The Dangerous Language

I just read a two-volume work on the history of the Esperanto language in the 20th century: A Dangerous Language by Ulrich Lins.  It is in English translation from the original Esperanto.  The work, published in English in separate volumes Under Hitler and Stalin and the Decline of Stalinism is so scholarly and thorough that it reads like a well-written doctoral dissertation.

The two hardcover volumes sell for about $100.  I would never spring that kind of money for such a work, but it was in a catalog of books for which I had a credit for writing a peer review.  It was the only book that looked interesting to me at all.

And it was quite a ride!

The book isn't so much about the Esperanto language as it is about the reaction of the Nazis and Communists to its existence and use by people under their jurisdictions.  It is a window into the mind of the Socialist - whether National Socialists like Hitler and other Fascists, or International Socialists like Stalin and other Communists.  While the Fascists and Communists are often pitted against one another as though they are ideologically opposite, they are really both authoritarian systems that oppose personal and economic liberty.  Both are variants of Marxist Socialism that operate by economic central planning.  And given that Economics is really just the science of human action, to centrally plan "the economy" is really nothing more than planning the lives of people.  

And given that the nature of the human being is to be free and to act on his own personal values, tastes, aspirations, and goals, for a bureaucratic authority to take charge of these most intimate choices of individuals requires a draconian state and a society run by fear.

And this is exactly what happened to the speakers of Esperanto under both of these regimes.

Esperanto is a constructed or planned language.  It was intended to be a second or auxiliary language for everyone, thus eliminating the need for translators between every possible pair of languages.  It was designed from the ground up to be simple (there are only 16 grammatical rules), easily mastered (about a hundred hours of study is needed to become relatively fluent) consistent (there are no exceptions to the rules, and words are pronounced just as they are written), and neutral (it is not a world language based on conquest or colonial rule, but can be spoken by all as equals).  

The author of the language, L.L. Zamenhof, was a Jewish idealist living in a multilingual city in what is today part of Poland.  He went from being a Zionist to denouncing Zionism in favor of a form of universal humanism.  Zamenhof believed in a universal brotherhood of mankind, and even championed a universal religion.  Lins's thoroughly documented narrative regarding Zamenhof's life included details that I had not seen elsewhere regarding his political and spiritual journey.  Of course, though his asperations may have been noble, his thinking was deeply flawed.

Zamenhof invented the language in 1877, translated many great works into Esperanto - including the Old Testament - and he renounced all ownership and control, releasing Esperanto into what is essentially "open source" - allowing the language to grow and evolve while staying true to its rules and basic vocabulary.

As the political situation roiled Europe, a divide broke out between Esperantists: those who believed in political neutrality and the use of the language for practical reasons, vs. those with a Utopian, often Socialist idealism that could not separate the language from Zamenhof's almost cultish vision of humanism and world peace.

This divide often took shape in the form of competing Esperanto associations, even within the same country: the "neutralists" and the "workers" groups.

Lins covers the history of Esperanto's meteoric rise in the early 20th century, and the devastation caused to the language by World War I.  He also covers the interesting period between the two world wars, including in Germany's Weimar Republic, living under the punitive realities of the Treaty of Versailles.  

As Fascism grew in Europe, especially in Germany, Communism continued to take its shape in the newly-founded USSR.  Both the Nazis and the Commies initially saw Esperanto as a tool for spreading ideological propaganda around the world.  And both quickly spoiled on it.  Hitler mentions Esperanto in Mein Kampf, disparaging it as tool for Jewish world domination.  Esperanto was persecuted in Germany and in all of the German-occupied areas.  All three of Zamenhof's children were executed in 1942 in Treblinka.

While Esperantists in the USSR were likewise initially hopeful (the word "Esperanto" means "one who hopes"), the Soviets quickly soured on them as well.  The chapter on Esperanto and Stalin's Great Purge of 1937-38 is depressing reading, as Esperanto speakers across the Soviet Union were rounded up and sent to Gulags or executed.  They were, along with stamp collectors, feared as spies.  

For in spite of the rhetoric about communicating unhampered with "workers" around the world, this is the last thing authoritarian regimes ever want to happen.  Esperanto and its various organizations for speakers were virtually wiped out in Russia and the Eastern bloc.  

The most amazing thing to me is how many Esperantists are today Socialists and Communists.  They continue to hold onto the fantasy of Karl Marx, that following a period of massive state empowerment, control, and re-education, there would come a new Man living in a new Garden of Eden.  How many tens or hundreds of millions of corpses have to be piled up by world Marxism before this Utopia is discredited is beyond me. It is as unthinkable as modern Jews adopting Nazism.  

The only places where Esperanto was actually permitted to flourish into a rich spoken and literary culture, learned, taught, spoken, and published without fear of censorship, repression, or even punishment in death camps - were in the capitalist west.  In time, following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the USSR, and the liberation of Eastern Europe, Esperanto has made a modest comeback.

I'm sure many modern-day Communist Esperanto speakers will argue the usual: Stalin was a dictator, the USSR was not "real Communism," it was actually the fault of the United States, etc.  But the record is clear, and it is not sugarcoated in Lins's book.  It is chilling, and ought to make Esperantists rethink their premises about how much they want to empower the state.

There is no Utopia, but where people are the happiest, where poverty is diminished, where human rights and dignity are most respected is where there is freedom: both personal and economic.  And it is in such free countries, where the right to speak and publish is respected, that Esperanto can actually be a tool for fostering peace and brotherhood among free men.