Are all communist leaders Cruel, other than fidel? - Cause i

[commieboy]

Ok, dont yell at me for the name just right now. i like the idea of communism, i think it's what all the world should try and be. But when i look back in time alot of the leaders of Russia, China, Korea, havent exactly been the nicest guys in the world. What about the millions of people who died at labor camps. Were they kind of like concentration camps but you get better food, and you have to work? i understand that they sacrificed alot for their countries to suceed but is it worth the death of so many people? didnt Stalin kill more people than hitler killed jews? why does communism always have a bad person running the country? Mao killed alot of people, lennin, and stalin did as well, and even Fidel has killed a few guys but he's done much much better for cuba than what was going on with batista. So sorry if im mistaken, but Have there been any Communist governments that didnt have millions of deaths or atleast become a third world country?

Im not badmouthing communism, but these are just things i've noticed, if you have differnt information go ahead and tell me i would really like to hear it.

[Urban Rubble]

I think it's odd that someone with the nick CommieBoy would be so misinformed.

Yes Fidel has "killed a few guys" but they were terrorists and deserved it, God knows they would've either been killed or rotted in jail if they were in the U.S.

This is too broad a subject, I don't have time. I'll reply later.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

Ok, dont yell at me for the name just right now.

I won't

like the idea of communism, i think it's what all the world should try and be.

I agree

But when i look back in time alot of the leaders of Russia, China, Korea, havent exactly been the nicest guys in the world. What about the millions of people who died at labor camps. Were they kind of like concentration camps but you get better food, and you have to work?

They were very authoritarian, but no, there were no 'concentartion-camp-like' facilities, 'concentration camp' is a term used to mean a prisioner of war camp during WWII which were part of Hitler's evil plot to exterminate Jewish peoples from the world. Stalin in no way seeked to exterminate any ethnicity from the world. Stalin's executions were done for the purpose of safeguarding the USSR from terrorists and dissenters. I do not advocate his violent means, by the way.

So sorry if im mistaken, but Have there been any Communist governments that didnt have millions of deaths or atleast become a third world country?

All countries in which communism have been attempted, were 'third-world' countries to begin with, or they were monarchies, in which I'm sure the standard of living was rockbottom. I can safely say that Communism generaly raised the standard of living in most nations.

By the way, the third-world, second-world, first-world thing was a study conducted by the UN sometime in the last few decades and the communist bloc was considered 'second-world'.

[Pete]

You just called the extermination camps prisoner of war camps. ALthough it is true that some had double uses (Bergen-Belsen is one of them I believe) most of the time the Nazi's tried to keep out siders away from the Jews until near the end of the war.

CommieBoy, the conclusions you draw are those of the propagandic western media which is against the 2nd world to the extreme.

[Dr. Rosenpenis]

sorry for comparing concentration camps to POW camps as the same thing, they are not, but they were used during wartime, this is where my missleading statement came from.

[Pete]

That's understandable. If you want a good look at the differences between the two, though, read In Enemy's Hands which is a collection of former Canadian POW's accounts of their experience during WWII in Japan and Germany. It is a good read. For the Holocaust, well I haven't read much into that but have heard a few holocaust survivers speak. It was much different than the fighting man's responses.

[UnionofSovietSocialistRepublics]

I dont think its an uncommon view that the communist dictators were ruthless murders, however i assume you live in the west where everything is geared towards capitalism, and the likes of mccarthyism have painted a very bad picture of the situation. With it being a dictatorship it is open to exploitation, for example stalins regime, though i would personally class that as a variation on communism but if you look at the US i think there have been some atrositys commited. Fidel has proved that a socialist leader can be fair.

[commieboy]

You are all correct, i live in the west and i've been exposed to all of the "Hate the Commie Scum" propaganda all i hear in school and from adults is the horrible things. thats why i asked about this, because i knew you wouldn't lash out and just yell numbers at me of dead people. Thanks for that third world country thing, you've cleared up alot. But so stalin killed all those people cause they were threats to the government?

[Domitian]

Well, Nepal has a democratically elected Communist majority in their parliament (The United Marxist Leninist Party or something) and from an American book I've read (that summarizes the politics of every country in two paragraphs), it said that the UM is champion multi-party democracy and supports market reforms.

Romania has a democratically elected Communist majority in their parliament as well, and G.W. Bush said that the people threw out a brutal dictator and established a working democracy, so I guess the Communists there aren't bad either.

(Edited by Domitian at 3:30 pm on May 24, 2003)


(Edited by Domitian at 3:30 pm on May 24, 2003)

[CruelVerdad]

Well, to change things you have to create a deep impact, you must gain respect. Yes people died, but how many now live in a more less good country?
It all depends of your point of view.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

Romania has a democratically elected Communist majority in their parliament as well, and G.W. Bush said that the people threw out a brutal dictator and established a working democracy, so I guess the Communists there aren't bad either.
No we don't. Where did you get that information from? We currently have a Social Democrat majority. As for "throwing out a brutal dictator and establishing a working democracy"... come on, when was the last time Dubya said something remotely true?

We threw out a brutal dictator allright, but our democracy is about as "working" as the one that put Bush in power...


Now, as for the original subject of this topic...

Please note that every single country where Communism has been tried so far was already struck by both poverty and brutal war. Think about it:

Russia - World War 1
Eastern Europe - World War 2
China - the Chinese civil war (which lasted for decades)
Korea - the Korean war
Vietnam - the Vietnam war
... and so on.

Not only were they all poor before the Communists came to power, but they were crippled by war. There was only one exception - Cuba. And is it a coincidence that Cuba also turned out the best? I think not.

[Som]

Well, Nepal has a democratically elected Communist majority in their parliament (The United Marxist Leninist Party or something) and from an American book I've read (that summarizes the politics of every country in two paragraphs), it said that the UM is champion multi-party democracy and supports market reforms.

I don't know where you got that, but the marxist leninist parties in Nepal don't have a majority at all, they have a relatively large amount of seats, but thats trivial. Not that it would matter if they did though, considering at any point in time, the king can dissolve the parliament and return to having things done his way. Anyway, they come off as rather useless considering they supported imposing martial law on the population in order to stop a communist uprising.

Though all that is trivial, theres a maoist army that controls 80% of the country. One of the main reasons they haven't moved on the capital is that theyre afraid of U.S. invasion, since the us and brits are already aiding the nepalese government. So at this point they're trying to negotiate, and have made alot of demands, including of completely getting rid of the king, something unlikely.

[synthesis]

I haven't read most of the posts here, but I would advise you, commieboy, to research the Paris Commune. This is the organization most 21st century Marxists wish to model 21st Century socialism on.

Here's a fantastic place to start (http://marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/index.htm).

The difference between such entities as the Paris Commune and pre-Civil War Spain and totalitarian States such as the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China, and the Eastern European satellite states is the practice (or lack thereof) of Leninism, an inherently totalitarian ideology.

Ask me what you need to know.