[PEN-L:7615] Re: Bwana Compares Mao to Hitler

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> "Michael Keaney" <M.Keaney@xxxxxxxxxx> 06/03/99 06:17AM >>>
Charles Brown wrote:

> Stalin did not launch a war as Hitler did.

No he did not, although his annexations of the Baltic states bear some
comparison with the reoccupation of the Rhineland, the Anschluss with
Austria and the annexation of the Sudetenland. Stalin also launched an
attack against Finland, which had the happy effect of exposing how
ill-prepared the Soviet military was for war, among many unhappy effects.
There is also the matter of the massacre at Katyn, committed during the
joint Soviet-Nazi carve-up of Poland. Then there are the assorted pogroms,
purges and cleansings of kulaks, Jews, Left Opposition, Right Opposition,
any opposition (real or imaginary).

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Charles: Without ignoring that some of these specific actions have another side to the story, they amount to much less than the imperialist wars of aggression launched by pretty much all American presidents. Even domestically ,Washington put down Shays rebellion. Andrew Jackson led mass murder of indigenous peoples usurping their homeland from them in the American southeast.  Mexico was invaded by the U.S. in the early 1800's. The history of U.S. presidents in the twentieth century in Dominican Republic, Nicaragua (80's and 20's), Viet Nam, Panama, as a very small sample ( see list that has been circulating in response to the current war on Yugoslavia and Iraq for a more complete picture of the massive U.S. aggression through history) . With two bombs, Truman killed tens of thousands in minutes.

The parade of U.S. president imperalist war horribles is mind boggling and evidence of murderous tyranny equalling and surpassing your description above.

And domestically the U.S. had the secret police agency of the FBI under one dictator, Hoover for about 50 years.

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>The totalitarian,
>mass murdering of the Western democracies (Britain, U.S., France,
>Australia) is invisible to most who want to portray socialism as worse than
>capitalism.

Of course it is. Exporting it abroad helps enormously in the domestic
legitimation of the status quo.

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Charles: There is also a lot of domestic political mass murder and oppression on the hands of American presidents and dictators (liker J. Edgar Hoover). The annihilation of indigenous peoples and herding them into concentration camps was carried out largely by American presidents , governors and generals. The enslavement and enforcement of slave laws against Africans was carried out by U.S. presidents , generals and police forces; then Jim Crow, which was a form of fascism for Black people, was enforced by presidents, governors and police agents (including secret police) and paramilitaries (KKK) for many decades.

There is more.


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This is a futile, if not facile, debate. Was the USSR a socialist country?
Not in my book, but obviously in many others'. So what is socialism? I
equate socialism with democracy. How democracy can be achieved via
authoritarian means is a conundrum we might do well to consider. It would
perhaps be useful to dispense with the separation of means and ends which
has allowed demagogues of "Left" and "Right" masquerading as liberators and
progressive revolutionaries to dispense summary justice to all those
perceived (or portrayed) as obstacles to enlightenment. Figuring out whether
Mao, Stalin or Jeane Kirkpatrick outperform each other in the cynical
instrumentalism stakes won't get us very far.

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Charles: I wouldn't say that the first historical effort to build socialism was a total failure. As in all of reality, trial and error plays an important part in actually building something new, as an important part as theory. Exaggerating the level of error to the total exclusion of success is the onesided game the tophats want us to play.

There was full employment, free education and health care among other positive acheivements in the USSR and other European socialist countries. The first act of the Soviet government when the Bolsheviks took power was to declare peace and pull out of the holocaustic slaughter which was WW I. This was a world historic act of peace. WWI was the biggest war in history at that time. The idea that the USSR was completely not socialist is comparing it to a utopian , imaginary model or ideal. Such an ideal has some value, but real road to socialism must be more of a synthesis of the ideas and ideals of thinkers and intellectuals with the real transformation process of millions of people and social classes that have been exploited and oppressed for centuries. Thus, trial and error is inevitable.

The transition from capitalism to socialism is an "epochal" process, meaning it is multi-generational. The next effort to build socialism must look at the first efforts critically, but not by absolutely disregarding that experience as a source of positive knowledge of what is to be done next time. The bourgeoisie want socialists to throw out the baby with the bathwater of our still historically fresh revolutionary heritage.


CB