Communist crimes

[Tashah]

The number of people murdered under the yoke of Communism is unmatched in history. For too long here at DP, the past and present Communist regimes have been getting a free pass. No more. Month by month, I will expose the carnage and misery inflicted on mankind by Communism.

According to the Guiness Book of World Records, 66.7 million people were killed in the Soviet Union by state persecution from October 1917 through 1959. This astounding figure does not include those murdered from 1960 through 1989. Nor does it address the misery inflicted in the huge Gulag prison system, pogroms, ethnic liquidations and deportations, forced famine, and the vast scale of torture and human rights abuses both domestic and foreign.

Beginning in October, this continuing survey will also include the communist Warsaw Pact nations, communist China, North Korea, Cuba, and communist adventures in far flung places such as Southeast Asia, Angola, Afghanistan, and Chechnya. The exposé will confirm that the Hammer and Sickle emblem is synonymous with murder, torture, political repression, ethnic and religious persecution, loss of human rights, and servitude to the state.

 

[Ethereal]

Yea, but that wasn't real, principled communism...dontchya know?

 

[Khayembii Communique]

Shall we start a thread on those killed in the name of democracy and compare?

Moreover, I'm interested in hearing how you define "Communist," Tashah. Is it simply anyone that claims to be a communist? Would you lump the Khmer Rouge in as "Communist"?

How do you reconcile the fact that there are Communists that oppose these regimes just as much as they do capitalism?

 

[Agnapostate]

Self-descriptions are obviously not sufficient to validate any political regime as "communist." The OP would undoubtedly recognize that in the case of the "People's Republic" of China; why then believe in the empty statements of the rulers of those countries when it comes to their own alleged communism or socialism (though they never claimed the former; it is misinformed economic rightists who apply that label)?

 

[Wessexman]

I think Agna and even Khayembii have some points but still it is always good to see Stalinism and similar exposed.

 

[Picaro]

We can also list those who aided the regimes.

I'll lead off with Henry Ford, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan.

 

[Agnapostate]

It would be more accurate to list Augusto Pinochet as an example of "capitalist crimes" than list the state capitalist USSR and Co. as an example of "communist crimes." He at least shared the neoliberalism of most economic rightists, whereas the "communist states" had no conceivable relation to "an economic system characterized by collective ownership of property and the organization of labor for common advantage," given the early destruction of workers' management by the Bolsheviks.

 

[Tashah]

Shall we start a thread on those killed in the name of democracy and compare?

You can certainly do that KC. It will neither deter, nor mitigate, nor silence this particular series of exposé. Like it or not, the ugly litany of communist crimes will be presented in-toto with the pertinent citations and footnotes.

 

[Khayembii Communique]

You can certainly do that KC. It will neither deter, nor mitigate, nor silence this particular series of exposé. Like it or not, the ugly litany of communist crimes will be presented in-toto with the pertinent citations and footnotes.

Shall we start with the Congo Free State? Are you going to respond to any of the other points brought up here?

 

[Alex Libman]

The number of people killed by communism is actually in the billions, because the damage done by communism to the human economy is long-lasting and world-wide. Anything that decelerates economic growth also reduces the life expectancy. If you know someone who has died in the past several years, there is a good chance they'd still be alive today if communism had never existed.

 

[Picaro]

Noam Chomsky supported Pol Pot.

 

[Khayembii Communique]

The number of people killed by communism is actually in the billions, because the damage done by communism to the human economy is long-lasting and world-wide. Anything that decelerates economic growth also reduces the life expectancy. If you know someone who has died in the past several years, there is a good chance they'd still be alive today if communism had never existed.

Why don't you get off Rand's tit and contribute something for once?

Noam Chomsky supported Pol Pot.

That's a pretty questionable statement to make.

 

[Agnapostate]

You can certainly do that KC. It will neither deter, nor mitigate, nor silence this particular series of exposé. Like it or not, the ugly litany of communist crimes will be presented in-toto with the pertinent citations and footnotes.

That process isn't off to an impressive start, if a vague reference to the Guinness Book of World Records is suppose to constitute a pertinent citation or footnote. While I've been the first to condemn state capitalism, particularly its Stalinist variant, it's occurred to me that there are motives beyond mere ignorance of political economy that might inspire one to disingenuously refer to this state capitalism as "socialist" or "communist" related to preservation of market capitalism and its authoritarian, exploitative, and inefficient deficiencies through promotion of the idea that no viable alternatives exist, since socialism/communism "failed." As Noam Chomsky put it in The Soviet Union Versus Socialism:

[A]ssociation of socialism with the Soviet Union and its clients serves as a powerful ideological weapon to enforce conformity and obedience to the State capitalist institutions, to ensure that the necessity to rent oneself to the owners and managers of these institutions will be regarded as virtually a natural law, the only alternative to the 'socialist' dungeon.

However, my consistent libertarian stance requires opposition to both the Leninist state capitalism of the East and the similarly ruinous market capitalism of the West, and now, of the globe. And the earliest socialists who objected not only to the strategy of excessive reliance on the state that existed in early Marxist organizational theory (though I'd never lump Marxism in with this state capitalism) but to the authoritarianism of the Bolsheviks when they were at the height of their power were of course mainly libertarians, specifically anarchists.

 

[Wessexman]

It would be more accurate to list Augusto Pinochet as an example of "capitalist crimes" than list the state capitalist USSR and Co. as an example of "communist crimes." He at least shared the neoliberalism of most economic rightists, whereas the "communist states" had no conceivable relation to "an economic system characterized by collective ownership of property and the organization of labor for common advantage," given the early destruction of workers' management by the Bolsheviks.

I suppose there is something to be said for the integrity of terms but your real problem is people take what happened in these places calling themselves socialist and communism and apply it to your ideology without any sort of indepth argument or analysis. These people are idiots anyway, anyone can see that you're at least going to have to formulate a proper argument to show why anarcho-communism is the same as Stalinism.

 

[Tashah]

Shall we start with the Congo Free State? Are you going to respond to any of the other points brought up here?

Nope. I'll present the brutal facts and the unvarnished figures.

Folks can digest these as they will.

 

[Wessexman]

The number of people killed by communism is actually in the billions, because the damage done by communism to the human economy is long-lasting and world-wide. Anything that decelerates economic growth also reduces the life expectancy. If you know someone who has died in the past several years, there is a good chance they'd still be alive today if communism had never existed.

The reason my girlfriend dumped me must have been because of communist oppression.

 

[Khayembii Communique]

Nope. I'll present the brutal facts and the unvarnished figures.

Folks can digest these as they will.

So you don't want to support your laughably ridiculous assertions.

Good to know. :2wave:

 

[Alex Libman]

Why don't you get off Rand's tit and contribute something for once?

Why don't you at least try to dispute what I said, which is an economic fact, instead of resorting to childish insults?

 

[Wessexman]

Noam Chomsky supported Pol Pot.

No he didn't. He made some statements, seemingly in good faith with the resources he had at hand, that questioned the totals of deaths and how much were due to the Khmer Rouge and how to the Americans and the war. I wouldn't call that defending. I say Franco and the BNP aren't fascists but only morons claim I actually support them by claiming this.

 

[Khayembii Communique]

Why don't you at least try to dispute what I said, which is an economic fact, instead of resorting to childish insults?

Because you don't deal in facts, you deal in a priori statements that you (here, for example) want people to prove wrong, when nobody really cares what you say.

 

[Ethereal]

Shall we start a thread on those killed in the name of democracy and compare?

I agree. Direct democracy is foolish, which is why our government is SUPPOSED to be a democratic republic.

Moreover, I'm interested in hearing how you define "Communist," Tashah. Is it simply anyone that claims to be a communist? Would you lump the Khmer Rouge in as "Communist"?

Any political system that views humans as a collective is inherently flawed. Doesn't matter what you label it.

How do you reconcile the fact that there are Communists that oppose these regimes just as much as they do capitalism?

Different flavors of the same general concept. The abolition of private property rights represents a grievous violation of individual sovereignty.

 

[Agnapostate]

The number of people killed by communism is actually in the billions, because the damage done by communism to the human economy is long-lasting and world-wide. Anything that decelerates economic growth also reduces the life expectancy. If you know someone who has died in the past several years, there is a good chance they'd still be alive today if communism had never existed.

Of the many nonsensical posts that you spam the forum with, this one shines brightly, not only because of the standard misidentification of state capitalism as "communism" that most economically ignorant rightists cannot help but bombard us with, but also the even more ignorant belief that state intervention in the capitalist economy constitutes "communism," which goes beyond the typically fallacious misidentification of it as "socialism."

Noam Chomsky supported Pol Pot.

Noam Chomsky opposed Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, but merely proposed that the number of deaths that they allegedly caused were overstated, since the U.S.-sponsored intervention in Cambodia in the early 1970's had wide-ranging repercussions that likely caused additional deaths.

I suppose there is something to be said for the integrity of terms but your real problem is people take what happened in these places calling themselves socialist and communism and apply it to your ideology without any sort of indepth argument or analysis.

I agree with that entirely. Given that the OP insinuated that this "exposition" was to be some kind of personal strike against me also in another thread, she seems to be one of those people. Of course, I've already addressed that exact fallacy here, with as little response from our rightist clown box to that thread as to the Democratic Socialists of America disavowal of Obama.

 

[Alex Libman]

Because you don't deal in facts, you deal in a priori statements that you (here, for example) want people to prove wrong, when nobody really cares what you say.

No. I deal with economic facts. You and those like you run away from them. Cognitive dissonance in action.

 

[Khayembii Communique]

No. I deal with economic facts.

See? You simply back up one a priori statement with another.:lol:

 

[Wessexman]

Any political system that views humans as a collective is inherently flawed. Doesn't matter what you label it.

I agree but the question of what you mean by collective arises. Personally I feel that though the individual is of course the most vital basis for any political philosophy, anything else is despotism, the absolute idea of individualism, with little regard for human collectivity, is almost as dangerous. To get a decent view one must take into account individuals, the associations that make up their lives and society as a whole and realise these all have a large and important place and must be accorded their necessary status as such.

Different flavors of the same general concept. The abolition of private property rights represents a grievous violation of individual sovereignty.

One can argue that and I'd agree it was a bad move. I think though the objection here is simply that moving from saying that to claiming all forms of socialism or communism are much the same as Stalinism or Leninism is not proved by such statements. Take on the anarchists and others sure but don't do it by simply linking them rather lazily with others who use their terminology.