BBC The Lost World of Communism

[The Idler]

Has anyone been watching The Lost World of Communism on the BBC? I didn't know much about Ceausescu before, but he came across as a paranoid idiot. Elevating his wife to world-renowned scientist (yeah right), beating people who disagreed with the government, washing his hands after shaking hands with third-world leaders, spying on his children, forcing his son's girlfriend to get an abortion (while he had made abortions illegal for everyone else) and having a chemist destroy his excrement lest anything about his health may be discovered. It might be available on BBC iPlayer but it's coming out on DVD in April.

[Bilan]

Sounds boring.

[rednordman]

I caught a bit of it after an night out. But it was only about 20mins of it. It was the part that was covering Czecsklovakia, just before it went on the Ceausescu part. I kinda got the feeling that it was just another slanderous 'bloody history of communism' type of documenTory, but it i did see that it took views from both sides. When it covered the bit about the mass athletic demonstrations, It came across to me, that they (the BBC) wanted to make it look inhumane. Like a load of starved bodies moving in sync at gunpoint with ironic happy music playing in the background. Even when interviewing one of the gynasts who thought positive of the regime, they made her look selfish and incompassionate (imo), when what she said was fair. I just looked at my brother and said that its funny how the bbc are showing these kinds of documentories now, just after the global financial collapse. He sort of agreed but said the there would never be communism like that again.
Not to say the documentory does not cover the truth, alot of people did suffer badly under the old 'eastern block', just (as one of the actors of 'the lives of others says in a interview about the film) it wasnt all doom and gloom, they did still have sunshine under 'communism'.
That was just my impression after watching 20mins so it not fair of me to come to a total opinion.
As for Ceanusescu, wasnt he one of the dictators that the west gave preference to aswell? What we now know.

[scarletghoul]

My dad told me this was on but I never saw it.
Yes, Ceanusescu was allied with america I think

[Wanted Man]

Can't say anything specific about the documentary, but anything about Ceausescu is bound to be massively hypocritical. They certainly didn't say this kind of stuff when Romania was open to the west, took loans from western institutions that indebted the country, denounced the Soviet response in Czechoslovakia, etc. At that time, Ceausescu was a reformer, an "independent communist", he was "our kind of guy".

As such, Ceausescu's wife was given all kinds of honourary doctorates from western universities for doing jack shit. Yes, it turns out that such practices are apparently a property of the great academic institutions of the capitalist countries, not of the wicked Stalinist regimes...

This only changed towards the end, when Romania wanted to change this relationship, and as such, Ceausescu's government outlived its usefulness. The economic reformers and military brass were seen as a much more pragmatic bunch than Ceausescu, the born-again Cultural Revolutionist. So he was overthrown by the army, dragged before a kangaroo court and got a bullet in his head.

Chomsky also has something to say:


ES: Robert Kaplan writes about foreign policy. I spoke to him recently about his book Warrior Politics, and I put some of your points to him and he said, about the distinction between the terrorist states that you call Israel, America, and the terrorist states that America calls the Taliban, "I wish Noam Chomsky had been with me in Romania in the 70s or the 80s, just one of the seven or eight Warsaw States, with just one of the 7 or 8 prison systems with 700,000 political prisoners. Adult choice of foreign policy is made on distinctions. The argument that Chomsky makes has no distinctions because there's a difference between the quantity and the kind of dictators that America supported and the quantity and the kind of things that went on in the Communist world for 44 years."

Chomsky: OK, so let's take his example, Romania under Ceausescu. Hideous regime, which he forgot to tell you the United States supported. Supported right until the end, as did Britain. When Ceausescu came to London he was feted by Margaret Thatcher. When George Bush the First came into office, I think the first person he invited to Washington was Ceausescu. Yes, Romania was a miserable, brutal regime supported by the United States right to the end, as Robert Kaplan knows very well, so the example he gave is a perfect example.

ES: It wasn't supported by the States in the 70s though?

Chomsky: In the 70s, in the 80s, right to the end of Ceausescu's rule. It was supported by the United States. The reasons had to do with great power politics. They were sort of breaking Warsaw Pact policies and so on, but the very example he picks illustrates it and we can proceed onward.

So the very example he gives shows the absurdity of his position and it's a small example because we support much more brutal regimes. It has nothing to do with Cold War issues.

I gave an example in South Eastern Turkey, several million refugees, tens of thousands of people killed, a country devastated, that's rather serious.

Nobody accused Milosevic of that in Kosovo.

Suharto was one of the worst killers and torturers of the late twentieth century. The United States and Britain supported him throughout. He's “our kind of guy,” as the Clinton administration said in 1995. Horrible atrocities, in fact, when he came into office in 1965 with a coup the CIA compared it to Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

It led to total euphoria in the United States and Britain, and massive support when he carried out even worse atrocities, comparable atrocities in East Timor -- over 200,000 people killed -- full support continued right through the end of his rule, in fact, continued past his rule. In late 1999 when they were rampaging and destroying what was left of East Timor, the US and Britain continued to support him and I can continue through the world like this…

ES: Well, what Kaplan says is -- there is a distinction …that everyone's got some blood on their hands, but he says -- we have significantly less blood because we are soft imperialists, not state terrorists.

Chomsky: So when we supported his example, Ceausescu in Romania, right to the end, that's good? How about killing several million people in Vietnam. How about killing hundreds of thousands of people in Central America in the 80s, leaving four countries devastated beyond, maybe beyond recovery?
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20020416.htm

[Angry Young Man]

Shit I only saw the one about the DDR. It did take a bit of an ideological line. They're showing this at the financial collapse to weaken socialism as the alternative.

But my dad did charity work in Romanian orphanages in the early 90's. He said it was crap. He said that Ceaucescu wanted people to have as many children as possible, so abortion and other forms of contraception were outlawed. As for condoms, it was publicised that one was only vulnerable to AIDS if you were homosexual. Said he was talking to someone in a bar and looked baffled when he said 'aren't you worried about AIDS?'

[RedArmyUK]

Has anyone been watching The Lost World of Communism on the BBC? I didn't know much about Ceausescu before, but he came across as a paranoid idiot. Elevating his wife to world-renowned scientist (yeah right), beating people who disagreed with the government, washing his hands after shaking hands with third-world leaders, spying on his children, forcing his son's girlfriend to get an abortion (while he had made abortions illegal for everyone else) and having a chemist destroy his excrement lest anything about his health may be discovered. It might be available on BBC iPlayer but it's coming out on DVD in April.


As always the fucking BBC have not got it (something worth watching) on iPlayer,, But don,t worry if you missed East fucking Enders as thats on there!!

I see the Ceausescu one but not the others, kinder pissed as it said at end all 3 are to watch on iPlayer, :confused::huh: