Stalin and Yezhov: An Extra-Paradigmatic View - by Philip E. Panaggio
Chapter 10: A Rubbery Paradigm that Cannot Break
The authors of Stalinist Terror state that prior to the availability of the new archival evidence, the totalitarian paradigm withstood powerful critiques and counter-examples. The supremacy of the reigning consensus had never really been threatened - until now. However, historians who have now begun to depart from this paradigm are indiscriminately labeled "revisionist" and denounced as perverse or, as previously mentioned, seeking to "absolve Stalin of his crimes." The use here of the epithet "crimes" to uphold and enforce a paradigm in crisis demonstrates the overarching importance of the implicit, undiscussed moral component to the paradigm. In discussions of the murders, enslavements, and other cruelties practiced on non-Whites by American Whites in U.S. history, for example, the same historians who morally denounce a new generation of historians as "revisionists" merely for departing from the standard paradigm do not react as strongly to these atrocious acts, which they consider to be "products of the traditions of the times." Suddenly cultural relativity is invoked, which they have already disallowed for Stalinist society and culture.
The influential Austrian-born British philosopher Karl Popper pointed out that an hypothesis, theory, or belief does not have to be true to be scientific, but it has to be falsifiable. This was the point of view of an important Twentieth Century school of philosophical thought called Critical Rationalism. Their "test of falsifiability" has now become a mainstream idea. The test consists of asking whether or not one can imagine facts, information, or a state of affairs that could come to light which would be inconsistent with the belief or idea that is being tested. This test can and has been applied to paradigms to answer the same question: are they scientific? For example: if evidence is unearthed that multi-candidate elections were held in rural districts of the Soviet Union after the passage of Stalin’s 1936 Constitution, a Constitution Communists hailed as the most democratic in world history, and if Stalin had been elected as an overwhelmingly popular people’s choice, the totalitarian model could survive this ostensibly falsifying challenge by labeling his participation in the election - and his victory - the result of mass mobilization of the electorate through propaganda by the ruling elite, a tool for control from the top down that the paradigm asserts this elite exercises on behalf of Stalin. Alternatively, the universal glue -terror - could be invoked once again saying, "People were afraid of reprisals from the NKVD if they voted against Stalin." Even if Stalin had called for open elections, had run himself against an allowed "capitalist minority party" candidate, had agreed to step down if outvoted, and had then won the election, this would not falsify the standard paradigm either. Once again, the paradigm’s defenders could say that the voters were the manipulated objects of terror. It would seem there is only one possible fact or situation which the totalitarian paradigmists might admit would falsify their model: a real break in Stalin’s power due to loss of office by submitting to popular election defeat or some sort of grass-roots impeachment or guaranteed, "legitimate" judicial process. A paradigm, which is really falsifiable by only one fact or situation, is, technically speaking, falsifiable, and therefore marginally scientific. However, when a paradigm is capable of accepting heaps of amendments to cover almost any hostile evidence and can thereby be made consistent with almost anything, it begins to smell fishy. As the authors of Stalinist Terror put it, it becomes "suspiciously accommodating." Testimony exists which says that Stalin did in fact attempt to resign on more than one occasion, but such claims are ignored by some of the paradigm’s upholders as "spurious," or, by other defenders, as credible testimony that should be accepted as "fact" but incorporated into the paradigm as more of Stalin’s deep-laid "power ploys" to "flush out personal enemies," etc. As will be seen in Part II, Lysenko’s famous request to resign is regarded by Valery Soyfer and others as a fiendishly clever power gambit. The totalitarian paradigm is monotonously consistent and satisfyingly simplistic. One of its specific principles, exemplified here, is: "All resignations submitted by powerful Soviet officials of sound mind and body are insincere power or prestige maneuvers unless Stalin wants them gone; then they are more or less coerced."
The totalitarian paradigm’s resilience is comparable to that of many deistic cosmic paradigms in which every event is the direct or indirect result of God’s will. These paradigms are also highly adaptable to ostensibly refuting data, and likewise virtually impervious to fatal criticism. They are not regarded as scientific. It irritates many atheistic foes of deism that when they point out the existence of evil and suffering in the world, a condition that they believe seriously undermines deism, a Christian apologist easily absorbs this criticism into his belief system. He does so by utilizing the "fallen angel" amendment to his paradigm. This is the attractive, dramatic tale of the proud, rebellious Lucifer, the tempter and purveyor of evil in the world, who roams it at God’s sufferance to test man’s free will and love of God. A perfect parallel to this kind of "strengthening" of a paradigm has been practiced for decades by the totalitarian modelers of Stalinist society, replacing God with Stalin. Any evidence of liberalizing influences, especially if they appear to emanate from Stalin himself who, new archival evidence shows, sometimes actually provoked public dissent, official controversy, and criticism of his own and the government’s policies, is seen as "Stalin testing the waters" or "the devious Stalin promoting an expendable straw-man opponent or devil’s advocate to draw out enemies, unmasking and sorting out those who are with him vs. those against" - the chosen vs. the damned.
What really seems to be at the root of this entire elaborate system of apologetics is a view of Stalinist society as a microcosmic version of the medieval Christian’s Great Chain of Being cosmic paradigm (explained below) - but with a malicious demi-god or God-pretender as Lord (Stalin). Different paradigms may be analogous, and a larger, more grandiose or cosmic paradigm may strongly "support" a narrower, more mundane one simply by being analogous to it. To this day, the Great Chain of Being paradigm "explains" the cosmos for many, many Westerners at the same time that the comparable totalitarian one serves them to "understand" Stalinist and other alien societies.
The notion of a paradigm may seem sophisticated or over-subtle, but paradigms are what really make sense to people - not bare, "unattached" facts or specific explanations. Scholars enjoy working within a paradigm, which provides an intriguing pre-established field and rules of play. Ambitious physicists seek a "theory of everything." Thinking or working outside a paradigm is considered more appropriate for novelists, artists, poets, and laymen. Religionists possess the broadest paradigms, and cling to them tenaciously. It is not a coincidence that the totalitarian paradigm has made the most sense all along to Western Christians and Jews. It is also not a coincidence that the rhetoric of totalitarian paradigm operators in regards to the Soviet Union teeters toward the apocalyptic. It is an ominous fact that schizophrenics resemble religionists in that they also cling pertinaciously to very broad, overly simple, highly flexible yet ultimately uncompromising paradigms!
© Copyright by Philip E. Panaggio P. O. Box 85, Lehigh Acres, FL 33970-0085, USA
