Victims of Communism

["Bertil Häggman" <bertil.haggman@helsingborg.se>]

maybe this is too strong.  I wrote it rather late at night yesterday after revising 50 
pages of a translation I have to finish before next monday.  I do not really think 
your anti-Communism is blinding you, nor I think it's only me who sees the light 
(after all, many blind people do not see black but white).


Umberto,

Thank you for calling me an anti-communist.
After the revelations in the wake of the
collapse of the Soviet Union I think it as
honorary as being an anti-nazi.

What I think is that one should be balanced.  I do not want to defend Stalin nor 
some foolish, criminal policies of the Leninist period.  Both (fascism and leninism) 
belong to the age of Titans.  See what wonderful results they led to...

But what does not persuade me is the praise to the Freikorps.  Probably, like many 
historical phenomena, it has its lights and shadows, their percentage being maybe 
difficult to calculate exactly.


But if your point is that the Freikops should be thanked because they saved 
Germany and other countries form the communist menace (totalitarian government 
and loss of individual rights), then Communism (leninist variety) should be thanked 
because it saved Russia (and other countries) from Nazi racial extermination, which 
is something worse.


I cannot see the logic of this. The problem
is probably that you are under the false
presumption that racist killing is worse than
class murder. I think it is Milovan Djilas
who has made the point that class murder
is actually worse.

If you respected the rules of the Communist regime you could at least save your life-
-gentile of Jew.  If you were a Jew (or a cultured Slav, or a gipsy, or a homosexual) 
there was no way to be spared by Nazi butchers.  That makes a difference, I think, 
and we should be able to tell it.  Especially at a time when racial warfare is raging in 
so many places of the world.  Sure, issues of race and religion may be just a 
camouflage for other reasons (sheer fight for power, economical drives, etc.)  But 
the issue of race should always be questioned.


Race murder and class murder are just
as evil.

As for the 60 millions victims of Communism, I suspect that number is not that 
accurate.  Again, this is not to justify what Stalin did.  But reasons of historical 
honesty should prevent us from adding the 20,000,000 WWII casualties to the heap 
of the victims of communism.  If I fight a defensive war, I may be right to say that 
my dead fellow countrymen (and women) were slaughtered by the enemy.


Well, you are welcome to present other
figures. I think it has been reasonably
proven that the number of victims of
marxism-leninism is at least 100 million.
The victims of Mao might be as many 
as 80 million, so we could approach 150
million.

Don't know if the _Black Book of Communism_
has been published in Italian but me thinks
you should read up on this. It does not hurt
to get the facts. Also I think we are in for much
more material when the Communist Chinese
regime collapses, as it eventually will.

Best wishes

Bertil