Microblog Memes

Who killed more Soviets? The far-right, or the far-left?

Flipping through my big book titled "Victims of Communism" and it says here that the German Nazis and Italian and Spanish Fascists were both Far-Left and Victims of the Far-Left. Also, I see hear that every unborn child out to the latest generation resulting from famines common to the 1930s through the 1960s is a Victim of Communism. Nothing in the fine print about lives saved through the universalization of health care, housing, groceries, and pensions, though. Neither can I find anything about the Peace Dividend reaped by the industrialized Soviet world following the end of WW2.... weird.

Also, absolutely nothing in here about the Bengal Famine, its causes or the millions of tons of relief the USSR sent to end it. So strange. Michael Parenti, do you have anything to say about this?

“During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them. If communists in the United States played an important role struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans, women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves. How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it affected people across the entire political spectrum.”

-Michael Parenti Blackshirts and the reds

Winston Churchill