I believe that the formation of the Chekas was one of the gravest and most impermissible errors that the Bolshevik leaders committed in 1918 when plots, blockades, and interventions made them lose their heads. All evidence indicates that revolutionary tribunals, functioning in the light of day and admitting the right of defence, would have attained the same efficiency with far less abuse and depravity. Was it necessary to revert to the procedures of the Inquisition?
Interpretation
The quote criticizes the Bolshevik leaders for creating secret police that abused power instead of utilizing transparent and fair judicial processes.
Victor Serge reflects on the establishment of the Chekas by Bolshevik leaders as a serious mistake during a time of crisis in 1918. He argues that the use of transparent revolutionary tribunals that guaranteed rights to defense could have been equally effective in addressing the threats faced at the time while avoiding the moral corruption and brutality associated with secret police methods reminiscent of the Inquisition.
In practice
In a discussion about government oversight and justice, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of transparency in law enforcement.
It is often said that ‘the germ of all Stalinism was in Bolshevism at its beginning’. Well, I have no objection. Only, Bolshevism also contained many other germs – a mass of other germs – and those who lived through the enthusiasm of the first years of the first victorious socialist revolution ought not to forget it. To judge the living man by the death germs which the autopsy reveals in the corpse – and which he may have carried in him since his birth – is that very sensible?
A straight oar looks bent in the water. What matters is not merely that we see things but how we see them.
Like looking through a telescope into the Milky Way and wondering if we're alone in the universe, it made me realize with the glaring clarity of desert light how scarce and delicate life is, how insignificant we are compared with the forces of nature and the dimensions of space.
They are supposed to be dispassionate dispensers of Pure Justice, icy islands of emotionless calculation. In short, umpires should be acute Republicans.
In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
Properly speaking, all true work is religion.
Hands make the world each day.
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