1938, Stalin’s Purges
The sociometric network theory is able to interpret political phenomena difficult to understand. One illustration is the purges attributed to Stalin. Why were extensive mass purges committed when but relatively few men had actually been found guilty of treason? It would seem unnecessary to punish more than a few, but the cold politician, Stalin, knew that, besides the few men who had been direct associates of Trotsky, there were literally thousands more, potentially equally dangerous, who could be just as threatening to his regime. He knew that, to each of the, say, twelve guilty men, a number of sympathizers must be linked, and to each of these sympathizers, in turn, others were linked, and to this larger circle many others were inter-linked, either directly or indirectly, who might become infected with the same political ideas. In other words, he visualized a myriad of psycho-social networks spread over all Soviet Russia in which these actual or potential enemies acted in roles which might be dangerous to him. Unfortunately, he had only a rough, instinctive picture of the sociometric networks; he did not know all the men and their actual positions in their respective cliques. So, in order to reach and exterminate his potential as well as his actual enemies with the highest possible efficiency, he gave orders that not only the friends of Trotsky but also the friends of these friends, and the friends of these friends of the friends of Trotsky be “purged”, even if the suspicion of any friendly relationship was very slight or zero. If Stalin would have had a psychological geography of Soviet Russia before him, showing the links and tracks through which the forces of counter-revolution traveled, imagine how many innocent lives could have been saved.
“Who Shall Survive?” lxxvi – lxxvii
This passage is paiful to read, and I’m uncertain whether to include it in the monograph. It does, however, seem relevant because it reveals something of Moreno’s political blindness. The passage appears in the Preludes to Who Shall Survive, written written in 1953. (The body of Who Shall Survive? dates back to 1932).
Am I reading the passage correctly when I pick up a hint that Moreno and not only Stalin thinks of Trotsky as a counter-revolutionary traitor? If so, it suggests that Stalin, by contrast, is the revolutionary. That is troubling, and more so that he suggests Stalin’s purges might have been more “efficient” had sociometry been employed.
The purges were abhorrent not only because people died but because they died at the hands of a counter-revolutionary in the name of socialism. They are proof of the demise of the regime.
Moreno and his views about the Russian revolution may need more attention. Maybe a section in the Monograph of its own? See also the Note on Marxism and Russia in post 03
(I’ve stumbled on this passage 21 December 2024 so it will appear out of sequence in the blog. It belongs back in the posts referencing the Preludes.)
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This post is part of a series.
See Intro Marx and Moreno Monograph