Via Tea at Trianon comes a fascinating article about why so many people in the West today seem to prefer to ignore the horrors revealed by the archives of the Soviet Union
To quote from Claire Berlinski's article: -
"In the world’s collective consciousness, the word “Nazi” is synonymous with evil. It is widely understood that the Nazis’ ideology—nationalism, anti-Semitism, the autarkic ethnic state, the Führer principle—led directly to the furnaces of Auschwitz. It is not nearly as well understood that Communism led just as inexorably, everywhere on the globe where it was applied, to starvation, torture, and slave-labor camps. Nor is it widely acknowledged that Communism was responsible for the deaths of some 150 million human beings during the twentieth century. The world remains inexplicably indifferent and uncurious about the deadliest ideology in history."
I am from a former Soviet country, Estonia (forced to join the Soviet union during WW2, freed on 1991). I can say on the matter that really, in the western world, nobody cares about that part of history. And yet it is so massively important, not only for the small countries swallowed by the giant or the people killed or russians themselves but for the understanding of the world as it is today.
ReplyDeleteJust had to comment on this, I've spent countless hours trying to explain to westerners the very basics of what happened here, they just don't know. And if they didn't know me, they wouldn't care either.
I was born in Vietnam but now I am living in Australia. A country that is unfortunately still under the Communist regimes.
ReplyDeleteI talked to some of the veterans who both fought in World War II and the Vietnam War. They were both tortured by the Nazis and the Communists. When I asked them which was worse, most of them responded "Communist".
It pains me greatly every time I visit my birthplace. But at the same time, I feel lucky for those whose countries were free of the bloody and horrible gasp of Communism.
A couple of years ago I cycled around Cuba and remember there's was a popular revolution and the improvements it brought were such that I'm sure that most of them would not want to return to exploitation by anyone . The same was true about Vietnam where I was recently. And this year I did the same in eastern Germany where not everyones experiences and memories were negative. Nobody was unemployed or went hungry, a lot depends on what you want out of life
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