Trotsky Redux

A.M., a reader from abroad, suggests that while someone of my demographic may not know many Trotskyites, the sort of view Clive James is opposed to is more heavily represented in intellectual circles abroad. He cites as an example things like this Guardian column excoriating Communism's critics as hypocrites and arguing that "the particular form of society created by 20th-century communist parties will never be replicated. But there are lessons to be learned from its successes as well as its failures."

This may be so. Still, it seems to me to all the more clearly make the point that if you're going to start slamming Trotskyism as a major force in intellectual life you ought to find some examples of Trotskyites you're criticizing. It's also worth noting an ambiguity here in terms of people of leftish sympathies who say nice things about people who don't deserve praise. On the one hand, you might have someone who says he admires Trotsky but is actually admiring a false notion of what Trotsky stood for -- an imagined Russian democratic socialist purged unjustly by the villainous Stalin. On the other hand, you might have someone who admires the actual Trotsky -- a violent revolutionary and ardent advocate of dictatorial rule. Since most people's understanding of Russian history is pretty weak, I can see how a lot of people might be confused about the specific issues at hand in the Trotsky-Stalin dispute, which is different from saying a lot of people are advocates of the militarization of labor.

Comments

"On the one hand, you might have someone who says he admires Trotsky but is actually admiring a false notion of what Trotsky stood for"

On the third hand, you might have someone with a perfectly robust knowledge of Russian history, who isn't a practicing Trostsky-ite in the sense of wanting a Bolshevik revolution, but yet admires certain aspects of Trotsky.

As mentioned in the previous thread, one can admire Washington and Jefferson without being an advocate for slavery.

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 3:29 PM

Trotsky was the inventor of the infamous 'blocking units' tasked with machine-gunning retreating troops. There's a nice scene of one of these units in action in "Enemy at the Gates."

Trotsky was an evil asshole. Guevara, too.

Posted by togolosh | April 2, 2007 3:30 PM

Many of the neocons are Ex-Trotskyites, and they maintain many Trotskyite beliefs: belief in a proposition nation, egalitarianism, world government, the forced spreading of democracy, etc.

Posted by Real Conservative | April 2, 2007 3:31 PM

And FWIW, I'd say that Seumas Milne column you linked to is utterly reasonable.

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 3:41 PM

Well, as of the late 1990s, Joshua Muravchik and some of the other prominent neocons were reportedly still going around saying that they regarded Lev Davidovich as their political inspiration and role model.

Seems to me, they're all pretty lucky we don't have the capacity to bring him back right now. Although he wasn't crazy/paranoid like Stalin, he was still a pretty tough-minded fellow. First thing he'd do would be to round up all the disruptive neocons and shoot them dead, together with their wives, children, family pets, and next-door neighbors.

Then, having performed this simple but helpful mitzvah for his adopted country, he'd spend the rest of his days in fascinated exploration of the astonishing technological advances of the last seventy years.

Posted by RKU | April 2, 2007 3:54 PM

I suppose something of the same thing could be said for those who support George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Ulysses S. Grant, etc., what with their body counts in Indians and slaves. Then there's the 20th century US adventures abroad--pretty high body counts there too. When you say you support this country, does that mean you're buying into all that. What about all the red scares this country has gone through, the anti-labor violence? The point is that I just don't see that many leaders with clean hands. And, for most body counts, if you look closely, you can find excuses for what was done, and why people supported what was done despite the obvious harm.

This isn't to make it all relative. Hitler was a bad guy, through and through--but not just because of his body count. I am also disgusted by everything he stood for.

Lenin, Stalin--not so much. To tell you the truth, if we could trade Venezuela right now, Chavez for Bush, in a second, baby. In a frikking second.

Posted by Raenelle | April 2, 2007 3:57 PM

I thought Trotsky believed there could be no socialism without democracy?

Posted by neil | April 2, 2007 3:58 PM

The best thing that ever happened to Trotsky was his exile and assassination; these events allowed the romantic myth of Trotsky to evolve.
This can be compared to John Kennedy. That assassination has allowed a cult to be established, one which has airbrushed to near oblivion the serious shortcomings and more problematic facts of his career.
Just as with his brother Bobby's cult, the true believers are as enthralled by "what might have been" as by the facts on the ground. And all cult figures are nothing more than stand ins for rather amorphous and ultimately irrational systems of thought.
So it is with Trotsky. See the Hollywood biopic starring Brad Pitt?
As to James' point, Trotsky's influence has certainly been immense though I think largely among those who either don't know or really don't care about the specifics of his politics. It sufficed that he was communist and anti Stalin.

Posted by Southie | April 2, 2007 4:17 PM

Wasn't the image of Trotsky as a "democratic socialist purged unjustly by the villainous Stalin" the one offered in George Orwell's Animal Farm? If people gave Orwell the scrutiny he deserves instead of lazily quoting him to support the cause du jour, mistakes like that bring his reputation down a notch.

By the way, here is a dispatch from Bizarro World: A full-throated defense of Trotsky from National Review...

http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-schwartz061103.asp

Posted by Ashish George | April 2, 2007 5:02 PM

And FWIW, I'd say that Seumas Milne column you linked to is utterly reasonable.

Christ, Petey, since when did you become such a left-wing loon? Positioning yourself to be the Christopher Hitchens of the Iran War?

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | April 2, 2007 5:11 PM

Matt, that comment illustrates exactly why Trotsky is still popular in some circles, especially on the Right.

Many people have an intellectual commitment to political principles. There's a subgroup that is willing to use violence to advance their principles. But there's a third group that has an intellectual commitment to using violence, and makes up the principles as they go along. They sign up for whatever adventure the group #2 is offering. That's where Hitchens comes in.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | April 2, 2007 5:22 PM

I intended to say that the example of Christopher Hitchens illustrates the enduring popularity of Trotsky. I did not intend to imply that Petey is an unprincipled, bloodthirsty fiend.

Mistakes were made and I accept responsibility.

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | April 2, 2007 5:32 PM

"Christ, Petey, since when did you become such a left-wing loon?"

My left-wing looniness is precisely why I take politics seriously.

"Positioning yourself to be the Christopher Hitchens of the Iran War?"

I'm an strong apologist for the Kosovo war. I'd accept the role of being the Hitchens of that war.

I'm not so fond of the smell of whatever possible confrontation our current administration may or may not have planned for Iran.

---

I actually liked Hitchens before the Iraq war. The attacks on Mother Theresa kinda outweighed the anti-Clinton dementia. He used to be fun to read, at least.

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 5:52 PM

If Trotsky had succeeded Lenin and Stalin was forced to flee...Germany would've won the War. Stalin for all his Crimes was able to draw upon the people's fervor for "Mother Russia". Trotsky as a Jew would've never been able to do that. Now, Stalin may have murdered as many as 30 MILLION people- he was as depraved a monster as Hitler if not more so. But, Trotsky was not a patriot- he was an "Internationalist" and Russia would've fallen to the Nazis with him in charge changing the whole course of the War. According to Stephen Scwartz (admittedly a wackjob)- Wolfowitz reveres Trotsky.

Posted by Trevor | April 2, 2007 6:05 PM

"The best thing that ever happened to Trotsky was his exile and assassination; these events allowed the romantic myth of Trotsky to evolve."

I don't know. If there was some celestial game show in which Trotsky could chose between curtain number one, in which he'd get an icepick through the head, Stalin would murder his extended family, and he'd be exiled - but Partisan Review writers would remember him nostalgically - and curtain number two, where he wouldn't be exiled or murdered, I bet he'd chose curtain no. 2. He was strange like that.

Posted by roger | April 2, 2007 6:21 PM

In praise of Lev:

Let's not forget that Trotsky was a good writer, and to a large degree was a Churchillian prophet of the rise of Hitler.

Check this out from Trotsky in 1931:

WHAT IS CONCEALED BEHIND HITLER'S STRATAGEM?

His calculations are quite simple and obvious: he wants to lull his antagonists with the long-run perspective of the parliamentary growth of the Nazis in order to catch them napping and to deal them a deathblow at the right moment It is quite possible that Hitler's courtesies to democratic parliamentarism may, moreover, help to set up some sort of coalition in the immediate future in which the fascists will obtain the most important posts and employ them in turn for their coup d'etat For it is entirely clear that the coalition, let us assume, between the Center and the fascists will not be a stage in the democratic solution of the question, but a step closer to the coup d'etat under conditions most favorable to the fascists.

Pretty good crystal balling for '31. He goes on to plead for a German Communist / Social Democratic popular front to oppose Hitler, and ends with:

In the meantime, there are among the Communist officials not a few cowardly careerists and fakers whose little posts, whose incomes, and more than that, whose hides, are dear to them. These creatures are very much inclined to spout ultraradical phrases beneath which is concealed a wretched and contemptible fatalism. "Without a victory over the Social Democracy, we cannot battle against fascism!" say such terrible revolutionists, and for this reason... they get their passports ready.

Worker-Communists, you are hundreds of thousands, millions; you cannot leave for anyplace; there are not enough passports for you. Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left!

It doesn't absolve him of all his political sins, but it gives a sense of what's admirable in him.

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 6:21 PM

These days people probably think fascism is a form of Communism, though. (Certainly I've heard it pointed out far too many times that the 'Z' in Nazi stands for socialist, therefore Hitler was a red. I associate that argument with the Corner, but possibly not correctly.)

Posted by neil | April 2, 2007 6:25 PM

if you read the comments at Slate on the article you'll discover a surprising amount of people who are unaware or in denial of Trotsky's record.

heck, there used to be a coffee shop in my old NY neighborhood (i.e. until last year)...Cafe Trotsky -- in fact its proprietors wrote an article in Slate without ever mentioning qualms about the name. I daresay that a Cafe Himmler would immediately have protestors outside.

It's hard to deny that the left has a track record of first denial of Communism's record and second, when this became untenable, avoidance of the subject and/or wilful ignorance..i.e. the glorification of Che.

Posted by Nathan | April 2, 2007 7:18 PM

"Cafe Trotsky -- in fact its proprietors wrote an article in Slate without ever mentioning qualms about the name. I daresay that a Cafe Himmler would immediately have protestors outside."

Well, that's because there's no moral equivalence between Trotsky and Himmler for those with a well-oiled brain.

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 7:24 PM

Also, Nathan, I understand there are streets and even cities named after that slaveowner Washington, and Churchill, that pioneer of the use of chemical weapons against civilian populations, is regarded as a hero in some parts, and Nixon, I'm told, received a state funeral .. the lsit could go on. Trotsky and other Bolsheviks committed terrible crimes, as have rulers of all political orientations and in all kinds of systems. No doubt the left has a track record of denial, but no more so than anyone else.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 2, 2007 7:27 PM

Petey, there's a pretty clear moral equivalence between Himmler and Trotsky to anyone who's not in complete denial (except that Himmler killed fewer people). the nice thing about being under 40 is that I don't have a youthful flirtation with mass murderers to defend. what's amusing is that you're proving that Yglesias is wrong...people like you exist.

Pitkin: I agree that everyone has their blindspots. in terms of bodycount it's impossible to find anything on the scale of Communism...with fascism running a distant second...and 19th century colonialism on its heels.

Posted by Nathan | April 2, 2007 7:43 PM

"there's a pretty clear moral equivalence between Himmler and Trotsky to anyone who's not in complete denial (except that Himmler killed fewer people). the nice thing about being under 40 is that I don't have a youthful flirtation with mass murderers to defend."

The nice thing about being under 40 is that I'm usually the only one who has studied their political history, and can thus make mince-meat out of my peers.

And the nice thing of our particular colloquy here is that you get to be the one going around saying the Nazis were the same as the Communists on all the important levels, while having bystanders whisper at you as you walk by to let you know that you are non compos mentis.

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 7:56 PM

Someone here needs to read some Conquest or Solzehnitsyn or Pipes or something....

Posted by Nathan | April 2, 2007 8:04 PM

"Someone here needs to read some Conquest or Solzehnitsyn or Pipes or something...."

Well, as I said in a previous thread:

Don't get me wrong. All of these folks who followed Lenin missed out on the lessons of the most important person in all of human history, Cleisthenes. The history of freedom is the history of legislative bodies, and all that.

But just because folks are a product of their time and place doesn't necessarily make them bad folks. Washington and Jefferson owned slaves, but I've got soft spots for them too.

I do find many admirable traits in Trotsky that I don't come close to finding in Mao or Stalin, let alone in the utterly reprehensible Hitler.

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 8:13 PM

so we're down to aesthetic judgements now?

Posted by novakant | April 2, 2007 8:30 PM

"so we're down to aesthetic judgements now?"

The primary problem with Hitler was always one of his excruciatingly poor taste, as evidenced by watching the fine doc The Architecture of Doom.

Posted by Petey | April 2, 2007 8:34 PM

I must say Matt, I'm with Petey here. I actually think that article you link to is quite thought-provoking.

And this comes from someone who would readily agree that the various attempts to implement a communist society have ranged from failure (Cuba, post 1956 Soviet bloc) to appalling disaster (Pol Pot's Cambodia, the Stalin Era, etc.).

But Milne makes very useful points in that article:

1) that the desire to continue talking about how bad communism was/is is primarily a rhetorical gambit, designed to shut off discussion of any possible set of social or economic arrangements that differ from neo-liberal globalization. Indeed, one may even agree that neo-liberal globalization is the best thing going and still recognize the psychological and rhetorical dimensions of the need to ritualistically discuss communism in the terms Davis seems to want to do.

2) that the impact of colonialism was close to as devastating for many societies around the world as was communism. Yet it is considered in a similar moral register. Indeed, there is even a bit of movement amongst (primarily) right wing English historians trying to resurrect the British empire as a "positive good" right now.

3) that communism did achieve some things that can be considered positive. It was positive in breaking down ethnic, racial, and gender discrimination in socities where it was implemented. And it had a surpringly good track record in generating industrialization and economic growth - read a book like Jeff Frieden's "The History of Global Capitalism," generally a paean to the current economic order, which makes this point. Also, talk to China hands about Mao's impact on the country - his was in many senses a disasterous regime, but it did have the effect of destroying many of the kinds of feudal elements of Chinese society which were and today would continue to be a serious impediment to

Of course, the third point is very controvertial. And I think people who make point three do so in willful ignorance of the massive social cost some of the above gains came at - too high to justify or look back fondly at any such experiments. But nevetheless, at least in some cases, real social improvements DID occur.

Finally, as to the generalized Fascism vs. Communism debate. I think the reason Communism is seen as less bad - certainly why I think it is less bad - is that, unlike fascism, it was not prima faci an exclusivist, chauvinistic, militaristic doctrine. Indeed, famously, it is utopian.

So in other words, one "signing up" for fascism - in whatever form - does so in full knowledge that the ideology believes in some sort of exclusivist, hierachical vision of society that views a certain "in-group" as inherently superior and deserving to rule over other groups deemed "inherently" lesser and deserving to be ruled, excluded, enslaved, exterminated, etc.

Communism, on the other hand, promises a perfect society free of oppression and inequality. Of course, this is/was a siren song proved to be a tragic illusion. But nevertheless, it was something one could easily "sign up" for, say, before the 1950s thinking one was going to "save the world." This could never have been said about fascism, even before it was "discredited" as a result of WWII.

Posted by Ben P | April 2, 2007 9:28 PM

Ashish George: I raised the issue of whether Animal Farm was pro-Trotsky in a Hit and Run forum a couple years ago. One Matthew Hogan kindly provided anti-Trotsky quotations from Orwell and anti-Orwell quotations from Trotskyites, but in extant version of the thread his post has disappeared. You'll just have to take my word for it.

http://www.reason.com/blog/show/110611.html

Posted by James Kabala | April 2, 2007 9:46 PM

I think Ben P. has said most of what needs to be said on this subject. I might adda point 4, that Communism as it existed was a response to and result of the world it existed in.

There never would have been a Bolshevik Revolution without World War I. There never would have been a Khmer Rouge if the US hadn't first obliterated the fabric of Cambodian society. And on the flip side, the threat or challenge fo Communism was important to many of the accomplishments of the non-Communist countires -- it made the social democracy as political necessity in Europe, allowed countries like South Korea and Japan to industrialize instead of being forced into the semi-colonial model of countries away from the front lines of the Cold War, gave considerable impetus to decolonization, and so on. So any moral tallying-up on the premise that there's a clean line between "them" and "us" is flawed from the start, IMO.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | April 2, 2007 9:46 PM

I should have said, "His post has gone down the memory hole," although of course unintenionally.

Posted by James Kabala | April 2, 2007 9:48 PM

Holy shit, did someone really say this: "Trotsky and other Bolsheviks committed terrible crimes, as have rulers of all political orientations and in all kinds of systems. No doubt the left has a track record of denial, but no more so than anyone else."

So there's really nothing notably different about the Bolsheviks' crimes (it sounds like you're including Stalin here) than those of the American founders, or the Allies in WWII? If Jonah Goldberg said, "lefties probably think there's no difference between Churchill and Stalin," I'd think he was beating up a strawman.

Posted by too many steves | April 2, 2007 10:17 PM

Who is the history lesson supposed to be for?

Trotskyists aren't disciples of Trotsky, they are members of whatever left sect that exists now that sided with Trotsky vs. Stalin fifty years ago. It's almost a tribal identification, if you find a real life trot that is pushing "militarization of labor" I'd be interested to see it.

Posted by Ed Marshall | April 3, 2007 12:12 AM

Ben P asserted:
communism . . . was positive in breaking down ethnic, racial, and gender discrimination in socities where it was implemented.

How'd that work? By killing everybody who was discriminated against? It's true that some regimes were fairer to women than their predecessors. But I think that's rather overcome by the killings of ethnic minorities like Jews, and hurting anybody who showed any signs of dissenting.

was something one could easily "sign up" for, say, before the 1950s thinking one was going to "save the world." This could never have been said about fascism, even before it was "discredited" as a result of WWII.

Marx has plenty of evident contradictions (like how turning a country into one big bureaucracy will level class barriers). And the failure of Communism in the first regime to try it, in a way that had plenty of dubious implications for it (like the revival of the rouble and vast starvations) date back to the early 30s. That's the last point when anybody caring about evidence should've been attracted. Plenty of people did stop believing at that point.

So any moral tallying-up on the premise that there's a clean line between "them" and "us" is flawed from the start, IMO.

lemuel pitkin:
So you're saying that Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and the Khmer Rouge leaders (and, yes, Trotsky) DON'T bear vastly more responsibility for their countries' megadeaths than, say, Wilson, FDR, or Churchill? Did you send yourself to your room with your kids when they were bad?

Posted by jon | April 3, 2007 12:32 AM

How'd that work? By killing everybody who was discriminated against? It's true that some regimes were fairer to women than their predecessors. But I think that's rather overcome by the killings of ethnic minorities like Jews, and hurting anybody who showed any signs of dissenting.

Perhaps not in the USSR. But in China, this was an effect. It got rid of feudal caste systems as well as gender discriminations like foot binding. I think its certainly arguable that it had this effect in Cuba too. You basically admit the gender bit, though. As to Jews, I think that was primarily Stalin. Finally, of course these gains were outweighed by the means through which they were achieved. I explicitly say that later in the post.

Marx has plenty of evident contradictions (like how turning a country into one big bureaucracy will level class barriers). And the failure of Communism in the first regime to try it, in a way that had plenty of dubious implications for it (like the revival of the rouble and vast starvations) date back to the early 30s. That's the last point when anybody caring about evidence should've been attracted. Plenty of people did stop believing at that point.

As to Marx's contradictions - well sure. But this only became clear subsequently. This was never the case with, say, Nazism, Franco's rule, or Mussolini, which never made any bones about what they were - supremacist, racist, ultranationalist, and militarist. Lenin and, especially, Stalin were evil fuckers, but many of their followers weren't.

I suppose I could have said the 30s instead of the 50s, but Stalin's record was still fairly hidden - at least to the extent that it could be denied to its apologists - until the 50s.

Posted by Ben P | April 3, 2007 1:21 AM

"China hands about Mao's impact on the country - his was in many senses a disasterous regime, but it did have the effect of destroying many of the kinds of feudal elements of Chinese society which were and today would continue to be a serious impediment to"

Today it is rather controversial to call pre-Mao China "feudal," in part because the field has drifted away from both CCP and GMD historiographies. Some point to the Tang-Song changeover as the end of Chinese feudalism, while others point to the late Ming. By the time Mao came along, China was such a mixture of pure types of economic models mixed with recently dead imperialism, fascism, socialism and anarchy that calling it simply "feudal" is off-target.

"So there's really nothing notably different about the Bolsheviks' crimes (it sounds like you're including Stalin here) than those of the American founders, or the Allies in WWII? If Jonah Goldberg said, "lefties probably think there's no difference between Churchill and Stalin," I'd think he was beating up a strawman."

Usually when Lefties talk about Churchill's crimes, they refer to his pre-WWII crimes. These include using poison gas on Iraqis in the 1920's and taking part in the imperial takeover of what became British Africa. In some parts of Africa the British killed between 40%-60% of the local population, which can only properly be called genocide (in parts of Africa today, it is considered very fitting that a bathroom/toilet is called a WC). Churchill's journals from his time in the British imperial military are full of disgusting passages where he praises British soldiers and mercenaries for cutting down people defending their homes with machine-gun fire and pulling innocent women and children out of their huts to be slaughtered. He was an unrepentant racist who believed in the White Man's Burden. By some accounts, he also believed in the International Jewish Conspiracy's existence.

Defenders of Trotsky should remember that it was Trotsky who crafted the use and institutional means for using terrorism and state terror to keep the Russian Empire's populace in line. He was one of the biggest defenders of the Bolsheviks' right to do so. He is one of the fathers of modern terrorism. Considering that he believed in international revolution worldwide, a world in which Trotsky succeeded Lenin may have very well seen France, Spain, the UK, Germany, the US, Japan, Poland, Italy, Argentina and other nations fall to communism and/or civil war. Considering that the Bolsheviks believed their communism meant that they could not in any circumstances be imperialists, real de-colonization would also have been less likely to happen.

Posted by Reality Man | April 3, 2007 2:10 AM

"As to Marx's contradictions - well sure. But this only became clear subsequently. This was never the case with, say, Nazism, Franco's rule, or Mussolini, which never made any bones about what they were - supremacist, racist, ultranationalist, and militarist. Lenin and, especially, Stalin were evil fuckers, but many of their followers weren't."

As much as I hate to defend Max Weber, he was right when he yelled at Schumpeter that communism would be a laboratory littered with a million dead bodies. While many of the opponents of communism pre-October were more along the lines of reactionary proto-fascists, there were some scholars who made the point that communism would likely lead to a decrease in freedom and the people's livelihood. The Western nations also had less reason after War Communism to believe Bolshevik propaganda when the likes of Emma Goldman came back with stories of how it was a disaster and a disappointment. People like Chen Duxiu, whose nations were living under imperialism, humiliation and economic problems, had at least some excuse that they saw communism as a way of achieving and regaining national pride, independence and modernization, those in the Western imperial powers had less excuse. It should also be remembered that probably the only country in the world where communists/socialists may have had a net positive effect was the US, in part because they focused more on social and political issues (the early ACLU's socialist Helen Keller days, civil rights, etc.) than economic issues.

Posted by Reality Man | April 3, 2007 2:20 AM

As much as I hate to defend Max Weber, he was right when he yelled at Schumpeter that communism would be a laboratory littered with a million dead bodies. While many of the opponents of communism pre-October were more along the lines of reactionary proto-fascists, there were some scholars who made the point that communism would likely lead to a decrease in freedom and the people's livelihood.

I'm not talking about the intellectual reality/debate. Certainly, these earlier voices were prescient. But I think it was eminently reasonable for someone in, say, 1920 or 1930 to believe Communism could be an effective way/system of correcting social problems. Of course, it proved not to be. But this was not clear in the earlier 20th century - indeed in 1933, Marx and co seemed to be looking remarkably prescient to many.

The difference with this in fascism is thus. Although, for example, Mussolini's Italy was less destructive than Stalin's USSR, there was no possible way one could look at his movement's goals in 1923 and believe that they offered a blueprint that could lead to equality, freedom, and prosperity for the world.

I think this is an important distinction.

In some senses, fascism was quite an effective system - arguably much more effective than communism. But this misses my point.

Posted by Ben P | April 3, 2007 2:39 AM

"The difference with this in fascism is thus. Although, for example, Mussolini's Italy was less destructive than Stalin's USSR, there was no possible way one could look at his movement's goals in 1923 and believe that they offered a blueprint that could lead to equality, freedom, and prosperity for the world."

I agree with you on the distinctions between fascism and communism, especially as ideal types. However, for anyone familiar with War Communism on the humanitarian disasters in the early Soviet Union pre-Stalin, there would have to be a general sense of having your head in the clouds to not notice some problems with communism were tied directly to its basic principles and were a feature, not a bug, to the types of people who lead revolutionary parties and crave power.

Posted by Reality Man | April 3, 2007 3:02 AM

The failures, and to some degree, the atrocities of communism, are rooted in the psyches and megalomania of the déclassé intellectual revolutionaries from which it sprung.

It is only a matter of time before our netroots overlords betray us and our goals.

Posted by prole | April 3, 2007 5:03 AM

"As much as I hate to defend Max Weber, he was right when he yelled at Schumpeter that communism would be a laboratory littered with a million dead bodies"

If only it were a million, or even 10 million.

Anyway, that Greg Oden's some basketball player, hm? Speaking of communism, it's sure fucked up that he's now allowed to be paid for all the money he brings in to OSU. College hoops needs a capitalist revolution.

Posted by too many steves | April 3, 2007 10:23 AM

"College hoops needs a capitalist revolution."

College hoops is already 100% capitalistic. What college hoops needs is a trade union revolution.

Posted by Petey | April 3, 2007 10:27 AM

I don't know, Petey. Every college player is paid almost the same -- the value of a scholarship at their school -- despite the wealth they generate. They're not allowed to negotiate for more. And the fruits of their labors go to Party hacks -- the coaches.

Posted by too many steves | April 3, 2007 11:07 AM

Personally I feel it's a pretty stupid way to evaluate an economic theory to argue over which twentieth century leaders can be considered responsible for the most murders. To me, that is an example of the quantifying and calculating mentality that is at the heart of what's wrong with capitalism in the first place.

Posted by Said Shirazi | April 3, 2007 11:50 AM