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To: "H-Net Network on American communism and anticommunism" <H-HOAC@H-NET.MSU.EDU> Sent: Friday, February 17, 2006 10:12 AM Subject: RE: A Secret History of Kronstadt moments? (Capshaw) Re: Mr. Capshaw wrote: "Whittaker Chambers spoke of leaving the winning side for the losing side." But in the case of Whittaker Chambers it wasn't a matter of choosing liberal anticommunism over communism, far from it. What Chambers chose was religion, in his case Christianity, over the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment, as it was revealed to Chambers, was a wrong turning for man. Communism according to Chambers was simply the latest manifestation of the Enlightenment. Chambers believed that religion was the only secure basis of freedom. Never mind that even the religion of Jesus Christ had been employed by power-crazed elites to deprive human beings of freedom for centuries. Chambers was a man possessed, in the words of Philip Rahv, "by a lust for the Absolute.... He is certain of its existence; and he finds it - invariably. First History, now God. For he repented of his unbelief even before he openly emerged from the Communist underground, thus insuring himself of uninterrupted contact with the Absolute." Lewis Hartshorn
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