Re: SV: Victims of Communism

["Umberto Rossi" <urossi@programatic.it>]

> Well, I am sorry to see that you are not condemning
> the mass murderer Mao. Maybe he is still regarded
> as a revolutionary hero in Italy.
> 
> Best wishes from an anti-communist
> 
> Bertil Haggman

Surely it is not considered a hero by anti-communists here in Italy.  Personally I 
don't regard him as a hero.  Must such a historical figure is something more than a 
mass-murderer.  You are--like Italian anti-communists--oversimplifying things 
because you have your thesis (communism is evil, or something like that) and then 
you look for justifications.  I am not a supporter of Chinese policy (what they have 
been doing in Tibet is more than questionable, and we were informed also here in 
Italy of the events in Ten-an-men Square);  having said that, I wouldn't go so far as 
to reduce Mao to a mass-murderer.  Or you should apply that name to a lot of 
apparently more respectable historical characters.

What I think is basically wrong in your argument is that you forget that Russian 
communism was Russian, and Chinese communism was Chinese.  Were those 
countries, before the Communists took power, examples of political and cultural 
freedom, respect for human rights, etc?  Did you forget the methods of the Tzarist 
police?  Did you forget the period of the Chinese war-lords?  Again, you are 
drawing a black-and-white picture of big and complex historical events, while 
there's a lot of gray--especially in such big countries.

Umberto Rossi

"...io vedea la virtute esser spenta, e i vizi sollevati"
                                      Gerolamo Savonarola