Social Groups Quotes
Every refugee and immigrant group has had to provide the “value” to which he refers. Usually this has been in the form of labor or scientific-cultural skills.
By secret societies, de Tocqueville meant societies or organizations where the membership was secret. He was not referring to organizations like the Masons which had secret oaths and rituals. Secret societies had historically been destabilizing forces in societies. At the time this was written, there were no secret societies in America, but in 1855 a major one developed—The American Party whose members were better known as “Know Nothings” as when they would be asked anything about the party and its organization of beliefs, they would claim that the knew nothing. They were virulently anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic. Subsequently, there have been secret organizations in American politics from time to time, but they have generally been few compared to other countries, and their influence was not long lasting. Most recently, quirks in legal decisions and their interaction with the Constitution have produced non profit organizations which are financed and influenced by unknown people. The major officials of the organizations are known but the members and contributors are secret. These organizations then operate campaigns, most often to attack and damage the reputation of politicians running for political office—most frequently, the Presidency.
After the Russian Revolution in 1917, there was a vicious civil war and the Communists governed ruthlessly not even pretending to follow the democratic principles that they had espoused before they can to power. This was a typical intellectual rationalization of a dictatorial behavior that lasted until the fall of Communist Russia. However, at this time most supporters thought that things would soon change. They only got worse culminating in Stalin’s atrocities. The Bolsheviks were the ruling communist party in Russia.
