Remembering Communism | Winnipeg Sun - Hendrik van der Breggen, Providence University College,:
November 11, 2017 - "Fall 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Russian Revolution, the beginning of a grand experiment in communism. This social experiment had bitter fruit that shouldn’t be forgotten.
"Influenced by Karl Marx, the leaders of Soviet communism — Lenin, Stalin, and Co. (Comrades) — strived to create a utopian society. After taking power, the communists abolished private property and took control of the means of production (factories, farms). Their promise was that state control (a 'dictatorship of the proletariat') would be temporary. Eventually, new men and women would come into being.... A socialist heaven would finally come to earth....
"It turns out that the temporary dictatorship by the communist elite wasn’t temporary. And the Soviet experiment was a disaster.... Soviet communism’s killing of its own people makes Nazi death camps pale in comparison. Whereas 6 or 7 million died in the Nazi holocaust, ... historians estimate the Soviet death toll was 20 million, whereas Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (who lived in the Soviet Union) estimates 60 million.
"Of this total, approximately 5 or more million died at a result of the Soviets’ 1932-33 deliberate starvation of Ukraine.... Millions of Soviets also died in slave labour camps (a.k.a. Gulags, made famous by Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago). Underfed and living in sub-zero temperatures, citizens were worked to death or were murdered in the woods.... [M]any Soviet citizens were simply arrested, tortured, and shot.... for criticizing government or for suspicion of being a saboteur, other times to fill government quotas....
"According to The Black Book of Communism (Harvard University Press 1999), other communist regimes had similar disastrous results.
"In total, over the past 100 years communist regimes have been responsible for about 100 million deaths (of their own people)....
"[C]apitalist societies have done wrong, of course. (And crony capitalism is especially problematic.) Nevertheless, ... governments in capitalist societies tend to be limited in their power. They protect private property, voluntary exchange, and individual freedoms; they do not tend to murder their own people en masse.
"It remains, then, that the killing of one’s own people has been extraordinarily huge in — and a salient feature of — communist societies.... The 2008 film The Soviet Story (available on YouTube) provides additional historical perspective on the bitter fruit of the 1917 Russian Revolution — bitter fruit that should never be forgotten."
Read more: http://winnipegsun.com/opinion/columnists/remembering-communism
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November 11, 2017 - "Fall 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Russian Revolution, the beginning of a grand experiment in communism. This social experiment had bitter fruit that shouldn’t be forgotten.
"Influenced by Karl Marx, the leaders of Soviet communism — Lenin, Stalin, and Co. (Comrades) — strived to create a utopian society. After taking power, the communists abolished private property and took control of the means of production (factories, farms). Their promise was that state control (a 'dictatorship of the proletariat') would be temporary. Eventually, new men and women would come into being.... A socialist heaven would finally come to earth....
"It turns out that the temporary dictatorship by the communist elite wasn’t temporary. And the Soviet experiment was a disaster.... Soviet communism’s killing of its own people makes Nazi death camps pale in comparison. Whereas 6 or 7 million died in the Nazi holocaust, ... historians estimate the Soviet death toll was 20 million, whereas Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (who lived in the Soviet Union) estimates 60 million.
"Of this total, approximately 5 or more million died at a result of the Soviets’ 1932-33 deliberate starvation of Ukraine.... Millions of Soviets also died in slave labour camps (a.k.a. Gulags, made famous by Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago). Underfed and living in sub-zero temperatures, citizens were worked to death or were murdered in the woods.... [M]any Soviet citizens were simply arrested, tortured, and shot.... for criticizing government or for suspicion of being a saboteur, other times to fill government quotas....
"According to The Black Book of Communism (Harvard University Press 1999), other communist regimes had similar disastrous results.
- China: 65 million deaths
- Vietnam: 1 million deaths
- North Korea: 2 million deaths
- Cambodia: 2 million deaths
"[C]apitalist societies have done wrong, of course. (And crony capitalism is especially problematic.) Nevertheless, ... governments in capitalist societies tend to be limited in their power. They protect private property, voluntary exchange, and individual freedoms; they do not tend to murder their own people en masse.
"It remains, then, that the killing of one’s own people has been extraordinarily huge in — and a salient feature of — communist societies.... The 2008 film The Soviet Story (available on YouTube) provides additional historical perspective on the bitter fruit of the 1917 Russian Revolution — bitter fruit that should never be forgotten."
Read more: http://winnipegsun.com/opinion/columnists/remembering-communism
'via Blog this'
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