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An Intelligent Coed's Guide to Socialism
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12409 |
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Section : |
SPECIAL SECTION
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1987 |
4,059 Words |
| Author
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Tom Wolfe
Tom Wolfe established an international reputation in the mid-
1960s as a proponent of the "New Journalism," which combined
elements of fiction, scholarship, and news reporting. His
books of the period, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine Flake
Streamline Baby (1965), The Pump House Gang (1968), the
Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968), and Radical Chic and Mau
Mauing the Flak Catchers (1970) pioneered the style. Best
known of the seven books he has published since then is The
Right Stuff (1979), on the first U.S. astronauts, which was
made into a major film. He is currently a contributing editor
of Esquire magazine. |
I happened to mention to a friend of mine, a writer, that I was going to Washington to a conference on "False Images of U.S and Soviet Values," sponsored by the State Department and the Shavano Institute. His comment was, "Oh, Christ, that Evil Empire stuff again." Now, I know this fellow would not object to anything anyone might tell him about the Soviet Union. You could level the worst charges you could dream up. It would be all the same to him. But for people to stand up in front of an audience and say these things in public--that was bad taste.
Why? It has nothing to do with his opinion of the Soviet Union, which isn't very high. It has to do with the fact that you are saying something about socialism. And why is there this extraordinary regard, in these, the dying years of the twentieth century, for socialism? Even to say "socialism" shows politeness on my part. I often catch myself doing this. I say "socialism" when I mean "communism" "Socialism" is more . . . refined.
William Kunstler has said no progressive person should criticize a socialist regime, no matter how oppressive its politics might seem. But what we usually encounter is the notion that its all right to criticize a socialist regime--but not for its socialism. Last year Jack Newfield wrote a piece for The Village Voice called "Cry for Afghanistan." He had gone through the copies of The Village Voice over the five years since the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, and he had discovered only four references to it. Three were favorable to the Soviet Union's role. The fourth was neutral.
One piece, by Alexander Cockburn, said that Afghanistan was a country that deserved to be raped. Newfield said it was time to face facts and admit that the invasion of Afghanistan was an atrocity. It was time The Voice took a stand. And then, as you read this piece, you begin to see that he's afraid what he is saying might be misinterpreted. It might be construed as an attack on the kind of regime that the Soviet Union has, namely, a communist regime. So, he comes up with this peroration: "In my mind the Soviet Union is now part of the Right, not the Left. Its oppression of domestic dissidents like Andrei Sakharov, its miserable role in Poland, its invasion of Afghanistan, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, all make it seem like Ronald Reagan and J. Edgar Hoover have ruled Russia. And, that is why we should not cheer the rape of Afghanistan."
Marvelous stuff! If I were going to construct this conceit, if I were going to pick two people who were not actually ruling Russia
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