John Lukacs, Neocon?
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John Lukacs, historian and crank, has penned a strange review of Pat Buchanan’s most recent book. It is no surprise that Lukacs doesn’t like Buchanan’s book, since Buchanan has profaned Lukacs’ idol, Winston Churchill. The principal difference between the two men is that Buchanan sees Communism as having been a greater threat than Nazism, whereas Lukacs comes to the opposite conclusion. Buchanan’s view, of course, was the one taken by most American conservatives before the conservative movement became the neoconservative movement, but it should be possible to argue either case in a civil way, with more civility, at any rate, than Lukacs manages in his review.
But Lukacs’ conclusion is especially odd, when he says one cannot say that Hitler was evil and also say it was unnecessary to wage war against him. Lukacs maintained a similar view of Soviet Communism for many years. This magazine had a similar view of Saddam Hussein. Has Lukacs, in his eagerness to smite any dissent from the cult of Churchill, gone over to neoconservatism?
Filed under: Books
It’s odd that you should complain about Lukacs’ lack of civility when you call him a “crank” in your opening sentence. He’s cranky, but not a crank.
I think Lukacs is right when calls attention to the untenable tension in Buchanan’s book between the theses that “Hitler was evil” and “Hitler should not have been fought”. And I think Lukacs’ evaluation of the degree of threat posed by Nazism vs. Communism is entirely correct. Had Nazism not been destroyed by war, our evaluation of the dangers of a Europe dominated by a National Socialist Germany would rate those dangers very great, indeed…were we still in a position to carry on public discourse about such subjects.
I concur that calling him a “crank” and then bemoaning his lack of civility is rather hypocritical.
Lukacs is no doubt right that Nazism and German nationalism constituted a far more dangerous threat to the West than did Russian Communism. 1917 was a result of a German war of aggression. The fall of Eastern Europe under the Iron Curtain was a result of a German war of aggression.
“Lukacs’ conclusion is especially odd, when he says one cannot say that Hitler was evil and also say it was unnecessary to wage war against him.”
I partially agree with you here. It’s an odd conclusion… out of context. Certainly the simple evil of a leader does not require one to go to war to destroy him. Your example of Saddam Hussein is fitting. But, were Hussein on the brink of dominating Europe, his evil would require war. To not go to war with Hitler was to give an evil man domination of Europe.
ON CSPAN II TODAY MR. LUKACS CALLED HITLER THE “GREATEST GENIUS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY”. I LIE NOT, EXACT QUOTE. I THINK LUKACS IS GREAT. NOT THE MAMBY PAMBY UNCLEAR THINING OF BUCHANAN. YOU CAN AT LEAST FIGHT WITH LUKACS ABOUT FACTS, HARD FACTS.
I doubt that Lukacs intended to convey approbation in calling Hitler a genius. In The Hitler of History, Lukacs considers the debate about calling someone like Hitler a “great” man. I’ll also add that Lukacs has and would consider “hard facts” a silly phrase.
@Mark P: I absolutely disagree with your opinion that Nazism was “a far more dangerous threat” to the West than Communism. What about the Stalin strategy , the Cuban Missile Crisis, the isolation of West Berlin, the infiltration and indoctrination of the radical 68-movement in France, Italy (Brigate Rosse) and Germany (RAF)? Your view is typically America focussed: isolationistic and unilateral. By the way Communism has also been a major but underrated problem within the sphere of the USA- see McCarthy’s exaggerated witch hunting- campaign reaction to contain Communist ambitions, Lee Harvey Oswald etc.