100th Anniversary

[tuco]

Nothing excuses the crimes committed through history by communists. 

The communist party over here (https://www.kscm.cz/cs) been getting between 7.5 - 15% of votes in every election since the so-called Velvet revolution in 1989. This is to show that sentiment for "old times", mostly among older voters, exists and is not insignificant. The communist party, despite getting a relatively decent number of seats in parliament, never been part of any government coalition as no political party wanted to be affiliated with them but that is a matter of political marketing IMO.

I tend to agree, however, that the communist bosses, unlike Nazi bosses, have not been dealt with justly, not been held responsible respectively. As far as I know, apart from Ceausescu (https://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-elsner/trial-and-execution-the-d_b_401497.html) most of them (from the former Soviet bloc) got away either with no charge or relatively light sentences for their crimes, participation in them. There was a heated debate over here right after the fall of the so-called communist regime over this very issue - what to do with communist bosses and whether or not to make the communist party illegal. Then, perhaps due to humanist ideals of Václav Havel and co, the consensus was negative towards harsh punishment and ban. Perhaps people wanted to look forward, perhaps many felt responsible for cooperating in one way or the other with the regime, perhaps it was just naive and misguided notion, I do not really know. Today its not a topic anymore, its understood that its too late. 

The fact remains that there is indeed a certain discrepancy between judging crimes committed by communist bosses and fascist ones. Then again, there is a half-century between the fall of fascism and communism so maybe that played some role. 

 

Edited November 9, 2017 by tuco

[CharonY]

43 minutes ago, MigL said:

One could regard Communism as an extreme form of Socialism, where everything is not simply state controlled, but actually state owned.

According to the Marxist school of thought that is not what it is supposed to be. Rather the means of production are supposed to be owned by society not by the state. There is little indication how that is supposed to happen, though (based on my limited knowledge).

My point in comparing views on communist regimes however, is more to figure out whether Cuba is revered (if it is indeed so) because of its revolutionary/communist streak, or despite it. My broader point I tried to make is that our view of specific countries are colored by our common history and much less by ideology. Iraq was a prime example where we disliked a dictator, then liked him than hated him again. All while the basic ideology of his regime did not fundamentally change. Likewise, I doubt China up until its massive economic expansion was revered in any form (other than the ancient history parts, maybe). 

Also, if you look at the obituary of Pinochet e.g. in the Washington Post, you can see that the view between Pinochet and Castro is quite conflicted, which makes the simple thesis of entrenched ideologies as formulated in the OP far too simplistic, as it ignores all other factors that come into the evaluation of regimes. Not the least being a constant change in the values of the evaluators. You seem to try to link it to economic success, for which there is ample evidence that capitalist influences are superior in creating a thriving market (yet for which there is also evidence that capitalism can exist in dictatorships). But I am not sure what the broader point is. Unless it is the assumption that now for some reasons communist ideals are making a return, for which I see little evidence so far.

[Phi for All]

It's hard not to see the OP argument as one painting a fair market capitalism as a preferential societal model by pointing to the worst attempts at other models. Are we ever going to see fair market capitalism? Are we ever going to remove the corporate influence from our politics? Are we ever going to stop lobbyists from pushing deregulatory legislation that weakens consumer protections? Are we ever going to stop subsidizing wealthy old industries like oil and give new solutions a chance to show their real value? 

One could argue that the US might be making the same types of mistakes with capitalism that the USSR made with communism. A strong economy is not necessarily built with a minimum of tools. A strong society needs more than money. 

I suppose the difference between the views of fascism vs communism is that many communist principles could be adopted as beneficial by a voting public. Most fascists deny being so, because it doesn't help them get elected. Most fascists are found out after they're in office, which they usually grabbed either forcefully or by pulling the wool over the eyes of the public. When you've been in a democracy, who wants a totalitarian single-party state?