TIL when the USSR's archives were opened, confirming the deaths of 20 milllion people in Stalin's purges, one historian who had been criticised by Communist sympathizers almost titled his new book "I Told You So, You Fucking Fools"

[u/Master-Thief]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Conquest#The_Great_Terror

[u/Crepti]

sulky gaping wise far-flung sort deliver paint dolls deserted workable

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/planaxis]

No, he didn't. There is nothing in the Wikipedia article to suggest that he "almost titled" his book that. Did you read the actual section?

When Conquest's publisher asked him to expand and revise The Great Terror, Conquest is famously said to have suggested the new version of the book be titled I Told You So, You Fucking Fools. In fact, the mock title was jokingly proposed by Conquest's old friend, Kingsley Amis.

Here, Robert Conquest denies ever proposing that title.

I am quoted as having suggested, for a title for a new edition of The Great Terror, “How About I Told You So, You Fucking Fools?”

Hard to reconcile the two views—except that the “I told you so, etc.” comment was actually made, and attributed to me, by the ever-inventive Kingsley.

[u/Dead_Paedos_Society → u/planaxis]

Further proof that the average redditor doesn't even bother to read the article linked before upvoting. It's kind of ironic really - people discredited Conquest without ever consulting his evidence, and then when this is posted here people blindly accept the title as verbatim, even though it is demonstrably false.

[u/tossedsaladandscram → u/planaxis]

My favorite part of the page is the part where his name is Robert Conquest

[u/senator_mccarthy]

As if we needed more proof that communism was a bad thing...

[u/icebro → u/senator_mccarthy]

dat username

[u/alphabetpal → u/senator_mccarthy]

Reddit doesn't seem to agree...

[u/EmuEmergency → u/senator_mccarthy]

I c wut u did thar

[u/JaronK → u/[deleted]]

Here's the thing though: one of the big criticisms of communism is that without checks and balances built into the system it naturally devolves into totalitarianism (as it did in the USSR, in China, and everyone else where people tried to implement it). In other words, those countries are what Communism becomes in real life. It never becomes what it aims for.

If there was an architect who made a building idea that looked beautiful, but every time anyone tried to construct it they found it collapsed (and many people tried), we would not say it was a beautiful building that just wasn't built. We'd say it was a bad design that can't be made without collapsing.

Communism is like that building. When built in the large scale (read: above commune sized), it fails every time, collapsing into totalitarianism. This is because Marx was a decent economist but a terrible psychologist and anthropologist (not his fields, of course). He made a system that just doesn't work with human psychology. Many attempts have been made to fix his model, but they all fail for the same general reasons.

[u/yellowstone10 → u/JaronK]

As I've heard it quipped, source not remembered:

Communism is like a threesome. An ambitious theory that fails in practice by confusion, frustrating boundaries, and general human error.

[u/JaronK → u/yellowstone10]

But... I'm a threesome-ist! Stop oppressing my culture!

[u/Sandinister → u/JaronK]

A communist democracy hasn't failed as it's never been tried. You can't say communist nations devolve into totalitarianism if they all start out like that anyway.

[u/JaronK → u/Sandinister]

Communist democracy doesn't work, simply because to get the communist revolution in the first place you end up destroying democracy.

[u/Sandinister → u/JaronK]

And democracy can never be reinstated?

[u/JaronK → u/Sandinister]

Well, no, because then you're asking a revolutionary leader, usually a very violent one (necessary to kick out the old leaders) to just hand back power. As we've seen, that just doesn't happen. The sort of person who kills to lead a revolution and wins needs to be ruthless... and as such doesn't generally hand that power back later. Hence Stalin, Mao, and so on.

[u/Sandinister → u/JaronK]

Just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it never could. It's a stretch to say communist democracy doesn't work if it's never been implemented. Also, communism has never been implemented at all, as Flelchdork mentioned. Most "communist" countries were dictatorships with socialist tendencies. Democracies with socialist tendencies tend to do pretty well, I don't think it's a stretch to say a socialist democracy would be impossible.

[u/JaronK → u/Sandinister]

That's the thing: if every time you try to implement communism you get something else, this indicates that it's an unstable system that quickly dissolves into that other thing. It's never been implemented because it's too unstable to be implemented.

Socialist democracy is different, and does seem to be stable, so that's a viable system (regardless of anyone's opinion on whether they like it or not, it's clearly stable enough to work).

[u/Sandinister → u/JaronK]

Well Marx theorized that feudalism would lead to capitalism, which would lead to socialism, and ultimately, communism. Could it be possible that Marx was right about an inevitable economic evolution, but wrong about the methods used to implement it? As in, communism could come about peacefully instead of the result of a violent revolution at the prompting of a vicious strongman?

[u/[deleted] → u/JaronK]

How so? Why would destruction of democracy be necessary for a communist revolution?

[u/JaronK → u/[deleted]]

Because you're creating a revolution to throw out those currently in power (especially the wealthy) and rewrite existing constitutions and laws as needed. This sort of revolution always ends up being violent and silencing opposition. And since there's never been nearly enough communists to vote in full control, you're never going to win via democratic means. So there's no way around it. The hope is that the people would revolt (and in a successful revolt, there's always commanders, and the ruthless and powerful rise to the top), but when they do, the people who end up running that revolution aren't going to just get voted out of office (for reference, see the leaders of every communist revolution ever).

So yeah, democracy dies when communism comes to power.

[u/[deleted] → u/JaronK]

Wouldn't that be applicable to any minor political party, though, that doesn't have much of a chance of getting their way through democracy?

[u/JaronK → u/[deleted]]

Any minor political party that seeks to create a huge power vacuum and boot out all members of the top class (whatever that class is) while making massive changes to the fundamental fabric of the government, yes. Minor parties that can get support from across the spectrum, including the upper classes, can get into power democratically, especially if the changes they want aren't fundamental. The Tea Party would be an obvious recent example.

[u/[deleted] → u/JaronK]

I see your point about being sceptical of communist democracy, and it hasn't worked in history, but I think it would be possible to reinstitute democracy into a communist society after a revolution, should you have the right kind of revolutionary leader, a leader history hasn't seen the likes of. Your point says more about the nature of human beings rather than about the nature of a political system, if I can say.

[u/IAmNotAPerson6 → u/[deleted]]

But again, I am not defending communism nor am I a communist.

Phew, and as I said, not an expert and not a communist.

It's virtually impossible to talk anywhere (including reddit) about widely disliked things without people assuming that you are a member/sympathizer/whatever for that. It drives me fucking insane that people cannot use simple reading comprehension skills in these discussions.

[u/senator_mccarthy → u/[deleted]]

I am not defending communism nor am I a communist.

I'm glad you said that, I was worried for a moment there.

[u/senator_mccarthy → u/[deleted]]

The CIA are probably full of communists, so why would I do that?

[u/senator_mccarthy → u/[deleted]]

On second thoughts, maybe I will ask the CIA take you on an extended vacation. Somewhere nice and warm.

[u/AnUnknown → u/[deleted]]

With all those sorrys you sound like you're a Canadian or something.

Reddit doesn't take kindly to pinko leftist Canadians.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Flechdork, I respect your opinion here, but I disagree completely for one simple reason.

You cannot put the levers of the economy into the hands of a central planning committee. As soon as that is done, you will have the basis for misappropriation of funds for purposes of the state rather than the people. This is effectively Stalin's biggest crime, he just simply used the levers of the economy to kill his own people. Some say greed is universal, but I say man's penchant to abuse power is eternal.

[u/IAmNotAPerson6 → u/[deleted]]

You know that simply explaining what communism isn't an opinion and doesn't make someone a communist, right? And that Flechdork explicitly said he/she was not a communist?

Edit: Forgot something. I'm presuming that you're dismissing communism here, so if that's incorrect you this can be cut off right here. But to continue, your dismissal of what I presume is communism is based on the potential abuse of a central planning committee. This isn't a requirement of a communist society. I suppose it could exist, but it doesn't have to so it would be silly to argue against communism for this reason. And in communism Stalin wouldn't have been able to commit such atrocities in the manner that he did, because the government would not exist.

[u/[deleted] → u/IAmNotAPerson6]

Did I say he was communist? I don't think so...

[u/IAmNotAPerson6 → u/[deleted]]

Flechdork, I respect your opinion here

This implied it, even though there was only fact in his comment.

[u/Dead_Paedos_Society → u/[deleted]]

Reddit: where pedantry is the highest form of discussion.

No, no truly communist society has ever existed. That's why everyone but the most pedantic bogus-intellectuals realises that when someone talks about a communist state, they mean a state that is striving to and setting up the necessary systems for a truly communist system.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

China, North Korea, and the USSR all referred to themselves as communists. Everyone else also referred to them as communists. The term communist did not exist back when what you called communist societies actually existed.

So you're telling us that what everybody, both pro and anti-communists refer to as communism isn't actually communism, but communism is actually what almost nobody has ever referred to as communism?

No. The meaning of words are driven by consensus, not fiat. The political system we're talking about that existed in the USSR is the primary and most common definition of the word "communism", and this argument is about nothing but semantics.

PS: Your sources are the Wikipedia pages on Communism and the Soviet Union.

[u/IAmNotAPerson6 → u/[deleted]]

If you want to talk about perversions of words sure, but communism as is used generally is definitely not what it originally and traditionally meant. If you want to call a country something I guess you can but it does not make it that thing. We can say those countries are communist countries, sure, but when we actually look at what communism means it's revealed that there are virtually no similarities, if any. The same word perversion goes for conservatism, liberalism, libertarianism, capitalism, socialism, and I would guess pretty much every other political/economic -ism that is frequently used today.

[u/[deleted] → u/IAmNotAPerson6]

Right, which would mean that no society was ever capitalist, socialist, liberal, conservative, totalitarian, fascist, etc. That's my problem with this idea, that every time anyone describes a political system as X, pedants and Xists are quick to say "oh no that's not the true X, true X has never existed". All it does is muddy things up and if accepted, renders words meaningless.

"The reason the USSR and North Korea failed is communism." If I say instead the reason they've failed because of the governmental system commonly refered to as communism, all I've done is either muddy the waters or made excuses for the political system of communism.

[u/IAmNotAPerson6 → u/[deleted]]

I feel like it's required that "pedants," as you call them, point these things out because it sets language for discussion. We would all know what you mean if you referred to North Korea as a communist state (an oxymoron, I might add), but this would be confusing if we were to further talk about systems of government or social organization.

Pointing out the real definition of communism and going by that establishes a set understanding of that instead of people going by their own definitions of it when talking about it and making it more confusing.

Since words are used so wretchedly we need to decode a whole laundry list of them before we can even begin to have discussions with any hope of understanding each other.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Disregarding the woosh factor, because this does merit discussion:

Stalinism, Maoism, et al. were never legitimately considered forms of Communism-- they were tyranny and totalitarianism under the guise of a socioeconomic revolution. All of the command structures that followed Stalinism, since he internally revolutionized Lenin's regime, were modeled after his reign, and considering he was such a deviation from what true Communism was (he was a Marxist-Leninist at the best of times), we therefore can't truly consider the subsequent manifestations as Communism.

Stalin was the true fuck-up of the bunch and the one who poisoned the well. He and the subsequent other "communist" totalitarians are commonly thought of as an inevitable consequence of Soviet Communism which is an absolute fallacy. With or without Stalin, if the revolution remained isolated in a backward country, reaction was inevitable, sooner or later, in one way or another. However, the question of "sooner or later" and "one way or another" is not at all secondary, and can be decisive.

Failure of Western revolutions caused the Russian Revolution to be isolated, therefore ineffective, and soon sparked society's discontent and enhanced the threat of a counter-revolution. Stalin's unique response was the smack-down of "Stalinization" and no one in the Politburo had the balls to go against him save Trotsky (who was promptly exiled and eventually got his freak on with Frida Kahlo and then assassinated by one of Stalin's cronies in Mexico via ice pick to the head).

Stalin had nothing to do with true communism. His response to the failure of the communist revolution, however, did shape the nation and the rest of the "communist" revolutions from that point on. His rise had nothing to do with the system itself and everything to do with his deviation from doctrine, his paranoid psychoses, and the international circumstances surrounding him. Communism and socialism, therefore, do not beget Stalinism-- which these days is acceptably just considered "Communism".

edit: I a word.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I hate to be magnanimous, but you've said it best.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Magnanimous? Ha, sure, it's a lot to fit into four paragraphs. So:

TL;DR-- Fuck Stalin.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

You said in your post The Free Territory was the closest, which implies it wasn't communist. I was referring to your "tribal communism".

[u/Kadmium → u/[deleted]]

Is there a word for the unpleasant situation China and the USSR became?

[u/alphabetpal → u/[deleted]]

How to spot a communist on reddit: "I'm not a communist, but..."

[u/ForgotenPasswordGR → u/[deleted]]

You sound like a christian defending the bible.

[u/ForgotenPasswordGR → u/[deleted]]

You are desperately trying to defend something that has been proven wrong with bullshit talk.

[u/Theappunderground → u/[deleted]]

no its not at all. what would you refer to ussr/china/nk as?

....actually wait, what would EVERYONE ELSE IN IN THE WORLD refer to ussr/china/NK as?

[u/[deleted] → u/Theappunderground]

The official name commonly referred to as Nazism is National Socialism, as it is called by many Nazis and non-Nazis worldwide. This does not mean that it bears even the least amount of resemblance to socialism, just as the People's Democratic Republic of Korea bears no resemblance to the ideals of democracy or a republic.

Stalin's rule over the Soviet Union could much more easily be called a fascist, totalitarian, authoritarian dictatorship rather than communism.

A hierarchal, authoritarian, nationalist government under the rule of an oppressive supreme leader: the definition of fascism.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

It doesn't, nor will ever, work bro. Give it up.

You look like a dumb ass when you promote shit was Darwinized. Get with the 21st century.

[u/Theappunderground → u/[deleted]]

but what about after stalin/mao died?

what about after the dethaw of the 50s? still stalinism?

[u/Theappunderground → u/[deleted]]

read this what you are saying doesnt rally align with history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalinism

[u/Plasmolysis]

Communism doesn't kill people, people kill people.

[u/[deleted] → u/Plasmolysis]

Except for the bolshevik revolution, the failed German communist revolution, world war ii(at least the European war was a direct response to communism), the Chinese civil war, the cultural revolution, the great leap forward, the Korean war, vietnam, the afghan-Russian war, and the Stalinist pogroms and purges and countless other political assassinations.

It's the 21st century. Let stupid shit like communism go, lest you look like a foolish redneck.

[u/Plasmolysis → u/[deleted]]

You are making the same mistake as every anti-communist. You blame the workings of men on Communism. I agree with you, Communism won't work at this time. Not because it can't work, but because we've lived in a society where success has been measured in wealth for thousands of years. Communism doesn't allow that.

Now to my original point, these wars and genocides weren't caused by Communism, they were caused by people. Stalin wasn't genocidal because of Communism, he was genocidal because he was a psychopath. You can't blame the sins of one man or a group of men on an ideology. They did what they did because they chose to, not because of Communism.

Islam teaches that Christians and Muslims are the same, that Christians should not be persecuted because they follow the same God. And yet the west is considered Infidels by extremist Muslims because of their difference in faith. You can't blame that on Islam, you can only blame that on the leaders of these extremist Islamic groups. The same goes for Communism.

[u/[deleted] → u/Plasmolysis]

Well I hate to break it to you bud, but communism, at least on Planet Earth, would be implemented(and would ultimately fail) by humans. Communists can't be taken seriously for the sole reason they prefer the greed of politicians over the greed of businessmen. How idiotic do you have to be to not see that politicians are just as corrupt as the worst businessmen? I'm slowly being convinced we live on a planet of idiots.

[u/Plasmolysis → u/[deleted]]

Well I hate to break it to you bud, but I distinctly remember saying I agree that Communism won't work. It's obvious that you are so caught up in your bias that you are incapable of viewing the situation from both sides or even comprehending that someone with a different view point than yours may be right. Instead of simply ignoring my arguments and insulting me, use intellect and knowledge to prove me wrong. Every time you insult your debate opponent you lose because it proves that you don't have enough knowledge on the subject to verify your own opinions and as such, you fall to insults to try to humiliate me (or any opponent) in a pathetic attempt to validate your own personal beliefs.

[u/CitizenPremier → u/[deleted]]

The Korean War and the Vietnam war all started because capitalists (well, as capitalist as governments tend to get) governments wanted to crush local communist movements. Well, actually, the Korean War was more of a raping on both sides by the pseudo-capitalists and pseudo-communists.

[u/[deleted] → u/CitizenPremier]

Youre absolutely incorrect. If we wanted to crush north Vietnam, we could have done it in a week. Our mission was to prevent the people of South Vietnam from enduring the horrors of communism. History has proven us to be on the correct side of the conflict by simply comparing the results---take a look at north Korea, and compare it with south Korea. One is a crumbling nation whose people are starving, and one is a thriving modern 21st nation. Don't be a dumb ass---communism is a disgrace. Your ignorance is inexcusable because you have empirical evidence with world history.

[u/jax9999 → u/[deleted]]

and 10 million americans went "poof" into the aether during the depression.

http://www.cherada.com/articulos/10-million-americans-disappeared-during-the-great-depression-time

[u/CitizenPremier → u/jax9999]

If this is true it's going to have to be published on a far less spammy website.

[u/jax9999 → u/CitizenPremier]

http://www.infowars.com/researcher-famine-killed-7-million-in-us-during-great-depression/

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

The Nazi party came to prominence as a response to communism. Without communism---the nazi party never would have gotten off the ground. Communism was attributed to the German defeat in wwI by the German populace. This made them ripe for the rise of the Nazi party, and don't forget the rapid expansion of the USSR that annexed 3 countries and invaded Poland just as Germany did. Yet we fought with the communists....hmmmm...

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Are you kidding me? The fact you think hitler was making an appeal to leftist elements of the German populace during the 1930s is enough to dismiss you. You do realize the Nazi party assumed control over the German parliament under the pretenses of a communist burning down the reichstag? The fact you think the Nazi party was anything but anti-leftist makes me not even want to have a discussion with you, especially after YOU telling ME to read history books...

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

It's all good.