Communist purge question

[BH]

The communists supposedly killed thousands if not millions of nobles, well off people, and militant anticommunist. Here is my question. Why didnt they just admit their side was whooped, accept the general amnesty granted after the revolution or civil war, and work to help make the new system work instead of still trying to bring it down?

 

[PyramidHead]

I assume by "they" you mean the capitalists, landlords, and nobles? And by "communists" you mean... Russians? Germans? Chinese? Cubans? The story is different depending on the place.

 

[skepticalbip]

Which communist regime do you mean? There was no choice of cooperation given in many of them. For example, having had an education was a sufficient crime to warrant execution under the Khmer Rouge. Generally, there wasn't a general amnesty granted after the revolution or civil war in cases of communist takeovers. People were tried and convicted for what they did before there was a war, or, in some cases, just summarily executed.

ETA:
In general, purges are not aimed at those who are not currently cooperating. Purges are aimed at those who were in an opposing party before the revolution, ethnic groups like the Hoa, Hmong, etc. in Vietnam or Jews in the Soviet Union.

 

[PyramidHead]

Which communist regime do you mean? There was no choice of cooperation given in many of them. For example, having had an education was a sufficient crime to warrant execution under the Khmer Rouge. Generally, there wasn't a general amnesty granted after the revolution or civil war in cases of communist takeovers. People were tried and convicted for what they did before there was a war, or, in some cases, just summarily executed.

ETA:
In general, purges are not aimed at those who are not currently cooperating. Purges are aimed at those who were in an opposing party before the revolution, ethnic groups like the Hoa, Hmong, etc. in Vietnam or Jews in the Soviet Union.

That's pretty rich. The Soviet Union saved more Jews from Hitler's ovens than any other nation on earth, and literally created a territory for them after WWII as an alternative to Israel. Antisemitism was punishable by the death penalty under Stalin!

In answer to your inquiry :

National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.

Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism.

In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.

J. Stalin
January 12, 1931



First published in the newspaper Pravda, No. 329, November 30, 1936

 

[skepticalbip]

Which communist regime do you mean? There was no choice of cooperation given in many of them. For example, having had an education was a sufficient crime to warrant execution under the Khmer Rouge. Generally, there wasn't a general amnesty granted after the revolution or civil war in cases of communist takeovers. People were tried and convicted for what they did before there was a war, or, in some cases, just summarily executed.

ETA:
In general, purges are not aimed at those who are not currently cooperating. Purges are aimed at those who were in an opposing party before the revolution, ethnic groups like the Hoa, Hmong, etc. in Vietnam or Jews in the Soviet Union.

That's pretty rich. The Soviet Union saved more Jews from Hitler's ovens than any other nation on earth, and literally created a territory for them after WWII as an alternative to Israel. Antisemitism was punishable by the death penalty under Stalin!

In answer to your inquiry :

National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.

Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-semitism is dangerous for the working people as being a false path that leads them off the right road and lands them in the jungle. Hence Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable, sworn enemies of anti-semitism.

In the U.S.S.R. anti-semitism is punishable with the utmost severity of the law as a phenomenon deeply hostile to the Soviet system. Under U.S.S.R. law active anti-semites are liable to the death penalty.

J. Stalin
January 12, 1931



First published in the newspaper Pravda, No. 329, November 30, 1936

Bull shit. I suggest you google "soviet pogroms".

 

[Bronzeage]

The communists supposedly killed thousands if not millions of nobles, well off people, and militant anticommunist. Here is my question. Why didnt they just admit their side was whooped, accept the general amnesty granted after the revolution or civil war, and work to help make the new system work instead of still trying to bring it down?

Let's suppose this is a hypothetical situation where communist could be any ideology, since you haven't identified the place or time frame of your question.

Any group capable of killing millions of people is not whooped. The ability to inflict that much damage on opposing forces is the definition of "not whooped".

 

[PyramidHead]

That's pretty rich. The Soviet Union saved more Jews from Hitler's ovens than any other nation on earth, and literally created a territory for them after WWII as an alternative to Israel. Antisemitism was punishable by the death penalty under Stalin!

Bull shit. I suggest you google "soviet pogroms".

Or maybe you should Google the State Stalin Prize and the Jews who received it, like Sergei Eisenstein, Yuli Raizman, Mikhail Romm...

Or this emotional account of Jews being liberated from Nazi death camps by the Soviets:



Or the relevant excerpt from Human Rights in the Soviet Union, which describes the thriving Jewish culture in 1930s USSR, with Jewish theatres and Yiddish newspapers, and the many Jews who were well-paid professional scientists, journalists, and engineers. This is not the record of a society that persecutes Jews for being Jewish, or for being on the opposing side of a revolution.

 

[steve_bank]

The communists supposedly killed thousands if not millions of nobles, well off people, and militant anticommunist. Here is my question. Why didnt they just admit their side was whooped, accept the general amnesty granted after the revolution or civil war, and work to help make the new system work instead of still trying to bring it down?

Why is China forcibly trying to force Hong King conform to communist ideology?

Why did communist Russia try to militarily suppress the Polish freedom movement?

As to Russia, when Stalin took power it was all about dictatorship and personal power. Machiavelli, when in power the first order of business is to keep power.

And popular hatred. I read a book Diary Of A Revolutionist by a Russian Kropotkin. He was a noble who made a name for himself as a scientist. He turned radical. He described the life at the bottom. It was what Marx was taking about, abused proletariat.

People did not have names, they had functions. Fisherman, farmer, wagon driver. A noble had a right of first night. When a peasant got married he could have sex with the woman first.

Kill a peasant and you could buy an indulgence from the church. Not hard to see why the communists hated religion, it was a tool of state to control the lower class.

It wasn't until the late 19th century with the rise of Italy as a nation that the Vatican lost its direct political enforcement power.

Overall there was plenty of cause for the revolution. It was the post revolution that became another tyranny. Orwell's Animal Farm..

THe Stalin NKVD was no different than the Nazi Gestapo and SS. There were Russian atrocities in Poland.

Stalin made a non aggression pact with Hitler in exchange for part of Poland and Finland I recall. You can say Stalin enabled Hitler to invade Poland and start WWII,.

Hiter could nit have invaded Poland if there was a chance of Russia resoinding.

Stalin wanted part of Poland which he claimed was historically Russian. Same old emperislidm under the name of communism. Eastern Europe. East Germany and West Berlin.

You are hard pressed to argue Stalin and Russian communism was not just more traditional imperialism.

 

[steve_bank]

I assume by "they" you mean the capitalists, landlords, and nobles? And by "communists" you mean... Russians? Germans? Chinese? Cubans? The story is different depending on the place.

The intent and rationale are always the same. Suppress anything that expresses opposition and criticism.

Soviet Union
China
Cuba
North Korea
Vietnam Today

I have know Vietnamese who came over post war and go back to visit. A woman I know said it is a personality cult/

 

[SLD]

The purges in the Soviet Union had little to do with Nobles and capitalists. They had to do with threats to Stalin's power. Any military officer that could possibly threaten Stalin was shot. Anyone who dared to challenge any kind of party line was shot. But the overall death rates did have a significant ethnic quality. Ethnic Russians who remained loyal to the regime suffered the least, same with Georgians. The Kulaks probably the worst. The Ukrainians horribly. And while the Soviet Union could hardly claim any kind of antisemitism as Karl Marx was Jewish, jews weren’t exactly safe under Stalin. In fact Stalin was planning further purges of jews in the party when he died.

SLD

 

[4321lynx]

The purges in the Soviet Union had little to do with Nobles and capitalists. They had to do with threats to Stalin's power. Any military officer that could possibly threaten Stalin was shot. Anyone who dared to challenge any kind of party line was shot. But the overall death rates did have a significant ethnic quality. Ethnic Russians who remained loyal to the regime suffered the least, same with Georgians. The Kulaks probably the worst. The Ukrainians horribly. And while the Soviet Union could hardly claim any kind of antisemitism as Karl Marx was Jewish, jews weren’t exactly safe under Stalin. In fact Stalin was planning further purges of jews in the party when he died.

SLD

You also have to know that "Old Bolsheviks", "Trotskists" and "Cosmopolitans" were often just codewords for Jewish bolsheviks in Russia and elsewhere during the various purges.
Kulaks (meaning 'fists' were the richer, successful peasants, who made a good living out of farming and were opposed to their land being taken from them and collectivised. Like all farmers they were tight fisted and ruled their employees, if they had any, with a fist of iron. Hence the name. Most were Ukrainians as their farmlands had been freehold for generations in contrast to the Russian type of landholding.

 

[Tammuz]

The communists supposedly killed thousands if not millions of nobles, well off people, and militant anticommunist. Here is my question. Why didnt they just admit their side was whooped, accept the general amnesty granted after the revolution or civil war, and work to help make the new system work instead of still trying to bring it down?

"Supposedly"? Are you some sort of historical revisionist?

I assume you mean Russia/USSR. I think it was because communism is a kind of purist ideology that wants to totally remake society, and therefore is prone to kill anyone judged deviant.

 

[steve_bank]

Trotsky, wasn't he hat guy who ended up with an axe in his head in Mexico?

 

[barbos]

Russian Jews had disproportionate representation among revolution leaders and intelligentsia in general, so it's no wonder that they were purged as well as doing said purging.

I know it's hard for americans with their history to accept but communists did not care about race, ethnicity, It was all about ideology and of course paranoia of that guy from Georgia.

And yes, former regime guys who accepted new regime were OK during communists, at least until purges started.

 

[ronburgundy]

Outside of very small groups where people are free to leave, large scale communism cannot exist with extreme authoritarian violence.

Some degree of capitalism is an inherent byproduct of people controlling their own body to do the labor they choose and use the fruits of that labor as they choose. Contrary to the purely faith-based dogma, many people prefer to be laborers and not to take the risks with the fruits of their labor that owning the means of production entails. While others prefer to sacrifice immediate consumption or safe "savings" in favor of risking it on investing in future production of something that may not be in demand at prices that cover the cost.
Thus, only by criminalizing basic human liberty of people to act as individuals and decide where, when, and how they work, and for what and whom can Capitalism be eliminated in favor of entirely worker or state owned production.

You can naturally have a blend of these w/o oppression, but you cannot eliminate capitalism without oppression, and that requires sustained violence.

Note that although many US leftists and Bern victims say things like "Capitalism is evil", they then point to highly capitalist societies like Canada, Sweden, and other parts of Europe as models the US should strive toward. That's b/c they have no clue what capitalism or communism is. They mistake strong governments that provide basic social services as being anti-capitalist, when in fact you can (and most 1st world democracies do) have those things with a largely capitalist economy. There are serious dangers that unregulated capitalism pose, and the US a shining example of those, but nothing about capitalism requires it not exist within a strong regulatory framework. Also, note that most right wingers and many "libertarians" share leftists delusion that government services and regulations are anti-capitalism. The difference it is they want to destroy the former to preserve the latter, while leftist want to do the opposite. Both are dangerously wrong.

 

[Tammuz]

Outside of very small groups where people are free to leave, large scale communism cannot exist with extreme authoritarian violence.

Some degree of capitalism is an inherent byproduct of people controlling their own body to do the labor they choose and use the fruits of that labor as they choose. Contrary to the purely faith-based dogma, many people prefer to be laborers and not to take the risks with the fruits of their labor that owning the means of production entails. While others prefer to sacrifice immediate consumption or safe "savings" in favor of risking it on investing in future production of something that may not be in demand at prices that cover the cost.
Thus, only by criminalizing basic human liberty of people to act as individuals and decide where, when, and how they work, and for what and whom can Capitalism be eliminated in favor of entirely worker or state owned production.

You can naturally have a blend of these w/o oppression, but you cannot eliminate capitalism without oppression, and that requires sustained violence.

Note that although many US leftists and Bern victims say things like "Capitalism is evil", they then point to highly capitalist societies like Canada, Sweden, and other parts of Europe as models the US should strive toward. That's b/c they have no clue what capitalism or communism is. They mistake strong governments that provide basic social services as being anti-capitalist, when in fact you can (and most 1st world democracies do) have those things with a largely capitalist economy. There are serious dangers that unregulated capitalism pose, and the US a shining example of those, but nothing about capitalism requires it not exist within a strong regulatory framework. Also, note that most right wingers and many "libertarians" share leftists delusion that government services and regulations are anti-capitalism. The difference it is they want to destroy the former to preserve the latter, while leftist want to do the opposite. Both are dangerously wrong.

Thanks for writing this. I completely agree. The American political terminology is completely off the rails. Europe socialist? It's like the Cold War never happened, and the Berlin Wall never existed.

Yes, European countries have capitalist economies, but they also combine that with welfare states of various degrees and kinds. This is no contradiction, it is perfectly possible, as empirically demonstrated by literally decades of modern history.

Capitalism is so much more efficient than a socialist economy, so even in most countries where it is not accepted in theory, it is accepted in practice.