Why Hitler invaded Russia, and why Trump will not invade Canada

The era of the Internet has unfortunately hastened the thirst for immediate results, as if every utterance by political figures – I am thinking of Trump - deserves a response.  We, as a society, are becoming less able to exercise critical distance as we consume modern media which is ubiquitous. The arrival of the Internet has also served to erase borders, but Trump, who sits atop global sound bites all of his own making, has oddly been working against this - at least until recently.  What began as “Build a Wall” (on America’s southern and even northern borders) has morphed into “25% tariffs”, perhaps for no other reason than “Because it’s 2025”.  Maybe it’s a “hoax”, as Trump might say tomorrow before changing his mind again.  But now we are also dealing with musings about bringing Canada into economic submission, the “51^st state”, etc., while Greenland and Panama, too, enter his crosshairs.

In an effort to deal with Canada’s Trump problem, this essay looks back to an earlier age of autocrats and wannabe dictators.  One of them, by the name of Hitler, is useful here – not because I think of Trump necessarily as a Fascist – but because Hitler invaded the USSR in what became the largest scene of war in human history.  Russia survived the onslaught in no small part because of its human reserves and capacity for suffering.  While Canada’s population is nowhere near that of Russia’s, the fact that both are large land masses bordering on economic powerhouses bears some grounds for a comparison, considering, as well, the commonality of strongman politics.

In order to gain some critical distance on Trump, my suggestion is to take the time to read a book, in particular older books, as opposed to the regular fare on “Best Seller” lists, with their predictive tendencies for bland-speak.  With this in mind, it was by accident that I stumbled upon the work, Philosophy and War (1916), by Emile Boutroux, a French philosopher of the early 20^th century ranked after Henri Bergson, who was the world’s first popular philosopher.  Bergson’s theme was the élan vital, or life force, which helped propel French soldiers, first to the trenches – and then out of them.  Boutroux, on the other hand, was well versed in German philosophy, and his perspective of the philosophical conflict in the First World War provides unique insight to the German mind of the period.

In order to understand German thinking, as Boutrous saw it, one must go back to Johann Gottlieb Fichte who delivered his famous Addresses to the German Nation in 1807.  At the time of these Addresses, Germany was far from a unified state: it was a collection of 41 territories including Prussia and Austria.[1]  In fact, Germany did not become unified until the era of Bismarck following the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-71. Significantly, this was Bismarck’s victory over Napoleon III.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Here I would like to suggest to readers that maybe the best way to understand German history is to study it backwards, starting with the Second World War returning to the emergence of national consciousness under the influence of Fichte, then further back to the Thirty Years War.  Having said that, I would like to caution my readers against a deterministic or “posthole” view of history: in the past, the future was just as open-ended as it can appear today.

Fichte’s Addresses were delivered in Berlin following Prussia’s defeat by France at the Battle of Jena in 1806. Germany was under French occupation – and Napoleon was its master.  In other words, ‘Germany’ was formed primarily as a result of the external influence of Napoleon’s warring ambitions, the “World Historical” figure as Hegel described him.  The Napoleonic invasion had raised ‘German’ consciousness. Following Fichte’s Addresses, the German cultural elite placed a huge emphasis on self-development (what is known as Bildung) and on educating the nation. The University of Berlin, founded by Wilhelm von Humboldt (now known as the Humboldt University of Berlin) was established in 1810, with Fichte as its first Rector.  German universities would, as a result of this effort, begin their intellectual dominance in the West that lasted until the exodus of talent with Hitler’s rise to power in 1933.

It is also important to point out that 1914 marked the hundredth anniversary since Fichte’s death,[2] so the dawn of the First World War was rife with German memories of Napoleon’s conquest, the eventual formation of the German state - and Fichtean nationalism.  This brings us back to Emile Boutroux who explains in the following passage just how important Napoleon was to the German mind and to the formation of Germany:

Just as the French are custodians of Latin thought, so the German people is the true heir and executor of the thought of Napoleon, the genius who, directly or indirectly, created German unity and dictated to Europe its task: that of driving back the barbarians of the East and ruining the merchants of the West. The soul of Napoleon is the soul of the German people: his star goes in front of the German armies and is to lead them to victory. [3]

Here – in 1916 – expressed in the midst of the First World War, we see a direct link between “the soul of Napoleon” and the “soul of the German people”.  What better anticipation of Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s invasion of Russia launched on 22 June 1941, can you ask for?  Hitler was enamored with Napoleon, because he had, in effect, brought about German unity.  This, in turn, helps explain Hitler’s remarkable decision in 1940 to return to occupied France (from Austria) the remains of Napoleon II, the only son of Emperor Napoleon I.  This occurred precisely a century to the day following the return of Napoleon I’s own remains from Saint Helena to France in 1840.[4]

Historians seem mystified as to why Hitler’s occupied himself with the memory of Napoleon’s son: one describes it as “an unexpected and almost bizarre gift” while another describes it as “whim”.[5]  Of course, Hitler’s ‘gift’ followed the fall of France, after only six months of its war with Germany.  No doubt, Hitler wanted his name to be associated with the apparent greatness of an Emperor, but he was also in some ways paying homage to the man who helped unite Germany.  On 23 June 1940, while Hitler was in Paris to sign the Armistice, he spent part of the early morning in quiet contemplation before the tomb of Napoleon at the Place des Invalides.

Napoleon’s unfulfilled efforts to take Russia in 1812 ended in disaster.  Nonetheless, it played a role in shaping Hitler’s own intentions towards Lebensraum - living space - in the East, then known as the Soviet Union, which was under the “dictatorship of the secretariat”, Joseph Stalin.[6]  Napoleon had horses, but Hitler had his tanks; what they both really needed was tractor equipment – and winter clothing.  Again, since the threat of external forces had united ‘Germany’ in the 19th century, Hitler saw the menace of ‘barbarian’ Bolshevism as a way to embolden Germans once again in the middle of the Second World War.  Communism was the raison d’être of Fascism.  Without Communism and the First World War – the two are interconnected – Fascism might never have happened, which gives us hope for the future.

Thus far I have established the link between the Emperor Napoleon, Fichte, German nationalism, and Hitler.  When it comes to Trump and Canada, the scenario is entirely different.  Canadian confederation came about in 1867, that is, after the American Civil War (1861-1865), where the North was victorious over the South. The formation of Canada thus followed from American struggle over slavery (and, of course, from the success of the North).  Historically-speaking, Canada has posed little external threat to the USA, but there was some flirting here with the ante-bellum South during the American Civil War.  Canadians also scorched the White House in that (other) War of 1812, which is why today it is still called the White House, but it has left few lingering impressions on the American psyche.  Americans traditionally have been a self-interested lot: in 1990 only 5 percent of them owned passports; as of December 2023, over 160 million citizens owned passports, or close to 50 percent, but how many of them have been interested in travelling to Canada?

Of course, America’s founding has everything to do with the self-governing impulse behind the motto “no taxation without representation” and the American Revolution against external British Crown Rule.  This may soon disappear as Trump lauds himself as the New Emperor of America.  However, if you look at the USA in demographic terms, California, Texas and Florida are the three most populous states, and they are largely removed – with the possible exception of California - from northern interests (that is, Canada).  New York has greater proximity to Canada but it is now only the fourth largest state.  I suggest here that, in demographic terms, the USA’s priorities lie towards its South, and it is no accident that Trump resides at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.  In many ways Trump’s terms in office represent a victory of the South over the North, and a return to racist ante-bellum politics.  Note, as well, that Bernie Sanders – who masquerades as a Canadian - hails from Vermont: there is little appetite in Trump’s forthcoming administration for this brand of politics which can generally be described as ‘Nordic’.

Americans and Canadians share the same language, and the same roots in the British parliamentary system with its representative democracy.  Canadians are far too easy to ‘humanize’ and far too difficult to ‘dehumanize’.  There is no crusading impulse against any ‘barbarians’ of Canada today, no hidden Weapons of Mass Destruction.  If Trump were to invade Canada, it would bring about a complete collapse of America’s moral standing in the world.  Canada and the USA also both belong to NATO.  If the USA invades Canada, it would likely be the end of NATO.  If the USA does invade Canada, which seems plausible at some point in the distant future, I suspect Canada will come to an abrupt end, much like the demise of the Byzantine Empire following the conquest of Constantinople in 1453.  My point here, however, is that Trump will not spark an invasion today, or tomorrow, which is different from saying that an invasion by the USA will never happen.  It will not happen during Trump’s next term of office.  What seems more likely is that there are already Pentagon plans for, say, Greenland when Putin dies.

Parenthetically-speaking, I am reminded here of Ukraine.  In my view, Putin invaded Ukraine because he perceives Russia as encircled by NATO countries.  Russians remember Hitler, and they remember Napoleon. Ideally there should be a buffer between Russia and Ukraine, if not a buffer within Ukraine, or maybe – more wisely – Ukraine should be a neutral force between Russia and other NATO countries.  If Trump invades Canada, or even if he takes Greenland, there will once again be a similar problem of little “buffer” (save for some ice and water) between ‘American’ interests and Russia.  Canada serves as a ‘balance’ between the USA and Russia: it did so during the Cold War, and it still does now in the era of climate change, as polar ice caps melt.  Certainly, Russia and China are concerned too about Trump’s recent talk of annexation; in many ways Trump imitates and idolizes these dictators, and it would be no surprise to me if they also help to lower the volume on Trump.

So, as Trump bellows and blows, my thoughts are that the political reputation of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada’s first Prime Minister, along with other “founding fathers”, will be revised in light of the current media attention and public concern here.[7]   Canadians today are now more likely to revisit the idea of honouring Sir John A. in public, possibly by returning once-toppled statues of him to places of respect.  And they may even be inclined to rename buildings eponymously where previously his name had been removed. 

But Macdonald is significant for another reason, and here we need perspective on the Napoleonic legacy and, yes, the lessons learned from military marches on Moscow first beginning in 1812. Napoleon failed at Empire building, so did his imitator, but on another continent and maybe a different time Sir John A. Macdonald succeeded in creating a country called Canada united by a ribbon of steel (some say steal) - and thousands of miles of the Canadian Pacific Railway.  It was achieved under the auspices of a fledgling representative government, albeit with flawed Indigenous relations.  What I am suggesting is that old memories and legitimate grievances – some preceding Canadian confederation – may soon find themselves receding from public consciousness as a result of Trump. This is how history is written – and rewritten. Even in Canada.

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[1] Fichte, Addresses to the German Nation, ed. Gregory Moore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. xii.

[2] Ibid., p. xxxiv.

[3] Emile Boutroux, Philosophy and War, tr. Fred Rothwell (London: Constable and Co., 1916), p. 71 {Leopold Classic Library Reprint].

[4] Georges Poisson, Hitler’s Gift to France: The Return of the Remains of Napoleon II, tr. Robert L. Miller (New York: Enigma Books, 2008), p. x.

[5] Ibid., p. 123.  See also the translator’s remarks in the Introduction, p. xxxvii.

[6] Jan-Werner Müller, Political Ideas in Twentieth-Century Europe (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), p. 80.

[7] See, for example, Patrice Dutil’s timely revisionist work: Sir John A. Macdonald and the Apocalypse Year 1885 (Toronto: Sutherland House, 2024).

Where to put the tomb of the great “Canadian” post-nationalist?

 

History by Numbers: A Reply to CBC Ideas

CBC Ideas - a flagship radio programme in intellectual history – is currently running a series on numbers.  One of them was “The Story of Zero” and another was “The Story and Magic of Three”.  I could not resist writing to CBC Ideas to offer my comments and amplifications, some of which may look familiar to those who have followed my blog over the years.  What follows is the text of my reply with a few changes in light of afterthoughts.

First, let’s begin with zero.  Aside from the mathematical zero, there is the historical, or political, even philosophical zero.  Think of the French Revolution which had a year zero, and a day zero on a brand-new calendar meant to harmonize with the seasons.  Of course, the metric system, with its infinite capacity for zeroes, was invented during the French Revolution and is in many ways representative of it.  We also know from the work of painter Jacques-Louis David, in particular his Oath of the Horatii, that the French Revolutionaries were modelling themselves at least in part on the Romans, who, thanks to Livy, had their own year zero of sorts, if you look to Romulus and Remus.  More recently, the Totalitarian period of the 20^th century – Communism and Fascism - wanted to create a new man, hence a new zero, and with it, zero tolerance.[1] 

The number three is also very interesting, and I feel CBC Ideas has underplayed the role of the Trinity in Western culture.  It was Augustine who promoted the Idea of the Trinity.  And I think of it in terms of Northrup Frye’s “Great Code”.  Without the Trinity, we wouldn’t have the division of powers, namely the legislative, the executive and the judiciary.  This was first expressed by Montesquieu in his classic work, appropriately titled, “The Sprit of the Laws” (1748).  The Trinity figures in America’s “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (where the text actually derives from Locke) and in Canada’s more prosaic motto “peace, order and good government”. 

There are countless references to the number three in Western culture, but what I find most interesting about number three is that it has a “middle” – unlike, for example, the numbers one, two, or four.  It can be argued that the number three has served as a mediating tone in Western political culture, save for when the number zero was invoked.  Putting aside Hegel (who seems to have his own sort of Trinity in his dialectic working towards a synthesis), where would Canada’s “Truth and Reconciliation” process be without this mediative role and the number three?  Canada has three founding cultures: English, French and Indigenous.

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[1] Paul Ricoeur, Critique and Conviction: Conversations with François Azouvi and Marc de Launay, tr. Kathleen Blamey (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), p. 100, p. 107.             

Reflections on “crimes against humanity” and “genocide”: Q & A with Paul Ricoeur

Does the category of “crime against humanity” seem to you to be a good juridical construction of what you call tremendum horrendum?

It is probably an indispensable – yet debatable – effort to give a juridical form to the discontinuity between war crimes and mass extermination.  When countries are at war with one another, they function as authoritarian regimes in relation to one another, following the Schmittian categories of friend-enemy; they commit acts that correspond to this type of relation, and these are acts of death; what are called “war crimes” correspond to an excess tied to this functioning of authoritarian regimes.

But war crimes are not acts of mass extermination.  In the latter case, what is at issue is the very fact of being born this or that, the fact that extermination is the reverse of birth; it is being born that is the crime.  The son of a resister is not a resister; but the son of a Jewish woman is a Jew.

In what case, then, is the term “crime against humanity” appropriate?  It is perfectly appropriate in the case of the Shoah, if not exclusively, at least in an exemplary manner.  For this is where, in a very specific fashion, the designation of the victim was made on the basis of birth.  But then what about other genocides?  It is true that the term ”genocide” is sometimes abused; there is a certain inflation in the use of this term.  But it is also true that those who suffer it have the right to see it as genocide, since they are designated as victims by reason of who they are and not for what they have done.  It is through them, individually, that the crime passes.  Here we find a manifestation of what I earlier called the dispersion of evil, its discontinuous and properly diabolical, irruption.  The enigma of the noncumulative character of the figures of evil in specific events is not without an effect on the notion of genocide, which perhaps participates in a nontotalizable dispersion.

As you can see, I am quite hesitant about this notion, which incontestably has great power in the framework of what could be termed militant thinking, but possesses less clarity for a conceptually organized philosophical reflection.

Moreover, there is in the category of crimes against humanity, in the fact that it was applied retroactively, a certain violation of the tradition of penal law; it is after the fact that the acts committed previously are defined in this way.  Of course, one can say that they were already crimes against humanity; but then one finds oneself on the plane of ontology, although this too is not without a certain justification, since these acts had themselves ontologized the victim, by designating the victim by reason of his or her birth.  What occurs is something like an ontological transfer from the nature of the victim to the definition of the act.  Nevertheless, the juridical tradition resists this approach.[1]

Paul Ricoeur, Critique and Conviction (1995)

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[1] Paul Ricoeur, Critique and Conviction: Conversations with François Azouvi and Marc de Launay, tr. Kathleen Blamey (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), pp. 112,113 [Original French edition published in 1995].

On Political Carnage and Mark Carney

While the political crisis in Ottawa has unfolded, I have been reading Fichte’s “Addresses to the German Nation” (1807), which delivered national consciousness-raising to Germans following the defeat of Prussia by Napoleon at the Battle of Jena.  This sort of scenario might sound familiar to Canadians who are facing a 25% tariff threat by the incoming Trump administration if we don’t do more to limit the illegal aliens crossing the border from Canada to the USA.  Trump, as we know, has even mocked Trudeau as the “governor” of the 51^st state., and so on.

Canadians are in a moral panic – and everyone is pointing their fingers at Justin Trudeau.  Last Friday, he told Chrystia Freeland via Zoom that she would no longer be Finance Minister, but she was expected to deliver the Fall Budget nonetheless.  A miscalculation on the part of Trudeau, perhaps, but no one acknowledges that she was not being removed from her post as Deputy Prime Minister.  On top of that she was offered the alternative responsibility of handling Canada-US relations – in other words, Trump. Who could ask for more?  Does Chrystia Freeland not have a political ego, too, and is she not letting Canadians know about it?  I, for one, have never been fond of Freeland and her pedantic manner: it’s as if she were the kindergarten teacher, and we are all her pupils.

The last time the Canadian nation was in a moral panic was at the discovery of the unmarked graves at the former Indian residential school in Kamloops, B.C.  The news ricocheted around the world, Canadian flags were at half mast seemingly endlessly, and there was tremendous soul searching.  How could such things happen in Canada, many wondered, as if this were “news”.  What did Trudeau do: he appointed our first Indigenous Governor General, Mary Simon.  Unfortunately, she knew little French, owing in part to circumstances and language rules at the time, having been born Indigenous in what was then Quebec.  Nonetheless she was greeted in English Canada as if Trudeau had pulled a rabbit out of the hat.

Can Trudeau pull a rabbit out of the hat once again?  In light of all the political carnage we have witnessed under Justin Trudeau’s terms of office, this seems unlikely.  His flavour has passed.  Dominic LeBlanc was named Finance Minister in Freeland’s absence, but he should be considered a stopgap measure.  If he remains in that office, then Justin Trudeau should step down because LeBlanc represents the kind of thing the Trump administration relies on: Dominic used to babysit Trudeau the Younger, when Romeo LeBlanc (the Elder) and Pierre Trudeau were in government together.  Justin Trudeau would appear simply to be too reliant on family connections to run a government.  This is aside from Dominic LeBlanc’s inexperience with Finance.

If Mark Carney steps up to the plate and takes on the role as Finance Minister, he would put some wind in the Liberal party sails, but, as it stands now, the Trudeau government is something of a ship wreck.  Carney has vast experience as Governor of the Bank of Canada (during the Great Recession of 2007 and 2008) and Governor of the Bank of England (during Brexit!).  Clearly a man of talent, who has a recent book out (the one on  Chrystia is forthcoming), he has zero experience as an elected representative, and here the Liberal Party might be revisiting its Michael Ignatieff moment, which was certainly a failed - and most undesirable - venture.  Carney, at least, merits more attention than Ignatieff ever did.

If Mark Carney doesn’t in the end accept Trudeau’s invitation as Finance Minister, he will be sinking the Trudeau government, as well as his own ambitions, as, by implication, he would be demonstrating an inability to play as a team.  He could leave Trudeau twisting in the wind, and I figure not many in the Liberal Party would appreciate that, as well as other concerned Canadians. We all know Carney wants only one job, Trudeau’s.  But there will be no pieces to pick up following Trudeau’s eventual departure, one way or another.  Carney needs to get his feet wet now, not wait for the polished photo-op.  If Carney doesn’t grasp the gravity of the moment – of a listless government having to confront an unstable Trump administration and its tariffs - then he is not worthy of a future in Canadian politics.  Time to answer the call, Mr. Carney, and begin speaking to the country.

Is Dickens’ Ghost of Christmas Present – Present Today?

It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it, until they left a children’s Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was grey.

“Are spirits’ lives so short?” asked Scrooge.

“My life upon this globe, is very brief,” replied the Ghost. “It ends to-night.”

“To-night!” cried Scrooge.

“To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.”

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.

“Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?”

“It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.”

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

“Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!” exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit! are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!”

“Have they no refuge or resource?” cried Scrooge.

“Are there no prisons?” said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. “Are there no workhouses?”

The bell struck twelve.

Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not.

 

Source: Project Gutenberg eBook. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, Original First Edition, 1843, available online. 

On Fathers and Sons and Presidential Pardons

There has been much political hand-wringing – expected by Republicans but also among Democrats - concerning President Biden’s “full and unconditional” pardon of his son, Hunter.  Precedent-setting, perhaps, but certainly consistent with the recent Supreme Court decision to grant the American presidency absolute immunity from prosecution for all official acts. 

In my view, we need to assess the net effects of such a move: Hunter Biden gets to live a a life not consumed by personal and legal troubles and away from the dubious intentions of the incoming Trump presidency.  Compare this to George Bush (the lesser), who launched the Iraq War ostensibly to defend the honour of George H. W. Bush Sr., whose life had been threatened by Saddam Hussein in retaliation for the Gulf War.  Thousands of American and countless Iraqi lives were lost.  In other words, people died in this instance, at least in part, because of a father and son relationship.

Another interesting comparison is Stalin and his son Yakov Djugashvili, who ended up in a German POW camp after he was captured in 1941.  By virtue of being Stalin’s son he was considered a “valuable hostage”.[1] A prisoner swap was proposed but Stalin washed his hands of him in part because – in Stalin’s mind – being a POW was a dishonour to the nation: better to fight to the death. Stalin was also constrained by the fact that millions of Russians had died in the war, and he could not be seen to be giving his own son preferential treatment.[2] Yakov was dead in a POW camp by April 1943.  It was believed that Stalin was informed of his son’s death by intelligence services, but he kept it secret. 

 

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[1] Rosemary Sullivan, Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva (Toronto: HarperCollins, 2013), p.  125.

[2] Ibid., p. 126.