[QUOTE=Little Nemo]
We’re a country in which 99% of the people believe they’re better than average. We all figure that if everything gets divided up equally, we’ll be getting less.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve always thought that the people who support collectivism know that they’re less than average, and stand to gain the most.
[QUOTE=The Weird One]
A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I were watching a movie (or something) that was set during the Cold War. One of the characters was stridently, almost violently anti-Communist, which my boyfriend and I found a bit baffling. We’re both in our late 20s; our first awareness of Communism was the fall of the Berlin Wall
[/QUOTE]
OK, lets use that as an example. If you left West Germany they stamped your passport. If you tried to leave East Germany they shot you dead.
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
The fear of capitalism was fully justified, if you ask me.*[/indent]There are, of course, plenty of reasons to find Communism, and most implementations of it, to be terrible and often horrific, (aside from the all-too-common human rights abuses and the toll that the economic failure of centrally planned economies takes upon societies subjected to it) but all the reasons you list can be turned right back around on that shining icon of democracy and free enterprise.
[/QUOTE]
Yes. Outside our own borders, we haven’t been much better than the Communists. As has been said in the past, people don’t really care if they are being tortured or murdered by evil left wing Communist totalitarians or good right wing capitalist authoritarians.
[QUOTE=Leaper]
So if Communism had a state religion, say Eastern Orthodox, everything would’ve been hunky dory?
[/quote]
It would have gotten a lot more tolerance, just as fascism did.
[QUOTE=Leaper]
I was asking whether atheism was a contributing factor, or the foundation, as Der Trihs was arguing.
[/quote]
I didn’t say it was the foundation, but it was a major contributing factor. An equal contributing factor in America was it’s hostility towards capitalism; the innate goodness of capitalism is an American article of faith.
But it’s hostility towards freedom and it’s mass murders ? That had little to do with American fear and hatred of Communism. We never hesitated to ally with, support, train and encourage NON-Communists that did such things, after all. The majority of Americans have little interest in such things as freedom, equality, or human rights outside America’s own borders beyond mouthing the words. And a rather limited interest in such thing inside it’s borders.
[QUOTE=Huerta88]
I suspect atheism was a necessary part of consolidating all power in the State – can’t have independent loci of authority.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly. Communism is all about control. Communism has never been fond of non-theistic religions either; it’s not a matter of being pro-atheist so much as being anti-everything but Communism. It’s hostile to religion because it IS a religion, or a close cousin; it doesn’t “want” the competition.
[QUOTE=The Weird One]
Can some of you who lived during the height of the Cold War help me understand what was so threatening about Communism, and why some people were so strongly anti-Communist?
[/QUOTE]
I was only a tiny kid at the height of the cold war, but I think you are being far too modernist in your perspective, and almost everyone in this thread is being far too US-centric.
Right from the very beginning, in every industrialised country, many people were terrified of communism.
The whole basis of Communism was: The entire structure of society will be torn apart and rebuilt. All those who currently enjoy a comfortable lifestyle profiting from businesses, investments, etc. will be flushed down the toilet of history and their belongings redistributed to the toiling masses. Violence will be used to achieve this wherever necessary.
To me it would seem pretty obvious why a lot of people found Communism threatening and were strongly opposed to it. Aside from all those who were benefiting from the current system, or hoped to, it would also be resisted by anyone who was somewhat conservative and opposed to the idea of smashing a whole economic system to pieces and hoping for the best.
[QUOTE=slaphead]
I was only a tiny kid at the height of the cold war, but I think you are being far too modernist in your perspective…
[/QUOTE]
Well, yes. That’s why I started the thread.
Regarding the issue of atheism in communism, I don’t think it was purely a matter of “eliminating the competition.” Christianity teaches that “the meek will inherit the earth,” and that suffering in this life will be rewarded in the afterlife. As the Communists see it, that’s just a way of keeping the poor people in their place and placating them so they’re less likely to rise up and join the revolution. If your philosophy is based on enforcing material equality, naturally you want everyone focussed on their immediate needs instead of whether they’ll get into Heaven.
[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
Because every single Communist regime ever includes mass murder on scales that’s right up there with the Nazis.
[/QUOTE]
This isn’t true. Fidel Castro is hardly a saint, but his many sins don’t include Nazi-style genocide. For a dollar I’ll find you three more Communist regimes that didn’t include genocide among their ills.
Daniel
[QUOTE=Stranger On A Train]
Josip Broz ‘Tito’ managed not to kill many people…
[/QUOTE]
Regards,
Shodan
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness]
This isn’t true. Fidel Castro is hardly a saint, but his many sins don’t include Nazi-style genocide. For a dollar I’ll find you three more Communist regimes that didn’t include genocide among their ills.
Daniel
[/QUOTE]
Not Nazi-style Genocide, no, but from what I can recall off the top of my head, his treatment of those with HIV was deplorable, and jailing anyone that was gay for life is usually considered a pretty severe crime.
lalenin, if he’s still around, may be able to provide some more cites on the brutal crimes of Castro.
Also, I think you’re going to be hard pressed to find 3 classical communist nations that didn’t at least tiptoe towards Genocide. And you’ll have to define Genocide, of course. Do the massive executions in Vietnam count?
[QUOTE=Tristan]
Not Nazi-style Genocide, no, but from what I can recall off the top of my head, his treatment of those with HIV was deplorable, and jailing anyone that was gay for life is usually considered a pretty severe crime.
[/QUOTE]
That’s why I said he’s no saint. I was just objecting to hyperbole.
As for the second part, I’ll define genocide as “right up there with the Nazis.” I’ll say you have to be within at least two orders of magnitude of the Nazis to count–so, 110,000 folks killed, or 1% of the Nazi figure. Is that fair?
Daniel
[QUOTE=Shodan]
[Quote=The Master Who Speaks]
(9) Josip Broz, better known as Marshal Tito (Yugoslavia), 1.2 million, 1941-'80.
[/quote]
Regards,
Shodan
[/QUOTE]
Jesus, you’ll pull out of context, manipulate, or lie any time just in order to make your point, won’t you? The vast majority of these numbers come from fighting on the Yugoslav front during WWII, including infighting between the Chetniks (a Royalist force which was aligned with the Axis Powers), and Broz’s Yugoslav Partisans, who fought against invaders. There were, admittedly, a number of incidents of reprisal against Hungarian, Italian, and German POWs or refugees, as well as collaborationists in the immediate post-war period, but these were not part of any organized campaign of genocide or mass murder; this was the same kind of slaughter that had been going on all through the war, and made up only a tiny fraction of the 1.7 million people killed (1.0m to 1.1m of them Yugoslavs) in and immediately after the war from fighting, disease, and starvation. 1946-1980 gives a few hundred political prisoners (mostly from the persecution of Stalinist opposition after the Yugoslav-Soviet split and the Croatian Spring uprising of 1971) and a few dozen executions. On the other hand, by resisting ethnic-based nationalist movements, and preventing Croatian reprisals against the formerly dominant Serbians (Broz was a Croatian by ethnicity) he certainly prevented–or rather, delayed until after his reign–tens or hundreds of thousands of deaths in ethic strife.
By your logic, Lincoln killed upwards of 600,000, and Roosevelt/Truman/Churchill murdered ~4.3 million. Communist Yugoslavia was by no means a paradise, but it was hardly a murderous regime, and there are several West European nations which have much murkier reputations in the area of human and political rights.
Stranger
[QUOTE=Captain Amazing]
and Slovenia has been peaceful throughout)
[/QUOTE]
Slovenia has been involved at the very beginning of the war. Actually, IIRC, it began with a Serbian air raid in Slovenia.
I remember it pretty well because it’s one thing I have been grossly mistaken about. I recall being in a cafe the day before the war broke out, reading a paper filled with reports about the situation in Yugoslavia and stating that war was imminent, and thinking : “It won’t ever happen. No way the Yugoslavian are going to fight each other” Boy, was I wrong!
(I had been very impressed by the ethnic mix in Yugoslavia when I visited it, that’s why I couldn’t believe such a thing would happen. Sarajevo was a nice, peaceful city filled with friendly people. The mosque was on the same street as the old orthodox church. I was having my breakfast every morning in front of the bridge where so many people would die later because it was on the front line during the siege. I still wonder what happened to the old lady who was housing me. Such things go a long way towards making you quite a bit cynical. Off topic, I know, but I couldn’t help myself)
@Stranger - Take it up with Cecil - it’s from a Straight Dope colum.
Regards,
Shodan
[QUOTE=Tristan]
Not Nazi-style Genocide, no, but from what I can recall off the top of my head, his treatment of those with HIV was deplorable, and jailing anyone that was gay for life is usually considered a pretty severe crime.
[/QUOTE]
Um, Labouchere Amendment, anyone? Communist nations have no monopoly on the persecution of homosexuals, ethnicities, petty and non-injurous manufactured “crimes”, et cetera. (Look at the number of people in the United States currently suffering two digit prison sentances for possession of marijuana.)
This thread has really degenerated into idiocy. There are plenty of criticisms about Communism per se, and why the major Communist empires of the 20th Century were so frightening. Diddling down to the sort of offenses that have been committed by most nations at some point in history, Communist, democratic, or otherwise, just dilutes the entire point.
Stranger
[QUOTE=Shodan]
@Stranger - Take it up with Cecil - it’s from a Straight Dope colum.
Regards,
Shodan
[/QUOTE]
You are citing it; you stand behind it. If you don’t know what you are talking about, then don’t talk.
Stranger
I know perfectly well what I am talking about. You made a claim, I disproved it (with a cite from the Master himself).
Regards,
Shodan
You can argue numbers of people killed and their relative level of tragedy all day long, but to me it goes back to this post of Magiver’s:
[QUOTE=Magiver]
OK, lets use that as an example. If you left West Germany they stamped your passport. If you tried to leave East Germany they shot you dead.
[/QUOTE]
Any philosophy of government that relies on indiscriminate killing of its citizenry to maintain itself is something to be scared of, IMO.
[QUOTE=ralph124c]
2) total incompetence, Russian appointed ex-janitors to be managers of huge factories. An uneducated dolt (Trofim Lysenko) was put in charge of all Soviet agriculture-which lead to corn being planted in Siberia!
[/QUOTE]
Lysenko did a heckuva job.
Daniel
[QUOTE=Tom Tildrum]
Ironically, though, trade unions were largely banned within Communist countries, until the rise of Solidarity.
[/QUOTE]
Well, of course! The glorious Communist Party will represent the interests of all workers. No need for independent labor unions (still banned in China, IIRC).
Communism was so scary because in the Soviet Union, our primary adversary during the Cold War, it went hand in hand with a brutal police state, lack of democracy or civil liberties, censorship, anti-Semitism, mass murders, suppression of religion, the use of lethal force to keep the populace in, gulags, a culture of lying and denial about past crimes, an aggressive and not-infrequently-lethal espionage program, and a massive nuclear arsenal pointed right at us.
The U.S. and its allies had and still have their flaws, to be sure, but nothing nearly on the scale of the Soviet Union and other communist countries.
Communism got a lot of traction in the union organization after WW11. The movement toward better pay and working conditions was greeted with severe uses of power and intimidation. Organizers were shot, jailed and beaten. the abuse of power made many think corporations could not be trusted. Can you imagine that. Safe working conditions and a living wage are actually a small sharing of the wealth. Some do not share well. They will throw your family in the street if it gets them a gold toilet seat in their summer cottage.
Most can sense there has to be some restraint on business. Most workers realize the only power they have is in numbers. I suspect there will be a union resurgence after the looting of the economy has gone far enough to alarm the masses. It will be labeled communistic again.