In what has to be one of the most misguided articles ever, Ryan Cooper writes in The Week about what happened 100 years ago in the October revolution in Russia that gave rise to the Soviet Union and one of the greatest killing machines ever known to man. Cooper argues that there was nothing inherent in Marxism that caused the authoritarian nightmare of the Soviet state. No, the philosophy was basically decent at its core but got perverted by outside influences. I assume next week, Cooper will write about how Hitler and the Nazis were also just misguided people trying to get by in a troubled world.
It amazes me that this kind of garbage can get written and PUBLISHED in a large media outlet. The USA had to fight for nearly 50 years to defeat the tyranny of Soviet Communism which enslaved millions around the world. People across Eastern Europe and a big swath of Asia lost their freedom, both economic and political. Millions were murdered. In the 1930's Stalin intentionally caused a famine in Ukraine that led to the death of nearly ten million people by starvation. At one time, there were more political prisoners in the Soviet gulags than the population of some of the smaller countries in Europe. This was not a good idea that went slightly astray; it was a murderous ideology that stood for total control by a single leader and his party with death being the consequence for opposition, even imagined opposition.
So why would a progressive media outlet like The Week push this naïve, indeed dishonest view of Communism? I blame our education system. During the Cold War, there were constant reminders of the evils of Communism. The Cold War ended, however, nearly 30 years ago. That means that essentially every American under the age of 40 (and many older than that) has no first hand experience with the true nature of Communism. Our schools stopped teaching the truth about this totalitarian ideology. Instead, a few of the old "true believers" like Bernie Sanders and many young people who only know the propaganda about socialism/communism have come to accept an imaginary view of history.
There are some who think that history is not worth knowing. That view is both idiotic and dangerous. We know (or we would know if we paid attention to history) that communism and socialism do not work. Each time these systems have been tried, they have failed. Sometimes the failures have been more spectacular than other times, but they have been failures nevertheless. Even today, a country like China which is nominally communist, is actually successful only because that communist economic system has been jettisoned in favor or a market based economic system. Only the authoritarian rule of the Party has been kept in China. That gives the Chinese a free market but absolutely no political freedom.
We cannot stand by and watch the fools and the propagandists spread nonsense. Too many people do not know the truth. Too many people are gullible. Silence on this point is just a contribution to societal danger.
It amazes me that this kind of garbage can get written and PUBLISHED in a large media outlet. The USA had to fight for nearly 50 years to defeat the tyranny of Soviet Communism which enslaved millions around the world. People across Eastern Europe and a big swath of Asia lost their freedom, both economic and political. Millions were murdered. In the 1930's Stalin intentionally caused a famine in Ukraine that led to the death of nearly ten million people by starvation. At one time, there were more political prisoners in the Soviet gulags than the population of some of the smaller countries in Europe. This was not a good idea that went slightly astray; it was a murderous ideology that stood for total control by a single leader and his party with death being the consequence for opposition, even imagined opposition.
So why would a progressive media outlet like The Week push this naïve, indeed dishonest view of Communism? I blame our education system. During the Cold War, there were constant reminders of the evils of Communism. The Cold War ended, however, nearly 30 years ago. That means that essentially every American under the age of 40 (and many older than that) has no first hand experience with the true nature of Communism. Our schools stopped teaching the truth about this totalitarian ideology. Instead, a few of the old "true believers" like Bernie Sanders and many young people who only know the propaganda about socialism/communism have come to accept an imaginary view of history.
There are some who think that history is not worth knowing. That view is both idiotic and dangerous. We know (or we would know if we paid attention to history) that communism and socialism do not work. Each time these systems have been tried, they have failed. Sometimes the failures have been more spectacular than other times, but they have been failures nevertheless. Even today, a country like China which is nominally communist, is actually successful only because that communist economic system has been jettisoned in favor or a market based economic system. Only the authoritarian rule of the Party has been kept in China. That gives the Chinese a free market but absolutely no political freedom.
We cannot stand by and watch the fools and the propagandists spread nonsense. Too many people do not know the truth. Too many people are gullible. Silence on this point is just a contribution to societal danger.
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