SV: SV: Victims of Communism

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

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.


Your argument happens to be quite similar
to the one used by Swedish communists when
defending Lenin.

Quoting Svenska Dagbladet, Stockholm, on 5
December, 1998, which in turn quoted the
chairman of the Left Party Youth Organization 
(Communist party youth organization):

"I think it is hysterical like it is done in the
media to describe Lenin as one of the 
worst mass murderers in history"

Question: "But was'nt Lenin a mass murderer?"

Answer: "No, not to a greater extent than any other
state leader at the time."

The problem is the attempt of today's communists
(and also non-communists) to place national socialism
in a special category and try to portray marxism-leninism
as a normal political ideology. In reality, of course,
both are totalitarian ideologies with very similar
construction. That puts Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and
Mao (to mention only the worst) in a special
category. Of course Pol Pot was the worst murderer
percentagewise compared to the population figure
in Cambodia.

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.

In my opinion you are trying to normalize the
terrible totalitarian ideologies of the 20th
century. This is in my opinion dangerous.
Of course the imperialist Russian czars
represented a cruel imperialism that
transferred the small Moscow Principality
of the 15th century into one of the world's
largest colonial empires stretching from the
Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. But the
empire was not based on an ideology
that recommended extermination of
class enemies. Opponents of the regime
were sent in exile to Siberia (a rather comfortable
compared to the GULAG)

What do the Chinese war lords have to do with totalitarian
ideology? Nothing.

Let me point out a few similarities between
communism, national socialism and fascism:

-one party which represents the state - no civil society
-the interests of the party are the "interests of the people"
-free elections are tranformed into mere "theater"
 where the one existing list sometimes receives 100 percent
 of the votes
-press freedom, organizational freedom and freedom of
 religion are abolished and press, organizations and
churches are controlled by the party
-the free judiciary becomes an instrument of the party
-art, literature and science are tranformed to support the
 party ideology
-a secret police organization is created which works with
 party control
-a system of concentration camps and labour camps is
 set up to house the opponents of the party
-the state and the party leader is subject to
 devote almost religious worship

(From a book I published in 1979 with a Norwegian
friend, _This Is the Technique of the Communist Parties_;
title translated from Swedish to English).

Finally I would again like to ask you to transfer
this debate from the list to a private debate which
of course also others can join if they feel like it.

Greetings

Bertil Haggman