It is just one small step from the previous discussion of the criminal genius so much admired by Bakunin, to the more general concept of the evil genius. It starts with Satan, one of God’s most capable angels (perhaps, the most capable, considering that he was the Lucifer), who fell from grace when he disobeyed God. (In the Koran, we have the most intriguing interpretation of that disobedience, as he refuses to bow to Adam! This act of defiance has been reinterpreted by some as Satan’s refusal to bow to anything except God, thus giving him an honorable motivation. Whether this is going too far or not is beside the point, as the point itself goes to suggest that the concept of evil is far more complicated than most of us may have supposed.
It is customary to associate the evil genius primarily with politics, and to exclude the possibility of evil from the creative fields. It is in this sense that Pushkin proclaimed (in Mozart and Saglieri) the incompatibility of genius and evil, as if the latter were all concentrated in worldly power. It was, however, Pushkin, too, who would express his admiration for Peter the Great, although Peter, no less than Ivan Grozny before him, and Comrade Stalin after him, could be seen (but curiously was not) as a tyrannical and even sadistic evildoer by his victims. The denunciation campaign against Stalin, which was started by Nikita Khrushchev half-a-century ago, and appears to be still in progress, extends no similar condemnation to Stalin’s great predecessors, far more than him marked by exceptional cruelty, and virtually soaked in violence and mayhem. I have no doubt that fifty years down the road, Stalin’s name will be officially and unequivocally inscribed in the Pantheon of Russia’s rulers of genius alongside Peter the Great, and all the current criticism of him will be swept away from the mainstream channels of communication, reduced to the far-out margins of the Russian media and to those Western outlets which are always critical of Russia anyway.
The fact that I am not writing a subjective apology of Stalin ought to be clear from my next reference to one of the “paragons” of quintessential evil, Adolf Hitler. One of his early postwar biographers at the time when objectivity was still allowed in his historical assessment, noted that, curiously, had he died of a heart attack in, say, 1939, he might have easily gone down in history as one of the greatest statesmen Germany ever had. I might candidly add to it as well that, had Hitler won World War II (which was quite possible had he not attacked Russia), his place in history could have been very different from having lost the war. Which only goes to reiterate what I said earlier, that the concept of evil is far more complicated than most of us might suppose.
And finally, let me end this rather odd, but intellectually important entry (where I must by no means be seen as some kind of defender of evil, which I am not!) by quoting a passage from the Bible, where God and evil are juxtaposed, revealing a peculiar and awesome connection. Here is that remarkable passage (from Isaiah 45:7), which will be best to conclude this entry with, without any further comment:
“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
It is customary to associate the evil genius primarily with politics, and to exclude the possibility of evil from the creative fields. It is in this sense that Pushkin proclaimed (in Mozart and Saglieri) the incompatibility of genius and evil, as if the latter were all concentrated in worldly power. It was, however, Pushkin, too, who would express his admiration for Peter the Great, although Peter, no less than Ivan Grozny before him, and Comrade Stalin after him, could be seen (but curiously was not) as a tyrannical and even sadistic evildoer by his victims. The denunciation campaign against Stalin, which was started by Nikita Khrushchev half-a-century ago, and appears to be still in progress, extends no similar condemnation to Stalin’s great predecessors, far more than him marked by exceptional cruelty, and virtually soaked in violence and mayhem. I have no doubt that fifty years down the road, Stalin’s name will be officially and unequivocally inscribed in the Pantheon of Russia’s rulers of genius alongside Peter the Great, and all the current criticism of him will be swept away from the mainstream channels of communication, reduced to the far-out margins of the Russian media and to those Western outlets which are always critical of Russia anyway.
The fact that I am not writing a subjective apology of Stalin ought to be clear from my next reference to one of the “paragons” of quintessential evil, Adolf Hitler. One of his early postwar biographers at the time when objectivity was still allowed in his historical assessment, noted that, curiously, had he died of a heart attack in, say, 1939, he might have easily gone down in history as one of the greatest statesmen Germany ever had. I might candidly add to it as well that, had Hitler won World War II (which was quite possible had he not attacked Russia), his place in history could have been very different from having lost the war. Which only goes to reiterate what I said earlier, that the concept of evil is far more complicated than most of us might suppose.
And finally, let me end this rather odd, but intellectually important entry (where I must by no means be seen as some kind of defender of evil, which I am not!) by quoting a passage from the Bible, where God and evil are juxtaposed, revealing a peculiar and awesome connection. Here is that remarkable passage (from Isaiah 45:7), which will be best to conclude this entry with, without any further comment:
“I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things.”
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