everything.
As to Zinoviev if he was indeed the son of peasants he was one of many in the Soviet Union- Russians and others- who became philosophers after generations in which there was virtually no possibility of anyone not born to a wealthy or noble family attaining literacy, let alone a knowledge of philosophy. Zinoviev's wonder at the scientific prowess of the imperialists is all the more peculiar when one considers the enormous achievements of Soviet Science, engineering and medicine.
Thanks again bevin. Zinoviev made it to 84 surviving WW2. That experience surely colored his further life and outlook. And the technological advances during his time were amazing drastically changing life.
What a rich gift! To be read and re-read... Thank you!
Brilliant! Thank you for sharing this.