Black Book of Communism

[TheBigDog]

It would have been difficult for Roosevelt to have ruled a day longer than he did under any system.

Bill

[Panjandrum]

Originally Posted by TheBigDog

It would have been difficult for Roosevelt to have ruled a day longer than he did under any system.

Bill

Are you saying it would have been impossible for him to have acsended to power ealier than he in fact did? Or are you refering to his sudden death?

[Qfwfq]

Originally Posted by Panjandrum

I see it a simple choice, between democracy and a bland mediocraty, or authoritarianism, and the highs and lows it brings. While it may be no fun to live under a tyrant, a society under the rule of a benign and competant dictator can achieve truely great things.

I think the point is that you are identifying Communism with tyranny. Much as there have been many regimes under the red label, do you think tyranny was really what was behind the philosophy of Karl Marx?

As for your dialectic juxtaposition of it with democracy, let's see the names of many of those regimes. The People's Republic of China, The Soviet Socialist Republics, and what did DDR stand for? We must peel the labels off and see underneath them.

[Chacmool]

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

As for your dialectic juxtaposition of it with democracy, let's see the names of many of those regimes. The People's Republic of China, The Soviet Socialist Republics, and what did DDR stand for? We must peel the labels of and see underneath them.

Indeed - the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is another case in point. This country is the perpetrator of some of the worst humanitarian attrocities in human history. As Q says: we must look beneath these labels to find the truth.

[Panjandrum]

Originally Posted by Qfwfq

I think the point is that you are identifying Communism with tyranny. Much as there have been many regimes under the red label, do you think tyranny was really what was behind the philosophy of Karl Marx?

No, Im sure it wasnt. The identification you speak of is made in the book about which this thread was made.

As for your dialectic juxtaposition of it with democracy, let's see the names of many of those regimes. The People's Republic of China, The Soviet Socialist Republics, and what did DDR stand for? We must peel the labels of and see underneath them.

I wasnt aware I had made such a juxtaposition. When I spoke of authoritarianism, I wasnt refering merely to 'communist' countries, and neither was I merely assuming that a countries self-identification was to be taken literally. That is a mistake I would never make, and in fact is the main reason I use the term 'authoritarian' to refer to the non-democratic state, since such a term can be applied to a wide range of regimes, from monarchies to soviet-style dictatorships to fascist one-party states.

[Qfwfq]

Originally Posted by Panjandrum

No, Im sure it wasnt. The identification you speak of is made in the book about which this thread was made.

...by you. And it wasn't from the book that I gathered the identification was being made.

Originally Posted by Panjandrum

I wasnt aware I had made such a juxtaposition. When I spoke of authoritarianism, I wasnt refering merely to 'communist' countries, and neither was I merely assuming that a countries self-identification was to be taken literally. That is a mistake I would never make, and in fact is the main reason I use the term 'authoritarian' to refer to the non-democratic state, since such a term can be applied to a wide range of regimes, from monarchies to soviet-style dictatorships to fascist one-party states.

Ooooh, the whole thing's gettin' complicated now. I think I maybe got confused and it's hard to follow your criticism of all systems of government except that of an enlightened despot.

In the confusion I chose the wrong word, I meant a contraposition of democracy with tyranny and Communism, while I also left out that the Nazi-Fascist regimes took hold in democratic countries and used the absolute majority to maintain rule forcefully, also that the great Communist regimes were so only by claim.

There was just so much confusion here that, after reading through it, my little effort was a waste of time.

[Panjandrum]

I remain unclear as to what exactly your point is. The Black Book of Communism, about which this thread was made, is quite specifically a documentation of the crimes of the Russian Communist Party from its (illegal) seizure of power to the final collapse of the Soviet Union. You seem to to implying that I am guilty of generalising this to cover all self-identified communist regimes, and to cover the very theroretical construct of 'communism' itself. This is not the case. Perhaps if you confined yourself to commenting on what people actually write, and not on the motivations you imagine behind thier words, you would find life a little less confusing.

[Qfwfq]

It isn't life that I find confusing, thanx. Perhaps you have imagined meanings behind my words.

[Phileas Fogg]

Originally Posted by Panjandrum

Has anyone else read The_Black_Book_of_Communism?
I would urge anyone who holds positive views on the Soviets or on communism to read this book and be enlightened.

Yeah, I've read this, in fact it's still there on my bookshelf with hundreds of other Soviet-related stuff. It's a well-written book, although I feel Anne Applebaum's Gulag - A History, and Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine refllect still better the eastern-bloc style of suffering.
I can not see communism/Soviets as epitome of evil. When I found this book, I was hooked with one religious cult, and was struggling to regain my spiritual freedom; and I took the Black Book of Communism as analogy.

It made me laugh in some places. There were all those tricks, those human things.... of violence I had come to know in practise in religious circles. I gathered that humans have been always like this, in all societies. It's just dynamism of group behaviour.

Then ... other thing. I think it's so easy to see these things working in the Russian soul, because Russians are awfully open people. I think it's misguided prejudice to think that Soviet Union was somehow specially secretive. On the contrary, I feel they are less secretive, than we western people.

Well, I think this explains the relief I felt when reading it. It was cathartic; - purifying.

I've always felt love - you can say - towards Russian people, and this book didn't diminish it any way. That they did it so openly, and brutally, reflects their innocence.