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The Wilder Shores of Marx: Journeys in a Vanishing World
What is life like in a totalitarian regime? It is a question which has always fascinated Theodore Dalrymple - whose father was a strict if slightly inconsistent Communist.
The Wilder Shores of Marx sees the writer visit five countries which still labour under systems inspired by the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and other luminaries of the left.
The Wilder Shores of Marx sees the writer visit five countries which still labour under systems inspired by the writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and other luminaries of the left.
255 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1991
111 people are currently reading
653 people want to read
About the author
Theodore Dalrymple
98 books623 followersAnthony Malcolm Daniels, who generally uses the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, is an English writer and retired prison doctor and psychiatrist. He worked in a number of Sub-Saharan African countries as well as in the east end of London. Before his retirement in 2005, he worked in City Hospital, Birmingham and Winson Green Prison in inner-city Birmingham, England.
Daniels is a contributing editor to City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, where he is the Dietrich Weismann Fellow. In addition to City Journal, his work has appeared in The British Medical Journal, The Times, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Salisbury Review, National Review, and Axess magasin.
In 2011, Dalrymple received the 2011 Freedom Prize from the Flemish think tank Libera!.
Daniels is a contributing editor to City Journal, published by the Manhattan Institute, where he is the Dietrich Weismann Fellow. In addition to City Journal, his work has appeared in The British Medical Journal, The Times, The Observer, The Daily Telegraph, The Spectator, The Salisbury Review, National Review, and Axess magasin.
In 2011, Dalrymple received the 2011 Freedom Prize from the Flemish think tank Libera!.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 43 reviews
January 1, 2020
I'm not an anti-Marxist by any means. I've always been very pro having a life where money is not the motivating factor. The problem with Marxism is that everyone needs to be equal and that is unachievable by any country, they are just too big for it to work. In my teens I was on several kibbutzim ranging in size from about 300 to 1,200 people. I worked in bananas quite a lot as I liked my job.
There were bosses everywhere, banana boss, kitchen boss, laundry boss, automobile boss etc. and they were elected for two-five years depending on the expertise needed for that job. No one could be elected for more than two terms. they got no more pay, status or benefits than anyone else. Everyone had to go to the Friday meeting and everyone had to vote on every issue. Money was a communal resource and how 'the extra' after meeting the usual needs, was spent was communally decided and voted on. This included a gap year travelling abroad which many kibbutzim could afford.
When a country has a communist regime it is too big for everyone to have their say of how the wealth should be spent so inevitably it becomes a dictatorship. And no one is equal under a dictatorship, right or left wing. There is the ruling class - the select few who have power, money, status and everything material they could want, and those who have to do what they are told and get what they are given.
So why didn't people leave these countries (with the exception of Cuba)? Albania, a horrible-sounding grey place of constant shortages iss only 2 miles at its closest point from Corfu. A lot of people can swim that. And it's surrounded on its land side by Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Greece.
"it is not the physical obstacles to escape that prevent larger numbers of Albanians from fleeing; rather, it is the consequences of doing so for relatives and friends. For, as the students informed us, there is no concept of individual responsibility in Albania. If a man deserts his homeland, his family and some of his friends will be held responsible. They will be sent down mines under conditions that will make it unlikely they will ever return; at best, they will live in perpetual internal exile, half-starved and with no rights. They, the students, knew people to whom this had happened." (The students were the author's informants).
We in the West believe in personal responsibility with a certain amount of weight but no punishment given to such extenuating circumstances as a deprived home life. Communist countries think differently,
"A man’s values and aspirations are formed not abstractly or in isolation, but socially, from his family, his friends, his workplace. If a man were a traitor, then, if he reverted to bourgeois individualism by escaping to the outside world, there must have been something unhealthy about his upbringing, his social milieu. It was only right, therefore, that those around him should be punished."
All in all, the plus points of the book were it was really well-written and every now and again, the grumbling, curmudgeonly personality of the author was broken by insightful perceptions and information that made me understand the thinking, not just the policies, behind the repression in these regimes.
The negative points were there was a lot of repetition and the dreariness of the countries together with the author's humorless personality - he never looks on the bright side of life it seems - made it a hard read, but a worthwhile one. 3 stars but rated 4 because any book that really makes me think has to be elevated to a really positive rating.
Notes on reading
There were bosses everywhere, banana boss, kitchen boss, laundry boss, automobile boss etc. and they were elected for two-five years depending on the expertise needed for that job. No one could be elected for more than two terms. they got no more pay, status or benefits than anyone else. Everyone had to go to the Friday meeting and everyone had to vote on every issue. Money was a communal resource and how 'the extra' after meeting the usual needs, was spent was communally decided and voted on. This included a gap year travelling abroad which many kibbutzim could afford.
When a country has a communist regime it is too big for everyone to have their say of how the wealth should be spent so inevitably it becomes a dictatorship. And no one is equal under a dictatorship, right or left wing. There is the ruling class - the select few who have power, money, status and everything material they could want, and those who have to do what they are told and get what they are given.
So why didn't people leave these countries (with the exception of Cuba)? Albania, a horrible-sounding grey place of constant shortages iss only 2 miles at its closest point from Corfu. A lot of people can swim that. And it's surrounded on its land side by Montenegro, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Greece.
"it is not the physical obstacles to escape that prevent larger numbers of Albanians from fleeing; rather, it is the consequences of doing so for relatives and friends. For, as the students informed us, there is no concept of individual responsibility in Albania. If a man deserts his homeland, his family and some of his friends will be held responsible. They will be sent down mines under conditions that will make it unlikely they will ever return; at best, they will live in perpetual internal exile, half-starved and with no rights. They, the students, knew people to whom this had happened." (The students were the author's informants).
We in the West believe in personal responsibility with a certain amount of weight but no punishment given to such extenuating circumstances as a deprived home life. Communist countries think differently,
"A man’s values and aspirations are formed not abstractly or in isolation, but socially, from his family, his friends, his workplace. If a man were a traitor, then, if he reverted to bourgeois individualism by escaping to the outside world, there must have been something unhealthy about his upbringing, his social milieu. It was only right, therefore, that those around him should be punished."
All in all, the plus points of the book were it was really well-written and every now and again, the grumbling, curmudgeonly personality of the author was broken by insightful perceptions and information that made me understand the thinking, not just the policies, behind the repression in these regimes.
The negative points were there was a lot of repetition and the dreariness of the countries together with the author's humorless personality - he never looks on the bright side of life it seems - made it a hard read, but a worthwhile one. 3 stars but rated 4 because any book that really makes me think has to be elevated to a really positive rating.
Notes on reading
January 15, 2015
Everyone should read this book, especially starry-eyed bourgeois communists, to get a sense of what it feels like to really live for decades under a totalitarian regime.
August 3, 2015
Dalrymple travels to Albania, Romania, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba. I haven't been to the Asian ones, but to the others, admittedly years after Dalrymple was there, and not half as informed nor reflected as he was. Still I recognize some of the things he describes. The grandiosity of buildings, the slogans, the utopia-aestethics... In Cuba, I encountered a woman who assured me that she was "very, very, very revolutionary", but, she asked, could I please give her money for shoes to her son. I have no idea how to put it into words, just this feeling that she was desperate (one way or other) to show that she had the "right attitude", no one should doubt her dedication to official doctrine. Still, she needed shoes, and to get shoes, she had to ask this tourist, who was clueless like probably most of them. I was embarassed, and also a bit tired of all these Cubans asking me for money for everything. I still hadn't understood the truth of some rather crude words I many years later read in a book for extreme adventure travels: "Everywhere you go in the world, people will see you as a capitalist pig. And just because you yourself think you are a POOR capitalist pig, that's not likely to help you very much."
Of course. I was very much like these "fellow travellers", the "intellectuals" Dalrymple describes: A life lived in the privilege of freedom, I had not the faintest clue what it was like to live without it, and rather made a moral judgment on "the Cubans": They had no respect for me as a person, I was just a walking stack of dollar bills (me, a student! A poor student! How could they?).
Boo f* hoo. May I add, for my defence, that I was very young, and had grown up in an environment of exactly this type of intellectuals?
Dalrymple's observations are very interesting, and his style is witty. One of the best travel-memoirs I've read. Five stars, even if it reminds me a bit of my own failure to understand the obvious. Well, at least I can see it now, and I can admit it. I'm not proud of my own blind relativism, and I'm not saying I'll never make similar mistakes again. But I'm trying.
Of course. I was very much like these "fellow travellers", the "intellectuals" Dalrymple describes: A life lived in the privilege of freedom, I had not the faintest clue what it was like to live without it, and rather made a moral judgment on "the Cubans": They had no respect for me as a person, I was just a walking stack of dollar bills (me, a student! A poor student! How could they?).
Boo f* hoo. May I add, for my defence, that I was very young, and had grown up in an environment of exactly this type of intellectuals?
Dalrymple's observations are very interesting, and his style is witty. One of the best travel-memoirs I've read. Five stars, even if it reminds me a bit of my own failure to understand the obvious. Well, at least I can see it now, and I can admit it. I'm not proud of my own blind relativism, and I'm not saying I'll never make similar mistakes again. But I'm trying.
February 17, 2018
"I don't get no kick from campaigns"
Although everyone can find Anthony Daniels' wit entertaining and his observations keen, the overwhelming emotion created by this book is depression. How many people have spent their lives suffocating under awful regimes composed of banal torturers and Kafkaesque bureaucrats of no imagination ? (with apologies to Kafka) UTOPIAS ELSEWHERE is a series of articles written on five countries where Communism was about to disappear as a way of life, or at least, it seemed that way in 1989-90. In Albania and Romania, the author was probably among the last writers to attempt description of the obscene systems of government that held power there-totalitarian Balkan dictatorships with a Marxist frosting. In Vietnam, the government was in the process of change. In Cuba, the melting process had at last begun, albeit a decade later, but the nightmare of North Korea still continues. Daniels, with an average of about two weeks' stay in each place, puts his finger precisely on what makes these places so awful, despite the fact that a lot of Western intellectuals, none of whom actually settled there, praised these places. [recall for example the Swedish couple, Myrdal and Kessle, and their unbelievably naive book, "Albania Defiant"] Daniels is able to describe the worst aspects of these so-called "worker paradises" very succinctly. Comments about everything, from ugly, grandiose architecture to triumphalist propaganda, hit the mark. The author often casts doubt on his own opinions, makes you consider whether he has been entirely objective or not. I thought he did not consider well enough the fate of millions of poor people trapped in horrible privations in many Third World countries. For such people, without electricity, clean water, schools, or health care---living maybe inside a cement pipe---under constant threat of petty harrassment or brutal intimidation from `local authorities', perhaps Cuba or Vietnam would not have seemed so terrible. Am I one of those dreaded "apologists" for tyrannical regimes of the left ? No, I've lived in India for five years. When it comes to North Korea or Hoxha's Albania, however, it is really debatable whether becoming a virtual automaton and slave of the state (and still starving) is still better than abject poverty and exploitation. Is life at all worth living under megalomaniacs like Kim Jong-un ? People may indeed think that they are already dead when they are still walking around. When Daniels describes an entire Potemkin department store in Pyongyang, fake customers and all, you have to agree with him that North Korea managed to "out-Orwell Orwell". Romania under Ceaucescu, which I saw some 11 years before Daniels, was, as he correctly describes it, a kleptocracy with fascist trappings and Marxist vocabulary ruled by a modern Dracula: nobody believed in anything. While Daniels noted the similarities of all five would-be utopias, he did not note their differences so clearly. If you're aware of these differences, they do appear in his writing, but he takes no pains to underline them. This is the major fault in a very interesting (but sad) book.
Although everyone can find Anthony Daniels' wit entertaining and his observations keen, the overwhelming emotion created by this book is depression. How many people have spent their lives suffocating under awful regimes composed of banal torturers and Kafkaesque bureaucrats of no imagination ? (with apologies to Kafka) UTOPIAS ELSEWHERE is a series of articles written on five countries where Communism was about to disappear as a way of life, or at least, it seemed that way in 1989-90. In Albania and Romania, the author was probably among the last writers to attempt description of the obscene systems of government that held power there-totalitarian Balkan dictatorships with a Marxist frosting. In Vietnam, the government was in the process of change. In Cuba, the melting process had at last begun, albeit a decade later, but the nightmare of North Korea still continues. Daniels, with an average of about two weeks' stay in each place, puts his finger precisely on what makes these places so awful, despite the fact that a lot of Western intellectuals, none of whom actually settled there, praised these places. [recall for example the Swedish couple, Myrdal and Kessle, and their unbelievably naive book, "Albania Defiant"] Daniels is able to describe the worst aspects of these so-called "worker paradises" very succinctly. Comments about everything, from ugly, grandiose architecture to triumphalist propaganda, hit the mark. The author often casts doubt on his own opinions, makes you consider whether he has been entirely objective or not. I thought he did not consider well enough the fate of millions of poor people trapped in horrible privations in many Third World countries. For such people, without electricity, clean water, schools, or health care---living maybe inside a cement pipe---under constant threat of petty harrassment or brutal intimidation from `local authorities', perhaps Cuba or Vietnam would not have seemed so terrible. Am I one of those dreaded "apologists" for tyrannical regimes of the left ? No, I've lived in India for five years. When it comes to North Korea or Hoxha's Albania, however, it is really debatable whether becoming a virtual automaton and slave of the state (and still starving) is still better than abject poverty and exploitation. Is life at all worth living under megalomaniacs like Kim Jong-un ? People may indeed think that they are already dead when they are still walking around. When Daniels describes an entire Potemkin department store in Pyongyang, fake customers and all, you have to agree with him that North Korea managed to "out-Orwell Orwell". Romania under Ceaucescu, which I saw some 11 years before Daniels, was, as he correctly describes it, a kleptocracy with fascist trappings and Marxist vocabulary ruled by a modern Dracula: nobody believed in anything. While Daniels noted the similarities of all five would-be utopias, he did not note their differences so clearly. If you're aware of these differences, they do appear in his writing, but he takes no pains to underline them. This is the major fault in a very interesting (but sad) book.
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June 26, 2020A very good book illustrating life under Communist rule. The writer possesses some strong opinion sbut he is also full of astute observations and reflections.
Communist countries seem to share several commonalities, such as:
1. regurgitation of slogans people know to be lies
2. enforced renunciation of consumerist possessions or material enjoyment, leading to embittered resignation
3. a schism between what they think in private and what they do and proclaim in public
4. you will be shot if you leave the country and your social circle will be deported to hard labor, turning relationships into mutual spying
5. there are different rules for the elite; they can own finer things, read banned literature, access high culture, purportedly because they are incorruptible ideologically whereas the masses are not so intellectually fortified
6. concrete blocks of apartments, shortages, drab living
7. their experiences are romanticized by Westerns who have the indulgence of preferential treatment and voluntary leaving
Marxist hardcores should beware the tyranny of thought, is what the author thinks.
Communist countries seem to share several commonalities, such as:
1. regurgitation of slogans people know to be lies
2. enforced renunciation of consumerist possessions or material enjoyment, leading to embittered resignation
3. a schism between what they think in private and what they do and proclaim in public
4. you will be shot if you leave the country and your social circle will be deported to hard labor, turning relationships into mutual spying
5. there are different rules for the elite; they can own finer things, read banned literature, access high culture, purportedly because they are incorruptible ideologically whereas the masses are not so intellectually fortified
6. concrete blocks of apartments, shortages, drab living
7. their experiences are romanticized by Westerns who have the indulgence of preferential treatment and voluntary leaving
Marxist hardcores should beware the tyranny of thought, is what the author thinks.
December 19, 2012
Mixed feelings about this one. Never did get around to finishing the last part (in Cuba I think), as it was all getting rather too repetitive. On the one hand, some of his descriptions are fascinating (mostly the ones in the North Korea sections that have been excerpted elsewhere online). Many bits remind me strongly of my own parents' stories of the Soviet regime. But the author can't escape the fact that on all his travels he is an outsider looking in through narrow peepholes controlled by tourism officials. And so he fills in the holes with speculating about how the people living under such a regime must feel (speculations which range from the trivial to the insightful to the clueless) and layering on philosophic commentary that becomes increasingly tedious with repetition. So, interesting in the purely observe-and-describe parts; less impressed with the commentary.
March 1, 2014
An excelent book for anyone who is interested in the everyday impacts of totalitarian governments on society.
May 5, 2024
Totally fascinating and interesting, especially since had to read Marx but never lived consciously during that time. Had to always get told some rubbish that Communism didn’t work because it supposedly was never tried properly anywhere
July 9, 2012
Distressing and apocalyptically comic travelogue of Communist countries on the cusp of Communism's fall. The other reviews are correct, the North Korean department store that doesn't actually sell anything is a big highlight. One thing that hit hard for me was the consistently degraded aesthetics--mediocre "artists" elevated to write regime-praising poetry, concrete blocky architecture. Ironic that a system embraced by "creative" people is always so quick to quash creativity.
August 28, 2007
What struck me most about this book was the numbing similarities between the plight of the people in the stricken lands visited by the author. Tyranny is not a very original or creative form of government, and must resort the same horrors wherever it appears around the world. A very insightful and entertaining book. Read it.
May 5, 2008
bleakly amusing and insightful travelogues to now (mostly) defunct communist regimes in the early 90s. albania and still-chugging-along north korea sound particularly horrific and soul-sapping. i especially like the description of NK's department store #1 where no commercial transactions actually occur, and the author freaks out the "customers" and "cashiers" by lingering too long and wanting to buy a pen.
funnily, this book made me notice how communist dictator-cult propaganda has something in common with what annoys me about contemporary christian worship language. lots of the author's criticism about the former eerily apply to the latter. i'm not saying this to be inflammatory, especially since i believe the objects of propaganda in these cases are definitely NOT the same. but i need to track this thread down..
funnily, this book made me notice how communist dictator-cult propaganda has something in common with what annoys me about contemporary christian worship language. lots of the author's criticism about the former eerily apply to the latter. i'm not saying this to be inflammatory, especially since i believe the objects of propaganda in these cases are definitely NOT the same. but i need to track this thread down..
May 21, 2020
Theodore Dalrymple is probably the finest essayist currently writing in English. For this 1991 book, he decided, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall, to visit five of the last remaining communist countries – the ultimate dead-enders of a despicable and doomed ideology – before they were gone forever. This is thus a collection of five longer (40-page) essays, a travelogue of his visits to Albania, Romania, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba.
This is among Dalrymple’s very best work, loaded with insightful observations and memorable quotes. It is highly recommended for those who have forgotten, or those under 30 who never knew, how evil communism is. It is all the more relevant today as socialism/communism has been trying to make a comeback in America with Obama, Biden and the entire Democratic Party.
This is among Dalrymple’s very best work, loaded with insightful observations and memorable quotes. It is highly recommended for those who have forgotten, or those under 30 who never knew, how evil communism is. It is all the more relevant today as socialism/communism has been trying to make a comeback in America with Obama, Biden and the entire Democratic Party.
May 28, 2015
A must read. A glimpse into a lost world, written superbly with razor sharp insight. A quarter of a century after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this book is a reminder of what once was.
An absolute must for anyone interested in politics, history, or society.
An absolute must for anyone interested in politics, history, or society.
January 8, 2016
Very hard to put down. Dalrymple is a gifted writer who is a pleasure to read. Even though his observations are almost a quarter of a century old, the truths of collectivism that he penetrates remain current today.
July 6, 2014
one to read again
January 8, 2016
Just excellent.
May 7, 2019
I found the accounts of 80's Romania incredibly interesting. The superb writing can make you forget about how obnoxiously curmudgeonly its point of view is.
May 29, 2022
Dalrymple visits 5 Communist countries at the height of the ideology's implementation phase in the 20th Century. His visits are short, about 2 weeks in each place. His knack for observation and his tact in drawing the locals into conversation with him about their past and about the history of their nations is impressive. He repeatedly hears the same stories on his visits though. He meets many locals who are unhappy with their present state, and he meets many foreigners who watch everything around them with rosy eyes and a longing look. Yet, he is not fooled by these looks. He observes keenly that these people would not choose to do anything in these countries except vacation. He also notes that the people running the governments in these countries look at these adoring foreigners with suspicion, suspecting that they are secret agents. This book is a useful guide to the dangers of communism that one might miss; especially when agonizing over the demerits of late-stage capitalism.
August 19, 2015
As Travelogues of the Living Dead go, this is dull and kind of repetitive. But when you take the premise of Socialist Tourism-- that is, visiting countries whose dictators have them in a socialist vice grip in order to see the full flowering of Marx's curse-- dull and repetitive is sort of the best you can possibly expect. Daniels, who usually writes under the pen name Theodore Dalrymple, visits Armenia, North Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, etc., concurrent with or after the fall of the Soviet Union. There he finds that while all capitalist countries are unhappy in their own ways, all socialist countries are-- wait for it-- just that much more horribly unhappy in all the same ways.
It's a strange little volume, all told. For those of us with some sense of compassion for those whose human rights and liberties are denied for the political power advantage of a few people, it's page after page of terrible suffering. And I can't exactly imagine a believer caring one whit about a travelogue of depredations.
It's a strange little volume, all told. For those of us with some sense of compassion for those whose human rights and liberties are denied for the political power advantage of a few people, it's page after page of terrible suffering. And I can't exactly imagine a believer caring one whit about a travelogue of depredations.
March 3, 2022
"I was rather proud of my deduction – which admittedly it took me an unconscionable time to make – that within an established totalitarian regime the purpose of propaganda is not to persuade, much less to inform, but rather to humiliate. From this point of view, propaganda should not approximate to the truth as closely as possible: on the contrary, it should do as much violence to it as possible. For by endlessly asserting what is patently untrue, by making such untruth ubiquitous and unavoidable, and finally by insisting that everyone publicly acquiesce in it, the regime displays its power and reduces individuals to nullities."
Fantastic read. Dalrymple has become a new favorite!
Fantastic read. Dalrymple has become a new favorite!
December 17, 2014
The author visits 6 communist countries in the late 80s: Albania, North Korea, Romania, Vietnam and Cuba. What he sees is totally bizarre. A must read. Unbelievable that North Korea is still the way he describes it. The most bizarre is his discription of "Department Store No. 1" in Pyongjang, where "fake shoppers" do as if the socialist paradise has to offer anything the West has to offer. The only problem is, that nobody actually buys anything. They just walk in and out of the building to make it seem busy and to impress Western guests at the 1988 Communist Youth Festival.
October 1, 2010
In 1989 the author (generally known by his pen name Theodore Dalyrmple) visited Albania, North Korea, Romania, Vietnam, and Cuba to see late communism in action. What he saw ranged from utter despair (a Romanian engineer says that "we are dead already") to utter farce (a large, fully staffed department store in North Korea that doesn't actually sell products).
January 26, 2015
I bought this book for the chapter on Albania alone, but found that all chapters were eye-opening. The author details his visits to Albania, Romania, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba. Even though this book is over 20 years old, it is fascinating to think how much these places have (or haven't) changed.
April 21, 2018
Um universo tão nonsense quanto as aventuras de Alice no País das Maravilhas. As rainhas de copas das ditaduras comunistas, porém, muito piores e detestáveis.
December 18, 2018
Interessante visao do comunismo na prática.
April 6, 2019
Excelente relato sobre a opressão e falta de liberdade geradas por sistemas socialistas de economia e governo.
Read
June 29, 2023
Bury my Heart at Stalingrad
Ideological possession is succinctly described by Dr. Jordan Peterson as “you don’t have ideas; ideas have you”. And in the light of this book, it is an eerily accurate assessment. The number one identifier of the communist regimes, that Theodore Dalrymple took the pain of travelling to, was that nobody was allowed to leave. In fact people in these countries couldn’t even leave their towns or villages without due process. This absence of the freedom of movement, to me, seemed like an absolute possession of the citizens by the state. Communism had held them prisoners. But ideological possession is not that, to be precise. It means that a person looses all objectivity in the service of an idea. It refers, in this case, to those from the West who denied the truth of communism even in the face of undeniable evidence. Such fellow travellers were often met by the author of this travelogue. And he lampoons them rightly. The book, however, is about the prisoners of the state in Albania, Romania, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba under the thumb of communism.
I do not wish to delve into the horrors of living in a totalitarian country. I would rather reproduce the heart of the matter that the author has highlighted. First and foremost, there can be no state apparatus large enough for the surveillance of an entire population. So an all-knowing police state must rely on each of its citizens to be an informant. This is achieved through the control of prices of commodities by the state, an essential component of Communist economic setup, and the second important feature identified in this book. Price control, when the supply is limited, can only be achieved through limited demand i.e. rationing. When even the food that one eats is gotten through the favour of the state, it is not impossible to imagine, why common people would tell on their neighbours. And lastly is the observation which is mundane and often pilloried: that a new man and a new society can not emerge from a political revolution. There can be no end to the past as we are all a product of history. So in the end, the revolution devours its children.
The writing in this travelogue is immaculate. Dr. Dalrymple is a widely read gentleman. And even though he writes not for a living but for pleasure, it is a wonder that he writes better than many professional writers. I wholeheartedly maintain that even those who do not agree with his views cannot deny his skill as an author. Having read several of his books, I have come to admire his ability and the astuteness of his observation. His books might not be the easiest to read but they do make you think, and in my case, they make me wish I could write like him. Maybe someday.
Ideological possession is succinctly described by Dr. Jordan Peterson as “you don’t have ideas; ideas have you”. And in the light of this book, it is an eerily accurate assessment. The number one identifier of the communist regimes, that Theodore Dalrymple took the pain of travelling to, was that nobody was allowed to leave. In fact people in these countries couldn’t even leave their towns or villages without due process. This absence of the freedom of movement, to me, seemed like an absolute possession of the citizens by the state. Communism had held them prisoners. But ideological possession is not that, to be precise. It means that a person looses all objectivity in the service of an idea. It refers, in this case, to those from the West who denied the truth of communism even in the face of undeniable evidence. Such fellow travellers were often met by the author of this travelogue. And he lampoons them rightly. The book, however, is about the prisoners of the state in Albania, Romania, North Korea, Vietnam and Cuba under the thumb of communism.
I do not wish to delve into the horrors of living in a totalitarian country. I would rather reproduce the heart of the matter that the author has highlighted. First and foremost, there can be no state apparatus large enough for the surveillance of an entire population. So an all-knowing police state must rely on each of its citizens to be an informant. This is achieved through the control of prices of commodities by the state, an essential component of Communist economic setup, and the second important feature identified in this book. Price control, when the supply is limited, can only be achieved through limited demand i.e. rationing. When even the food that one eats is gotten through the favour of the state, it is not impossible to imagine, why common people would tell on their neighbours. And lastly is the observation which is mundane and often pilloried: that a new man and a new society can not emerge from a political revolution. There can be no end to the past as we are all a product of history. So in the end, the revolution devours its children.
The writing in this travelogue is immaculate. Dr. Dalrymple is a widely read gentleman. And even though he writes not for a living but for pleasure, it is a wonder that he writes better than many professional writers. I wholeheartedly maintain that even those who do not agree with his views cannot deny his skill as an author. Having read several of his books, I have come to admire his ability and the astuteness of his observation. His books might not be the easiest to read but they do make you think, and in my case, they make me wish I could write like him. Maybe someday.
August 28, 2022
In the twilight hours of the Soviet Union’s disastrous political and economic experiment Anthony Daniels (who now writes as Theodore Dalrymple) began a unique project. To travel to the scraggly peripheries of the USSR, to get a feel for life in the client states not part of that ill-fated union but depending upon it wholly for support. He wanted to try and understand life lived in the oxygenless totalitarian regimes that pretended to be all about ‘the masses’.
What emerges is a remarkable book, “The Wilder Shores of Marx”, in which Daniels in travel-writing style gives us Albania, North Korea, Romania, Vietnam and Cuba as they were – and some (Cuba and North Korea) as they still are, having weathered the breaths of liberty that blew for a season and found new solace in a new communist totalitarianism – this one singing songs to Mao.
In an acerbic, biting fashion Daniels identifies and highlights the inconsistencies and incongruities of socialism and communism; rarely missing an insight in a prose that drips with sarcasm and distain. Stores selling plastic fruit; monumental constructions by peasant kings – the tremendous narcissism of men who become, after forty years or more of absolute power, as whimsical as they are wicked. And the carefully crafted pantomime of the oppressed who must understand well the dance and identify the cues lest they miss one and be tortured for it.
Fear – that is the one word that comes across every page, every paragraph, every sentence even. The absolute terror of those living within these bizarre regimes. Forced to read the poetry of Enver Hoxha, the god of the atheist Albanians; to entertain the ‘musings’ of Nicolae Ceaușescu the peasant king of Romania or to listen to the tired vapid rants of Fidel Castro. To applaud when demanded, to recite when appropriate. Above all to stay silent at all times. Unlike other writers, Daniels does not contain his contempt, and rarely hides his rage. His only response to the violent propaganda, the purpose of which is not to attempt to convince – because that is not possible or even really necessary – but to humiliate. To get people to say something that they know to be abjectly untrue, thereby robbing them of their dignity.
“The Wilder Shores of Marx” is an opus written in honor of the millions upon millions of people who grew up, lived, and died – generations of them – robbed of their innate human right to live free. A right that we all take too lightly.
What emerges is a remarkable book, “The Wilder Shores of Marx”, in which Daniels in travel-writing style gives us Albania, North Korea, Romania, Vietnam and Cuba as they were – and some (Cuba and North Korea) as they still are, having weathered the breaths of liberty that blew for a season and found new solace in a new communist totalitarianism – this one singing songs to Mao.
In an acerbic, biting fashion Daniels identifies and highlights the inconsistencies and incongruities of socialism and communism; rarely missing an insight in a prose that drips with sarcasm and distain. Stores selling plastic fruit; monumental constructions by peasant kings – the tremendous narcissism of men who become, after forty years or more of absolute power, as whimsical as they are wicked. And the carefully crafted pantomime of the oppressed who must understand well the dance and identify the cues lest they miss one and be tortured for it.
Fear – that is the one word that comes across every page, every paragraph, every sentence even. The absolute terror of those living within these bizarre regimes. Forced to read the poetry of Enver Hoxha, the god of the atheist Albanians; to entertain the ‘musings’ of Nicolae Ceaușescu the peasant king of Romania or to listen to the tired vapid rants of Fidel Castro. To applaud when demanded, to recite when appropriate. Above all to stay silent at all times. Unlike other writers, Daniels does not contain his contempt, and rarely hides his rage. His only response to the violent propaganda, the purpose of which is not to attempt to convince – because that is not possible or even really necessary – but to humiliate. To get people to say something that they know to be abjectly untrue, thereby robbing them of their dignity.
“The Wilder Shores of Marx” is an opus written in honor of the millions upon millions of people who grew up, lived, and died – generations of them – robbed of their innate human right to live free. A right that we all take too lightly.
January 19, 2024
An exploration into the real life worlds of Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron where everyone is forced to be equal and recite mindless anti-truths. Extremely thought provoking and often depressing, Dalrymple visited closed off countries and documented his experiences therein. Leaves me wrestling with the question whether communism and democracy are simply two sides of the same coin: one a world where people think they're free but are slaves to their dependence, and the other where they know they are not but believe it's better than the alternative.
December 7, 2024
Interesting mainly for the moment in time that it captures, especially in Albania & Romania which are now almost unrecognisably different from the author's experiences c. 1990. His recollected conversations and observations are worth reading, but are somewhat spoiled by the heavy-handed anti-communist commentary which accompanies them, and which hardly seems necessary, as the scenes he describes speak well enough for themselves.
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