MIA: Admin: Former Volunteers: Biographies
Former Volunteer Biography
Brian Basgen (1997 - 2007)
Political Views: Brian's politics are moderately left. His political views strongly reject radical politics. While he was with MIA, he consistently advocated a critical view of Marxism through the promotion of people like Rosa Luxmeburg, who vehemently opposed Bolshevism.
Brian believes that Marxism is a complete failure as a form of government, and that Marxism is also a failure as an ideology of a political party. Brian particularly loathed Bolshevism and vanguardism, citing unethical government and politics where the ends justify the means.
Motivation for Volunteering: After creating an independent Soviet History archive in 1996, Brian merged his site with MIA in 1997. Brian's view of Soviet history closely correlates with the modern work from Yale University Press in their Annals of Communism series. Brian worked to shift historic focus from the Soviet political system to the often unaddressed subject of Soviet society, culture, and people.
Brian's rendetion of an apolitical Soviet history was challenged on several occasions because he believed in promoting the history all participants of history, regardless of their political views. Some MIA volunteers objected to Brian's emphasis on primary sources, and suggested that Soviet history should instead be explained within an ideological context.
MIA Work History: When Brian joined MIA in 1997, the organisation was going through a fundamental shift in direction. Brian worked to establish an academic groundwork that reflected his beliefs, which can be found as core principles in the MIA charter: (1) free access to information; (2) non-profit status; (3) consensus and democracy; (4) full disclosure and transparency; (5) political independence; (6) focus on primary sources; and (8) easy access to information.
In his time with MIA, apart from his role in administrative work, Brian created the following archives: Soviet, France, Cuba, Algeria, Afghanistan, USA, and Historians archive, Painting and Marxism, Student's Section, Audio Books, Guevara, Castro, Kruschev, Kennedy, Malcolm X, Lao Tzu, Sun Tzu, Einstein, Darwin, Adam Smith, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman, Makhno, Keller, Bellamy, Wells, & Sinclair Reference archives. In 1999 Brian created the Encyclopedia of Marxism, initially as an aide for common terms in Soviet history. At various times he administrated the Rosa Luxmeburg, Che Guevara, Lenin and Marx/Engels archives, and assisted with various others.
Departure from MIA: Brian left the organisation due to his opposition to Marxist politics. While he leaves behind a legacy of a moderating influence, he was ultimately unable to convince the organisation of the failure of Marxism as he saw it, and the need to be a purely academic online library.