Word: commissars
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...YOGI AND THE COMMISSAR-Arthur Koestler-Macmillan...
Individualism v. Economic Law. The title of The Yogi and the Commissar, a collection of 16 essays, mostly on writing and politics, fits the book like a glove. For Koestler believes that every thinking man today is threatened or tempted by these two polar figures. On the extreme Left stands the Commissar-the superbly disciplined Communist who believes that the end justifies the means, and who has exchanged ethics, personal liberty and all irrational sentiments for a ruthless "pseudo-Communism" based on economic laws. On the extreme Right, in an "exotic hermitage," stands (or sits) the Yogi. He believes that...
Between these two figures stands the bewildered man of today. The intelligentsia, who might point a way for him, are either equally confused or deliberately blind. The blind, Koestler believes, are chiefly those who continue to put their faith in the creed of the Commissar...
...Creed of the Commissar. In a confused and confusing era of human life, the Commissar offers a doctrine that is completely "reasonable." In place of the doubts and contradictions of contemporary science and religion, he offers an "infallible" economic interpretation of history. Finally, after a century of Utopian hopes, he offers the liberal "a real country, with real people-a glorious Russian compensation for a life of frustration...
Once the Leftist has nestled in to the security of the Commissar's creed he is not even critical of the Commissar's most outrageous acts. In the book's longest essay, Koestler discusses "the stupendous . . . ignorance of Soviet reality among the addicts of the Soviet myth." Soviet addicts cannot, or will not, believe that capital punishment is the penalty for going on strike in Russia. They cannot believe that a Soviet citizen may not leave his home for as little as 24 hours without notifying the police; that no one may go abroad without permission (under...