Timothy Sandefur has started a campaign to encourage people to donate to an organization that wants to put up a Victims of Communism memorial. Yesterday he wrote an essay on why communist systems lead to repression and barbarism, which I find mostly quite accurate. I think he's slightly off on his initial premise:
I suspect the biggest obstacle that the Victims of Communism Memorial faces is the sympathy for communism that is so startlingly common in the United States. Terrified of being labeled a McCarthyite, many people refuse to acknowledge the fact that there is a great deal of lingering support for communism in Americas universities, among the media, and among our politicians. For these people, it is much more comfortable to blame particular dictators, or circumstances, for the horrors of communism, and particularly to claim that Stalinism was a betrayal of real communism, and thus that communism has been slandered. If only we tried real communism, its said, why then wed see that there would be no violence and death and oppression.
I say it's slightly off because while I agree that there is a tendency to downplay the evils of communism in the US, I think the reason for that is slightly different than the one he cites. I don't think there's really much support for trying "real" communism except among the real fringes of academia, and even there it tends to be in humanities or English departments (which I don't understand at all - those are the places that should value individual freedom the most). I think the tendency to downplay the horrors of communism comes, in most cases, not from those who want to give "real" communism a try, but from those who are critical of American foreign policy in response to communism. In response to the Soviet threat, the US followed a policy for nearly half a century of supporting pretty much any thug we could find as long as they did our bidding instead of the Soviets' bidding. The list of brutal regimes that we supported in our zeal to counter communism is long and ugly - Pinochet, Montt, Somoza, Pahlevi, Marcos, Noriega, Duarte, and on and on and on. For those, like me, who consider that support to be absolutely contrary to the principles that we hold as unyielding, there is a psychological tendency to downplay the reality of the brutality of communism in order to make our argument stronger. The result, though, is unbalanced.
The horrors of communism are very real, and those horrors are also absolutely contrary to the principles we adhere to. I don't believe we should downplay the reality on either side of the dichotomy. The Soviet Union was a brutal, barbaric regime that sought to extend its power all over the world. In response, the US supported many equally brutal regimes. Both are wrong, and for the same reason. But we should not let our opposition to our own government's policies cover up the reality of the brutality of communism. Indeed, we should recognize that we oppose our government's policies in that regard precisely because they emulated the brutality of communism in the name of stopping it. It is the brutality that is wrong, in all cases, no matter what cause it is alleged to serve. By the same token, we should not let our recognition of the brutality of communism to serve as an excuse for what our own government did either. If communism is wrong because it results in repression and destruction, then the policies which supported the barbaric thugs I listed above were wrong for the same reason.
Here's where I agree completely with Mr. Sandefur:
But, most fundamentally, the reason communism kills is its hostility to individualism. A system which teaches that the individual exists to serve the proletariat, to serve the state, to serve his brothers, has little patience for the right of one man to stand up alone against his brothers, and to assert his own dreams, his own vision, or his own right to live for his own sake. Communisms primary evil is in its gospel that people live for the sake of others. Once embrace that principle, and no evil is beyond imaginingexcept the evil of daring to demand your right to the pursuit of your own happiness.
Dead on accurate. This is the root of the evil of communism, the crushing of individualism. It is also the reason why we should remind ourselves of that reality through memorials and accurate histories. But let's also recognize that a lot of anti-communists were every bit as brutal, and for the same reason, to hold on to power. We must oppose the crushing of human rights regardless of the ideology of the government doing the crushing.
I've had the opportunity to speak to a lot of people who have managed to escape murderous countries like Laos, Chile (under Pinochet), Iran (under both the Shah and the Mullahs) and Indonesia. The stories they tell are remarkably similar, whether the government was communist in ideology, or anti-communist in ideology, or neither. When governments imprison, torture and kill their own citizens in order to instill fear in the populace and destroy threats to their own power, the victims don't much care what label is put on it.
- Log in to post comments
The notion that there is some [fairly widespread] nostalgic [?] sympathy for communism on American campuses is one of those happy myths of the American right [mainstream and liberterian] that clearly keeps the Boys and Girls feeling virtuous and good about themselves on cold winter nights when they gather before the fire. Your comments over all are very much on the mark.
About a memorial to the victims of communism to be located in Washington DC, that is quite another matter. In my view, such a monument no more belongs in the American capital than the Holocaust Museum does.
"... But let's also recognize that a lot of anti-communists were every bit as brutal, and for the same reason, to hold on to power. We must oppose the crushing of human rights regardless of the ideology of the government doing the crushing. ... When governments imprison, torture and kill their own citizens in order to instill fear in the populace and destroy threats to their own power, the victims don't much care what label is put on it."
So does this rational then extend to justifying what the US did in Iraq? That the oppression of individual freedoms by a brutal regime had to be stopped? Or does that not equate? If it doesn't, can you clarify the differences for me?
Thanks...
So does this rational then extend to justifying what the US did in Iraq? That the oppression of individual freedoms by a brutal regime had to be stopped? Or does that not equate? If it doesn't, can you clarify the differences for me?
I think one could certainly make a case for intervention there on human rights grounds alone, but that's a somewhat different issue than the one I brought up. We would have far more credibility in making a human rights case for intervention had we not supported Hussein when he committed his worst abuses. That is indeed one of the inevitable results of supporting brutal regimes, it undermines our credibility in standing up to human rights abuses later on. If we're going to commit to a policy of intervening to protect human rights and take dictators from power, we get into a lot of thorny issues, primarily when do we go in and when do we not? We can't very well go around the world knocking every bad guy out of power. I'm only arguing that, at a minimum, we should not actively support such dictators.
This is actually more related to your later post, about our intercession in Iran in the 1950s. But I wanted to ask if you've noted an 'old lady who swallowed the fly' aspect to US foreign policy over the years: we take a course of action because in the short term it seems to be the most convenient at the time--and this can be for as regrettable a goal as supporting a private interest with political pull, such as Oil or United Fruit, or for as authentic a strategic goal as undermining the Soviet Empire, such as with our activities in Afghanistan--but in the long-term, the fallout is a progressively worse situation that leaves us with progressively more unpalatable alternatives. Iran is probably the classic example. It bought a perfectly tame ally for 20+ years, in a crucial area. Yet the reaction brought into power one of our most ideologically committed and strategically dangerous enemies, the current Islamic Republic. We attempted to contain it by backing the megalomanical ambitions of Saddam Hussein--not that we ever really trusted him but in the hopes that the two countries would bleed each other white. And these morally repugnant actions taken in the name of realpolitik have led to an ever worsening series of alternatives for the United States. Finally when we invade Saddam's Iraq, formerly so useful a regime for tying down the Iranians, we seem to be doing it in the cheapest way possible rather than in a way that would reflect the most credit on our nation. If we leave Iraq a mess, what new crises may this lead to that may require, in the long term, far more expensive and ugly countermeasures?