Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

The distinguished historian and Polish-American Richard Pipes passed away earlier this year. Pipes is sometimes said to have taught and studied the "Polish version of Russian history," a line sometimes attributed to Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. The idea behind the phrase, which is intended as a criticism is this: some anti-Communist Russians (Solzhenitsyn among them) see the influx of Marxist-Leninist ideas into Russia as a disastrous accident, a hijacking of a country that had until then been following a quite different path.  Eastern European anti-Communists, though, see the same influx as a natural convergence, as when someone with a genetic predisposition to the gout starts showing symptoms thereof. The "Polish version of Russian history" is the latter. The jailed are seldom inclined to make excuses for their jailers. I had encountered the quote before, but had never been curious enough to track down the source. Recently, I became curious and did a little go...

Celebrating tomorrow, Labor Day, let's sing the song together. And then let's think about that fervent communist, Emma Goldman, who once wrote as follows: "There is no greater fallacy than the belief that aims and purposes are one thing, while methods and tactics are another. This conception is a potent menace to social regeneration. All human experience teaches that methods and means can never be separated from the ultimate aim. The means employed become, through individual habit and social practice, part and parcel of the final purpose; they influence it, modify it, and presently the aims and methods become identical." My Disillusionment in Russia (1923).