ROMAN EMPIRE, CONSTANTINE, FRENCH REVOLUTION, PETAIN'S VICHY - DIALECTICS OF HISTORY -NOT PRIMARILY ECONOMIC BUT IDEOLOGICAL

 In a previous blog post, I contended that the Muslims conquered much of the Roman Empire in the early 600s in part, because what we called the Roman Empire was no longer really that.  It was no longer the empire of Caesar, August, the Coliseum, and Olympic Games.  That in the 300s a revolution had occurred, changing forever that nation.  It was no longer the Roman Empire; it was the Christian Empire.  The newly conquering Muslims were creating their own empires, in Spain, all of North Africa, Judeah, Syria, Iraq, Persia. and beyond.  The Christian warriors held most of Europe, and until 1453 Constantinople.

     In France, the Christian world would be challenged by another revolution, with the slogan "liberty, equality, fraternity," make war on the Christian church, and under Robespierre, convert the Cathedral of Notre Dame into a Temple to the Goddess of Reason, with a choir inside to sing to the new era, as Robespierre himself would toss a line to ancient Rome as he wore a toga for the event.  Robespierre, would soon be guillotined, but his revolution would survive in toned down choruses.

And in 1940 an elderly military hero would lead yet another revolution to respond to the liberal, unChristian one of 1789.  Marshall Petain would lead the National Revolution. to cleanse France of the trash of the previous century and a half.  The Roman Catholic church was restored with its former privileges.  The 2nd most popular religion in France, Judaism, was to be put in its place, at the bottom, with many being deported to Nazi Germany where they would lose their arrogance.

     I shall hope to show how these revolutions are connected, but emphasize the one that is most over looked, the Christian Revolution that changed the Roman Empire.  I shall be doing this by adding on to this blog.  Covering a lot of territory in a short space, I will have to leave out much of the story.  But I hope I raise questions in your understanding , and perhaps you can write a better and fuller discussion disagreeing, 0r concurring, or providing a totaly different interpretation.   Hugh Murray

    Part 2

Revolutions, Counter-Revolutions, and the Christian Empire

     In an earlier blog post, I sought to answer Tomas Pueyo's question about how Islam conquered so much territory in such a short time. In this post, I want to stress how the names we currently use—and have used for centuries—distort the reality of what was happening. I want to propose a revision of terminology that may help us better understand the era.

     Civil wars were nothing new to the Roman world. Indeed, the Roman Empire itself rose out of civil war.

     The Roman Republic had existed and expanded for centuries. But many Romans came to believe that the victorious general Julius Caesar intended to destroy the Republic and replace it with monarchy under his personal rule. According to the traditional story, Caesar was assassinated on the Ides of March by members of the Senate.

     This was followed by civil war between the assassins—traditional republicans such as Brutus and Cassius—and the forces aligned with Caesar, led by his ally Mark Antony and his adopted heir and nephew, Octavian.  Brutus and Cassius were defeated and, following the customs of many defeated,  committed suicide.

     Then Octavian and Antony split from one another. Each dominated part of the Republic, but tensions increased as Antony, like Caesar before him, entered into a relationship with Cleopatra, the Pharaoh of Egypt. Cleopatra had already borne Caesar a son, raising unsettling questions about what claims she and her child might assert over the Roman world.

     To settle it, another civil war followed, the soldier Antony with help from Cleopatra's Egypt, against the younger Octavian.  But Octavian skillfully used the threat of Rome being dominated by an Egyptian woman, to undermine Antony's forces.  In the big battle, Octavian won.  Result?  The suicides of both Antony and Cleopatra.

     A more surprising result - the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire under Emperor Augustus, with this grand new title bestowed upon Octavian by the Senate.

     The Empire experienced both triumphs and crises, but for centuries it generally won its wars. Conquest brought slaves into Rome in vast numbers, enabling cheap workers to help the construction of monumental public works, many of which still stand today.

     The Empire displayed its wealth proudly. Aqueducts carried water from distant mountains into the cities. Public latrines had running water and communal sponges. Amphitheaters such as the Colosseum combined religion, spectacle, gladiators, and exotic animals into mass entertainment. Egypt, now a province of the empire, supplied wheat and other foods for Rome's growing population.  “Bread and circuses” kept the populace satisfied.

     Not all emperors possessed Augustus’s discipline. Some were devoted hedonists; others may well have been insane. Yet the Empire endured and continued winning battles.

     From the death of Augustus in 14 AD until the sole rule of Constantine, the Empire experienced repeated civil wars. There was the Year of Four Emperors in 69 AD, the Year of Five Emperors in 193 AD, and what modern historians call the Crisis of the Third Century (235–284 AD), during which dozens of military rulers seized power, often by murdering their predecessors.

     Emperor Diocletian believed he had solved the problem by creating a system of shared imperial rule. But once he retired, the men meant to share authority wanted more than their allotted share, and the Empire again descended into civil war.

By the early fourth century, two principal rivals remained: Licinius in the eastern half of the Empire and Constantine in the west.  In 313 they jointly issued the Edict of Milan, which decriminalized Christianity and ordered the restoration of churches, lands, and other Christian property confiscated during earlier persecutions. Constantine’s daughter married Licinius, and for a time peace prevailed.

But new disputes soon rose, followed by war between the 2 rival emperors..

Constantine defeated Licinius in a series of battles between 316 and 324 and eventually ordered the execution of both Licinius and his son, who was also the son of Constantine’s own daughter.

     Constantine now became sole ruler of the Roman Empire and began constructing his new capital at Constantinople.

My purpose in reducing three centuries of Roman history to a few pages is not simply to repeat what can be found elsewhere. My point is that Constantine’s final victory over his rivals was not merely the end of another civil war in which one military faction triumphed over another and life returned to normal.  Rather, Constantine initiated a revolution.  It was a revolution as significant as the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, or Mao’s Communist Revolution in China. Indeed, Constantine’s revolution may have proved even more far-reaching and certainly longer lasting than those later revolutions.

     It is time, I believe, to abandon the terminology “Late Roman Empire.” In fact, it may be time to stop calling Constantine’s project the “Roman Empire” at all.

It was no longer simply the Roman Empire. It had become the Christian Empire.

Two or three centuries later, a similar revolution emerged in the deserts of Arabia under Muhammad: the Muslim Revolution. Beginning in the seventh century, these two revolutionary civilizations would struggle against other powers—and against each other—for dominance across much of the known world.

    more to come   ---- Hugh Murray

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FAMILY VALUES - A THREAT TO THE STATE?

In 1781 after a battle between Tories and Rebels in the Carolinas, two teens raced away into the wilderness when the insurgents lost. Eventually, home, but they were spotted by a Tory who informed the British. Soon several troops arrived at their home and began teaching these colonials what happens to rebels; they proceeded to break dishes, tear clothing, smash furniture. The mother could do nothing but watch while her small treasures were being destroyed before her eyes. Then, the captain demanded her 14-year-old kneel and clean his boots. The lad refused, the officer then raised his sword. It was coming down on the lad's head when the boy raised his hand to deflect the blade. His hand was cut to the bone, and he gained a scar on his forehead. The officer then used the bloodied blade on the 16-year-old brother of the young Andrew. Within a few days, the elder brother and the mother would die (the mother of disease), and Andrew Jackson would survive to haunt the British, especially when he defeated some of their proud veterans who had defeated Napoleon.  In 1815 these British veterans lostg to the ragtag army of volunteers, pirates, free people of color, and some regulars, all led by Andrew Jackson, who thus became the “Hero of New Orleans” and later President of the United States.

In 1381 the Ming Dynasty sought to expand into what had been Mongol territory in Yunan. An officer of the Ming encountered a lad of about 10 on the road; asked him a simple question, and received a “smart a**” answer from the kid, Zheng He. The kid was captures and between age 10 and 14 castrated. He was then sent to serve in the home of newly installed prince. In time, that prince became the new Ming Emperor, and was so impressed by the skills of Zheng, that the servant was made into an Admiral. But not just an admiral. His trips were world marvels. From China, they sailed into the South China Sea (probably the historical expedition for basing today's claims of that sea by the Peoples' Republic of China. Admiral Zheng He probably sailed on the longest wooden ships ever, the main one with 4 decks, and the fleet composed of about 30,000 men. They sailed to Indonesia, South East Asia, India, Arabia, and East Africa. They returned with exotic animals, like giraffes, herbs from the “spice islands,” and knowledge of another route west in addition to the Silk Road. Europe had nothing to compete with such a fleet at this time. By contrast, Vasco da Gama's Portuguese expedition (began 1497) had only 170 men. Columbus sailed in 1492 with 3 ships, but only 90 men. Even if the number of men on Zheng He's voyage is exaggerated, it would still dwarf those of the Europeans decades later.

The Chinese expeditions occurred from about 1400 to 1435. Soon after a new emperor rose to the throne; thought the project a waste, and decided it was more important to build defences against land enemies. He ordered the destruction of the Chinese ocean going fleet, AND the destruction of the blue prints for ths ships, so no such foolishness would occur again.  And eunuchs had considerable power in the Chinese dynasties until 1900.

There are other surprising points about these stories – on one of these major voyages, Admiral He left the command to travel to Mecca, because he was originally a good Muslim.  A major contrast – the Chinese official captured and later castrated the insolent boy. I suspect the British officer near Camden town may have willing to kill the insulant Andrew Jackson, but I doubt if he would ever think of castrating him. Why as castration used more often in one part of the civilized world, and not much at all in the other? Moreover, Zheng He, a eunuch could rise to be an Admiral, commanding 30,000 men.  That would have been unheard of in the West.

I will speculate. I see 2 major reasons for castration, 1, to have defenders of the harem who would be strong enough as fighters, but unable to impregnate the emperor's females. Harems existed not only in China but in the Arab world, and probably in most areas where there was enough wealth for an emperor to have many women. And depending on the inclinations of the emperor, there might also be a harem of men.

If a man is finally able to forge an army to topple an emperor, he become the new ruler, and his family and friends will proceed to take what they want. But there have to be people who take care of government, taxes, who can enter the border, the town, the forbidden city or the royal castle?  All kinds of issues even in early times. Family values are no good for this, because one thinks only of your family or at best, your extended family. The culmination of family values is the Mafia. An emperor may make deals with this or that powerful family, but he will also want some loyal to him. How can you get those who will be loyal to the state above the family? Get a civil service composed of those who have no family. The solution: castration. The civil service exam, and castration, and you will have a loyal civil service.

Why did the castration solution not develop in the West? Around 300 AD, Constantine defeated several traditional pagan Roman competitor emperors, and what was different, Constantine was sympathetic to  Christianity. He quickly issued a Edict of Toleration for the new religion, but in time his successors would go much further.  Many temples were converted into Christian churches, and Christians were granted various privileges. Over time, the old was changed. Without support, for example, the scribes who kept the ancient Egyptian language alive, had to find new professions, and the writings of thousands of years was lost as no one could decipher it until the 1900s. The well-to-do were discouraged from having a wooden male penis hanging near the front door, there was less support for the gladiators and the games, and animals in the coliseums.  Even the Olympic Games, so entrenched in pagan society that it determined a Greek calendar, the Olympics were banned by the Christians. After a century or 2, the new Christian Roman Empire collapsed, Rome itself fell to barbarians, and most of Europe entered the Dark Ages.

Civilization seemed to be ending in the West. Instead of an empire, there would be smaller states, but even these had certain requirement. Mere family values, Mafia values, are hardly just values. It is entirely a society of who you know, not justice.  Family was all.  Secular education and schools had come to an end. The only institution that might have books, and some of the knowledge of the past, of science, of medicine, of building, of weaponry, would be the priesthood of the Roman Catholic Church. So, in the new small states and towns, the duke, or prince, or count, or whatever title, would make a deal with the church. It would support the new state, and it would be privileged in the new state. And unlike families who might simply want to pillage the new state, steal everything they could get for their many relatives, the priests generally had no families of their own. In some ways, they were akin to eunuchs, but with balls. So Europe did not require the service of eunuchs as did China.  In the West, priests would serve the state in the role the eunuchs had in the East.

What about harems in Europe? In Christianity, even the king was allowed only one wife. And from that wife would come the heir. Now the duke might have many mistresses, but if anyone else was caught sleeping with them, he could throw them out of the castle, away from the royal court, into poverty. And even if she had a child by someone else, it would be a bastard with no claim to the thrown. Again, no need for special guards for the mistresses so no need for castration.

Ptolomy was a general of Alexander's army that changed the world. He eventually became ruler of Egypt, and he and his descendants generally adapted to traditional Egyptian customs. Not entirely for the Ptolemys did build one of the wonders of the Ancients, the lighthouse of Alexandria, and they began another wonder, the great library of Alexandria. But they wore the garb of Egyptians, and adopted many customs. Thus, brother-sister marriage occurred between the famous Cleopatra and her brother. But as rivals for the throne, it was surely worse than most bad marriages – Cleopatra with help succeeded in killing her brother before he could do the same to her. Later she had her sister murdered too. She was also a priestess of Isis.  In the Middle East for centuries, where rulers are allowed 4 legitimate wives, and can have many children, and there is no rule of first come first serve, no rule that the eldest become the heir, some of the history of that area is “survival of the fittest – or deadliest” to succeed to the throne.  Of course that can happen in the West too, but less so, with one wife, and the custom of the eldest male becoming the heir.. Prince Harry may complain about being a “spare,” but he is spared from more bloody methods of culling the royal heirs.

Both China and the West were able to create stable empires/states that depended on bureaucracies. Eunuchs and priests were initially needed to begin this building process, and sway people away from mere family values – to plunder everyone to build your family. The state has been, with good reasons, the enemy of family values. Now the question is: Has it gone too far?-------Hugh Murray

Chris, A Chinese friend, responded on 29 July 2024 to an earlier version of this in our correspondence.

This is very interesting comparative study. Some eunuchs were actually having an affair with the big man's women, in their own way. Some eunuchs only cut one ball, so they kept certain sexual functions, only lesser than an ordinary guy. Whatever the case, corruption was common among them, regardless of whether they have children. Powerful eunuchs often end up adopting a child who could carry on their family name. Even more powerful eunuchs get to decide who becomes the next emperor. So I guess greed is part of human nature. 

By the way, it's admiral Zheng. Zheng He was his full name. I didn't know he was a eunuch. Interesting. 

More from Hugh Murray.  I know of the castrati, the choir boys, who to retain their youthful voices, were castrated, but these were a small number.  There may have been a much larger number involved in the African slave trade - not to the West, but to the East, the Middle East and mainly Muslim areas, where they were castrated.  But I know little of this and suggest the reader check it out.

7 Tipping Points

The Miracle of Freedom; 7 Tipping Points that Saved the World

Written by Chris Stewart and Ted Stewart

Rev. by Hugh Murray

            This slight book can provoke heavy thought about weighty topics.  The Stewarts have selected seven historical turning points in which, had battles gone the other way, there might be no freedom in the world.  The book’s reasonable assumption is that freedom is a rare and unique acquisition in human history.

            The authors write in general terms about these seven battles and why they were important, but in each chapter they include fictitious characters to exemplify the values of the adversaries.  It is in these discussions that the Stewarts stumble.  Thus, they present an Assyrian general pushing “his feet against his stirrups”(p. 30) around 700 BC, and a few hundred years later, a Persian emissary to Spartan King Leonidas “stretched against his stirrups and lifted his sword.”(p. 79)  However, most authorities contend that stirrups were not invented until several hundred years after, and were not used in Europe until about 500AD, helping to destroy the primacy of the infantry and galloping toward the rise of the knight on horseback.

            The Stewarts invent a character, a slave in ancient Egypt named Akhenaten Amsu living in 1876 BC.  Though not impossible, it is most improbable that he would have the name of Akhenaten, with reference to a god who would not become prominent until about 1350 BC, during the reign of  Pharaoh Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti.  Soon after their deaths, they became so hated for trying to establish a new, monotheistic-like religion, that their names were erased and their memories obliterated for 3,200 years.  Only with the unearthing of their capital in the 19^th century and discovery in the 1920s of the tomb of King Tutankamon (aka, Tutankaten) did the world learn of the short, unusual reign of Pharoah Akhenaten and his unique religion.  Because the Pharaoh’s Hymn to Aten is so similar to Psalm 104 of the Bible, that there must have been some connection between the Egyptian Atenism and Judaism. What were the connections?  Archaeologist James Breasted, Sigmund Freud, and others have speculated, while writer Ahmed Osman argued, unconvincingly, that Akhenaten was Moses.   Perhaps, this was a point that tipped the wrong way, so the Stewarts do not discuss it.  Still, it is most unlikely that a slave in 1876 BC Egypt would have been named Akhenaten anything.

            When writing of ancient Rome the authors state, “Digging through the refuse,…, he encounters a string of potato peelings.” (105)  This is most improbable for potatoes were unknown in Europe until after the discovery of the Americas.  Only after Columbus did the potato, and later maize, enter the European diet.

            Similarly, the Stewarts have an Arab residing near the Black Sea speaking in December 1493 of changes to be expected, including inflation, because of the return journey of Columbus.  I suspect it was far too early for any Black Sea neighbors to be speculating about inflationary effects of the recent voyage of Columbus.

            The Stewarts refer to “the war raging in Russia” (275) in May 1941.  What war?  Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Third Reich were still at peace, having divvied up Poland and various smaller countries in Eastern Europe.  The invasion of the USSR by numerous European nations would not begin until 22 June 1941.

            However, trivial errors are not my  main objection to this book.  The authors rightly judge Constantine’s victory over the pagan Emperor Maxentius for control of Rome in 312 as a major turning point.  With Constantine, Christianity gained legal status, and would soon become the dominant religion of the massive Roman Empire.  The Stewarts deem this victory an advance for freedom,- for polytheism was unscientific (114), and Christianity ended slavery (112).  Ultimately, Christianity is the reason Europe would lead the world in steel, guns, ships, and agriculture.(112)  The Stewarts also make an often overlooked point: with Christianity, infanticide would henceforth be considered immoral.  The ancient Greeks might kill a deformed infant.  The Roman father had a day or two to decide whether to accept a new-born into his family.  With Christianity,  a major change occurs: parents were supposed to raise their children, not kill them.  And if they were unable to raise them, the church might do so instead.  The Stewarts rightly note that this undoubtedly meant fewer female infants were killed through exposure.

            I urge readers of this book to see the film 2009 Spanish film Agora for a presentation of how some pagans could be scientific while some Christians might be anything but.  Yet, viewing that film is not necessary to think of the remarkable scientific accomplishments of the ancient Greeks – with most of those advances occurring while the Greeks were polytheistic pagans.  I do not pretend that all ancient Greeks were always rational and scientific, but surely the same can be said for the Christians.  Indeed, one of the early Church fathers, Tertullian, declared, “I believe because it is absurd.”  To some Christians, reason and science were not the cherished ideals of all Christians.

            When experiments conflict with Holy Writ, what should one believe?  Where are the four corners of the earth?  How could the earth be round?  And as Christianity consolidated power, science would soon have its martyrs, from the pagan woman mathematician Hypatia to Bruno and possibly many unknowns deemed witches or wizards or heretics.  On the other hand, in Christian Europe monasteries led advances in agriculture, and wind mills, and mechanical clocks were invented, and innovations made to inventions originally developed in other cultures, improving and refining them so that they surpassed the originals.

            Was Christianity responsible for the end of slavery?  Recall the admonition of Paul to the run-away:  the slave should return to his master.  Slavery declined in the late Roman Empire, but the empire itself was in decline.  Indeed, some attributed the sinking of Rome to the rise of Christianity.  Was Christianity the cause of the decline of slavery?  Or did slavery decline as part of the general decline and the general wreckage of the economy?  In time, when Christian Europe began to expand again, so did slavery.

            I would argue that it was the anti-Christians who first fought to end slavery.  During the French Revolution, the radicals, the Jacobins, who abolished the Christian calendar, replaced the 7-day week with one of ten days, and introduced other decimal measurements, - it was they who sought to end slavery throughout the French Empire.  Their revolutionary zeal spread to Haiti.  Even after the overthrow of Robespierre, his anti-Christian, anti-slavery ideals were propagated.  In Haiti the slave revolt and the French attempt to suppress it transformed into a race war, which ended with the flight or murder of most whites.

            Some Christians also become leaders of anti-slavery societies.  In Britain religious leaders persuaded Parliament to outlaw the slave trade in the 1830s.  When Britain’s Royal Navy then sought to prohibit that trade, there was rioting by the West African slave traders who were suddenly losing their chief, most valuable export.  In America small, quietist groups like the Quakers were joined by ever more mainstream Protestants of the North to condemn slavery.  They quarreled and broke with the mainstream Protestants of the South, who quoted the Bible to defend “the peculiar institution.”  A civil war finally settled both the political and theological dispute in the US.  Catholic Brazil retained legalized slavery until the 1880s.  In the Arab and African worlds, slavery would continue long after that.

            Despite my refusal to equate the West and all of its freedoms, scientific inquiry, wealth, etc. with Christian values, I am a defender of Western Civilization.  Like the Stewarts, I see the West as an island of reason, science, a work ethic, and wealth superior to most other cultures.

            Yet, by making the Battle of Britain one of the seven tipping points, one must ask, was Germany not part of the West?  Italy?  The Soviet Union?

            Certainly, Germany’s scientific culture had developed to a high point by the opening of the 20^th century.  Even under Hitler, Germany published more medical journals than any other nation, and more medical doctors headed universities in the Third Reich.  One need not be a rocket scientist to acknowledge German achievement in rocketry.  Aware of their accomplishments, Winston Churchill sneered at the Germans as he led Britain to war against them – the Germans had become mechanized barbarians.  In effect, they had ceased to be a part of the West.  Just look at how they treated the Jews, for example.

            If Germany is expelled from the West because it mistreated Jews, and then sought to liquidate those who were left in Europe, what other nations should cease to be considered Western?  In Agora, not only are the pagans killed, but the Jews are expelled from Roman Alexandria in the 4^th century AD.  Later, Jews were expelled from France and England.  One might try to excuse this by definition: that was the Dark Ages.  Well, what about the year of Columbus’ voyage, one that the Stewarts rank as a tipping point.  In 1492 the Spanish defeated the Muslims of the Granada kingdom and decreed that throughout Spain all Jews and Muslims must henceforth convert to Catholicism or leave Spain.  I do not think there was a legal synagogue in Spain from 1492 until the death of Franco in the 20^th century.

            If barbarous behavior toward Jews or others is reason to exclude Hitler’s Germany from “the West,” should Spain as it began its explorations and conquests also be excluded?  And while Spain of 1492 lacked an SS, it would soon have the Inquisition with its tortures to insure that conversos were not secret Jews or Muslims or heretics.  King Ferdinand and Isabella were trying to make the Iberian peninsula Jew-free; Hitler was simply trying to do the same for Germany and Europe.  If Germany is ousted from the club of the West, then surely Spain should be ejected when discussing Spain’s most important period in history.

            One may counter my argument, asserting, the Spain of Columbus was Christian; Hitler was not.  Hitler and the Nazi leadership may not have been Christian, but most Germans were.  Some American soldiers fighting in Europe were shocked to enter a home displaying on one wall a picture of the Fuehrer, and on another, a picture of the Pope.  Hitler had concluded a concordat with the Papacy early in his dictatorship.  And Hitler’s ally, Mussolini, had ended the hostility to the Pope, which he had inherited from the founders of the modern Italian state.  Mussolini had signed a pact with the Papacy, granting the Pope Vatican City and giving the Roman Church a privileged position in the Italian state.  Surely, the Italians were Christian.  Should they be expelled from the West because they were allied to Hitler?  And the same question should be raised about Hungary, the Vichy France of Marshall Petain, Croatia, Slovakia, which was headed by a priest, etc.

            There was one significant way in which Hitler’s Reich harkened back to the pagan past rather than that of Christianity.  The state soon required a midwife to be present when an Aryan woman gave birth.  She was to report about the health of the infant, and if she determined it was malformed, the baby might be taken from the mother to a special hospital – and starved.  Hitler was a vegetarian, did not smoke, and did not drink alcohol.  He sought to promote a healthy nation.  The Nazi health policies sought to do this by eliminating defectives, and many Germans approved this idea.  However, even Nazi panels refused to abide by some non-party doctors who even sought to sterilize alcoholics over 70 years of age for the good of the race and the Reich.  On the other side, various church groups did speak out against these Nazi practices.

            In another area, the Nazis did not hearken back to the pagan Greeks – homosexuality.  While the Stewarts declare that Christianity brought freedom; it certainly did not bring freedom to homosexuals.  Greeks were famous for their male-male lovers.  Gibbon concluded that almost none of the Roman emperors were “regular” in their sexual habits before Christianity.  Hadrian, after whom the Adriatic Sea is named, even had one of his male lovers declared a god.  The freedom, and regular (using regular to mean something different from what Gibbon meant) sex life of the pagans, came to an end with the victory of Constantine.  This was made manifest with the codification of Roman law under Justinian in the 6^th century: the penalty for homosexual activity was death.  And so it remained until the code was revised as the Napoleonic Code.  Where Napoleon’s armies marched, with slogans of liberty, equality, and fraternity, Jews could leave their ghettos and gays could be gay.

            Though the leader of the Storm Troopers (SA) was gay, Hitler had him and other SA leaders killed in summer of 1934.  Rumors claim that Hitler was also homosexual.  Even if he were, the policies of the Nazi regime were extremely anti-gay.  Some alleged that Hitler came from Jewish ancestry.  A better case can be made for Heydrich, and the Nazi war criminal von Milch.  A Grand Inquisitor was also of Jewish ancestry.   In a sense, this does not matter, for the policies of Hitler were extremely anti-homosexual and anti-Jewish.  And one can deduce that the anti-gay program of the Nazis was simply another form of their efforts to create a healthy, eugenic nation by liquidating defectives.

            Was Hitler’s Germany part of the West?  In its anti-Jewish and anti-gay policies, it was definitely Western.  In its eugenics programs, it was no longer Christian.  But various American states had initiated  some similar eugenic programs before Hitler came to power.  Indeed, these were often introduced as part of progressive legislation.  In sterilizing mental defectives, the Nazis were simply following progressive American reforms.  Was America part of the West?

            And what about the Soviet Union?  The USSR in theory was based upon the world-view of Karl Marx, a Ph.D. from a German university whose dissertation concerned ancient philosophy.  He did much of his research in the British Museum in London.  He praised science, and christened his approach “scientific socialism.”  An atheist from a family of converted Jews, still he appears very Western.  He developed a theory of economics and history and sought to apply it to gain power.  Others were more successful in applying it, and during WWI Lenin and his Bolsheviki seized power in Russia.  A civil war ensued for several years, with the West and Japan aiding the Whites against the Reds.  Lenin’s group won, and though it was overtly atheistic, there may have been a religious component.  Of the early Bolshevik leaders, almost all were of Jewish heritage (including Lenin through his grandfather).  The chief exception was Stalin who was of Christian background and who had studied in an Orthodox Christian seminary.  Stalin was married to a Jewish woman.  Are Jews part of the West?  They would be some of the most prominent members of the Communist Party in the USSR and would enter the elite organization to transform the country.

            Marxist attempts to create a “new man” by changing the environment and ”re-educating” or eliminating the negative elements was almost scientific in construction and implementation.  Change the environment, end capitalism and exploitation, teach the new ways of avoiding selfishness, and the new socialist man will appear.  Heaven on earth without a god.  Of course, about 20 million were starved or killed in trying to implement these policies in the USSR.  But those liquidated were merely capitalists, bourgeois types, reactionaries, or some other deviants.  The bad eggs were trashed so a delicious omelet might be concocted.  Apparently Stalin failed to push through the necessary sacrifices for a consumer heaven, but he built the military so that the USSR withstood Hitler’s major invasion.  And with the help of spies and captured rocket scientists, Stalin’s USSR emerged as the #2 power on earth.  Was the USSR part of the West?

            Marx’s influence would extend beyond Europe.  Under Mao in China up to 50 million were killed to create the new man.  And in Cambodia about one fourth of the population was exterminated to build anew.  Those who had read, those who had knowledge of the greedy capitalist and colonial era, those who were professionals, all had been corrupted and should be remolded for the new regime.  Since most were so perverted by enjoying the fruits of exploitation under the cold system, they could not change; they were liquidated.  Was China and Cambodia part of the West?

            Hitler had a similar vision.  Destroying capitalism and the capitalist?  No, they were productive.  Only a small number were unproductive; the Jews, the parasites.  Hitler would defend the 99%, the vast majority of Aryans against the 1%, the tiny minority of Jews who seemed to dominate Germany before the Nazis gained power.  Just eliminate the crafty, devious Jews, and everyone else will have a better life.  Was Auschwitz part of the West?

            There is another institution that reemerged in the 20^th century of Hitler and Stalin – slavery.  It may not have been labeled such, but “enemies of the people” were rounded up, not for having committed any crimes, but for who they were.  They could be imprisoned, placed in special camps, and worked to death, starved, or simply exterminated.  Slavery expanded in the 20^th century – in Nazi Europe, the Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, etc.

            There is another point, not a tipping point, that should be discussed.  The Greeks declared that in Persia, only the Emperor was free – all others being slaves of that king of kings.  One suspects there was still a great deal of room to maneuver among the millions in that empire.  And how free were the Greeks?  Slaves, women, children, the poor, - how free were they?  In the 1850s Southerners chastised the Yankees who engaged in “wage slavery,” a phrase that Marxists would later use.  The poor in the North had to work long hours for low wages and when old, would have no master to protect and provide for him.  Surely, the Southern peculiar institution might be more humane than Yankee policies.

            I would content that no human is totally free.  I am sure, if we could hear their conversations, we would be surprised at how the Persian Emperor felt he was not free; how Hitler saw his limitations even in the Reich; how Stalin thought there were plots against him; how Mao …  They were not totally free.  And slaves are usually not totally unfree.  At worse, they might decide to flee even if the odds are overwhelming they will be shot and killed.  Still, it might be their final act, but it would be a free one.

Yet, that does not diminish the great difference between slavery and freedom.  They are opposite sides of a spectrum, a continuum, where one can slide into another.  I tend to agree with the Stewarts that most of mankind through most of his history has lived closer to the slavery side of the continuum.  Freedom is a rarity, and it should be cherished.  And so I must agree with the Stewarts, that in 1940 there was a vast difference between Churchill’s Britain and Hitler’s Germany.  The British Empire was not all free, nor was the Reich all slavery, but there was a vast difference in the amount of freedom between the two belligerents.  Britain did represent freedom.  Germany, though a part of the West, did represent slavery (as did Italy and the USSR).  The Battle of Britain was a tipping point in the struggle for freedom in the world. 

Are dreams fed by blood and broken bones?

            There was almost no freedom in Cambodia, in Mao’s China, in Stalin’s USSR.  There was very little in Hitler’s Germany after 1938.  Even though Western influence was visible in certain fields in each of these lands, freedom was not visible.  The modern totalitarian state is an outgrowth of the West, and yet it is the antithesis of much of the best of the West.  In the end, I must concur with the Stewarts that the Battle of Britain was a tipping point.  Had the British lost, the world would be far less free.