May Day Mourning

I am very well aware of the above cited Communist outrages. My personal library holds a number of books devoted to these horrors. This is old hat to me. Sadly, though, Bryan Caplan is presenting evidence deemed highly questionable by many soft science professors possessing a Ph.D. These individuals may consider him to be a reactionary defending the vile interests of the capitalist class. Am I getting a bit carried away? Is it really that bad? And if I’m wrong, why are there numerous tee shirts and other paranaphalia honoring Che Guevara?

Minor typo: It's Randall McElroy, not Parker.

Any form of extremism is bad, and turns vile when it leads to 'Ganging-up' on purported Offenders. Totalitarianism was the practice of making such Mob rule State policy. The numbers of Deaths cited are always too low, regretably. lgl

Sadly, though, Bryan Caplan is presenting evidence deemed highly questionable by many soft science professors possessing a Ph.D.

Examples?

These individuals may consider him to be a reactionary defending the vile interests of the capitalist class.

You sure they're that perceptive?

When communism was going strong, most of the world knew only of its mildest crimes: the Berlin Wall, the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Hungary.

This is untrue.

“This is untrue.”

Is it? I am not sure whether there are any studies accurately indicating the views of the world towards Communism during that time. Nonetheless, it seems to me that many, if not most people, perceived the Soviet Union as a wildly successful economic story. John Kenneth Galbraith was praising its economy until almost the very end. Any allegations of mass murder were often dismissed as lies by Capitalist reactionaries.

Thanks for spotting the error, Jonathan, and my apologies to Randall McElroy.

While we're mourning the victims of communism, it might also be worth bearing in mind the following (not new, of course) question: which was worse, fascism or communism?

For most of post-WWII history it was assumed that fascism and Nazism were worse; communism and socialism were partly good, merely betrayed by bad leaders. That won't wash. History is full of autocrats, and most of them don't create gulags, whereas communists do it almost every time. And communism killed more people than Nazism and fascism, don't forget.

I've heard (and it seems about right to me) that to liberals the poles of Good and Evil are Martin Luther King and Hitler. That's just a sort of rule-of-thumb internal judgment, but it's important, I think.

But for pole-of-Evil status, should we replace Nazism with fascism? Instead of making Hitler the head of the Evil pantheon with Stalin as his sidekick, would it be truer to give Lenin, Stalin and Mao pride of place in our demonology, with Hitler as the sidekick? There are two big reasons to consider this-- 1) communism killed more people, 2) communism came first, and fascism was in many respects an imitation. But once you're on the track, there's more things to think of.

Under the Nazis, life was somewhat normal if you were a German non-Jew-- at least until they started losing the war. The Nazis persecuted and murdered minorities; the communists, everyone, especially their own.

Nazism, and the damage it did, were temporary, with the huge exception of the extermination of the Jews. Within 12 years of Hitler coming to power, Germany was in ruins, bombed out, disgraced by its crimes, occupied by foreign powers, hated by the world. But within 25 years of Hitler coming to power, Germany was booming, more prosperous than ever, and on good terms with its neighbors even if some suspicions and resentments lingered. The Russian empire suffered far deeper harm under the Soviets, who robbed the country of its culture and left rankling suspicion among all its neighbors.

If communism rather than Nazism is the ultimate Evil, this has broad meaning for our political ethics. Ethnic pride, blind obedience to a leader, the love of battle and conquest-- these can certainly be a source of great evil when mis-directed. But behind the worst episodes of human history, the communist states and the fascist states which, in looking for a Third Way between liberal-conservatism and communism, absorbed their influences, was the thought that Dostoyevsky voiced through Ivan Karamazov: If there is no God, then everything is permitted.

Correction:

"for pole-of-Evil status, should we replace Nazism with fascism?"

I meant, should replace Nazism/fascism with communism.

Lancelot,

Good post. That took guts. But I think you're right on target.

Except for that last line. It isn't godlessness at the root of communist evil, but the belief that individuals are subservient to the state. This is also the source of evil in Facism, and for that matter, in Theism.

the web and the blogosphere are re-telling its shocking record of mass murder, slave labor, and famine. If google is any measure, this time the world is listening.

Solzhenytzin is as nothing compared to the glories of Bryan Caplan's communism web site.