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The Specter of Communism: How Quickly We Forget
Cambodia and the Khmer-Rouge
Welcome to the town of Trier, Germany. For the past year the hometown of Marx has promoted 600 events to honor him. This past weekend they unveiled a 2.3-ton bronze statue of Marx, a gift from the People’s Republic of China. The reaction to the statue and what it represents has been mixed.
The mayor of Trier, Wolfram Leibe, is proud of the statue:
It just wouldn’t have been possible to do this 30 years ago . . . Karl Marx is one of Trier’s greatest citizens and we shouldn’t have to hide that . . . the monument should inspire people to think about Marx and his literary works.
With the global crisis that began in 2007, others in Germany are re-considering the values of Communism:
‘Karl Marx had a lot of good ideas and many of them are still valid,’ said Hartmut Meier, a 57-year-old mechanic who grew up on a steady diet of Marxism at a school in East Berlin. Although he does not miss life in communist East Germany, Meier said he harbors fond memories of Marx’s ideas. ‘Unfortunately, most of them weren’t implemented. I do like the idea that they’re putting up a monument for him.’
Not everyone agrees:
Hubertus Knabe, head of a memorial at a former prison for political prisoners in East Berlin, is among those who has criticized the Marx memorial in Trier. ‘It is hard for many victims of the communist system to accept that a west German city is putting up a monument like this,’ he said.
Still, a recent survey by Ipsos indicated that only 49% of German respondents agreed that free market competition brings out the best in people:
‘There’s a lot of criticism about the excesses of the free market economy in Germany,’ said Robert Grimm, 43, director of political research at Ipsos in Germany and an East German by birth.
‘Social inequality and poverty is the biggest worry,’ he added. ‘People have lost faith in capitalism. It’s created an economic environment that’s not as transparent as it was and a dynamic where many people feel threatened.’
You might be tempted to say that these activities are happening in Europe, and we operate in a completely different environment. I would disagree with you.
First, it’s important to point out that socialism, in one form or another, exists in 16 European states. According to some analyses, socialism is intended to change the mindset of the people to prepare them for the establishment of communism. The degree to which that is possible or likely is impossible to determine; to some degree it depends on the country in which it is practiced, as well as other forces.
Although the US is a capitalistic country, there is no denying that socialistic forces are at work. We only need to look at the college campuses and the professors to see the seeds being planted through leftist/socialistic ideas. We also see these changes in the culture and politics of the country: conversations about income inequality, universal health care, guaranteed incomes, and the demonizing of corporations; the popularity of Bernie Sanders’ campaign; the propagandizing of children in public schools, and in some cases in private schools; the denigration of religion. There are also those who foolishly think that we in the West can do a better job of implementing communism without its abuses. Or those who think that Marx’s ideas were poorly implemented:
At the dedication of the Marx statue in Trier, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker says German philosopher Karl Marx shouldn’t be judged for the crimes that his followers committed decades after his death. Juncker spoke Friday at an event commemorating the 200th anniversary of Marx’s birth in the western German city of Trier. Alluding to the crimes committed by social revolutionaries in Russia, China and elsewhere, Juncker said ‘Marx isn’t responsible for all the atrocity his alleged heirs have to answer for.’
For those who think these comments are conspiracy theorizing, I want to remind you of the horrors of the Communist regimes. Have you ever heard of the Black Book of Communism? The lead author, Stephane Courtois, provides a breakdown of the estimates of the number of deaths under communist regimes; these are only estimates, since these numbers are difficult to collect. The total is just short of 100 million deaths. There are those, of course, who try to downplay these numbers:
Apologists have adopted a number of strategies — beyond outright denial which lasted for decades. One of the most popular and enduring is that we should not spend much time on the crimes of communism because Western countries have also committed crimes, most particularly when they had their empires.
To say that this is disingenuous is an understatement. Even if it were true that Western countries had committed similar crimes — which it most certainly isn’t — why would that be an obstacle to discussing the crimes of communism? Jack the Ripper isn’t any the less of a killer because Ted Bundy was too.
We can no longer see ourselves as independent of Europe or as a country immune to communism. The seeds of socialism have already been planted here, and there are plenty of people who are prepared and determined to see them take root and grow.
What now?
Published in Culture
Susan,
Very well written. You are in increasingly good company too. Mr. Delingpole has added his comments on this subject.
Delingpole: Happy Birthday, Karl Marx. Not.
How tone deaf can these politically correct idiots get. How dangerous it is that these same idiots control something as powerful as the EU. Do not withhold all the scorn you can muster. Junker & crew deserve all it.
Regards,
Jim
I’m in full agreement, Jim. Thanks. I keep thinking it can’t get worse, and then . . .
Susan, I’m awfully glad you included the photo of the pile of skulls, which are the concrete result of the ideas of Cambodian Communists.
I’m sure Pol Pot said something like, “Well, you have to break a few eggs—or a few million skulls—if you want a socialist utopia, don’t you? These things don’t come easy.”
A useful idiot might say something like, “Well, the Cambodian Commnists misinterpreted Marx a bit.” But then you would be an blooming idiot—and one of the useful idiots yourself—if you were to say that.
Kent
Any statue of Karl Marx is incomplete if he is not depicted standing on a pyramid of human skulls.
Thanks so much, Kent. I was afraid it might seem over the top, so I’m glad you thought it was valuable. We were in Cambodia, and saw a glass tower filled with skulls. In person, it’s even more devastating.
Thanks, @Percival. Too bad they left that out.
Using various sources, I added up some numbers.
Thank you so much, @lidenscheng. Trying to comprehend what happened and the devastation was beyond my ken. I don’t remember the specifics of your story, but I know everyone in Cambodia was touched by this horrendous time. Thanks for adding this information.
Great article Susan! The Black Book of Communism is a great book which should be read by everyone. I for one however think their commie body count is a little low. A political science professor at the University of Hawaii, R J Rummel, spent his career studying and documenting what he called “Democide” – which he explains and documents in Death by Government. A website called “Communist Body Count” which is based on Rummel’s work puts the communist death count at just under 150 million
Susan, it’s bewildering. We have had numerous demonstrations of exactly what happens to socialist governments. We have a slow motion disaster in Venezuela which we can watch in real time, and yet young people flock to socialist notions.
Maybe 15 years ago, during a faculty meeting at the high school where I taught I made the comment “that’s a three from the East German judge”, and everyone laughed. After a few seconds I asked a young (late 20’s) teacher if she got the joke, and she said she had no idea what I was taking about. (And even after the explanation she really didn’t have a good understanding. The Cold War is a lot farther in the past than those of us who lived through it realize.
In the service we got in the habit of referrring to misbehaving or underperforming equipment as communist. Like: “I can’t get this communist gauge to reset” or “this communist saw won’t cut”. That sort of stuff means nothing to people nowadays, despite the fact that my wife and I routinely still say it.
Wonderful input, @tigerlily! It makes my argument even stronger! Again, it’s such a challenge to try to come up with legitimate numbers. I remember discussing this issue with a Cambodian, and they believe the numbers were twice as large as generally assumed. Thank you.
Thanks, @tex929rr. It’s if our memories choose to move these memories to farthest reaches of our brains. That’s also a concern for me regarding the Holocaust. On the one hand, I sometimes feel like I just can’t watch one more Holocaust movie, or read one more book. And then I find myself called to see or read another. I’m a person who won’t forget, but it’s as if a part of me hopes that my exposure to these horrific events will count for all those who aren’t aware of them. Silly, I know.
And counting…
I had a conversation with a student (mid-20s) who said that we should give communism a try because it did so much for the people. I gave her my standard explanation of life in the Soviet Union. She seemed content with the prospect of a job chosen for her, an apartment chosen for her, no travel, third rate medical care, and long lines to buy necessities. Then I mentioned the 100 million people that communism killed. She said she knew about the gulag and added, “But they still helped people.”
Her moral obtuseness left me speechless which gave her the opportunity to tell me about her background. Her father left when she was five. Her mother, an alcoholic, married another alcoholic who was physically abusive to his wife and verbally abusive to his step-daughter. My student’s mother wouldn’t let her drive or get a job supposedly due to the student’s ADD. The student left home as soon as she was an adult and came to California. She currently shares a converted garage with her ex-boyfriend and his gay lover.
The student has never held a job, doesn’t drive, and hasn’t finished high school. Her only income is from welfare benefits. I doubt that she has ADD, but she is, shall we say, socially awkward.
It is hard to convince people who start off life feeling defeated of the wonders of capitalism. Positive role models would help, but where the family support system has failed, people will come to rely on the government and will fail to see (or explain away) how far drive and a strong work ethic will take them.
Almost anything would be better than the life she’s known, she thinks. Very sad.
Very shocking – if this is the voice of the European Commission, maybe they need to be looked at with a magnifier. Do you think groups like this are pushing this mindset, or is it because people gravitate back to what they once were, forgetting the bad, like some of these East Germans? To erect a statue like that in Germany is stunning, and the news I’ve been hearing for awhile coming out of Western Europe, the trends, the elections has also been stunning – has 70 years not taught us anything?
Susan – you are also right on target with the push in this country – it’s like the Alinsky followers – Obama – Hillary – Bernie etc. just gave a little watering to the seeds that have been planted for some time, and President Reagan fought so hard to stamp out. Excellent post and thank you.
Thanks so much, FSC. Yes, we need to look at ourselves, too. That’s hard to do, because what can we possibly do?? The train appears to have left the station. Worse, we might be looking at Elizabeth Warren at the next presidential election [shudder].
I’ve been accused of wearing a tinfoil hat, but for years I’ve been very uneasy about the direction things have been going. The fall of our economy in 2008 felt orchestrated to me. There’s more, but it would need another post. I think there are forces who try every way they can think of to sink capitalism and “prove” how terrible it is so that they can assume power.
As I’ve said before, one of the most unfortunate features of liberalism is the starry-eyed idealism that always goes with it. And the Leftists use the liberals as their useful idiots. You cannot tell these people that socialism, let alone communism, has never worked anywhere it’s ever been tried. They’ll always say it’s “because WE weren’t the ones trying it! This time we can make it work because we’ve learned from the past!” or “But they weren’t following Marx’s template the way WE will”
Here is a very disturbing example of this revival of Marxist ideology and the attempts to excuse the fact that it’s never worked, from an article on Quartz (Nick Nesbitt is a French prof at Princeton- but apparently an economics expert in his spare time haha. Wait, why am I laughing):
It may be tempting to dismiss Marx’s analysis given that his communist vision failed in practice. However, the politics that developed in the Soviet Union were “not part of Marx’s vision of a social structure” says Nesbitt, but “developments of Leninism and the Russian revolution.”
and
Marx showed that recurrent crises were not an accidental side effect of capitalism, but a necessary and inherent feature, explains Nick Nesbitt, Princeton University professor of French and Italian and editor of The Concept in Crisis: Reading Capital Today. “He shows that the source of value in capitalism is living labor. He also shows that capitalism nonetheless tends to eliminate living labor as a necessary dimension of its development,” Nesbitt says. That contradiction means capitalism is never stable, but forever shifting in and out of crises: The system depends on human labor while simultaneously eradicating it.
https://qz.com/1269525/capitalism-is-unfolding-exactly-as-karl-marx-predicted/
And what makes him think that anyone else trying it would get it right?? It’s just another version of it would work if we did it. These people are scary. Thanks, RA.
Where is Sam Adams when you really need him?
Awesome match for this OP, @Percival! Thank you.
This is insanity. Only a generation ago, half of Germany had communism and their standard of living was substantially poorer than the free half. Today, thanks to capitalism, Germany is one of the richest nations in the world. Under what logic can half of Germans think that capitalism doesn’t work?
It makes me despair to suggest this, but maybe humans just aren’t meant to be free. Maybe the last couple hundred years have been an anomaly. When vast numbers of people can be presented with the clear results of Marxist/Socialist/Communist governments and still think it’s the way to go, I have to wonder if God or evolution has programmed us to be a race of slaves.
That’s part of the reason that our Founders would frequently note how fragile our form of government was/is. We are definitely the outliers in the worlds of freedom and liberty. A wise observation, @randyweivoda.
I’m about a third of the way through Jonah Goldberg’s new book and it is very timely on this phenomenon.
I’m with you – and I didn’t think of getting out the tin foil – diplomats in Cuba might need to take a roll – so is that professor for or against Capitalism? His statements are confusing. While its not a perfect system, the fact that it ebbs and flows, never stagnant, even with manipulation, its better than any alternative and has given wealth and opportunity throughout the world. 2008 seemed to be the result of the mysterious intro of the derivative – to this day a mystery – and probably orchestrated.
It’s one thing to let an existing statue stand. But to knowingly erect a new statue to a man whose work has contributed so much demonstrable misery to the human race is inexcusable. With the rise of anti-Semitism, a Muslim army disguised as refugees, and now this? I don’t know if I can ever visit Europe again.
And I so much wanted to visit our fallen in Normandy . . .
I wouldn’t read too much into that particular survey question, I’m not so sure I agree with that statement myself. “The best in people?” We’ve all seen plenty of scandals of corporate executives behaving in various unethical, corrupt, and underhanded ways: Enron, Wells Fargo, and Facebook spring to mind.
The advantage of a free market is that we have choices; when corporations behave badly, you have alternatives, you can take your business elsewhere. No such options exist under Communism where the state runs everything. That doesn’t mean that free markets magically make everyone virtuous by “bringing out the best in people.”
That’s a very good point, @josephstanko. It is an odd question when I think about it. I don’t know what question they could have asked–maybe, “Do people have more opportunity,” or “Do people benefit from a capitalist economy.” I don’t write up surveys, so I really don’t know.
It may yet reach the point where we will need to bring them home.
R.A., this part of the quote reminds me of one of President Reagan’s jokes: Two economists are arguing about a concept when one says to the other: “Sure it works in practice. But does it work in THEORY!!??”