Totalitarian logic: Stalin on linguistics

Abstract

Confronting evil men, areas of human experience are often deemed sacrosanct in order to preserve them from the minds we are casting out. Thus it is a commonly held belief that Adolf Hitler was a ‘house-painter’. This assertion is made in order to preserve the transcendental dignity of the concept ‘artist’. The irony of the canard’s refutation is that Hitler was not only a ‘painter’ but also an aspiring architect: a water colourist who, at one point in his early Viennese years, attempted to survive by selling paintings on postcards in the streets by day, returning to the doss-house at night.1 In the history of black propaganda this is an interesting example of a major value-distortion: the idea of ‘house-painter’ as an honest occupation can snobbishly be discredited in order to preserve the lofty ideal of artist. Vegetarian dog-loving Hitler could not have become a ‘house-painter’ since he never did an honest day’s work in his life. Except in the trenches.