Communism and Crimes Against Humanity

[Laika]

About Three or Four Years ago I read the first third of "The Black Book of Communism". For those who don't know, this was the first systematic attempt to assemble the evidence of atrocities under all communist regiemes and is the source for the "Communism killed 100 million People" statistic. It was published in France in 1997 and caused considerable controversy. Whilst it has been critised on a number of grounds, particularly in terms of how the causlty figure was calculated It makes extremely unpleasant and difficult reading, especially if you are a commie.

My inital reaction to it was the first time I ever seriously considered giving up communism. I read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and Freidman's Capitalism and Freedom in the hope that it would convince me I was wrong and that I had missed something out. Far from actually changing my view of communism, it actually hardened it as what it showed is that in the long-run, Democratic processes based on competiting interests are incompatable with a system based on common ownership because they are based on two completely different conceptions of "freedom"; one is individual, the other is collective. If everyone is part of the whole and has to act together, it severely restricts the scope of what a democracy can discuss. Marxists talk of "Socialist Democracy", but the Socialist nature of the system takes precedence over the 'democratic' part. Hence you can have elections, but only if the communist party wins.

The arguments against Communism can be summed up as two overlapping positions:

1) Communism cannot be true because consciousness is not material or caused by material pheneomena and therefore subject to scientific understanding. i.e. you can change "human nature".

2) If Communism is true, it denies the subjective moral feelings of the individual in favour of a single all-embracing world view which everyone is expected to adhere to. As a collectivistic system it asserts that the rights of the group (and by default the state) as taking precedence over rights of the individual. Because Communism is a collectivistic system, it is by definition "totalitarian".

These two positions overlap because they assert that consciousness takes precedence over material forces in social relations; i.e. that our social relations are the product of our conscious choices. In otherwords, neither one of these positions can be substanciated as true in scientific/naturalistic terms, because ultimately, they come from god.

Communists are accused of being guilty of crimes against humanity. This is fair enough; they are guilty as hell. But the concept "crime against humanity" is a problem as it is an appeal to a higher law as a violation of a persons human rights. The concept of "crimes against humanity" is historically very recent and goes back to the Nuremburg Trials in 1945, but it belongs to a much older tradition of "natural law". "Natural Law" is fundamental to liberal ethics, since it is from the 18th and 19th century conception of 'natural rights' that we dervied the present day concept of 'human rights'.

For a materialist, if there consciousness exists only as a product of matter, then there is no god, as god is a form of consciousness which exists independently of matter. Natural law has the same properties; it applies to a person's actions irrespective of what the law actually is. it is thought to be an eternal and absolute system of law that applies irrespective of what a government says. From this is derived the authority of International Law to apply moral catagories such as Genocide, War Crimes, Crimes against humanity to nation-states regardless as to whether their own legal concepts.

The idea that crimes against humanity is a universal moral qualification is quite absurd, since human rights violations were particularly widespread amongst liberal colonisers and imperialists in the 18th and 19th centuries before they took on a 'totalitarian' form in either Nazism, Fascism or Communism. The cliam that any of these were uniquely evil is evidently false, or else, hypocritical.

If we think about why these actions are wrong, we are drawn into the discussion as to whether life has an intrinsic value, whether we have a "right to life". This is derived from a religious belief of the "sanctity of life" because man was created in gods image.

Now here's where it gets intresting. Natural Law does not 'exist' in material terms and as a materialist I would be obliged to reject it. The implication is that neither do human rights exist because they represent a form of 'dis-emobodied consciouness' rather than physically limited social activity. Therefore natural rights cannot exist because the process of social evolution means that ethics are not universal or eternal, but are relative and dependent on the level of social development. It should be noted that if I reject the concept of social evolution, it would impact on theories of natural evolution and I'd be arguing for some form of creationism if ethics were not the product of society itself and therefore had to be the product of some 'god'.

To a Materialist therefore, the concept of "crimes against humanity" actually translates into "crimes against god". As Communists are materialists who would not believe in god, that entails that logically I do not believe in natural law, nor human rights or crimes against humanity. To conclude, if I were to accept that Communism were a 'superior' moral system to liberalism based on a theory of social evolution, that would mean accepting that Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot were the "good guys" and what they did was justified, which is pretty stomach churning.

So What would you do if you were in my position? Would you reject Materialism and therefore Communism or reject the concept of human rights and crimes against humanity? If you can find an error in my reasoning, your very welcome to suggest a middle road as both of them look like 'wrong answers'.

 

[Flankerl]

Relevant picture is relevant.

 

[Revoltingest]

About Three or Four Years ago I read the first third of "The Black Book of Communism". For those who don't know, this was the first systematic attempt to assemble the evidence of atrocities under all communist regiemes and is the source for the "Communism killed 100 million People" statistic. It was published in France in 1997 and caused considerable controversy. Whilst it has been critised on a number of grounds, particularly in terms of how the causlty figure was calculated It makes extremely unpleasant and difficult reading, especially if you are a commie.

My inital reaction to it was the first time I ever seriously considered giving up communism. I read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and Freidman's Capitalism and Freedom in the hope that it would convince me I was wrong and that I had missed something out. Far from actually changing my view of communism, it actually hardened it as what it showed is that in the long-run, Democratic processes based on competiting interests are incompatable with a system based on common ownership because they are based on two completely different conceptions of "freedom"; one is individual, the other is collective. If everyone is part of the whole and has to act together, it severely restricts the scope of what a democracy can discuss. Marxists talk of "Socialist Democracy", but the Socialist nature of the system takes precedence over the 'democratic' part. Hence you can have elections, but only if the communist party wins.

The arguments against Communism can be summed up as two overlapping positions:

1) Communism cannot be true because consciousness is not material or caused by material pheneomena and therefore subject to scientific understanding. i.e. you can change "human nature".

2) If Communism is true, it denies the subjective moral feelings of the individual in favour of a single all-embracing world view which everyone is expected to adhere to. As a collectivistic system it asserts that the rights of the group (and by default the state) as taking precedence over rights of the individual. Because Communism is a collectivistic system, it is by definition "totalitarian".

These two positions overlap because they assert that consciousness takes precedence over material forces in social relations; i.e. that our social relations are the product of our conscious choices. In otherwords, neither one of these positions can be substanciated as true in scientific/naturalistic terms, because ultimately, they come from god.

Communists are accused of being guilty of crimes against humanity. This is fair enough; they are guilty as hell. But the concept "crime against humanity" is a problem as it is an appeal to a higher law as a violation of a persons human rights. The concept of "crimes against humanity" is historically very recent and goes back to the Nuremburg Trials in 1945, but it belongs to a much older tradition of "natural law". "Natural Law" is fundamental to liberal ethics, since it is from the 18th and 19th century conception of 'natural rights' that we dervied the present day concept of 'human rights'.

For a materialist, if there consciousness exists only as a product of matter, then there is no god, as god is a form of consciousness which exists independently of matter. Natural law has the same properties; it applies to a person's actions irrespective of what the law actually is. it is thought to be an eternal and absolute system of law that applies irrespective of what a government says. From this is derived the authority of International Law to apply moral catagories such as Genocide, War Crimes, Crimes against humanity to nation-states regardless as to whether their own legal concepts.

The idea that crimes against humanity is a universal moral qualification is quite absurd, since human rights violations were particularly widespread amongst liberal colonisers and imperialists in the 18th and 19th centuries before they took on a 'totalitarian' form in either Nazism, Fascism or Communism. The cliam that any of these were uniquely evil is evidently false, or else, hypocritical.

If we think about why these actions are wrong, we are drawn into the discussion as to whether life has an intrinsic value, whether we have a "right to life". This is derived from a religious belief of the "sanctity of life" because man was created in gods image.

Now here's where it gets intresting. Natural Law does not 'exist' in material terms and as a materialist I would be obliged to reject it. The implication is that neither do human rights exist because they represent a form of 'dis-emobodied consciouness' rather than physically limited social activity. Therefore natural rights cannot exist because the process of social evolution means that ethics are not universal or eternal, but are relative and dependent on the level of social development. It should be noted that if I reject the concept of social evolution, it would impact on theories of natural evolution and I'd be arguing for some form of creationism if ethics were not the product of society itself and therefore had to be the product of some 'god'.

To a Materialist therefore, the concept of "crimes against humanity" actually translates into "crimes against god". As Communists are materialists who would not believe in god, that entails that logically I do not believe in natural law, nor human rights or crimes against humanity. To conclude, if I were to accept that Communism were a 'superior' moral system to liberalism based on a theory of social evolution, that would mean accepting that Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot were the "good guys" and what they did was justified, which is pretty stomach churning.

So What would you do if you were in my position? Would you reject Materialism and therefore Communism or reject the concept of human rights and crimes against humanity? If you can find an error in my reasoning, your very welcome to suggest a middle road as both of them look like 'wrong answers'.

You are one weird guy.
(That's a good thing, btw.)

I wouldn't look at those malefactors as the "good guys". Rather, I'd wonder whether their philosophy & the kind of power structure necessary to implement it create an environment wherein their ilk will rise to power & behave that way. Communism (on a country-wide scale) necessitates great control over people, & that is a risk factor for tyranny & death.

 

[Revoltingest]

Relevant picture is relevant.

Accepting this premise, it's good that communism has never been tried.
The stages leading up to it have been deadly enuf already.

 

[Kerr]

About Three or Four Years ago I read the first third of "The Black Book of Communism". For those who don't know, this was the first systematic attempt to assemble the evidence of atrocities under all communist regiemes and is the source for the "Communism killed 100 million People" statistic. It was published in France in 1997 and caused considerable controversy. Whilst it has been critised on a number of grounds, particularly in terms of how the causlty figure was calculated It makes extremely unpleasant and difficult reading, especially if you are a commie.

My inital reaction to it was the first time I ever seriously considered giving up communism. I read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom and Freidman's Capitalism and Freedom in the hope that it would convince me I was wrong and that I had missed something out. Far from actually changing my view of communism, it actually hardened it as what it showed is that in the long-run, Democratic processes based on competiting interests are incompatable with a system based on common ownership because they are based on two completely different conceptions of "freedom"; one is individual, the other is collective. If everyone is part of the whole and has to act together, it severely restricts the scope of what a democracy can discuss. Marxists talk of "Socialist Democracy", but the Socialist nature of the system takes precedence over the 'democratic' part. Hence you can have elections, but only if the communist party wins.

The arguments against Communism can be summed up as two overlapping positions:

1) Communism cannot be true because consciousness is not material or caused by material pheneomena and therefore subject to scientific understanding. i.e. you can change "human nature".

2) If Communism is true, it denies the subjective moral feelings of the individual in favour of a single all-embracing world view which everyone is expected to adhere to. As a collectivistic system it asserts that the rights of the group (and by default the state) as taking precedence over rights of the individual. Because Communism is a collectivistic system, it is by definition "totalitarian".

These two positions overlap because they assert that consciousness takes precedence over material forces in social relations; i.e. that our social relations are the product of our conscious choices. In otherwords, neither one of these positions can be substanciated as true in scientific/naturalistic terms, because ultimately, they come from god.

Communists are accused of being guilty of crimes against humanity. This is fair enough; they are guilty as hell. But the concept "crime against humanity" is a problem as it is an appeal to a higher law as a violation of a persons human rights. The concept of "crimes against humanity" is historically very recent and goes back to the Nuremburg Trials in 1945, but it belongs to a much older tradition of "natural law". "Natural Law" is fundamental to liberal ethics, since it is from the 18th and 19th century conception of 'natural rights' that we dervied the present day concept of 'human rights'.

For a materialist, if there consciousness exists only as a product of matter, then there is no god, as god is a form of consciousness which exists independently of matter. Natural law has the same properties; it applies to a person's actions irrespective of what the law actually is. it is thought to be an eternal and absolute system of law that applies irrespective of what a government says. From this is derived the authority of International Law to apply moral catagories such as Genocide, War Crimes, Crimes against humanity to nation-states regardless as to whether their own legal concepts.

The idea that crimes against humanity is a universal moral qualification is quite absurd, since human rights violations were particularly widespread amongst liberal colonisers and imperialists in the 18th and 19th centuries before they took on a 'totalitarian' form in either Nazism, Fascism or Communism. The cliam that any of these were uniquely evil is evidently false, or else, hypocritical.

If we think about why these actions are wrong, we are drawn into the discussion as to whether life has an intrinsic value, whether we have a "right to life". This is derived from a religious belief of the "sanctity of life" because man was created in gods image.

Now here's where it gets intresting. Natural Law does not 'exist' in material terms and as a materialist I would be obliged to reject it. The implication is that neither do human rights exist because they represent a form of 'dis-emobodied consciouness' rather than physically limited social activity. Therefore natural rights cannot exist because the process of social evolution means that ethics are not universal or eternal, but are relative and dependent on the level of social development. It should be noted that if I reject the concept of social evolution, it would impact on theories of natural evolution and I'd be arguing for some form of creationism if ethics were not the product of society itself and therefore had to be the product of some 'god'.

To a Materialist therefore, the concept of "crimes against humanity" actually translates into "crimes against god". As Communists are materialists who would not believe in god, that entails that logically I do not believe in natural law, nor human rights or crimes against humanity. To conclude, if I were to accept that Communism were a 'superior' moral system to liberalism based on a theory of social evolution, that would mean accepting that Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot were the "good guys" and what they did was justified, which is pretty stomach churning.

So What would you do if you were in my position? Would you reject Materialism and therefore Communism or reject the concept of human rights and crimes against humanity? If you can find an error in my reasoning, your very welcome to suggest a middle road as both of them look like 'wrong answers'.

Rejecting the concept of human rights is problematic. That sounds like a good way to eventually end up in a horrible society (no matter if that was the original intention or not). Don't believe in Natural Law, though. I just see human rights as what rights should be extended to all humans. It's more based on compassion and care about other people then anything else. Besides, if human life doesn't matter, then neither does the "collective". At the same time I think a good society is something we build together. Just that I think of it more in terms of cooperating individuals then a collective.

When it comes to moral systems, I think a good rule to have is that if accepting a moral system implies that you have to accept tyrants, then it's not a very good moral system to accept.

 

[Laika]

Relevant picture is relevant.

Lol. This is a very common 'denial' tactic in the Far Left but slowly I have accept that what happened in the USSR, China, etc., was Communism in a very broad sense. I'm not sure where that leaves me with places like North Korea that are still communist today as they are still hateful.

Lenin defined Communism in the State and Revolution as a system based on common ownership and kept it quite open so as to include many capitalist aspects such as wage labour, commodity exchange/markets in the transition stage when communism emerges out of capitalism. Communism therefore is not automatically a "better" system or necessarily a good one but that is certianly the objective. My hope is that "next time" would be better, but it is an uphill battle trying to figure out how based on what happened before.

You are one weird guy.
(That's a good thing, btw.)

I wouldn't look at those malefactors as the "good guys". Rather, I'd wonder whether their philosophy & the kind of power structure necessary to implement it create an environment wherein their ilk will rise to power & behave that way. Communism (on a country-wide scale) necessitates great control over people, & that is a risk factor for tyranny & death.

Lol, Thanks. (I think.)

That is the major concern. Calling Communism "Totalitarian" is a fair way of describing the dangers, but is somewhat inaccurate given that the concept of totalitarianism was developed by Giovanni Gentile, an Italian Fascist philosopher, to describe Mussolini's Ideal state. Whilst Communism doesn't aim at totalitarianism, both ideas have roots in Hegel's philosophy of the state and it therefore rightly points out the dangers of collectivism.

Rejecting the concept of human rights is problematic. That sounds like a good way to eventually end up in a horrible society (no matter if that was the original intention or not). Don't believe in Natural Law, though. I just see human rights as what rights should be extended to all humans. It's more based on compassion and care about other people then anything else. Besides, if human life doesn't matter, then neither does the "collective". At the same time I think a good society is something we build together. Just that I think of it more in terms of cooperating individuals then a collective.

When it comes to moral systems, I think a good rule to have is that if accepting a moral system implies that you have to accept tyrants, then it's not a very good moral system to accept.

You make an excellent point when you say that "if human life doesn't matter, then neither does the "collective"." Collectivism is often closely associated with Militarism, and it is self-defeating of the sacrifices imposed on countless individuals add up to the sacrifice for the whole group. A truely collectivist society is not formed voluntarily, but by the necessity of satisfying it's requirements. "voluntary" co-operation still entails that the individuals choice comes first.

I had a think after I wrote this and realised that Communism would not reject human rights absolutely. That would be a form of 'eliminaitve materialism' where you eliminate consciousness in how you explain the world. If you did that, you would eliminate god and human consciouness and therefore human rights too. However, that's small concellation.

Tryants are generally bad, but we find them in most moral systems. Gods are a good example. The tryannical nature of liberalism is hidden as it is supposed that nature itself is a tyrant which restricts our ability firstly to satisfy our own needs, and when this is overcome through science and technology, we suffer from a second tyranny in that we cannot change ourselves. It is however relative as objective truth could well be thought of as tyrannical when it is determintal to our interests. It is better to suffer the tryanny of our own limitations however than the tryanny of other people's limits in empathising and understanding the wrongs they do to us. Some sort of Scientific Ethics and Psychology may help us overcome that, but it is still a fair way off.

 

[jeager106]

Communisim demands very tight control over people and that leads to the easy solution.
Shoot any free thinker than disagrees with the powers in charge.
History seems to lend credibility to the above statement.
But, being fair to communisim, (why be fair?) the fascists didn't do so well
with the gentile & loving approach either.
Any system that allows tight control of the masses by the few leaders begs for an evil government.
"We will shoot 2 million for the good of the 50 million" is the communist manefesto.
Wanna be a commie? Go ahead, at least here you won't get shot for your beliefs.

 

[Jumi]

@Red Economist North Korea you don't have to worry about anymore. They basically stopped pretending to be communists when they realized they no longer get funding for their little dictatorship from S.U. and China for being ideological buddies. The others, Soviet Union in particular are a heavy burden for you though, it's unlikely people will get over their legacy. As unfair as it might sound to you, some of us still have bad blood with what Communists did even though the perpetrators and victims are no longer alive.

 

[Jumi]

Any system that allows tight control of the masses by the few leaders begs for an evil government.

I think that part was started by Lenin and the Soviets. I'm perfectly agreed with your post otherwise.

 

[jeager106]

@Red Economist North Korea you don't have to worry about anymore. They basically stopped pretending to be communists when they realized they no longer get funding for their little dictatorship from S.U. and China for being ideological buddies. The others, Soviet Union in particular are a heavy burden for you though, it's unlikely people will get over their legacy. As unfair as it might sound to you, some of us still have bad blood with what Communists did even though the perpetrators and victims are no longer alive.

Lots of us that grew up right after WWII still have bad blood with communism.
We watched Stalin dominate Europe and build "the wall", and feared nuclear war.

 

[Jumi]

Lots of us that grew up right after WWII still have bad blood with communism.
We watched Stalin dominate Europe and build "the wall", and feared nuclear war.

That's right, but just sabre rattling isn't enough to have bad blood. Some of my relatives, who I would have loved to meet, died because of Stalin before I was born.

 

[dust1n]

About Three or Four Years ago I read the first third of "The Black Book of Communism". For those who don't know, this was the first systematic attempt to assemble the evidence of atrocities under all communist regiemes and is the source for the "Communism killed 100 million People" statistic. It was published in France in 1997 and caused considerable controversy. Whilst it has been critised on a number of grounds, particularly in terms of how the causlty figure was calculated It makes extremely unpleasant and difficult reading, especially if you are a commie.

Interesting reading there. I just noted this at the beginning because it didn't make sense to me. 100 million people collectively under the name "Communism" seems unfair to put out there by it self. It's estimated that roughly 108 billion people have already lived and died. What do the other 107.9 billion people fall under in this "political reasons people die" scheme?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I still say if it wasn't for all the anti-Communist propaganda we would view places such as the USSR, China, and N. Korea as totalitarian state-dictatorships because there is/was no real communal ownership and power.
You also do not have to accept materialism to be a communist, and the materialist-based communism is more related to Marxist communism. Indeed, there have been/are many religious-based communist communities.
And, let's be honest, how many Christians feel guilt over the inquisitions? How many Christians hang their heads because there was a time when it was very much spread by the sword? How many Americans feel shame over their imperialistic colonization and disruption and manipulation of foreign political and economic affairs? Just look at how many Americans wanted their government to go after Bin Laden after 9/11, rather than raising hell on the ballots and getting rid of those who helped propped him up? In realty, we didn't even get rid of Bush Jr. who has ties to Saudi Princes who have ties to Al Qaeda. Where is the American protest over the American alliances with places such as Saudi Arabia?
Yes, some really nasty people have picked up Communism and have done some really bad things.
Yes, communism would restrict individual rights to a far greater degree than capitalism. But it must be asked what rights would be forfeit? And it should be pointed out, what would be gained? What are the trade-offs? It is also rarely mentioned that communism will not work in a society that values collecting and hoarding material goods as a sign of wealth and success.
The truth is, we must start acting more to serve a collective interests. We have a system that ultimately cares more about how much money someone can generate, rather than what they can contribute to the community. Strong individual rights have allowed for systems in which just a few can launch a corporate invasion of a foreign country and make it impossible for that country to grow their own economy.
And, of course, even at home capitalism has caused great destruction and devastation, such as the frequent bouts of economic turmoil that result in the loss of savings, loss of home, and broken families, not because of the actions of the worker, but because of the actions of capitalist owners and investors who take risky chances and when the lose everyone loses. When they win what everyone else gets, at best, is a house of glass cards that will break.

 

[dust1n]

Maybe as illustration of my point:

From "The Black Book of Capitalism"

"Estimates of population decline in the Americas from the first contact with Europeans in 1492 until the turn of the 20th century depend on the estimation of the initial pre-contact population. In the early 20th century, scholars estimated low populations for the pre-contact Americas, with Alfred Kroeber's estimate as low as 8,4 million people in the entire hemisphere. Archaeological findings and a better overview of early censuses have contributed to much higher estimates. Dobyns (1966) estimated a pre-contact population of 90-112 million. Denevan's more conservative estimate was 57.3 million.[18] Russell Thornton (1987) arrived at a figure around 70 million.[19] Depending on the estimate of the initial population, by 1900 the indigenous population can be said to have declined by more than 80%, due mostly to the effects of diseases such as smallpox, measles and cholera, but also violence and warfare by colonizers against the Indians.

Scholars who have argued prominently that this population decline can be considered genocidal include historian David Stannard[20] and anthropological demographer Russell Thornton,[21] as well as scholar activists such as Vine Deloria, Jr., Russell Means and Ward Churchill. Stannard compares the events of colonization that led to the population decline in the Americas with the definition of genocide in the 1948 UN convention, and writes that "In light of the U.N. language—even putting aside some of its looser constructions—it is impossible to know what transpired in the Americas during the sixteenth seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and not conclude that it was genocide".[22] Thornton does not consider the onslaught of disease to be genocide, and only describes as genocide the direct impact of warfare, violence and massacres, many of which had the effect of wiping out entire ethnic groups.[23] Holocaust scholar and political scientist Guenter Lewy rejects the label of genocide and views the depopulation of the Americas as "not a crime but a tragedy".[24]"

Genocide of indigenous peoples - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Laika]

Interesting reading there. I just noted this at the beginning because it didn't make sense to me. 100 million people collectively under the name "Communism" seems unfair to put out there by it self. It's estimated that roughly 108 billion people have already lived and died. What do the other 107.9 billion people fall under in this "political reasons people die" scheme?

It represents an attempt to calculate the number of people who died under Communist systems by assuming that government violence against civillans was unnecessary had the law reflected human rights. The great majority in that total died by famine. because the government controlled the food supply, responsibility for those deaths can be attributed to the government and there is evidence to suggest that, in the case of Ukraine, the food shortages may not have been intentional, but that where the food supply was restricted was targeted against percieved 'class enemies'. the idea that famine can be a genocide is controversial, but there was control and therefore some level of responsibility. It is the totalitarian nature of the system, like Nazi germany, that gives it a particular moral problem as a criminal conspiracy to violate human rights. It therefore represents something distinct from other genocides because it used the industrial system of organisation to engage in state terrorism.

There is therefore a moral difference between the genocide of native americans and of people under communist systems; how much differences really does depend on how much power and therefore responsibility you attribute to the systems. The distinction is that it must be government policy, rather than individual acts or even by corporations (e.g IBM and the Holocaust), to constitute a crime against humanity, but this does attribute moral "personhood" to the state, a system of government or an idea which it may not posses in reality. Whilst it is easy to pick out Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot as individuals, they only gave the orders- it took thousands of people to put them into effect. Liberal conceptions of 'individual responsibility' therefore struggle to comprehend what actually went on because it was a collectivistic system and doesn't function in a recognisable way. The moral boundaries between persons is more fluid and the legal systems functioned as a means for the government to exercise power with an overt bias favouring the state; they ruled by law, rather than the rule of law. it's like trying to put a round peg in a square hole; it only fits because it's smaller than the hole and leaves some gaps in our understanding.

@Red Economist North Korea you don't have to worry about anymore. They basically stopped pretending to be communists when they realized they no longer get funding for their little dictatorship from S.U. and China for being ideological buddies. The others, Soviet Union in particular are a heavy burden for you though, it's unlikely people will get over their legacy. As unfair as it might sound to you, some of us still have bad blood with what Communists did even though the perpetrators and victims are no longer alive.

North Korea no longer identifys as Socialist or Marxist, as they have their own ideology of national self-reliance known as "Juche" but have inherited the basic Leninist blueprint for a one-party state. They are "odd" though. I don't think Marx or Lenin was thinking of a Heriditary Republic in which the head of state is a dead guy when they had a revolution.

I don't think that is unfair but it is a very difficult thing to deal with. Most religions and belief systems have "bad" histories, but they are largely forgotten with time because they cease to be relevant. Communism is within living memory and if your in China, Cuba etc, people are still living under it. Cambodia has the on-going trials against remaining leaders on the Khmur Rouge whilst many former members continue to play a role in the current government. The Embargo between the US and Cuba was only lifted this year. So it is more than understandable if there is bad blood and a sense of greivance.
The major problem is that the depth of anti-communist feeling continues to have widespread effects on our current politics. This is also disproportinate and deeply irrational considering that communist parties today are on the margins in obscurity. The generaised fear of government intervention stops financial or environmental regulations, access to welfare/social security and even public healthcare in the US. It has become common sense to deny or ignore problems and insist the market is right and that whatever it does is always the best outcome as it is "unrealistic" to expect more. It would be better for everyone in the long-term if we had a social democratic system, but that probably isn't going to happen because people believe that democracy and socialism are mutually exclusive. it may well be true, but it raises the possibility that communism (or more likely fascism) will re-appear in the future as problems that were left to the market go unsolved.

Communism is pretty much defeated but I'm left with that sense that the very basic assumptions of the ideology still hold true. Personal factors also play a role so I know I'm pretty much on my own. As difficult as it is, being a commie seems the right thing to do and taking a second look at what happened just in case we have learned the wrong lessons from it. it would be better if it stayed dead, but there is a sufficent amount going wrong under capitalism to think it is not just human nature but may be the system itself that may need changing.

That's right, but just sabre rattling isn't enough to have bad blood. Some of my relatives, who I would have loved to meet, died because of Stalin before I was born.

From what I can tell, communists never had a clear plan in mind, made it up as they went along and accepted death as part of the "dialectic" of history and of the class struggle. Collective guilt is hard thing to explain but for what little difference it makes I'm sorry we screwed up and let people die so we could hold onto to the illusion of infallability.

 

[jeager106]

That's right, but just sabre rattling isn't enough to have bad blood. Some of my relatives, who I would have loved to meet, died because of Stalin before I was born.

Same here. My maternal grandfather was born in Russia but he migrated to the U.S. in 1913 leaving his brothers, sisters, parents
and other relatives who chose to stay. Some of those relatives died during Stalins political purges.
Some male relatives died fighting in WWI, others in WWII others were exiled to Siberia, a death sentance for sure.
When I was very young I remember grandfather showing the rare letter from relatives still in communist Russia.
Those letters, every one, were heavily sensored with much of the information blotted out in black ink.
I imagine his letters to them were also intercepted by the Soviet government and sensored.
I wish I had accesss to those letters but doubt I could read the langauge in which they were written.
My grandfathers brother was in the calvery in WWI and was killed in combat.

 

[dust1n]

It represents an attempt to calculate the number of people who died under Communist systems by assuming that government violence against civillans was unnecessary had the law reflected human rights. The great majority in that total died by famine. because the government controlled the food supply, responsibility for those deaths can be attributed to the government and there is evidence to suggest that, in the case of Ukraine, the food shortages may not have been intentional, but that where the food supply was restricted was targeted against percieved 'class enemies'. the idea that famine can be a genocide is controversial, but there was control and therefore some level of responsibility. It is the totalitarian nature of the system, like Nazi germany, that gives it a particular moral problem as a criminal conspiracy to violate human rights. It therefore represents something distinct from other genocides because it used the industrial system of organisation to engage in state terrorism.

There is therefore a moral difference between the genocide of native americans and of people under communist systems; how much differences really does depend on how much power and therefore responsibility you attribute to the systems. The distinction is that it must be government policy, rather than individual acts or even by corporations (e.g IBM and the Holocaust), to constitute a crime against humanity, but this does attribute moral "personhood" to the state, a system of government or an idea which it may not posses in reality. Whilst it is easy to pick out Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot as individuals, they only gave the orders- it took thousands of people to put them into effect. Liberal conceptions of 'individual responsibility' therefore struggle to comprehend what actually went on because it was a collectivistic system and doesn't function in a recognisable way. The moral boundaries between persons is more fluid and the legal systems functioned as a means for the government to exercise power with an overt bias favouring the state; they ruled by law, rather than the rule of law. it's like trying to put a round peg in a square hole; it only fits because it's smaller than the hole and leaves some gaps in our understanding."

Gotcha. While undoubtedly millions upon millions died for reasons such as revolutionary takeovers and horrid government policy, it still seems disingenuous on the part of the original author to not include the deaths of capitalism.

For example:

"In capitalism it is a little know feature of famines that the affected countries generally do produce enough food. During the Irish famine of the 1840s, Ireland exported food to Britain. During the Ethiopian famines which inspired Live Aid in 1985, cash crops were exported to the west. The same applies to the current famine in Niger.

Capitalism has always been marked by extremes in rich and poor. Niger,the second poorest country in the world, is no exception, with markets in some parts of the country still full of produce. Yet a few minutes drive from these is the face of Niger which the world has seen -- starving people under canvas tents with aid workers trying their best to help them.

The reason is simple -- poverty. People cannot afford to buy the goodsin the market and so they go hungry. This, the bleak reality of Niger's famine, is noticeably absent from almost all of the media reports. There the hunger is seen as a natural disaster, not a man-made one. This is unsurprising, given the role of capitalism has played in this (and other) famines. It cuts to the heart of claims that the capitalist market can solve the problems of the world's poor.

As in most famines, the situation has been worsened by market forces. The last harvest was only 11% below the five-yearly average and drought and pests had a modest impact on it. Yet the price of grain went through the roof, with a 100g bad of millet, the staple grain, nearly doubling in price since last year (from around STR13 to STR25). While problems started when locusts ate crops and cattle fodder, it reached crisis proportionswhen the market worked its magic and the prices of food shot out of reach. While there is a need for food, there is no demand for it. Unsurprisingly, traders in Niger have been exporting grain to wealthier neighbouring= countries.

Niger relies on donors such as the EU, which favours "free-market" solutions to African poverty. The Niger government, eager to curry favour with the G8, initially refused to hand out free food to the starving as it wanted prove its "free market" credentials and so instead offered millet at subsidised prices. Prices the poorest could not afford. The G8 had written off some of Niger's debt, but only on the condition that it implemented approved economic reforms -- its 'debt relief' programme for Highly Indebted Poor Countries stipulates that recipients must remove subsidies for food, reduce subsidies for food production and increase the intake of tax, all as part of a programme for "free market reform". The UN agreed with the Niger government, and refused to distribute free food on the basis that this would interfere with the free market and could harm the country's development out of poverty.

The results of this policy can be seen. Finally, the Niger government,along with its foreign donor countries and the UN, resided and agreed toallow the distribution of free food. This delay in retreating from neo-liberal dogma has resulted in a total of 3.6 million people being affectedby the food crisis, with around 874,000 people needing free food to survive.

Thus Niger is yet another example of the underlying, but ignored, reality of famines in the world. It is not a lack of food (there is more thanenough to feed the world). The problem is an economic system which ignores need in favour of money. Food, like any commodity, will go where the money is while the weakest go to the wall. This aspect of the market has been around for as long as capitalism has been. E.P. Thompson usefully discusses the popular perspectives on food shortages in 18th century Britainversus Adam Smith's position in Customs in Common. More recently, economist Amartya Sen has shown that millions can starve to death not because of over-all decline in food availability but because their effective demand disappeared due to market forces. If people's only resource thatthey legitimately possess, i.e. their labour-power, becomes unsaleable in the market then they have no command over food. Once this happens, the market will make things worse, not better, as supply seeks demand elsewhere."

How capitalism has caused famine in Niger - Anarkismo

"This book explores the impact of colonialism and the introduction of capitalism during the El Niño-Southern Oscillation related famines of 1876–1878, 1896–1897, and 1899–1902, in India, China, Brazil, Ethiopia, Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines and New Caledonia. It focuses on how colonialism and capitalism in British India and elsewhere increased rural poverty & hunger and while economic policies exacerbated famine. The book's main conclusion is that the deaths of 30–60 million people killed in famines all over the world during the later part of the 19th century were caused by laissez faire and Malthusian economic ideology of the colonial governments. In addition to a preface and a short section on definitions, the book is broken into four parts, 'The Great Drought, 1876–1878', 'El Niño and the New Imperialism, 1888–1902', 'Decyphering ENSO', and 'The Political Ecology of Famine'.

"Davis explicitly places his historical reconstruction of these catastrophes in the tradition inaugurated by Rosa Luxemburg in The Accumulation of Capital, where she sought to expose the dependence of the economic mechanisms of capitalist expansion on the infliction of ‘permanent violence’ on the South".[2] Davis argues, for example, that "Between 1875–1900—a period that included the worst famines in Indian history—annual grain exports increased from 3 to 10 million tons", equivalent to the annual nutrition of 25m people. "Indeed, by the turn of the century, India was supplying nearly a fifth of Britain’s wheat consumption at the cost of its own food security."[3] In addition, "Already saddled with a huge public debt that included reimbursing the stockholders of the East India Company and paying the costs of the 1857 revolt, India also had to finance British military supremacy in Asia. In addition to incessant proxy warfare with Russia on the Afghan frontier, the subcontinent’s masses also subsidized such far-flung adventures of the Indian Army as the occupation of Egypt, the invasion of Ethiopia, and the conquest of the Sudan. As a result, military expenditures never comprised less than 25 percent (34 percent including police) of India’s annual budget..."[4] As an example of the effects of both this and of the restructuring of the local economy to suit imperial needs (in Victorian Berar, the acreage of cotton doubled 1875–1900),[5] Davis notes that "During the famine of 1899–1900, when 143,000 Beraris died directly from starvation, the province exported not only thousands of bales of cotton but an incredible 747,000 bushels of grain."[6]"

Late Victorian Holocausts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Not to mention, famines sometimes just happen beyond anyone's best attempt to stop it:

"In the 17th century Russia had the famine of 1601–1603, believed to be its worst. Major famines include the Great Famine of 1315–1317, which affected much of Europe including part of Russia.[2] Another was the Russian famine of 1891–92, which killed between 375,000 and 500,000 people.[3]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_and_famines_in_Russia_and_the_Soviet_Union#Pre-1900_droughts_and_famines

 

[Jumi]

North Korea no longer identifys as Socialist or Marxist, as they have their own ideology of national self-reliance known as "Juche" but have inherited the basic Leninist blueprint for a one-party state. They are "odd" though. I don't think Marx or Lenin was thinking of a Heriditary Republic in which the head of state is a dead guy when they had a revolution.

They tore down the Communist symbols from public places when it wasn't needed anymore. Basically it's a monarchy mixed with national socialism and worship of the Kims. They stuck with communism because of geopolitics. You look at the map and you see they were bordered by Communists and you can see why they hopped aboard that train.

I don't think that is unfair but it is a very difficult thing to deal with. Most religions and belief systems have "bad" histories, but they are largely forgotten with time because they cease to be relevant.

Agreed.

From what I can tell, communists never had a clear plan in mind, made it up as they went along and accepted death as part of the "dialectic" of history and of the class struggle. Collective guilt is hard thing to explain but for what little difference it makes I'm sorry we screwed up and let people die so we could hold onto to the illusion of infallability.

What was done was not your fault and I have no problem with you personally. Unlike some people, you're willing to admit what was done in the name of the ideology you follow. I can appreciate that kind of honesty as rare. I assume you want to discuss these things to learn and sharpen your ethics/morals. What irritates me is people trying to deny or somehow soften what was done in the name of their religion or ideology. No one learns if facts are not accepted.

 

[Jumi]

Same here. My maternal grandfather was born in Russia but he migrated to the U.S. in 1913 leaving his brothers, sisters, parents
and other relatives who chose to stay. Some of those relatives died during Stalins political purges.

I'm sorry to hear that. I had distant relatives in Russia, but I have no idea as to their fate except one who became a physicist. Only thing I know is his name was in several publications.

Some male relatives died fighting in WWI, others in WWII others were exiled to Siberia, a death sentance for sure.

It was tough, but not everyone who got sent there died in Siberia. We have a saying here "Siberia teaches". It's possible some of them are still living there.

When I was very young I remember grandfather showing the rare letter from relatives still in communist Russia.
Those letters, every one, were heavily sensored with much of the information blotted out in black ink.
I imagine his letters to them were also intercepted by the Soviet government and sensored.
I wish I had accesss to those letters but doubt I could read the langauge in which they were written.
My grandfathers brother was in the calvery in WWI and was killed in combat.

Battle deaths are not as bad. Most of mine also died in battle as young conscripts they probably had no idea about war and being sent into a desperate situation in front lines during a major offensive.

If you had the letters you could have them scanned or photographed and someone could translate them for you. I think they censored everything that could be useful intel or anything that was critical of government or could be construed as such like quality or amount of food available.

 

[Revoltingest]

Lol, Thanks. (I think.)

It's unusual to identify as something, but be conflicted & doubtful about it.
That is interesting.

That is the major concern. Calling Communism "Totalitarian" is a fair way of describing the dangers, but is somewhat inaccurate given that the concept of totalitarianism was developed by Giovanni Gentile, an Italian Fascist philosopher, to describe Mussolini's Ideal state. Whilst Communism doesn't aim at totalitarianism, both ideas have roots in Hegel's philosophy of the state and it therefore rightly points out the dangers of collectivism.

So many names, terms & history.....but I believe I agree.
The premises of communism result in unintended consequences.