A cautionary tale from my Russian anarchist great-grandfather
A cautionary tale from my Russian anarchist great-grandfather
On the danger of sacrificing principle for pragmatism ~ George Askaroff ~ When faced with substantial external pressure and uncertainty, principles of liberty are often sacrificed in the name of ‘pragmatism’. But doing so can come at a heavy cost. This is where the tale of my great-grandfather comes...
I don't think the framing of this article as a question of principles over pragmatism is a good one. Sure, the Bolshevik deserve all the hate for their counter-revolutionary project, but most people prefer pragmatism over principles and it is often misled principles that cause the most harm.
The better distinction is means Vs. ends. It might take a bit longer to explain, but you can be plenty of pragmatic in your day to day activities without putting the ends over the means.
Of course it is a kind of principle to never let the ends justify the means, but it is a rather pragmatic one, as experience shows over and over that the means strongly influence if not determine the ends.
I am a bit conflicted with this article. One one hand I think I understand the intentions behind it, but It seems to me that it confuses opportunistic vanguardism with pragmatism.
Yes, Lenin managed to convince enough people to hijack the February Revolution and concentrate all the power to
the partyhimself. To my understanding, he accomplished that mainly by using the wording of the actual bottom-up revolution. So the problem for me is not a matter of principle(s), but how to be sharp enough as a movement not to be fooled by people using a familiar narrative, while trying to achieve their own goals. Something like that.Edit: Meaning, "pragmatism" was the bait. Nothing more.