In this brief solo commentary, the speaker argues that large-scale evil does not require a popular majority; a small, organized minority can seize power and impose disastrous regimes. He illustrates the point with two historical cases: the Bolsheviks, a minority faction that overthrew the provisional government in Russia’s 1917 October Revolution despite the larger Menshevik majority, and the Nazi Party, which won only a minority of votes in Germany’s 1932 free election yet rose to dominate the state. By highlighting the linguistic irony of “Bolshevik” (big) versus “Menshevik” (small) and the Nazi electoral minority, the speaker concludes that the capacity for evil rests on the ability of a determined minority to capture political control, warning listeners to recognize this dynamic in contemporary contexts.
Chapters
It doesn't take a majority for evil to prevail. Truly significant. I learned this in the field that I studied, communism. If you don't know what I'm about to say, you'll find this fascinating. You probably have heard of the Bolsheviks. That was the first name of the communists of Russia turned Russian into— and the Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks were the first group of communists, and they took over after the Second Russian Revolution. The first was February, and the next was October. I think that's according to the old calendar, but it doesn't matter. The same year. So there was a, a democratic revolution and then a communist revolution in 1917. The Bolsheviks, headed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, took over. Now here's the point, and this is so germane to what you're seeing. The, the word Bolshevik comes from the Russian word Bolshoi, like in Bolshoi Ballet that you may have heard of, the most famous ballet company in the world. Bolshoi means big, so the Bolshevik was the big or Majority Nick? And here's the key: they were in the minority. The majority got the name Menshevik, the folks who were much more pro-freedom, democracy, etc., etc. They were in the majority, but they got the name Minority Nick. Mensha is means less in Russian. So the Big Nick was the Little Nick, and the Little Nick was the Big Nick. But they— it worked. It worked. The minority took over. Same in Germany. They were not the majority party In the 1932 elections, the last free elections in Germany until the end, until World War II had ended, 1945, it was a minority of Germans who voted for the Nazis, but they took over. This is the great lesson: it doesn't take many. For great evil to take place.
