The Student Room Group

Why is fascism evil, but Communism isn't?

Look at the death tolls of various Communist regimes around the world. Why do these crimes go ignored while everything is about the Nazi's? Let us not forget that the Nazi's were even framed for crimes like Katyn massacre that was by the Soviets.


Is this the biggest double standard in history?

Communist symbol should be more offensive than any Swastika given how many suffered because of it.

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Neither fascism nor communism are inherently evil. I found out the other day some of my core political beliefs are pretty much 30-50% of fascist theory.

However we have the very had example of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy who pretty much make any further fascist movements taboo. The only difference with communism is the fact it was never "defeated" as such, also they where our allies during the largest war in the history of mankind, one of which that gave many western nations a feeling of moral superiority over many area's of the world.Also communism still is in effect still the main political party of many countries such as russia and you still have single party politics in china.
I would judge fascism to be an evil worldview because it usually involves the idea that one ethnicity or nationality is intrinsically better than the others. I would not judge communism to be an evil worldview because at bottom, its core principles and motivations are good, and in theory, I think it could bring about a lot more happiness than our current capitalist system. I would consider the millions killed or left to starve in the name of communism to be victims of human imperfection rather than communism itself - the result of us not setting up a communist system properly. I would also concede that, the human condition being what it is, it may not be possible to make communism work.
Original post by anosmianAcrimony
I would judge fascism to be an evil worldview because it usually involves the idea that one ethnicity or nationality is intrinsically better than the others. I would not judge communism to be an evil worldview because at bottom, its core principles and motivations are good, and in theory, I think it could bring about a lot more happiness than our current capitalist system. I would consider the millions killed or left to starve in the name of communism to be victims of human imperfection rather than communism itself - the result of us not setting up a communist system properly. I would also concede that, the human condition being what it is, it may not be possible to make communism work.


+1
Original post by driftawaay
+1


Thanks.
Original post by By Any Means
Look at the death tolls of various Communist regimes around the world. Why do these crimes go ignored while everything is about the Nazi's? Let us not forget that the Nazi's were even framed for crimes like Katyn massacre that was by the Soviets.


Is this the biggest double standard in history?

Communist symbol should be more offensive than any Swastika given how many suffered because of it.


That's a result of humans, I don't believe Communism encourages the slaughter of people. :redface:
Reply 6
Original post by anosmianAcrimony
I would judge fascism to be an evil worldview because it usually involves the idea that one ethnicity or nationality is intrinsically better than the others. I would not judge communism to be an evil worldview because at bottom, its core principles and motivations are good, and in theory, I think it could bring about a lot more happiness than our current capitalist system. I would consider the millions killed or left to starve in the name of communism to be victims of human imperfection rather than communism itself - the result of us not setting up a communist system properly. I would also concede that, the human condition being what it is, it may not be possible to make communism work.


This is very selective, arguably the fascist would counter it by saying people are much happier having structure in their lives and dogmatically following leaders. It seems people are very apt at personality politics....
Reply 7
Two sides of the same coin.
Reply 8
Communists almost always get lost in their vanity and delusions when faced with the difficulties of the actual world, when their zealous principles come into contact with reality the death and brutality is unspeakable. Any system that gets corrupted every time it is tried is not very good, actually it's a bloody sham to say that Mao and Lenin were not Communists, have you read their writings? They've read pretty much everything Marx, Engels and co ever wrote.
Reply 9
Original post by anosmianAcrimony
I would judge fascism to be an evil worldview because it usually involves the idea that one ethnicity or nationality is intrinsically better than the others. I would not judge communism to be an evil worldview because at bottom, its core principles and motivations are good, and in theory, I think it could bring about a lot more happiness than our current capitalist system.


"good in theory"? have you ever read Marx or Lenin?
No, they aren't good in theory. They are as evil as fascism, their core principles are very similar. after all, both are just slightly different version of socialism.

but to OP:
well... A lot of Brits are bloody ignorant when it comes to history, they think that only because Stalin fight against Hitler it makes him (and his ideology) somehow better than liberalism (of course, all of them forgot the role of USSR before '41).
And personally I find both signs- swastika as well as hammer'n'sickle exactly offensive. Problem is, that nobody sane wears hat or t-shirt with swastika (good thanks!), but plenty of idiots wear the ones with H&S.

Original post by Protégé
That's a result of humans, I don't believe Communism encourages the slaughter of people.


Yes, yes, it's always human fault they didn't understood the beauty of communism. Never mind there were never not-misunderstood communism state, but hey- there is nothing wrong with idea, people just never understood it (all of them), right?
If you seriously think that anyone sane would give up their private property (land, factories)- without force being used against them- to be ruled by the unelectable government than... you are naive (to put it slightly).
Whenever communists ruled, executions of "traitors of the people" either on spot or in concentration/work camps followed.
(edited 8 years ago)
Agree with the OP.

It's essentially national socialism vs. international socialism. Socialism is bad, but international socialism is destructive and far more authoritarian than national socialism, because it does not force different people together or destroy tradition. Although, both fascism and communism were great at silencing dissent.

I think Britain and the Netherlands had the most free people in all of Europe.
Because, to pick out one thing, it's not just a matter of death toll. To quote a comment I've seen on a similar debate on another site that I think answers this quite well:

These kinds of discussions seem to arise not because other atrocities are so insignificant or necessarily unrepresented, but because the Holocaust has become the paradigm/benchmark from which we (in the West) view and judge other instances of genocide or mass killing. The reason for this, I believe, is that the Holocaust shook the West's fundamental understanding of progress, when before it was naturally assumed that evolving state bureaucracies and advanced technology could only mean good. In the Holocaust, you had a modern, industrial state, motivated by a peculiar ideology that our liberal paradigm still struggles to comprehend, which used the most advanced technology and sophisticated bureaucracies available to exterminate a specific demographic of people for no other reason than that they were Jewish. Also important, that state undertook the genocide at the height of its power, where most others like the Ottoman genocide of Armenians, took place when the future of the Ottoman state was in question. Less people may have died in the Holocaust, but it was the intent of the act, the time in which it was initiated (the height of German military supremacy), the machinery with which it was carried out and the enthusiasm with which it was executed that make the Holocaust so historically significant.

Now the Holocaust, as I've said, has become the measuring stick with which we judge/examine other genocides or democides. This model is pretty problematic because it imposes issues particular to the Holocaust (mostly the racial aspect) to other atrocities. For example, the Soviet Holodomor is frequently ascribed a racial dimension because it mostly targeted Ukrainians, but I agree with Mazower who argued that Stalin only targeted Ukrainians because they happened to live in the most fertile territory whose wheat he needed to fund his industrialization. The racial dimension of Soviet atrocities is also sometimes overemphasized in hindsight by minorities who were deported or starved during the regime, in an attempt to create a narrative regarding their unwilling relationship to Soviet Communism. Mazower also contends that Soviet national policies (forced deportations) were more of a continuity with Imperial Russian practices and are not comparable at all with Nazi racial policy because the Soviets still wanted those populations within their borders. At the end of the day, trying to compare death statistics is pointless because although Stalin's regime was responsible for more deaths, the vast majority of them were unintentional because of bad policies. On the other hand, the Nazi regime may have killed less people in the Holocaust (unless you want to count the ~30 million killed as a result of Nazi Germany's war), but the intent to physically eradicate undesirable demographics with no real economic or political motivations was present.
Original post by whorace
Communists almost always get lost in their vanity and delusions when faced with the difficulties of the actual world, when their zealous principles come into contact with reality the death and brutality is unspeakable. Any system that gets corrupted every time it is tried is not very good, actually it's a bloody sham to say that Mao and Lenin were not Communists, have you read their writings? They've read pretty much everything Marx, Engels and co ever wrote.


Lenin also described what the Bolsheviks created as "state-capitalism" and was under no illusions to how Russia was not yet a socialist country. Then he died and Stalin took over and called Lenin's state-capitalism communism. Then the rest is history. The workers never really contorted the surplus they produced in Russia, the red bureaucrats did. Which is what Animal Farm is all about. The government replaced the private capitalists (or feudal system). You can use Marxist thought to show why Russia was never genuinely socialist. Communism came to mean a single party state nationalising everything in a centrist statist way.

I'm not defending Lenin but he never thought he had created socialism and there was lots of left marxist opposition to the Bolsheviks. Then you got the Trots and so on.

Lets also not forget how marxist thought also influenced our own politics in this country. When we nationalized certain industries we didn't resort to gulags. You can argue Leninism and its variants will always lead to totalitarian or authoritarian regimes with human rights abuse and so on but there is nothing in the theory which says that has to happen. Which is why is is not as bad as stuff like Nazi fascism where the eradication of certain groups of people is part of the core ideology. In fact we did watered down versions of this stuff when we nationalized industries in our western countries and we still maintained our democracy.

Original post by simon_g



If you seriously think that anyone sane would give up their private property (land, factories)- without force being used against them- to be ruled by the unelectable government than... you are naive (to put it slightly).


What happens if the government is elected?
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 13
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
Lenin also described what the Bolsheviks created as "state-capitalism" and was under no illusions to how Russia was not yet a socialist country. Then he died and Stalin took over and called Lenin's state-capitalism communism. Then the rest is history. The workers never really contorted the surplus they produced in Russia, the red bureaucrats did. Which is what Animal Farm is all about. The government replaced the private capitalists (or feudal system). You can use Marxist thought to show why Russia was never genuinely socialist. Communism came to mean a single party state nationalising everything in a centrist statist way.

I'm not defending Lenin but he never thought he had created socialism and there was lots of left marxist opposition to the Bolsheviks. Then you got the Trots and so on.

Lets also not forget how marxist thought also influenced our own politics in this country. a) When we nationalized certain industries we didn't resort to gulags. You can argue Leninism and its variants will always lead to totalitarian or authoritarian regimes with human rights abuse and so on but there is nothing in the theory which says that has to happen. Which is why is is not as bad as stuff like Nazi fascism where the eradication of certain groups of people is part of the core ideology. a) In fact we did watered down versions of this stuff when we nationalized industries in our western countries and we still maintained our democracy.
?


a) Orwell was vehemently against Communism, not just Soviet communism but communism entirely. Lenin was well aware communism would not work in the country as it had not passed through the stages, still he focused on utterly destroying any serious incentive and Stalin's suppression of the NEP men was the natural consequence of a growing middle class in his policy.

b) The difference being the Labour party did not propose to eradicate an entire group of people, known as the bourgeoise, the Communists stand vehemently against the bourgeoise and almost all Orthodox theorists (the people who actually went out and fought against capitalism, not the pseudointellectuals today) called for their immediate destruction.

The Communists were even more ruthless in a way, they supported killing entire classes of people not just ethnic groups.
Original post by simon_g
"good in theory"? have you ever read Marx or Lenin?
No, they aren't good in theory. They are as evil as fascism, their core principles are very similar.
.


Minor quibble, but you misspelled 'diametrically opposed' as 'very similar'. I know it's an easy mistake, after all the keys are right next to each other, but I thought I'd point that out in case other people got the wrong idea.
Reply 15
Original post by Captain Haddock
Minor quibble, but you misspelled 'diametrically opposed' as 'very similar'. I know it's an easy mistake, after all the keys are right next to each other, but I thought I'd point that out in case other people got the wrong idea.


Lol, I am sympathetic to the very early Soviet state which introduced many liberal reforms and believed thoroughly in the self-determination of the people, and although a lot of people died it was still progressive over the autocratic Tsars.
Original post by whorace
a) Orwell was vehemently against Communism, not just Soviet communism but communism entirely. Lenin was well aware communism would not work in the country as it had not passed through the stages, still he focused on utterly destroying any serious incentive and Stalin's suppression of the NEP men was the natural consequence of a growing middle class in his policy.


I disagree. He was definitely against inception of Soviet Communism but not communism/socialism as a whole.

Here is some of his quotes from his writing of his first hand expericne in the Spanish civil war.

"Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and draped with red flags or the red and black flag of the anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties.... Every shop and café had an inscription saying it had been collectivized. Waiters treated you as an equal <cut some out to save space>....

All this was queer and moving. There was much I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for."


"Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me. For the Spanish militias, while they lasted, were a sort of microcosm of a classless society. In that community where no one was on the make, where there was a shortage of everything but no privilege and no bootlicking, one got, perhaps, a crude forecast of what the opening stages of socialism might be like. And, after all, instead of disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. The effect was to make my desire to see socialism established much more actual than it had been before"

I would say Orwell always observed things as an outsider. He disliked capitalism, was on the side of the workers, but never became a socialist priest. He was always looking for a third way between the two (by this I don't mean that Tony Blair crap :tongue:)

He was impressed by the collectivization of the farms, the CNT and POUM worker organizations. These were the organizations that were then turned on by the Stalin backed government. They were forced to hand over the property they had collectivized.

"It is probable that the emotion that brought people into the streets was [that] the issue seemed clear enough: On one side the CNT, on the other, the police. I have no particular love for the idealized ‘worker,’ but when I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask which side I am on."

From this point on you can see how his cynicism for Stalin and the Soviet communism were created. He was never inherently against egalitarianism or worker control. He just saw The Soviet Union for what it really was. It was something that had just crushed what people had momentarily created, something resembling genuine socialism. He then had to flee to the country and spent a lot of his energy fighting against that aspect of the left whilst maintaining his own personal socialist ideals.

Original post by whorace

b) The difference being the Labour party did not propose to eradicate an entire group of people, known as the bourgeoise, the Communists stand vehemently against the bourgeoise and almost all Orthodox theorists (the people who actually went out and fought against capitalism, not the pseudointellectuals today) called for their immediate destruction.


The labour part had a wide mix of people in it and those who influenced it. Some of which were Marxists or radical unions that contain Leninist type communists who influenced the labour party. The more left leaning labour party people could use the threat of revolution to enact more moderate polices like nationalizing a few industries.

Original post by whorace

The Communists were even more ruthless in a way, they supported killing entire classes of people not just ethnic groups.


I agree with that. Although there is a perverse logic in it. The bourgeoisie who resisted were putting up a fight and it was treated as a war. That is different from thinking all Jews must be gassed.

However Marx actually said that if every man can vote then a capitalism woukld be able to be overthrown democratically. "The Communists" did not make up the entirely of the left that wanted to replace capitalism with socialism. There were democratic socialists of all kinds who thought they were enacted the first steps of a slow plod towards socialism. Then you have the left Marxists like Rosa Luxembourg and and the anarchist unions like the CNT in Spain. All wanted to replace capitalism but do not fall under the branch of "the communists" and were all hostile to Leninism and the role of an authoritarian state.

Also Orwell was sympathetic to Marx even if he never was a "marxist"

"Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also"…. It was Marx who brought it to life. And ever since he did so the motives of politicians, priests, judges, moralists and millionaires have been under the deepest suspicion–which, of course, is why they hate him so much." - Orwell on Marx
(edited 8 years ago)
Reply 17
Original post by ChaoticButterfly
I disagree. He was definitely against inception of Soviet Communism but not communism/socialism as a whole.

Here is some of his quotes from his writing of his first hand expericne in the Spanish civil war.

"Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and draped with red flags or the red and black flag of the anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties.... Every shop and café had an inscription saying it had been collectivized. Waiters treated you as an equal <cut some out to save space>....

All this was queer and moving. There was much I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for."

"Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me. For the Spanish militias, while they lasted, were a sort of microcosm of a classless society. In that community where no one was on the make, where there was a shortage of everything but no privilege and no bootlicking, one got, perhaps, a crude forecast of what the opening stages of socialism might be like. And, after all, instead of disillusioning me it deeply attracted me. The effect was to make my desire to see socialism established much more actual than it had been before"

I would say Orwell always observed things as an outsider. He disliked capitalism, was on the side of the workers, but never became a socialist priest. He was always looking for a third way between the two (by this I don't mean that Tony Blair crap :tongue:)

He was impressed by the collectivization of the farms, the CNT and POUM worker organizations. These were the organizations that were then turned on by the Stalin backed government. They were forced to hand over the property they had collectivized.

"It is probable that the emotion that brought people into the streets was [that] the issue seemed clear enough: On one side the CNT, on the other, the police. I have no particular love for the idealized ‘worker,’ but when I see an actual flesh-and-blood worker in conflict with his natural enemy, the policeman, I do not have to ask which side I am on."

From this point on you can see how his cynicism for Stalin and the Soviet communism were created. He was never inherently against egalitarianism or worker control. He just saw The Soviet Union for what it really was. It was something that had just crushed what people had momentarily created, something resembling genuine socilaism. He then had to flee to the country.



The labour part had a wide mix of people in it and those who influenced it. Some of which were Marxists or radical unions that contain Leninist type communists who influenced the labour party. The more left leaning labour party people could use the threat of revolution to enact more moderate polices like nationalizing a few industries.



I agree with that. Although there is a perverse logic in it. The bourgeoisie who resisted were putting up a fight and it was treated as a war. That is different from thinking all Jews must be gassed.

However Marx actually said that if every man can vote then a capitalism woukld be able to be overthrown democratically. "The Communists" did not make up the entirely of the left that wanted to replace capitalism with socialism. There were democratic socialists of all kinds who thought they were enacted the first steps of a slow plod towards socialism. Then you have the left Marxists like Rosa Luxembourg and and the anarchist unions like the CNT in Spain. All wanted to replace capitalism but do not fall under the branch of "the communists" and were all hostile to Leninism and the role of an authoritarian state.


To be clear I consider Communists violent revolutionaries not the revisionist type, who if you are familiar with sites like leftrev, they themselves find repulsive. Orwell was a man of moderation, he understood that everything has its strengths and weaknesses and was no doubt a socialist, but almost certainly a revisionist. In a lot of cases Communism worked against them, as radical Conservatives (an oxymoron if I ever wrote one) resisted even sensible policies from the liberals for fear it would open the way. Even most of the Labour party were radically opposed to the more violent elements.
(edited 8 years ago)
Conflating Das Kapital with the gulags is like conflating The Prince with Mein Kampf
Reply 19
Original post by Smash Bandicoot
Conflating Das Kapital with the gulags is like conflating The Prince with Mein Kampf


u wot

Hitler was the most anti-realpolitik leader going. What sort of idiot starts war on two fronts?

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