Why So Incurious?

A Hidden History of Evil by Claire Berlinski, City Journal Spring 2010

Kind of long for the message. The message is that there are all sorts of verified documentation from the USSR sitting on computers around the world, available to any scholar or historian. Nobody cares, very little has been translated, it is a mystery to the authors of the article.

Here is an example:

And what of Zagladin’s description of his dealings with our own current vice president in 1979?

Unofficially, [Senator Joseph] Biden and [Senator Richard] Lugar said that, in the end of the day, they were not so much concerned with having a problem of this or that citizen solved as with showing to the American public that they do care for “human rights.” . . . In other words, the collocutors directly admitted that what is happening is a kind of a show, that they absolutely do not care for the fate of most so-called dissidents.

The authors open incredulous of the difference in treatment of Communism and Nazism, even though Communism killed far more people, and end with a variation of the theme.

Indeed, many still subscribe to the essential tenets of Communist ideology. Politicians, academics, students, even the occasional autodidact taxi driver still stand opposed to private property. Many remain enthralled by schemes for central economic planning. Stalin, according to polls, is one of Russia’s most popular historical figures. No small number of young people in Istanbul, where I live, proudly describe themselves as Communists; I have met such people around the world, from Seattle to Calcutta.

We rightly insisted upon total denazification; we rightly excoriate those who now attempt to revive the Nazis’ ideology. But the world exhibits a perilous failure to acknowledge the monstrous history of Communism. These documents should be translated. They should be housed in a reputable library, properly cataloged, and carefully assessed by scholars. Above all, they should be well-known to a public that seems to have forgotten what the Soviet Union was really about. If they contain what Stroilov and Bukovsky say—and all the evidence I’ve seen suggests that they do—this is the obligation of anyone who gives a damn about history, foreign policy, and the scores of millions dead.

I think the reason is simple. Nazism was falsely identified as a "evil of the right". It was of course not so -- evil on the right would be anarchy, but it has been such a productive fiction for the left, they mostly believe it to be true. But wait, "Nazi" was the National SOCIALIST Party" -- Socialists are basically just Communists that are less sure of their convictions.

I remember Reagan calling the USSR "The Evil Empire" -- the US and foreign media had a cat. How could he? We are talking of an ideology that killed over 100 million and enslaved Billions more -- yet, we must have TWO complete fictions:
1). Communism is the OPPOSITE of Nazism
2). Since Communism is "left", it MUST be "basically good" -- oh sure, it is "too far", but it CERTAINLY can't be as bad as, let alone WORSE than that scourge of the "right", Nazism / Fascism!! It simply will not do!!

So the vast bulk of our population trundles along thinking "there is always a clear and present danger of falling into the RIGHT (fascist, nazi) political ditch, but there is NO risk of falling into the LEFT ditch -- and even if there were, it isn't such an evil ditch at all! Maybe the USSR just didn't really "implement it right", but it is all egalitarian, commrady and basically good.

Nothing to worry about on the left!