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| Thread: Anti-communist resolution - what do you think? | |
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Russ
Promising
Supreme Hero
blah, blah, blah
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posted January 26, 2006 06:01 PM |
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Anti-communist resolution - what do you think?
In December, the Committee for Political Affairs of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe proposed that a resolution called the Need to Condemn Internationally the Crime of Totalitarian Communist Regimes be passed.
The parliamentary assembly is debating it right now at its session (January 23-27).
What are your thoughts on this topic?
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TNT_Addict
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Beautiful Liar
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posted January 26, 2006 08:41 PM |
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Can you name some countries with communistic goverments?
Because my mind is failing me...
Communism is too oldfashioned and cannot fullfill its full potential in our modern time.
I experienced it myself growing up in the 1990's in Russia. I was just a kid but it
was quite good as I remmember that, but the transition from communism to democracy was harder
which made me leave the nest to seek happyness in other countries.
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Russ
Promising
Supreme Hero
blah, blah, blah
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posted January 26, 2006 11:46 PM |
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Well, communism may or may not serve the needs of modern society, but the other extreme does not seem to work very well either. A pure capitalist system IS more stable, but I think it is really really far from perfect.
Btw, a similar thing has already happened before - in 1930-s the Right Wing has outlawed and smashed the Left Wing and if I remember correctly it didn't lead to much good.
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Trogdor
Legendary Hero
Words in a custom title
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posted January 27, 2006 10:00 AM |
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TNT, you forgot that Romania was under communist rule when Ceaucescu was in power and then things were much worse under communism. Other communist regimes haven't worked out for the best either. Chinese communism under Mao Zedong killed off Shanghai's nightlife, and many people were jailed and killed in Cambodia under Pol Pot's regime.
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"Through the power of the dollar you can communicate with the dead." - Artu
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SirDunco
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted January 27, 2006 10:14 AM |
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The problem with these "Communist" regimes was that they weren't communist at all. The whole eastern europe, perhaps except for Tito's Yugoslavia was under a form of Fasism that hid itself behind the socialist ideology and transformed it to serve it's goals.
The people realy true to the ideology were gotten rid of early. Trostsky, in Russia for example, or Clementis is Czechoslovakia were amongst the many who were sentenced to death in fixed trials. People who were in the party since they were 16 or 18 were eliminated.
The ideology was transformed to control and appease the people, from the late 60's you can hardly speak of Communism any where...
And remember all of the great communist dicators changed the ideology to suit themeselves, Mao Tse Tung, or Lenin, everyone. Most of the people in power never knew or wanted to follow the true ideals.
The 40's and 50's were a horrible time for everyone, a time of fright and uncertianties. From then everyone became adjusted...
To give financial aid to those who were touched by the regime is a good idea, but the problem is who will pay it. There was a similair idea here, to repay the families of the victims of the Soviet Invasion of 1968, but the Russian goverment said that it wasn't Russia, but the USSR and you can hardly demand something from a subject that doesn't exist.
Outlawing communism is a very crazy idea, that can only b suggest by someone who has no idea about it. Communism, or better said Socialism is not a destructive ideology, but what became of it by the deeds of certain people is a whole different thing.
This senator from Sweeden who proposed it should first take care of his Neo-nazi groups....
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Russ
Promising
Supreme Hero
blah, blah, blah
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posted January 27, 2006 04:51 PM |
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Edited by Russ on 27 Jan 2006
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Yes, very good post, I couldn't agree more except for one thing: Trotsky and Lenin weren't idealists. They were bloodthirsty criminals who destroyed everything Russia had. They starved millions of people to death just to get them under their control, they prosecuted the priests (and "confiscated" all belongings of the church in the process), they prosecuted everyone who had any kind of wealth and took all of their posessions. All they did was trying to suck as much money out of Russia as they could and put it all in their nice&neat Swiss bank accounts. As a matter of fact, those "idealists" were even worse than Stalin. They killed millions and destroyed the country. Stalin killed millions and built the country.
Please do not call Trotsky an idealist. He is a criminal who built a palace in Mexico and was able to hire numerous servants and security guards using the money he got from killing millions of people and destroying a country that arguably was the #1 country at that time (kind of like USA is in the modern days).
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terje_the_ma...
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Disciple of Herodotus
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posted February 08, 2006 11:39 PM |
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Quote:
Yes, very good post, I couldn't agree more except for one thing: Trotsky and Lenin weren't idealists. They were bloodthirsty criminals who destroyed everything Russia had. They starved millions of people to death just to get them under their control, they prosecuted the priests (and "confiscated" all belongings of the church in the process), they prosecuted everyone who had any kind of wealth and took all of their posessions. All they did was trying to suck as much money out of Russia as they could and put it all in their nice&neat Swiss bank accounts. As a matter of fact, those "idealists" were even worse than Stalin. They killed millions and destroyed the country. Stalin killed millions and built the country.
Please do not call Trotsky an idealist. He is a criminal who built a palace in Mexico and was able to hire numerous servants and security guards using the money he got from killing millions of people and destroying a country that arguably was the #1 country at that time (kind of like USA is in the modern days).
Russian nationalist, eh? 
Well, just an alternative perspective, that I've never seen anyone present, and is kind of curious about:
Most presentations of the 1928 famine (or the entire famine of that time) puts all the blame for it on the Soviet leaders, who collectivised the agriculture. However, they did not force the Ukrainian farmers into slaughtering their livestock or burn their fields, did they?
Like I said, just something I was thinking on while writing a paper on the November/October Revolution and its aftermath last year...
As for whether or not they were the World's #1 country...
Sure, the Great Depression weren't as hard on them as on the rest of the world, but the rush that the 5-year plans required did lead to Soviet products being of inferior quality to those of the West, and to the plants that were built in this era to fall into decay faster than the ones in the West.
But I guess it's just a matter of perspective.
So, to the topic of this Declaration.
To me, this seems like the redundant act of the victor dancing on the grave of the defeated part. Totalitarian Communism lost, the thing we call Capitalism won. Why do these usually conservative politicians see the need to define every Communist regime in history as a regime with serious human rights related crimes on its conscience?
Sure, it's most likely true, but what will the next thing be? "EU says: Aztec human sacrifice was barbaric"? "The European Union declares Rome to have been an imperialist slave state and seeks to distance itself from this state"? "The Thirty Years' War was a bloodbath"? "Monarchism wasn't good"?
And the way it totally neglects the crimes of other repressive regimes: Not a word about Fascists of various shades, not a word about Theocracies, not a word about the Fascist market fundamentalist dictators who ruled different states in South America in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. And not a word about the human rights violations of democracies.
Virtually every kind of regime, states organized by the most varied principles imaginable, has committed some kind of "crime" - if you define violating human rights as a crime (which I do). So why is Communism being singled out?
Not to mention the way some of these Eastern European politicians have argued in favour of this resolution. They've used as arguments in favour of this resolution, which if passed will condemn every Communist ever to have lived as a criminal, that they have had some bad experiences with it.
Now, a female Norwegian politician (who coincidentally belongs to the party that I vote for and pays my member contigent to) did in relation to this mention a story from her family to a Norwegian newspaper. She told it about how her grandfather, who'd been a Communist, had fought against the Nazi occupation of Norway during WWII, and how he'd been captured and executed by the Quisling regime. She did not relish the thought of her grandfather being condemned, post mortem, as a violator of human rights.
She finished by saying that this is the kind of story she is proud of, but that she'd never use it as a political argument - she'd not even tell the paper if it didn't illustrate her point.
So I guess that what I think about this, is that the European Parliament should spent its time on more important issues - like what is currently going on in the world, and bettering the lives of European citizens - rather than desecrating the memory of millions of honest, decent Communists, just to saturate their own and their voters' petty desire of vengeance.
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"Sometimes I think everyone's just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending to be brave is how you get brave, I don't know."
- Grenn, A Storm of Swords.
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Russ
Promising
Supreme Hero
blah, blah, blah
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posted February 09, 2006 03:48 PM |
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Edited by Russ on 9 Feb 2006
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Quote:
Well, just an alternative perspective, that I've never seen anyone present, and is kind of curious about:
Most presentations of the 1928 famine (or the entire famine of that time) puts all the blame for it on the Soviet leaders, who collectivised the agriculture. However, they did not force the Ukrainian farmers into slaughtering their livestock or burn their fields, did they?
1928? Ukrainian farmers? That was like 10 years earlier than what I am talking about. Ukrainian farmers were the next step of establishing "the proletariat's dictatorship". Russian farmers were the first ones to get starved, but I guess those don't count because we, Russians, are 2-nd class people and noone rlly cares about us. The only thing the Europe wants to hear is other natiolalities living in the USSR talk about how evil we, Russians, are.
Quote:
As for whether or not they were the World's #1 country...
Sure, the Great Depression weren't as hard on them as on the rest of the world, but the rush that the 5-year plans required did lead to Soviet products being of inferior quality to those of the West, and to the plants that were built in this era to fall into decay faster than the ones in the West.
WTF are you talking about??? The Great Depression happened in 1930-s. The Russian Revolution that destroyed our country happened in 1917. After 1917 our country fell at least half a century behind everyone else.
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terje_the_ma...
Responsible
Supreme Hero
Disciple of Herodotus
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posted February 09, 2006 08:11 PM |
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Okay, I seem to be misreading you. But the only other way I can read your statement about "a country that arguably was the #1 country at that time", is that, in your opinion, Tsarist Russia anno 1917 was "the #1 country of the world". Which is something I've never seen anything that supports. And how am I to know that you're taling about "10 years later than 1928", when you're mentioning Lenin? Wasn't he rather dead at the time?
And sorry if I offended you by using the phrase "Ukarinian farmers" - it's only that that was the first thing that popped into my head while typing. I'm quite aware of how the conditions of the Russian population was; I simply used the first example that popped into my head.
I was only under the impression that you were talking about the effects of the NEP or the first Five Year Plans, since you were mentioning Lenin (not that he had anything much to do with the latter).
And blaming Trotsky for anything that happened after 1927 seems a bit unrealistic to me, seeing as he was banished to Siberia that year...
Anyway, I'd be honoured if you'd care to take the bother of enlightening me on this issue. It's always neat to learn new stuff.
(By the way, I think I have found the source of my misinterpretation: "The year 1929, not 1917, was the great revolutionary year for most people in Russia.
Collectivisation was accomplished at the cost of village class war in which many of the must capable farmers perished and at the cost also of a wholesale destruction of livestock. The big farmers slaughtered their horses, cattle, pigs and poultry rather than give them up. Even middling and small farmers did the same, caring nothing about animals that were no longer their own. The ruinous loss of animals was the worst unforeseen calamity of the First Five-Year Plan. The agricultural disorder led to a deadly famine in southeast Russia and the Ukraine in 1932 that cost millions of lives. Despite the famine Stalin refused to cut back on cereal and other food exports because they were needed to pay for industrial imports under the Five Year-Plan." (Palmer, Colton, Kramer: A History of the Modern World. New York 1950/2002)
The way I see it, when you mentioned "famine" I must have connected this to the famine described above, and since the Ukranians were mentioned at the top of a page, whereas the Russians had coincidentally been placed at the bottom of the previous one, the Ukranians were the ones I remembered. Funny how the brain works, eh?)
Again, if I have offended, it was most likely just ignorance or misunderstanding from my side. 
EDIT: By the way, isn't this awfully off topic? 
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"Sometimes I think everyone's just pretending to be brave, and none of us really are. Maybe pretending to be brave is how you get brave, I don't know."
- Grenn, A Storm of Swords.
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Russ
Promising
Supreme Hero
blah, blah, blah
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posted February 09, 2006 10:00 PM |
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Quote:
is that, in your opinion, Tsarist Russia anno 1917 was "the #1 country of the world". Which is something I've never seen anything that supports. And how am I to know that you're taling about "10 years later than 1928", when you're mentioning Lenin? Wasn't he rather dead at the time?
My bad, I said "later" instead of "earlier" I said "arguably", but even if Tzarist Russia wasn't #1, it was very close to being #1. Its industrial growth at the time was even faster than of modern day China. You may be surprised, but you can still find factories in Russia that operate on equipment built during the late 1800-s to early 1900-s!!! If the revolution did not happen, I am sure it would be #1 in 20-s or 30-s.
Quote:
Anyway, I'd be honoured if you'd care to take the bother of enlightening me on this issue. It's always neat to learn new stuff.
EDIT: By the way, isn't this awfully off topic?
Well, I this this topic in its original form was dead, so it is safe to change it 
The Soviet propaganda of Lenin was so strong that it must have affected even the Western history books. In USSR he was made into something just 1 step below god (and when you consider the fact that most people in USSR were made into atheists, you'll get the idea ) So, any source of information about Lenin that was published before 1991 is likely to be affected by that propaganda.
Anyways, here is a bit of history from what I've learned recently (I was quite interesting in this topic a few years ago):
Lenin's brother was executed for terrorism (he was planning to kill the Tzar). Ever since he hated the guy and wanted to kill him and his family (and he pretty much succeeded in doing so - you have to give him that).
His main plan was to create a world revolution. For that matter he and his crew needed some MAJOR funding. He happened to make Russia the source of this funding (and coincidentally to acheive his revenge). The war with Germany and the overall unstable situation has helped him. The Germans hempled him to create something they intended as a little diversion. Freed German POWs and German guns were the main force that helped the Bolsheviks to defend St. Peterbourg against the Russian regulars who were recalled from the front lines, but didn't make it in time to prevent what they were brought there for. Lenin kept his part of the agreement and signed a peace treaty with the Germans that gave them many lands belinging to Russia. (The later treaty signed at the end of WW1 returned all countries to their original borders, so Germany lost whatever it gained from the previous treaty with Lenin.)
Interesting fact to note is that during the civil war that lasted 4 years, "Czech Legion" and "Latvian Riflemen" were in Bolshevicks' main fighting force before the latter were able to get enough people into the Red Army. So, whenever Czechs and Latvians start complaining about any crimes committed by the Soviet Regime - let them know that they were the ones who helped to install this same regime, and that Russians should be the ones demanding the retribution because we suffered from it more than anyone else.
Anyways, like I said, Lenin had this idea about making the "world revolution" and he needed lots and lots and lots of money to do it (all those money settled in Bolshevicks' Swiss bank accounts, some of them left Russia and lived abroad like kings, others had to give it back to Stalin when he came up with a different idea called "Building communism in a single country"). Lenin also needed to get people under his control, and the people DID NOT like him. There were many peasant revolts that had to be stopped. So, he came up with a genious solution. If the peasants depend on the government to give them food, then they will always be compliant! So, he took everything away from them, causing them to starve. This worked really well and was later used by Stalin to pacify the Ukrainian peasants.
Everything else Bolsheviks did was done to try to get the money for the "world revolution". They took everything away from the people, they destroyed the church and took everything away from it, etc.
Then Stalin came and took everything away from whichever Bolshevicks didn't run in time and started building "communism in a single country".
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