Many ideologies rely on the concept of a 'New Man.' The flaws in the old man.. corruption, greed, & cruelty.. are repaired in the New Man. Marx counted on it. Lenin promoted it. Che Guevara preached it. Many more have practiced it.
With all utopias, a new man is crucial to it's success & founding. Marx believed a scientific evolution was possible with man. He felt that man could become altruistic, & live for the common good, if the selfish negatives of religion & capitalism were ended. Plenty of followers tried to implement his ideals.
You must, therefore, confess that by "individual" you mean no other person than the bourgeois, than the middle-class owner of property. This person must indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible. ~Karl Marx
Lenin, Stalin, Mao, & many others literally tried to 'sweep the bourgeois out of the way.' But no matter how many imperfect men they killed, who did not measure up to the party standards, every generation made more of the same. They were not evolving into the new Soviet Man.
Seventy years ago communists easily (and, as it turned out, for a long time) seized power in Russia. Without hesitation they undertook to build a new society, hitherto unprecedented in the history of mankind, and announced the construction of Communism throughout the whole world to be their final goal.
In this society there was to be no private property, it was to be a-religious: denying God, denying the existence of the immortal soul and recognizing only the material aspect of life as real. The society was to be free of ethnic affiliations, and communists were to have unlimited power over that society.
Unprecedented methods were used to build this unprecedented society. It was decided to create a new man. This man was to be free from ethnic affiliations, see no sense in private property, be always ready to sacrifice himself for the benefit of society, have no doubts that he originated from an ape or something like it (certainly from a beast) and that nothing will remain of him after his death. In other words, he was to be a one-hundred percent materialist and atheist and must know that the meaning of life is in the person's usefulness to society and the supreme goal is in a better, wealthy and happy life of future generations. Recognizing this, he would necessarily be happy.
It was obvious to initiators of the new society and creators of the new man that several existing classes of people would delay the implementation of this task. So, it was decided to destroy millions of these people "as a class ," i.e., to kill them. To "destroy as a class" is not just a reckless cynical phrase; in fact, it is a guide to practical action. This was done in Russia, and in this way began construction of the new society in every country as soon as the communists seized power. ~Sergei Khodorovich, 1987
Russia worked on a 'New Soviet Man' for over 70 years. Did they make one? Indeed. But it was not as intended. Instead of being altruistic & sacrificing for the whole, they were selfish & lazy, stealing from work & unproductive.
To build communism it is necessary, simultaneous with the new material foundations, to build the new man and woman. ~Che Guevara
Revolutionaries will come who will sing the song of the new man and woman in the true voice of the people.
A new generation is being born. The party is a vanguard organization. It is made up of the best workers, who are proposed for membership by their fellow workers. It is a minority, but it has great authority because of the quality of its cadres. Our aspiration is for the party to become a mass party, but only when the masses have reached the level of the vanguard, that is, when they are educated for communism. ~Che Guevara
Che was very committed to the 'New Man'. He felt the loose morals in cuba were the fault of capitalism, & sought to purge that from the people. He eliminated a lot of revolutionaries in his quest for this 'new man'.
Not an atom remains of the New Man that Che Guevara dreamed of. Almost all Cubans steal whatever they can at work, from a straw to a piece of paper. When someone begins a new job, he is not interested in how much his salary will be, only in how much he can steal...
No one remembers the New Man, nor the stupidities advocated by social engineers like Che Guevara. The supposed New Men are in the lines outside the Spanish Consulate or the U.S. Special Interests Section, crazy about leaving.~Ivan Garcia
And in Cambodia, under Khmer Rouge, an estimated 3 million people died under forced relocation & purging of the 'corrupt man'. In a nation of 7 million, nearly half died. What did the social engineers think of that?
"As long as we have one million left, that will be enough to make the new man." ~Ieng Sary, foreign minister under Khmer Rouge
Even Hitler wanted to breed a 'master race' that would be perfect & communally altruistic, sacrificing themselves for the reich.
National socialism is the determination to create a new man. There will no longer exist anyindividual arbitrary will, nor realms in which the individual belongs to himself. The time of happiness as a private matter is over. ~Adolf Hitler
But the more man is told he must change, or is pushed to evolve, the more he stays the same.
This is the problem with ideologies dependent on a 'new man'. They do not work with real man. They do not take into account the realities of humanity. They are fantasy imaginations of humanity, with no basis in reality.
The savior who wants to turn men into angels is as much a hater of human nature as the totalitarian despot who wants to turn them into puppets. ~Eric Hoffer