Many political, social and philosophical teachings create ideas of the ‘Perfect Person’. They form categories of ‘the self’ and the ways someone understands their individuality and personhood. The Nazi German politics of late 1930s created the ideal of the perfect Aryan man, the fighter, the husband and the Übermensch. The ‘American Dream’ of modern neo-liberal United States creates the ideal of a self-reliant entrepreneur and consumer, living in the suburbs with a white picket fence. However, the political form of revolution goes further than that. It does not simply create an ideal category of the self, it actively attempts to shape the self. This becomes especially evident in the 20th century, with the revolutions in the Russian Empire, Egypt, Cuba and many other states, encompassing entire populations and reforming all aspects of people’s lives. Yinghong argues that the communist societies of China and the USSR create a better field than ever before for studying personhood in the context of revolution (Yinghong 2009). Revolutionary politics construct, erase and reconstruct personhood, on both global and local levels. This essay deconstructs the notion of revolutionary transformation, by looking at the destruction of the old self and creation of the new self as separate events within the same process. It will look at the ways revolutions in Russia, China, Egypt and Cuba interact with the notion of personhood and the Revolutionary Man. It will go on to argue that the destruction of the old self is an element of transformation no less significant than the creation of the new self.
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The birth of the New Man as the death of the Old Man
One of the key aspects of many revolutions is the idea of the ‘New Man’, the perfect Revolutionary Person, who encompasses the ideals of the revolution and exists ephemerally in the imagination of everyone. Yinghong argues the first example of the communist New Man appeared during the Russian Revolution (Yinghong 2009). The Soviet Man represented the ideals of hard work, loyalty to the Party and faith in the bright communist future. This was later parodied and subverted in Zinovyev’s Homo Sovieticus, where hard work turns into “they pretend they are paying us, and we pretend we are working”, loyalty to the Party becomes passive acceptance of authoritarianism, and faith in the future turns into lack of initiative and hatred for anything non-Soviet (Hosking 1987). Whichever version you choose to believe, it serves as clear evidence of creation (and subversion) of new categories of selfhood. What is more important for the purposes of this essay, it serves as evidence of destruction of the old understanding of one’s personhood.
Emergence of the Soviet Man required blood sacrifice - it required the death of the old ideal self, the ‘noble and honourable’ Imperial Man, personified in the plethora of characters of Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”. In part, the symbolic death of the Imperial Man was mirrored in the physical death of thousands of members of Russian aristocracy in the early days of Soviet Russia. In this way, erasure of a category of selfhood was transcendental and shaped by revolutionary action both physically and psychologically.
It is important to make a distinction between agencies that perpetrate the destruction of the Old Self within revolutionary politics. The idea of self-imposed destruction and reformation of selfhood has featured prominently in revolutionary politics. Russian 19th century proto-revolutionary Sergey Nechayev described the Revolutionary Man as one with “no personal interests, no business affairs, no emotions, no attachments, no property, and no name”, wholly absorbed “in the single thought and the single passion for revolution” (Nechayev 1869). However, this understanding gives the agency to the actor himself. Revolutionary process, as will be shown further, often takes the agency away from the actor and the transformation of the self happens independent of the actor’s desire.
Construction as destruction
On a less global and more personal level, revolutionary erasure and reformation of the self is also evident. This is exemplified in Ghannam’s idea of ‘technologies of immortality’ - the mechanism, through which victims become martyrs, and how the self is constructed collectively (Ghannam 2014).
Ghannam talks about the death of Anas, a 15-year-old boy, whose untimely demise was immortalised in revolutionary politics of the Arab Spring. His pictures were circulated in the media, online groups were made in his name, - Anas joined the pantheon of martyrs of the Egyptian Revolution. The media focused on his death, his affiliation with Ultras (a group that participated in the protests), and celebrated his life in relation to his demise. Anas’ self became concentrated in his martyrdom and victimhood. His life became dissolved in the symbolism of his death. This closely mirrors Nechayev’s idea of the revolutionary being wholly absorbed in revolutionary action. After his death, Anas’ projection in the minds of Tahrir revolutionaries became Nechayev’s revolutionary man.
It is important to note that Anas himself longed for becoming a symbol of the Revolution to a certain extent. In his will, he asked his body to be wrapped in the Egyptian flag and asked for his funeral to take place in Tahrir Square (ibid.). He was involved with Ultras and his views are evident from his personal texts with his friends. Thus, revolutionary politics did not fully take the agency away from Anas. The boy’s alignment with the Revolution, and perhaps even desire to become a martyr, points at the fact that his revolutionary transformation happened through Anas’ own agency. Yet, the physical actions that turned him into a revolutionary icon were taken entirely by others. Anas’ newly constructed self of a martyr was constructed by the community, even with his ‘permission’.
This lack of personal agency is highlighted in the difference between the aftermath of the death of Anas and the death of Saber, a middle-aged man killed by a bus driver in 2008 (Ghannam 2014). The latter received little media attention and was not hailed as a martyr. Ghannam theoritises this could be due to the age of Anas, or due to the wealth of his parents, or due to concentrated online action of his digitally literate friends. This is significant, as it highlights the key role the community plays in shaping the personhood of the subject. The self of Saber remained in the minds of his friends and family, whilst the self of Anas morphed into that of an icon and a martyr. Revolutionary politics erased Anas’ original selfhood, replacing it with the new ascetic Revolutionary selfhood, as prescribed by Sergey Nechayev.
Jungian Individuation and the death of the ‘self’
Communist China and the Soviet Union had radically different approaches to revolutionary transformation, specifically to dissent. A dissenter both China and the USSR had to go through a transformation, where their old self was destroyed and a new one created. Yet, in the Soviet Union this transformation usually resulted in an execution or labour camps, while in China the aim of the transformation often was reeducation (Perry 2002; Legvold & Kharkhordin 1999). The difference and commonality between the two can be understood through the Jungian term individuation.
Individuation denotes separation of one’s psychological self from the collective consciousness (Jung 1916). Kharkhordin uses this term to describe the process of increasing attention to the individual in the Soviet Union under Stalin (Legvold & Kharkhordin 1999). He argues that in the 1930s the policy of the Party performed a 180 degree turn from the ideals of the ‘коллектив’ (the Russian noun version of ‘collective’, meaning a group of people as a unit with its own agency and direction) towards attention to the individual through ‘revelation by deeds’. Actions and characteristics of all elements of the Soviet society were recorded in detail like never before. Western researchers commented that the Soviet legal system, unlike its Western counterpart, took into account the entire personality of the accused during judgement (ibid.). “The criminal's acts came to be considered as revealing the deeper structure of his motivation and personality, and it was this structure, not the acts as such, that was to be tried by the community” (ibid. p.182).
Kharkhordin argues this is evidence of increasing individuation in Stalin’s USSR. Moreover, it is important to note that in a large proportion of the cases the personhood was not only studied, but created. Fabrication of legal cases in the USSR was ubiquitous and, combined with the ‘personality trials’ described by Kharkhordin, it amounted to a machine for erasure and manufacturing of selfhoods. The case of Jewish Pioneers in 1952 especially resonates with the story of Anas. 16 pioneers, aged 15 to 17 were tried for terrorism and Jewish nationalism (Medvedev 2003). Four were sentenced to death, the rest were sent to forced labour camps. This case is prominent in relation to personhood, as during the trial completely new identities were constructed for the accused pioneers. In 1950, the group started a literature club “The Union for the Cause of the Revolution”. A year later, a member reported the club for expressing anti-Soviet sentiments and the pioneers were arrested. During the year-long trial, the pioneers were interrogated and their characters were judged. Their new selfhoods of terrorists and dissidents were constructed, whilst their original identities were erased. At the pinnacle of transformation, after their deaths the pioneers remained terrorists in the collective consciousness of the public, like Anas remained a martyr in Tahrir.
Chinese revolutionary doctrine of personhood differs fundamentally from the Soviet one. When in the Soviet Union a convict accused of dissent would generally be either executed or sent to labour camps, a Chinese dissident was expected to go through a process of rebirth to emerge a New Man (Perry 2002). This is evident to this day in the ‘re-education camps’ built for Uighur populations in North-Western China. One who ‘strays from the right path’ is meant to abandon their old identity and adopt a new one, with the help of the Party. Perry argues this difference in doctrine emerges from the Confucian notion of “fundamental malleability and perfectibility of human beings” (ibid. p.119). You are born an incomplete human being and can become fully human through guidance. With the communist approach to this idea, Jungian ‘individuation’ is flipped on its head. A dissident needs to become a ‘Revolutionary Screw’, a part of the revolutionary machine with little agency. Rather than being separated from the whole to complete their journey of personhood, an individual becomes a part of the whole and thereby completes the journey. Despite the fundamental differences between the Chinese and the Russian systems, they go through similar processes. Both include erasure of the past self and creation of a new one.
Within the Revolution, everything. Against the Revolution, nothing.
There is an argument to be made for an all-encompassing revolution that, whilst creating the ‘New Man’, leaves space for the old. Holbraad looks at the paradox of Cubans being both dedicated to the revolutionary cause and disaffected with the revolutionary impact (Holbraad 2013). He argues that according to Cuban understanding of revolution, all action within the context of revolution is revolutionary regardless of the nature of the action. A deconstructionist analysis of Cuban revolutionary selfhood creates an interesting conflict. In Badiou’s view, creation of Hombre Nuevo in Cuba would be a process of transformation (Badiou 2003). However, if one views the transformation as two separate acts (erasure of the past self and creation of the new self), then the all-encompassing Cuban revolutionary process is an Ouroboros, continuously destroying its own selfhoods and creating new ones.
It is important to note that Holbraad’s theoretical ideas do not entirely hold up in practice. If the famous quote by Castro “Within the Revolution, everything. Against the Revolution, nothing” (Castro 1961) was faithfully practiced, it would have left no room for fighting counter-revolutionary action. Yet, Cuba’s track record of suppressing dissent suggests that there is something against the Revolution (Thomas 1998). Nevertheless, Holbraad’s analysis of Cuban understanding of revolution highlights an important conflict within revolutionary action, present in the Cuban doctrine and absent in the Chinese, Egyptian and Russian ones.
Revolution is associated with transformation more than any other political form. Perhaps it is no surprise that it radically transforms the Self - both in terms of the global concept of the Revolutionary Man, and in the local context of transformation of individuals. While revolutionary discourse usually focuses on the creation of the new Self, the process through which the old Self is destroyed is no less important. Comparing revolutionary politics in China, Russia, Egypt and Cuba demonstrates that these processes can occur in radically different ways. Examining creation and destruction as separate elements of the one process can shed light on both the nature of personhood and the nature of revolutionary politics.
Bibliography
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Castro F. (1961) Speech to intellectuals 30 June 1961; Palabras a los Intelectu
Ghannam, F. (2014). Technologies of Immortality, ‘Good Endings’, and Martyrdom in Urban Egypt. Ethnos, 80(5), pp.630-648.
Holbraad, M. (2013). Revolución o muerte: Self-Sacrifice and the Ontology of Cuban Revolution. Ethnos, 79(3), pp.365-387.
Hosking, G. (1987). Homo sovieticus or homo sapiens?. London: School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London.
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Thomas H. (1998) Cuba: The Pursuit of Freedom. p.388
Yinghong Cheng (2009). Creating the new man: From Enlightenment Ideals to Socialist Realities. University of Hawai'i Press.
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