4 ms·

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 vio

by 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
- roenxi 2y ago
  > The was never a single famine in the Soviet Union after World War 2. That is technically wrong [0]. But more importantly is the fact that you're arguing that most of the deaths were before WWII - ie, the USSR (single handily!) was comparable to the Nazis even before the Nazis went full Nazi. And then throw China in to the mix. This history is why it is a higher priority to root out powerful domestic Communists than to neutralise the Fascists. Even though both were terrible, the Communists managed to be the scarier of the two, even at the time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1946%E2%80%931947 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1946%E2%80%93... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet...
  - me_me_me 2y ago
    From polish perspective, a nazis told you you are subhuman and treat you like it. Soviets told you they are your best friend while torturing your brother and using you cousin to snitch on you. You pick which oppression is worse - overt or covert. Objectively soviets did way more damage and set Eastern Europe decades back. Under nazis you knew who was the enemy, under soviet everyone was paranoid who the enemy is. Its still debating which one of your limbs to cut off.
    - lazide 2y ago
      Eh, I’d argue the only reason Eastern Europe might consider the impact of communism worse than Nazi’ism is because Nazi’ism flamed out quickly. So ‘stabbed with a knife once’ instead of ‘punched in the face daily for decades’. Can you imagine how shitty it would have been if Germany had won WW2? My guess is 1/4 of the existing population would have survived. The only reason it wasn’t (quite) that bad is because they didn’t have the time to settle in and only murdered people they could easily find while on their way to the front.
      - me_me_me 2y ago
        I am not trying to make a case who was worse. But that under nazis it would be nazis punching, under soviets it would be your neighbor under command of soviets. Soviets insidiousness had additional layer that was actively destroying national trust/cohesion and instilling culture of fear and snitching. Stazi vs Gestapo approaches.
nsonha 2y ago
> Whereas communism was just a big, ongoing failure If Fascism kept on going, it would not be just "failure". Catastrophe would be an understatement. If you are going to compare at least compare on the same basis.
- roenxi 2y ago
  But it didn't keep on going, and that was hardly an accident. It is similar to HIV vs SARS-CoV-2. If COVID lasted as long as AIDS, it'd be a much worse disease. But it doesn't, and HIV is actually the more serious of the two [0]. Similarly, communists taking hold are the bigger threat between fascists and communists - the communists will bring the host country a lot closer to death. If we're talking counterfactuals, there is a decent chance that the Nazis and Communists would be similar to each other over the long term. Both ideologies do a lot of damage early on and then slowly collapse over a generation or two. The Nazis were more externally aggressive - but from an internal-to-Germany perspective (particularly at the time when nationalism was stronger) that would probably further reinforce the point that political alliances with the Communists are suicidal and defeating the Communists appropriately took priority over any other political issue. [0] Although, thankfully, these days the treatment has apparently gotten so good that the analogy doesn't work so well. But think HIV in the 80s before they figured out how to deal with it.
  - nsonha 2y ago
    > ...hardly an accident It was accident that the dude also wanted to conquer the world, and doing so at the heart of the western civilization. So of course people had to get rid of him. There are regimes similar to the Nazi today that kept going on because it didn't bother the powerful guys that much.
    - roenxi 2y ago
      The "conquer the world" part was the majority of the problem. If the Nazi's had stuck to conquering one or maybe even 2 countries they'd just be another unpleasant crowd in the unpleasant soup of history. Ethnic cleansing programs aren't that unusual. There are a couple of high profile ones going on today. I'm no history buff but it is a stretch to say Germany stands a head above the other mass killings in history. Even at the time the European colonisers were not gentle men. The Germans obviously made the especially egregious mistake targeting wealthy Europeans who are supposed to be above that sort of thing and also heavily involved in the media which means they get much worse publicity than say, the Ottomans. They weren't a threat on the same scale as getting Communists in the government. The Communists had a habit of escalating from run-of-the-mill ethnic cleansing to a sort of combined mass-death/economic collapse/generational poverty/social implosion disaster. They were literally the last people anyone should want to be politically empowering. The right option really was a no-compromise dedication to freedom, capitalism and liberalism .

by roenxi 2y ago

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

roenxi 2y ago
> The was never a single famine in the Soviet Union after World War 2. That is technically wrong [0]. But more importantly is the fact that you're arguing that most of the deaths were before WWII - ie, the USSR (single handily!) was comparable to the Nazis even before the Nazis went full Nazi. And then throw China in to the mix. This history is why it is a higher priority to root out powerful domestic Communists than to neutralise the Fascists. Even though both were terrible, the Communists managed to be the scarier of the two, even at the time. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1946%E2%80%931947 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1946%E2%80%93... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet_Union_under_Joseph_Stalin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excess_mortality_in_the_Soviet...
- me_me_me 2y ago
  From polish perspective, a nazis told you you are subhuman and treat you like it. Soviets told you they are your best friend while torturing your brother and using you cousin to snitch on you. You pick which oppression is worse - overt or covert. Objectively soviets did way more damage and set Eastern Europe decades back. Under nazis you knew who was the enemy, under soviet everyone was paranoid who the enemy is. Its still debating which one of your limbs to cut off.
  - lazide 2y ago
    Eh, I’d argue the only reason Eastern Europe might consider the impact of communism worse than Nazi’ism is because Nazi’ism flamed out quickly. So ‘stabbed with a knife once’ instead of ‘punched in the face daily for decades’. Can you imagine how shitty it would have been if Germany had won WW2? My guess is 1/4 of the existing population would have survived. The only reason it wasn’t (quite) that bad is because they didn’t have the time to settle in and only murdered people they could easily find while on their way to the front.
    - me_me_me 2y ago
      I am not trying to make a case who was worse. But that under nazis it would be nazis punching, under soviets it would be your neighbor under command of soviets. Soviets insidiousness had additional layer that was actively destroying national trust/cohesion and instilling culture of fear and snitching. Stazi vs Gestapo approaches.

nsonha 2y ago

> Whereas communism was just a big, ongoing failure If Fascism kept on going, it would not be just "failure". Catastrophe would be an understatement. If you are going to compare at least compare on the same basis.

roenxi 2y ago
But it didn't keep on going, and that was hardly an accident. It is similar to HIV vs SARS-CoV-2. If COVID lasted as long as AIDS, it'd be a much worse disease. But it doesn't, and HIV is actually the more serious of the two [0]. Similarly, communists taking hold are the bigger threat between fascists and communists - the communists will bring the host country a lot closer to death. If we're talking counterfactuals, there is a decent chance that the Nazis and Communists would be similar to each other over the long term. Both ideologies do a lot of damage early on and then slowly collapse over a generation or two. The Nazis were more externally aggressive - but from an internal-to-Germany perspective (particularly at the time when nationalism was stronger) that would probably further reinforce the point that political alliances with the Communists are suicidal and defeating the Communists appropriately took priority over any other political issue. [0] Although, thankfully, these days the treatment has apparently gotten so good that the analogy doesn't work so well. But think HIV in the 80s before they figured out how to deal with it.
- nsonha 2y ago
  > ...hardly an accident It was accident that the dude also wanted to conquer the world, and doing so at the heart of the western civilization. So of course people had to get rid of him. There are regimes similar to the Nazi today that kept going on because it didn't bother the powerful guys that much.
  - roenxi 2y ago
    The "conquer the world" part was the majority of the problem. If the Nazi's had stuck to conquering one or maybe even 2 countries they'd just be another unpleasant crowd in the unpleasant soup of history. Ethnic cleansing programs aren't that unusual. There are a couple of high profile ones going on today. I'm no history buff but it is a stretch to say Germany stands a head above the other mass killings in history. Even at the time the European colonisers were not gentle men. The Germans obviously made the especially egregious mistake targeting wealthy Europeans who are supposed to be above that sort of thing and also heavily involved in the media which means they get much worse publicity than say, the Ottomans. They weren't a threat on the same scale as getting Communists in the government. The Communists had a habit of escalating from run-of-the-mill ethnic cleansing to a sort of combined mass-death/economic collapse/generational poverty/social implosion disaster. They were literally the last people anyone should want to be politically empowering. The right option really was a no-compromise dedication to freedom, capitalism and liberalism .