NationStates Jolt Archive

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051006/ap_on_go_ot/communism_memorial

"The memorial will honor an estimated 100 million people killed or tortured under communist rule."

"A central feature will be a bronze Goddess of Democracy statue similar to the papier-mache and Styrofoam statue erected by pro-democracy students in Beijing's Tiananmen Square during 1989 demonstrations."

"About 75 percent of the $600,000 needed to build and landscape the memorial already has been collected from donors with ties to Cuba, Hungary, Vietnam, Poland, and more than 35 other nations."

Never forget...

Damn Commies....

America didn't suffer under communism nor did it victimize people in the name of communism. There's no reason we should build a memorial to the victims except to point fingers.
Let the victims and perpetrators build the memorials (http://www.borod.com/photos/20040417prague/Images/IMG_0744.jpg).

That would be a wonderful idea if only it were a monument to Stalinism and Maoism.

I are fully supporting this.

Communism killed more people than Nazism, Democracy, or any other system. We should at least remember those who died.

I are fully supporting this.

Communism killed more people than Nazism, Democracy, or any other system. We should at least remember those who died.There has yet to be a proper memorial for the victims of American politics. We should start with our own crimes before we start pointing fingers.

Let the victims and perpetrators build the memorials. Where is that monument and what is it for?

That would be a wonderful idea if only it were a monument to Stalinism and Maoism. And Pol Pot and Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il and Ho Chi Min and...

Where is that monument and what is it for?In Prague and for the victims of communism.

America didn't suffer under communism nor did it victimize people in the name of communism. There's no reason we should build a memorial to the victims except to point fingers.
Let the victims and perpetrators build the memorials (http://www.borod.com/photos/20040417prague/Images/IMG_0744.jpg).

Absolutely agree with you mate.

If America wants to build a memorial, why not to 'victims of the KKK', 'Native American victims of 19th Century Expansion' or 'victims of the anti-abortion lobby' instead of this self-congratulating claptrap. By all means honour your heroes or remember your victims but don't go around building monuments to victims of something, many thousand miles from your borders in most cases, just because you didn't like the ideology "responsible".

Not only is that simplified beyond all sensibility, it is bigoted claptrap!

And Pol Pot and Fidel Castro and Kim Jong Il and Ho Chi Min and...

File 'em under Stalinism.

Communism never killed anyone. Dictators claiming to lead communist states killed quite a few, but seeing as we've yet to see a true communist state and probably never will maybe we should try getting our facts right. Karl Marx would turn in his grave.

Communism never killed anyone. Dictators claiming to lead communist states killed quite a few, but seeing as we've yet to see a true communist state and probably never will maybe we should try getting our facts right. Karl Marx would turn in his grave.
Just like there's never been a truly democratic state.

Too true. Here's a bit of Irony for you- America claims to be the protector of democracy. There's a line in the US constitution that says that the USA is not a democracy. So there's goes one democratic state.
Problem is, democracy's so hard to achieve. Personally, I think the British system's the closest we can get and stay stable. It may not be representative, but we don't get weak governments and the Lords can stop governments getting too much power.
Not that I really care. As long as I'm being allowed to live my life as I like it doesn't matter to me what sort of rubbish government there is.

Too true. Here's a bit of Irony for you- America claims to be the protector of democracy. There's a line in the US constitution that says that the USA is not a democracy. So there's goes one democratic state.
Problem is, democracy's so hard to achieve. Personally, I think the British system's the closest we can get and stay stable. It may not be representative, but we don't get weak governments and the Lords can stop governments getting too much power.
Not that I really care. As long as I'm being allowed to live my life as I like it doesn't matter to me what sort of rubbish government there is.Are you suggesting the Swiss are instable? :p
(they hold referenda for everything, so they're a bit more democratic than the UK)

Too true. Here's a bit of Irony for you- America claims to be the protector of democracy. There's a line in the US constitution that says that the USA is not a democracy. So there's goes one democratic state.
Problem is, democracy's so hard to achieve. Personally, I think the British system's the closest we can get and stay stable. It may not be representative, but we don't get weak governments and the Lords can stop governments getting too much power.
Not that I really care. As long as I'm being allowed to live my life as I like it doesn't matter to me what sort of rubbish government there is.

Britain is about as far from a secular democracy as you can get and still be termed a Western state, mate.


the Swiss hold referenda for everything

No they don't.

America didn't suffer under communism nor did it victimize people in the name of communism. There's no reason we should build a memorial to the victims except to point fingers.
Let the victims and perpetrators build the memorials (http://www.borod.com/photos/20040417prague/Images/IMG_0744.jpg).
I agree. Although the USA, Canada, Western Europe, Brazil, etc. received many of the victims of Communist dictatorships as immigrants / refugees, there is no reason to construct such a memorial in those countries! The memorial(s) should be erected where the humans rights crimes were perpetrated. Such monuments would remind us all how precious are our civil rights.

Britain is about as far from a secular democracy as you can get and still be termed a Western state, mate.

how so?

Communism never killed anyone. Dictators claiming to lead communist states killed quite a few, but seeing as we've yet to see a true communist state and probably never will maybe we should try getting our facts right. Karl Marx would turn in his grave.
did no one read this? would anyone care to explain how you can be a victim of an idea..

No they don't.Figuratively speaking. They do it quite often, most recently on the status of the new EU members.

OOC: See, this is why no one recommends building a memorial that is not in present terms for the US or any nation really, to much debate on what I feel is not Government Funds donated but much rather Private Donors/

At more of a fact, I see that when I read this that we got not into the memorial, but more of the fact of why we shouldn't, and then what kind of government is more like a democracy. Makes me laugh inside, truly does.

cant say too much about democracy i was born in Pakistan which is run by a more or less benevolent military dictatorship and by elected officials all at the same.

And im living in the United Arab Emirates where the Emirates are run by monarchs called shieks but there seems to be nothing much wrong here either

Its not the ideals that kill people its the peole who pretend to follow the ideals to gain power who kill people

Communism never killed anyone. Dictators claiming to lead communist states killed quite a few, but seeing as we've yet to see a true communist state and probably never will maybe we should try getting our facts right. Karl Marx would turn in his grave.

This is just not true. Communism advocates class warfare. It also invloves the elimination of private property. Basically this entails the collectivisation of all private property so as to eliminate economic classes.

In the Ukraine, for example, the Soviet Union's efforts to eliminate the "Kulak" class, basically the "wealthy peasants", along with forced collectivisation led to the deaths in a state-instituted policy of starvation of perhaps 10 million people.

Forced collectivisation and class warfare in other parts of the nation resulted in yet more horrendous deaths.

So I suggest it is you who get your facts straight. Saying that Communism wasn't responcible for mass death is as insulting as saying Nazism wasn't.

Absolutely agree with you mate.

If America wants to build a memorial, why not to 'victims of the KKK', 'Native American victims of 19th Century Expansion' or 'victims of the anti-abortion lobby' instead of this self-congratulating claptrap. By all means honour your heroes or remember your victims but don't go around building monuments to victims of something, many thousand miles from your borders in most cases, just because you didn't like the ideology "responsible".

Not only is that simplified beyond all sensibility, it is bigoted claptrap!
I'm with both of you on this one. Americans have no right to take the "holier than thou" attitude! Our history ain't so purty either! Our efforts/money/resources need to be spent on doing better than the past, not memorializing what can't be changed.

Would you say that the US should not have Holocaust memorials within it?

Would you say that the US should not have Holocaust memorials within it?The holocaust was the biggest shock to modern morality. It showed that human beings were capable of doing things to other human beings what everyone thought a human being wouldn't be capable of.
Holocaust memorials, yes. But a memorial for the Bosnians killed by Serbs in Srebrenica on American soil, no.

The holocaust was the biggest shock to modern morality. It showed that human beings were capable of doing things to other human beings what everyone thought a human being wouldn't be capable of.

I could just as easily apply this to Soviet genocidal policies. Are you saying that the intentional starving of an entire nation to liquidate a whole class of people, killing as many people if not more than the entire Holocaust (and this is just the Ukraine from 32-33 we are talking about) is not a "shock to modern morality"?

Are you saying that it doesn't "show that human being were capable of doing things to other human beings what everyone though a human being wouldn't be capable of[sic]"?

Really there is no difference between the two. In one case people were killed for racist reasons, in the other case for political reasons. Now, consider that the Soviet crimes were on a far larger scale. Why shouldn't they also have memorials dedicated to them if the Holocaust should?

This is just not true. Communism advocates class warfare. It also invloves the elimination of private property. Basically this entails the collectivisation of all private property so as to eliminate economic classes.

In the Ukraine, for example, the Soviet Union's efforts to eliminate the "Kulak" class, basically the "wealthy peasants", along with forced collectivisation led to the deaths in a state-instituted policy of starvation of perhaps 10 million people.

Forced collectivisation and class warfare in other parts of the nation resulted in yet more horrendous deaths.

So I suggest it is you who get your facts straight. Saying that Communism wasn't responcible for mass death is as insulting as saying Nazism wasn't.
my facts are straight. Ideas don't kill people. People kill people. Fascism didn't kill anybody but the fascists did.. I'm pretty much an anarchist btw and I know historically what communists did to people like me..

my facts are straight. Ideas don't kill people. People kill people. Fascism didn't kill anybody but the fascists did.. I'm pretty much an anarchist btw and I know historically what communists did to people like me..

But this seems a fairly pointless observation. In the end, all ideas are human constructs. It doesn't mean people can't be victims of these constructs. There are victims of Communism just as there are victims of Nazism.

Anyway, I wasn't actually saying you needed to get your facts straight, yours is a position that a case can be made out for, though I disagree with it. You can, I guess, argue that ultimately Nazism didn't kill a single person, the Nazis did.

I was actually saying that the person you quoted should "get his facts straight" becuase his understanding of the nature of Communism is just simply wrong. Communism wasn't some "really nice idea that went wrong". To hold this view is to not understand the nature of Communism.

Class warfare, worldwide revolution, collectivisation: all of these are central elements of Communism. All of these led to untold suffering, the murder of countless people. Just as much as Nazism's racist policies led to its murders.

(you'll forgive me if I don't respond for some time, I need to leave now)

But this seems a fairly pointless observation. In the end, all ideas are human constructs. It doesn't mean people can't be victims of these constructs. There are victims of Communism just as there are victims of Nazism.
The point is that blaming it on an idea only serves to take the responsibility away from people. It's an excuse which distracts from a problem that has plagued mankind from the dawn of civilization which is no thinks for themselves, thinks about what they're doing or takes responsibilty for their actions. Besides, blatant propaganda is no way to honour the dead..

It's true that blatant prpaganda doesn't honour the dead but I don't see how one can call a memorial to the victims of Communism propaganda.

As for your first point, I wasn't blaming the ideology per se, but it was responcible. Obviously the people who carried the crimes out are also responcible and no one would deny that so it seems a mute point. There is no reason why several things can't be responcible.

Your argument is like saying "racism wasn't a cause of black linchings in the South of the US, people were, don't blame racism". There is no reason to not blame both.

(now I really must go)

I was actually saying that the person you quoted should "get his facts straight" becuase his understanding of the nature of Communism is just simply wrong. Communism wasn't some "really nice idea that went wrong". To hold this view is to not understand the nature of Communism.


Uhu. Incorrect. Marx didn't expect communism to occur the way it has done. What we think of as communism is definately not what Marx intended. Basically, he looked at the history of someof the most civilised nations, in particular Britain. What he realised was, throughout history there were times when revolutions occured, and power was moved from it's position to the position of being held by people who formerly did not have power. He logically worked out that eventually revolutiopn would move power to the worker. He expected it to happen in a nation like Britain. NOT in somewhere like Russia which hadn't even eached capitalism. Furthermore, what the Bloshiviks came up with was by no means communism as Marx saw it. Communism is a theory, a great idea that just isn't going to occur. Fact.

If I, as an anticapitalist, am going to claim that that there are victims of capitalism in the world - and I do - then I must accept that it is fair to say that there are and have been victims of communism also. The sad truth is that labels are rarely representative of that which they cover. So, yes, we should have memorials for victims of communism.

But...

In the USA? Fuck off. Laerod is right - the memorials should be in the places where they actually mean something, not wehere they're a political statement. Should the UK host prominent public memorials for victims of slavery in the cotton plantations of the southern USA? No.

This memorial is offensive propaganda and that is all. It's shameful.

communism dosen't advocate class warfare. it realises it exists. It calls for a revolution purely because that is the only way that you can change the fabric of society. and when you talk about the destruction of the kulaks as a class do you have any idea how many peasents they starved over the years they were in power.Obviously most of the people who were killed were only marginally responsible and i condemn it completely but the kulaks as a class had to be dissolved. shouldnt have been killed though. I would like to make obvious that i am NOT a stalinist or a communist for that matter but i am left wing.Surely any idiot can see the holes in your arguments. You should learn about communism from both sides of the argument instead of believing everything you hear from your western, anti-communist sources.

I could just as easily apply this to Soviet genocidal policies. Are you saying that the intentional starving of an entire nation to liquidate a whole class of people, killing as many people if not more than the entire Holocaust (and this is just the Ukraine from 32-33 we are talking about) is not a "shock to modern morality"?Starving people went on before. The industrial slaughter bit is what made the holocaust so significant.

Are you saying that it doesn't "show that human being were capable of doing things to other human beings what everyone though a human being wouldn't be capable of[sic]"?Technically speaking, yes, since the British were perfectly capable of doing similar to the Germans in WWI. That was before 32-33.

Really there is no difference between the two. In one case people were killed for racist reasons, in the other case for political reasons. Now, consider that the Soviet crimes were on a far larger scale. Why shouldn't they also have memorials dedicated to them if the Holocaust should?No. The holocaust and WWII lasted a lot shorter than Stalin's rule, let alone Communism. To assume that Communism was worse simply because it was on a larger scale relativates the holocaust in a despicable manner.
Now in 12 years, about 11 million people died due to the holocaust alone. Considering that more than half of those died in the last THREE years, the holocaust is unprecedented in cruelty.
Likewise, the war that went in conjunction with the holocaust cost quite a few more lives. And considering that it was a World War, the world does have some right to lay claim to memorials.
Stalinism (what was done in the Ukraine in 32-33) didn't reach much other places than Soviet territory at the time. That isn't something solely attributed to communism.

how so?


1. We have an established state religion in the Church of England which our Head of State is head of, hence we are not secular.
2. We have a parliamentary electoral system that is not representative of the will of the country. Hence why Labour with 35% of votes last time around ended up with more than 60% of seats in parliament.
3. The level of political participation is at best mediocre.

Hence to call Britain the model of secular democracy is at best, idiotic!

Figuratively speaking. They do it quite often, most recently on the status of the new EU members.

There is more to being a direct democracy than having referenda. Who decides upon what is put to referendum in Switzerland? Elected Politicians!
The Ancient Athenian system of a direct democracy is the closest to a political system of it in that EVERY PIECE of legislation was voted upon by the electorate. That such a system is unworkable nowadays, is not what we were saying. Alongside that is the fact that slaves and women were excluded from voting in Athens so it was not a democratic system.

There is more to being a direct democracy than having referenda. Who decides upon what is put to referendum in Switzerland? Elected Politicians!I said more democratic than the UK. I could also say breaking your arm is more fun than breaking two arms, and while it would be true, it wouldn't make breaking an arm fun (just more fun than breaking two).
The Ancient Athenian system of a direct democracy is the closest to a political system of it in that EVERY PIECE of legislation was voted upon by the electorate. That such a system is unworkable nowadays, is not what we were saying. Alongside that is the fact that slaves and women were excluded from voting in Athens so it was not a democratic system.All Athenian citizens got to vote. Slaves, women, and non-citizens weren't citizens, much like most immigrants with resident status aren't citizens in the UK. ;)

1. We have an established state religion in the Church of England which our Head of State is head of, hence we are not secular.
2. We have a parliamentary electoral system that is not representative of the will of the country. Hence why Labour with 35% of votes last time around ended up with more than 60% of seats in parliament.
3. The level of political participation is at best mediocre.

Hence to call Britain the model of secular democracy is at best, idiotic!

But I agree. The UK is about as democratic as a...very undemocratic state in a bag.

True, and plus the fact we don't even elect our head of state AND we have the worst system of devolution in the history of mankind!

There is more to being a direct democracy than having referenda. Who decides upon what is put to referendum in Switzerland? Elected Politicians!
The Ancient Athenian system of a direct democracy is the closest to a political system of it in that EVERY PIECE of legislation was voted upon by the electorate. That such a system is unworkable nowadays, is not what we were saying. Alongside that is the fact that slaves and women were excluded from voting in Athens so it was not a democratic system.

Referenda in switzerland are called by voters' petition, not by politicians.

The holocaust was the biggest shock to modern morality. It showed that human beings were capable of doing things to other human beings what everyone thought a human being wouldn't be capable of.
Holocaust memorials, yes. But a memorial for the Bosnians killed by Serbs in Srebrenica on American soil, no.

the holocaust wasnt on us soil either, whats the difference?

Britain is about as far from a secular democracy as you can get and still be termed a Western state, mate.



No they don't.

-edit-
damn, I got confused and answered a point on the first page
-edit-

America didn't suffer under communism nor did it victimize people in the name of communism. There's no reason we should build a memorial to the victims except to point fingers.
Let the victims and perpetrators build the memorials (http://www.borod.com/photos/20040417prague/Images/IMG_0744.jpg).
maybe you missed this part;

"About 75 percent of the $600,000 needed to build and landscape the memorial already has been collected from donors with ties to Cuba, Hungary, Vietnam, Poland, and more than 35 other nations."

did no one read this? would anyone care to explain how you can be a victim of an idea..

ask the Jews about Eugenics or the ideas of the Nazi party. After they stop laughing at you I'll consider answering your question.

Idiots the lot of them. No system of Government is free from trouble, yet it seems since Capitalism won so it must always be good. Lets wait to see how many die in the Name of capitalism in the Middle East and the war on terror, it won't be 100 million but still. I'll be sure to egg the thing once it's built. It's an insult to put in on American soil where in the past we bashed all commies, even the 100 million killed.

my facts are straight. Ideas don't kill people. People kill people. Fascism didn't kill anybody but the fascists did.. I'm pretty much an anarchist btw and I know historically what communists did to people like me..
You're speaking but you're not thinking. If you cannot see the contradiction in your own statement then you are really not capable of having a discussion on this topic.

Communism is a theory, a great idea that just isn't going to occur. Fact.

Right up there with theft and forced labor... :rolleyes:

That would be a wonderful idea if only it were a monument to Stalinism and Maoism.
No one ever remembers Enver Hoxha. :mad:

snip

Should the UK host prominent public memorials for victims of slavery in the cotton plantations of the southern USA? No.




Wrong. Had the UK been the place where slaves went to for refuge and assylum then absolutely yes. Considering that a large number of the victims of Communism found refuge in the USA then it is the perfect place for a memorial.

Pretty much nullifies the rest of your fallacy - no need to address your less eloquent comments.

"A central feature will be a bronze Goddess of Democracy statue similar to the papier-mache and Styrofoam statue erected by pro-democracy students in Beijing's Tiananmen Square during 1989 demonstrations."

That...is lame.

The Pro-Democracy Students? That's a laugh. Those students were mainly protesting for MORE socialism (they NEEDED to be dispersed), and against China letting in Black Students.

Though there would have been a better way to deal with Tiananmen Square, I see nothing wrong with what China did.

Right up there with theft and forced labor... :rolleyes:
Sounds like early modern capitalism to me....

Sounds like early modern capitalism to me....
Aww, I was going to say that :(

Too true. Here's a bit of Irony for you- America claims to be the protector of democracy. There's a line in the US constitution that says that the USA is not a democracy. So there's goes one democratic state.
Problem is, democracy's so hard to achieve. Personally, I think the British system's the closest we can get and stay stable. It may not be representative, but we don't get weak governments and the Lords can stop governments getting too much power.
Not that I really care. As long as I'm being allowed to live my life as I like it doesn't matter to me what sort of rubbish government there is.

the Weimar Republic was the closest democracy ever to true democracy, however britain aint even close

yes, i do love that America

yes, i do love that America
:confused:

the Weimar Republic was the closest democracy ever to true democracy, however britain aint even close

I didn't say Britain was close. I said it's the best system. The closer you are to democracy, the worse the government. See, the Weimar republic used a PR system, like many governments. This led to weak governments with no single party able to get a huge majority. In Britain we use FPTP. It may be unrepresentational and unfair to small parties, but it gives strong governments and to me that's what's important. Strength.

I didn't say Britain was close. I said it's the best system. The closer you are to democracy, the worse the government. See, the Weimar republic used a PR system, like many governments. This led to weak governments with no single party able to get a huge majority. In Britain we use FPTP. It may be unrepresentational and unfair to small parties, but it gives strong governments and to me that's what's important. Strength.


PR is only weak when a nation is indecisive. The Scottish Parliament uses Proportional Representation, and works quite well, in fact better so than the Westminster parliament. also i am well aware of the pitfalls of PR, having studied the Weimar Republic exstensively. Had the W R used FPTP system Hitler would have gained power in july 1932, lending him an extra six months to build his army up until the outbreak of war.

The Scottish Parliament uses Proportional Representation, and works quite well, in fact better so than the Westminster parliament.

Not from where I'm standing it doesn't. The executive doesn't work well at all. What _does_ work is the rather brilliant commitee system. Commitees are allowed to pass laws without putting them through the main debating chamber. That's why the Scottish Executive works.

Also, my point about the Weimar republic was slightly more complicated than you may like to think. If they'd had stronger leadership the Nazis might not have risen to power in the first place. The weak governments were one reason for their popularity.

DIN sector:

Uhu. Incorrect. Marx didn't expect communism to occur the way it has done. What we think of as communism is definately not what Marx intended.
Some parts of it weren’t and others were. Forced collectivization definitely was. Communism is not simply Marx’s theory. Like all ideologies it developed over time, and it definitely includes concepts like class warfare, forced collectivization, “war on the peasants”, worldwide revolution, etc, espoused by Lenin.

Do you deny that Marx wanted the elimination of social classes? Do you deny that he conceived that the method for this would be through conflict and revolution? Do you think conflict and revolution would be nice things, or that the victims of these would “deserve it”? Of course to liquidate the higher classes, the bourgeoisie, Marx envisioned conflict, and that is exactly what happened in Soviet Russia.

The rest of your post is too poorly thought out to require any more feedback.

This memorial is offensive propaganda and that is all. It's shameful.
Yes and Holocaust memorials are also offensive propaganda?

Losina:

communism dosen't advocate class warfare.
Haha, what a joke. Of course it does, it wants to intensify it, to amplify it. The elimination of socio-political classes in the Soviet Union such as the Kulaks was realization of this central tenant.

and when you talk about the destruction of the kulaks as a class do you have any idea how many peasents they starved over the years they were in power.Obviously most of the people who were killed were only marginally responsible and i condemn it completely but the kulaks as a class had to be dissolved.
That is an absolutely disgusting an reprehensible thing to say. Peasants with any form of wealth had to b eliminated? Because they own several animals or have one or two workers on their farms they need to be liquidated?

But you illustrate my point perfectly that this is what Communism dictated.

shouldnt have been killed though.
This statement shows a naivety I think. Do you think a whole political grouping of people can have their entire property confiscated and collectivized without conflict? What about the fact that the act of collectivization itself causes death, starvation and so on?

No, Communist doctrine was that these classes should be liquidated, as Lenin said, “the peasants will have to do a little starving”.

I would like to make obvious that i am NOT a stalinist or a communist for that matter but i am left wing.
You are on the extreme left wing. When you advocate the end of private property you as extremely left on the scale as any Communist, economically speaking.

Surely any idiot can see the holes in your arguments.
Thanks. Obviously this idiot wasn’t smart to point out those holes to me though.

Laerod:

Starving people went on before. The industrial slaughter bit is what made the holocaust so significant.
The famine in the Ukraine was industrial slaughter on a level that at least met if not surpassed that of the Holocaust.

Technically speaking, yes, since the British were perfectly capable of doing similar to the Germans in WWI. That was before 32-33.
What is the relevance here? Anyone is capable of doing anything, the Holocaust was not unique. Stalin’s Russia proves that.

No. The holocaust and WWII lasted a lot shorter than Stalin's rule, let alone Communism.
The Ukrainian famine lasted 2 years and killed at least an equal number as died in the Holocaust. So this invalidates your statement. And the fact that Stalin killed more people for longer hardly seems a reason to me a logical reason to make the Holocaust special and his crimes not.


To assume that Communism was worse simply because it was on a larger scale relativates the holocaust in a despicable manner.
The only despicable thing is to consider some crimes worse than others even when those you dismiss where on a vastly larger scale and for longer.

Now in 12 years, about 11 million people died due to the holocaust alone. Considering that more than half of those died in the last THREE years, the holocaust is unprecedented in cruelty.
It wasn’t unprecedented as I have shown. Up to 12 million Ukrainians died from 32-33 alone. Now add in the forced collectivization programs in Belarussia, the Volga area, Northern Russia, etc, etc, and you get a truly horrendous death toll.

Likewise, the war that went in conjunction with the holocaust cost quite a few more lives.
The war is irrelevant, we are talking about atrocities.

Stalinism (what was done in the Ukraine in 32-33) didn't reach much other places than Soviet territory at the time.
This is a joke. Forced collectivization, a brutal policy where peasants had their harvests confiscated, where deported, where evicted from their homes to die in the wilderness exposed to the cold, occurred all over the Soviet Union. In places such as the northern Caucasus and the Volga areas it was just as brutal as what occurred in the Ukraine.

That isn't something solely attributed to communism.
Only as much as the Holocaust isn’t solely attributed to Nazism.

Dehny:

the Weimar Republic was the closest democracy ever to true democracy
Why do you say this. Do you realize that the Weimar Republic gave unusually strong powers to the President, even the powers to circumvent and suspend the constitution in times of crisis, and that these powers were ultimately used by Hitler to come to power and form his dictatorship?

Hardly what I would call “the closets democracy ever to true democracy”.

Marx was kinda vague when it comes to how a socialist society or communist society would organize itself. He wanted it left up to the people of the time of the revolution.

Revolutions are bloody this is a fact. People who argue againist them need to realize that many great countries were born from revolution ~ American being the most glaring example. During the American revolution people died, peoples land was forcefully stolen. Yet from the chaos a new society and country was born.

In a communist revolution the first stage is not communism, its socialism. First off, most people would not lose anything. Small business, small land holdings and family farms are safe( I think small land holdings would be anything from a small lot to 20 acres) Large land owners and large business would have there proporty seized for society and land given to the people( NOT the state). The factories would be run by the workers and profits shared by the workers( there is still is incentive). The people who have land and property taken will be compensated. Doctors adn other skilled labour would still be payed much more then other regular labour. This new socialist society would see wealth and power concentrated distributed amongst the people. As time goes by the wealth of the people would grow and everyone would prosper.

Atleast that would be the ideal.

Idiots the lot of them. No system of Government is free from trouble, yet it seems since Capitalism won so it must always be good. Lets wait to see how many die in the Name of capitalism in the Middle East and the war on terror, it won't be 100 million but still. I'll be sure to egg the thing once it's built. It's an insult to put in on American soil where in the past we bashed all commies, even the 100 million killed.

It's fine to state your opinion, but when you make such accusations as you have (which I bolded), that's going a bit far. Normally, I wouldn't comment, but you have a past history to take into account, so consider it a gentle nudge to refrain from the insults.

1. We have an established state religion in the Church of England which our Head of State is head of, hence we are not secular.
2. We have a parliamentary electoral system that is not representative of the will of the country. Hence why Labour with 35% of votes last time around ended up with more than 60% of seats in parliament.
3. The level of political participation is at best mediocre.

Hence to call Britain the model of secular democracy is at best, idiotic!



There is more to being a direct democracy than having referenda. Who decides upon what is put to referendum in Switzerland? Elected Politicians!
The Ancient Athenian system of a direct democracy is the closest to a political system of it in that EVERY PIECE of legislation was voted upon by the electorate. That such a system is unworkable nowadays, is not what we were saying. Alongside that is the fact that slaves and women were excluded from voting in Athens so it was not a democratic system.

What's this obsession with secularism as being important for democracy? The other poster didn't stipulate it.

One might argue that a moderate state religion is actually beneficial to the democratic process. I mean compare the effects of religion in politics in Britain and the "secular" politics of the US.

Anyway you don't think Athenian democracy which you hold as the ideal was anything like secular do you? Hell at least in Britain they don't execute you for blasphemy like poor old Socrates.

(but I do agree with you that Britain is by no means the best exemplar of democractic governance even if it does tick over OK.)

America didn't suffer under communism nor did it victimize people in the name of communism.

But America was the nation that did the most to stop it. Have you forgotten?

Sounds like early modern capitalism to me....

Actually it was post late middle premature primitive modern postmarked early capitalism... to be exact.

If I, as an anticapitalist, am going to claim that that there are victims of capitalism in the world - and I do - then I must accept that it is fair to say that there are and have been victims of communism also. The sad truth is that labels are rarely representative of that which they cover. So, yes, we should have memorials for victims of communism.
.

Hmmm, OK. lets take a critical look at societies which were capitalist then converted to communist and compare the death toll to those societies which were communist then converted to capitalist. Hmmm, which one has the higher death toll??? Which one has 're-education' camps and political prisoners? Which one has a state run media?

Oh yea - you are sooo insightful to completely ignore the obvious.

lets take a critical look at societies which were capitalist then converted to communist and compare the death toll to those societies which were communist then converted to capitalist.
Are we doing collectivist calculations now?

I had a teacher once who was German (or of German decent) and he told us about a story during WW2, when his uncle lived in Eastern Germany, although he was not a soldier, when the Soviet Union was pushing east through Poland, soldiers came to his house one night and took him away. He was never seen from again. Maybe this is a poor example, personally I feel bad for the people in China and Cuba that have tried to start democratic revolution or something similar and then been arrested or what ever the hell those commie bastards do now.

I had a teacher once who was German (or of German decent) and he told us about a story during WW2, when his uncle lived in Eastern Germany, although he was not a soldier, when the Soviet Union was pushing east through Poland, soldiers came to his house one night and took him away. He was never seen from again.
That falls under "war", not under communism.
And it wasn't Poland then... :D

That falls under "war", not under communism.
And it wasn't Poland then... :D


He was a foreign citizen killed by Communists and technically, he lived in "East" Germany, or maybe Poland after the war. It was all the same Communist, Stalinist mush.

He was a foreign citizen killed by Communists and technically, he lived in "East" Germany, or maybe Poland after the war. It was all the same Communist, Stalinist mush.
Oh no, that is a very important distinction:
He was a foreign citizen, killed during WWII by forces of a totalitarian state that referred to itself as a "Soviet Republic". People that were killed during WWII by the Nazis for non-ideological reasons weren't victims of Nazism either.
It also depends on the location exactly - during WWII "east Germany" was Prussia and Silesia. But it is of no importance.
Stalinism and Communism are very different things.
Compare:
The term "Stalinism" was first used by Trotskyists opposed to the regime in the Soviet Union, particularly to attempt to separate the policies of the Soviet government from those they regard as more true to Marxism. Trotskyists argue that the Stalinist USSR was not socialist (and certainly not communist), but a bureaucratized degenerated workers state—that is, a non-capitalist state in which exploitation is controlled by a ruling caste which, while it did not own the means of production and was not a social class in its own right, accrued benefits and privileges at the expense of the working class. Stalinism could not have existed without the prior overturning of capitalism by the October revolution, but it is notable that Joseph Stalin, himself, was not active in the October revolution, advocating a policy of collaboration with the Provisional Government, rather than seizing power.
The notion of communism - the idea of a classless, stateless and moneyless society based on communal ownership of the means of production, stretches far back in Western thought long predating Marx and Engels. Some have even traced communist ideas back to ancient times, such as in Plato's The Republic; or (perhaps with more justification) in the life of the early Christian Church, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (see Christian communism).

No one ever remembers Enver Hoxha. :mad:

What has he got to do with the price of cheese in Albania?

Oh, right. Pretty much everything.

That...is lame.

The Pro-Democracy Students? That's a laugh. Those students were mainly protesting for MORE socialism (they had it coming), and against China letting in Black Students (which is a smaller add-on, but not as important as the fact that they were socialism)

Though there would have been a better way to deal with Tiananmen Square, I see NOTHING wrong with what China did.

I see nobody has been able to refute me...

But America was the nation that did the most to stop it. Have you forgotten?

Actually, America did the most to spread it.

Hmmm, OK. lets take a critical look at societies which were capitalist then converted to communist and compare the death toll to those societies which were communist then converted to capitalist. Hmmm, which one has the higher death toll??? Which one has 're-education' camps and political prisoners? Which one has a state run media?

Oh yea - you are sooo insightful to completely ignore the obvious.
I'm terribly sorry. Did you quote the wrong comment? My statement was taking issue with those who object to placing blame on 'communism' as an ideology when, chances are, they are people who would have no qualms with blaming capitalism as an ideology. Your response has nothing to do with this. You might as well have been criticising my taste in cheese for all the relevance of your reply.

Please, if you're going to be so derogatory about me, at least have the wit to make your slanders in some way pertinent.

Oh no, that is a very important distinction:
He was a foreign citizen, killed during WWII by forces of a totalitarian state that referred to itself as a "Soviet Republic". People that were killed during WWII by the Nazis for non-ideological reasons weren't victims of Nazism either.
It also depends on the location exactly - during WWII "east Germany" was Prussia and Silesia. But it is of no importance.
Stalinism and Communism are very different things.
Compare:


So anyone killed during the holocaust was not a victim of Nazism? And what is your defintion of a Communist State anyway. Most communist I talk to can't even agree on what is :rolleyes:

So anyone killed during the holocaust was not a victim of Nazism? And what is your defintion of a Communist State anyway. Most communist I talk to can't even agree on what is :rolleyes:

However, we pretty much all agree that the Soviet Union was Communist for about a month before the Bolsheviks got in...

However, we pretty much all agree that the Soviet Union was Communist for about a month before the Bolsheviks got in...
What are you talking about? The Soviet Union was formed in December 1922. Five years had already elapsed since the October Revolution, which, incidentally, was organized by the Bolsheviks.

What has he got to do with the price of cheese in Albania?

Oh, right. Pretty much everything.
Yeah, he fucked the people for over two decades, that deserves some recognition.

Arguing over which manifestation of an economic/political system caused the deaths of more people seems to be completely pointless to me. One can't dismiss an idea simply because it has been a motivation in the past for mass murder (read: religion).

Socialism, communism, communitarianism, anarchy, or whatever you want to call it, stresses the brotherhood of humanity and cooperation. At its heart, capitalism is an economic system that treats everything, including people, as a resource that can and must be exploited for profit. The victims of capitalism are not only Native Americans, slaves, the working poor, etc., but everyone who has been conned into lifelong quest for material possessions.

However, we pretty much all agree that the Soviet Union was Communist for about a month before the Bolsheviks got in...


So Lenin and Trotsky weren't Communists?

So Lenin and Trotsky weren't Communists?

Communists have a habit of denying anyone and anything of theirs that has been discredited before going out and doing the same darn thing again. :rolleyes:

So anyone killed during the holocaust was not a victim of Nazism?
That's ideology. Sure they were.
Soldiers or civilians killed for non-ideological reasons during the course of the war aren't. At least not directly.

At any rate, in this example specifically, if the Germans that suffered from the advance of the red army were victims of any ideology, it would be Nazism.
Those Soviet soldiers didn't kill them because they were "fascists" but because they took revenge for what Nazis had done in Russia.

And what is your defintion of a Communist State anyway. Most communist I talk to can't even agree on what is :rolleyes:
That's because a suprisingly small number of people who call themselves communists have ever actually read any of the theoretical foundations. Because those are compilcated at times - and when kiddies at school, or even at uni proclaim their communism, most of them couldn't be bothered to read about it.

There can't be a communist "state". Communism is stateless - it is achieved once society abandons the dictatorship of the proletariate (this might be closer to the USSR we've seen), once all governments are abandoned, all money is burned and so on.
We can't "plan" for a communist world, for it is an evolutionary process.

That being said, people have been killed in the name of what people understood communism to be, or what they considered necessary to make it work. That you would call it a "memorial for the victims of communism" is provocative at best - it would be better to make it a memorial for the victims of all totalitarian systems over the ages. But that would include those that were supported by the West - and it'll take another five decaeds before we'll be ready to take responsibility for that.

Communists have a habit of denying anyone and anything of theirs that has been discredited before going out and doing the same darn thing again. :rolleyes:

Well, so do capitalists. Your point?

What about building a memorial for the millions of Native Americans which were exterminated in the name of "Progress", "Manifest Destiny" and Capitalism?.....

In the end, we are all guilty....

By the way, all you people who say that America wasn't affected by Communism are dead wrong. Over 80,000 Americans died fighting regimes that claimed to be Communists. Hundreds of Thousands of more were wounded. Our country was engaged in a Cold War with the Soviet Union for 4 decades. Sure, not as many Americans died by Communist hands as did, say, my Polish relatives, but Communism had a very large impact on the U.S. It makes me angry that you people won't acknowledge that America nearly went to war with the Communists on numerous occasions, and if that happened then our nation would have suffered many times more than most others(where would the majority of Soviet Nukes be pointed at, hmmm?)

By the way, all you people who say that America wasn't affected by Communism are dead wrong. Over 80,000 Americans died fighting regimes that claimed to be Communists.

Yeah, because Vietnam was totally getting ready for an assault on the US mainland.

America didn't suffer under communism nor did it victimize people in the name of communism. There's no reason we should build a memorial to the victims except to point fingers.
Let the victims and perpetrators build the memorials (http://www.borod.com/photos/20040417prague/Images/IMG_0744.jpg).
Yeah, and the rest of the world shouldn't remember/think of/honour those killed in 9/11 or by Katrina, 'cause you brought that on yourselves. I mean, if you live near water, expect to get wet. Same thing?

Yeah, because Vietnam was totally getting ready for an assault on the US mainland.

I didn't say the war was right, I just said that the Americans who died there(50k died in Vietnam, 30k died in Korea) died fighting Communism. And those two wars(Vietnam more than Korea) shaped the U.S. for decades to come.

It's fine to state your opinion, but when you make such accusations as you have (which I bolded), that's going a bit far. Normally, I wouldn't comment, but you have a past history to take into account, so consider it a gentle nudge to refrain from the insults.


I apologize for the rudeness. That was indeed tacky. But I hope it's okay for me to clear up some things.

Bozzy mis-understood some of it, and for the record I don't enjoy him comparing me to another poster.

Just to clear things up it was rude and distasteful, but it wasn't flame bait considering that it wasn't directed at anyone in the thread. if those 100 million were alive they would have been considered 'enemy'


In a war Propaganda is in absolutes. Everyone on the other side is bad. Even the ones being oppressed or hurt.

Example:
In the 50s America was told that everyone in Russia was out to get the US. And that Every Communist was ploting the downfall of America. Now tell me if that wasn't the mentality?

I apologize for the rudeness. That was indeed tacky. But I hope it's okay for me to clear up some things.

Bozzy mis-understood some of it, and for the record I don't enjoy him comparing me to another poster.

Just to clear things up it was rude and distasteful, but it wasn't flame bait considering that it wasn't directed at anyone in the thread. if those 100 million were alive they would have been considered 'enemy'


In a war Propaganda is in absolutes. Everyone on the other side is bad. Even the ones being oppressed or hurt.

Example:
In the 50s America was told that everyone in Russia was out to get the US. And that Every Communist was ploting the downfall of America. Now tell me if that wasn't the mentality?

Despite you saying it wasn't flamebait, it could have been taken that way. Either way, there was no officialness to my warning, so it carries no weight. Just a suggestion for the future to avoid saying things like that.

In the 50s America was told that everyone in Russia was out to get the US. And that Every Communist was ploting the downfall of America. Now tell me if that wasn't the mentality?
Not Pavel Chekov

Sounds reasonable to build a memorial. Communism killed the most people than anything else in the 20th century. More significantly, however, communism ruthlessly murdered millions more not in body, but in spirit.

I think that it would be much more accurate to call it Soviet communism than to just throw all communism together.

Granted soviet communism is the only form of communism to make it as a form of government, so maybe the distinction isn't nessary.

Communism never killed anyone. Dictators claiming to lead communist states killed quite a few, but seeing as we've yet to see a true communist state and probably never will maybe we should try getting our facts right. Karl Marx would turn in his grave.

Yep it's just a coincidence that every attempt at a communist state ended up being a corrupt genocidal totalitarian disaster. Nothing to do with them calling themselves Communists. Ya'know I could go around saying we never really tried National Socialism and that it's a great idea those folks in Germany gave a bad name to. I'm sure old Adolf is rolling in HIS grave.

Yep it's just a coincidence that every attempt at a communist state ended up being a corrupt genocidal totalitarian disaster.

That is not true. The Paris Commune of 1871, the Spanish Revolution of 1936, Libertatia (to be honest, Libertatia's existance is debated, but is not totally dismissed), the Italian workers' councils, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 were all wonderful examples of communist states that did not become totalitarian disasters, but were actually destroyed by outside forces.

That is not true. The Paris Commune of 1871, the Spanish Revolution of 1936, Libertatia (to be honest, Libertatia's existance is debated, but is not totally dismissed), the Italian workers' councils, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 were all wonderful examples of communist states that did not become totalitarian disasters, but were actually destroyed by outside forces.

Ok we can ammend that to say any attempt at a communist state that lasted longer than a few months. Which does sort of leave the impression that if any of these other 'worker's states' had lasted a decade or two they'd have likely turned into a genocidal police state....

That is not true. The Paris Commune of 1871, the Spanish Revolution of 1936, Libertatia (to be honest, Libertatia's existance is debated, but is not totally dismissed), the Italian workers' councils, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 were all wonderful examples of communist states that did not become totalitarian disasters, but were actually destroyed by outside forces.
All communist movements start out like that. They either get destroyed, as you said, or they all morph into toltalitarian states. It is impossible to have communism without a toltalitarian society because economic power needs to be centralized in order for it to work, and everything is tied to economic power.

That is not true. The Paris Commune of 1871, the Spanish Revolution of 1936, Libertatia (to be honest, Libertatia's existance is debated, but is not totally dismissed), the Italian workers' councils, and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 were all wonderful examples of communist states that did not become totalitarian disasters, but were actually destroyed by outside forces.

The same Spanish Revolution where communists impaled naked women on meat hooks and killed over 100,000 people?

Yep it's just a coincidence that every attempt at a communist state ended up being a corrupt genocidal totalitarian disaster. Nothing to do with them calling themselves Communists. Ya'know I could go around saying we never really tried National Socialism and that it's a great idea those folks in Germany gave a bad name to. I'm sure old Adolf is rolling in HIS grave.
China, Vietnam and Yugoslavia under Tito all claim to be communist, yet there is no genocide there.
Mao killed plenty, but not for ethnic reasons.
Ho Chi Minh killed some, but not for ethnic reasons either - and more were killed by the war fought against him.
And Yugoslavia did quite well with its "third way"-communism until Tito died and the underlying ethnic tensions destroyed it.

National Socialism however is an ideology based on ethnicity and mass murder. It is the principle justification for its existence.
Communism doesn't say anything about murdering classes of people, strictly speaking. It is implied, but at least in theory, unnecessary.

And finally, you don't accept that the USSR wasn't communist because it called itself that.
China and Vietnam still call themselves communist. Are they?

Ah right I guess genocide was the wrong word. Is it somehow better that MAo killed millions of other Chinesse? Or that Ho killed for political motivations rather than racial? Now Tito divided Yugoslavia under racial lines before the slaughter commenced so I think we can call Yugoslavian Communist mass murder genocide still can't we?

The same Spanish Revolution where communists impaled naked women on meat hooks and killed over 100,000 people?

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. The Spanish Revolution I'm referring to did give abortion right to Spanish women, but I don't believe any were impaled on meat hooks.

Ho Chi Minh was a sadist and a butcher. In the late 1940s, he used to bury political opponents alive in fields, so only their heads were above ground, then would have harrows driven across the field, chopping their heads apart. Thousands were killed in this manner. Christians, those married to Frenchmen/women, and anyone who posed even the most remote semblance of resistance was either tortured and killed outright or sent to a gulag. In the 1950s, his brutal 'land reform' programs killed tens or even hundreds of thousands of people. Between 1954 and 1956, close to a million Vietnamese fled southward, whereas only a tenth of that number emigrated to the north. Ho Chi Minh was an unrepentant Stalinist and terrorist, whose minions committed atrocities in the South that would have made the Nazis blush. Men had their genitals sliced off and sewn inside their mouths, pregnant women were cut open and their fetuses ripped out, childrens' heads were impaled with bamboo sticks, toddlers were beaten beyond recognition with rifle butts, people were impaled, disemboweled, decapitated, had wooden chopsticks jammed so deep into their ears their eardrums ruptured, had their tongues cut out, were gang-raped in front of their entire village, children were kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers, or attached with explosives and sent on suicide missions, people and their villages were burned to a crisp with flamethrowers, dead bodies were booby-trapped so that when their families came to retrieve it it exploded, killing them, etc. Granted, Americans committed atrocities as well, but not on the scale of the communists. In the worst American atrocity, My Lai, about 500 Vietnamese were killed. Very bad. In the worst communist atrocity, several thousand Vietnamese were killed. You do the math. And communist atrocities were not only far more gruesome and brutal, but occurred on a much vaster scale. And yet, the left still idolizes Ho Chi Minh. Go figure.

I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. The Spanish Revolution I'm referring to did give abortion right to Spanish women, but I don't believe any were impaled on meat hooks.

N/m, I'm thinking of the Spanish Civil War.