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> Communism would have been a far bigger disaster for Germany than fascism This is a absolutely insane take. Especially in retrospect. Arguing that maybe some

> Communism would have been a far bigger disaster for Germany than fascism This is a absolutely insane take. Especially in retrospect. Arguing that maybe some people did seriously think that fascism might the the less bad option would be a stretch and point to willful ignorance but arguing for this position now that the have the historical facts is insane. Please go visit Auschwitz, visit Buchenwald and tell me again how fascism was the better alternative. That is where the "sensible people" in the ranks of the social democrats did end up. Dead. The Nazis did not stop at the communists, not at the social democrats, not at the trade unionists, not at the Jews, not at the queer people, not a the Gypsy and Roma, not at people with disabilities, not the "antisocial" people, not at anyone really. Don't tell me how GULAGs were the same thing, they were not. Political repression in the Soviet Union was horrible but even the most intense years do not come close to the industrial scale murder the Nazis did. That es the equivalent of saying the US were not better than the Nazis because they put Japanese-Americans in camps and used the nuclear weapons. No, there were lots of messed up things but the crimes of the Nazis were of a quality that is unique.

roenxi 2y ago
Fascism is like a hot stove. People touched it, then there was a very visceral "nobody is doing that again!" reaction. The fascist states flamed out - often violently - and were absorbed into more successful ideologies. Ironically the outcomes have been, relatively speaking, pretty reasonable for the descendants of the fascists. Whereas communism was just a big, ongoing failure. Countless deaths, brutal atrocities things like the Holodomor or the Chinese landlord butcherings. Nations plunged into poverty for generations. Instability and eventual collapse in the case of the USSR leading to a brutal decade and eventual quasi-dictatorship in Russia. The priority, by far, is to suppress the communists. If communism takes hold a nation is doomed. Unwinding a communist takeover proved much more challenging than rooting out a Nazi infestation. In hindsight the Germans ended up with better outcomes. It is easy to imagine an impoverished communist Germany today because the communists ended up with half of the country after the war and we saw what happened. > Please go visit Auschwitz, visit Buchenwald and tell me again how fascism was the better alternative Those camps killed a few million people. While that is terrible; if that was all the Nazis did, they wouldn't be an especially memorable reigime - it is small biscuits to Mao or Stalin. The Holodomor doesn't get special mention like the Holocaust does, it is just another footnote to the long list of people that the communists starved to death. > Political repression in the Soviet Union was horrible but even the most intense years do not come close to the industrial scale murder the Nazis did. I dunno; I suspect that the communist famines came in waves of high- and low- intensity. It wouldn't have been annual famines, it would have been bursts of millions of people dying. Picking on the Holodomor again because I have the wiki page open, that was ~4 million people in one year. That must be pretty close to the intensity of the Nazi's internal killing machine.
- cardanome 2y ago
  I will not respond to everything because that would require a whole book but please let me highlight some historical facts that I feel you might have confused. You imply that famines were a regular occurrence under communism, this is wrong. The was never a single famine in the Soviet Union after World War 2. In fact the CIA concluded that the Soviet citizens ate a similar amount of calories with slightly more nutritious food. [0] Furthermore the idea of famines being typical for communism is contradicted by the basic historical fact that famines were a regular occurrence BEFORE the Soviets took power. The communist regime stopped famines from happening. Comparing a famine that happened after the country was ravaged by the first world war AND a horrible civil war AND huge societal changes to planned industrial murder is insane. > Nations plunged into poverty for generations. Considering that Czarist Russia happened in one of the most backwards places on earth where people still used the wooden plow I would say the Soviet Union becoming a serious competitor to the US is very impressive. And current day Russia is doing rather well all things considered, surviving against at Western sanctions much longer than many predicted. I wouldn't want to live there but it is certainly doing better than many other countries in this world. China has seen a meteoric rise to power under a "communist" leadership. Cuba provide a vastly higher standard of living than comparable countries like Haiti. It was mostly impoverished countries that have seen communist revolutions. You are confusing cause and effect. Yes, Western Germany has done very well but is mostly due to the huge investment of the US in it as it was needed as a bulwark against communism. We have an example on what the communists would do with Germany in Eastern Germany and well it is not very spectacular. No famines. No mass murder. The main issue where of course the wall between Eastern and Western Germany which separated families. I will not deny the atrocities done during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, they are stomach turning. To say they are typical for communism is a bit dishonest considering the Soviets denounced Mao to the point that diplomatic ties broke. If we played the game like that, we would have to say that the Irish famine or rather genocide is to be considered typical for capitalism. I don't really like comparing atrocities. Every single one is bad enough on their own. The main point is that anyone with a shed of humanity has a duty to be anti-fascist first, after that we can battle out whatever system is better or worse. [0] https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000498133.pdf https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000498133.pdf
lazide 2y ago
Stalinism and Nazism were roughly within the same order of magnitude, if one doesn’t count the direct war death toll. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin#:~:text=In%202011%2C%20after%20assessing%20twenty,American%20historian%20William%20D https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Sovi....] And Maoism is likely on the order of 30-40 million. The nazi’s were definitely unique, as were the nature of their crimes. But nomitive communism has a lot of blood on its hands.

roenxi 2y ago

Fascism is like a hot stove. People touched it, then there was a very visceral "nobody is doing that again!" reaction. The fascist states flamed out - often violently - and were absorbed into more successful ideologies. Ironically the outcomes have been, relatively speaking, pretty reasonable for the descendants of the fascists. Whereas communism was just a big, ongoing failure. Countless deaths, brutal atrocities things like the Holodomor or the Chinese landlord butcherings. Nations plunged into poverty for generations. Instability and eventual collapse in the case of the USSR leading to a brutal decade and eventual quasi-dictatorship in Russia. The priority, by far, is to suppress the communists. If communism takes hold a nation is doomed. Unwinding a communist takeover proved much more challenging than rooting out a Nazi infestation. In hindsight the Germans ended up with better outcomes. It is easy to imagine an impoverished communist Germany today because the communists ended up with half of the country after the war and we saw what happened. > Please go visit Auschwitz, visit Buchenwald and tell me again how fascism was the better alternative Those camps killed a few million people. While that is terrible; if that was all the Nazis did, they wouldn't be an especially memorable reigime - it is small biscuits to Mao or Stalin. The Holodomor doesn't get special mention like the Holocaust does, it is just another footnote to the long list of people that the communists starved to death. > Political repression in the Soviet Union was horrible but even the most intense years do not come close to the industrial scale murder the Nazis did. I dunno; I suspect that the communist famines came in waves of high- and low- intensity. It wouldn't have been annual famines, it would have been bursts of millions of people dying. Picking on the Holodomor again because I have the wiki page open, that was ~4 million people in one year. That must be pretty close to the intensity of the Nazi's internal killing machine.

cardanome 2y ago
I will not respond to everything because that would require a whole book but please let me highlight some historical facts that I feel you might have confused. You imply that famines were a regular occurrence under communism, this is wrong. The was never a single famine in the Soviet Union after World War 2. In fact the CIA concluded that the Soviet citizens ate a similar amount of calories with slightly more nutritious food. [0] Furthermore the idea of famines being typical for communism is contradicted by the basic historical fact that famines were a regular occurrence BEFORE the Soviets took power. The communist regime stopped famines from happening. Comparing a famine that happened after the country was ravaged by the first world war AND a horrible civil war AND huge societal changes to planned industrial murder is insane. > Nations plunged into poverty for generations. Considering that Czarist Russia happened in one of the most backwards places on earth where people still used the wooden plow I would say the Soviet Union becoming a serious competitor to the US is very impressive. And current day Russia is doing rather well all things considered, surviving against at Western sanctions much longer than many predicted. I wouldn't want to live there but it is certainly doing better than many other countries in this world. China has seen a meteoric rise to power under a "communist" leadership. Cuba provide a vastly higher standard of living than comparable countries like Haiti. It was mostly impoverished countries that have seen communist revolutions. You are confusing cause and effect. Yes, Western Germany has done very well but is mostly due to the huge investment of the US in it as it was needed as a bulwark against communism. We have an example on what the communists would do with Germany in Eastern Germany and well it is not very spectacular. No famines. No mass murder. The main issue where of course the wall between Eastern and Western Germany which separated families. I will not deny the atrocities done during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, they are stomach turning. To say they are typical for communism is a bit dishonest considering the Soviets denounced Mao to the point that diplomatic ties broke. If we played the game like that, we would have to say that the Irish famine or rather genocide is to be considered typical for capitalism. I don't really like comparing atrocities. Every single one is bad enough on their own. The main point is that anyone with a shed of humanity has a duty to be anti-fascist first, after that we can battle out whatever system is better or worse. [0] https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000498133.pdf https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/DOC_0000498133.pdf

lazide 2y ago

Stalinism and Nazism were roughly within the same order of magnitude, if one doesn’t count the direct war death toll. [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin#:~:text=In%202011%2C%20after%20assessing%20twenty,American%20historian%20William%20D https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Sovi....] And Maoism is likely on the order of 30-40 million. The nazi’s were definitely unique, as were the nature of their crimes. But nomitive communism has a lot of blood on its hands.