Hacker News Reader

Comment by mc32 | Hacker News Reader

My understanding is they wanted the interior to get developed and take power/influence away from the coast/near coast & kneecap RdJ/SP rivalry ). Also wanted to "cut from their colonial past". Protests (and protestors) are not a problem for dictators (North Korea, Russia, Iran).

I don't understand the siren call of Communism on early XX - midcentury intellectuals. It's like they didn't go to personally understand the atrocities happening in these so-called worker and peasant paradises -what meatgrinders they were. How did ideology so overcome their ability to see what was happening in those places?

View on HN

This is really easy to explain: all of the colonial empires were horrifying engines of atrocity, oppression and death. Since imperial apologists hated socialism, that made it a very attractive ideology -- if the worst people alive hate something, it's got to have something to recommend it, right?

The Madras famine of 1877 (in which over 8 million people died) is characteristic. The British Empire didn't just fail to help, it actually made it illegal to offer food relief, on the grounds that it would distort the labour market and violate free-market principles. If you witnessed that, wouldn't you think the market and Moloch were one and the same?

It's worth noting that "concentration camp" is not the English translation of "Konzentrationslager": it's actually the other way around. The German word is the translation of an English phrase used to describe the British Empire's interment camps in the Boer War. IMO, it's impossible to look at, say, a picture of Lizzie van Zyl and not see a premonition of the Holocaust.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lizzie_van_Zyl

You are technically correct about the origin of 'concentration camp'. But this point in relation to the Holocaust is so pedantic as to border on denial.

Most people who died in the Holocaust did not die in 'concentration camps'. About a quarter of them were killed in mass shootings and buried in mass graves. Another quarter were sent to something better described as 'extermination facilities'. There was no camp and no concentration - all victims were gassed to death on arrival. The most famous concentration camp - Auschwitz - also had a facility like this where around a million people died immediately on arrival. While Auschwitz did have the standard features of concentration camps - imprisonment, starvation, forced labor, and brutal punishment and torture, most people who died in Auschwitz never experienced any of this - they were simply executed on arrival.

So, while the 'concentration camps' were of course unimaginably terrible - and not to excuse other crimes against humanity such as the Boer camps, the gulags, etc - to compare other atrocities to the Nazi Holocaust simply because of the presence of concentration camps erases and minimizes the true extent of Nazi crimes against Jews and Roma.

Most of the members of the French Resistance during the Second World War were communists, so the communist party had a certain cache as being freedom fighters in postwar France. Not only that but communists were at the forefront of the early union movements in most countries, as well as the fights for racial justice, womens rights and so on. So communism had a very different reputation.

You make some valid observations about them using social wedges to drive participation. It was a means to an end --it happened in Africa, South America, Asia, etc. but yet, once communist those promises never came to fruition.

In principle many of the constitutions of communist countries afford(ed) citizens more freedoms to the people than say the US constitution, but in practice that was blatantly not the case with a bit of happy time in some parts of eastern Europe for a few years before the Soviets went in to quash the threat and establish harder regimes.

I would counter that by saying that despots have existed all through human history, and have always cloaked themselves in claims of their power coming from god, or them being actual gods, or something like that, so if the batch of despots that cropped up after ww2 used communism as their justification it’s hardly surprising- that was the set ideas floating around at the time that could be used to make them appear virtuous. And of course, by doing so they could get Soviet funding.

Of course, in places like Cambodia, atrocities did take place that were really inspired by some demented but sincere interpretations of communism.

I would say, 20th century communism’s great failure is that it attempts to abolish politics itself by trying to create a utopia where nobody ever disagrees with one another. This is impossible, and totalitarian by definition.

That explains the regimes coming to power via deceptive means and methods -all par for the course... but it doesn't explain the infatuation by intellectuals from the early to late mid XX century. It's like someone seeing Mussolini and being captivated by the act and not digging further.

I'd wager that much of that is because people are susceptible to be lured by the idea of strength. If you identify severe problems with how the world is, even an oppressive government like what the bolsheviks created that claims to solve them might seem like a ray of hope, and you might be willing to look past a lot of horrid things / convince yourself that they're not real so long as you believe those fundamental problems with the organisation of labour and wealth are being solved. It is worth noting that this infatuation was by no means universal - Camus and Sartre famously had a split over Soviet gulags, and Orwell consistently criticised the Soviet Union's authoritarianism despite both being socialists. The fact that only centralised, authoritarian socialist governments managed to take power in the first half of the 20th century has probably done irreparable damage to the idea of communism. If more moderate, decentralised, or liberal (as opposed to authoritarian) governments had managed to take power (such as in Spain) people might not be as quick to dismiss the (in my opinion, very real) structural issues in capitalist systems, and we might live in a better world today because of it - or perhaps that is just my infatuation with the counterfactual!

All of your critiques come with the benefit of historical hindsight, and being completely detached from the dire circumstances that allowed demagogues or populist movements to flourish. You are seeing things through the lens of over a century of world history with which you shape your views; but this is the opposite of myopia, you see the big picture so largely you are unable to consider localized views in context.

To whit, Mussolini, who incidentally was a socialist before he became a fascist, rose to power in a time when Italy was in a state of crisis and discontent. This was a decade full of national revanchist ressentiment compounded by the economic devastation of the Great Depression. In that era, strongmen of not only far left or far right, but liberal center- consider FDR being the only American president to break the two-term precedence and be reelected to four terms- rose to power. Surely that should tell you people in the era had very different worldviews, concerns, and knowledge from yourself?

It's still a fair question to ask around WW2, given that there was already plenty of evidence for atrocities perpetrated by the USSR. Indeed, it was noted at the time: Orwell wrote this in 1944:

"At this moment what is demanded by the prevailing orthodoxy is an uncritical admiration of Soviet Russia. Everyone knows this, nearly everyone acts on it. Any serious criticism of the Soviet régime, any disclosure of facts which the Soviet government would prefer to keep hidden, is next door to unprintable. ... The servility with which the greater part of the English intelligentsia have swallowed and repeated Russian propaganda from 1941 onwards would be quite astounding if it were not that they have behaved similarly on several earlier occasions. On one controversial issue after another the Russian viewpoint has been accepted without examination and then publicised with complete disregard to historical truth or intellectual decency. ... In the internal struggles in the various occupied countries, the British press has in almost all cases sided with the faction favoured by the Russians and libelled the opposing faction, sometimes suppressing material evidence in order to do so.

Throughout that time, criticism of the Soviet régime from the left could only obtain a hearing with difficulty. There was a huge output of anti-Russian literature, but nearly all of it was from the Conservative angle and manifestly dishonest, out of date and actuated by sordid motives. On the other side there was an equally huge and almost equally dishonest stream of pro-Russian propaganda, and what amounted to a boycott on anyone who tried to discuss all-important questions in a grown-up manner. You could, indeed, publish anti-Russian books, but to do so was to make sure of being ignored or misrepresented by nearly the whole of the highbrow press. Both publicly and privately you were warned that it was ‘not done’. What you said might possibly be true, but it was ‘inopportune’ and played into the hands of this or that reactionary interest. ... Events in Russia and events elsewhere were to be judged by different standards. The endless executions in the purges of 1936-8 were applauded by life-long opponents of capital punishment, and it was considered equally proper to publicise famines when they happened in India and to conceal them when they happened in the Ukraine."

> Most of the members of the French Resistance during the Second World War were communists

I am an old French (65yo) but what I understand is that statement is only propaganda if only because De Gaule's army was much larger.

Anyway "resistance" was not a well structured organisation even De Gaulle's organisation, it was sparse at the beginning (1941) and a lot of people declared themselve as "résistant" after the D day. Many people who actually did resistance acts did not claim themselve to be "résistants".

See [0] "Before the Liberation day, we were 2,500 in the maquis. Five or six days later, we were around 10,000"

At "liberation", people lived in a state of terror, armed young men roamed the cities. Properties were stolen. Many women were shamed, shaved and raped by those pseudo resistants [2]. Neighbors denounced neighbors for profit.

Again see [0] "“There were people killed, one wonders why. Sometimes out of jealousy or revenge. To take their wives... It's easy when you have a gun in your hand, if you're mentally imbalanced. »"

US forces put the number of "summary executions" following liberation at 80,000. The French Minister of the Interior in March 1945 claimed that the number executed was 105,000 [1].

[0] https://www.ladepeche.fr/article/2001/08/26/215395-la-terrib...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89puration_l%C3%A9gale

[2] https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/french-female-collaborator-...

It was definitely communists who organized the resistance at least in Brittany and in Charente. My grandfather on my mother side was actual bourgeoisie (parents owned a castle and multiple wineyards and shops), and was temporarily hiding Jews or UK pilots at his home from 1941 to 1944 since their castle was between the 'zone libre' and the coast where allied submarines often waited for pilots. He had no love for communists, but he knew most of the passeurs were young communists (one of which he hired, and i think his son still worked for my uncle 15 years ago).

On my father side, in Brittany, even the wermacht garrison in St clette (totalling 5 men on 2 villages, and no road large enough to let any truck send reinforcements, which were hours, even days away if the road was blocked, which happened often), knew who was making the signal and distributing weapons to surrounding group, but couldn't really do anything about it. My grandma had good stories about how poor the area was, as their lack of electricity made them lit bonfire to signal allied planes, bonfire which were very visible for anyone who would look. While they weren't really communists, the ones in Brest sending plans, radio frequencies and taking weapons were.

> "It was definitely communists who organized the resistance at least in Brittany"

Not what I was told (I am born just after the WWII) and not what history seems to tell:

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/R%C3%A9sistance_en_Bretagne

> "St clette"

You probably mean "Saint Clet"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Clet,_Brittany

Yes lighted road were rare on countryside, it only arrived in 1956 in the street were my parents built their home.

Yes! Saint clet, exactly.

I've researched, and you're right about Brittany, it was MI9 led.

But according to this: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_r%C3%A9seaux_et_mouv...

Most movements were on the left, and it seems that the saboteurs and maquisards were communists led. I'm pretty sure my grandmother told me about the Brest communists though, maybe it was just her impression.

Thanks for the info about MI9, I didn't know!

A side note, I think the last village electrified in France happened sometime in the ‘70s!?

> it was sparse at the beginning (1941) and a lot of people declared themselve as "résistant" after the D day

This isn't the refutation you think it is. Communists and fellow travelers were much more prevalent in the resistance earlier on (but after Operation Barbarossa!). There are a considerable number of French communist martyrs commemorated in French towns and public places. Most of these died during 1942 and 1943, when resistance was against overwhelming odds. Towards the end of the war, there were fewer actions against the Nazi occupation and more towards collaborators. This is however because in many parts of France, the occupation simply was unable to exercise more than a show of control, because of the success of the resistance.

I am very surprised that as an old French person you aren't aware of the significant role played by French communists in the resistance. Have you heard of Vercors? Colonel Fabien? France d'abord?

Whatever you may think of communism in general these are established historical facts. The mainstreaming of the PCF after the war, in contrast to other places in Europe, is specifically related to recognition of their heroism against the occupation. (The same could be said about the mainstream position of freemasonry in French society.) In fact, the strength and popularity of the communist controlled organizations and the risk of a Tito-style regime was a main reason that the UK and US (reluctantly) gave their full backing to de Gaulle towards the end of the war.

> Most of the members of the French Resistance during the Second World War were communists

Though many of the communists followed Moscow's order and only started resisting after 1941 and Germany's attack on the URSS; before that Moscow's message to French communists was more of collaboration with its nazi ally.

The Molotov/Ribbentrop pact kind of dictated a lot of the pre Barbarossa partitionings of Europe.

I guess they engaged with a critique of capitalism that wasn't (and isn't) available to someone with a more basic education, and communism was seen as an alternative.

A communist back then would point to the capitalist countries committing horrible atrocities of colonialism and slavery.

Another factor would be a rhetoric of liberation. Either you fight against the bourgeoisie, or they will keep sucking your blood as long as you live. That's why conflicts were seen as inevitable.

I doubt anyone condoned violent mass murder. Khmer Rouge and the Cultural Revolution happened in the second half of the XX century.

> A communist back then would point to the capitalist countries committing horrible atrocities

Unlike now, where whenever we point to capitalism, we point to shining beacons of freedom and humanity. ;-)

> I doubt anyone condoned violent mass murder

The fact the Soviet Union and China didn't succeed at implementing an ideal utopian society doesn't prevent others from trying something slightly different (let's say, socdem) in hopes it'll suck less than unregulated capitalism

I think to do that you have to actually look at how corrupt and awful eastern European and colonial powers were. Combine that with a belief that this time it's different Re the strong history of the new boss being far worse than the previous one. And human nature to believe that your tribe is beyond reproach or at least justified (rolls eyes).

While in some places Communism has definitely been responsible for atrocities, in many countries (especially Western Europe, Asia and South America) Communist parties have been on the frontline of liberation movements, indigenous rights, human rights, workers’ conditions, etc. That’s why for many Communism != atrocities.

100% this. Socialist and communist critiques of our current and historical modes of production identify some systemic issues. It's worth engaging with those critiques more deeply than "communism bad!"

Oh, no doubt they had lots of bright "promise" exemplified by the fists of virile men and fecund women reaching the mountain top having vanquished capitalist evil, triumphantly raising the hammer and sickle and little Ivan joins in the parade...

But it was all illusion and never delivered. They always ended in oppression, regression and failed experiments (social, economic, environmental, etc.)

I think there's a healthy discussion to be had about, for instance Cuba. Yes, poverty is still high but sanctions are still oppressive. They have higher literacy rates than Canada or the US, they have solid medical care, and they've started from a much, much worse position. Similar story with Vietnam. There's a discussion to be had about where they started, where they are now, and what happened in the interim.

To be clear, I'm not saying these countries have done no wrong. They aren't shining beacons, but it is worth examining them in a thoughtful way. It's not like the US (where I live) is a shining beacon either.

Also, I'd argue there are degrees and varieties of both socialism and communism. Is Mondragon socialist? Is Sweden? Is France? What about small council communism and Anarcho communism?

There may be some aspects of life and society where social cooperation helps in certain realms under some circumstances (Kibbutz too?). Exporting medical expertise for Cuba at least then was an "in" for subversion into other countries. That said, two observations. One Cuba was hugely subsidized by the CCCP and still traded with lots of Europe, they were not isolated. Second, all else suffered --it's like time stood still in all other aspects of society, infrastructure, economy, etc.

I think it's totally fair to hold up Cuba against, for instance, Costa Rica or Panama. Both those countries receive substantial subsidies from the US.

I think one could argue that Cuba is not out of line with its peers and might actually be ahead in some ways. It's not perfect, but regionally it's doing pretty alright from what I can tell.

Panama and Costa Rica are pretty protective (usually foreigners get actual seconds, unless they are rich), but if not, if a Cuban had a choice between staying in Cuba or moving to Panama, if I were that Cuban, I would take Panama. On the other hand it's a fair critique, LatAm has a history of being run by strongmen and run poorly, with some exceptions. However, that includes the Castro brothers.

Given the choice between Cuba and anywhere else, most Cubans would without a doubt choose anywhere else. Why else would so many choose to risk death trying to escape their country on overcrowded ramshackle boats? Literally hundreds of Cuban refugees are picked up by border patrol every single month in Miami and the surrounding areas.

Also, it’s not clear whether you meant to say the Castro brothers are included in strongmen or exceptions, but I assume it’s strongmen.

Cuba doesn't have solid medical care. They suppress free speech brutally. Che and Castro were viciously anti-gay. You can't get anything in the stores there, very much like Soviet era shopping. It's a fucking hell hole by Western standards.

The Che was a sadist not all too different from the nazi character in schindlers list who ‘hunts prisoners’ for fun. I don’t know how college students can wear his t-shirt alongside Bob Marley. Or even more ironic a BLM (the movement not the bureau) activist wearing his iconography. Maybe that can be chalked up to capitalism doing its thing…

Most college kids know the following about Che:

He saw the poverty and exploitation of LatAm by the US and others and decided to do something about it after the CIA assassinated Arbenz. He was pivotal in overthrowing Batista, an autocratic despot.

He later served in several government programs, and wrote a memoir about motorcycles.

He was eventually executed without trial by Bolivian special forces backed by the CIA.

But college kids probably don't know that much about the flip side of his character. Plenty of stories suggest he enjoyed killing - he certainly had no concerns about executions. He wrote some pretty racist stuff in his early life.

He's a complicated figure, for sure.

I mean, he's quoted by a revolutionary publication as saying:

“We don’t need proof to execute a man. We only need proof that it’s necessary to execute him.”

“We executed many people by firing squad without knowing if they were fully guilty. At times, the Revolution cannot stop to conduct much investigation.”

Unfortunately, he appears not to have been assiduous in taking notes as Stalin was, so hard evidence, so far, is spotty.

Yep, you won't hear me disagree with you that he was very comfortable executing people extrajudicially.

I'm guessing by your username we're on opposite ends of the socialism thing. Don't care! I love your willingness to take evidence as it stands. Believe me, as a stout USA patriot and free market enthusiast, I do not shrink from the weaknesses of my positions either. For example, you're dead right (ahem) about the CIA. Sincere thanks for joining the discourse.

I think blind adherence to a doctrine is a big problem. I love talking about this stuff. And I want it to be approachable, reasoned, and something that someone might go, "well, I don't agree with you, but you aren't just a surface level ideologue".

Dammit we need to start a podcast

Hahaha. Well, you see how quickly I'm vilified here! I'm not sure I'd be that excited about exposing myself to the wider internet. :D

I do try to respond to comments here with genuine answers and discourse, but the downvotes here lead me to believe a podcast would likely result in a lot of disinterest or angry mail headed my way.

Also views

Vietnam is actually a very free economy that is all about free enterprise. It's very common there to make a living doing all kinds of street hustles. the government doesn't like to shut them down. Pretty typical for a developing country. Sure they are Communist but that's just a name.

> Yes, poverty is still high but sanctions are still oppressive.

Which sanctions exactly? Surely a communist country doesn't need free trade, that's a capitalist concept and Marx was against it.

> They have higher literacy rates than Canada

This shows you the value of literacy as a metric. North Korea also has high literacy, it's not a reason to prefer living there to Canada.

> It's not like the US (where I live) is a shining beacon either.

The amount of people trying to immigrate to the US vs any other country contradicts this.

> What about small council communism and Anarcho communism?

Masturbatory terms dreamed up by people who don't want to understand economics because it deals with real tradeoffs, whereas politics is about promising the impossible while ignoring economics and history. Anarchism and communism are opposites.

The US embargo against Cuba.

And both council communism and Anarcho communism have long histories of communities actually practicing them. From gift economies in smaller indigenous communities to explicitly anarchocommunist zones in Korea and Spain in the 20s and 30s.

Anarchism is not the opposite of communism. It's the opposite of Stalinist communism, for sure. But anarchism is about the removal of unnecessary and unjust hierarchies. That's not in opposition with "and we should take care of everyone without a profit motive".

One could argue (and in fact, many scholars have) that the open source development model of Linux or other large systems are anarchocommunist in nature.

Cuba severely restricts the ability of its citizens to leave the country. That right there tells you volumes about how good it actually is for the people.

And no, Sweden and France aren't socialist, since they still have private ownership of capital. Capitalism doesn't magically become socialism if you increase the taxes high enough.

Do you know much about France? Almost all large enterprises in France are partly state owned (Total being the notable exception). Although they also have private ownership, it would be extremely hard for say Air France or Orange or Credit Agricole to pursue a course of action in direct opposition to what the government, the civil service, and other large interests wanted.

This may not be text-book socialism but it is quite different from capitalism as practiced in the United States.

> I don't understand the siren call of Communism on early XX - midcentury intellectuals

I think it boils down to “enemy of my enemy”. Their main enemy was the establishment, which means capitalism, corporatism and so on. Communism was its declared enemy number one, so to be edgy and radical they picked that.

If the West was trampling over some poor country, whatever that country’s political or cultural preferences, they automatically become appealing to anti-establishment intellectuals in the West as a way to show sympathy.

Perhaps you are making the fallacy of comparing early 20th century communist regimes with today's capitalist society. If you compared them with early 20th century capitalism or colonialism they start to look much more benign.

...or comparing communist regimes with the (capitalist-supported) German Nazi regime.

... or the brutal capitalist South-American dictatorships sponsored by the US so that South America could be saved from "brutal communist dictatorships" (or agrarian reform, or anything that could harm the profits of American companies).

I don't think there was much United Fruit action in SouthAm. They did worry about losing influence to the Soviets though -the old Domino theory.

They really don't, though. You can even look at quality of life in Russia itself - conveniently one of the more oppressive capitalist societies at the time - before and after the Bolshevik revolution.

(There's this myth that's popular with some lefties that Soviets weren't really that oppressive until Stalin. It's not true - mass executions were already in full swing in 1918.)

This is simply untrue.

Mass executions of (certain subsets of) the middle and upper classes, alongside electrification and land reform for the rural poor and trade unions and healthcare for the urban poor, meant an extremely significant improvement in the average quality of life for the Russian population.

Have you ever heard the words "prodrazvyorstka" or "kombed"? Bolsheviks literally robbed the peasants - who, to remind, was the actual majority of the population by a factor of 4x of so - blind at gunpoint to feed their forced industrialization in the cities, triggering more than one famine in the process (Holodomor being the most famous).

If you look at early Soviet history, it's littered with peasant uprisings for this exact reason. In my hometown in Russia, such an uprising was big enough that Soviets decided to use chemical weapons against the rebels; ironically, I used to live on a street that was named after the guy who signed that order.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tambov_Rebellion

Reply on news.ycombinator.com