HIST 2200 – Lecture 4

The Left and the Right

The Left and the Right
 Introduction: Legacy of the Russian Revolution
 Part I: Defining our Terms
 What do ‘left’ and ‘right’ really mean?
 Part 2: The Russian Revolution
 Unpacking the seminal event of the 20th century
 Part 3: The World Revolution
 Capitalism on the brink of defeat?
 Conclusion: The Courage and Folly of Hope
The Russian Revolution
 “Adventure it was [the
revolution] and one of the
most marvelous mankind
has ever embarked on,
sweeping into history at the
head of the toiling masses,
and staking everything on
their vast and simple
desires.” – John Reed,
1919
 The Russian Revolution
 One of the key moments in
the Great War took place
in 1917, when Russian
workers seized control of
the government and pulled
Russia out of the war
 It was also a turning point
in world history, its con-
sequences shaped world
politics for over 70 years
The Communist Manifesto
 After the bible, the Communist
Manifesto is one of the most
widely read texts in the world,
translated into dozens of
languages and still popular today
 What philosopher is better known
in the world than Karl Marx?
 Without the Russian Revolution,
this might never have been the
case
The Communist Manifesto
 Marx died long before the Russians took up his
program, but his words were at the centre of the
struggles in the 20th century
 “Workers of all worlds, unite: you have nothing to
lose but your chains.” – Karl Marx
 After the Russian Revolution, these words were
taken up all over the world, including here in
Canada, where working people celebrated the
revolution and began building organizations
designed to replicate it in Canada
Left and Right
 But do we know what we mean by
communism? What is it precisely? Indeed,
we have begun to confront the ideologies of
the 20th century, but we need to be clear about
the various terms we are using
 In the world, people do not always use these
terms correctly! So it is important to know what
they really mean while also knowing what other
people think they mean
Pt. 1 – Defining Our Terms
The Fog of Ideology
 Ideology is at the heart of how we understand the world
 It even shapes the way we understand ideology itself!
 As the previous slide suggests, even a simple idea like
the left-right spectrum isn’t a universally accepted idea,
because depending on your ideology you might
interpret the other ideologies differently
 We need to sort this out if we’re going to understand the
20th century and the present
Who Writes History?
 How do we get “facts?” How do they differ from
“opinions?”
 Can we trust opinions? Can we trust facts?
The B Word
 What is “bias?”
 Are you biased? Am I biased?
 Should we be afraid of bias?
History & Ideology
 Before we talk about ideology, I’d like you to
answer “yes” or “no” to these questions on a
piece of paper (it’s private, you do not have to
share your answers later)

1. Should having an abortion be a criminal offence?

2. Are men smarter, on average, than women?
3. Should our laws be based on the Bible/Qur’an?
4. Are most poor people just lazy?
What is Ideology?
 An ideology is a system or set of connected ideas
or perspectives about humanity and society
 Ideologies are at the heart of our moral codes,
political views, laws, religions, and even how we
understand ourselves
 Ideologies bring together opinions on a variety of
issues (eg. gun control, wealth distribution, health
care) and weave them into a single, coherent
vision
…so like basically it’s bias
Ideology
 Ideologies are not clubs, cults, or political
parties with official doctrines
 They are the larger, overarching sets of ideas
that often unite people in clubs or parties
 Ideologies you may have heard of include
conservatism or liberalism but there are many
different ideologies out there
 Eg. Canadian hockey has a dominant
ideology (“be tough, play physical, go out
there and give 110%”)
Ideology in Action
 Take a look at your answers to the four
questions… Most of you probably chose mostly
no’s or mostly yes’s
 The “yes” answers reflect a more right-wing
(conservative) ideology and the “no” answers reflect
a more left-wing (socialist) ideology
 Even though the questions covered very different
topics (gender, health, economics, religion) your
bias/ideology guided your answers
Ideology
 How much control do we have over our ideology?
To what extent is our ideology shaped by the
world in which we live?
 Capitalism has an ideology; we often
unknowingly express that ideology as if it
were our own original thoughts…

Sharing the wealth

would make
people lazy!
Ideology
 We all carry ideological baggage with us, the
questions are:
 Do you know why you believe what you believe?
 How would you react if new information
challenged the views you hold to be core truths?
 Does your ideology come from your own self-
interest or a belief in the greater good for all
people? (Or neither, or both? Most people think it
is both, which is… convenient)
Ideology
 Being aware of ideology is a crucial step in critical
thinking – ie. thinking beyond your inherited
ideological baggage to truly develop your own
ideological perspective
 Ideology isn’t inherently “bad,” just as bias is not
inherently “bad”
 Critical thinking simply demands that we recognize the
ideologies around us, recognize where they come from,
what they stand for, and where we stand in relation to
them
From Ideology to Knowledge
 This is not always easy; facts can be hard to
find, opinions can be hard to trust, and
knowledge is not as easy as a quick check on
Wikipedia

 Knowledge is the ideal fusion of positive and

normative analysis, a combination of solid
information with rigorous understanding of it
From Knowledge to Ideology
 And what is the point of knowledge if you don’t
put it towards making the world a better place?
 Ideology is not the enemy: the goal should be to
develop and refine your ideological position based
on what you think is important in the world
 To do that, you need to know yourself, and you need
to know the various ideologies that are out there and
how they developed, how they relate to one another
Left and Right
 The world today is shaped by the ideological
struggle between the “left” and “right”
 Every political fault-line of our time can be
interpreted through this lens, because it
captures the basic social division in capitalism
 But what does it mean to be “left wing” or “right
wing”? Are those terms useful?
 Do you know whether you are more “left” or
“right?”
Left and Right
 Your basic left-right spectrum looks like this:

(left and right are opposites, they do not loop around)

Left and Right
Origins
 The terms
Left and Right
began in the
National
Assembly in
France, and
were literally
based on where
people sat in
the room!
Left and Right
 Although “left and right” are the terms we
commonly, the best way to describe this central
conflict of our time is to call it class struggle
 Class struggle has been at the heart of most
conflict in this century
 It can be direct struggle between the classes (eg.
Spanish Civil War), sometimes class struggle is
filtered through colonialism (eg. Congolese fight
for freedom) or it can be conflict within the
ruling classes (eg. World Wars)
Left and Right
 The “left” will generally refer to the position that
the world should be changed to be more equal,
more just (fair), more free for everyone
 As a result, the further you go to the left the more you
would demand “revolutionary” change
 The “right” typically seeks to preserve the world
as it is, supports institutions of authority and
believes that inequality is natural and good
 Thus the right is sometimes called “reactionary”
since it exists in reaction to forces of revolution
Capitalism and the Right
 Capitalism is an economic and
social system, characterized by
private ownership of land and
labour, and it’s primary feature
is that it places the market at the
centre of all life
 The core tenet of right-wing
ideology is support for
capitalism and the various
‘natural’ inequalities it produces
Communism and the Left
 Communism is a rival economic and
social system to capitalism
 Like capitalism, it is a way of
organizing economic life in society
 It seeks to reduce the power of the
market and instead create structures
through which people can plan and
control economic questions like “who
produces what?” “how much do they
produce?” “how is that wealth
distributed?”
Communism
 Communism is premised on the idea that all
people are equal and deserve to be treated
equally, thus it resonates with all oppressed
people (especially in the colonized countries)
 The dramatic inequality of capitalism made
communism a popular alternative
 There are many different versions of
communism, but they all share the vision of a
society that eliminates exploitation and allows
wealth to be shared more equally
Socialism & Communism
 The difference between communism and socialism is
complicated and changes depending on who you ask
 Originally the words were used interchangeably, though
they later came to be used to describe different stages of
the same process (socialism was to be the first stage of
communism, in which the working class would control
the mechanism of the state in order to re-distribute wealth
and lay the foundations for a communist system which
would eliminate the capitalist state altogether)
 Today, “socialism” is sometimes used to sound
‘softer’ than “communism,” because that word was
associated with ‘evil’ in Cold War propaganda…
Communism?
Communism?
 Why was communism so aggressively targeted
for propaganda?
 It’s fairly simple: the wealthy don’t want to
give up all of their wealth, but they don’t mind
using a small amount of it to create anti-
communist propaganda
 Thus, much of the challenge today is to sift
through the propaganda to try to get at some kind
of ‘truth’ about communism
 Fascism
 Fascism was a reaction to the rise of
communism and usually refers to a
combination of a capitalist economic
system with a heavily militarized,
nationalistic, political dictatorship
 Examples include Nazi Germany,
Mussolini’s Italy or Franco’s Spain, all
aimed at crushing workers/communism
 But fascism has been common in the 20th
century, often in the form of third world
dictators with western support