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?
The world is for thousands a freak show; the images flicker past and vanish; the impressions remain flat and unconnected in the soul. Thus they are easily led by the opinions of others, are content to let their impressions be shuffled and rearranged and evaluated differently.
Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T true is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it.
The soul yearns to fly home on the wings of love to the world of ideas. It longs to be freed from the chains of the body.
He who has spent has used; he who has collected has lost; but he who has given has saved his treasure forever.
We live in a spiritual Universe. God is in, through, around and for us.
Law has become a business. Health care has become a business. Unfortunately, politics has also become a business. That really undermines society.
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