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Communism

Operation Kronstadt Book Review

Harry Ferguson’s Operation Kronstadt [Amazon link] filled in a gap in a time (1919-20) and a place (St. Petersburg) that I had known nearly nothing about. The book starts slow, and then builds and builds up to a genuinely thrilling climax. For events now more than a hundred years

The Long View 2006-12-04: Chaos, Social Darwinism, Patronage Socialism

John J. Reilly poo-poohs criticizing the high cousin marriage rate in the Middle East, but it really is bad….. Genetics wasn’t really one of his interests, but I thought it was more widely known that cousin marriage makes your kids dumber and sicker than they would be otherwise. Chaos,

The Long View 2006-03-21: Villainous VP; Stargate Nostalgia; Holy Schlock; Capitalism & Mechanism

With the recent rise in popularity of Communism on the American Catholic Left, John's musing on what makes a good businessman is apropos. A note about capitalism, the moral import of which is widely misunderstood. Capitalism is not the ideology of greed; quite the opposite. It is a

The Long View 2006-01-07: The Next China & the Next Socialism; The Next Liturgy

There is another silly reference to Gordon Chang here [still wrong], but this quote is interesting: That said, though, we are probably about to enter a generation in which there will be greater distrust of market mechanisms. What distinguishes the early 21st century from the early 20th is the almost

The Long View: Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey

John mentions the Rosenbergs in passing here, citing a book by Ron Radosh. I knew that the Venona transcripts had decisively identified the Rosenbergs as Soviet spies in 1995, Radosh put the pieces together without classified information in 1983. Well done. John also mentions other former Leftist radicals like Eldridge

The Long View 2003-10-24: The War of Ideas

I'm not sure what it was about the Soviet Union that inspired so many bright people to love it, but are no lack of examples. At least Duranty didn't have to live in USSR like Kim Philby did. The War of Ideas Donald Rumsfeld has been

The Long View: If the Loyalists Had Won the Spanish Civil War

Here the first of three essays by John on the Spanish Civil War, covering both the history, and the alternative history of an in-edifying episode in a terrible century. That war was was the trial run for World War II, and perhaps in a way even the Cold War. In