Demonize the Liberals

[MtSmalls]

This Adminstrations current tactic of demonizing the liberals has taken the next step. In a column written by Senator Rick "Dick" Santorum (R-PA) for the Catholic Online website, this gem appears:
[ QUOTE ]
It is startling that those in the media and academia appear most disturbed by this aberrant behavior, since they have zealously promoted moral relativism by sanctioning "private" moral matters such as alternative lifestyles. Priests, like all of us, are affected by culture. When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, that's right. The "liberals" in Boston made the cultural climate so relaxed that ordained Catholic priests couldn't keep their dicks in the pants and started abusing altar boys.

This of course conveniently ignores the fact that the actual "center" of this abomination is in Kentucky, not Boston, where the diocese is paying out a multi-million dollar settlement (the largest in the nation).

[shots]

This statement is riculous and I doubt anyone will even bother trying to defend it. Personally I think the problem isn't in Boston or kentucky but in the Vatican.

How the good people of Pennsylvania continue to elect this guy is beyond me.

[andyfox]

This is of a piece with the Texas senator who suggested that liberal judges were reponsible for violence committed against them.

[slamdunkpro]

[ QUOTE ]
This Adminstrations current tactic of demonizing the liberals has taken the next step. In a column written by Senator Rick "Dick" Santorum (R-PA)

[/ QUOTE ]

Ummm.. Santorum isn't part of "This Administration" He's in the Senate, not the White House.

[OtisTheMarsupial]

Yucky. I hate that frothy mixture of cum and poo that results from anal.

[[censored]]

I don't see what the problem is. Sure he is wrong in this case but likely liberals have gone unblamed for countless other problems that they have caused. Therefore on the whole of it, liberals are still getting off lightly.

[andyfox]

"liberals have gone unblamed"

Unblamed? I hear them daily being blamed for everything. They are now being called unpatriotic and traitors by virtually all talk radio commentators and many Republican elected officials.

[MtSmalls]

Santorum, along with Frist, DeLay and the overwhelming majority of the Senate Republicans are well coordinated with the White House (i.e. Rove and Cheney) in terms of making sure the talking points that the diabolical duo wants spouted.

[[censored]]

[ QUOTE ]
"liberals have gone unblamed"

Unblamed? I hear them daily being blamed for everything. They are now being called unpatriotic and traitors by virtually all talk radio commentators and many Republican elected officials.

[/ QUOTE ]

kidding, I'm kidding.

[andyfox]

Sorry.

[Felix_Nietsche]

"liberals have gone unblamed"
Unblamed? I hear them daily being blamed for everything. They are now being called unpatriotic and traitors
************************************************** *********
We have Teddy Kennedy calling the Iraq War a quagmire.
We have Dick Durbin comparing Gitmo to concentration camps.
....and more.
And let us not forget John Kerry's statement to a congressional sub-committee claiming attrocities committed in Vietnam in the nature of the barbarian Genghis Khan.
The American left has a LONGGGGGGGG tradition of of getting aid and comfort to the enemy. Since John Kerry's picture is in the Vietnam "war crimes" museum as a hero of Vietnam it stands to reason if Iraq ever becomes an islamic fascist state that Kennedy, Durbin, and other Democrats will have their pictures hung in their museums as 'heros'.

Ask yourself this. If you were an enemy agent with the mission to undermine the American soldiers morale and provided propaganda for the Arab media how would you react differently than Kennedy, Dubin, and the other democrats?

I think the actions of the democrat leadership show a LACK of their love of country (aka patriotism).
Their actions show their love of power and shows their 'end justifies the means' mentality.

[johnc]

Statements like this perpetuate the mudslinging tactics praticed by both sides of the isle continuing to detract attention away from real solutions and constructive dialog towards real problems that truly trouble this nation.

[CollinEstes]

[ QUOTE ]
Statements like this perpetuate the mudslinging tactics praticed by both sides of the isle continuing to detract attention away from real solutions and constructive dialog towards real problems that truly trouble this nation.

[/ QUOTE ]


I couldn't agree more.

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]
"liberals have gone unblamed"
Unblamed? I hear them daily being blamed for everything. They are now being called unpatriotic and traitors
************************************************** *********
We have Teddy Kennedy calling the Iraq War a quagmire.
We have Dick Durbin comparing Gitmo to concentration camps.
....and more.
And let us not forget John Kerry's statement to a congressional sub-committee claiming attrocities committed in Vietnam in the nature of the barbarian Genghis Khan.
The American left has a LONGGGGGGGG tradition of of getting aid and comfort to the enemy. Since John Kerry's picture is in the Vietnam "war crimes" museum as a hero of Vietnam it stands to reason if Iraq ever becomes an islamic fascist state that Kennedy, Durbin, and other Democrats will have their pictures hung in their museums as 'heros'.

Ask yourself this. If you were an enemy agent with the mission to undermine the American soldiers morale and provided propaganda for the Arab media how would you react differently than Kennedy, Dubin, and the other democrats?

I think the actions of the democrat leadership show a LACK of their love of country (aka patriotism).
Their actions show their love of power and shows their 'end justifies the means' mentality.

[/ QUOTE ]

Look up the word quagmire.

Do you believe that protesting a war shouldn't be allowed, because it gives aid and comfort to the enemy? And if it should be allowed, what would be okay with you to do or say in protest?

-ptmusic

[johnc]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
"liberals have gone unblamed"
Unblamed? I hear them daily being blamed for everything. They are now being called unpatriotic and traitors
************************************************** *********
We have Teddy Kennedy calling the Iraq War a quagmire.
We have Dick Durbin comparing Gitmo to concentration camps.
....and more.
And let us not forget John Kerry's statement to a congressional sub-committee claiming attrocities committed in Vietnam in the nature of the barbarian Genghis Khan.
The American left has a LONGGGGGGGG tradition of of getting aid and comfort to the enemy. Since John Kerry's picture is in the Vietnam "war crimes" museum as a hero of Vietnam it stands to reason if Iraq ever becomes an islamic fascist state that Kennedy, Durbin, and other Democrats will have their pictures hung in their museums as 'heros'.

Ask yourself this. If you were an enemy agent with the mission to undermine the American soldiers morale and provided propaganda for the Arab media how would you react differently than Kennedy, Dubin, and the other democrats?

I think the actions of the democrat leadership show a LACK of their love of country (aka patriotism).
Their actions show their love of power and shows their 'end justifies the means' mentality.

[/ QUOTE ]

Look up the word quagmire.

Do you believe that protesting a war shouldn't be allowed, because it gives aid and comfort to the enemy? And if it should be allowed, what would be okay with you to do or say in protest?

-ptmusic

[/ QUOTE ]

Although I personally totally disagree with the protesting of the war in Iraq (or the Vietnam war in retrospect, I was too young to remember), the entire concept of denying one that freedom seriously, IMHO, treads upon the freedoms we all share. Our rights as individuals in the nation are currently being infringed due in large part to the "war on terrorism" legislation recently passed and under discussion in the Washington. I personally have not been affected by these measures (with the small exception of being inconvienienced at the airport) however it truly troubles me and it should anyone who is familiar with history that the when rights of fellow citizens are infringed in the spirit of civil order (or whatever excuse meets the current needs) must be seen it as an infringement or outright violation of their own persnal rights and freedoms. Do I want my posts to be reviewed by some govt lacky for subversive content? It's none of their damn business!

[andyfox]

A quagmire is "a situation from which extrication is very difficult." [Random Dictionary of the English Language, College Edition] The perfect definition, by the administration's own admission, of the situation in Iraq.

While I am unaware of Genghis Khan's methods and tactics, the United States certainly violated international law and conducted a heinous, murderous, illegal and immoral war in Vietnam, lying to the American people while doing it, endangering our national security. The people who betrayed America were not those with the guts to stand up to it, but those who conducted it and thereby trashed the principles that made us great.

As President Bush correctly stated last night, the terrorists don't understand America. They don't understand that in a democracy, criticism is the lifeblood of the system. To stifle criticism by saying it's giving aid and comfort to the enemy is to adopt the very tactics of that enemy who, as the president again correctly stated, hates the freedoms we cherish.

Criticism of a country's policies does not show lack of love of one's country. Calling those who criticize traitors shows a lack of understanding of what there is to love about our country.

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]
A quagmire is "a situation from which extrication is very difficult." [Random Dictionary of the English Language, College Edition] The perfect definition, by the administration's own admission, of the situation in Iraq.

While I am unaware of Genghis Khan's methods and tactics, the United States certainly violated international law and conducted a heinous, murderous, illegal and immoral war in Vietnam, lying to the American people while doing it, endangering our national security. The people who betrayed America were not those with the guts to stand up to it, but those who conducted it and thereby trashed the principles that made us great.

As President Bush correctly stated last night, the terrorists don't understand America. They don't understand that in a democracy, criticism is the lifeblood of the system. To stifle criticism by saying it's giving aid and comfort to the enemy is to adopt the very tactics of that enemy who, as the president again correctly stated, hates the freedoms we cherish.

Criticism of a country's policies does not show lack of love of one's country. Calling those who criticize traitors shows a lack of understanding of what there is to love about our country.

[/ QUOTE ]

Good post.

Here's another definition for quagmire (Houghton Mifflin): "A difficult or precarious situation; a predicament". How many times have Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc., referred to the Iraq war as "difficult"?

Durbin's statements were out of line, not because Gitmo is run perfectly, but because his statements are hurtful to concentration camp victims and their families. But Kennedy's "quagmire" statement is not out of line at all, in fact it is correct and in agreement with what the Bush administration says!

I honestly think that some conservative pundits jumped on that statement BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T KNOW THE DEFINITION OF THE WORD, then many other pundits thought it was fair game to attack Kennedy on the statement, and now every parrot that listens to them jumps on that statement too.

If you listen to a right or left leaning pundit, do yourself and everyone else a favor and listen with a grain of salt!

-ptmusic

[Felix_Nietsche]

"the United States certainly violated international law and conducted a heinous, murderous, illegal and immoral war in Vietnam"
************************************************** ****
What international law?
You are mindlessly quoting nonsense without understanding the words you are parroting. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS INTERNATIONAL LAW.... The USA is a sovereign nation. It is NOT subject to "international law". The US Constitution DOES give the USA to enter into treaties with other nations. Perhaps this is what your refering to. Please name the treaty where the USA gave up its power to conduct war. Save yourself some time and just concede you wrote this post while in a drunken stupor. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

As for murders in Vietnam the only one I'm aware of was Lt Calley who was prosecuted and many people thought he got a raw deal. When it came to murders, the Viet Cong were COMPLETELY unscrupulous. The Viet Cong lost EVERY major battle with the US soldiers but they 'won' the war by terrorizing the South Vietnamese people into supporting them. Murder and torture were their favorite methods.

The USA took in THOUSANDS of South Vietnamese because they would be murdered if they stayed in Vietnam. Your murder comment is silly and not grounded in reality.

[Felix_Nietsche]

Do you believe that protesting a war shouldn't be allowed, because it gives aid and comfort to the enemy?
**************************************************
No, protests should be allowed. Just as I should be allowed to express my disapproval of the tactics the anti-war protestors use (trying to prevent re-suppy ships from leaving US ports, vandalizing people's property, verbally abusing people who protests them, laying in streets to block traffic, and making bald false lies (eg Dick Durbin's comments).

I have heard respectful anti-war comments from people like Thomas Friedman/Alan Colmes. Thomas Friedman is a New York Times editorialist who is a big liberal. If all anti-war protestors could follow Thomas Friedman's style, then I could actually respect them while still disagreeing with them. In a way I'm glad these fruit cakes are acting like idiots because it helps the Republican party (which though deeply flawed is a MAJOR improvement over the Democrat party).


And if it should be allowed, what would be okay with you to do or say in protest?
************************************************
Protesting in a civil and respectful manner and sticking with the truth would be a nice start.
John G.(F) Kerry lied in his biography that he heard Nixon on the radio say there was no US troops while he was in Cambodia. He got busted in this lie because Nixon had not yet taken office during Kerry's four months of 'combat'. His second lie was claiming he observed attrocities. As a military officer he was bound by military law to report violations. He later backtracked on these comments saying in effect these were impetuos words by an angry youth.

Traditionally, scoring political 'points' is the left's first priority and the truth is just a tertiary priority...

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]

Traditionally, scoring political 'points' is the left's first priority and the truth is just a tertiary priority...

[/ QUOTE ]

You are generalizing and unfair. There is no way you can ever prove the "tradition" that the left's "first priority" is to score political points. And even if it were the first priority of some individuals, it is unfair to criticize all of them with such a blanket statement.

Durbin's statements were an opinion, not a fact, it was therefore flawed (in MY opinion) but it could not have been a bald-faced lie.

Kerry could have made a mistake in his recollection about Nixon on the radio, which is different than a lie. He could also have been lying, but my guess is it was a stupid mistake, because obviously someone was going to easily discover the timing problem.

As for the atrocities, when Kerry was young, he was in the difficult position of balancing his duty as a soldier with his personal duty to protest a war he thought was wrong. He made some mistakes, yes. My guess: he saw some atrocities back then; he backtracked later because of all the pressure he was getting from vets. So I think he did make some statements for political gain, but it wasn't the comments he made back then, it was the backtracking he made more recently. In my opinion, therefore, he did not aid and comfort the enemy for political gain, but because he thought what we were doing was wrong.

You completely ignored Kennedy's quagmire statement in your last two posts; I guess you are conceding that you and many conservatives with liberal-bashing agendas were unfair with that criticism.

NONE of the above adds up to some tradition of the left seeking political points while avoiding the truth, that's for sure.

-ptmusic

[Greg J]

Yeah well, even so, they are not part of the adminstration. Sorry.

[kurto]

You're a nice guy, ptmusic. Very patient.

I usually just get nasty and condescending when anyone starts off with ridiculous generalizations like, "Traditionally, scoring political 'points' is the left's first priority and the truth is just a tertiary priority..."

You provided a well measured and polite response.

I can't help but think that either of our approaches will have any effect. Yours is probably just nicer for everyone else to read!

/images/graemlins/smile.gif

[trippin bily]

[ QUOTE ]
Santorum, along with Frist, DeLay and the overwhelming majority of the Senate Republicans are well coordinated with the White House (i.e. Rove and Cheney) in terms of making sure the talking points that the diabolical duo wants spouted.

[/ QUOTE ]
I cannot stop laughing at " diabolical duo "
I may pee on myself....again.

[trippin bily]

No pt they jumped on the word Quagmire because it is symbolic of Viet Nam which is symbolic of the US losing.

[Felix_Nietsche]

Kerry could have made a mistake in his recollection about Nixon on the radio, which is different than a lie. He could also have been lying, but my guess is it was a stupid mistake, because obviously someone was going to easily discover the timing problem.
************************************************** ***
Kerry spent four months in combat at Vietnam (the shortest combat stint on any swift boat veteran). Nixon was not president during those four months. He lied.....


You completely ignored Kennedy's quagmire statement in your last two posts; I guess you are conceding that you and many conservatives with liberal-bashing agendas were unfair with that criticism.
************************************************** *
The leaders of the left say so many unpatriotic and untrue statements that it would be a full time job to answer to each one. Kennedy claimed the elections in Iraq would not happen. They did and were very successful. The next step is the drafting on their constitution. Then a second round of elections. One Iraqi leader said another two years of security provided by American troops should be enough. Sounds like steady progress is being made to me. Kennedy is using binoculars to read a newspaper.

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]
No pt they jumped on the word Quagmire because it is symbolic of Viet Nam which is symbolic of the US losing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Explain the connection please.

By the way, even if there is some connection, the word "quagmire" fits both Iraq and Vietman.

-ptmusic

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]
Kerry could have made a mistake in his recollection about Nixon on the radio, which is different than a lie. He could also have been lying, but my guess is it was a stupid mistake, because obviously someone was going to easily discover the timing problem.
************************************************** ***
Kerry spent four months in combat at Vietnam (the shortest combat stint on any swift boat veteran). Nixon was not president during those four months. He lied.....

[/ QUOTE ]

Reread my post. I said he might have lied. But he could have heard Nixon on the radio before Nixon was President, right? But my main point was that even if he did lie, it doesn't lead to a conclusion that the left traditionally lies for political gains as their first priority.

[ QUOTE ]

You completely ignored Kennedy's quagmire statement in your last two posts; I guess you are conceding that you and many conservatives with liberal-bashing agendas were unfair with that criticism.
************************************************** *
The leaders of the left say so many unpatriotic and untrue statements that it would be a full time job to answer to each one. Kennedy claimed the elections in Iraq would not happen. They did and were very successful. The next step is the drafting on their constitution. Then a second round of elections. One Iraqi leader said another two years of security provided by American troops should be enough. Sounds like steady progress is being made to me. Kennedy is using binoculars to read a newspaper.

[/ QUOTE ]

Who's asking you to go through every supposed unpatriotic statement spoken by Kennedy or anyone else? My point, again, was that Kennedy was not inaccurate in calling Iraq a quagmire, which is exactly what the Bush administration has been calling it (using words with the same meaning).

As for your latest points about Kennedy making predictions that did not come true, you are correct. But that's not what I was criticizing you about at all. And besides, the Bush administration has made many incorrect predictions about the Iraq war as well. So if you are suggesting that Kennedy's poor predictions are somehow "unpatriotic and untrue", then you must call the Bush adminstration "unpatriotic and untrue" as well.

-ptmusic

[andyfox]

David Halberstam's first book on Vietnam was called The Making of a Quagmire.

[ptmusic]

[ QUOTE ]
David Halberstam's first book on Vietnam was called The Making of a Quagmire.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ok, thanks.

Is the title of that book why people criticized Kennedy for calling Iraq a quagmire?

And what is so wrong with comparing Iraq to Vietnam, in terms of both of them being difficult, costly, politically divisive, and (depending on your point of view) a bad idea to begin with and unwinable? I mean they're not exactly the same, of course, but they are both quagmires.

-ptmusic

[andyfox]

The United States invasion of Vietnam and its prosecution of the war there violated the Charter of the United Nations, the Hague Convention, the SEATO Treaty, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the Geneva Convention of 1949, the Geneva Accords of 1954, and the Nuremberg Principles.

As for United States murder in Vietnam, I've posted on this here many times before. Phoenix is a good place to start, a program of civilian assassination. The United States's policy in Vietnam was one of deliberate killing and refugeeing of civilians.

As for the South Vietnamese who fled Vietnam after the war, a greater percentage of people who lived in the colonies that became the United States fled after our revolution than did from Vietnam after the Communists won.

If you want to know why the Communists won, I recommend starting with Jeffrey Race's book, War Comes to Long An. The "government" of "South Vietnam" used murder and torture and arbitrary arrests to run the South; this was the "democracy" we were supposed to be defending. Three quoataions:

1) Here is what a village chief from Thu Thua said about his area:

"Before Diem's overthrow in 1963, a great many people here went over to the Vietcong because the government was appointed, not elected. In those days the government lorded it over the people, it did not help them a bit. No matter if you put in a request for something, you would get no help. Even worse, the officials found a lot of ways to make money off the people, so the people hated the government. For example, if I were village chief and I didn't like you, I would put some documents in your house and then call the Cong An [the security police]. They would pick you up and then torture you until you had to confess. [emphasis added] So a lot of people went over to the Vietcong, even though they didn't like them, because they had no choice. If they had stayed, they would have been arrested."

2) A quotation from a South Vietnamese [our side] hamlet chief in 1959:

"The Vietcong were very smart. If they knew that Binh's family had been ill-treated by the government, they would work on that weak point. Perhaps Binh had had money extorted by an official--in his heart he had to feel resentment. So they would come by from time to time and say, "You see how bad the government is, it calls itself nationalist, but in the end it steals your money. Are you just going to do nothing?" So, like fanning a flame, Binh's reserntment would grow to anger, and his anger to hatred, and his hatred to revolt. Or maybe Xoai would be building a house, The Vietcong would come by and help him put it up, meanwhile talking about their own lives--no pay, living in the swamps, being shot at all the time. Naturally, Xoai would take pity on them, so the next time they came by and asked for a meal, he would invite them in. But when they took a meal it was not like our [South Vietnamese] soldiers way: burst in, demand food, sit around while it was being fixed, eat, and finally grab a couple of chickens and run off. Instead, the VC would go into the kitchen, clean the rice, and while they were waiting for it to cook, they would sweep the house, wash the dishes, and set the table. When the meal was over, they would clean up, and then thank everyone politely. So the owner of the house would think, "The [South Vietnamese] soldiers come in here as if they owned the place, but this other fellow is very polite and helps me out." Naturally, he let the Vietcong eat at his house all the itime. That is how the Vietcong gained the people's support. They simply built on the opportunity we gave them. [emphasis added]

3) Another village chief from Thu Thua:

"During the Diem period the people here saw that the government was no good at all. That is why maybe 80 percent of them followed the VC. I was village chief then, but I just had to do what the government told me. If not, the secret police would have picked me up and tortured me to death. [emphasis added] Thus I as the very one who rigged the election here. BUt even if you had offered me a million piasters, I would not have said a word, because in those days if you opened your mouth you were put in jail immediately.

"The 1959 election was very dishonest. Information and Civic Action cadres went around at noon when everyone was home napping and stuffed the ballot boxes. If the results still didn't come our right they were adjusted at district headquarters. Everyone was terrified of the government. The Cong An beat people and used the 'water treatment.' [forcing water down a person's throat or else holidng his head under water.] But there was nothing anyone could do. Everyone was too terrified. [emphasis added]"

These were our guys in Vietnam. See why they lost?

[andyfox]

The administration fears a comparison to Vietnama because:

1) Vietnam ended up in defeat

2) Vietnam cost over 50,000 American lives.

3) Our leaders during the Vietnam War was constantly telling us that victory was just around the corner, that the war was going well.

4) Vietnam showed the American people not only that their government could be wrong, but that it could do bad things and lie about it.

[slamdunkpro]

[ QUOTE ]
1) Vietnam ended up in defeat

[/ QUOTE ]
Yup

[ QUOTE ]
2) Vietnam cost over 50,000 American lives.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup

[ QUOTE ]
3) Our leaders during the Vietnam War was constantly telling us that victory was just around the corner, that the war was going well.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup - The Democrat leaders

[ QUOTE ]
4) Vietnam showed the American people not only that their government could be wrong, but that it could do bad things and lie about it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup - The Democrat leaders

Please also note the the Democrats got us in, then expanded the war. It took a Republican president to get us out.

[Peter666]

"the United States certainly violated international law and conducted a heinous, murderous, illegal and immoral war in Vietnam"

Ridiculous. Communism by far has perpetrated the most heinous, murderous, illegal and immoral acts of any philosophical or political system in the history of mankind. Fighting against any of its forms is never immoral, but a moral good.

[andyfox]

Certainly the Democrats Kennedy and Johnson were the most important presidents in terms of the build-up of American troops. Eisenhower did his part by subverting the Geneva accords. The Democrat Lyndon Johnson was a pathological liar (like his successor).

Nixon, the Republican, subverted the peace process in 1968; I have posted about this before. He then let the war drag on for five more years, taking it to new levels of ferocity and duplicity. He said he had a "secret plan" to end the war, which was nothing more than him threatening the enemy with nuclear weapons, his so-called "madman" theory. He then pulled out accepting the same terms that were on the table in 1968, which he himself sabotaged.

To say it took a Republican to get us out is misleading at best. Had either Robert Kennedy or Eugene McCarthy, both Democrats, been elected in 1968, we would have been out under the same terms at a much earlier date. Moreover, Nixon intended for us to go back in after the North violated the terms of the agreement.

There is plenty of blame to go around on Vietnam for both Democrats and Republicans. There is no question, though, that liberal Democrats led the battle against the so-called Communist monolith during the Cold War.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]

Yes, that's right. The "liberals" in Boston made the cultural climate so relaxed that ordained Catholic priests couldn't keep their dicks in the pants and started abusing altar boys.

This of course conveniently ignores the fact that the actual "center" of this abomination is in Kentucky, not Boston, where the diocese is paying out a multi-million dollar settlement (the largest in the nation).

[/ QUOTE ]

Whatever the settlement is, it isn't enough.

[andyfox]

"Ridiculous. Communism by far has perpetrated the most heinous, murderous, illegal and immoral acts of any philosophical or political system in the history of mankind. Fighting against any of its forms is never immoral, but a moral good."

Depends on how you fight against it. To back a totalitarian police state that tortured its own citizenry; to drop more bombs on South Vietnam, the "country" we were supposed to be defending; to continually lie about it to the American people; to ignore the history of French colonialism and take over for the French; to deliberately kill and refugee hundreds of thousands of peasants, is to make ourselves virtually indistinguishable from the moral depravity of the Communists. The South lost the war because it was more wicked towards its own citizenry than were the Viet Cong.

I see where President Bush is now cozying up to those heinous, murderous Communists in Vietnam. Is what he's doing immoral. Many of our largest corporations have invested in China? Is what they are doing immoral?

[Peter666]

"Depends on how you fight against it."

I think it is more important to first determine what you are fighting against. A totaliarian regime such as that found in South Vietnam did have legitimate authourity to defend itself against the greater evil of communism. While there may have been excesses or crimes in individual cases perpetrated by the regime, the overall cause was legitimate. Prison and even torture are not necessarily evil in themselves. It depends who you are doing it against and for what reason (eg. punishing a heinous murderer by torture is not a moral evil. Torturing an innocent person is).

The tragedy of the Vietnam War was not the cause, but the stupid way it was mishandled by politicians and bureaucrats, resulting in the unecessary deaths of Americans and Vietnamese.

"I see where President Bush is now cozying up to those heinous, murderous Communists in Vietnam. Is what he's doing immoral. Many of our largest corporations have invested in China? Is what they are doing immoral?"

In so far as investing in China or cozying up to communists allows the continuation of crimes against the common good of the people, then what they are doing is immoral and a disgrace.

If president Bush is cozying up to the communists, I think it is with the intention of bringing about positive changes in a peaceable manner, unless there is proof otherwise.

As far as the corporations go, it depends on the individual situation. If any corporation profits from the slave labour of political prisoners, or procures arms for the Chinese military, then absolutely what they are doing is disgusting and should be stopped.

[andyfox]

"A totaliarian regime such as that found in South Vietnam did have legitimate authourity to defend itself against the greater evil of communism."

It was a civil war. It began as a revolt against the regime in the South. Any opponent, Communist or not, was branded by Diem and his family as Communist.

"Prison and even torture are not necessarily evil in themselves. It depends who you are doing it against and for what reason (eg. punishing a heinous murderer by torture is not a moral evil. Torturing an innocent person is)."

Diem's administration imprisoned and tortured for political reasons. They were determined to stamp out any potential opposition. Diem knew that Ho Chi Minh was a hero to most people in Vietnam. Eisenhower said in his memoirs that had we permitted the elections called for under the Geneva accords of 1954, Ho would have won 80% of the vote.

I agree completely with your last three paragraphs. There are, of course, Communists and Communists. Certainly life is much better for many more Chinese now than it was when Mao was running the show, both politically and economically.

[Peter666]

If 80% of the people would have voted for Ho, then 80% of the people were willing to support a communist regime. Even though it was a civil war, it had international consequences. The West was afraid of the spread of Communism througout South East Asia, as there were revolts in all the countries including the Philippines, a territory of the US. So to protect our interests, intervention was necessary. After all, it was the USSR who supplied Ho with his weapons!

I think Americans can take solice that the Vietnam War was not a waste of time in principle because of the 1960's Cold War climate. The Vietnam war did stall extreme communist revolutionary activity until political inroads were made in the 1970's (eg Nixon in China).

The killing fields of Cambodia are a model of what happens when radical socialists take over. I think if the US had won the war in Vietnam, Cambodia would not have happened.

Because of this, it was better having a Vietnam War then not having one. Unfortunately, as we both agree, it was run horribly.

[CORed]

[ QUOTE ]
Traditionally, scoring political 'points' is a politician's first priority and the truth is just a tertiary priority...

[/ QUOTE ]

Fixed your post.

[CORed]

There are a lot of similarities (and some important differences) between Iraq and Vietnam. In both wars, the administaration grossly underestimated the difficulty of winning the war and conducted it in a manner that made it nearly impossible to win. In both wars, we had to deal with a hostile population (or subset thereof) using guerilla tactics. Such wars are always difficult to win. The insurgents don't really have to crush the occupiers; they just have to outlast them. The occupiers have to completely defeat the insurgents. It is difficult to go after the insurgents without causing collateral damage: Indeed, it is difficult to know who are your enemies and who are your allies. The collateral damage may turn people who are on your side (or at least neutral) against you and strengthen the insurgents. I think Iraq may still be salvageable, but I see little evidence that this administration is capable of salvaging it. One important difference between Iraq and Vietnam was that in Vietnam, our enemy was supported by a superpower (The Soviet Union) and a near-superpower (China) who provided them with massive resupply. We were unwilling or unable to make a dent in this resupply.

In Iraq, there is no superpower supplying the insurgents (although they are certainly getting significant outside support). What is really curious is that, for all the Bush administrations rhetoric about this war being a struggle for our very survival, we are trying to conduct this war on the cheap, without taking steps that would entail any real sacrifice. If this really were a war vital to our survival, raising taxes and reinstating the draft would seem to be no-brainers (not that I really want to see either, especially the draft). However, the only steps that seem to be consistent with a struggle for survival are the ones least likely to be effective--a serious undermining of basic civil liberties. If we are to have any hope of winning this war, we are going to have to commit a lot more troops, and probably sustain a lot more casualties. At this point, I'm not sure it's worth it. However, either withdrawing now, or comitting enough troops to win decisively (which may not be possible without a draft) would be better than the current policy of hanging around, trying not to get to many people killed, while denying that we are losing. Remember, in this war, maintaining the status quo will result in defeat. Eventually, we'll decide it's not worth it, and leave. If we are not willing to do what it takes to win, withdrawing now is better than withdrawing ten years from now.

I fear that the end result in Iraq will be the same as in Vietnam: After several years and much loss of life, we will withdraw without achieving our goal of establishing a stable democratic regime. Of course, unlike Vitnam, Iraq started with an apparent victory. We succeeded in our (worthy) goal of ousting Sadaam Hussein) Unfortunately, instead of replacing a thug dictator with a democracy, so far, we have succeedeed only in replacing him with chaos.

[pryor15]

[ QUOTE ]
Communism by far has perpetrated the most heinous, murderous, illegal and immoral acts of any philosophical or political system in the history of mankind.

[/ QUOTE ]

not even close.

[slamdunkpro]

[ QUOTE ]
[quote[Communism by far has perpetrated the most heinous, murderous, illegal and immoral acts of any philosophical or political system in the history of mankind.

[/ QUOTE ]


not even close.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can’t wait to hear this – elaborate please.

[LaggyLou]

[ QUOTE ]
punishing a heinous murderer by torture is not a moral evil.

[/ QUOTE ]

This opinion of yours deserves to be highlighted. I suggest that you append it to all your posts from now on.

[pryor15]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[quote[Communism by far has perpetrated the most heinous, murderous, illegal and immoral acts of any philosophical or political system in the history of mankind.

[/ QUOTE ]


not even close.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can’t wait to hear this – elaborate please.

[/ QUOTE ]

well, there's Nazi Germany, for one. and the taliban.

[slamdunkpro]

[ QUOTE ]
well, there's Nazi Germany, for one. and the taliban.

[/ QUOTE ]

Stalin had more people murdered than Hitler. Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot togther most likely win the body count award.

[fluxrad]

No. Hitler wins the body count game at 55 million, considering he was the direct cause of WWII. Also, he had the whole genocide thing which, while only killing 6 million jews, was pretty goddamned hard core in its own right.

I should also talk about economies of scale when we're talking about Hitler vs. Stalin. Assume you only talk about the people whose deaths Hitler was directly responsible for, you're probably looking around 15 million among the Jews, Poles, and Russians (this number may be slightly high or slightly low). Now look at the fact that Hitler killed this number over a six year period. Stalin's reign was for significantly longer (from 1924-1953), during which he killed ~20 million. Had WWII continued for that long, or had Hitler been able to achieve a lasting peace with the West, there is no doubt whatsoever that his body count would have been higher.

But like I said, I still think Hitler is responsible for more deaths.

Informational linkage (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm)

[MMMMMM]

Hi fluxrad,

Stalin and Mao managed to kill 80-100 million of their own citizens. That is not counting war deaths.

[fluxrad]

Hi MMMMMM,

Can I have a source for your numbers?

From wikipedia:

How many millions died under Stalin is greatly disputed. Although no official figures have been released by the Soviet or Russian governments, most estimates put the figure between 8 and 20 million. Comparison of the 1926–37 census results suggests 5–10 million deaths in excess of what would be normal in the period, mostly through famine in 1931–34.

Mao is credited with up to 40 million deaths, but most of these are generally thought to have been due to incompetence resulting in famine, not maliciousness.

[MMMMMM]

Hi fluxrad,

Here is a partial list covering the USSR and China (and not counting Cambodia, Laos, etc.):

Lenin's Famine-------------------------3 to 10 million

Stalin's First Famine-----------------7 million

Zinoviev's Executions------------------300,000

Stalin's Great Terror Executions----3 million

Lenin's Slave Labor Camps---------------15,000

Stalin's Slave Labor Camps-----------10 to 30 million

Mao's Slave Labor Camps--------------10 million

Mao's Famine 1959-1963---------------30 million

Mao's Executions---------------------10 to 15 million

Museum Of Communism (http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/bcaplan/museum/musframe.htm)

(partial excerpt)" What were the most important human rights violations committed under Lenin's rule?

V.I. Lenin was the founding father of the Soviet Union and its dictator during the Russian Civil War that followed. A series of strokes after the Civil War, and his early death in 1924, gave him a mere five years to reign. The brevity of his tenure led many to assume that subsequent human rights abuses in the Soviet Union were not Lenin's fault. Oppression did intensify after Stalin replaced Lenin as the absolute ruler of the USSR. But Lenin did everything that Stalin would later do, except execute fellow Communists. As Richard Pipes notes, this "is not as significant as it may appear at first sight. Towards outsiders, people not belonging to his order of the elect - and that included 99.7 percent of his compatriots - Lenin showed no human feelings whatever..." (Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime)

Lenin repeatedly indicated that large-scale killing would be necessary to bring in his utopia, and did not shrink from this realization. His speeches and writings overflow with calls for blood: "Merciless war against these kulaks! Death to them." "We'll ask the man, where do you stand on the question of the revolution? Are you for it or against it? If he's against it, we'll stand him up against a wall." As Pipes sums up, "Lenin hated what he perceived to be the 'bourgeoisie' with a destructive passion that fully equaled Hitler's hatred of the Jews: nothing short of physical annihilation would satisfy him." Moreover, "The term 'bourgeoisie' the Bolsheviks applied loosely to two groups: those who by virtue of their background or position in the economy functioned as 'exploiters,' be they a millionaire industrialist or a peasant with an extra acre of land, and those who, regardless of their economic or social status, opposed Bolshevik policies." (Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime) Lenin used all three of the tools of mass murder that his successors and imitators would later perfect.

* Deaths due to extreme hardship conditions in slave labor camps

Lenin's secret police, the Cheka, pioneered the development of the modern slave labor (or "concentration") camp. Inmates were generally frankly treated as government-owned slaves, and used for the most demanding work - such as digging arctic canals - while receiving pitifully small rations. As Pipes explains, "Soviet concentration camps, as instituted in 1919, were meant to be a place of confinement for all kinds of undesirables, whether sentenced by courts or by administrative organs. Liable to confinement in them were not only individuals but also 'categories of individuals' - that is, entire classes: Dzerzhinskii at one point proposed that special concentration camps be erected for the 'bourgeoisie.' Living in forced isolation, the inmates formed a pool of slave labor on which Soviet administrative and economic institutions could draw at no cost." (The Russian Revolution) The number of people in these camps according to Pipes was about 50,000 prisoners in 1920 and 70,000 in 1923; many of these did not survive the inhuman conditions. The inmates might be bourgeoisie, or peasants, or members of other socialist factors such as the Mensheviks or the Social Revolutionaries, or members of ethnicities thought to be hostile to the Bolsheviks, such as the Don Cossacks. The death rates in these camps appear to have been in the extreme hardship range of 10-30%. While the number thus killed was only a small percentage of the total exterminated under Lenin's regime, it laid the foundation for Stalin's slave labor empire.

* Deaths due to man-made famine

By far the largest number of unnatural deaths for which Lenin and his cohorts were responsible resulted from famine. Lenin and his regime tried to depict the famine as simply bad luck, but the truth is rather different. To feed his troops and keep the cities producing munitions, Lenin needed food. He got it by "requisitioning" it from the peasantry - demanding delivery of large sums of food for little or nothing in exchange. This led peasants to drastically reduce their crop production. In retaliation, Lenin often ordered the seizure of the food peasants had grown for their own subsistence, sometimes ordering the confiscation of their seed grain as a further sanction. The Cheka and the army began by shooting hostages, and ended by waging a second full-scale civil war against the recalcitrant peasantry.

The ultimate results of this war against the peasantry were devastating. Official Soviet reports admitted that fully 30 million Soviet citizens were in danger of death by starvation. The White forces shared little of the blame: as Pipes notes, the Civil War was essentially over by the beginning of 1920, but Lenin continued his harsh exploitation of the peasantry for yet another year. Moreover, the areas under White control had actually built up a food surplus. The horrific famine of 1921 was thus much less severe in 1920, because after the reconquest of the Ukraine and other White territories, the Reds shipped the Whites' grain reserves to Petrograd, Moscow, and other cities with less hunger but more political clout. Low estimates on the deaths from this famine are about 3 million; high estimates go up to 10 million - which would probably have been much higher if not for foreign relief efforts which Lenin had the good sense to permit. For perspective, the last severe famine in Russia hit in 1891-92, and cost about 400,000 lives.

The famine ended soon after Lenin relaxed his choke-hold on the peasantry, but he showed no sign of remorse for what his policies had done. Other Bolsheviks were shaken by the events, but Lenin's successor, Joseph Stalin, learned only to husband his strength until the peasantry could be utterly broken.

* Executions

Under Lenin's rule - unlike that of his successors - executions played a far more important role than deaths in forced labor camps. The primary function of Lenin's secret police, the Cheka, was carrying out summary executions of "class enemies" in what came to be known as the Red Terror. The exact number murdered is usually estimated at between 100,000 and 500,000, but the chaotic wartime conditions make the accounting especially difficult. Large-scale executions of hostages began after a failed effort of the Social Revolutionaries to seize power in mid-1918. (The hundreds of hostages shot in "retaliation," however, not only did not participate in the failed coup, but almost invariably had no affiliation of any kind with the SRs). From then on the Red Terror turned in every conceivable direction: execution of the bourgeoisie and Czarist sympathizers; execution of White POWs and friendly civilian populations; and finally execution of Lenin's socialist opponents.

# What were the most important human rights violations committed by Stalin?

Joseph Stalin won a leading role in the Communist Party during Lenin's failing years, and after a few years of power-sharing he obtained dictatorial powers that exceeded even those of Lenin. In recent years, historians have gradually recognized that Stalin was personally responsible for the murder of more people than any other human being in the 20th century - and probably any other century. Stalin took Lenin's system of slave labor camps and turned it into a vast secret empire in the depths of Siberia. Lenin chose to let millions starve to death in order to sustain his war effort, but Stalin went further by deliberately engineering famines on an even greater scale. Finally, Stalin crossed the one line that Lenin would not, by ordering the executions of fellow Communists on a massive scale.

* Deaths due to extreme hardship conditions in slave labor camps

Lenin pioneered the slave labor camp, but Stalin expanded it literally a hundredfold. Under Lenin, the inmates numbered fewer than 100,000. By 1930, they numbered 1,000,000. By 1940, the Gulag Archipelago housed fully 10,000,000 pitiful souls. The death rate was extraordinary: 10-30% per year, for the prisoners performed demanding labor such as mining and timber-cutting with minimal food and clothing in freezing temperatures. The slaves were ruled by an elite of secret police, now known as the NKVD. As Robert Conquest describes:

In the vast empty spaces in the north and the Far East, areas as big as fair-sized countries came under complete NKVD control. There were many camps scattered through the Urals, in the Archangel area, and more especially in and around Karaganda and on the new railway being built from Turkestan to Siberia. But in these, the NKVD administered only comparatively small enclaves... The two biggest true colonies of the NKVD empire were the great stretch of northwestern Russia beyond the Kotlas, comprising roughly what is shown on the map as the Komi Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, and the even vaster area of the Far East centered on the gold fields of Kolyma. These regions had, before the NKVD took over, populations of a handful of Russians and a few thousand Arctic tribesmen. A decade later, they held between them something between 1.25 and 2 million prisoners. (The Great Terror)

Who were the prisoners? Before Stalin's collectivization of agriculture, the composition was quite mixed. Anyone who opposed the Communists, from Czarist reactionary to Social Revolutionary, might be consigned to the camps. While almost invariably innocent of any definite action against their government, they were perceived as potential enemies. After 1930, the composition of the camps drastically changed. Suddenly, millions upon millions of peasant families were sentenced to Siberia. Stalin called them "kulaks," or wealthy farmers, though in fact any peasant somehow caught up in resistance to forced collectivization was labeled a "kulak." As the democratic socialist Carl Landauer observes:

Between the persecution of the Armenians by the Turks during the First World War and the extermination of "undesirable" races by Hitler, the Bolshevik campaign against the kulaks and the former bourgeois was probably the only instance in which large masses of men, women, and children were by administrative order dislodged from their places of habitation and brought into camps where many, if not most of them, were sure to perish - and were meant to perish. (European Socialism: A History of Ideas and Movements)

After Stalin crushed peasant resistance, the enormous death rate in the slave labor camps ensured that the number of inmates could not remain steady - unless more and more people were declared enemies of the people and sentenced to Siberia. Stalin claimed to find conspiracies and enemies everywhere. "Kulaks" were blamed for all agricultural failures, while "wreckers" bore responsibility for industrial disasters. Intellectuals, ethnic leaders, and officers in the military became targets. Anyone with contact with foreign countries could be easily declared a spy. Then Stalin began to target fellow Communists, purging them for left deviations, right deviations, treason, and espionage. As Conquest notes, at the 1939 Party Congress, "Of the 1,966 delegates to the [1934] Congress, 1,108 had been arrested for counter-revolutionary crimes." (The Great Terror) Sentences to Siberia were their typical fate. Foreign Communists living in the USSR, especially foreign Communists from non-democratic countries, almost invariably wound up in Siberia. Even the NKVD itself was purged, so that the secret policeman of today might be the inmate of tomorrow.

After Stalin was satisfied with the composition of the Communist Party, new waves of victims arose. Millions of Poles were sent to slave labor camps in 1939 when Stalin and Hitler divided Poland. In 1940, Stalin annexed the Baltic states and sent 2-4% of their populations to the slave camps. During World War II, any ethnicity deemed disloyal was likely to be deported en masse: ethnic Germans - including the Volga Germans who had lived in Russia for centuries - were deported to Siberia, along with Chechens, Crimean Tatars, and other nationalities. With the end of World War II, the prison population was replenished not only with German POWs, and German civilians (including ethnic Germans scattered across Europe), but with Soviet POWs. Stalin considered captured Soviet soldiers to be traitors, so they had the opportunity to perform slave labor for Stalin as well as Hitler.

Stalin's slave empire lasted so long and went through so many waves of victims that one is left speechless. So many millions perished within the Gulag Archipelago for so many reasons, or for no reason. With a minimum of 5,000,000 slave laborers from 1931 to 1950, and a minimum death toll of 10% per year - both improbably low figures - one can conclude that Stalin's camps claimed a minimum of 10,000,000 victims, and easily two or three times as many.

* Deaths due to man-made famine.

Lenin knew that his agricultural policies might cause widespread famine, but implemented them anyway. Stalin went further. Not only did he know that his policies would cause widespread famine; he turned famine into a political weapon by deliberately and selectively amplifying its horrors. Lenin nominally gave peasants the title to their land, while effectively expropriating them by forcing them to sell their crops for a pittance. Stalin went further by ordering the forced collectivization of agriculture. The peasants lost their land and became employees of the state; moreover, they had to obtain government permission to quit their jobs, which was often impossible to obtain. State-owned serf plantations had returned to Russia after a 70-year lapse.

Naturally, reducing landed free peasants to serfs required massive application of government force. Wealthy, prominent, or recalcitrant peasants were dubbed "kulaks" and deported to Siberia. Still the peasants resisted; food production drastically declined, farm animals were slaughtered, and surplus grain ferreted away. In 1930, the peasants' reaction to forced collectivization was so extreme that even Stalin backed away. But this was only a tactical retreat, and by 1934 90% of sown acreage in the USSR was owned by collective (i.e., government) farms.

Food production of all kinds drastically declined. Slave labor in the fields proved far less efficient than free labor; the harvest of grain and other crops shrank. The herds of livestock often declined by 50% or more by either slaughter before collectivization, or neglect after collectivization. But Stalin was not interested in total food production, but in how much food he could squeeze out of the peasants without compensation. The collective farms were ordered to surrender their quota of food to the state, under severe penalty. As Conquest explains, "The basic principle was that a certain amount of grain must be delivered to the state regardless, and that this demand must be satisfied before the needs of the peasantry could be taken into consideration. A law of 16 October 1931 forbade reserving grain for internal kolkhoz [collective farm] needs until the procurement plan was fulfilled." (The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine) If production declined, it could be taken out of the hides of the peasants. This was precisely what Stalin had in mind.

From the outset, the quotas set for delivery were far too high, especially considering the decline in total production. As the peasants began to face severe hunger, in 1932, one might have expected the quotas to be reduced - especially since Stalin actually had grain to export. But instead, in early 1933 Stalin demanded still more food from the desperate peasantry. Yet his exactions were uneven: they were particularly inhuman for the Ukraine, Don, Kuban, and lower Volga - regions where popular sentiment against Communist oppression and Russification was strong. As Conquest notes, "Nor is it the case that the famine, or the excessive grain targets, were imposed on the most productive grain-producing areas as such, as a - mistaken or vicious - economic policy merely. There was no famine in the rich Russian 'Central Agricultural Region'; and on the other hand the grain-poor Ukrainian provinces of Volhynia and Podilia suffered along with the rest of the country." (The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine)

All of the facts point to a deliberate effort to use starvation as a tool of genocide. Seed grain in 1932 in the Ukraine was for the first time taken from the peasants and stored in urban granaries: officials realized that once starvation set in the peasants would try to eat the seed grain. The Ukrainian-Russian border was carefully guarded to keep Russian grain out of the famine-stricken Ukraine and starving Ukrainians out of Russia. Government grain stockpiles were available, but unused.

This mixture of ruthless methods resulted in the starvation deaths of about 7 million people: 5 million in the Ukraine, 1 million in the North Caucasus region, and 1 million elsewhere. On top of this, a similar collectivization campaign carried out against the nomads of Kazahkstan led to 1 million further deaths.

The famine in 1933 was the worst under Stalin's rule, but not the last. Famines swept Eastern Europe and the USSR again after World War II, although here the Nazis bore part of the blame. Stalin also shares responsibility for the deaths - again mostly through hunger - of ethnic Germans expelled from Eastern Europe with the Red Army's advance. The Communist-dominated governments of Poland and Czechoslovakia shared with Stalin the blame for some 2 million unnatural deaths of ethnic Germans. (see Alfred-Maurice de Zayas, A Terrible Revenge: The Ethnic Cleansing of the East European Germans, 1944- 1950)

* Executions

On April 7, 1935, Stalin issued a decree authorizing the death penalty for children as young as 12 years old. While far more of Stalin's subjects died in slave labor camps and man-made famines than from execution, even here the numbers are startling. There were approximately one million executions during the Great Terror of 1936-1939, and probably over five million for his entire reign. The executed were often Stalin's opponents within the Party, or his less eager friends, or foreign Communists. Large numbers of officers were executed. Polish POWs taken in 1939 were executed en masse in Katyn and elsewhere. Almost all of Stalin's comrades in the Russian Civil War were executed or assassinated at his orders: Trotsky, Zinoviev, Bukharin, Kamenev, Rykov, Tomsky, and (as recent discoveries confirm) Kirov. Many of these were tortured, bullied, and threatened into condemning themselves in the so-called "show trials," where they absurdly confessed to large-scale espionage and subversion. The poetic justice of the trials of Stalin's ex-comrades is palpable, since a Nuremberg-style trial of the Communist leadership for crimes against humanity would have condemned most of them to death. So numerous were Stalin's victims that amongst the oceans of innocents executed, justice occasionally accidentally descended upon the guilty.

# What were the most important human rights violations perpetrated by the Soviet Union during the post-Stalin era?

In comparison with Stalin's hellish regime, the rule of his successors seemed benign. But even compared to Czarism, the rule of Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and later leaders remained bloodthirsty. There were no significant man-made famines in the post-Stalin era. The number executed for political offenses from 1953-1991 was perhaps one or two hundred thousand, many of them Hungarians and Czechs who opposed Soviet rule.

The significant post-Stalin mass killings were in the slave labor camps. While living conditions in the camps greatly improved over the decades, the death rate remained enormous: while Stalin's camps had annual fatality rates in the range of 10-30%, the rates fell to 5-15% in the late 50's, 2-6% in the 60's, and still lower in later periods. The slave labor population declined, but even in the 1980's was numbered in the millions. The unnatural fatality rate and the large population in camps add up to a major, albeit drawn-out, crime against humanity: at least 3 millions during the later part of the 50's, and 2 million more during the 60's. Certainly even a fatality rate of 4% is high enough to qualify as reckless endangerment of human life and therefore murder - consider that with an annual fatality rate of 4%, 1 in 3 inmates (generally healthy young men) would not survive a decade. There is a line-drawing problem for later periods - a 1% fatality rate for young men is high, but probably not murder. Ironically, Western focus on Soviet human rights abuses under the Carter and Reagan administrations began only after mass murder in the USSR had largely ceased. This unfortunately left the impression that prison, emigration restrictions, and censorship were the most heinous crimes ever committed by the Soviet leadership.

# What were Mao's greatest crimes against humanity?

Mao, like Stalin, indisputably murdered more people than Hitler. He tyrannized the world's most populous nation for more than a quarter century; and while by most counts his victims were somewhat less numerous than Stalin's, the range of error makes it quite possible that Mao Zedong was the greatest mass murderer of the century. Mao was both the Lenin and the Stalin of Chinese Communism: not only did he found the system, but he raised it to lethal maturity. While Mao waited a few years to antagonize the peasants with forced collectivization, the killing began immediately. As Laszlo Ladany observes in his The Communist Party of China and Marxism: 1921-1985:

There are few parallels in history for what the [Chinese] Communists did [when they first came to power]. The French Revolution had many victims, but it did not institute a lasting political system. The October Revolution in the Soviet Union was not a peaceful affair, but the mass killings did not come till years later, during Stalin's collectivisation... In China, the terror - what else can one call it? - was widespread and saw the beginning of a lasting system.

After Stalin's death, Khrushchev and his successors eliminated some of the most horrific aspects of his regime. Mao denounced these reforms as "revisionism," studiously repeating each of Stalin's horrors. Unlike Stalin, Mao never fully succeeded in utterly crushing internal opposition within the Chinese Communist Party, which is probably why Mao's policies were not even more deadly than they were.

* Deaths due to extreme hardship conditions in slave labor camps

With the aid of Soviet advisors, Mao set up a Chinese Gulag - an empire of slave labor camps filled with poorly fed "counter-revolutionaries." As under Stalin, the prisoners could be anyone: former landlords, better-off peasants, civil servants under Chiang's regime, and eventually out-of-favor members of the Communist Party itself. By most estimates, the typical slave labor camp population during Mao's reign was between 10 and 15 million. The conditions were deadly, but markedly safer than those experienced by Stalin's Siberian slaves. Annual death rates in the Soviet camps under Stalin ranged from 10-30%, while under Mao the rates were more along the lines of 5-10%. This is partly due to the more favorable climate, but also because Mao was more interested than Stalin in getting work out of his slaves. In any case, these death rates are surely high enough to warrant murder charges for the inmates' deaths - which must have summed to well over 10 million.

* Deaths due to man-made famine

The bulk of the deaths for which Mao was responsible stemmed from the famines caused by his mad agricultural collectivization program, which surpassed even Stalin's in its totalitarian aspirations. Like Lenin, Mao initially let peasants keep their land; he focused on killing or imprisoning landlords, better- off peasants, and other village leaders who might later resist him. This lasted for a few years; then Mao began to seize the land that he had promised the peasants, and force them into collective farms along Stalinist lines. The job was basically complete by 1956. These collective farms seemed too individualistic to Mao, so he went one step further in 1958 and forced the peasants into "communes." The difference was mainly that all property, not merely the land, became state property:

The peasant was now the property of the commune, to labor like factory workers in teams and brigades at whatever was commanded, to eat in common mess halls, and often to sleep together in barracks. Family life and traditions, personal property and privacy, personal initiative and individual freedom, were destroyed or lost in an instant for around one-seventh of all mankind. (R.J. Rummel, China's Bloody Century)

The communes were just one piece of Mao's overarching plan, the Great Leap Forward. Mao's stated goal was to make enormous advances in agriculture and industry simultaneously. Thus, in addition to setting large food quotas for the communes, villages were also ordered to set up small-scale steel furnaces - using local scrap metal as raw material. The pressure to surpass Mao's quotas led to little production but a great deal of falsified economic statistics. The false numbers were then used in future government plans, exacerbating the disaster which was to come.

Starvation had already set in during the forced collectivization period, just as it had under Stalin. Around five million perished from starvation even before the Great Leap Forward began. The Great Leap Forward turned this river of deaths into a flood, producing what was probably the single greatest famine in human history. From 1959-1963, around 30 million Chinese perished from this man- made famine. While exclusion of foreigners and draconian censorship kept word of this famine from the West for many years, in recent periods historians, demographers, and the Chinese government itself have given the world ample evidence of Mao's most horrible crime. Yet at the time experts were incredulous. "A BBC commentator - giving the opinion general among China experts - declared that widespread famine in such a well-organized country was unthinkable." (Laszlo Ladany, The Communist Party of China and Marxism: 1921-1985) The stories of recent emigres were shocking:

Peasants lacked the strength to work, and some collapsed in the fields and died. City government organisations and schools sent people to the villages by night to buy food, bartering clothes and furniture for it. In Shenyang the newspaper reported cannibalism. Desperate mothers strangled children who cried for food. Many reported that villagers were flocking into the cities in search of food; many villages were left empty, only the old people who were not strong enough to go into the cities being left behind. It was also said that peasants were digging underground pits to hide their food. (Laszlo Ladany, The Communist Party of China and Marxism: 1921-1985)

Insofar as official sources admitted existence of the famine following the Great Leap Forward, it was usually blamed on bad weather - just as the man-made famines of Lenin and Stalin had been. Natural forces did play a small role: perhaps 1 million of the 30 million deaths could be attributed to natural disasters. The deluded zealotry of Mao killed the rest. While even some unsympathetic scholars argue that Mao's famine, unlike Stalin's, does not qualify as murder, the case for Mao's personal guilt is strong. Mao's famine does not seem to have been created for its own sake as Stalin's was. Yet Mao had the experience of both Lenin and Stalin behind him, and knew full-well that collectivization often leads to mass death. He implemented his policies at gunpoint with full knowledge of these risks. Rummel points out that Mao's government tried to alleviate the famine once it was aware of it, but millions had died even before the Great Leap Forward began. In response Mao simply accelerated his pace - revealing the requisite mens rea for murder.

* Executions

Mao's most famous executions were not his most numerous. In the so-called Cultural Revolution, Mao ordered massive purges of the Chinese Communist Party and of educated professionals. After Mao's fall, purge survivors such as Deng Xioaping seized power and ultimately exposed this crime to the world. About one million Party members and intellectuals were killed during Mao's Cultural Revolution - many by execution, others in the camps. Overall, however, Mao's killing actually declined during the Cultural Revolution. During earlier periods, millions of landlords, better-off peasants, dissidents, former Nationalist civil servants, and other "counter-revolutionaries" were executed. Numerical estimates are difficult to make, but probably add up to about 10-15 million." (end partial excerpt)

[fluxrad]

Hi MMMMMM,

My understandin was that we were talking specifically about Stalin and Mao (at least, this was what the other poster had proposed). Additionally, I dispute your source. I do not believe an Economics professor can be used in this conversation as a qualified source. Additionally, his numbers are significantly higher than anywhere else I have read.

Otherwise, I propose that there have been significantly more murders in the rest of the world combined than those perpetrated by Mao, Stalin, Lenin, and in Cambodia and Laos.

Also, your post is entirely too long. There is citation and then there is inundation (Also, please do not put quotes in bold. They're very hard to read and most scholars don't do it.):

From the St. Petersburg Times (http://www.sptimes.ru/archive/times/854/opinion/o_9028.htm):

Stalin ordered the murder of millions of people. This is an historical fact which even the dictator's admirers no longer deny. But why do liberals constantly talk about "tens of millions" of victims? Why do they throw out totally absurd numbers when the real numbers are more than terrible enough? You'd think that Stalin's actual crimes were bad enough. This need to exaggerate Stalin's crimes, to swell them beyond all imagining, demonstrates the deep-seated psychological problem that afflicts Russia's liberal commentators. Why are 5 million victims not enough? Why the compulsion to promulgate the lie about 50 million victims? The murder of a single innocent person is a crime. From the moral point of view, Stalin would have been guilty even if he had executed only Nikolai Bukharin and Grigory Zinovyev. As Dostoevsky wrote, all the happiness of the world isn't worth the tears of a single child.

From Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalin)

How many millions died under Stalin is greatly disputed. Although no official figures have been released by the Soviet or Russian governments, most estimates put the figure between 8 and 20 million. Comparison of the 1926–37 census results suggests 5–10 million deaths in excess of what would be normal in the period, mostly through famine in 1931–34. The 1926 census shows the population of the Soviet Union at 147 million and in 1937 another census found a population of between 162 and 163 million. This was 14 million less than the projected population value and was suppressed as a "wrecker's census" with the census takers severely punished. A census was taken again in 1939, but its published figure of 170 million has been generally attributed directly to the decision of Stalin[7] (see also Demographics of the Soviet Union). Note that the figure of 14 million does not have to imply 14 million additional deaths, since as many as 3 million may be births that never took place due to reduced fertility and choice.

From Erols (http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm):

There are basically two schools of thought when it comes to the number who died at Stalin's hands. There's the "Why doesn't anyone realize that communism is the absolutely worst thing ever to hit the human race, without exception, even worse than both world wars, the slave trade and bubonic plague all put together?" school, and there's the "Come on, stop exaggerating. The truth is horrifying enough without you pulling numbers out of thin air" school.

Personally, I think the last quote sums it up rather nicely. I don't particularly see much point in arguing about it.

[MMMMMM]

If you Google "Stalin 20 million" you get 653,000 links.

From the first link:

"Soviet Union, Stalin's regime (1924-53): 20 000 000

* There are basically two schools of thought when it comes to the number who died at Stalin's hands. There's the "Why doesn't anyone realize that communism is the absolutely worst thing ever to hit the human race, without exception, even worse than both world wars, the slave trade and bubonic plague all put together?" school, and there's the "Come on, stop exaggerating. The truth is horrifying enough without you pulling numbers out of thin air" school. The two schools are generally associated with the right and left wings of the political spectrum, and they often accuse each other of being blinded by prejudice, stubbornly refusing to admit the truth, and maybe even having a hidden agenda. Also, both sides claim that recent access to former Soviet archives has proven that their side is right...

data given

...# As you can see, there's no easy compromise between the two schools. The Big Numbers are so high that picking the midpoint between the two schools would still give us a Big Number. It may appear to be a rather pointless argument -- whether it's fifteen or fifty million, it's still a huge number of killings -- but keep in mind that the population of the Soviet Union was 164 million in 1937, so the upper estimates accuse Stalin of killing nearly 1 out of every 3 of his people, an extremely Polpotian level of savagery. The lower numbers, on the other hand, leave Stalin with plenty of people still alive to fight off the German invasion."

more data follows

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm

[[censored]]

Fluxrad,

Just so I'm clear you're not argueing that murders, mass starvations and other atrocities didn't occur under the various communist regimes right? You are just saying that there have been other regimes which were even worse? Which still makes communism pretty damn bad.

[fluxrad]

[censored],

Yes. I'm saying that there is no need to distort the record of the totalitarian regimes of men like Stalin and Mao. They are already bad enough. My argument is that Hitler, however, was far worse a man than either Mao or Stalin in that:

1. Through WWII he was essentially responsible for the death of ~55 million people.
2. He singlehandedly attempted to erase the Jewish race from the face of the earth.

To MMMMMMM I would say...your other post was

[ QUOTE ]

Stalin and Mao managed to kill 80-100 million of their own citizens. That is not counting war deaths.

[/ QUOTE ]

I find it incredibly difficult to believe that Stalin killed ~30-40 million of his countrymen before and during WWII (on top of the war deaths brought on by the Nazis). That would nearly eradicate the USSR's fighting force and allow the Nazis to sweep unopposed through Stalingrad and eventually Moscow. The numbers proposed by a number of extreme "anti-communists" are simply not consistent with what history tells us could have been the maximum.

But then you go on to quote from my links. Are you now saying that Stalin killed 20? This would mean Mao killed 80? The quotes you pulled from my sources would tend to prove my point that their aggregate body count was much, much lower than that.

Seriously...is the thought of Stalin only killing 15-20 million of his citizens somehow not eggregious enough?

[[censored]]

ok thanks. My first thought was that the economic policies were most likely unconnected to the brutality of the regimes. Dictators tend to brutalize thier people and rule cruely.

This in no way changes the fact that communism is a deplorable form of governement and an abombination to the world.

[fluxrad]

[ QUOTE ]

This in no way changes the fact that communism is a deplorable form of governement and an abombination to the world.


[/ QUOTE ]

Communism is an awesome form of government. It is likely the best form that has been conceived so far (aside from, possibly, a perfect anarchy).

Due, however, to unchangeable human nature you will never see communism as anything but the most sinister and abhorrent implimentation of government and it should likely be fought and destroyed wherever it is found, excepting perhaps communes in NoCal.

[MMMMMM]

I do not think the larger numbers are exaggerations. However I am talking of Lenin + Stalin + Mao all together, and including famine deaths which were essentially deliberate.

If we were somewhat talking past each other it may have been my fault, as when I picked up again on the thread again it was only to respond to your post, and I was not aware you were comparing only certain individuals rather than systems.

Hitler and the Japanese are largely responsible for WWII; however, the non-military deaths they caused are not as many as the same caused by Lenin, Stalin and Mao. And given Communism's killing of 80-100 million all told (including engineered famines, and by smaller communist governments such as Khmer Rouge, Viet Cong, etc.) it seems pretty clear to me that Communism wreaked more death and misery on the world than did even Nazism.

Nazism is more sensationally horrific on its face and killed huge numbers, but Communism managed to kill even more (and still continues to kill many in North Korea's vast gulags).

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
Communism is an awesome form of government. It is likely the best form that has been conceived so far (aside from, possibly, a perfect anarchy).

[/ QUOTE ]

It is clearly the WORST form.

[ QUOTE ]
Due, however, to unchangeable human nature you will never see communism as anything but the most sinister and abhorrent implimentation of government and it should likely be fought and destroyed wherever it is found, excepting perhaps communes in NoCal.

[/ QUOTE ]

If communism is incompatible with human nature, it doesn't make much sense to say it is the BEST form for governing humans, does it?

[andyfox]

"If 80% of the people would have voted for Ho, then 80% of the people were willing to support a communist regime."

This is true. What they knew about Communism that knew about Ho, not Karl Marx. The Vieminh were heroes to the peasantry, as they were nationalists first, and fought against the Chinese and the French, as opposed to those on our side, who were, at best, collaborators. Also, as I cited in one of my other posts in this thread, the Viet Cong treated the peasants in much better than did the South Vietnamese government troops.

Events in Europe probably played a more important role in shaping our Vietnam policy than events in Asia. After World War II, we felt that propping up France, in the face of the devastation of Europe, and the advantages we feared the Communist and other leftist parties In France (and elsewhere) would reap from the situation, made it important for us to support France's colonial enterprise in Southeast Asia.

The Vietnam War was more than a waste of time. It was a waste of millions of lives. We had no idea of the history of Vietnam, that that country could never be subservient to Communist China. So we invented the idea of an invasion from the North. The opposition to Diem's regime began in the South, as was inevitable, given Diem's politics, personality, religion, and authoritarianism.

Ho pleaded for U.S. help in the late 1940s. His letters to President Truman went unanswered. (And Ho was also basically laughed out of the room when he appealed for his country at the peace negotiations after World War I.) His declaration of independence quoted from our Declaration of Independence. Had the United States lived up to its principles at the end of World War II, or at any time thereafter in Vietnam, we would have had great influence over Ho (the OSS worked closely with the Viet Minh during WW II) and a great tragedy could have been prevented.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
Also, as I cited in one of my other posts in this thread, the Viet Cong treated the peasants in much better than did the South Vietnamese government troops.

[/ QUOTE ]

Didn't the Viet Cong slaughter over one million South Vietnamese after achieving control of Vietnam?

[ACPlayer]

Given your hypothesis: that murders etc were commited under communist regimes the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that these communist regimes were pretty damn bad.

These communist regimes may just have inplemented communism badly. Previously I cited three communist govts today that have little history of murders, mass starvations and other atrocities.

[fluxrad]

[ QUOTE ]

If communism is incompatible with human nature, it doesn't make much sense to say it is the BEST form for governing humans, does it?

[/ QUOTE ]

In limited quantities, it is the best form in practice. There have been a number of extremely small and isolated communities throughout the world that practice communism successfully.

Communism's problem is that it doesn't scale. Not that it doesn't work. Moreover, just because something doesn't work at present does not mean it will never work for all time.

So I'll repeat, communism is an awesome form of government. Just as nuclear fusion is an awesome form of power generation, and wormholees are an awesome form of interstellar travel.

FWIW - I'd recommend you read Moore's Utopia for an interesting exploration of the subject.

[ACPlayer]

Actually, I think it is more accurate to say that communism has become synonymous with an extreme right wing fascism (even thought the two are not the same).

Logically speaking communism should be a left wing state, but in reality, the "communist" states have been right wing reactionary govts -- sort of like Bush on Steroids ;-).

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
In limited quantities, it is the best form in practice. There have been a number of extremely small and isolated communities throughout the world that practice communism successfully.

Communism's problem is that it doesn't scale. Not that it doesn't work. Moreover, just because something doesn't work at present does not mean it will never work for all time.

So I'll repeat, communism is an awesome form of government. Just as nuclear fusion is an awesome form of power generation, and wormholees are an awesome form of interstellar travel.

FWIW - I'd recommend you read Moore's Utopia for an interesting exploration of the subject.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have previously stated on this board that communism apears to work better, the smaller the scale. So in that we are in agreement.

I don't think you have any basis for claiming it is the "best" form of government, however, no matter what the scale. And clearly it is horrible when state governments try it.

Communism also tends to stifle economic growth and productivity. So, it has defects that reach beyond problems of scale.

The attempted implementation of misguided Utopian visions has been responsible for more deaths in the 20th century than has anything else. So beware the concept of Utopia, and those who try to propound any system for achieving it. It is a fantasy, and a deadly fantasy at that, when taken too seriously.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
Actually, I think it is more accurate to say that communism has become synonymous with an extreme right wing fascism (even thought the two are not the same).

Logically speaking communism should be a left wing state, but in reality, the "communist" states have been right wing reactionary govts -- sort of like Bush on Steroids ;-).

[/ QUOTE ]

This is because, in order to enforce redistribution and government ownership of the means of production under communism, an extremely authoritarian government is required.

Communism is the greatest evil to have befallen humankind in the 20th century, and resulted in the greatest number of people unnaturally and needlessly killed. Yet there are those who think it should be given another chance.

Mind-boggling, to say the least.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
Given your hypothesis: that murders etc were commited under communist regimes the only logical conclusion that can be drawn is that these communist regimes were pretty damn bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

I never claimed it was the ONLY logical conclusion. However, it is pretty much the OBVIOUS conclusion. So, you have nothing to correct;-)

[ QUOTE ]
These communist regimes may just have inplemented communism badly. Previously I cited three communist govts today that have little history of murders, mass starvations and other atrocities.

[/ QUOTE ]

Those regimes (whichever they are) probably suck too, albeit on smaller and less horrific scale.

Certainly there are worse regimes and better regimes within any style of government. However, I believe that communism has inherent defects that make it inefficient economically, and rather anathema to individual human rights. I suspect that whichever governments you named, have poor internal human rights records.

I'm going away for a few days to look at Northern properties. Please keep your horse well-fed and watered while I am gone.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
If you Google "Stalin 20 million" you get 653,000 links.

[/ QUOTE ]

So ? What's that supposed to mean ?

I'd assume that if you were to google any hoax (i.e. Indian Rope Trick) you'd get a large number of hits. Does number of hits prove accuracy? I'd say it proves interest in the topic - and nothing more.

For proof of accuracy, you need more than "number of google hits", compadre.

[ QUOTE ]
There are basically two schools of thought when it comes to the number who died at Stalin's hands. There's the "Why doesn't anyone realize that communism is the absolutely worst thing ever to hit the human race, without exception, even worse than both world wars, the slave trade and bubonic plague all put together?" school, and there's the "Come on, stop exaggerating. The truth is horrifying enough without you pulling numbers out of thin air" school. The two schools are generally associated with the right and left wings of the political spectrum.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why should that be so ? I don't understand.

Seems to me that the 2nd side is merely striving for historical accuracy. Stalin, they believe, killed less than "tens of millions" of people. That's what they believe. But they do find, quite explicitly, Stalin's crimes "horrifying" - something that not all leftists do. (And those of the Left who are anti-Stalinists have no interest in downplaying Stalin's crimes!)

It may very well be that Stalin murdered "tens of millions" of people. Objecting to this assertion, however, does not make one a pro-Stalin person or a "lefty".

FOOTNOTE : I have recently read (in 2003) an excellent book, by a German author, about a series of war crimes committed in occupied Greece by the Nazis. The book is very meticulous, extremely well-written and coldly objective. The numbers of those executed, tortured, etc, by the Nazis are, at last, reported accurately -- and they are, typically, less than the numbers claimed so far by historians of Greece or the families of the victims. (I will let you figure out for yourself why this is regularly so, in general.)

The point is, and the author makes this absolutely clear, that the crimes perpetrated by those Nazis are horrible enough as they are and need no exaggeration whatsoever! I quite admire this sober and steadfast take on truth, actually. I do not agree that people need hyperbole to raise out of their stupor - and, if they do, so much the worse for them. We are not to serve propaganda.

[ACPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
I never claimed it was the ONLY logical conclusion. However, it is pretty much the OBVIOUS conclusion. So, you have nothing to correct;-)


[/ QUOTE ]
A little care in reading would be a good thing.

I was responding to fluxrad (and not to anything you wrote) and only pointing out a small defect in the logic of his statement. The hypotheses did not lead to his absolute conclustion.

Now to your remark. Why is it an OBVIOUS conclusion? It may ba a reasonable conclusion but why OBVIOUS? For one who takes such great care in parsing others statements, try your own.

[ QUOTE ]
Those regimes (whichever they are) probably suck too, albeit on smaller and less horrific scale.

[/ QUOTE ]

Still opining without offering any evidence. Without knowing what regimes. Without knowing whether they actually suck or not.

[ QUOTE ]
I suspect that whichever governments you named, have poor internal human rights records.

[/ QUOTE ]

I can offer leading democracies (including at least one that considers itself THE leading democracy) with poor and rapidly deterioirating human rights record. In fact it considers itself to have the right to FORCE others to convert to its way of thinking at gunpoint and without choice. It is probably the result of steroids.

[andyfox]

http://countrystudies.us/vietnam/40.htm

In any event, my reference to better treatment was during the war.

[MMMMMM]

I agree the facts are terrible enough without hyperbole. However, that DOESN'T have any bearing on whether the larger numbers are exaggerated--at least not any more than the other side saying: "The numbers are horrible even if they are erroneously minimized. So why try to deceptively minimize them?" In other words, it is a non-argument. Obviously.

[Peter666]

First, the most scholarly source to date on the body count of Communism is the "Black Book of Communism." Frankly, we have only scratched the surface in getting the real figures as most of the deaths probably occurred in China, and scholars cannot conduct research there.

Second, the assertion that Hitler was the direct cause of WWII is not true. WWII was initiated by the invasion of Poland, which was done by both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in alliance. The Nazis and Soviets only went to war after Hitler started Operation Barbarossa.

If you are including 55 million deaths, then surely you are counting the huge amount of Russians killed, which are at least one third of that number.

Some will argue that there would be no Hitler if the reparation payments imposed on Germany by the allies were not as abhorrent. And Western Industrialists were an important factor in building up his regime.

Morally speaking, there is no real difference between the allies allying themselves with Hitler rather than Stalin, which they did.

[Cyrus]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree the facts are terrible enough without hyperbole. However, that DOESN'T have any bearing on whether the larger numbers are exaggerated.

[/ QUOTE ]We have an obligation to be as accurate as possible - and let the numbers speak for themselves. The numbers say that the crimes were horrible enough, without the need to exaggerate. Or the need to ignore an unintentional exaggeration.

Do not attempt to downplay the importance of accuracy. Even if only 1 million Jews had perished in the Nazi Holocaust, the crime would still be as great as it is with 6 million.


[ QUOTE ]
At least not any more than the other side saying: "The numbers are horrible even if they are erroneously minimized. So why try to deceptively minimize them?"

[/ QUOTE ]

That does not make sense. Let me fix your post: [ QUOTE ]
At least not any more than the other side saying: "The numbers are horrible even if they are erroneously minimized."
So why try to deceptively minimize them?

[/ QUOTE ]
Agree. But no one who believes that Stalin committed atrocities is trying to "deceptively minimize" them.