When I think about high school history class, I think about the emphasis on Nazi Germany and the lack of information on the Soviet Union. The little time we did spend talking about the the USSR was primarily just America’s reaction to communism—things like the Red Scare and the McCarthy Trials. No time was spent in the classroom examining the multitude of atrocities done in the name of communism. In fact, we never heard the words “gulag” or “Holodomor” once. I’m not here to argue whether the Nazi’s or the Soviets were more evil. Instead, I’m arguing that there is a reason, whether deliberate or not, for the avoidance of discussing communist atrocities in school and more broadly.
So why would we focus almost entirely on Nazism and let communist evils be swept under the rug? We seem to be able to understand evil when it’s blatantly aimed at a specific group (in the case of the Nazis it was the Jews). However, when evil is disguised in terms like “equality” and “workers unite”, an evil that promises utopia for all, well, people are more inclined to not notice what goes on under the surface. All one has to do is say they are standing up for the little guy and we give them the benefit of the doubt. While being a Nazi is bad in and of itself, being a communist—although a heavily flawed ideology and one that has caused the deaths of tens of millions—is not inherently bad. And so, it’s easier for teachers to understand and teach students about the clear evil of Nazis and gloss over decades of deceptive evil. I also believe that because many intellectuals in the West admired communism, there was a concerted effort to keep Soviet atrocities out of the classroom.
The Russian Revolution began in 1917 during the First World War. The aim of the revolutionaries was to remove the Tsar of Russia. After months of revolution the Bolsheviks—a far-left party led by Vladimir Lenin who advocated socialism—came to power. In order to create a socialist utopia, those who opposed it, those who were “enemies of the people”, had to be punished or eliminated. In the words of a newspaper article in Red Terror in 1918, “We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class”. But what made someone “bourgeoisie” or an “enemy of the people”?
It started out with the politicians, and then those who owned big farms, and then those who owned peasants, until anyone who owned a piece of farming equipment, or anyone who said anything contrary to the socialist-cause was considered an enemy. The only way to deal with enemies was to send them to labor camps (known as Gulags) for sentences of between 5 and 25 years. For many, even a five year sentence was a death sentence. Tens of thousands died from freezing cold temperatures, starvation, and extreme work conditions. Decades before the Nazi concentration camps began, and years after the Jews were liberated, an estimated 18 million people passed through the Soviet Gulag camps. Of those 18 million, an estimated two million died within the camps. But what are two million souls anyway? As the socialist leader of China, Mao Zedong said, “I’m not afraid of nuclear war. There are 2.7 billion people in the world; it doesn’t matter if some are killed…If the worst came to the worst and half of mankind died, the other half would remain while imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist”. This was the mindset of the bitter intellectuals fighting for socialism.
The Soviet fight was a fight for equity, and equity meant, if there were people without food then everyone must starve. In 1932 only 4.3 million tons of grain were procured in Ukraine (compared to 7.2 million tons in 1931). Rations were reduced and anyone found hiding food—or in some cases if they even looked well-fed—would be arrested or killed by the Soviet police. An estimated 3.5 to 5 million Ukrainians died from famine between 1932 and 1933.
All one has to do is look past the shouts of “equity!” and “fairness!” to see what is really going on. In fact, the godfather of the Soviet ideology, Karl Marx, laid out his motivations quite clearly in a poem:
So a god has snatched from me my all
In the curse and rack of Destiny.
All his worlds are gone beyond recall!
Nothing but revenge is left to me!
On myself revenge I’ll proudly wreak,
On that being, that enthroned Lord,
Make my strength a patchwork of what’s weak,
Leave my better self without reward!
I shall build my throne high overhead,
Cold, tremendous shall its summit be.
For its bulwark– superstitious dread,
For its Marshall–blackest agony.
Who looks on it with a healthy eye,
Shall turn back, struck deathly pale and dumb;
Clutched by blind and chill Mortality
May his happiness prepare its tomb.
And the Almighty’s lightning shall rebound
From that massive iron giant.
If he bring my walls and towers down,
Eternity shall raise them up, defiant.
Bitterness and resentment drives many of those who hide behind words like “diversity” and “inclusion”. They would rather tear the whole thing down than look to themselves and their own flaws. Instead, they make themselves free to act on their resentment. All is permitted so long as it’s in the name of the “oppressed”.
The Nazi spirit still exists. So does the Soviet spirit. Only one has found it’s way into American politics, schools, journalism, movies, and culture with little to no pushback.
“Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!” -Nietzsche
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