Sparta

[Antiochus]

For a while I've been interested in the curious case of Sparta and its significant contradictions. On the one hand Sparta was a totalitarian military society that had a broad slave class that were treated like vermin (even by Greek standards at the time). On the other, women were given participation in a way that was not seen in the ancient world and indeed for most of the world until the 19th century. Sparta was militant, but formed a bulkwark against Athenian imperialism until it too was swallowed by its own avarice.

I guess what I am asking is how could a society have both traits of fascism and Communism and still operate for as long as it did? Was Spartan society "logical", its interesting to note that there has never been a society like it before or since, even in the Prussian state later on.

[Creative Destruction]

when did Sparta, or any ancient regime for that matter, have "traits of Communism"? in what form?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I'm drunk as all arseholes, but, the first thing you should do is stop using the term "totalitarian". It doesn't mean anything today. It's what liberals call Stalinist regimes to signify that they're meaner than some imaginary boundary delineating "authoritarianism" and "totalitarianism". Because as we all know everyone would rather live in Pinochet's Chile with its forced castration of homosexuals and people being thrown off helicopters than evil Vietnam with its accessible healthcare. Sparta, of course, was not similar to either. It was a slave-based society, much like classical Athens, that was in addition an ethnic garrison-state. Its peculiar institutions are simply the result of the low number of Spartiates per helot.

Second, it wasn't communist. Even if the idealised picture of communal consumption and "equality" within the Spartiate ethnic caste were true, it would make Sparta about as communist as a monastery. Communism is the global stateless society based on the social control and scientific, planned employment of the means of production. Obviously Sparta was not even close, even if we ignore the non-Spartiate population (i.e. the majority).

It wasn't fascist either. Fascism is a particular form of bourgeois state, not some transhistoric bogeyman.

But the point is - the "idealised picture" I mentioned before? False. Completely false. There was economic stratification within the Spartiates themselves, with a number of "in-between" castes like the mothakes. Also the fact that women were permitted gymnastic training doesn't amount to much when their primary role as in all of classical Greece was that of a baby factory for the Lacedaimonian state.

And it didn't really last long. The Spartan system collapsed under the demographic weight of the helots not long after the Peloponnesian War.

[mushroompizza]

I guess what I am asking is how could a society have both traits of fascism and Communism and still operate for as long as it did?

Ahem... its called Stalinism.:grin:

[Cliff Paul]

Ahem... its called Stalinism.:grin:

no.

[Rudolf]

The fascinating thing about Sparta is the helots. It's not accurate to regard them as slaves like you'd find in Athens as while the helots were of course an exploited class their relations to production differed. The helots being bound to the land constituted what could very well be the earliest serf-like class.

[Antiochus]

Yes, and I personally have stated that one shouldn't utilize modern terms to apply to ancient states on this site, nevertheless that doesn't negate the fact that Sparta did indeed have "communist" (if you are so put off by the word, egalitarian) traits.


For example, education was standardize. Private property itself did not exist and even the richest families within the Spartiates had virtually identical 'wealth' as the poorest of them.

Furthermore, the Spartiates did something quite off, which is why the case of Sparta is so peculiar. They basically handed over total economic power to the Periokoi, which would be tantamount to the nobility of Medieval France handing over all of their estates to the merchants.

Also, I am referring to Sparta in particular before the Persian Wars, were the selling or buying (or gifting) of land was illegal. This was done away with later on and allowed for concentration of wealth.



And it didn't really last long. The Spartan system collapsed under the demographic weight of the helots not long after the Peloponnesian War.

Large due to Epaminondas, not an internal collapse.

[#FF0000]

Yes, and I personally have stated that one shouldn't utilize modern terms to apply to ancient states on this site, nevertheless that doesn't negate the fact that Sparta did indeed have "communist" (if you are so put off by the word, egalitarian) traits.

What you're talking about aren't "communist" traits at all, though, unless you're also going to say that public libraries and fire houses are examples of "socialism" too. It's simply inaccurate.


Furthermore, the Spartiates did something quite off, which is why the case of Sparta is so peculiar. They basically handed over total economic power to the Periokoi, which would be tantamount to the nobility of Medieval France handing over all of their estates to the merchants. No, it's tantamount to the nobility of Ancien Regime France barring the nobility from engaging in trade or manufacturing, which they actually did.

[Rafiq]

Yes, and I personally have stated that one shouldn't utilize modern terms to apply to ancient states on this site, nevertheless that doesn't negate the fact that Sparta did indeed have "communist" (if you are so put off by the word, egalitarian) traits.

But what you perceive as a contradiction is precisely the result of abstracting characteristics and traits of an entirely different social epoch and evaluating them under our terms. These characteristics are abstracted to resemble what is today called Communism, the ideology of a class that did not even remotely exist before the past half millennia, and then less excusably Fascism, which did not exist in any meaningful form until the past hundred years. Or, to put it more clearly: Would you have us believe that Hitler's Germany or Mussolini's Italy was the culmination of thousands of years of societal characteristics that finally found their medium through the peculiar conditions of the barbarism of 20th century capitalism? The fact of the matter is that these characteristics existed for entirely different reasons, had different connotations, and were used to reproduce entirely different conditions.

What is unignorable, however, is the fact that: For the most part, yes what would be considered a "timeless" force, egalitarianism, Sparta was indeed an egalitarian society or the classical expression of it. What is confusing is the reality that for the most part, the Greek city-states operated under the same mode of production with different means of political rule - one could argue that these different political means of rule reflected the varying degrees of different, yet pre-existing classes, but the confusion arises from the fact that Sparta never really constituted a singular existing mode of production. One could in fact argue that the Spartan state was but a mere cosmetic facade of the real-existing reforms laid bout by Lycurgus around 700 BC. Prominent political, and social developments occurred throughout this period through what would be considered classical Greece, the classical Greece which was the first recorded break with the mysticism of previous civilizations. During the Pelopannesian war, for example, aristocratic Sparta could hardly be designated as a force of egalitarianism throughout Greece. But yes, the role of Spartan women in Spartan society was entirely contingent upon the egalitarian nature of the ruling Spartan caste (if you would call it), and while I know very little about the circumstances of Lycurgus's reforms, Spartan society did for the most part value the spirit of egalitairanism and the spirit of collective sacrifice. Drawing comparisons with Fascism is nonsense insofar as the fact that Fascism isn't distinguished by militarism or the spirit of self-sacrifice (an aesthetic copied from the Communists), but by its degenerate and reactive nature. Sparta (unless one argues that it was during the Pelopenissian wars) was not built on reaction in this manner - again, it is impossible to compare them.

However, one shouldn't be so dismissive. The legacy of Sparta belongs to the Communists, and anyone with a semblance of a desire to look at history should know this. During various periods of revoluitonary upheaval, including the French republic under the Jacobins, identification with ancient Sparta was very common. During the conspiracy of equals by Gracchus Babeuf, a poem (or song) praises Lycurgus alongside Robespierre and Marat as harbingers of sweet equality and fraternity and so on. Decades later, Karl Kautsky remarked that Spartan society was one of the first historic manifestations of Communism. In addition, during the Russian civil war, Trotsky compared Russia to a "proletarian sparta" and this same comparison was used to describe the Soviet Union during the late 1930's by someone prominent who I don't remember. So while if one were to be critically historicist - Sparta wasn't Communist, the connotations of Sparta as far as classical Greece goes to bourgeois society is indeed militant egalitarianism. Or if you want to put it this way: Plato and Aristotle really have fuck all to do with Renaissance Italy or enlightenment, their ideas of democracy and republic were entirely different and from entirely different contexts, the fascination with antiquity was solely a matter of abstracting and approximating that which happened to have real relevance as far as the then present conditions went. Sparta should serve as a rhetorical example of precisely what it means to be a Communist - egalitarian freedom is not free, and in the midst of the forces of domination and slavery, it must be sustained by the discipline of self-sacrifice.


Furthermore, the Spartiates did something quite off, which is why the case of Sparta is so peculiar. They basically handed over total economic power to the Periokoi, which would be tantamount to the nobility of Medieval France handing over all of their estates to the merchants.


Which suggests that the Spartans were self-conscious about matters of the economy in a way that you are, which is again nothing more than projecting our society onto others. The Spartans did not perceive they were handing off economic power to the Periokoi, for they didn't actually give them all of the landed estates or what they perceived to be the source of economic power. The preservation of the Spartan caste depended on its economic isolation, and independence from outside states (hence, a class can try and preserve itself and in the process be absorbed), the Periokoi were given the right to trade (it should be noted that helots too were allowed to be merchants, if I'm not wrong) to serve as a buffer zone between Sparta and the rest of the world.


Large due to Epaminondas, not an internal collapse.


One can argue that the culmination of a very large, and very hostile demographic readily available for exploitation by foreign entities was indeed something of a predisposition to internal collapse.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I guess what I am asking is how could a society have both traits of fascism and Communism and still operate for as long as it did? Was Spartan society "logical", its interesting to note that there has never been a society like it before or since, even in the Prussian state later on.

What about Juche in the time of Kim Il-sung?

Why this is treated merely as a history question puzzles me. Man vs. machine scenarios with advanced AI for the latter could mix the "timeless" ideas of egalitarianism (mistaken for "philosophical communism") and collective conformism (mistaken for "philosophical fascism"): the cold logic being the sentient machines fighting for their egalitarian machine society, even at the expense of killing other sentients.


But yes, the role of Spartan women in Spartan society was entirely contingent upon the egalitarian nature of the ruling Spartan caste (if you would call it), and while I know very little about the circumstances of Lycurgus's reforms, Spartan society did for the most part value the spirit of egalitarianism and the spirit of collective sacrifice. Drawing comparisons with Fascism is nonsense insofar as the fact that Fascism isn't distinguished by militarism or the spirit of self-sacrifice (an aesthetic copied from the Communists), but by its degenerate and reactive nature. Sparta (unless one argues that it was during the Pelopenissian wars) was not built on reaction in this manner - again, it is impossible to compare them.

Militarism and the "spirit of self-sacrifice" are but radical extensions of collective conformism. What became the French revolutionary value of fraternite existed as a very specific form of collective conformism.