Canada, Victims Of Communism, And Comparisons To A Holocaust
Canada seems to have some rather ambiguous position towards fascists. While it compares China's handling of its Uyghur population to a holocaust it is itself favoring the perpetrators of the real Holocaust.
The Canadian Broadcast Corporation reports of donations from supporters of east-European nazis to a Canadian anti-communist organization:
A controversial monument being built in Ottawa to honour victims of communist regimes has received donations in honour of known fascists and Nazi collaborators, according to a list posted online by the organization spearheading the project.The Memorial to the Victims of Communism is being financed partly through a "buy-a-brick" campaign called Pathways to Liberty, which is run by the registered charity Tribute to Liberty.
The campaign sells "virtual bricks" that appear on the organization's website and in their newsletter. The bricks are dedicated to alleged victims of communism and include biographical notes about the individuals being commemorated.
...
An organization calling itself the General Committee of United Croats of Canada purchased virtual bricks dedicated to Ante Pavelić, describing him only as a "doctor of laws."Pavelić was the wartime leader of the Ustaša, the fascist organization that ran the Independent State of Croatia, a Nazi puppet regime. In this role, Pavelić was the chief perpetrator of the Holocaust in the Balkans. Approximately 32,000 Jews, 25,000 Roma and 330,000 Serbs were murdered by the regime.
...
An organization calling itself the Knightly Order of Vitéz purchased five bricks. "Several members of the order actively participated in the persecution, despoliation and, in 1944, the deportation of the Hungarian Jews," said László Karsai, a professor of history at the University of Szeged.Vitéz members included high-ranking members of the Nazi-puppet government established late in the war, which organized the deportation of some 437,000 Hungarian Jews. "It was the biggest, fastest deportation action of the Holocaust," said Karsai. "Several tens of thousands of Vitéz members got large lands (from) Jewish properties."
The League of Ukrainian Canadians' Edmonton Branch, meanwhile, purchased five virtual bricks in honour of Roman Shukhevych — who led the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) during the Second World War and was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Belarusians, Jews, Poles and Ukrainians.
The Victims of Communism memorial project in Canada is a copy of a similar project in Washington DC. It has high level support:
In 2013, the Harper government pledged $1.5 million to the project, a figure that increased to $3 million by 2014. By the end of 2014, the project's budget had ballooned to $5.5 million, with a taxpayer contribution of $4.3 million.
...
A NCC spokesperson said the estimated total cost of the monument is now $7.5 million, with $6 million coming from the federal government after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland included an additional $4 million in this spring's budget to complete the monument.
...
The monument has received letters of support from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, former Green party leader Elizabeth May, former NDP leader Tom Mulcair and former federal justice minister Irwin Cotler.
The generous with tax dollars Chrystia Freeland is known for her support of fascists in the Ukraine. It relates to her family's history:
The records now being opened by the Polish government in Warsaw reveal that Freeland’s maternal grandfather Michael (Mikhailo) Chomiak was a Nazi collaborator from the beginning to the end of the war. He was given a powerful post, money, home and car by the German Army in Cracow, then the capital of the German administration of the Galician region. His principal job was editor in chief and publisher of a newspaper the Nazis created. His printing plant and other assets had been stolen from a Jewish newspaper publisher, who was then sent to die in the Belzec concentration camp. During the German Army’s winning phase of the war, Chomiak celebrated in print the Wehrmacht’s “success” at killing thousands of US Army troops. As the German Army was forced into retreat by the Soviet counter-offensive, Chomiak was taken by the Germans to Vienna, where he continued to publish his Nazi propaganda, at the same time informing for the Germans on other Ukrainians. They included fellow Galician Stepan Bandera, whose racism against Russians Freeland has celebrated in print, and whom the current regime in Kiev has turned into a national hero.
Chomiak eventual landed in a U.S. occupied part of Germany where he and other east-European fascist were hired by U.S. Army intelligence. He later, like ten-thousands of other east-European nazi supporters, emigrated to Canada.
The Canadian charity Tribute to Liberty seems to be a copy of the Washington DC based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation:
According to Title IX, Section 905 of Public Law 103–199, an independent organization was to be established to construct, maintain and operate the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, D.C., as well as to collect the contributions for the establishment of the memorial and to encourage the participation of all groups suffered under Communist regimes. In 2007, the foundation completed the Victims of Communism Memorial, which was dedicated by President George W. Bush. In 2016, the foundation released a list of 51 prisoners of conscience in Cuba just before President Barack Obama visit and meeting with Raúl Castro. In 2020, the organization released a report calling attention to organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and Uyghurs in China.
The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has one distinct fellow who over the last years has gained notoriety with his anti-China antics:
Both President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State Anthony Blinken have endorsed former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s last-minute accusation of “genocide” against the Muslim Uyghur population in China’s Xinjiang province. But an investigation of published work by the researcher Pompeo relied on to level his genocide allegation reveals a pattern of data abuse and fraudulent assertions that substantially undermines the incendiary charge.
The US government’s accusation of genocide against China stems from a single source: a June 2020 paper by Adrian Zenz, a right-wing German researcher affiliated with the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation and neoconservative Jamestown Foundation in Washington, DC.
Adrian Zenz has published dozens of false claims about alleged Chinese discrimination against its population of Uyghurs. He is accusing China of committing a 'holocaust:
While Zenz’s employers describe him as “one of the world’s leading scholars on People’s Republic of China government policies towards the country’s western regions of Tibet and Xinjiang,” he is, in fact, a far-right Christian fundamentalist who has said he is “led by God” against China’s government, deplores homosexuality and gender equality, and has taught exclusively in evangelical theological institutions.
Lyle Goldstein, a China specialist and research professor in the Strategic and Operational Research Department of the Naval War College, told The Grayzone that Zenz’s labeling of the Chinese approach to the Uyghurs as “demographic genocide” is “ridiculous to the point of being insulting to those who lost relatives in the Holocaust.”
Goldstein said the Chinese approach to Xinjiang “is a more repressive posture than we would like, but it sure isn’t genocide.”
In July 2020 Zens was invited as expert by the Canadian parliament's Subcommittee on International Human Rights. He was introduced as:
Adrian Zenz Senior Fellow in China Studies, Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation
His testimony, which also refers to the Holocaust, included several lies:
Thank you for inviting me to testify at this hearing.Since 2017, up to 1.8 million Uighurs and other ethnic minority groups in the the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang have been swept up in probably the largest incarceration of an ethno-religious minority since the Holocaust. Exiled Uighurs and researchers have described this campaign as a cultural genocide.
New research gives strong evidence that Beijing's actions in Xinjiang also meet the physical genocide criterion cited in section (d) of article II of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, “Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group”.
Starting in 2018, a growing number of female internment camp survivors testified that they were given injections that coincided with changes in or cessation of their menstrual cycles. Others reported that they were forcibly fitted with intrauterine contraceptive devices, abbreviated as IUDs, prior to internment or subjected to sterilization surgeries.
Also in 2018, official natural population growth rates in Xinjiang plummeted. In Kashgar and Hotan, two Uighur heartland regions, combined natural population growth rates fell by 84% between 2015 and 2018. In 2019, birth rates in ethnic minority regions declined by a further 30% to 56%. For 2020, one minority prefecture set a natural population growth target of near zero, specifically 1.05 per mille, a record low and a major drop in the natural population growth of that same region.
The '1.8 million incarcerated' number is bonkers:
The claim that China has detained millions of ethnic Uyghurs in its Xinjiang region is repeated with increasing frequency, but little scrutiny is ever applied. Yet a closer look at the figure and how it was obtained reveals a serious deficiency in data.
While this extraordinary claim is treated as unassailable in the West, it is, in fact, based on two highly dubious “studies.”
The first, by the US government-backed Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, formed its estimate by interviewing a grand total of eight people.
The second study relied on flimsy media reports and speculation. It was authored by Adrian Zenz, a far-right fundamentalist Christian who opposes homosexuality and gender equality, supports “scriptural spanking” of children, and believes he is “led by God” on a “mission” against China.
Moon of Alabama has shown that the testimonies of 'female internment camp survivors' constantly change and always towards more sensational claims. They are not reliable. Zenz's claims of a 'natural population growth rate' are nonsense. There is no 'natural growth rate' as the number of children per couple are highly dependent of the economic development. Industrialized societies with higher income tend to have less or even negative population growth. The Uighur population has grown over the last decades even as the rate of growth has been shrinking:
In 1953 there were 3.6 million Uyghur in Xinjiang. In 2,000 there were 8.4 million. Wikipedia says that in 2018 Xinjiang has a total population of 25 million of which 11.3 million are ethnic Uyghur.It is quite weird to claim that such a consistent population growth of an ethnic group is somehow a 'genocide'.
I find it highly ironic that Zenz speaks in front of a Canadian parliament committee of a 'holocaust' in China while the Canadian organization modeled on Zenz' employer receives donations in memoriam of actual holocaust perpetrators.
Posted by b on July 23, 2021 at 18:10 UTC | Permalink
next page »Yasha Levine has written several excellent pieces on just what a piece of shit (and open fascist) Chrystia Freeland really is. Sieg heil, indeed
Posted by: Sam | Jul 23 2021 18:38 utc | 2
Rania Khalek has a good show including an interview with a woman who is very informed about Xinxiang. The whole show is 2 hr. but the Xinxiang segment is 20 min to 45 or so. Not just a rant. Lots of info. Right after that is a good segment on Chile but that's not relevant to this post.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrfCCgXCqfw
Posted by: migueljose | Jul 23 2021 18:44 utc | 3
Christ, the uber-wealthy never rest in their quest to demonize any system that isn't oligarchy. They shouldn't be so paranoid, they've captured most of the governments around the globe already.
Posted by: vetinLA | Jul 23 2021 18:44 utc | 4
Related:
75 years from now, we'll have a "Monument to the Victims of Secularism" in Canada, honoring a bunch of fanatic Muslims.
But, seriously, this is just part of the process I've been calling here as the Capitalist International or the Fascist International, in the USA (Canada is an extension of the USA, they're basically the same country).
As with the case of the USSR, the USA became the world center of capitalism by accident and sheer necessity, over the decades.
First of all, capitalism collapsed under its own weight in Europe, only surviving because it had somewhere to start over. This new place was the USA.
Second, the formation of a socialist center in the world (the USSR) made the USA to become the capitalist center. This tendency was consolidated after WWII.
Third, the start of the collapse of capitalism in the USA itself induced it to keep capitalism around the world more and more by force than by consensus (less carrot, more big stick). This generated a degenerative process where each failed color revolution abroad resulted in a new wave of fascists to the USA, as political refugees. The Capitalist International metamorphosed into the Fascist International.
So, the USA is now in a situation where, the more it collapses, the more it becomes fascist, and the more it becomes fascist, the more it collapses. Mussolini defined Fascism as Corporatism. The Bolsheviks defined Fascism as "Capitalism's last ace in the hole". Both definitions are true, but the essential here is to observe the fact that capitalism, as an automatic system, has now automatically entered a process of self-devouring - either it enters a full, hot war against socialism (China) to live another day, or it will devour itself.
thanks b... there is a lot of crap and propaganda being spread in canada too... a good chunk of it is canuck retards who want to be more like americans... the previous pm harper went out of his way to make an ass of himself for israel... it looks like this was when it started, but freeland is very much the same in her servitude to all the wrong priorities, ukraine fascism being just the tip of the iceberg... i am glad you are doing an article like this! john helmer has written extensively on her..
here is a website for this 'tribute to liberty' bullshit.. whenever i see that word - liberty - i think of made in the usa bullshit... http://tributetoliberty.ca/about
here is the western or usa propaganda outlet on the memorial - Memorial to the Victims of Communism – Canada, a Land of Refuge it certainly looks like a specific agenda is being pushed... a quote from the Canadian Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly. "Joly complained that the previous Harper government had made the project too controversial. The new Liberal government has moved the site and cut its budget. She stated:
Commemorative monuments play a key role in reflecting the character, identity, history and values of Canadians. They should be places of reflection, inspiration and learning, not shrouded in controversy."
there is some push back in canada, but not enough frankly... it seems the power centre - soros or whoever - are really pushing for freeland to be the next liberal pm... most canucks remain ignorant of her ignoble past and her priorities.... thanks for the post...
Posted by: james | Jul 23 2021 18:58 utc | 6
Freedland has managed to 'skate' on her connections to hard-right anti-Russian organizations and her support for the Azov Battalion, eventually being appointed Deputy Prime Minister -- she is now a 'lead person' in the formation and activities of the Lima Group that is devoted to the overthrow of leftist governments in Central and South America, particularly Venezuela.
Any mentions of her Nazi grand-father and his post-war cooperation with American Intelligence are fiercely opposed.
Posted by: chet380 | Jul 23 2021 18:58 utc | 7
I understand that b runs his blog from subjugated Germany, so there are limits to what he can post or allow in his comments without being censured. I understand this. He does not want the "free" West to make him another Julian Assange.
In this post, however, b presents a history of the Holocaust in Hungary with serious blacked out portions.
His post lays some of the blame on the "Nazi-puppet government" of Hungary. Court records of the State of Israel dispute this.
I will quote from court records of The State of Israel:
Judge Benjamin Halevi (who would later serve on the panel of judges that tried Adolph Eichmann), reading from his verdict:
The Nazi chiefs knew that the Zionists were a most vital element in Jewry and the most trusted by the Jews.
...
The Jews of the ghettos would not have trusted the Nazi or Hungarian rulers. But they had trust in their Jewish leaders.
Eichmann and others used this known fact as part of their calculated plan to mislead the Jews.
They were able to deport the Jews to their extermination by the help of Jewish leaders.
Are court records of The State of Israel verbotten?
Posted by: librul | Jul 23 2021 19:08 utc | 8
Note that all of this is taking place at a time when the bodies of hundreds of indigenous children (the numbers will keep rising) are being discovered at Catholic Church-run "residential schools" (i.e., actual genocide camps, as Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Committee itself revealed).
Posted by: Prof | Jul 23 2021 19:11 utc | 9
So Kentaro Kobayashi is fired as director of Olympic opening ceremonies because he once made a joke as part of a comedy routine (over 20 years ago) about the holocaust- Jewish groups complained - but Freeland, from a family of Nazi collaborators who openly supports neo-nazis in Ukraine, has a powerful government job and is protected from scrutiny about her past and present support for these people... Where is the Jewish lobby on this? Nowhere to be found...
Posted by: the pessimist | Jul 23 2021 19:18 utc | 10
Canada is a colony of the British Empire. It has enslaved its own people.
Canada’s oath of allegiance:
“I, [name], do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors. So help me God.”
Which God are they asking for help?
Twelve-year-old Canadian Victoria Grant says that, after researching the banking system, she was brought to the conclusion that “banks and the government have colluded to financially enslave the people of Canada”. Canada’s Integrity and Credibility is zero.
How will the Canadian Imperialists and their Orcs distract their populace from its ENSLAVEMENT? What THEATRICS and propaganda are deployed to mask this reality? Canadians just serves the Imperialist Empire. Are there protest by Canadians to end their enslavement? Orcs are being exposed! One can only lead by examples.
Nearly 800,000 people die by suicide in the world each year, which is roughly one death every 40 seconds. Suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death in the world. Why? What about this crime of humanity?
Isn’t Monetary Enslavement of 38+ million Canadians or Billions in the world a MEGA-CRIME or genocide?
Posted by: Max | Jul 23 2021 19:31 utc | 11
The Euro-elite war against humanity via enclosure of the commons has been ongoing for almost 800 years, and it's happening now as I type. What Canada's doing is trying to prevent any reparations for the combination of enclosure and genocide that has occurred--and is still occurring--there. As I'm discovering, we know little about the massive acts of resistance to Enclosure because history is written by the victors; and so far, the victors have decidedly been the Anti-Humans. But thanks to the many pains undertaken by numerous historians, often from the Marxist School of Thought, we now know much more about that past and can see it operating today via the mechanism of Capitalism--both Industrial and its eviler twin Financialized Capitalism epitomized by Neoliberalism. What's currently being done in Ukraine is Enclosure along with the genocide of native Russians who differ little in their experiences from the Iroquois who were slaughtered at the order of George Washington so their lands could be taken--enclosed--for Anglo settlers.
Through all the various actions occurring globally, we can see who the real Criminals are and who we ought to ally ourselves with--All other Collectivists and Levelers and those nations striving to put the interests of their people first, which are by definition Collectivist.
As a Canadian I am ashamed of what Canada has become under the Freeland-Trudeau regime, and the Harper regime before them. Apologies to the rest of the world. Our last PM with some backbone and sense of sovereignty was probably Jean Chretien. Now we are but a vassal state to the US/Israel, a suzerainty, led by opportunists seeking to serve power while in office and rake in the wealth as reward after leaving office.
"Pathways to Liberty", "Wall of Remembrance", "Highway of Heroes"
All of these names just reek of propaganda, Orwellianism, militarism, and fascism.
According to the CBC article, "the estimated total cost of the monument is now $7.5 million, with $6 million coming from the federal government after Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland included an additional $4 million in this spring's budget".
As a taxpayer I'd much rather the $6 million went elsewhere.
How about a monument to victims of Canada's ongoing genocide of indigenous peoples? For that matter, how about a monument to all the victims of Anglo-American imperialism including that genocide?
How about putting the $6 million in Canadian taxpayer money toward clean running water and sanitation for the indigenous people, instead of this US-following exercise in Orwellian propaganda?
Posted by: Canadian Cents | Jul 23 2021 19:37 utc | 13
Who "owns" "the holocaust"?
One day some Jewish organisation will quote this article as evidence that MoA is anti-semitic. Remember my words.
Posted by: m | Jul 23 2021 19:41 utc | 14
"Chomiak eventual landed in a U.S. occupied part of Germany where he and other east-European fascist were hired by U.S. Army intelligence. He later, like ten-thousands of other east-European nazi supporters, emigrated to Canada."
Canada participates in Anglo-American invasions and regime-changes abroad, and then when the Anglo-American agressors eventually get pushed out, Canada rewards the compradors and collaborators by offering them citizenship. So we end up with the likes of Chomiak/Freeland, the White Helmets and other "moderate rebels" headchoppers from Idlib, Syria, Hong Kong "pro-democracy protesters", and now the Freeland-Trudeau government just announced today that we'll be taking in 800 more Afghan interpreters that helped our military during Canada's involvement in the 20-year US-led occupation and subjugation of their country.
Repeat that pattern with so many other countries: Ukraine, Vietnam, China, Venezuela, Cuba, Haiti, etc.
Who knows, perhaps one day, Juan Guaido will be a Canadian or honourary Canadian too, given Freeland's close personal role on that front.
A steady influx of compradors, collaborationists, opportunists, sell-outs. Perhaps no wonder we get the elected opportunists and sell-outs we do.
Posted by: Canadian Cents | Jul 23 2021 19:49 utc | 15
Posted by: james | Jul 23 2021 18:58 utc | 6
Canada had a positive image during Trudeau the elder time, but a lot of it had to do with its flag and symbol, the maple leaf. Too bad it lost freshness. The decline started with the Nafta I think it was called, the free trade agreement.
Posted by: Paco | Jul 23 2021 19:50 utc | 16
In histories of MI6, & in Europe after 1945, both Stephen Dorrill & Tony Judt mention the Ukrainian Waffen SS armoured division that ran to Austria in 1945. Dorrill claims US & Brit intelligence simply lied to Canadian army as to who these guys were, & we (Canada) brought that fascist division to Canada, to be settled among the Ukrainian diaspora already here since late 1890's. (Stories of Holodimyr came out of Western Canada in early 1950's.) Good chance that such partisans contributed their actions & views to Canadian politics since then.
2 or 3 of our Conservative MP's ranted for weeks in House of commons about Uyghyur genocide before a vote was taken, 266 - 0, in our House of Commons urging the government to accuse China of this genocide. I looked up the committee hearing on this issue & could find testimony only by Zenz, & one Mehmet Totti, a representative for Canadian branch of Washington funded World Uyghyur Congress - no other witnesses.
As for Zenz, I understand he has advanced degrees in theology & anthropology. By 2012 he had made public his theological research results that we are in end times. armeggedon & rapture are imminent, & Anti Christ is ruling party in China. A British media funded his further research & he came up with numbers he said showed a genocide in Xinjiang. Washington, already thrashing about to stop China's commercial ties to rest of Asia, had Zenz join board of Victims of Communism, which is connected to National Endowment for Democracy. Zenz' revelations have served him well.
Freeland? (nifty name, eh) fits Liberals, who have a long history of being close to corporatist & fascistic groups & ideas. A number of our Conservative MP's also support this partisan monument.
Posted by: dave constable | Jul 23 2021 20:25 utc | 17
I propose we set up a fund for virtual mortar(s), to commemorate victims of North American capitalist imperialism .
Posted by: bjd | Jul 23 2021 20:26 utc | 18
Few Canadians give a whit about these obvious contradictions. As long as there's slops in their trough, which there still is for many, whatever dirty deals Ottawa is up to with Ukraine, America or Israel, or their own vicious Russophobia, Sinophobia, Islamophobia pass through the body politic via the worst press in the world, like shit through a Canada goose. Their Indigenous genocide project ran full bore for over a century before it finally registered among a colonialist collaborationist citizenry who conveniently never realize dark and unpleasant truths until it's too late for anything but vigorous and compensatory virtue-signalling.
Posted by: John Gilberts | Jul 23 2021 20:29 utc | 19
You just have to read the last part of the mission statement of Global Affairs Canada (basically the Foreign Office), point #4:
"The Government of Canada is committed to further strengthening relations with Canada’s key allies, partners and neighbours to the south — the United States and Mexico. Global Affairs Canada will deepen engagement with the U.S. and Mexico, including with relevant federal, state and local governments, private sector and civil society organizations on key areas such as trade, investment, innovation, security, energy and the environment."
The comprador stating its fealty to the US Boss, politely saying "uncle". It is sad to see what has become of my country from father (Pierre Elliott Trudeau) to his son (Justin Trudeau).
Our police also seem to be trying to emulate their US brothers in arms (seems that there was a movie film crew that wanted to use the space) :
Posted by: Roger | Jul 23 2021 20:32 utc | 20
"The monument has received letters of support from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, former Green party leader Elizabeth May, former NDP leader Tom Mulcair and former federal justice minister Irwin Cotler."
Support from across all of Canada's mainstream political parties in other words, just as recently seen in the "Uighur genocide" farce which was deliberately set-up to hear solely from extreme partisan sources.
The exfiltration and resettlement of tens of thousands of fascist collaborators from Eastern Europe to Canada in the years after WW2 had the terrible effect of creating a strategic voter bloc which has been cynically kowtowed by the politicians ever since, particularly the Conservative and Liberal parties. Canadian-Ukraine groups have openly solicited monies since 2014 to purchase weapons for the Azov militias and other far-right factions.
Here is Freeland on the Ukrainian "revolution". The poor grasp of history and reliance on universalized emotional tropes is a bad fit intellectually for a senior government official but does resemble the style-sheet for the anti-communism memorial industry:
http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2015/myukraine.html
Posted by: jayc | Jul 23 2021 20:38 utc | 21
That elements of the Canadian government are nazi sympathizers is between the Canadians and their government. None of my business.
It would be nice, of course, if their government restrained itself from lecturing others on 'human rights', 'democracy' and such, but hey, what would you expect from nazi sympathizers?
Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Jul 23 2021 20:41 utc | 22
@ bjd (#18), what are the LIABILITIES of the British Empire & Financial Empire ($, Pounds, Euros, Yen)?
There is going to be a huge CONFISCATION of ill gotten profits from the Monetary Imperialists. Any Orcs (individuals without conscience- dark souls) that have taken money from the Imperialists of the Empire needs to return back with apologies. If they don’t, then their damages will be 10X and they will be sentenced to work in mines for $1 per day towards their liabilities. How many generations will they take to payback? The Empire is heading towards Universal Justice! It has only one way out🕯
"Rome has grown so much from its humble beginnings that it is now overwhelmed by its greatness."
– Titus Livius
Posted by: Max | Jul 23 2021 20:42 utc | 23
I wonder how popular Chrystia Freeland is among the Canadian public and how many of them are aware of her maternal grandfather's past as a member of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (Bandera faction) and Nazi collaborator. Not to mention the fact that Chomiak ratted on Bandera and managed to save his own skin and his family by fleeing to Bavaria.
But then, reflecting on how little I and most other Australians know about Canberra's role in giving safe haven to Croatian Ustasha in the 1940s and Phalangists involved in the Sabra and Shatilla mass murders in Lebanon in 1982, among others, I suppose I should not wonder too much.
Posted by: Jen | Jul 23 2021 20:59 utc | 24
@24 She is probably quite popular with career feminists. They can't be too critical of women who 'make it'. But most of her support comes from the Ukrainian community in Alberta. A key voting block..
Posted by: dh | Jul 23 2021 21:43 utc | 25
@ paco... that was a very long time ago!
@ dh.. i suspect her support comes from big financial interests and the ukee block and of course career feminists as you note.... she is doing a lot of damage to canada, but the press are giving her a free pass..
Posted by: james | Jul 23 2021 21:57 utc | 26
@26 Freeland started her career in journalism. It's curious that she should work her way up through the Liberal party.....whatever liberal means these days. She gives the impression of being a Nazi at heart. Maybe she thought the Conservatives didn't have much chance and she saw which way the wind was blowing.
Posted by: dh | Jul 24 2021 0:05 utc | 28
I'm the proud owner of a brother in law wont to talk fascist shit. None of his stupidity is supported (at least not by him) with actual y'know facts, which makes taking apart his stupidities on race & poverty painfully easy. However as I'm sure many other MoA-ites can also testify, that is not generally regarded positively at family gatherings. So what I have been doing is trying to repair the damage done to my sister by imparting a few facts to her. I doubt she passes them on as typically the bro-in-law has anger issues, not physically violent but he does shout when others suggest he has the wrong end of the stick.
Anyway when she started on a 'what about what China does to the Uyghurs?' spiel during a phone call a while back, I asked her if she could tell me how many Chinese citizens had been killed by terrorist attacks on Chinese citizens since 2010.
Naturally she knew nothing of this since corporate media somehow manages to forget to mention such things, so I enlightened her then asked her "Do you think that the Government adopoting a two pronged cure of teaching Uyghur history and investing heavily in training and creating well paid employment for Uyghurs in Xinjiang so that they become invested in the society is a better or worse solution than the amerikan cure which involves droning the beejeezus outta villages alleged to contain suspected 'terrorists' killing or maiming everyone in them? Is that a better or worse, crueler or more humane solution?"
The issue with most people is that they have only been given half the facts. Altho here in Aotearoa most people are aware of and appalled by what amerika has been up to in the ME.
The other side of it is that although both Tibet & Xinjiang should in a decent world be able to have their own nation states, thanks to the carryings on of england at first then amerika, this is just not possible. One can wish that this eventually comes about, but as long as outside empires do what england did in Poland post 1917, that is use that country as a base for waging war and insurrection on the USSR and in doing so contribute heavily to the start of the great euro war part 2, China cannot relinquish those regions.
Posted by: Debsisdead | Jul 24 2021 0:38 utc | 29
I bought fully into the Uyghur genocide story but now I have second thoughts and do some digging into the issue. A cursory internet search brings up stories from the usual mainline disinformation sources.
I wish I had time to reflect on my knowledge of the Nazis and their integration into the Western sphere. Much of the current anti Russian propaganda comes from this elements seeds planted into the system.
Nazi socialism vs. Marxism vs. capitalism vs. Fascism. Clearly it was Marxism they feared the most. As much as I dislike Marxism I have to hand it to them for being public enemy number 1.
Posted by: circumspect | Jul 24 2021 0:42 utc | 30
Watching the Open Ceremony of the 2020 Olympics on tv just now.
I am wondering if people in other countries heard a different message.
There was a moment of silence in the Olympic stadium preceded by an English speaking voice
(approximate quote) "honoring the 8 Israeli athletes killed by Palestinians in Munich 1972".
No mention of the 250 Palestinians that were slaughtered in revenge by the Zionists.
250 women, children and old people in refugee camps.
Did people in other countries hear the same message?
Posted by: librul | Jul 24 2021 0:45 utc | 31
Here is Freeland on the Ukrainian "revolution". The poor grasp of history and reliance on universalized emotional tropes is a bad fit intellectually for a senior government official ...
Posted by: jayc | Jul 23 2021 20:38 utc | 21
It is a pity that otherwise very thoughtful post is marred by this oxymoron "intellectual fitness for a serious government official". The higher level of government official we consider, the lower is the UPPER limit for intellectual capacity. To quote from the libretto of HMS Pinafore:
I grew so rich that I was sent
By a pocket borough into Parliament.
I always voted at my party's call,
And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.
I thought so little, they rewarded me
By making me the Ruler of the Queen's Navee!
Posted by: Piotr Berman | Jul 24 2021 0:58 utc | 32
Why don't they just make a statue of Hitler and be done with it?
After all der fuhrer was the biggest 'victim' of communism! 😬
Posted by: Gordog | Jul 24 2021 1:14 utc | 33
Posted by: circumspect | Jul 24 2021 0:42 utc | 30
As much as I dislike Marxism
Same here.
I had that subject in high school, I hated it. So dry and boring...
But at least now I know what the capital means and what the "primordial accumulation of capital" euphemism stands for...
Posted by: hopehely | Jul 24 2021 1:30 utc | 34
Posted by: Gordog | Jul 24 2021 1:14 utc | 33
After all der fuhrer was the biggest 'victim' of communism! 😬
And Mussolini too. Poor dude, I mean dooche.
Posted by: hopehely | Jul 24 2021 1:33 utc | 35
Canadistan can't enable her out of bed in the morning without its colonial overlord Amerikastan's permission, so weekdays strange about this?
Posted by: Biswapriya Purkayast | Jul 24 2021 2:03 utc | 36
Posted by: Prof | Jul 23 2021 19:11 utc | 9
"genocide camps, as Canada's Truth and Reconciliation Committee itself revealed"
The Truth and Reconciliation Committee did not reveal those. It was a whitewash.
Posted by: Keith McClary | Jul 24 2021 2:20 utc | 37
Moon are you a commie?
Seriously, as far as the CCP has the hand up Canada's ass and you write this hit piece. You a mouth piece for the CCP.
Sicko.
Your article is shade on the irrelevant now and consequential to the acient past but used to blind today. Pure gas lite.
Wow. Moon you lost a credibility.
Posted by: ed wood | Jul 24 2021 2:43 utc | 38
@ed wood
The only one losing credibility is you with the links to such obvious propaganda hit pieces. A right-wing assistant professor in a right wing rag and quotes from Freedom House in a piece written like a breathless spie novel?
Posted by: Roger | Jul 24 2021 3:40 utc | 39
Absolutely sickening to see some of the turds that show up here. I hope no one engages like they did with that other knuckle dragger on the other thread.
Posted by: Gordog | Jul 24 2021 3:43 utc | 40
Nice article, b. A few notes to fellow barflies: Canada is not, most definitely not, a colony of the USA. I consider that propaganda disseminated to deflect attention from the fact that Canada is a member of the Commonwealth and The Queen is the head of state. Repeat: not a colony of the US, although our economies are tightly intertwined. Secondly, Canada receives the same CIA treatment as the other countries in the Americas. Future PM Freeland could well be a concession to protect PM Trudeau. He’s not his father, but he seems to be truly hated in certain elite circles for reasons I can’t understand (Cuba related maybe?) There was a carefully-placed suggestion in the media that Obama (or “Obama”) wanted to assassinate him back in 2015.
Speaking of The Queen, Canada just appointed a new Governor General, Mary Simon, who is Indigenous, from the North, Inuit territory. The two of them had a “getting to know you” chat today.
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 24 2021 3:48 utc | 41
Baby Trudeau loves to be told what to do by a strong and ruthless woman.
Posted by: Virgile | Jul 24 2021 4:05 utc | 42
One more comment on Freeland’s supporters: she was elected in downtown Toronto, a riding with high income neighbourhoods and I think some university/academia folks? Looks like possible 5th column to me. The Ukies in Alberta vote Conservative consistently — they’re the party’s base.
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 24 2021 4:06 utc | 43
Canada is full of Ukrainian expats -- and add a stack of Poles and other toe-kissing types. Mention 'Russia' in a conversation and you need to dodge the vomit flow and call in the exorcist.
Posted by: imo | Jul 24 2021 4:08 utc | 44
You are quite a bit off. First of all, I understand that you believe that communism had no victims but this is pretty much false. In Hungary the problem is that while there were victims of the Holocaust and I regard it as a tragedy as well, they are btw officially regarded as victims and the current government has gone very far in support of the jewish community (with little benefit, as they still try with the EU to prove that they are nazis), meanwhile the victims of communism, which is by the way about the same number are never recognized. That the chinese got mixed in this it is just natural, how else could you get support for these things.
I would recommend to you to pull out your head about whatever romantic believes you hold about communism, because it was a reign of terror in a similar scale to nazism.
Posted by: Whatever | Jul 24 2021 5:02 utc | 45
Posted by: Sam | Jul 23 2021 18:38 utc | 2
Yasha Levine has also written about this Victims of Communism organization, USA chapter.
https://yasha.substack.com/p/victims-of-communism-129
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 24 2021 5:18 utc | 46
Posted by: Whatever | Jul 24 2021 5:02 utc | 45
So our choices are to get in bed with Fascists/Nazis or to worship communism and pretend there was nothing wrong with it, as practiced in the USSR -under Stalin - and China???
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 24 2021 5:20 utc | 47
Posted by: m | Jul 23 2021 19:41 utc | 14
Don't worry. Louis Proyect already plays that game. He even occasionally drops by to scream at us. Sometimes it's "anti-Americans!!!" others it's "anti-Semites!!!" He's probably right on the first one (and most of us are proud of that) but he's of course wrong on the second and has no evidence just as anyone quoting this article won't have any when they make the same accusation.
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 24 2021 5:23 utc | 48
@ Tom_Q_Collins | Jul 24 2021 5:20 utc | 47 who wrote
"
So our choices are to get in bed with Fascists/Nazis or to worship communism and pretend there was nothing wrong with it, as practiced in the USSR -under Stalin - and China???
"
I like my characterization of the choices as between public and private finance at the core of the social contract with the government you live under. This characterization fits our current reality and does not refer to mythical "isms" of any sort like many want to do for obfuscatory purposes here.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Jul 24 2021 5:28 utc | 49
Freedland sounds a lot better than Khomyak which in Russian means lemming. The serpent's eggs have hatched.
Posted by: Paco | Jul 24 2021 7:04 utc | 51
My principial gripe with the various narratives around victims of communism, the existence of which I do not dispute, is that they are constructed in a vacuum rather than within any semblance of their historical context. If we're analyzing events, with a focus on civilian casualties and human suffering, it is imperative that we choose a break-off point from which to construct some alternate course of events where there would be room to speculate on more or less desirable outcomes, if our goal in particular is to emphasize some excessive and arbitrary conduct by the government, organization or individual under review. Without this process, there's nothing to differentiate between 'He hit me' and 'He walked into my fist' -- an intentional exaggeration on my part -- other than personal preference.
Obviously, the more distant the break-off point, the more complex and fanciful our analysis becomes, so killing off Marx in his infancy is akin to stepping on some bug during the Jurassic period -- the results are too unpredictable. But, if we accept the power struggle in Russia as a done deal, we can nudge the chain of events to have the Whites win the revolution and ask ourselves whether that would have a desirable impact on history going forward. Would a revanchist right-wing Russia have caused less human suffering in its inevitable attempt to restabilize by rooting out the Red menace and reclaiming recently lost territories? What would its role have been in WW2? I believe it's a relevant off-ramp for discussion, since it places some of the victims of Soviet communism within the context of post-revolutionary reintegration, or disintegration, whatever the case may be. Still fanciful and certainly open to interpretation, but with at least some consideration to the ongoing events surrounding the individual you wish to represent.
If one is gifted with Socratic tenacity, one can reach more objective conclusions re-examining specific policies; relocation, industrialization, collectivization (which is the only area where I've done extensive research), reformation of prisons and the body of law -- there are bound to be valuable nuances in all of these spheres and many more. The final step is to examine the conduct and motivation of officials and compare cases on an individual level. This methodology was and is, ideally, employed internally in the rehabilitation of victims of Soviet communism since, as per the op, blanket statements denouncing Soviet (or Stalinist) tyranny end up rehabilitating Nazis, their collaborators and other less-than desirable elements, which the Soviets justifiably dealt a harsh blow, and this problem was well understood both within the SU and in Russia today.
Posted by: Skiffer | Jul 24 2021 9:34 utc | 52
Long time reader here.
There is a link between the glorification of Bandera, Pavelic and other Catholic butchers and the hundreds of bodies of native children buried outside Catholic schools. The Vatican stands behind both.
Posted by: Anubis64 | Jul 24 2021 9:53 utc | 53
It is great to see that the great postwar distraction story of Nazis going to Brazil /SA is finally being exploded.
Of course they were transferred to the isolated, temperate territories of Pacific North America, where they could carry on breeding and believing the Nazi ideologies to venture forth across the globe. Preserved from ordinary citizens of the world who thought the Nazis were dealt with by Nuremberg by punishment of Germans only! The secret leaders and financiers who cooked that proxy up for decades previously always hidden. Most East Coast North American’s equally kept in ignorance of these northwestern settlers. Many also in that part of the US.
Because they were the proxy forces that initiated and perpetrated the great crimes of WW2 at the behest of the ancient masters, blaming only the Germans who suffered twice in as many generations as they were manipulated into no-win wars. These Masters who have never stopped their pillage of the planet and desire to own it all through use of all power and force and terror - where their Money fails.
There is the same model with the ISIS headchoppers, the Saudi Wahhabi Sunni monsters, through to the 10’s of thousands of Uighers enticed by mega wages to travel to Indonesia then with passports to Turkey to set up the nasty nazi type crimes in Syria. Like the secret Canadian nazis, they are run by.
Such plans aren’t cooked up on the hoof. They are very long term. Spanning generations. Their implacable claims to the planet never to be thwarted. As they still desire Russia, China and Eurasia, refusing to give up Africa, South America and the South East Asia as they are daily forced back, knowing that they can’t use overwhelming force against primitively armed natives anymore - because the natives know who they are and where they live and can assymetrically, resist and destroy them and their homes now.
They are just as much complicit 5+1 eyed Gollum’s
They are perma DeepState and subvert true democracy throughout the world along with their partner agencies in every one of the Anglo Imperialist centuries long global robber baron plans. I point again as an example to the conglomerate CGI if anyone doubts.
It’s great to see the myth of Canadian neutrality being busted. The ‘better than southern uncouth neighbours, social democratic, incorruptible police Mounties, peace loving, naive butter wouldn’t melt ...angels’ - nonsense finally being blown apart to show the can of worms that conquered land, murdered indigenous tribes and children, war criminals mercenary population, finally being exposed.
Posted by: DG | Jul 24 2021 10:29 utc | 54
The uprisings in Hungary 66 years ago (or 666?) were less anti-socialist or anti-communist but more like an anti-Jewish uprising. Khruschew intervened and replaced the Jewish central committee with Madyar Hungarians , and Hungary became the one Warzaw Pact state that had satisfactory consumer goods sector.
Posted by: Tollef Ås/秋涛乐/טלפ וש | Jul 24 2021 10:32 utc | 55
Communism has killed millions, but it’s enabled by wealth gaps. If societies treat their weak and poor well, then there’s no risk of communists coming to power. Critics of communism tend to believe defending wealth gaps somehow prevents communism, which is exactly opposite of reality.
Communism though is just a word. It’s the specific revolutions, activists, and general concentration of power that matters. The US, in that regard, isnt very different from communist powers. The US currently kills and displaces millions regularly, especially in the Middle East. The US spies on its own citizens, destroys its own history, and supports anarcho-tyranny.
Instead of choosing between the US and China, why not reject both sets of elites? If Ukrainians with dangerous values are against something, couldnt they be correct?
Posted by: Weaver | Jul 24 2021 10:52 utc | 56
Tollef,
Communism originally was just Jews conquering Russia and China. If we name the elites though and attempt a real history of power struggles, the faithful seem to get upset. In South Africa, “communists” were largely just Jews.
Today, the US is more Jewish, but this website seems to have faithful who deny the change. The name remains, so they believe the content has remained the same.
Who were the Bolshevik elite? Jews. I’ve always suspected, as a foreigner, that Stalin killing Trotsky was a huge blow to Jewish power in Russia. Also, Hitler attacking Russia somehow rallied Russians and empowered ethnic Russians more within Russia, as opposed to the Jewish-led minority coalition that Bolshevism had been.
Posted by: Weaver | Jul 24 2021 11:04 utc | 57
Heh. Who would have thought, liberals and Nazis being happy bedfellows and dancing the horizontal mambo on a mattress of democracy and under a human rights blanket.
(Someone once said that next time the fascists won't come in uniforms and tanks, but in three-piece suits and smiling)
Posted by: SumGuy | Jul 24 2021 11:18 utc | 58
Currently, Putin has encouraged a free sharing of Russia's communist history, leading to many doubts that such an extreme revolution was necessary to bring change, as opposed to reform. That is a real strength. Russia is free to pursue whatever policies serve Russian interests, regardless of ideology.
Xi would be truly strong if he could separate himself more from Mao rather than defending him.
Admitting flaws in one's history doesn't lead to a hatred of one's country, as seen in the US. The US has an elite that wants Americans to hate our history, wants Americans to hate America so that it can be changed. That is different.
Part of China's strength is nationalism. It should celebrate the Chinese spirit, not be tied to some Jewish colonial ideology of communism.
Sum Guy,
how is that surprising? The US is in bed with al Qaeda (and indirectly with ISIS), Turkey, Israel, and countless other odd match-ups. The US ideology is a justification for US empire, but the US empire does not actually pursue "liberal democracy." Corruption seems the primary objective, really, but also just global control.
Japan refuses to accept mass immigration, but the US continues to pressure Japan to do so. The Japanese really are another odd match-up, even though "democratic." India, with its nationalism, is another odd example.
Posted by: Weaver | Jul 24 2021 11:46 utc | 59
DH @ 25, Bruised Northerner @ 43:
Chrystia Freeland was originally from Peace River in Alberta and attended secondary school in Edmonton. Her mother Halyna Chomiak ran for the seat of Edmonton Strathcona in the 1988 federal election for the New Democratic Party (social democrat in orientation). That explains in part the support Freeland gets from the Ukrainian community in Alberta.
Freeland represents the electorate of University-Rosedale (Toronto) in Ottawa. It includes the campus of the University of Toronto, the suburbs of Rosedale and Yorkville (two affluent neighbourhoods), Little Italy and part of Toronto's CBD. Voting patterns lean towards Liberal and New Democratic parties.
Posted by: Jen | Jul 24 2021 11:52 utc | 60
@circumspect,
Marxism is just a rallying of the poor/weak against an elite, to empower a new elite. It's the identical formula to ancient tyrannies. The US can't easily challenge "Marxist" societies today, because they have closed elites. The US can't infiltrate their systems. The US wants open systems it can influence, control, or overthrow.
After WWII, there were two powers in the world, the US and the Soviet Union. So, people could choose the term "Marxism" if wanting to go against the US. Groups could unite under that nominal banner. Also, the US seemed to encourage such movements by encouraging wealth (and similar) gaps.
With "fascism" and "Nazism," the assumption is only individual states or nations are referenced. So, there can be no larger movement. Also, the Soviets wouldn't aid such groups. After WWII, British used to say they must ally with the one or the other. Oswald Mosley, to give another example, wanted to unite Europe into a new nation, to counter the Soviet threat, which is to say to prevent domination. He also wanted to throw the US out of Britain.
The world has changed. Today, perhaps the two powers are China and the US, but there are many other medium-sized powers too. You could just as easily have a Christian or Muslim movement, if such enabled a defensible power structure. An open society as the US demands can perhaps not be free, but a closed system that attempted some degree of sovereignty and freedom (from the US) needn't be communist.
Posted by: Weaver | Jul 24 2021 12:09 utc | 61
What Canada really needs is a Victims of Colonialism memorial. This would honour the Beothuk tribe which was exterminated after a $5 a head bounty was placed on them. It would honor the aboriginal populations of Canada who were herded into concentrated areas and denied essential services such as clean drinking water by the Trudeau government. It would remember the thousands of aboriginal children whose graves are now being exhumed. It would honor the Chinese lives lost in the construction of the CPR through the passes of the Rocky Mountains (Chinese lives were so cheap that they were tasked with tamping explosive charges and the contractors would trigger the charge before the workers had opportunity to clear the area of the explosion). It might also honour the loss of several million Indian lives due to the Churchill imposed famine of 1944. It might honour the Chagos Islanders who were displaced from their home lands on Diego Garcia and who are still prevented from making a return. It might honour the slaves transported to work the sugar plantations of the West Indies. Add the historical global total of victims of Colonialism / Imperialism and the result is likely equal to, if not considerably greater than, the victims of communism.
Of course if the monument was simply dedicated to the victims os "Isms" then it might also h0nour the victims of capitalism, corporatism, etc.
Posted by: Sushi | Jul 24 2021 12:24 utc | 62
Canada seems to have some rather ambiguous position towards fascists. While compares China's handling of its Uyghur population to a holocaust it is favoring the perpetrators of the real Holocaust.
Nothing ambiguous about it at all, b. Canada (the government, that is) is out and out fascist. No reservations. Holocaust is good, as long as the perpetrators are fascist and the victims either communist or any race they happen to dislike. Holocaust is bad if the perpetrators are communist (irrespective whether true or not).
Isn't it about time Canadians started loudly protesting this Chrystia Freeland disgrace and demanding she be kicked out of office? What proportion of Canadians are supporters of fascism? Do most Canadians have no interest? If that is the case, shame of them.
As for this monument, civil society should use the fact of the use of this monument as a vehicle to promote and venerate fascists and war criminals as a weapon to force the destruction of this fascist project once and for all.
Posted by: BM | Jul 24 2021 12:28 utc | 63
No thread concerning Chrystia Freeland should omit mention of her role in fronting the odious "Lima Group" that led the charge in support of Mike Pence's appointment of Juan Guaido as "Acting (as in thespian) President of Venezuela".
Also, I believe that she was the first person I recall using the Orwellian term "rules-based international order", a term developed to cover for the fact that the US empire has no further use for international law.
Posted by: expat | Jul 24 2021 12:48 utc | 64
UN Resolution Against Glorification of Nazism Opposed on 21 Nov. 2014 by Just Three Countries
https://defendinghistory.com/resolution-glorification-nazism-opposed-21-nov-2014-countries/69940
Three guesses which countries voted FOR glorification of Nazism:
1) Ukraine, US of MICC, Canada
2) US of MICC, Canada, Ukraine
3) Canada, Ukraine, US of MICC
Guess
Posted by: librul | Jul 24 2021 13:10 utc | 65
I had this bookmarked from a couple of years ago--
Why Canada Defends Ukrainian Fascism
Posted by: arby | Jul 24 2021 13:18 utc | 66
Weaver @ 61
The world has changed. Today, perhaps the two powers are China and the US, but there are many other medium-sized powers too. You could just as easily have a Christian or Muslim movement, if such enabled a defensible power structure. An open society as the US demands can perhaps not be free, but a closed system that attempted some degree of sovereignty and freedom (from the US) needn't be communist.
Russia is a power to be reckoned that failed at its Marxist experiment but it is still a power. Its oligarchy survived and increased in power. A movement does not have to be an "ism".
I can agree with that but in my research it appears that the capitalists have funded all sides of the "isms" to a degree to play each other off, create war, dissension, and obtain more wealth through their managed organs of control. It appears that their goal is to great one global fascist state and the new technology is the wedge that may make that happen. The West's role will be reduced and they will have to come to what I would call a bargain of control with the other powers. They will still have a large hand in the operation.
There are always movements religious and political that attempt to split off and the oligarchy is always there plying their trade craft of control. The Taliban may be one such movement that rejected the West's offer of a "carpet of gold".
The power of a dreamed of global fascist super state encompassing all power and control through finance, communication controls, total surveillance, and the ability to make remote war against its opposition is slowly becoming a real possibility.
Posted by: circumspect | Jul 24 2021 13:36 utc | 67
Is the rumour that Justin Trudeau is a son of Fidel Castro widely known in Canada? Is there substance to the rumour?
Posted by: tucenz | Jul 24 2021 13:54 utc | 68
Jen, arby, great poets, thanks for the links!
Circumspect, I’m inclined to agree with you about the greater possibility for the global fascist super-state except it seems impossible for The Queen and the American Royals (whoever they are) to come to agreement? I don’t know what that means on a practical level, but one side seems to demand submission from the other in a zero-sum match. That’s how it looks to me from Canada, anyway. I think those power dynamics are slightly more visible here.
I also wanted to mention that the sad reality seems to be that the average Canadian citizen does experience more freedom (like the genuine kind) than the average American (US) or European citizen. Which doesn’t say much about the state of our societies in the vaunted western realm. I think this freedom comes from the power dispute I mentioned, not to forget ties to France (Quebec being the former New France), yet another power dispute, and (very important) a shared border with Russia. It may be concealed to a large extent but there is Canadian/Russian cooperation, even if just on a strictly practical level to keep the globe from exploding.
Posted by: Bruised Northerner | Jul 24 2021 14:07 utc | 69
circumspect,
Yes, elites fund the isms. The US funded the original Bolsheviks. Elites aren't necessarily united. Elites can fight other elites, even within a society.
In Russia, Marxism created a new oligarchy. The old oligarchy did not survive. It was obliterated along with every group that benefited. China, today, is ruled by an oligarchy. It too will become increasingly involved in global movements. Every single communist and capitalist society is ruled by an oligarchy. No exceptions.
Ideology is just secular religion. Ideology is like stupid movements, for common people, who lack education but have been empowered by the decline of agriculture in the world. Most people struggle to understand politics, but any can understand an ideology. Ideology is like a virus that can destroy a society, but it cannot sustain one. China's ruling elite is justified by Marxism, but it doesn't follow Marxism.
China, like the US, like every society, must keep its people happy. This is a law of politics, not of ideology. If the US sustains large wealth gaps and cannot promise an improving future for its population, it will become unstable.
-
Regarding a global state, China too will likely pursue a global state at some point. It doesn't want one now, but the Chinese seem to struggle with ideas of decentralisation and secession. Historically, they seem to like the idea of a centralised, unified state.
But if the US wants this, and China wants this, and neither can war (e.g can't have nuclear war), and neither wishes to join the other, then their struggles for power might allow other states a measure of freedom.
Regarding words like "fascism," the US wants to dominate and enslave mankind. I think the meaning of the term would be more clear if we just returned to how people talked before the European Enlightenment. What would the Chinese, or Russians, or British say? I say the US wants tyranny, empire, and enslavement. It wants to concentrate power within centralised institutions. "The best slaves don't know they're slaves."
But is China significantly different? The US elites even flirt with the mantra that, in the future, "You will own nothing, and you will be happy." Happy slaves...
Posted by: Weaver | Jul 24 2021 14:09 utc | 70
We can see realtime how the whole "victims of communism" meme takes root. Just look at the Xinjiang Uighur "concentration camp" nonsense. It starts with some Uighur expat complaining "It was terrible! They made me take classes in using a toothbrush and commercial cooking and small engine repair. It was like they were passing judgement on my poor dental hygiene and lack of employable skills!". After clowns like Zens get hold of the narrative it becomes "OMG! 60 million Uighurs exterminated in Chinese gulags!"
Meanwhile back in "civilization", the underside of the upper crust throwing their garden dinner parties in North Chicago, or Quogue Long Island, invite our poor Uighur expat as the "special guest" (read that as 'exotic aboriginal specimen to entertain the wealthy guests') to signal their virtues. Realizing that her host's guests are not there to hear about the difficulties of cram nights and dorm life at a trade school, our star attraction of the dinner party tries to second guess the expectations and biases of the wealthy white businessmen and society figures sipping their expensive beverages around her. That is where the lurid tales of gang rapes and organ harvesting and mass executions are created.
After she sees the Netflix special with its reenactments of the fictitious horrors, our poor Uighur expat herself even starts to believe that's what could have happened. Sure, that didn't happen to her, and she didn't really see it, but perhaps it happened to someone else! That way her lies are not really lies, are they? She's just giving voice to some imaginary voiceless victims!
And so brainwashed morons from coast to coast of North America have their brainwashing about the evils of communism confirmed by one more thread in a whole tapestry of fictions. It never even occurs to the fuckin` morons that they could just book a flight to Xinjiang and see Uighurs in their "natural environment" rather than watching the domesticated and trained monkeys dancing to the organ grinder's tune for their entertainment.
That is where all of the "victims of communism" nonsense comes from.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 24 2021 14:36 utc | 71
Posted by: Paco | Jul 24 2021 7:04 utc | 51
Freedland sounds a lot better than Khomyak which in Russian means lemming.
It actually means hamster.
Of course, Freeland sounds much better to English ears.
What sounds better To Spanish ears, Paco or Franco?
Posted by: hopehely | Jul 24 2021 14:45 utc | 72
@William Gruff | Jul 24 2021 14:36 utc | 71
Great story.
But you left out the surprise twist. Your "Uighur expat" then meets with her CIA handler to receive her next round of "concentration camp" stories to distribute.
Posted by: Mar man | Jul 24 2021 14:54 utc | 73
Mar man @73
True, but I was trying to be as sympathetic to the expat as possible to show how even decent and honest people can end up tobogganing down the slippery slope to complete fabrication. Let's face it, not all of the people reinforcing the lies about communism are doing so out of ill intent. Quite a few are just telling those rich white Americans that they admire so much what they think the Americans want to hear. "It's just little white lies! They won't harm anyone! Who is ever going to believe poor little worthless me anyway?"
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 24 2021 15:05 utc | 74
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 24 2021 14:36 utc | 71
That is where all of the "victims of communism" nonsense comes from.
Well it makes sort of sense, fascists were indeed victims of communists in Croatia, Ukraine, Hungary, Germany, Italy because in those places communists whooped their ass. Badly. So, they feel victimized, and since fascists are humans beings we have to respect their feelings too....
It is like all prisoned criminals are victims of a justice system. Well, it is true, those poor souls suffer in captivity, right?
It all boils down which side are you on, what is your team, who do you sympathize.
Moral relativism at its finest.
Posted by: hopehely | Jul 24 2021 15:15 utc | 75
Interesting to see Irwin Cotler among the names of memorial supporters. Can I assume, then, that the Zionist right now openly sponsors Fascist initiatives?
Posted by: jorge | Jul 24 2021 15:35 utc | 76
@ Posted by: Skiffer | Jul 24 2021 9:34 utc | 52
Obviously, the more distant the break-off point, the more complex and fanciful our analysis becomes, so killing off Marx in his infancy is akin to stepping on some bug during the Jurassic period -- the results are too unpredictable. But, if we accept the power struggle in Russia as a done deal, we can nudge the chain of events to have the Whites win the revolution and ask ourselves whether that would have a desirable impact on history going forward. Would a revanchist right-wing Russia have caused less human suffering in its inevitable attempt to restabilize by rooting out the Red menace and reclaiming recently lost territories? What would its role have been in WW2? I believe it's a relevant off-ramp for discussion, since it places some of the victims of Soviet communism within the context of post-revolutionary reintegration, or disintegration, whatever the case may be. Still fanciful and certainly open to interpretation, but with at least some consideration to the ongoing events surrounding the individual you wish to represent.
The answer is "no":
1) The Civil War wasn't "revanchist". The White Army was built up from the remains of the Tsarist regime with foreign capital. They wanted to restore the Tsarist regime, not defeat socialism/communism - a concept they probably couldn't even grasp of. The moment they started to revert redistribution of land allowed by the Bolsheviks in the territories they conquered, they quickly lost support from the Russian peasantry. The White Army collapsed quickly as a candidate for "the true Russian army". This proves the Russian peasantry was not nationalist or pro-Tsar: they wanted land. Indeed, the disintegration of the Tsarist system explains why the Bolsheviks governed with absolute legitimacy from the very beginning after October 1917, and also why the use of many Tsarist Army officials in the Red Army was never a problem to Bolshevik rule: there simply was no coming back.
2) There was a White Terror, and it was extremely brutal in the territories they conquered. In fact, the decree that established the Red Terror explicitly states it was in response to White Terror. As Chiang Kaishek once said (already in the 1940s): the peasant should be treated with brutality because that's the language he/she understands. That was the mindset of the monarchist/liberal of a peasant country at that time.
3) Industrialization certainly wouldn't happen under White/Tsarist rule. If you read Soviet History in detail, you can clearly see that the USSR's record pace industrialization was a direct fruit of Marxist innovation. This is more glaring because the NEP incorporated many of the "Stolypin reforms" - and they all failed. If the White Army had won, Russia would certainly go back to being a weak agrarian country, even if the Stolypin reforms were successful (see the debate between Bukharin and the rest on the "industrialization at a snail's pace" question).
4) It's a myth liberalism was a peaceful ideology that smoothly freed the serfs into a new, prosperous and democratic system (capitalism). The so-called "Hundred Years of Peace" (from the defeat of Napoleon to WWI) was actually the century of the genocide. Capitalism was literally built on the extermination of peoples in America and Africa. The rise of Liberalism was literally the most genocidal era in History. The illusion capitalism is a peaceful system is a chimera built during the Post-War Miracle, and mostly only in the First World countries.
--//--
@ Weaver (various comments here)
You're not fooling anyone here, but I would like to highlight an important question you bring, which is the concept of History as a science.
I've already talked about it here, so I will be short: your interpretation of History is not scientifically valid. It is a statecraftist, postmodern conception - therefore, anti-scientific - of History.
There are many elements you distort and ignore, but the most important of them is the factor of the development of the productive forces. The world's material conditions improve with each revolution, regardless of the moral takes one make. I bet no Russian today would want to go back to cultivating grains in a small lot of land with a high risk of dying of hunger. The new "Checkmate" jet Russia inaugurated some days ago only happened because of the October Revolution.
It's easy to snub the factor of the development of the productive forces when you live in a First World country. For you, new technology seems to come automatically, right out of some corporation's department. For a middle class person from a First World country, it would be better for time to stop right now, so we could live in this petty bourgeois paradise where Westerners can exhibit their snobbery for eternity. Fortunately, truth is not on the side of the petty bourgeois, and that's not how History works.
When it comes to orphanages, pupils of the crown have again something in common (but wiki is very incomplete, hope that some here will help them)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haut_de_la_Garenne#Child_abuse_investigation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_child_abuse_investigation_2008
Posted by: Mina | Jul 24 2021 15:39 utc | 78
hopehely @75
Well, I suppose...
But there is a big difference. The fascists picked that fight. Picking fights is what the big business elites recruit and pay them for. That is what fascism exists for. If the big capitalists didn't need armies of goons to kill and terrorize working people for them then there would be no fascists.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 24 2021 15:39 utc | 79
@ 62 sushi quote "What Canada really needs is a Victims of Colonialism memorial. " bang on! that and to get rid of the connection to the royalty of the british empire... we could begin to move forward... instead this memorial is about more propaganda - plain and simple... our politicians want to push propaganda... pushing an acknowledgement of fact doesn't come nearly as easy....
@ weaver - thanks for your posts... i am curious your response to @ 77 vk at this point...
@ arby.. thanks for the link...
Posted by: james | Jul 24 2021 16:00 utc | 80
@ 28 dh.. correct... i think she worked with the financial times paper and left because she was going to write a biography on soros.. not sure what happened to the last part...
@ 68 tucenz.... i have heard the rumour... not sure... trudeau senior was friends with castro - back at a time when canada seemed to have a degree of independence from the usa... his wife margaret - justins mom - was whacky enough and trudeau senior was freedom minded enough - it would be possible... i doubt it is true, but the rumour persists...
Posted by: james | Jul 24 2021 16:18 utc | 81
When discussing global geopolitical actors share their backers and bankers.
Chrystia Freeland is a NEOCON and an Operative of the Financial Empire. She is a close friend of George Soros. She happens also to be a friend of Victoria Nuland, and a passionate supporter of her coup in Ukraine. It seems like she has big sponsors in Canada and at the global level. Canada is a member of Six Eyes 👁
There is a good concentration of Empire’s families in Canada. Canada is a suzerainty of the Financial Empire.
It is great that Saruman and Sauron’s Orcs like Chrystia are easy to identify!
How Chrystia Freeland Organised Donald Trump’s Coup in Venezuela...
What are Chrystia Freeland‘s characteristics that are in common with other global operatives?
Posted by: Max | Jul 24 2021 16:18 utc | 82
james, b's post causes me to wonder how the Quebecois (sorry if that is misspelled - spellcheck seems to be okay with it) are taking all this, if you know.
And also on the point you raise about vk's dispute with Weaver above, I chanced back in time on a relevant work of nonfiction, that I think is fair to both sides of the issues being discussed. It would be a good read for both you and karlof1 to consider: "Echoes of a Native Land - Two Centuries of a Russian Village" by Serge Schmemann.
Posted by: juliania | Jul 24 2021 18:20 utc | 83
It seems that I am the only person who knows what fascism really is. So strange, this world is! Fascism is NOT some type of social system. Mussolini was himself a fascist, but still did not understand what it truly is. Fascism is a state of MIND. So, a fascist government is simply a government that is ruled by individuals who possess the fascist state of mind. So a country with a communist social system could be ruled by fascists, and thus be communist and fascist simultaneously.
The fascist mind-set operates like this -- The fascist individual thinks of him/her self as vastly more wise than the common folks. And she/he is absolutely sure that the true natural order of the world requires that wise, hip individuals such as him/her must rule the deluded masses. This state of affairs tends to lead to war, since the deluded masses are completely expendable, and a side effect of a condition of war is that it keeps the fascist rulers in power.
I have known three fascists in my time. One of them was a relatively humble newspaper reporter. One of them owned nothing, was being evicted, and was becoming homeless. No amount of loserdom has any effect upon the fascist state of mind.
@Posted by: vk | Jul 24 2021 15:38 utc | 77
It should be added also that the new "Checkmate" jet only happened because the Putin regime arrived in time to save what was left of the Russian defence industry. A few more years of Yeltsin and it would have all been gone / owned by the US/Western MIC. The West came very close to a full win with Russia. I am reading the book "How China Escaped Shock Therapy" by Isabella M. Weber, and it shows how close China came to full blown shock therapy in the late 1980s. We are lucky to be where we are, with a real opposition to the Western neoliberal project.
Roger
Posted by: Roger | Jul 24 2021 18:43 utc | 85
@DG #54
Just because there are Nazi sympathizers in Canada doesn't mean Nazis didn't get into South America.
There are pockets of Ukrainians in South America as well...
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 24 2021 18:45 utc | 86
oh canada
our stolen native land
true colonial greed
murdering each band
and with the church we anglicized
the aboriginals
from coast to coast
we killed them all
First Nations and Metis
o canada
rewriting history
sold to the USA
another butchering thief
o canada
vassal in Chief
Posted by: ld | Jul 24 2021 18:58 utc | 87
@Skiffer #52
I agree with your commentary.
What people fail to realize - deliberately or stupidly - is that there are overarching geopolitical issues underlying many Soviet policies.
Among many:
The collapse of multi-generational power structures following World War 1 meant the long simmering discontent of Russian peasantry and middle/lower middle classes was going to explode in some way. Unlike the American Revolution - where the homegrown oligarchs were seeking more independence for their own dominance of American society rather than ongoing long distance subservience to the British crown, the failure of the Kerensky government could be seen as inevitable.
Furthermore, this same destruction of existing power structures meant that the ties holding Imperial Russia together: the feudal layers binding ethnically and geographically diverse regions and peoples together, was also gone.
Add into the mix - the long stirring spoons of foreigners - it should not be surprising that extremely harsh methods had to be employed to stop the secessionists both present and future (back then).
I would also argue that the unanticipated problems with Marxism-Leninism as practiced in the Soviet Union - the elevation of bureaucrats into certainly a class level if not an actual hereditary oligarchy - while inevitable from a cynical view of human ambition, still had to be witnessed in reality.
Nonetheless the October Revolution and the 1949 Chinese Communist victory have both resulted in formerly 2nd and 3rd class nations becoming relevant, if not necessarily first world (yet).
And this was done without either the subjugation of almost an entire continent's worth of Indians or massive foreign colonialism.
Posted by: c1ue | Jul 24 2021 18:58 utc | 88
Conservative movements in the anglosphere at this point depend on appeals to reflexive anti-communism among ethno-nationalists and genocidaires who fled their homelands after victorious communist-led revolutions there. This is the case with Ukrainian fascists, who fled to Kanada following their defeat by the Red Army, as well as for fractions of Asian-American and Latin American communities in the US who were among the first waves of "exiles" from Vietnam, Cuba, and so on.
Sometimes there are legitimate grievances. Cubans who left during the "special period," for example, don't deserve to be called "gusanos." But the influence of those first waves of anti-communist activists planted the seeds of a conservatism that made future waves of immigrants more likely to be exploited by capitalists within their own communities as well as poisoned the well against re-distributive social policies here in America. American conservatives love to weaponize ethnic anti-communism, especially against white liberals, and to equate Stalin's purges or the excesses of Chinese Red Guards to nationalizing health insurance companies or having actual public housing instead of slumlord subsidies like Section 8. It's a match made in heaven.
Posted by: fnord | Jul 24 2021 19:23 utc | 89
In response to vk@77,
Your response perfectly illustrates the point I was trying to make, though the question, I believe, is more effective if it is allowed to remain rhetorical so as to let people make up their own minds.
Also, just as a side note, I reserved the revanchist moniker specifically for the Whites, which you yourself point out had the objective of restoring the throne and who sought to rectify the "treasonous" treaty of Brest-Litovsk. That, in turn, makes the civil war revanchist also, but that's beside the point.
The point I was trying to make, was that a White Russia would unlikely have recognized the independence of Poland, Belarus, Ukraine or the Baltic states and would be going into the post-WW1 period with extraterritorial claims against its neighbors. Coupled with the very probable continuing political turmoil within the country, with the accompanying clamp-down on left-leaning ideology to prevent the resurgence of what would soon be called "Judeo-Bolshevism" and, well, certain developments start to seem possible that make our time-line feel fairly tame in comparison.
Posted by: Skiffer | Jul 24 2021 19:49 utc | 90
b you may want to do some house cleaning of antisemitic reactionaries in the comments.
Posted by: Сesare | Jul 24 2021 20:07 utc | 91
Please share the content that exposes the DECEITS of the Financial Empire.
Many good citizens (individuals with conscience, common sense & courage) of humanity are exposing the deceits and crimes of the Evil Financial Empire. It can’t hide anymore! Everyday the Evil Empire gets closer to its END! There is too much distortion and distraction in the comments.
A good overview of Empire’s deceits, long term plans and global actors is presented in Guido Preparata's book - Conjuring Hitler. Highly recommend reading this book. It is free and available in the pdf format. Guido has given interviews too. One really understands how deceit is executed in geopolitics from this book. The Empire’s (Britain and the U$A) plans of the 20th century are presented in depth.
Please don’t be distracted by “isms” too. Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Liberalism, Neo-liberalism... all have a CENTRAL BANK and thereby centrally planned economies. One gets closer to reality by understanding the history of central banks. Who creates money in these “isms”? In a Non-communism economy, the Global Power Players control the capitalists who owns the corporations and the State. In a communism economy the power players control the State which controls the corporations.
How to achieve checks and balance of the power in a country and the world? Create sovereign money, distribute power, install checks and balances, bring accountability, trade in respective national currencies,...
The Financial Empire wants to build a global empire by PrivatiZation and DemocratiZation through the Global Monetary Grid - Global Financial Syndicate (GMG – GFS) & Control Grid – Supranational Deep State (GCG - SDS 👁), owned by the Global Powers. Interesting times!
Are you a good citizen of humanity or an Orc (individual without conscience)?
Posted by: Max | Jul 24 2021 20:08 utc | 92
Following nazi logic Hitler is the biggest victim of communism! He deserves hugest monument of them all. Preferably on the Moon.
Posted by: Beebee | Jul 24 2021 20:19 utc | 93
blues @84 "Fascism is a state of MIND." and then more with "The fascist individual thinks of him/her self as vastly more wise than the common folks."
So basically all of the liberals in the US are fascists? The ones who think they understand "Trumpists", and think they know better what is right and good for society? All of the "journalists" and mass media producers who are trying their hardest now to gaslight western populations into their own highly jaundiced understanding of right-thought?
These people are certainly not the wise and noble heroes that they would be cast as in their own TV dramas if they could write them, but they are not really fascists either. Fascists always employ organized physical violence and intimidation in service of a society's wealthy business elites and against working people. Whether we are talking about death squads in Honduras or Colombia (or anywhere in Latin America), Islamic headchoppers in Syria, slavers in Libya, Banderite Nazis in Ukraine, or black bloc cockroaches in Hong Kong, the fascists employ violence against working people to further the interests of the business elites, and most typically the business elites in the US because, you know, empire is all about business.
It is correct that there is no unifying philosophy between all of these disparate fascist groups. Religion? Israel is full of Jewish fascists, and Latin American death squads tend towards Catholicism, and Islamic death squads don't even need to be mentioned as they are understood. Fascist Hindu death squads? Of course! There have even been Buddhist ones, so it isn't a particular religion that is at fault, but rather that religion is one of a number of handy "handles" that the wealthy can use to remote control their terror gangs.
Nationalism? Another handle for controlling the goons, but any nation will do, even purely fictitious ones like the "Islamic State", and not all fascists care about any state.
Race? The Tonton Macoute were Black, and of course Israeli fascists are Jewish. Racial hatred might be used to recruit and "motivate" fascists, but it isn't any particular race that is targeted.
Ultimately the ideology of any fascist group will be entirely unique and tailored to the particular context in which the group was formed and the particular needs of the rich people who paid to have the fascist gangs created. This is how you end up with the bizarre spectacle of a fascist group that labels itself anti-fascist! Indeed, fascist groups rarely identify themselves as fascist and are often only identified as such by outside observers.
The unifying factor is that the fascist gangs' targets are always working people that some rich and powerful people want beaten down.
It is important to note, however, that the middle classes in a society, while not necessarily fascist themselves, always play an important role in the rise of fascist gangs. The mass media, law enforcement, and state and business institutions enable and facilitate the ascendance of fascists. You cannot have fascism arise without narrative support from the mass media.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jul 24 2021 20:20 utc | 94
In response to c1ue@88,
All very true. Of course, the human cost of these achievements shouldn't be overlooked, nor likewise costly failures -- indians or not. When viewed within its proper historical context, recollections of these events take on characteristics one will recognize in any recorded human endeavour, making it difficult to dismiss or categorize out of hand.
But to vilify, which I take it is the task at hand, one must dehumanize the villain and ennoble the presumed victim. It's a purely theatrical ploy, cynically exploiting the suffering of individuals, who these so-called humanists likely wouldn't even deign to spit on if they caught fire.
Posted by: Skiffer | Jul 24 2021 20:20 utc | 95
@Posted by: Сesare | Jul 24 2021 20:07 utc | 91 "b you may want to do some house cleaning of antisemitic reactionaries in the comments."
Now, I am interested.
I have learned anytime someone want's another's opinion censored for being "anti-semitic", I should carefully examine those comments because they sometimes expose some ugly uncomfortable truths.
For example, any exposure of Israeli war-crimes and atrocities committed against Palestinians are labeled "anti-semitic".
So Cesare, what posts are so offensive? I will reread them with fresh eyes.
Posted by: Mar man | Jul 24 2021 20:24 utc | 96
Posted by: hopehely | Jul 24 2021 14:45 utc | 72
Here you have the wiktionary.ru definition of Khomyak, it is a living thing, a hamster but in everyday language it is a lemming, a zombie, a follower, a concept that does not sound as nice as free land for everyone, never mind the natives.
https://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D1%85%D0%BE%D0%BC%D1%8F%D0%BA
Franco if not associated with that most mediocre dictator is a word that sounds fine, open, european, french. Paco is ok too, shares the same origin than Franco, but Pancho sounds even better when followed by Patton.
Posted by: Paco | Jul 24 2021 20:27 utc | 97
@William Gruff
Nice boiling down.
If fascism is just utilised gangs, what do you mean by facism as a movement fostered by demographic support?
Posted by: Wanderer | Jul 24 2021 20:29 utc | 98
@Skiffer 52 "Obviously, the more distant the break-off point, the more complex and fanciful our analysis becomes, so killing off Marx in his infancy is akin to stepping on some bug during the Jurassic period -- the results are too unpredictable. But, if we accept the power struggle in Russia as a done deal, we can nudge the chain of events to have the Whites win the revolution and ask ourselves whether that would have a desirable impact on history going forward."
This still seems extremely fanciful to me.
My personal preference is to accept history as a perfectly deterministic process. There's only one universe, and what is happening here is the only possible, predetermined, chain of events. There is no free will. Inshallah, everything is already written. People die, everybody dies, and they are not victims of any -ism.
Posted by: Mao Cheng Ji | Jul 24 2021 20:37 utc | 99
@ Posted by: c1ue | Jul 24 2021 18:58 utc | 88
The Bolsheviks knew the USSR wasn't socialism.
First, they hoped Russia would be just the first domino to fall - socialism would find its critical mass in Germany, which had the industry and the proletariat to help to found socialism. This hope - the "world revolution" phase - lasted until October 1923, when the second attempt of a German Revolution failed miserably.
Then, the Bolsheviks entered the phase of the "retreat" to some forms of capitalist production, the NEP. Lenin called it "a retreat", and then came up with the infamous term "State Capitalism". People nowadays enshrined the term, and Europe is using it to describe post-Mao China, but Lenin used the term merely to describe the policies of the Bolsheviks for NEP, not that the USSR had become a State Capitalist nation. There were never any illusions with the NEP. It was during this period that the USSR made a deal with the UK and then other countries, and when some individual deals with American capitalists were done. Far-right scholars cherry pick those isolated cases which mostly never got out of the paper to state there was some kind of Judeo-Bolshevik conspiracy around October 1917, but this is nonsense: almost all of the deals struck with the Wall Street bankers (who were just intermediaries of the deal) were successfully blocked by the USG when it discovered them.
The NEP collapsed in 1927-1929. It collapsed because, long story short, the peasantry was a living fossil of the feudal/Tsarist times, and there was a limit to which the Bolsheviks could give in to their class interests until the economy started to stagnate, deindustrialize and then finally collapse. By 1928, everything started to break down, including grain production. It was in this period that the doctrine of "Socialism in One Country" was consolidated as the de facto official doctrine of the USSR (it already existed since Lenin's death). "Socialism in One Country" did not mean literally socialism in one country: it was just a slogan used to delineate the fact that, with the recovery and encroachment of capitalism around the USSR, the Soviet proletariat had to industrialize with its own means (i.e. without importing machines and technology from Germany and the USA).
The process of discussion on the end of the peasantry as the dominant class in the USSR ("the liquidation of the kulaks as a class") during the period of 1926-1929 is very well documented and is kinda fascinating. The process of industrialization of the USSR was extremely counter-cyclical by capitalist standards and could only become a reality in an environment where a Marxist party was in power. There's no chance Russia (USSR) would industrialize the way it did in so short time with anybody other than the Bolsheviks. It was a completely unnatural process by capitalist standards.
Last but not least, there's this discussion going on in the USA nowadays about the concept of "Leftism" (or, leftism as some kind of underground Marxism bringing the USA down from within).
It's extremely important to have in mind that the Bolsheviks didn't consider themselves on the Left at all. They put themselves in the dead center of the spectrum, if there was one. If you read the endless documentation available from this era, you can see the Bolsheviks never called themselves "the Left" or "leftists"; they called themselves "Bolsheviks" or "communists" (the party and party members, not the economic system). They called their government most often "Soviet power" (not "leftist") or "proletarian government". They only used the term "socialism" in strictly economic policy contexts, for example "socialist reforms", "socialist forms of production" (in opposition to capitalist reforms or capitalist forms of production).
But definitive proof the Bolsheviks put themselves at the center, and not on the left, was the fact that they openly fought against "leftist deviations" (Trotskyism et al) and then against "rightist deviations" (Bukharin et al). The fact that they considered themselves susceptible to deviations through the Left and the Right is a indication by logic they put themselves on the center (although they never used the term itself; it was always "the Party", or "Soviet Power", or, in some cases, "Leninism").
It is a myth there was some kind of Leftist identity or Leftist brotherhood, let alone a Leftist conspiracy. Evidence of this comes from the fact that the Social-Democrats and Trade-Unionists from the West were the mortal enemies of the Bolsheviks. They all, without exception, allied with the right (and, in Germany's case, with Nazi-Fascism) to exterminate the Communists (representatives of the Third International) in their respective countries. There was a pathetic, last and desperate attempt to make some kind of amends in the Unionist front with the infamous "Two-and-a-Half International", but it was an immediate failure - a failure which didn't surprise any of the sides. The Bolsheviks were treated as enemies by the Social-Democrats (the true "Leftists" the West talks about nowadays) from the very beginning, even before the October Revolution.
It's also a myth (which Weaver tried to perpetrate here) that the Bolsheviks were some kind of Jewish sect. Yes, there was a disproportional number of Jews in the high echelon of the Bolshevik Party during the revolutionary phase, but they were never close to be a majority in the party in general. Most importantly, Lenin wasn't a Jew.
The reason for this is simple: historical accident. Marx's works came to Russia from the West. The ethnicity which was most Westernized in Russia were the Jewish Germans from the Volga and the Ukrainian regions, even though St. Petersburg was the most cosmopolitan. So, this was just a case analogous to the Asian-Americans proportionately getting into the Ivy League and the MIT in the USA. There was another historical accident: the original Russian Social-Democratic Party had a Menshevik, a Bolshevik... and a Jewish faction, called "Bund". So, the Jewish component was already present during the Social-Democratic era. The Bund dissolved, and had no part in the consolidation of the Bolsheviks as a sole party.
--//--
@ Posted by: Skiffer | Jul 24 2021 19:49 utc | 90
There are not so much documentation that tells the story from the point of view of the White Army. This is not a surprise, as they were essentially a Frankenstein army of mercenaries, made of the most variegated remnants of the Tsarist Army (most of them were monarchists, but not all of them).
The few evidence we have don't indicate the Whites even paid attention to the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. All indicates they were simply interested in undoing the land reforms and restoring the old privileges of the nobility from the Tsarist era. They seemed to be more interested in recovering the private property lost than with correcting any kind of alleged anti-nationalist deviation. It couldn't have been different, as they were financed by French, English and American capital (which would make them more and not less likely to be pro-Poland, as Poland was UK-France's main ally at the time).
The Tsar already was a non-factor by the time of the February Revolution. He had already given up. The Romanovs were so irrelevant politically that they were only killed in 1918 - one year after the October Revolution - and only because there was an general anti-White popular fervor in the RSFSR after the White Army made significant advances. They were killed without the Politburo even knowing it, and they were not the only ones killed during this period: many pro-capitalist elements also perished.
The comments to this entry are closed.
I have noticed anyone repeating the "Uyghur genocide" narrative in western media either have agenda or simply have no idea what they are talking about.
As if any western country has truly cared about Chinese citizens and their plights. Especially Muslim Chinese.
Meanwhile, NATO countries DO actually commit Muslim genocides all over the Middle East and Afghanistan.
The crocodile tears and hypocrisy are breathtaking.
Posted by: Mar man | Jul 23 2021 18:23 utc | 1