That would be an
interesting
line of inquiry.
Ezra-Pound-Speaking
The Brain Trust scheme seems to ignore the Orient altogether.
My scheme was impartial.
It contained one Axis language, one anti-Axis language, and one Oriental language, or other means of communication.
I was considering civilization at large, and a means of full communication, not merely a commercial stenography. I believe it would be about as simple to learn to write in a foreign tongue as to restrict oneself to Ogden's basic English vocabulary. That may be because I have written in French and Italian, and have not worried about keeping inside a restricted vocabulary.
My proposal was, as I say, tri-lingual. Italian, English, and ideogram. That is, Chinese ideogram used as a written tongue, but with Japanese pronunciation. That gives you the languages of Confucius, Shakespeare, and Dante. There is no sentiment in this selection. You say the Germans would never accept this. That is, you don't say so because you are quite crazy in talking of re-educating nations which are far more educated than you are. I believe our Germans would place unsentimental reasons first, the Germans are more diligent than other men, great numbers of them habitually-- --. Secondly, my opinion is-- --I omitted the German language, because that language retains more inflections than the three languages I selected.
I say, ideogram with Japanese pronunciation, because almost no foreigner can pronounce Chinese properly, let alone manage the tones, because the pronunciation varies with the different regions of China, and because I find no agreements as how the sounds, such as one can understand, or really hear, should be transcribed in our alphabet. Whereas the Japanese is phonetically simple as the Italian, whose sounds
? in many ways they resemble. I say Italian, not French, not merely for political reasons. French is hell to pronounce. You have to screw up your nose for the nasals. Apart from the political, Italian is spoken like she is writ. No monkey business. Every letter is pronounced in the same way wherever it occurs. The only apparent exception is the c and ch before a and o. Before a and o, c is hard and before i and e it is soft. The hard sound is written ch before i and e. But the spelling is uniform and follows in all cases and there are no-- --.
I would suggest that the Japanese sign for the syllables, for the sound of the syllables, be transliterated to the Roman alphabet when they accompany the ideogram. Let me explain. The written Chinese is common in both Japan and China. All those written signs are the same for Japan and all China. Anyone who reads them in one place knows what they mean in another. It is the common tongue or common written tongue for all those millions.
As English, with its variants is common to England, and the United States, and is a lingua franca for India. I take into account distribution. The number of people who already know each of the languages mentioned. It is as easy to learn Italian as to learn Esperanto. It does not cut the fingers and toes off any one's thought. And that can be borne out by anyone of the hundred Englishmen who have studied with Professor Morelli. It is high time you looked into his methods. But apart from Morelli's methods, based on words almost identical in the two languages or at least perfectly recognizable as from English to Italian or from Italian to English, Italian is the simplest descendent from Latin.
Latin, the universal stronghold of European snobs for nearly 2000 years. Italian is clearer than Latin, you might say maturer than Latin. They boasted-- --translated-- --using fewer words in his Italian version than are used in the Latin original. Intelligent auditors can go on with his talk -- --. The intelligent auditor ought to be able to think of objections and answer them. The Brain Trust, if it weren't utterly frivolous, would take
? up the subject. It is a non-political subject. It is outside the conflict. It has to do with the possible future. It does not set out any advantages of Basic English to those who choose to go on from the start Ogden made. But Ogden is too lazy to think of any developments, on his first outline. He hadn't even got the-- --or to the introductory notes on the [Fenollosa? ] essay notes on the written character.
I offer this as a challenge. If the Brain Trust is just one more part of the present system, as Chesterton has defined it, an instrument to blot out the public memory, an instrument for destroying the public memory, said G. K. C. when he wrote----December, 1939, in his weekly. Blotting out the past so that people shall not learn from it, distracting them from present realities with a mirage of an impossible future. Well, the break from Italian to English is very short if you follow Morelli, or from English to Italian. That makes the universal language for Europe, a double language, not only of commerce but of culture. The fear of the ideogram is due largely to ignorance. I have followed Fenollosa and the tract is most thorny. He needs more printed manuals such as I have begun to print here, in my edition of The Great Learning, the Testament of Confucius.
And anyhow, when you people talk of a one language system, you mean mostly one language for Europe and America. Very few of you think of the rest at all.
#101 (June 22, 1943) U. S. (C64) STALIN
"The first contradiction is the antagonism between labor and capital," wrote Stalin 21 years ago. "Imperialism is the export of capital to the sources of raw materials," wrote Mr. Stalin, 21 years ago, in his highly vivacious little brochure, "The Foundations of Leninism. "
? Tsarist Russia was an immense reserve force for western imperialism, not only in that it gave free entry to foreign capital which controlled decisive branches of Russian economy like fuel and metallurgy, but also that it could furnish millions of soldiers to the western imperialists.
Russian army, 12 million strong; shed its blood on imperialist fronts to safeguard the staggering profits of Anglo-French capitalists. Tsarism was the agent of western imperialism in squeezing hundreds of millions from the population by way of interest on loans floated in Paris, London, etc. , faithful ally in partitioning Turkey, Persia, China, etc. Was not Russia an essential factor in this war? Joe is speaking of the war that had occurred before he wrote his little brochure. As to this war: some estimates give 30 million as the cost to Russia, 30 million human lives.
The Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution is based on three fundamental issues.
First thesis, the domination of finance capital in the advanced capitalist countries, the issue of stocks and bonds as the principal operation of finance capital, the export of capital to the sources of raw materials, which is one of the bases of imperialism, the OMNIPOTENCE of a financial oligarchy, a consequence of the dominations of financial capital. All these reveal the crudely parasitic character of monopolist capitalism, make the yoke of the capitalist trusts and syndicates 100 times more burdensome.
Perhaps Col. McCormick had better get the pamphlet and read it. Tenth anniversary edition, International Publishers, 100,000 copies at 10 cents, probably reprinted dozens of times during the past decade, as they will have already celebrated a 20th anniversary.
The Col. has heard recently, i. e. , in the course of the early spring of this year, of the American Constitution. I dunno whether he has yet passed the stages of his beardless youth, eh, the MENTAL stages. If he had
? been a serious character SOONER, he would have used his enormous printing space for the reprint of the thought of the American founders, Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren, and the distribution of the works of the Adams descendents. BUT he omitted it. And I don't 'spose he listens in to Rome radio. So somebody better tell him.
Twenty years ago Stalin was talkin' about self-criticisms within the proletarian parties, their education and instruction on the basis of their own mistakes. The proletariat, wrote Mr. Stalin, can not retain power if it does not possess adequate educated administrative cadres, ready for and capable of organizing the administration of the country. It's the question of the advance with seven-league strides to raise the cultural level that gives one pause. Instead of educatin' and teachin' the party true revolutionary tactics from a study of its own mistakes, we find a studied evasion of thorny questions, which are glossed over and veiled. "Left wing communism, and infantile discord," the words are not mine, but Lenin's.
Mr. Stalin said in regard to slogans and resolutions that it was enough to recall the history of the famous watchword "war against war," to realize the utter falsity and rottenness of the political processes of these parties which veil, etc. There really seems to have been little doubt as to Stalin's direction in 1922. His mind appears to have been remarkably clear.
The main query to be raised at this moment, when Mr. Stalin is undoubtedly as victorious INSIDE the U. S. and Britain, as U. S. particular interests are being in absorbing the flesh pots of Empire, (British empire first), the main query is as to the nature and direction of the evolution of revolution in the United States. I know it is exceedingly difficult to get a general idea into, let us say, Co. McCormick's head or Hamilton Fish's. Do we move toward REVOLUTION, as from man toward the amoeba, or do we move, or even desire to move toward an integration of the individual AS component of the general social scene?
? Do we want to be taken to pieces, separated into spare parts, quite spare and utterly separable, at the rate say of 30 million a shot, functioning at a lower level, or do we wish to maintain that complexity to which the human organism BIOLOGICALLY, BI/O/LOG/ICALLy has evolved during millennia, or however it did evolve?
Does the infantile disorder recognize that the homestead works better, or even might in certain conditions work better, function better than the kolkhoz? That is a superficial query. If the homestead displays a higher mechanical efficiency than the kolkhoz, how far should it be opposed? Can it be opposed as a matter of principle? In short, how protean is materialism anyway? Can it take on so new an aspect? Are the cadres gettin' educated seven-leagued enough for the circumstance? And after all, is a theory about the mutability of materialism any more binding than a signed contract?
I 'spect if the Colonel, Col. McCormick, is listening, or if anyone is kind enough to stenograph this discourse, the Col. is by now about all bawled up. Mebbe he is trying to ride on a party that just AIN'T guided by an advanced theory. What can one do with a country in which NEITHER party is literate? All this should hook onto S. Welles' pieties about economic aggression. But I am at the end of my time.
#102 (June 26, 1943) U. S. (C65) MATERIALISM
An idea is colored by what it is dipped in. Take for example the more or less Teutonic idea of materialism. Marx and Engels get to foolin' 'round with Hegel's philosophy, or something, and evolve or devolve what is called Marxian materialism, and it gets toted off into Russia. And after 25 years, what do we have? We have these howlin' Slavs: gone off on a purely metaphysical, typically Russian crusade. As crazy as any excess of the middle ages. Utterly OB/liv/i/ous of the material facts. That is to say, I suppose anyone will admit that the German workman is
? MATERIALLY better off than the Russian opposite number. Materially speakin', the factory reforms proposed by Robert Owen and the ideas of Hobhouse that Marx so approved of in fact all the British aims that caused Marx to write his Xth chapter Best chapter in Das Kapital so far as I am concerned. Well all that AIM, to get the workin' man decently fed, and clothed, and housed, and given decent livin conditions and hours of labor has we believe gone further in Germany than in Russia. Despite labels and programs.
I have heard it said that Germany has gone communist but nobody can accuse Europe of havin' gone RUSSIAN, or Germany of havin' gone Russian. Marx looked at England, and thought about Germany, and something got set loose in Russia into which country inspection has long been denied. For years nobody was supposed to LOOK at what actually happened. It was all metaphysical. Nice programs and dire results. And Russians certainly in ignorance of living conditions of working men elsewhere. What causes that? Maybe it is the material nature of the slavic animal or of the Tartar fanatic.
However look back at some of the words in the program Materialism: what does it mean? Are you for it? Are you for WHATEVER it means? Or do you on occasion like to know what you mean, or what you are shouting for? Are you a materialist WHATEVER it means, or are you a materialist only on condition that it means something in particular, something rather than something else?
George Santayana calls himself a materialist. It rather shocked old William James. Ole William told young George, he was younger at that stage of world history, that his, Santayana's philosophy was organized rottenness. I can not agree with fuzzy old James. It appears to me that George Santayana rather agrees with Thomas Aquinas. I mean the materialist Santayana ends up by writin' a book called The Realm of Spirit. I occasionally plunge into the work to calm my heated mind. I mean when I am not up to Confucius and Mencius. And Thomas
? Aquinas says somewhere that the soul is the first ACT of an organic body. Well, I ask George Santayana what THAT means. And he says entelechy, which seems to me to be dodgin' behind a Greek word. But anyhow, a materialist definition of the soul seems to be that it is the first act, or first action, or first condition of an organic body. Don't ASK me. I am merely trying to show how far the word or idea materialist can be stretched by people who play with abstractions. Marx's theory of value always seemed to me metaphysical.
But to get down to brass material tacks. Does a Marxian materialist prefer human conditions for labor to inhuman conditions? Do the actual material advances in the conditions of German working men count for anything in a material universe? Or does the Marxian materialist prefer the Russian enwarped and metaphysical state, wherein no one has a room of her own?
I think it matters. I think it is a question of administration, material administration. I am all for local control. The principle of local control has made some advances during the past weeks. I mean on paper, and in the aerial discussion. On paper, or in the air, the comintern has declared for local control or administration. But is that material or metaphysical? I think it matters very much WHO administers. I think the future of any party, communist or other, in the U. S. A. depends very greatly on the men, on the personality of the men who CONTROL it. I am all for responsibility, personal responsibility. I fail to see what PRINCIPLE of materialism or metaphysicality has to do with the machine gunning of three year old kids. I fail to see where the invasion of one country by another hitches up to the program of any set of idealists, whether Moscovite or Democratic, i. e. , plutocratic. Does the dissolution of the Comintern mean that Moscow proposes that every nation should be administered by members OF that nation or race?
That would be an interesting line of inquiry. The suppression for all material and practical purposes of nearly all South American government seems rather out of
? line, with this dissolution of international aspirations on the part of the comintern.
The nipping, not in the bud, but in the decayed and gangrenous remnants on London's usurocratic grasp on large parts of most continents is of course a spectacular play against the economic oppression (past tense of economic aggression) of the London plutocracy. That might be all to the good, if the U. S. hadn't decayed into something very like, or possibly worse than the British methods of the late 18th century, impression of seamen included. But in the oedeniatous decomposition of the U. S. plutocracy and usurocracy, what assurance has anyone, or what assurance is anyone in the U. S. trying to get, that the New Steal in the U. S. A. will be under local control?
There is really so much to say that I find it difficult to divide it up into ten minute samples. Are you heading for a RUSSIAN control of the U. S. , the U. S. of A. , or the U. S. of Europe? What assurance is anyone in the U. S. trying to obtain that Kansas and Illinois will be controlled in ANY way by denizens of those geographic parts of the American union?
Yes, I know, people are being sent out FROM the U. S. to take over control in ex-Persia, now labeled Iran, etc. and vast tracts of the ex- British oppressed dominions are fallin' under Wall St. control. But what is it MATERIALLY to the folks who have mortgaged their farms to the Milk Trust?
#103 (June 29, 1943) U. S. (C67) COMMUNIST MILLIONAIRES
Is Mr. Roosevelt a Communist? Is Mr. Lehman a Communist? Is Mr. Morgenthau a Communist, is Mr. Bullitt, or Sir V. Sassoon, and if not why not? And what becomes of their millions, what becomes of their private fortunes when Communism takes over control of the U. S. A. ? And if not, why not? And is the American Communist Party, now freed
? from the apron strings of the comintern, is the American Communist Party governed by Wall Street? And if not, WHY not? And if not, why this continual export of capital to places abroad?
And then there come these proposals, these money proposals, these starvation proposals, these restriction proposals. Of course any scheme to take control of the nation's money, to take the control of ANY nation's money away from that nation and vest it in Mr. Lehman or any other private shyster, or gang of shysters, resident either at home or abroad, is a booby trap. Such a trap was sprung on the gullible American people in 1863. And they have never recovered, not really. Not in 1943, such a booby trap can not be sprung on the outer world without at least someone in the said outer world's being made aware of it.
Even that Skinner of Rabbits, Prof. Keynes or Lord Keynes, the British proletarian specialist, has smelt the dead fish in the proposal for unitas, as the continent can smell the dead eels in Mr. Keynes' banker or bunk/ or, what will you. And this question of who CONTROLS the central; of who wingles the wangles is of importance. There is no need to transport the problem onto the international checkerboard. When the people of Nebraska lost control of its money, i. e. , when Congress ceased to function constitutionally, and every state ceased to have a voice in the control of the national currency, that was a booby trap.
The nation did not react effectively. There were some voices uplifted in protest. When I was a boy, when your fathers were children, there were still voices uplifted in protest. But why suppose the whole world is as naive as the U. S. was at the end of the American Civil War? The bank game is simple, it is run on what are called classic lines. It is run on what Lord Keynes, the British proletarian specialist, used to call the lines of ORTHODOX economics. Meaning that the bankers collect 60% interest on the actual money, or that they collect interest on 90% of everyone's money, which they create out of thin air, wild phantasy, and a few bits of engraven paper.
? OH, that they vary the currency, the purchasing power of money. When the bankers have money, it is of very great value, you have to pay for it thru the nose. But when you get a bit of it, its value evaporates. The game is as old as Aaron, it was denounced in the time of Thucydides. "Banish your dotage, banish usury/that makes the Senate ugly," remarked the stage character, Alcibiades, in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, Act. III, scene 5. Shakespeare is not my favorite author, but he occasionally bangs a nail on the head. That side of Shakespeare's dramatic writings is NOT given due prominence. It is not what gets large poster publicity. For decades the public in England and America has been FAR more interested in the private lives of the actors, of Henry, Irving and in Ellen Terry. "I come to bury" Caesar and all the rest of it, "not to praise him. "
Well let's be MATERIAL, since you are lined up with the materialists. Let's see where we are, ideologically. Or in other words let's see what cards have been put on the table. Mr. Stalin says LOCAL control. That is to say, he says he disbands something or other, and the local communist parties must run their own local shows without daily orders from Moscow. Up comes Mrs. Trotsky, widdy Trotsky, and says that means SHE is to run the world revolution from Mexico City. Just what Nebraska was hoping for. World communism governed from Mexico city. But was that JUST what Stalin meant by his maneuver? Has Mr. Welles joined the local communist party? Not officially. But he put a few cards on the table (the joker face down amongst 'em). Some rash bohunk said Sumner had COINED, coined mind you, the phrase "economic aggression. " But what does Sumner mean by aggression? Let's not rake up everybody's past skeletons. Even Sumner admitted that the U. S. had aggressed. Let's look at his program, or as that is pretty vague, let's ask for a definition.
WHO according to Sumner's bright plans for tomorrow, WHO is to DUMP what on WHOM? And is the fellow that has to take what he don't want going to be forced to pay for it in money controlled by a gang
? of shysters in Washington, in Wall Street or in Mexico? And who, according to Sumner, is to be allowed to get what? And who is to be allowed to GROW what they want to eat in their own garden? That would seem to be one whale of a question. Aye, aye, sir, very like a whale or an octopus.
The agricultural districts hardly ever start wars. Lack of food may start people roving. It may in the last analysis provoke nomadic migrations. BUT people living in abundant farmland very seldom start out to raid someone else's bare fields. And then this problem of bilaterality. This question of justice having two sides. Where does Sumner get THAT subject? How much local control does Sumner allow to the local communist party or to the LOCAL party of any kind?
Europe seems rather inclined to have a bit of local control. It seems to me the seven league advance, which Lenin advocated toward the cultural attitudes, might rather include this idea of local control. Especially as Stalin understands Senator Vandenburg and Mr. Welles so much better than they understand Mr. Stalin. Mebbe that is because he was so much more moral. I mean in his earlier writings. Why, 20 years ago Stalin was writin' about foreign imperialism "devoid of all moral authority and deservedly hated by the oppressed and exploited masses of India. " I suspect the local parties in Washington are as ignorant of Stalin's past life, as they are of Europe, of European life during the past 20 years.
#104 (July 3, 1943) U. S. (C68) COLORING
Ideas are colored by what they are dipped in. There was a young Chinaman the other day, nearly accusin' me of havin' invented Confucius. He had been UNeducated by contact with half-baked occidental ideas. Lost his own cultural heritage, didn't think Confucius was so modern, that was because he hadn't read him, of course. Mencius
? was also accused of having brightened up Confucius, but he knew better. He knew he hadn't.
Formerly, when Kung died, the disciples after staying together three years, packed their baggage and returned to their homes, but Tzu Kung went back and built a house on the altar ground, and lived there alone for three years. And the disciples thought Yew Jo might serve as teacher, but Tzu said:
Washed in the waters of Kiang and Han, bleached in the autumn sun. After that, no. There is nothing to add. Nothing to add to that whiteness.
Mebbe the difference between the Greek flash in the pan, and the Chinese persistence is due to Kung's having got the answer. Mencius following and enforcing it. Whereas in Greece, Socrates gunned 'round. As Aristotle says: "Socrates was the first to see that thought hinges on definitions. " But Aristotle had to put the guesses in order. He didn't take Socrates or any of the other Greek philosophers as a solid basis. And spent a lot of time talking about abstractions. Tho' he did say that the general statement must be based on a lot of concrete data. And he did study the different constitutions of states, i. e. , different political systems, and regulations. All that of course OUGHT to be the basis of senatorial training, of congressional training. And it drags me a bit away from the simple text I meant to enforce, or suggest. When I said ideas are tinged by what they are dipped in, I was thinkin' of widdy Trotsky. Down there in Mexico, speakin' evil of Stalin, in fact blamin' Joe for the war, and saying she was to fix it all up, and conduct the world revolution. Now we all like revolution, except when we are settin' too easy. And a considerable revolution has occurred during most of our lifetimes. Though Senator Vandenberg mayn't have heard of it YET.
Mr. Marx, Charlie, went to England, went there at a time when England had a sort of a lead over less favored nations. And he heard about
? Hobhouse. And I reckon about Mr. Owen, Robert Owen. And he wanted to start something in Germany, but the ideas got switched off onto Russia, a less favored country. A backward country, full of Tartars and Muscovites, and Cossaks and Nomads. And the result has been in many ways UNsatisfactory. In fact Owen's ideas about factory reform, etc. have gone a lot further in Germany, under the Fu? hrer, whose writing you probably haven't read. In fact you and Vandenburg and these sachems probably haven't read EITHER Stalin, OR Hitler, or Mussolini. So you decide to take over an old shirt of Lenin's, at least that passage about training a staff of administrators, and you send a lot of unbreached kids down to the University of Virginia to learn how to administer. Which is looney. I mean if you think a kindergarten can administer its parents, or infants officiate over adults.
The idea takes color from what it is dipped in. The idea of treating work men like human beings, favored by Robert Owen, etc. has progressed in Germany. I reckon for model factory conditions, etc. you would have to go to Germany NOW, thought the Burgomaister of Worgl, [who] had Henry Ford's life or ghosted autobiography on his bookshelf. But for the Senator's information, before he gives way to nostalgia for a lost era, and consents to puttin' up a stooge, or pseudo General Grant, to initiate a new era of pillage and public scandal. I mean by having a man, or wanting a president who knows NOTHING about public administration, but covers the graft by a military aureole, more or less.
Let the Senator READ a little Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini. Of course you can GET Stalin for 10 cents in America, and you probably can NOT get the works of the Axis leaders. Or if so, I suspect they would not be in authoritative translations.
Well now, what in Stalin's Foundations of Leninism? And where was the error, if error? Was it in program or was it something that happened later, in petrification of program? Or in Russian inability to act on exotic ideas; and the general drop or droop or subsidence of the exotic ideas
? into the mire of Slavic chaos (with condiments: oh yes, with condiments, according to some unkindly critics)?
But supposin' the widdy Trotsky DOES drag the program OUT of the Slavic ambiance, out of Russia, into the American hemisphere? Already AT it in fact, get a humanitarian coloring. Not having been able to shoot Mr. Stalin, Mrs. Trotsky now decides war is wicked, or at least an error.
I was considering civilization at large, and a means of full communication, not merely a commercial stenography. I believe it would be about as simple to learn to write in a foreign tongue as to restrict oneself to Ogden's basic English vocabulary. That may be because I have written in French and Italian, and have not worried about keeping inside a restricted vocabulary.
My proposal was, as I say, tri-lingual. Italian, English, and ideogram. That is, Chinese ideogram used as a written tongue, but with Japanese pronunciation. That gives you the languages of Confucius, Shakespeare, and Dante. There is no sentiment in this selection. You say the Germans would never accept this. That is, you don't say so because you are quite crazy in talking of re-educating nations which are far more educated than you are. I believe our Germans would place unsentimental reasons first, the Germans are more diligent than other men, great numbers of them habitually-- --. Secondly, my opinion is-- --I omitted the German language, because that language retains more inflections than the three languages I selected.
I say, ideogram with Japanese pronunciation, because almost no foreigner can pronounce Chinese properly, let alone manage the tones, because the pronunciation varies with the different regions of China, and because I find no agreements as how the sounds, such as one can understand, or really hear, should be transcribed in our alphabet. Whereas the Japanese is phonetically simple as the Italian, whose sounds
? in many ways they resemble. I say Italian, not French, not merely for political reasons. French is hell to pronounce. You have to screw up your nose for the nasals. Apart from the political, Italian is spoken like she is writ. No monkey business. Every letter is pronounced in the same way wherever it occurs. The only apparent exception is the c and ch before a and o. Before a and o, c is hard and before i and e it is soft. The hard sound is written ch before i and e. But the spelling is uniform and follows in all cases and there are no-- --.
I would suggest that the Japanese sign for the syllables, for the sound of the syllables, be transliterated to the Roman alphabet when they accompany the ideogram. Let me explain. The written Chinese is common in both Japan and China. All those written signs are the same for Japan and all China. Anyone who reads them in one place knows what they mean in another. It is the common tongue or common written tongue for all those millions.
As English, with its variants is common to England, and the United States, and is a lingua franca for India. I take into account distribution. The number of people who already know each of the languages mentioned. It is as easy to learn Italian as to learn Esperanto. It does not cut the fingers and toes off any one's thought. And that can be borne out by anyone of the hundred Englishmen who have studied with Professor Morelli. It is high time you looked into his methods. But apart from Morelli's methods, based on words almost identical in the two languages or at least perfectly recognizable as from English to Italian or from Italian to English, Italian is the simplest descendent from Latin.
Latin, the universal stronghold of European snobs for nearly 2000 years. Italian is clearer than Latin, you might say maturer than Latin. They boasted-- --translated-- --using fewer words in his Italian version than are used in the Latin original. Intelligent auditors can go on with his talk -- --. The intelligent auditor ought to be able to think of objections and answer them. The Brain Trust, if it weren't utterly frivolous, would take
? up the subject. It is a non-political subject. It is outside the conflict. It has to do with the possible future. It does not set out any advantages of Basic English to those who choose to go on from the start Ogden made. But Ogden is too lazy to think of any developments, on his first outline. He hadn't even got the-- --or to the introductory notes on the [Fenollosa? ] essay notes on the written character.
I offer this as a challenge. If the Brain Trust is just one more part of the present system, as Chesterton has defined it, an instrument to blot out the public memory, an instrument for destroying the public memory, said G. K. C. when he wrote----December, 1939, in his weekly. Blotting out the past so that people shall not learn from it, distracting them from present realities with a mirage of an impossible future. Well, the break from Italian to English is very short if you follow Morelli, or from English to Italian. That makes the universal language for Europe, a double language, not only of commerce but of culture. The fear of the ideogram is due largely to ignorance. I have followed Fenollosa and the tract is most thorny. He needs more printed manuals such as I have begun to print here, in my edition of The Great Learning, the Testament of Confucius.
And anyhow, when you people talk of a one language system, you mean mostly one language for Europe and America. Very few of you think of the rest at all.
#101 (June 22, 1943) U. S. (C64) STALIN
"The first contradiction is the antagonism between labor and capital," wrote Stalin 21 years ago. "Imperialism is the export of capital to the sources of raw materials," wrote Mr. Stalin, 21 years ago, in his highly vivacious little brochure, "The Foundations of Leninism. "
? Tsarist Russia was an immense reserve force for western imperialism, not only in that it gave free entry to foreign capital which controlled decisive branches of Russian economy like fuel and metallurgy, but also that it could furnish millions of soldiers to the western imperialists.
Russian army, 12 million strong; shed its blood on imperialist fronts to safeguard the staggering profits of Anglo-French capitalists. Tsarism was the agent of western imperialism in squeezing hundreds of millions from the population by way of interest on loans floated in Paris, London, etc. , faithful ally in partitioning Turkey, Persia, China, etc. Was not Russia an essential factor in this war? Joe is speaking of the war that had occurred before he wrote his little brochure. As to this war: some estimates give 30 million as the cost to Russia, 30 million human lives.
The Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution is based on three fundamental issues.
First thesis, the domination of finance capital in the advanced capitalist countries, the issue of stocks and bonds as the principal operation of finance capital, the export of capital to the sources of raw materials, which is one of the bases of imperialism, the OMNIPOTENCE of a financial oligarchy, a consequence of the dominations of financial capital. All these reveal the crudely parasitic character of monopolist capitalism, make the yoke of the capitalist trusts and syndicates 100 times more burdensome.
Perhaps Col. McCormick had better get the pamphlet and read it. Tenth anniversary edition, International Publishers, 100,000 copies at 10 cents, probably reprinted dozens of times during the past decade, as they will have already celebrated a 20th anniversary.
The Col. has heard recently, i. e. , in the course of the early spring of this year, of the American Constitution. I dunno whether he has yet passed the stages of his beardless youth, eh, the MENTAL stages. If he had
? been a serious character SOONER, he would have used his enormous printing space for the reprint of the thought of the American founders, Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren, and the distribution of the works of the Adams descendents. BUT he omitted it. And I don't 'spose he listens in to Rome radio. So somebody better tell him.
Twenty years ago Stalin was talkin' about self-criticisms within the proletarian parties, their education and instruction on the basis of their own mistakes. The proletariat, wrote Mr. Stalin, can not retain power if it does not possess adequate educated administrative cadres, ready for and capable of organizing the administration of the country. It's the question of the advance with seven-league strides to raise the cultural level that gives one pause. Instead of educatin' and teachin' the party true revolutionary tactics from a study of its own mistakes, we find a studied evasion of thorny questions, which are glossed over and veiled. "Left wing communism, and infantile discord," the words are not mine, but Lenin's.
Mr. Stalin said in regard to slogans and resolutions that it was enough to recall the history of the famous watchword "war against war," to realize the utter falsity and rottenness of the political processes of these parties which veil, etc. There really seems to have been little doubt as to Stalin's direction in 1922. His mind appears to have been remarkably clear.
The main query to be raised at this moment, when Mr. Stalin is undoubtedly as victorious INSIDE the U. S. and Britain, as U. S. particular interests are being in absorbing the flesh pots of Empire, (British empire first), the main query is as to the nature and direction of the evolution of revolution in the United States. I know it is exceedingly difficult to get a general idea into, let us say, Co. McCormick's head or Hamilton Fish's. Do we move toward REVOLUTION, as from man toward the amoeba, or do we move, or even desire to move toward an integration of the individual AS component of the general social scene?
? Do we want to be taken to pieces, separated into spare parts, quite spare and utterly separable, at the rate say of 30 million a shot, functioning at a lower level, or do we wish to maintain that complexity to which the human organism BIOLOGICALLY, BI/O/LOG/ICALLy has evolved during millennia, or however it did evolve?
Does the infantile disorder recognize that the homestead works better, or even might in certain conditions work better, function better than the kolkhoz? That is a superficial query. If the homestead displays a higher mechanical efficiency than the kolkhoz, how far should it be opposed? Can it be opposed as a matter of principle? In short, how protean is materialism anyway? Can it take on so new an aspect? Are the cadres gettin' educated seven-leagued enough for the circumstance? And after all, is a theory about the mutability of materialism any more binding than a signed contract?
I 'spect if the Colonel, Col. McCormick, is listening, or if anyone is kind enough to stenograph this discourse, the Col. is by now about all bawled up. Mebbe he is trying to ride on a party that just AIN'T guided by an advanced theory. What can one do with a country in which NEITHER party is literate? All this should hook onto S. Welles' pieties about economic aggression. But I am at the end of my time.
#102 (June 26, 1943) U. S. (C65) MATERIALISM
An idea is colored by what it is dipped in. Take for example the more or less Teutonic idea of materialism. Marx and Engels get to foolin' 'round with Hegel's philosophy, or something, and evolve or devolve what is called Marxian materialism, and it gets toted off into Russia. And after 25 years, what do we have? We have these howlin' Slavs: gone off on a purely metaphysical, typically Russian crusade. As crazy as any excess of the middle ages. Utterly OB/liv/i/ous of the material facts. That is to say, I suppose anyone will admit that the German workman is
? MATERIALLY better off than the Russian opposite number. Materially speakin', the factory reforms proposed by Robert Owen and the ideas of Hobhouse that Marx so approved of in fact all the British aims that caused Marx to write his Xth chapter Best chapter in Das Kapital so far as I am concerned. Well all that AIM, to get the workin' man decently fed, and clothed, and housed, and given decent livin conditions and hours of labor has we believe gone further in Germany than in Russia. Despite labels and programs.
I have heard it said that Germany has gone communist but nobody can accuse Europe of havin' gone RUSSIAN, or Germany of havin' gone Russian. Marx looked at England, and thought about Germany, and something got set loose in Russia into which country inspection has long been denied. For years nobody was supposed to LOOK at what actually happened. It was all metaphysical. Nice programs and dire results. And Russians certainly in ignorance of living conditions of working men elsewhere. What causes that? Maybe it is the material nature of the slavic animal or of the Tartar fanatic.
However look back at some of the words in the program Materialism: what does it mean? Are you for it? Are you for WHATEVER it means? Or do you on occasion like to know what you mean, or what you are shouting for? Are you a materialist WHATEVER it means, or are you a materialist only on condition that it means something in particular, something rather than something else?
George Santayana calls himself a materialist. It rather shocked old William James. Ole William told young George, he was younger at that stage of world history, that his, Santayana's philosophy was organized rottenness. I can not agree with fuzzy old James. It appears to me that George Santayana rather agrees with Thomas Aquinas. I mean the materialist Santayana ends up by writin' a book called The Realm of Spirit. I occasionally plunge into the work to calm my heated mind. I mean when I am not up to Confucius and Mencius. And Thomas
? Aquinas says somewhere that the soul is the first ACT of an organic body. Well, I ask George Santayana what THAT means. And he says entelechy, which seems to me to be dodgin' behind a Greek word. But anyhow, a materialist definition of the soul seems to be that it is the first act, or first action, or first condition of an organic body. Don't ASK me. I am merely trying to show how far the word or idea materialist can be stretched by people who play with abstractions. Marx's theory of value always seemed to me metaphysical.
But to get down to brass material tacks. Does a Marxian materialist prefer human conditions for labor to inhuman conditions? Do the actual material advances in the conditions of German working men count for anything in a material universe? Or does the Marxian materialist prefer the Russian enwarped and metaphysical state, wherein no one has a room of her own?
I think it matters. I think it is a question of administration, material administration. I am all for local control. The principle of local control has made some advances during the past weeks. I mean on paper, and in the aerial discussion. On paper, or in the air, the comintern has declared for local control or administration. But is that material or metaphysical? I think it matters very much WHO administers. I think the future of any party, communist or other, in the U. S. A. depends very greatly on the men, on the personality of the men who CONTROL it. I am all for responsibility, personal responsibility. I fail to see what PRINCIPLE of materialism or metaphysicality has to do with the machine gunning of three year old kids. I fail to see where the invasion of one country by another hitches up to the program of any set of idealists, whether Moscovite or Democratic, i. e. , plutocratic. Does the dissolution of the Comintern mean that Moscow proposes that every nation should be administered by members OF that nation or race?
That would be an interesting line of inquiry. The suppression for all material and practical purposes of nearly all South American government seems rather out of
? line, with this dissolution of international aspirations on the part of the comintern.
The nipping, not in the bud, but in the decayed and gangrenous remnants on London's usurocratic grasp on large parts of most continents is of course a spectacular play against the economic oppression (past tense of economic aggression) of the London plutocracy. That might be all to the good, if the U. S. hadn't decayed into something very like, or possibly worse than the British methods of the late 18th century, impression of seamen included. But in the oedeniatous decomposition of the U. S. plutocracy and usurocracy, what assurance has anyone, or what assurance is anyone in the U. S. trying to get, that the New Steal in the U. S. A. will be under local control?
There is really so much to say that I find it difficult to divide it up into ten minute samples. Are you heading for a RUSSIAN control of the U. S. , the U. S. of A. , or the U. S. of Europe? What assurance is anyone in the U. S. trying to obtain that Kansas and Illinois will be controlled in ANY way by denizens of those geographic parts of the American union?
Yes, I know, people are being sent out FROM the U. S. to take over control in ex-Persia, now labeled Iran, etc. and vast tracts of the ex- British oppressed dominions are fallin' under Wall St. control. But what is it MATERIALLY to the folks who have mortgaged their farms to the Milk Trust?
#103 (June 29, 1943) U. S. (C67) COMMUNIST MILLIONAIRES
Is Mr. Roosevelt a Communist? Is Mr. Lehman a Communist? Is Mr. Morgenthau a Communist, is Mr. Bullitt, or Sir V. Sassoon, and if not why not? And what becomes of their millions, what becomes of their private fortunes when Communism takes over control of the U. S. A. ? And if not, why not? And is the American Communist Party, now freed
? from the apron strings of the comintern, is the American Communist Party governed by Wall Street? And if not, WHY not? And if not, why this continual export of capital to places abroad?
And then there come these proposals, these money proposals, these starvation proposals, these restriction proposals. Of course any scheme to take control of the nation's money, to take the control of ANY nation's money away from that nation and vest it in Mr. Lehman or any other private shyster, or gang of shysters, resident either at home or abroad, is a booby trap. Such a trap was sprung on the gullible American people in 1863. And they have never recovered, not really. Not in 1943, such a booby trap can not be sprung on the outer world without at least someone in the said outer world's being made aware of it.
Even that Skinner of Rabbits, Prof. Keynes or Lord Keynes, the British proletarian specialist, has smelt the dead fish in the proposal for unitas, as the continent can smell the dead eels in Mr. Keynes' banker or bunk/ or, what will you. And this question of who CONTROLS the central; of who wingles the wangles is of importance. There is no need to transport the problem onto the international checkerboard. When the people of Nebraska lost control of its money, i. e. , when Congress ceased to function constitutionally, and every state ceased to have a voice in the control of the national currency, that was a booby trap.
The nation did not react effectively. There were some voices uplifted in protest. When I was a boy, when your fathers were children, there were still voices uplifted in protest. But why suppose the whole world is as naive as the U. S. was at the end of the American Civil War? The bank game is simple, it is run on what are called classic lines. It is run on what Lord Keynes, the British proletarian specialist, used to call the lines of ORTHODOX economics. Meaning that the bankers collect 60% interest on the actual money, or that they collect interest on 90% of everyone's money, which they create out of thin air, wild phantasy, and a few bits of engraven paper.
? OH, that they vary the currency, the purchasing power of money. When the bankers have money, it is of very great value, you have to pay for it thru the nose. But when you get a bit of it, its value evaporates. The game is as old as Aaron, it was denounced in the time of Thucydides. "Banish your dotage, banish usury/that makes the Senate ugly," remarked the stage character, Alcibiades, in Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, Act. III, scene 5. Shakespeare is not my favorite author, but he occasionally bangs a nail on the head. That side of Shakespeare's dramatic writings is NOT given due prominence. It is not what gets large poster publicity. For decades the public in England and America has been FAR more interested in the private lives of the actors, of Henry, Irving and in Ellen Terry. "I come to bury" Caesar and all the rest of it, "not to praise him. "
Well let's be MATERIAL, since you are lined up with the materialists. Let's see where we are, ideologically. Or in other words let's see what cards have been put on the table. Mr. Stalin says LOCAL control. That is to say, he says he disbands something or other, and the local communist parties must run their own local shows without daily orders from Moscow. Up comes Mrs. Trotsky, widdy Trotsky, and says that means SHE is to run the world revolution from Mexico City. Just what Nebraska was hoping for. World communism governed from Mexico city. But was that JUST what Stalin meant by his maneuver? Has Mr. Welles joined the local communist party? Not officially. But he put a few cards on the table (the joker face down amongst 'em). Some rash bohunk said Sumner had COINED, coined mind you, the phrase "economic aggression. " But what does Sumner mean by aggression? Let's not rake up everybody's past skeletons. Even Sumner admitted that the U. S. had aggressed. Let's look at his program, or as that is pretty vague, let's ask for a definition.
WHO according to Sumner's bright plans for tomorrow, WHO is to DUMP what on WHOM? And is the fellow that has to take what he don't want going to be forced to pay for it in money controlled by a gang
? of shysters in Washington, in Wall Street or in Mexico? And who, according to Sumner, is to be allowed to get what? And who is to be allowed to GROW what they want to eat in their own garden? That would seem to be one whale of a question. Aye, aye, sir, very like a whale or an octopus.
The agricultural districts hardly ever start wars. Lack of food may start people roving. It may in the last analysis provoke nomadic migrations. BUT people living in abundant farmland very seldom start out to raid someone else's bare fields. And then this problem of bilaterality. This question of justice having two sides. Where does Sumner get THAT subject? How much local control does Sumner allow to the local communist party or to the LOCAL party of any kind?
Europe seems rather inclined to have a bit of local control. It seems to me the seven league advance, which Lenin advocated toward the cultural attitudes, might rather include this idea of local control. Especially as Stalin understands Senator Vandenburg and Mr. Welles so much better than they understand Mr. Stalin. Mebbe that is because he was so much more moral. I mean in his earlier writings. Why, 20 years ago Stalin was writin' about foreign imperialism "devoid of all moral authority and deservedly hated by the oppressed and exploited masses of India. " I suspect the local parties in Washington are as ignorant of Stalin's past life, as they are of Europe, of European life during the past 20 years.
#104 (July 3, 1943) U. S. (C68) COLORING
Ideas are colored by what they are dipped in. There was a young Chinaman the other day, nearly accusin' me of havin' invented Confucius. He had been UNeducated by contact with half-baked occidental ideas. Lost his own cultural heritage, didn't think Confucius was so modern, that was because he hadn't read him, of course. Mencius
? was also accused of having brightened up Confucius, but he knew better. He knew he hadn't.
Formerly, when Kung died, the disciples after staying together three years, packed their baggage and returned to their homes, but Tzu Kung went back and built a house on the altar ground, and lived there alone for three years. And the disciples thought Yew Jo might serve as teacher, but Tzu said:
Washed in the waters of Kiang and Han, bleached in the autumn sun. After that, no. There is nothing to add. Nothing to add to that whiteness.
Mebbe the difference between the Greek flash in the pan, and the Chinese persistence is due to Kung's having got the answer. Mencius following and enforcing it. Whereas in Greece, Socrates gunned 'round. As Aristotle says: "Socrates was the first to see that thought hinges on definitions. " But Aristotle had to put the guesses in order. He didn't take Socrates or any of the other Greek philosophers as a solid basis. And spent a lot of time talking about abstractions. Tho' he did say that the general statement must be based on a lot of concrete data. And he did study the different constitutions of states, i. e. , different political systems, and regulations. All that of course OUGHT to be the basis of senatorial training, of congressional training. And it drags me a bit away from the simple text I meant to enforce, or suggest. When I said ideas are tinged by what they are dipped in, I was thinkin' of widdy Trotsky. Down there in Mexico, speakin' evil of Stalin, in fact blamin' Joe for the war, and saying she was to fix it all up, and conduct the world revolution. Now we all like revolution, except when we are settin' too easy. And a considerable revolution has occurred during most of our lifetimes. Though Senator Vandenberg mayn't have heard of it YET.
Mr. Marx, Charlie, went to England, went there at a time when England had a sort of a lead over less favored nations. And he heard about
? Hobhouse. And I reckon about Mr. Owen, Robert Owen. And he wanted to start something in Germany, but the ideas got switched off onto Russia, a less favored country. A backward country, full of Tartars and Muscovites, and Cossaks and Nomads. And the result has been in many ways UNsatisfactory. In fact Owen's ideas about factory reform, etc. have gone a lot further in Germany, under the Fu? hrer, whose writing you probably haven't read. In fact you and Vandenburg and these sachems probably haven't read EITHER Stalin, OR Hitler, or Mussolini. So you decide to take over an old shirt of Lenin's, at least that passage about training a staff of administrators, and you send a lot of unbreached kids down to the University of Virginia to learn how to administer. Which is looney. I mean if you think a kindergarten can administer its parents, or infants officiate over adults.
The idea takes color from what it is dipped in. The idea of treating work men like human beings, favored by Robert Owen, etc. has progressed in Germany. I reckon for model factory conditions, etc. you would have to go to Germany NOW, thought the Burgomaister of Worgl, [who] had Henry Ford's life or ghosted autobiography on his bookshelf. But for the Senator's information, before he gives way to nostalgia for a lost era, and consents to puttin' up a stooge, or pseudo General Grant, to initiate a new era of pillage and public scandal. I mean by having a man, or wanting a president who knows NOTHING about public administration, but covers the graft by a military aureole, more or less.
Let the Senator READ a little Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini. Of course you can GET Stalin for 10 cents in America, and you probably can NOT get the works of the Axis leaders. Or if so, I suspect they would not be in authoritative translations.
Well now, what in Stalin's Foundations of Leninism? And where was the error, if error? Was it in program or was it something that happened later, in petrification of program? Or in Russian inability to act on exotic ideas; and the general drop or droop or subsidence of the exotic ideas
? into the mire of Slavic chaos (with condiments: oh yes, with condiments, according to some unkindly critics)?
But supposin' the widdy Trotsky DOES drag the program OUT of the Slavic ambiance, out of Russia, into the American hemisphere? Already AT it in fact, get a humanitarian coloring. Not having been able to shoot Mr. Stalin, Mrs. Trotsky now decides war is wicked, or at least an error.
