How do we know who's really a totalitarian and a

[Cheung Mo]

Knowing nothing else about the subject, if you were the talk to the average USian, you would come to the conclusion that Cuba and Iran were thriving liberal democracies under Batista and the Shah respectively.

So who's to say that everything I "know" and have believed about the alleged totalitarians on the left -- such as Ceaucescu and the Kims -- has bee a lie in much the same way?

[Hate Is Art]

Propaganda goes some way to explaining the situation, propaganda determines what the class unconscious recieve. If they are told that Batista was a pioneer of democracy, and they have no reason to dispute this, then they have no reason not to believe. It's amazing what people believe if you tell them.

On the Ceaucescu, DPRK, Stalinst etc question it depends on what you choose to believe, and what kind of leftist beliefs you hold. It is of course difficult to know exactly in some cases without having first hand experience of the situation.

[Whitten]

Its hard to know really. What you can almost certainly guarentee is that they weren't quite as bad as western properganda makes them out to be. On the Issue of the DPRK, it really isnt good, maybe not as bad as they'd like as to believe but by no means of interpretation is the DPRK a good place to live.

[rouchambeau]

See, this is what analysis is for. You cannot infer that it's impossible to know who are the good leaders and who are the bad ones by pointing out that people disagree on the subject.

[candistyx]

For things in the past you can look at the range of historical work that has been done, look at the background, funding, known biases of all the historians who did work on the place you are looking at for the time period you are looking at and then decide what you think of the actual events, structures etc that were in place (if you do this it is also good to get some historical context by looking at the general standards worldwide of the day as well).
That of course takes a lot of time and work and effort for things and forms that no longer exist, does this mean you should or shouldn't do it, it depends on your priorities. If you need to know, if you think that you can genuinly learn from the experiences of history rather than using history as an excuse to write off anything that doesn't meet your ideals and if there is no predigested analysis that has been done on the topic by someone or some organisation you more or less trust to do it, then I would go ahead. If there is someone you trust who's done the work or if you don't think you can learn anything practical from it, then maybe its not worth the effort.