# Have political purges ever succeeded for a society? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 22, 2024, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195 "2024-03-22T11:33:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/21 "2024-03-22T14:50:08Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I was wondering if a political purge has ever achieved the goals they set out to do? Certainly, they are often a means to keep power for those few at the top. That’s the goal of a political purge, so yeah, they succeed all the time. Any justification as being for the betterment of society is often openly and publicly predicated as keeping those in power as the ends, and those purged wanting to take them out of power as the threat. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Plus, I thought the Allies pardoned basically everyone but a few for the Nuremberg trials. > > ETA: I think the Allies were similarly easy on Japan. Wasn’t that the point of the Marshall Plan? To not purge? Are you joking? The Nuremburg and Tokyo trials were for major war criminals. There were no pardons, at best shady deals not to prosecute in exchange for information on biological warfare. [International Military Tribunal for the Far East](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East#Other_war_crimes_trials) > ## Other war crimes trials > > More than 5,700 lower-ranking personnel were charged with conventional war crimes in separate trials convened by [Australia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia), [China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalist_Government), [France](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Government_of_the_French_Republic), the [Netherlands Indies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands_Indies), the [Philippines](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_the_Philippines), the [United Kingdom](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom), and the [United States](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States). The charges covered a wide range of crimes including prisoner abuse, rape, sexual slavery, torture, ill-treatment of laborers, execution without trial, and inhumane medical experiments. The trials took place in around fifty locations in Asia and the Pacific. Most trials were completed by 1949, but Australia held some trials in 1951.[[25]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East#cite_note-auto-25) [China](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalist_Government) held 13 tribunals, resulting in 504 convictions and 149 executions. Of the 5,700 Japanese individuals indicted for Class B war crimes, 984 were sentenced to death; 475 received life sentences; 2,944 were given more limited prison terms; 1,018 were acquitted; and 279 were never brought to trial or not sentenced.[[26]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East#cite_note-FOOTNOTEDower1999447-26) > > The Soviet Union and Chinese Communist forces also held trials of Japanese war criminals. The [Khabarovsk War Crime Trials](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khabarovsk_War_Crime_Trials) held by the Soviets tried and found guilty some members of Japan’s bacteriological and chemical warfare unit, also known as [Unit 731](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731). However, those who surrendered to the Americans were never brought to trial. As [Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Commander_for_the_Allied_Powers), MacArthur gave [immunity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunity_from_prosecution_(international_law)) to [Shiro Ishii](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shiro_Ishii) and all members of the bacteriological research units in exchange for germ warfare data based on [human experimentation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_subject_research). On May 6, 1947, he wrote to Washington that “additional data, possibly some statements from Ishii probably can be obtained by informing Japanese involved that information will be retained in intelligence channels and will not be employed as ‘War Crimes’ evidence.”[[27]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East#cite_note-FOOTNOTEGold2003109-27) The deal was concluded in 1948.[[28]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East#cite_note-28)[[29]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Military_Tribunal_for_the_Far_East#cite_note-29) ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/22 "2024-03-22T14:57:51Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Are you joking? The Nuremburg and Tokyo trials were for major war criminals. There were no pardons, at best shady deals not to prosecute in exchange for information on biological warfare. - [How Thousands Of Nazis Were ‘Rewarded’ With Life In The U.S.](https://www.npr.org/2014/11/05/361427276/how-thousands-of-nazis-were-rewarded-with-life-in-the-u-s) (lookup who helped the US build rockets) - Japan Unit-731 (hideous): [American grant of immunity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#American_grant_of_immunity) ---
**Author:** ![Thing.Fish](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thing.fish/32/9168_2.png) [@Thing.Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thing.Fish)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/23 "2024-03-22T15:08:51Z")
Seems like for this thread to make any sense you need an agreed definition of “purge”. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/24 "2024-03-22T15:17:01Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Oh, there were some **little** hiccups on the way from there to now (Emphasis mine) Is that a crack at Napoleon’s height? > [@MrDibble](#): > > and the French are better for having gone through it. For one, they don’t have anything [like this](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-the-dopers-think-of-the-kate-middleton-brouhaha/998723/) to deal with! > [@susan](#): > > Note _rarely_ fatal. I was threatened with this as a queer teen in the South-ish US. That’s terrible, and I am very sorry to hear that. Homophobia is a terrible thing. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/25 "2024-03-22T15:24:00Z")
> [@Babale](#): > > Is that a crack at Napoleon’s height? Just a _small_ crack…\* \*I know he was actually of above average height for that time and place, but the jokes write themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/26 "2024-03-22T15:32:29Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > but the Revolution met its goals Did it? Did the people who carried out the Terror / purge get the government they wanted? Is France today what Robespierre was aiming for? Most of the Jacobin leaders died in the counter-purge of the Thermidorian Reaction, which instituted a more conservative government, which then fell to the Empire. > The “Thermidorian Reaction” was named after [the month](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermidor) in which the coup took place and was the latter part of the [National Convention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Convention)’s rule of France. It was marked by the end of the [Reign of Terror](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror), decentralization of executive powers from the [Committee of Public Safety](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_of_Public_Safety) and a turn from the radical [Jacobin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobin) policies of the [Montagnard Convention](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mountain) to more moderate positions. Economic and general populism, [dechristianization](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dechristianization), and harsh wartime measures were largely abandoned, as the members of the convention, disillusioned and frightened of the centralized government of the Terror, preferred a more stable political order that would have the approval of the plurality. The Reaction saw the [Left suppressed by brutal force](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_White_Terror), including massacres, as well as the disbanding of the [Jacobin Club](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobin_Club), the dispersal of the [sans-culottes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans-culottes), and the renunciation of the Montagnard ideology. Was that a success for the Jacobins? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/27 "2024-03-22T16:10:15Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Did it? Did I stutter? > [@MrDibble](#): > > Is France a monarchy? No? Then the purge worked. > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > Did the people who carried out the Terror / purge The Terror and the Revolution are not synonymous. > [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > for the Jacobins? The Jacobins =/= French society as a whole. France today is not a near-absolute monarchy nor does the Church own a tenth of it. That’s because of the Revolution. The Empires were a blip in that path. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/28 "2024-03-22T16:13:12Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > The Empires were a blip in that path. Helluva blip. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/29 "2024-03-22T16:16:37Z")
28 years out of 235 is a blip. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/30 "2024-03-22T16:21:46Z")
How many died in that 10% of time? What was Napoleon up to on the continent? Not to mention Robespierre. Maybe it was 10% of your time-frame but it was the most consequential part of that time-frame. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/31 "2024-03-22T16:38:15Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > How many died in that 10% of time? How many died under the Republics? Under the pre-Revolution monarchy? > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Not to mention Robespierre. What does _Robespierre_ have to do with the Empire? He was years dead by then. > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Maybe it was 10% of your time-frame but it was the most consequential part of that time-frame. I’d argue the Revolution was the most consequential part of that timeframe. Did Napoleon I have an impact in his 10-year part of it? Sure. Hard to argue that he didn’t. Was it nevertheless a blip in the progress from the absolute monarchy of the _ancien régime_ to the modern democracy the French enjoy? Yes, it was. I’m _not_ arguing that the First French Empire wasn’t of historical significance. I’m saying in the particular realm of the free society the French enjoy today, it was a mere brief detour back to autocracy. A very brief flirtation. The Second Empire may have lasted a bit longer, but had even less impact. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/32 "2024-03-22T17:09:48Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > > [@Dissonance](#): > > > > Are you joking? The Nuremburg and Tokyo trials were for major war criminals. There were no pardons, **at best shady deals not to prosecute in exchange for information on biological warfare**. > > - [How Thousands Of Nazis Were ‘Rewarded’ With Life In The U.S.](https://www.npr.org/2014/11/05/361427276/how-thousands-of-nazis-were-rewarded-with-life-in-the-u-s) (lookup who helped the US build rockets) > > - Japan Unit-731 (hideous): [American grant of immunity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731#American_grant_of_immunity) Did you even read the sentences you are quoting? I’ve bolded the part you’ve ignored in your response. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/33 "2024-03-22T17:12:19Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Did you even read the sentences you are quoting? I’ve bolded the part you’ve ignored in your response. Yeah…I am noting you cannot just hand-wave those things away. ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/34 "2024-03-22T17:18:26Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Did Napoleon I have an impact in his 10-year part of it? Sure. Hard to argue that he didn’t. > Was it nevertheless a blip in the progress from the absolute monarchy of the _ancien régime_ to the modern democracy the French enjoy? Yes, it was. Also, Napoleon’s wars ended up crippling monarchies in much of the rest of Europe, severely weakening the Catholic Church, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/35 "2024-03-22T17:20:39Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Yeah…I am noting you cannot just hand-wave those things away. Let me rephrase then, did you not understand what you read? There is no hand-waving going on. Unit 731 escaping war crimes prosecution in exchange for data on biological warfare is explicitly addressed 1) by the very sentence of mine you quote and 2) in the second paragraph of the quoted wiki article. Going back to your original statement, in what way do said shady deals for biowarfare data constitute > [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Plus, I thought the Allies pardoned basically everyone but a few for the Nuremberg trials. So, not really a purge. > > ETA: I think the Allies were similarly easy on Japan. Wasn’t that the point of the Marshall Plan? To not purge? ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/36 "2024-03-22T17:26:24Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Let me rephrase Let me rephrase. You said, “Are you joking” about allies pardoning people and THEN give a pass to Unit 731 by merely noting it existed. No, I am not joking and you can’t just give a pass to something like what the US did with Unit 731 and suggest the US was diligent in prosecuting war criminals. You are breezing over a big part there. The US prosecuted what…5,600 Japanese for war crimes? Out of how many? Was the US really diligent about that? ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/37 "2024-03-22T18:04:31Z")
You’d be as hard-pressed as Giles Corey to find a good-faith purge; since, like Corey’s accusers, somebody was seeking to gain. Joe McCarthy was fed names by J. Edgar Hoover and from other Washington insiders who’d had enough of these New Deal leftists and wanted things to go back to when the Federal government was a club of southern Democrats and northern Republicans agreeing on keeping Blacks and Labor in their place Fifty years later, New Gingrich purged the government of “wasteful bureaucracy” dedicated to evaluating and regulating commerce. They’ve been replaced with corporate think-tanks and lobbyists. The average American doesn’t pay their salaries directly anymore, but boy, you better believe they do. (ETA: the only “good” political purge I can think of was the 1947 abolition of the Japanese aristocracy besides the immediate imperial family. Some of them had been opposed to the militarists, but even more were part of it. So good riddance). ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/38 "2024-03-22T20:21:46Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > From the Wikipedia article, the number expelled was about 88,000. The wiki article says they “left” not were "expelled. " > [@MrDibble](#): > > Is France a monarchy? No? Then the purge worked. Oh, there were some little hiccups on the way from there to now, but the Revolution met its goals and the French are better for having gone through it. France went back to being a Monarchy several time. The Napoleon dynasties, the Bourbon Restoration , the House of Bourbon-Orléans, July Monarchy, and the Second French Empire, which ended in 1870. So, no the French Revolution was a failure, and the French were worse off during the Reign of terror. > **[Reign of Terror](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror)** > > The Reign of Terror (French: la Terreur) was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the First Republic, a series of massacres and numerous public executions that took place in response to revolutionary fervour, anticlerical sentiment, and accusations of treason by the Committee of Public Safety. > There is disagreement among historians over when exactly "the Terror" began. Some consider it to have begun only in 1793, giving the date as either 5 September, June or March... Deaths=35,000–45,000 at least. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/39 "2024-03-22T20:23:19Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > France went back to being a Monarchy several time. Gosh, almost like I mentioned that already… > [@DrDeth](#): > > So, no the French Revolution was a failure Are they a monarchy _now_? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2024, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195/40 "2024-03-22T20:28:42Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Are they a monarchy _now_? You are unaware of the current status? If I try to make something and fail several times, but finally hire a contractor who builds it right, does that mean I didn’t fail in the past as my project now works? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-political-purges-ever-succeeded-for-a-society/999195.md?page=3)