Stalin Promoted Family Values

Originally, Marxists reckoned that the family, like the state, would wither away as the socialist society was realized. Stalin, however, had other ideas and was a strong supporter of family values according to Peter Kenez in his A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End. In reading about Stalin’s views on the family, I was struck by just how much they resembled those of Dobson's “Focus on the Family”, except without the appeals to the supernatural.

In my view, the greatest “threat” to the family is individualism, not Marxism. Taken to its logical conclusion, individualism leaves society with individuals in relation to the state with other competing institutions, including the family, reduced to entirely voluntary and negotiable and potentially transitory status. If there is no strategic benefit to be gained from living in cohesive families, or if the perceived benefits do not outweigh the inconvenience and irritation associated with living among one’s kin, then the family will be a shadow of its former self. Indeed, associations predicated on factors other than kin may be more satisfying.

I am not in the least alarmed by this development. Just how wonderful would it be to have to associate with others and subordinate one’s ambitions and desires to a collective solely out of necessity? I reckon that it would not. It is far better for relationships to be voluntarily and cheerfully entered into and maintained for mutual benefit and enjoyment. That is the luxury that many of us currently enjoy, and I cannot for the life of me figure out why Stalin or Dobson would want to force people into associations that they find unsatisfactory, except that they share the characteristic of meddlesome douchebaggery.

It is one thing to point out the potential benefits of a cohesive family and to encourage others to take advantage of them, but neither Stalin nor Dobson seemed to engage in any kind of persuasion about the efficacy of family living. Rather, they both seemed to regard it as axiomatic that the family was, in and of itself, a virtuous institution to be embraced for its own sake whether or not it brought satisfaction. The state, or God (through the state), ordains family living, and the subject of the state had better well learn to like it.

I recognize that there would be substantial economic benefits to all concerned if, for example, my Idiot Brother-in-Law or my Excellent Mother-in-Law and her current spouse could be persuaded to live with us and to share household expenses and chores. Better yet, let us live together and pool our resources and energies! And yet, I have determined that the huge cost of living apart from my in-laws is worth it, and only dire necessity could induce me to consider living under the same roof with any of them. And they doubtless feel the same way.

If all the patrilineal descendants of my great great great grandfather could be persuaded to form a lineage with a single elder in authority with a tight organization to control and allocate our scattered resources and energies, we would be a force to be reckoned with. None of us has considered it worth it to subordinate our own lives to that of the lineage, and I reckon that only some variants of a post-apocalyptic dystopia would render the formation and maintenance of a lineage desirable.

I will always think of Stalin when I hear of Dobson. Stalin did a lot to strengthen families by subjecting his subjects to chaos, upheaval, starvation, and repression. Would Dobson go so far to promote the family?