Nazism and Communism

Great Debates
1

Nazism is an ideology which is loathed universally, and generally agreed to be as utterly dangerous, and this is definitely correct. Nazis caused millions of murders. However, communism is usally viewed as something that was ‘hijacked by bad men’ or ‘looked good on paper.’ Despite these notions, the murders of communist regimes far surpassed those of any fascist or Nazi regimes.

Why, then, is the Holocaust so widely known, while the Soviet gulags are (in relation to the general Western populace) something of a tragic historical footnote? Why have Western intellectuals defended Lenin and Trotsky as noble men whose system was commandeered by the brute Stalin, when in reality, Trotsky and Lenin were mass murdering terrorists? Why are those who apologize for Nazism held as vile people, while communist apologists like Walter Durranty and Kingseley Amis are more or less viewed as “deluded?”

2

Part of the reason is that Nazism is an explicitly racist ideology, while Communism isn’t. Since racism in the form of slavery and Jim Crow has been one of the primary evils of American history, we tend to regard racist ideologies as especially loathsome.

3

Before I give my views on the subject, I’ll stress that I agree with you, Daoloth. I think that National Socialism and Communism are two sides of the same coin. Both will happily shoot you in the head, blow up your synagogue, or ship your entire family off to some wasteland to make their points. When you get past theories into practice, Communists show precious little difference from Nazis.

I’ll also stress that I’m no McCarthyite. I think that communism was a danger earlier in the century, but I don’t think that organizing witch hunts or dragging people in front of congress for exercising their constitutionally protected right to express opinions was the answer.

As for why communism is more highly regarded? Well, they have a pretty good message: Everyone should be equal, and the labourer forms the bedrock of society. Hell, I agree with that. Equality is a noble goal to shoot for, especially when your country is ostensibly built on the notion of equal rights for all.

In contrast, the whole “master race” message of the Nazis gave out seriously bad vibes to anyone with a two- or three-digit IQ that wasn’t a nutjob. Nazis just had “bad” written all over them.

I think someone could conceivably join the communists in a sincere hope for a better world, however deluded that hope might be. No one joins the Nazis, however, unless they hate at the outset. The Nazi message is very clear. If you are not caucasian, you DO NOT deserve to live. It’s a bad system with bad PR. The communists have a bad system with good PR, and that makes a big difference.

I’ll end this with just a couple of disagreements I have with your OP. Trotsky and Lenin advocated violence. Were they terrorists? Doubtful. I’d say there’s a fine line between revolutionaries and terrorists, but these guys didn’t really target the civilian population the way OBL does.

Also, the facists didn’t kill less people because they were any better than the communists. They simply didn’t have the time, because their system was overthrown much earlier than the communist system. I understand that this wasn’t the original intent of your sentence, but some people could read it that way.

4

I’m going to respectfully disagree on this point. The Red Terror killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, primarily mass execution through the Cheka. In the first month, September 1918, the Cheka estimates that 6,300 people were executed without a trial. Trotsky also wrote an entire book in defense of terrorism as a legit tactic.

Whenever White partisans attacked a Bolshevik force, the Cheka would take the local civilian populace hostage. If the attacks continued, they would kill the civilians at random. Literally thousands of civiliands perished in this manner. If this isn’t terrorism, I don’t know what is. They slaughtered civilians en masse in order to weaken their political enemies. Their horrors make bin Laden look like a nobody.

5

Is evil purely measured by numbers of victims?

6

I think that should probably be a different GD topic.

7

Yes, indeedy, Lenin and Trotsky both advocated violence.

I think also, since we fought a war against the Nazis, but were on the same side as Stalin at one time, perhaps that has something to do with it.

Also, the gulags-while an evil system-and I’ll be one of the first to say that the Bolsheviks were right up there with the Nazis as far as cruelty goes-were not targeted at one’s race.

There weren’t massive medical experiments or campaigns to specifically wipe out an entire ethnic group, or whatever.

8

Good point. I retract my argument that they weren’t terrorists. That’s what I get from posting from stream of consciousness without researching what I say in GD.

9

Could anyone explain to me what Nazism and Communism really are as systems of government? This is for clarification, because I often hear people being called Nazis, Commies, Fascists, etc. as insults, and often I see little reasoning behind it. Isn’t Communism supposed to be an economic system? Is Nazism equivalent to totalitarianism? What makes either inherently evil in the eyes of Americans?

10

It’s fairly complicated, and IMHO, explaining all the important details of either one is a bit outside the capacity of a message board. There are literally hundreds of excellent books on each system, and you’ll probably get your best answer from one of them.

I agree. Then again, insults are rarely based on reason.

Right off the top of my head.

(1) Both ignore the citizen’s right to free speech and free protest. Neither of these are allowed under either regime. Oh, the proponents of the regimes will say they’re allowed. They’ll also say that the reason no one actually complains is because everyone loves living under the system.

(2) Related to one, the leaders of both systems rely on systematic repression, imprisonment, and murder to keep themselves safe and in control. Impeachment in these systems usually involves said leader being shot in the head.

(3) They make for really nasty neighbors. Witness the former Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and North Korea.

11

Can Nazism or Communism be explained just in terms of what they are supposed to do, and how they do it?

Are the examples of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and North Korea good examples? Is the system of government inherently evil, or does success/miserable failure depend on how well a country uses the system? If a country uses Nazism or Communism, will that country always turn out like the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany or North Korea?

12

It hasn’t failed yet. That by itself is enough to convince me that these government systems are bad ideas. All the theoretical reasons–and there are many of them–are academic to me. The fact is that any country featuring one of these systems isn’t really up there on people’s choice destinations for spring break.

13

Well, for a start, in those sorts of countries, these two items have nothing to do with each other.

I’d go further and say that the first item is meaningless. Whatever they’re supposed to do, what they eventually wind up doing seems to be the same from country to country. It doesn’t even really depend on what the race, culture, or creed of the country was like before communism/national socialism.

14

I mean in terms of objective; why does America have a democracy/republic? Why don’t WE have a Nazist/Communist/Fascist/Monarchy/Dictatorship/Totalitarian/Oligarchy government?

15

Because citizens vote presidents, congressmen, and other people into key leadership roles, and the majority of Americans don’t want to live in a Nazist, Co0mmunist, Fascist, Monarchy, Dictatorship, Totalitarian, Oligarchy government.

And, because, even if they did, the constitution would prohibit the establishment of any undue restrictions on our freedom of speech and peaceful expression.

And, because, even if the proponents of the Nazist, Co0mmunist, Fascist, Monarchy, Dictatorship, Totalitarian, Oligarchy government in question tried to suppress the constitution, they would incur the combined wrath of the U.S. military which has sworn an oath to uphold the constitution and every civilian militia member in the country, all of whom spend every free minute training for and dreaming about shooting holes through people who would try this.

(Sorry about duplicating the spelling in your original question, btw. I’m not trying to be snide, it’s just cutting and pasting.)

16

We usually think politics in two dimensions: Right or Left. Conservative or Liberal. Republican or Democrat. Nazi or Communist. However if you go far enough right or far enough left, you will end up in the same place. Just like if you go far enough East, you will end up in the West.

In actuallity there is a third dimension: Freedom or oppression. The touchstone in government is not right or left, liberal or conservative, it is Liberty or Tyranny.

17

Because at a critical moment in your history, a man who could have seized dictatorial power chose not to. George Washington could have been king, but turned it down. In a similar, earlier vein, Oliver Cromwell could have seized power, and although he did a lot of really nasty things, he ultimately left England better off then when he found it.

By contrast, men who held power during crucial moments in Germany (Hitler), Russia (Stalin) and France (Napoleon) decided to keep that power, as well as ruthlessly increase it. Result: years of war and misery.

18

I agree with this. As John Stewart said, it’s not so much right vs. left in this day and age; it’s extremist vs. moderate. And it doesn’t come any more extreme than communism and nazism.

19

True, they just put them into cattle cars and shipped them to remote regions. Of course, tens of thousands of Chechens, Tartars, and Volga Germans perished in this method. But yes, no attempts were made at genocide for racial sake.

“the system of government inherently evil, or does success/miserable failure depend on how well a country uses the system?”

Communism has had disastrous and tyrannical results in essentially every nation which has suffered the attempted implementation of it, including (but not limited to): China, Russia, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Angola, Ethiopia, Cuba, etc.

20

Guinastasia- There were some pretty awful medical experiments carried out on people by the Soviets, but these were done on condemned criminals.

Bryan EkersOliver Cromwell did seize power and was to all intents and purposes a dictator (he overthrew a King who tried to rule without parliment only to come to power and try to rule without parliment himself).

The most concise way that Stalin vs. Hitlers leadership styles can be summed up is sociopathic vs. psychotic. Both Communism and National Socialism were utopian philosophies and they both believed that the violence and various other unspeakable acts were justified as the necessary precursor to obtaining utopia.