First, I have a confession to make. I consider myself a socialist, and I'm proud of it. So if you want to, you can hate me as much as you want. Not only that, but I've read a lot of Karl Marx (Das Kapital) and a whole bunch of his other stuff. I've also read Trotsky, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and Khruschev's polemics on the socialist state.
But as others might know only too well, just because you've read the Bible, it doesn't mean that you're a Christian. It may mean that you're some kind of smarty pants, nerdy little socially inept scholar boy who just wanted to find out where the dirty parts were, and why the holy cow guy didn't give you Bible quotes from there. And so am I.
I think this qualifies me to be a lefty. I do not sympathize with the far right versions of libertarianism. I think Ayn Rand sucks. I picked up Robert Nozick's philosophical opus Anarchy, State, and Utopia this year, and I tried not to puke. Just between you and me, libertarian philosophy taken to its ultimate is best practiced by very successful yuppie drug dealers. After all, the Bible tells us that you're closest to heaven if you've got more gelt. And I've always taken that to mean that God is indeed, a Republican.
"But what about this Marxist crap," you say? First let's clear up some misconceptions. There is a definite confusion in this country between communism and socialism. That's kind of saying that there are no differences between Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews. They may belong to the same religion, but they are eggs and apples. Communism unfortunately calls for a unilinear view of history necessitating the dictatorship of the proletariate. I met a few hard core communists in my time at the University of Illinois, and I had problems with them a lot of time because they were Stalinists.
You see, the fundamental problem of communism was that it was no more than a window dressing of socialist-type language spouted by insecure guys (with little penises) in semi-developed societies. Fourth rate countries in the 20th Century were the most fertile places for communism. And although people like Lenin talked a good game plan, most communists after that were just copy cats, instituting their country's ham-handed version of state capitalism (except Salvador Allende, who is still a dead saint and Danny Ortega of Nicaragua, who was a child abuser). In the end, the real emphasis was on the dictatorship. Uncle Joe killed a helluva lot more kulaks, etc. than Hitler. And Pol Pot was only the most extreme.
Now if you look at socialism as it's actually been implemented, we must actually go to places like Sweden, West Germany, and France. We can certainly agree how horrible and dismal lives are under socialism because they have more cheeses than we do. Wait! I mean they have longer life spans, less homeless people, more equal income distribution, higher taxes, free national health care, no death penalty, a cleaner environment, six weeks paid vacations for everyone, and one year of maternity or paternity leave for when they have kids. And in most places, dope is pretty much legal. You can see how horrible life is for people suffering under the yoke of socialism. :(
Translating this into United States-ese, I'd love to see the day when we have the foreign policy of Estonia, the life span of Sweden, the clean industry of West Germany, and the climate of the south of France. Unfortunately for me, I'm not going to hold my breath until this happens in 'Merka. Don't get too tooty-fruity. You might scare the horses, or get the F*x News idjits mad at you.
Alas, I am only a tired political hack, and not a real socialist.
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If I suspected communism could help us become a better country…I’d probably declare myself a communist.
If I suspected an amalgam of free enterprise/capitalism with some socialistic ideas incorporated in order to see that the less gifted among us do not have to starve and freeze to death so that “the haves” can get an even larger share of the pie…could help us become a better country…then I’d probably declare myself outside the mainstream of the continuum of liberal versus conservative in America.
Come to think of it…I do suspect that latter scenario…and I do declare myself outside the mainstream of the continuum of liberal versus conservative in America.
Some very intelligent leaders in socialistic China have figured out that incorporating some capitalistic ideas into their society would be a great idea. They have done that…and are now the second greatest economy on the planet…moving in on the first at breakneck speed.
But the myopic conservatives of our country would sooner see us turn into a third world entity than even consider the positive possibilities of anything that even comes close to socialism.
It is an insult to our country that conservatives wield such power here.
The Marx brothers gave more to the world than old Karl ever did and Trotsky, Lenin, Stalin, etc., were mass murderers. And Lenin's talk was of hanging people.
I understand that you are distinguishing between the Soc. and the Communists, but you really don't strike me as all that horrified at what the Communists actually did. Why do they get a pass that Nazis, and rightly so, would never get? They were mass murderers.
And when you want to take MY STUFF to make YOUR SOCIALIST world, you'd better watch out. And you know what, when I want to take YOUR STUFF, that you earned, that matters to YOU, you'll be screaming like hell, and rightly so.
Stay out of my life. Stay out of my pocket. Let me alone and I promise, I'll not bother you.
You all are worse than a religious fanatic on major narcotics.
People's yawn at the dead of Russia alone, is so disgusting.
The more power the government has over me, the less I'm allowed over myself. No thanks.
It is amazing how illiberal the Left is. Socialism is not freedom my friend.
And your communist teachers in college, those apologists for Stalin, moral midgets who deserve the condemnation we'd give to Holocaust deniers and Hitler supporters.
Consider Thomas Sowell as worthy of reading. Also consider the wonderful Milton Friedmann.
Basically, there are three major classical economists in my mind, and they all build on eachother. Adam Smith, David Ricardo and Karl Marx. You can't read any of them in isolation. And they are all very much in agreement on the basics of their ANALYSIS of economy. The only difference is that Marx takes their ideas and looks at them from the perspective of the poor and class-conflict, and that sheds a whole new light on the subject.
That said, Marx was not the one who invented the "Labour theory of value." That was Adam Smith and Ricardo perfected it. Marx just borrowed it and added/synthesized concepts regarding exploitation (which were inherent in the original conception, but little discussed).
Now, classical respondants to Marx never did a good job of disproving the labor theory of value. Indeed, a whole new school of economics, the Marginalists (consisting of Marshall and his best student, Keynes) had to come into the equation in order to synthesize, in effect, Marxist economic theory with classical economics, because the classicists really had no response to Marx's critiques.
Now, that's in terms of economic theory. In terms of ascertaining and diagnosing problems inherent to Bourgeois economics and political economy.
Diagnosis aside, Marxism has not worked well, from what I have seen, in terms of TREATING these problems, but then again, this isn't Marxism's problem, so much as it is Communism's. Communism was one school of thought that branched out from the Marxist trunk. Just as there are different denominations of Christian (Mormon, Lutheran, Baptist, Russian Orthodox and Catholic), there are different denominations of Marxist. To hold all Christians accountable for the crimes of Spanish-led and Catholic inspired Inquisition is wrong, just as it would be wrong to hold all Marxists accountable for the crimes of Stalin and Mao.
European Social Democracy is a direct descendant of Marxian thought. However, the Communists wanted violent revolution and the Social Democrats wanted to work within the system and bring a more economically egalitarian society about by way of democratic action.
Lenin thought this was useful in nations with a strong democratic tradition, like Germany and Britain (Reichstag and Parliament, both), but wouldn't work in a feudal autocratic, undeveloped state like Russia. This is what he basically argued in "What is to be Done?"
In sum, I am on the left, too. And don't think we should hide it. I look forward to the day when our numbers are strong enough such that we can fight the right in a more meaningful and existentially purposeful way.
Proletarier Alle Lander, Vereinigt Euch!
That had really never been done before and in many ways, Engels and Marx were the fathers of modern sociology/social science.
I find the "Communist Manifesto," though, to be totally over the top and silly. Clearly, it was written by a very young Marx and Engels who were full of revolutionary fervor in 1848, but lacking in practical understanding. It lays down the essence of historical materialism, but its not very academic. Not by a long shot.
The problem is that many conservatives read the Manifesto and think that "this is Marxism." it is not. It is a very early and underdeveloped and crude exposition of the ideas.
The best essays, in my opinion, are the historical essays like the ones mentioned above, which describe the interplay of class and economics in an unfolding political drama. Descriptive, rather than Prescriptive. Even right wing conservative anti-communists, like Henry Kissinger, Nixon and Buckley, not to mention Alan Bloom, NEVER criticized Marx as an intellectual. Many thought his historical analyses were brilliant.
They fault him on his PRESCRIPTIONS for society.
I'm with Frank.
The "Dictatorship of the Pols" is just another dictatorship.
On the other hand, Emma G. said "If voting changed anything they'd make it illegal!"
R
Also with Rw (at this point I don't have to look at the signature to know his posts are his). Though not nearly as well-read as he is, I also concluded a long time ago that there's a huge difference between Marx as scientist/historian/economist and Marx as philosopher/utopian - one had a lot to say, the other was silly, naive, and over the top.
Barbara Joanne is, of course, right about the inevitable result of communism no matter where it is practiced - the millions of dead kibbutzniks attest to that.
For example both Socialism and Communism put emphasis on education available to all, usually paid for by the state which finances it one way or another. Capitalism provides minimal education to the working classes and a much better education to the upper classes. In the United States this education is often based on things like "exceptionalism" or involves coercion when inconvenient facts which means that it may actually be indoctrination. this has of course happened in countries that call themselves Communist or Socialist.
Regardless of the ideology the providing of education not indoctrination to all is a good idea.
When people say they'd become (as the first commenter here does) a communists if they thought it would work, they show that they knew little about the death of 50-60 million in the USSR ALONE or don't care much if they do know anything. That the Communists and communism get a pass is just outrageous. They were murderers.
People's yawn at the dead of Russia alone, is so disgusting.
What does that have to do with the idea I was expressing? Do you honestly think, Barbara, that capitalists have not slaughtered people? The Nazi party, despite the word “socialism” in it, was a capitalistic economic system! Because Hitler slaughtered millions of people, are we supposed to shun capitalism…which is where your reasoning leads?
Yes…if any system would help make the world a better place…we SHOULD borrow from that ism. It is the logical, sensible, reasonable thing to do.
As to the "you better not try to take MY stuff" mentality, I don't think that works too well for society. If you're a Moscow bidnisman on his yacht or tooling around town in his solid gold Porsche, then no doubt you think you're swell. But perhaps you didn't start your operation in a garage. Perhaps you were an apparatchik in the old Soviet system who was in the right position to buy national assets for 1/10th of a cent on the dollar, thus impoverishing hundreds of thousands of Russians who trusted the government with their stock issued pension plans.
Those people who think themselves incredibly worthy (and rich) more often got that way by being members of the lucky sperm club. The MINE mentality that you describe is really at the core of what I see as some of the major problems facing the US today. Individual enrichment for the overall impoverishment of the vast majority of citizens in a country is not very democratic, and it creates all sorts of violent side effects from prison populations to homelessness to wars.
And heere's where Rw and I both come in and sing Kumbaya. The works that he/she mentions are some of the finest economic writings ever. That's why I always depend on Marxist analysis as one of the filters that I pass any political situation through because it's a jim dandy Swiss army knife giving you all sorts of insights.
Take for example, the notion of class and class conflict. Or how about the natural tendency of the capitalist system to swing to extremes? Milton Friedman and the other "free to be" economists talk about equilibrium in their economic models. Seen any equilibrium in our current economic and political system lately? Neither did I. Marx was the man who crystallized the thinking on this, and I see Wall Street traders reading Marx, not because they're commies but because they want to get a better grip on understanding how the whole damn system operates. That to me is the best testimony you can get on Marx's value as an economic commentator.
I'm with Frank and other. Whatever works.
And let's be honest about it, the communist experiment died with Lenin; communes were replaced by a new oligarchy of Communist bureaucrats who screwed everything up with their failed theories of management. So let's not pretend that any country on earth has ever practiced Marxism as Marx and Engels envisioned it.
Milton Friedman is an idiot. The implication of the work equilibrium is “the mid-point” but, in reality, an equilibrium is almost never found at the mid-point because unequal moments (mass X velocity) generate unequal perturbations of the scales. Anyone who has ever used a balance scale knows that equilibrium is achieved through a process of perturbation in which the pendulum swings back and forth in decreasing arcs until it finds a resting point....but that resting point depends upon the weights on either side of the pendulum of the scales. If you have one percent of the population holding 90% of the wealth and 99% of the population holding one percent of the wealth, the point of equilibrium will not be anywhere near the mid-point.
The only way to balance the scales and achieve equilibrium is to balance the masses or change the velocities.
It's this kind of arrogant nonsense, repeated ad nauseam, that I always try to contradict.
Barbara: the possessions of the wealthy are the results of the plunder of the poor. I give no fealty to the idea that thieves are entitled to keep their booty. Much of the wealth of the wealthy has been gathered by plundering the resources of the nation, and much of the rest has been accumulated by taking advantage of the labor of the economically enslaved.
Consider oil. Consider what the oil companies paid the government for the right to take oil from public lands. Now consider what the same oil companies made from the oil they took out of our lands. Where is the equity there? The same analysis applies to all natural resources taken from public lands. Natural resources taken from private lands are a different matter. Whoever owns the land is entitled to anything found on or under those lands.
Who owns public lands?
We do.
In the words of a great philosopher: we wuz robbed.
Great post. Great comments.
And now that political ideology is a cable-news Frisbee, we can expect it to go repeatedly out-of-bounds for the foreseeable future. Ronald Reagan dismantles the Fairness Doctrine in one sentence: "Facts are stupid things."
However, I would add that Bolshevik wing of the Russian communist party was absolutely dedicated to an overthrow of the government. Although they weren't directly responsible for the initial overthrow of the Czar (moderates, democrats, social democrats and Mensheviks were), the Bolsheviks were able to conspire in the anarchy following the initial revolt, from what I remember, to destabilize the democratic, Provisional Gvt, and create a One-Party System.
Lenin felt (and perhaps rightfully so), that the moderates and Kerensky, would never be able to resist the inevitable Oligarchic, Pro-Czarist counter-attack.
That said, I don't think Communism died with Lenin. I think it died with Stalin.
During the early years of the USSR, Lenin brok ranks with the Party and established the NEP, or New Economic Plan, which called for Privatized Ownership of Agricultural Production and Industry, to some degree, and was a sharp rebuke to those who favored Communes and Collectivization. Lenin did this after major shortfalls in production and the harvest, shortly after the Revolution, and tried to utilized a MIXED SYSTEM so as to gain the best of both worlds, Capitalism and Socialism.
It worked.
However, when he died, it was totally eradicated by Stalin, who favored Massive Collectivization, because it provided Moscow with greater political control over the distribution of resources.
Stalin was a scumbag, and his forced industrialization, collectivization of Ukrainian Agriculture was a nightmare on earth. Millions of Ukranians died. That said, I don't think the Czar or a more moderate regime would have been able to resist the Nazis when they invaded.
And regarding the deaths that happened in the USSR and PRC, the vast majority of them were inadvertantly caused by starvation and disease, due to collectivization of agriculture. It was more because of massive government recklessness and malfeasance and misfeasance. Not intentional murder (of course this did happen, from time to time).
The vast majority of the deaths under Hitler were INTENTIONAL. Those under Stalin and Mao were due to recklessness and/or negligence.
There is a difference.
(that said, I am not excusing the documented cases of brutality which these regimes DID engage in)
Yes, Stalin and Mao sent many people to labor camps. But the vast majority of the people who died in Russia between 1924-1953 died during WW2 and the collectivization of agriculture during the various Five Year Plans. Many died in the Gulags, but the number was nowhere near the number that died in the death camps of occupied Europe.
Although it is alot, roughly 2 million people were intered in Gulags in the Soviet Union, over a 30 year period of time. Of these, maybe half perished. Still a very high number, brutally evil and nasty, yes. But that is, objectively speaking, a very different kind of oppression than (a) the Holocaust and extermination of others in Europe by the Nazis, (b) those who died during collectivization, and (c) those who died pursuant to WW2 by way of civilian reprisals, partisan actions, starvations, forced migrations, etc...
Many Russians, if you read the stats, are actually DOUBLE-COUNTED and there is much overlap between Russian civilians who died in WW2 and those who "died because of Communism."
And many times, we still don't know who killed who, why, and how. We know now that Katyn was because of the Russians, but there are probably thousands of graves like that all over Eastern Europe with just as many German as Russian perpetrators being responsible.
As for China, Mao never killed people like Stalin and Hitler did. The vast majority of the deaths in China came from the Great Leap Forward and were caused by Bureaucratic neglect and recklessness. Not intentional murder.
Many millions were killed by the Japanese during the occupation and Western sources have double-counted many of these and attributed these deaths to Mao.
Also, the Cultural Revolution was responsible for the deaths of a couple of hundred thousand, perhaps a million people. Still a very high and inexcusable number. But again, these deaths are divided between those who died accidentally from forced labor, marching, displacement, sickness/disease, and then from murder.
Mao's favorite method of punishment was "re-education," not murder. He pioneered modern brainwashing, and didn't like the messy methods of the Soviets. This is all probably academic to some, but I find it to be very interesting. Most dissidents in China were imprisoned or sent to "Re-Education Camps," not concentration or death camps.
Again, this is different from Hitler, who did NOT re-educate Poles, Gypsies, Jews, the disabled, homosexuals, etc. He simply murdered them, intentionally, with bullets and gas.
He was of a whole different nature, in my opinion.
And I'm not trying to minimize Stalin or Mao's tyranny, although I am trying to distinguish them. And there ARE distinctions that can be drawn between them and shouldn't be forgotten...
Pol Pot was total evil, though.
it all depends on what you vote for. if you vote for politicians, well, you see what you get. but if you vote for policies, laws, and 5 year plans, you get government by the people.
which is why i keep begging 'progressives' to get off their knees long enough to progress. it's not hard, a voting campaign to establish citizen initiative would do it.
The Nazis used far more slave labor in labor camps during the 6 years of WW2 than the Soviets used throughout the entire scope of their existence from 1917 up through 1991.
Conservatives try to make an "equivalency" argument between communism and Nazism. But there really is no comparison. Nazism was pure evil of a calibre unseen in Human History.
We had to take both sides of the argument, which was difficult for all involved, but man. It was one hell of a learning experience. And I learned more by doing this and came closer to the truth, probably because DIALECTICAL METHODOLOGY is the best way of discerning truth...lol
more on modern takes on marxism in my blog.
latest-- Corporatocracy
Communism and Libertarianism are two ends of a spectrum, both if taken to extreme leads to misery. One end is dictatorship, the other end anarchy. Think N. Korea and Somalia.
I've lived in a country just emerging from communism and one on the brink of anarchy. I can't overstate the horrors of communism, but I am convinced that anarchy is one the number one reason why people all over the world put up with repression.
Capitalism and communism are economic systems. In one, the means of production (ie factories) are privately owned, in the other, Gov't owned. It's a substantial difference. Socialism is merely a label. All gov'ts need to tax to fund essential services, like fire, police, national defense, etc. How much you tax and how many services you provide is not a definitive system. There is no defined line between my essential services and your socialism.
Have you read Hayek? His argument is that the failure of communism was that there was one "right" way. In fact, no one ever know what is best, they experiment and adopt successful ideas, but only in open societies that allow it.
The agricultural disasters of the Stalinist years were caused by bad policies and enforcement that all wheat was sown this way, regardless of what the farmers thought.
I would argue that the reason that third world countries tended to go for communism is that successful capitalist (developed) societies enact (unlike Marx's prediction) laws that protect workers, allowing them a decent life. Also, you need a place where people think that anyone would be better than the existing gov't.
This is why Sharia law is attractive. Rather than the existing corrupt justice system that we know, Muslims hope their clergy is more honest and they will certainly be a different set of people. It has to be better.
I would argue that communism puts too much power in the hands of the chinovniks and that's why it doesn't work well, because power corrupts. But ultimately, you need a country with good institutions, protecting the rights of the individual. You don't get that by changing the economic system. You get it by changing the attitude of people.
The registry of motor vehicles renews your registration without a bribe not because it is capitalist rather than communist, but because there are laws which are enforced preventing the bureaucrat from refusing to renew your registration unless you pass $100 under the table.
You're fooling yourself if you think there was any moral difference between holodomor and the holocaust. If the Gulag was gentler than the Kontzlags (concentration camps) it was because the Soviet Union was relatively underpopulated and they needed the slave labor. Further, in places like Kolyma, the environment was so harsh that prisoners were very likely to die if they escaped and mining doesn't require much skill making it easier to guard and run the Gulag than slave labor camps in Germany. That's not a moral difference, that's a logistical difference.
The issue was the same, that a people and culture (whether Jewish or Ukrainian) that stood in the way of a better society for more worthy people had to go.
There was no moral difference between Hitler and Stalin. None.
Legally (and philosophically and logically), there is a difference between Recklessness and Intent.
Recklessness usually arises when a person is actually aware of the potentially adverse consequences to the planned actions, but has gone ahead anyway, exposing a particular individual, unknown victim or group of people to the risk of suffering the foreseen harm of certain actions but not actually desiring that the victim be hurt. The accused is a social danger because they gamble with the safety of others.
Intent is different. It is when you do X, precisely because you want consequence Y to Person/Group A to come about.
The Holocaust was more like the Armenian genocide in this regard, and less like the Ukranian famine.
Are you refering to population density?
Of course I mean population density. Russia has nearly twice as much land as the US and less than half the population. There is a very visible population difference between Russia and the US. Fly from NY to Moscow and you will see very little empty space around NYC and a hell of a lot of empty space less than 50 km from Moscow. Tree farms and unfarmed fields. Does anyone waste land on tree farms and unfarmed fields in Westchester county?
But, more importantly, Germany has a population density of 236 people/sq km. Siberia has 4 people per sq km and the Magadan Oblast ( where Kolyma is) has .4/km2. That's a population density in Germany nearly 600 times higher than in Kolyma.
Okay, these are modern numbers, but the population in Russia hasn't crashed and that in Germany soared so much that the relative population densities have changed significantly.
Kolyma was such a horrible place that there was a joke, which doesn't translate well. It's better to Kolymit (real Russian word derived from the place name Kolyma meaning to labor in slave camp conditions) in Honduras than to Hondurasit (made-up meaningless word derived from a sunny tropical country) in Kolyma.
As an analogy. Say someone goes to a ball field when there's a little league game. They shoot 5 kids.
Next, you have someone who goes to the ball field to test his machine gun. There's a little league game in progress. Not his problem. He tests his machine gun anyway. Lots of kids get hit. 5 die.
Are you going to tell me there's a serious moral difference there?
That said, researching intentions is hard. Did Stalin intend for millions of Ukrainians to die? I think yes. His openly stated goal was the liquidation of the Kulaks as a class. In the murderous Stalinist regime, you think that meant re-education? This is the guy who cheerfully wrote 'For' in blue crayon (his writing implement of choice) on Beria's dry memo suggesting that the Polish officers in Russia be massacred. The Katyn memo. I've seen it. Unforgettable.
If we get back to Kolyma, the statistics are easier on non-Soviets. So, of the 10,000 to 12, 000 Polish POWs sent to Kolyma during the war, less than 600 survived. What's Auschwitz's ratio?
When the Ukrainians were starving, Stalin had posters printed saying that to eat your own children is barbaric. There were thousands of cases of cannibalism prosecuted. He was still exporting grain from the USSR. There were severe punishments for crawling through the harvested fields scavenging for any kernel of grain that might have escaped the harvest.
Read Bloodlands. Read history. Get your damned head out of the sand.
Frankly, if I had to die, I'd rather go quickly in a gas chamber than slowly by starvation.
The issue of recklessly and neglegently caused death absolutely factors into such an equation and would absolutely be factored into such an analysis before a criminal tribunal.
Second Degree, or Depraved Heart Murder, is the type of murder that happens when you recklessly do x, and x proximately causes the death of another.
This is different from First degree murder.
And yet, there is also a greater degree of causal attenuation involved with the Ukranian Famine, as well as the famines which took place during the great leap forward, because most people didn't know (a) that a famine would take place (this had never been tried before) and (b) when it was happening, many people were fudging the numbers in terms of deaths, and competing with eachother in terms of reporting the sustainable amount of grain they could extract from the peasantry. Higher brass kept increasing the numbers of grain requisitions based on the lower over-optimistic calculations, and you wound up with a cascading effect of inadvertant famine-based casualties based on incomplete information.
There is a total and absolute difference.
The Holocaust was FIRST DEGREE MURDER of the HIGHEST SORT.
My argument is that the vast majority of the deaths in the Soviet Sphere were caused by way of negligence and recklessness, not intent.
And just because you can cite various and widespread examples of intent (which had lower casualty counts) does not mean, ipso facto, that the larger and more catastrophic events (in terms of casualty counts) had a first degree murder Mens Rea.
You tell me to read. I am incredibly well read. Thanks for playing. The Kulaks were the group of Peasants that owned fields and land and these were sought-out by the Soviet elite for harsh treatment after the price of food rose during and subsequent to the Civil War. Trotsky blamed the Kulakhs for raising prices and passing these onto the peasants. As such, he seant workers committees into the farmers areas to brutalize the kulakhs (wealthier peasants), who often had the support of the poorer peasants, particularly in the Ukraine.
That said, a policy of De-Kulakhization is distinct from a policy of de-Ukranianization, no? One is limited to a single socio-economic group among Ukrainians, and the latter is aimed at all Ukrainians. And even today, there are serious academic debates among very reasonable scholars, who seriously differ on the subject.
I, personally, and many scholars support this, that the Soviets were aiming at genocide re: the Ukrainians. I just think they were reckless, incompetant and inept and had no idea what they were doing. And once they realized it, they did little to stop it, because they didn't want to put their reputations on the line.
Is this immoral? Yes. Is this evil? Absolutely.
But is this different from the Holocaust? I absolutely think so.
This is because machine guns have been around along time and we all know how dangerous it is to fire them in the proximity of people. The recklessness of the action is, in many ways, determined by our prior experience, personal and vicarious (by way of books, newspapers, tv news shows, historical lessons, etc...). We all know machine guns, when fired into groups of people, are extremely dangerous. Even if done without the intent to kill, it is hard to escape the finding of wanton indifference to the value of human life, hence the finding of recklessness.
Now, when it comes to the Collectivization of Agriculture in the Ukraine, I think this is different. First, nobody had ever tried this before. It was a totally unparalleled experiment in terms of agricultural production and economics. It was massive human and social engineering on a scale never before seen in human history. Many of the laws of supply and demand, micro and macro management, feedback loops and how these could impact production and consumption, etc...these things weren't known at the time. Indeed, much of our modern understandings of such things came about, precisely because of failures during the Soviet era.
That said, the famine was thus caused by a policy undertaken without any prior knowledge in terms of its potential for destruction or the likelihood that famine could or would come about. In communist ideology, they ACTUALLY BELIEVED THEY WOULD INCREASE PRODUCTION.
They were wrong, but their ideology made them think this.
Hence, they were mistaken in causing the massive re-allocation of resources.
The Regime was guilty of wanton indifference to the value of human life, though, once they REALIZED THERE WAS, INDEED, A FAMINE, and they did nothing to stop it. OR AT LEAST, did minimal things, based on bureaucratic issues and indifference.
This is where the second degree murder charge would come in. Through Refusal to act to save somebody that the regime had inadvertantly put into a state of mortal peril.
That sounds about right to me. That's why they would be found guilty of Second Degree Murder...
He thought, honestly, that it would INCREASE PRODUCTION.
That's why he did it.
He wouldn't have engaged in any of those 5 year plans, if he thought it would cut Russia's economy by half, and cut its food production by half.
Communist ideology made him believe that collectivization would lead his nation into a Socialist Utopian Paradise. It didn't work. It failed miserably.
But believing such nonsense does not give you the requisite MENS REA for a finding of FIRST DEGREE MURDER.
The Holocaust was Mass Murder in the FIRST DEGREE
I could only imagine how many people gave their lives digging a ditch a hundred yards wide, twenty feet deep for over a hundred miles. As our boat kept moving towards St. Petersburg, I kept wondering where all the bodies went to. And this was just one project. The Moscow Canal project was a picnic compared to the canal project on the White Sea.
I suppose the gulag was more humane than a Nazi concentration camp. In the Nazi camps they wanted people to die off as quickly as they possibly could. In the Soviet camps, they wanted them to be as productive as they possibly could. But someone dying in a Soviet camp was just as dead as a Jew in Auschwitz.
Similarly, Mao Tse Tung's Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution killed millions. Mao should have known what the end results of the Great Leap Forward were, as they were very similar to the Stalinist purges on the kulaks. Incompetence or just plain pure evil?
Comparing Naziism to Stalinism is like trying to count how many angels there are on the head of a pin. Stalinism at least had a more positive ideology. But dead is dead.
So, even granting you the Ukraine side of the argument, in 1944 Stalin did set out to murder an entire people: the Germans, from East Prussia to western Poland. In the final months of the war the Red Army butchered at least one million Germans who fled west before the Red Army. Read Sir John Keegan's accounts. Then, post-war, fourteen million Germans were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands (Czech, western Poland, East Prussia) and driven into the rump Germany. Two million died on that pilgrimage. For a good account of Stalin's state of mind read Milovan Djilas, CONVERSATIONS WITH STALIN. Your trying to point out nuanced differences between Stalin's brand of evil and Hitler's is meaningless. Both were butchers, both evil incarnate. Some historians point out that Stalin did not murder people only because of their bloodlines, such as Hitler did. (Churchill and Roosevelt make note of that in their correspondence, as if to buck themselves up in the matter of their new ally. They had something of a PR crisis on their hands.) Stalin murdered people who got in his way, whole peoples in the case of the Ukrainians. Possibly, just possibly, the same could be said of those millions of ethnic Germans who were in the way of the Red Army, but--and this is critical--standing orders in the Red Army were to kill Germans, any Germans, young, old, male, female as often as possible. I'm with Malusinka on this one. To split hairs in the matter of Hitler v. Stalin, who is more evil, is nutz, and serves as a perverted boost to those who might try to rehabilitate the reputation of either of them.
I agree with you.
I wasn't trying to rehabilitate Stalin. You can see that if you read the above.
Barbara Joanne said that tens of millions of deaths naturally follow from Marxism and implied that these are more than the deaths from Nazism.
I mitigated these deaths and said that the vast majority of them were caused inadvertantly, which was different from the vast majority of the deaths caused by Nazism.
I noted that Marxism and Communism up to Lenin, were different from that which was practiced under Stalin, who took things in a different and more brutal direction.
I agree with Stalin's nastiness during 1944. In fact, in a prior post, I supported Germany's efforts to memorialize the deaths of Germans who died on the death march from East Prussia. You did not.
Regarding the Ukranian Famine, I was merely trying to show that it was unlike the Holocaust.
I also think that we cannot count war-deaths and you did so here, which is problematic. Direct murder of civilians pursuant to ideological reasons is what we were after. Hence, the topic of the post and whether certain ideologies naturally create a path of destruction and bloodshed.
I don't think the Red Army's attrocities against civilians in 1944 had anything to do with Marxist-Leninist ideology, whereas German attrocities against slavic civilians in the Ukraine, Russia and Byelorussia were absolutely, 100%, because of Nazi ideology.
The topic of the discussion, which we cant lose sight of, is whether the ideas of Marx and Engels naturally lead to Stalinist and Maoist attrocities/deaths, and what the extent of these deaths and attrocities were and what they should rightly be attributed to (Marxist ideology, war, inadvertant famine, enemy actions, etc...).
That Stalin was a bona fide first degree murderer is without question. He should have been eliminated by clever people early on. Millions of lives would have been saved.
This is why I support the assassination of tyrants abroad, like OBL, as I mentioned in a prior post on Koshersalaami's blog.
He endorsed an official policy of raping German women from 8 to 90 years of age, and officialy impregnating German women with Russian babies, so as to rob them of their "racism," which was insanely brutal
Everything else is just different flavors of authoritarianism done in the name of communism or capitalism or whatever. Why debate the labels when they have no bearing on the reality?
Furthermore, the vast majority of those civilians in areas controlled by the USSR who were intentionally killed by the Soviets with specific intent, were not killed pursuant to any Marxist ideological motivation. Instead, they were killed with other motivations pursuant to nationalist martial excess (revenge against the Germans in 1944), and realpolitik, personal political disputes and power politics. The Katyn Massacre, even, had nothing to do with Marxist ideology, and more to do with resurgent right-wing Russian nationalism and traditional Russian hatred of resurgent Polish nationalism, than Marxism or Leftwing socialist ideology.
Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg were quite clear in their writings about the silliness of nationalism.
End of story.
Do I read you correctly? Because the kulaks were merely a socio-economic class murdering them was a lesser crime?
"Liquidated," "smashed in open battle," "A destructive blow must be delivered immediately." Is that the language of inadvertent deaths?
My attempt here is to disprove the assertion that ALL of the 50 million people who died in the Soviet Union from 1924 through 1991 were intentionally killed because of ideology.
You are correct. The Kulakhs WERE intentionally killed because of ideological purposes. That is correct.
You were totally INCORRECT in arguing, rather demogically, that the killing of the kulaks was the functional equivalent of a wholesale genocide against ALL OF the Ukranian people.
Those are 2 different things.
The intentional killing of the Kulakhs is DIFFERENT from the accidental famine caused in the Ukraine due to collectivization.
You guys need to prove that:
1. 50 million people died in areas under Soviet control
2.that ALL of them were murdered with specific intent (w/o recklessness, negligence)
3. And that all of those killed with specific intent were murdered specifically in accordance with Marxist ideological principles. I.e, that the killings were mandated by way of ideological imperatives, in the way that Hitler's killing of the Jews was a tenet of Nazi ideology.
So far, none of you have been able to do this. I have shown that the numbers are far lower, that of those who WERE killed, the vast majority were killed by accident and that even among those who were murdered intentionally, this had less to do with ideology than power-politics and vestigial right-wing sentiments, such as nationalism.
Frankly, with arguments like these, you're doing your cause a hell of a lot more harm than good.
BTW Katyn had nothing to do with nationalism. It was a strictly practical measure. By eliminating the Polish officers, the Stalin crippled the Polish army in advance of his invasion of Poland.
Listen to Engels, ". . .the victorious party [in a revolution] must maintain its rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionaries." That clearly aligns Marxism with terror against a country's own citizens.
"[The working class] must act in such a manner that the revolutionary excitement does not collapse immediately after the victory. On the contrary, they must maintain it as long as possible. Far from opposing so-called excesses, such as sacrificing to popular revenge of hated individuals or public buildings to which hateful memories are attached, such deeds must not only be tolerated, but their direction must be taken in hand, for examples' sake."
From Karl Marx, Address to the Communist League (1850). Cited in E. Burns (ed.), A Handbook of Marxism (1935), p. 66 or 135ff.
The major point has to be: Whatever helps get our country operating properly…whatever helps our country become a better, more decent, more humane country…ought to be considered.
It is galactically shortsighted to refuse even to consider any possible help simply because it comes from an ism that the myopic right wing thinks is beneath their dignity. (Boy, there is a stretch. Trying to conceive of something beneath “American conservative dignity.)
And regarding Katyn. Ok. It was a practical measure. Perhaps that is a better description of the event. That said, it was not an ideological event.
You are either willfully ignoring my arguments above, due to mendacity, or emotion. Or, perhaps, inability to understand logic. Please elaborate on the same. Thanks.
As I discussed above, recklessness, negligence and accident are different in terms of intent. To prove something you need to show:
1. CAUSATION (a) in fact, or (b) Proximate
2. Harm
3. Mens Rea (a) Strict Intent, or (b) Recklessness, or (c) negligence or (d) accident
You are arguing three mutually exclusive things at once, out of emotion.
If you actually read the above argument, it is YOU who are doing yourself an extreme dis-service, because you are showing that you lack critical reading skills.
Thanks for playing.
I am merely saying that legally and ethically speaking, there are degrees and shades of difference.
Perhaps you think first and second degree murder convicts should be treated the same way? This is basically what you are arguing. And since this is what you are arguing, it is YOU who are no different from Stalin and Hitler.
For that matter, what about the brave men and women who fought American imperialist aggression in Vietnam? Or the communists that fought Saddam Hussein before they were rounded up and killed with help from America? Imagine what the world would be like without all the communist insurrections and movements of the last 80 years? Look at how quickly the Friedmanites (or maybe an even more psychotic group of ideologues that would have grabbed control of Euro-American policy) would have achieved their dream of a global capitalist fascist system. Or how even more pathetic and denigrated the situation of labor in this country would be today without the communists and others who stuck to a "hard line" on workers rights, when all the others, including plenty of socialists, were telling them to compromise and "go along to get along?" I'm sorry, but that's when peace and goodness become bullshit and you need a little fire and a lot of fight. That's why I'm a communist, in some ways, even today, even in our world of amputated, Fukuyama-inspired non-futures. And that's why I won't side with the two-faced "socialists" running Greece and Spain right now. Fuck them, and fuck their compromises.
Rated.
You're treating the tragic drama of human nature as if it's part of your college debating 101 class, all rhetoric and logic, and no wisdom. You wrote, in response to Malusinka: "I am merely saying that legally and ethically speaking, there are degrees and shades of difference. Perhaps you think first and second degree murder convicts should be treated the same way? "
To imply--or state--that Stalin was somehow a "second degree murder" convict is nutz. Following your logic is like following the ball in a dodge ball game. You also wrote: "My attempt here is to disprove the assertion that ALL of the 50 million people who died in the Soviet Union from 1924 through 1991 were intentionally killed because of ideology. " Who cares? Hows about we agree that, say, 10 million, WERE killed on account of ideology. Does that make Stalin somehow 'better' than Hitler?
I'll grant this: A reasonable person upon reading Mein Kampf would conclude that the author explicitly advocates mass murder of Jews. The same CANNOT be said of the Communist Manifesto. Nor, I may add, the fooking Bible. But, so what? Morality, or the lack of, can be found in the execution of the ideals, no pun intended.
I think you're a good person rw, but your blind dedication to 'logic' diminishes your vision. It's not a debate, argue both sides. It's life, and death, millions of deaths.
you also wrote: "(and if I seem knowledgeable about this, its because when I was in college, one of the topics during a debate tournament (I was on debate team)" Well, you DON'T seem 'knowledgeable' about this.
A tale: Nancy Astor, during a visit to Moscow in 1931, had with her usual forthrightness asked Stalin when the mass murder of western Slavs would end. "When it is no longer necessary," Stalin replied. It would be no longer necessary when they were all dead, like his generals who he murdered, like the Poles at Katyn. That's a First Degree murderer talking,
Also, BOKO is nutz.
Enough said.
I wasn't arguing in support of Barbara Joanne's thesis. I was arguing against your statement that Stalin was in a different category than Hitler.
However, if the quotes from Marx and Engels don't convince you that Marxism is toxic, nothing will. Luckily, communism will never come to America or any country that isn't already a basket case because enough people have more sense than you.
I think Stalin was guilty of First Degree Murder in the following cases:
1. thousands of purges in the Communist Party
2. Killing Trotsky
3. Supporting countless attrocities in Finland and Eastern Europe and Central Europe during WW2
4. Supporting hundreds of thousands of executions and beating in the advancement of collectivization
5. Mass executions of political opponents in occupied nations, like at Katyn
Stalin was guilty of Second Degree Murder in the following:
1. Inadvertant mass starvations in the tens of millions caused by way of collectivization of agriculture
2. Inadvertant mass starvations and deaths by exposure by way of forced relocations of various ethnic groups (like Chechyns) so as to redraw the map of various nations
I think Stalin was a war criminal and should have been arrested and executed. That said, my argument above was purely academic. I think Hitler WAS in a different level, for the reasons put forth and agreed to by Bad Scot, even. I.e.,,anti-semitism, racism and the higher first degree murder count.
That said, I agree with Bad Scot that murder is murder is murder. And that, legal wrangling aside, death is death and all this loss was equally horrible.
That said, I still don't think all these deaths naturally flowed from Marxism, just like I don't think all the trouble in the Middle East naturally flows from Islam, or that all the problems Europe had in the middle ages "naturally" flowed from Christianity. I think it has to do with the PEOPLE who are in power, not the ideology.
The NRA is fond of quoting Cicero. "Abu abus ad usum sint non valet consequentia." DOn't judge the value of a thing by its mis-use. The same thing is done with guns. Guns dont kill people. People kill people. Same thing with many ideologies, I suppose. Its the people, not the beliefs.
Russia never had that level of horror after Stalin, even though they remained committed, in a way, to Marxism.
And what about the USA? We are committed to the ideas of Jefferson and Hamilton, and yet we had slavery, slaughtered Native Americans and caused millions of civilian deaths in Vietnam. Yet we were a democracy. Does this mean that wars with high civilian body counts naturally come about as a result of enlightened democratic principles? Do these wars invalidate the ideas of Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton? I don't think so. If anything, Vietnam just invalidates the wisdom of Lyndon Johnson's foreign policy. Not Jefferson.
However, you've descended to the level of childish insults. Making fun of my name is something that my elementary school aged son is too mature to do, so this argument is best ended.
I think that Russians just see things differently than Americans. I think that instead of highlighting our political differences, we all should both realize how far to go both of our workers' paradises have to go in order to achieve a just society.
I tend to agree with you, except when you day "free health care". As Joanne ( who seems to be a very angry person ) points out, someone pays for it. In the case of most Social Democracies ( I love that term ) it is deducted from your pay, just like some insurance here in the US. If you don't pay into it, you don't receive it.
I tend to agree with you, except when you say "free health care". As Joanne ( who seems to be a very angry person ) points out, someone pays for it. In the case of most Social Democracies ( I love that term ) it is deducted from your pay, just like some insurance here in the US. If you don't pay into it, you don't receive it.
So for me. I believe the government should run healthcare, utilities, education and transportation. What does that make me?
My friends jokingly call me a Commie, but aside from signing my name up, back in 67. I have never considered myself one. I would personally call myself a Social Democrat. I only wish we had such a party here in Merika!