Perhaps in your view, totalitarianism isn’t fascist. I respectfully disagree, and have already supported my argument with the 15 million deaths under Stalin. We are moving toward totalitarianism in the USA, right now, as a matter of fact. Note the issues and “resolution” in Baltimore, where the state’s attorney felt it necessary to charge the police officers involved with the Freddie Gray matter with murder. Why? Because a leftist mob, screaming about what they are entitled to (from the state) wouldn’t allow any other resolution. Facts be damned. We’re not really sure what happened to Freddie Gray (other than his spine being 80% severed), but the mob wanted one, and only one resolution. They got indictments. If there isn’t a conviction, there will be more rioting. That is fascism, coupled with leftist stupidity. You see, Kun, leftism is absolutely totalitarianism, and those with opposing views need not be heard, and soon enough will be hunted down and eliminated.

There were “John Doe” home invasions in Wisconsin in the third and fourth quarters of 2013, for example, where an extremely partisan Democrat used the police to oppress those with opposing views (Republican/conservative) by barging into their homes and confiscating their computers, in an attempt to ferret out those who dared contribute to or support Scott Walker. See, District Attorney Chisholm used the law to serve his political purposes, and indeed violated the rights of ordinary, law abiding citizens in order to intimidate. He is a leftist. And leftists make no secret of their hatred…they openly say “I hate Republicans”. It won’t be long before Republicans (and really, that term is inaccurate, as the modern leftist movement in this country has pulled Republicans leftward such that they are center/left as compared with what they were in Reagan’s time) and conservatives are rounded up and imprisoned.

That is, if we don’t fight back. Note that gun and ammunition sales under Obama have reached record amounts. Also note that the government, and in particular Departments with no business being armed to the teeth, have been stockpiling ammunition and armament. This is quite disconcerting, and likely the genesis of a totalitarian take over of our country. I don’t have a plausible alternative explanation, particularly in light of Obama’s 2008 proclamation that he wanted a “civilian force as heavily armed as the US military”. Well, it looks like he’s been working toward that aim. What civilians will be heavily armed under Obama, Kun? Conservatives? Or Liberals?

Your statement about not moving to another Communist country is a cop out. Typical leftist nonsense. You are not an American, Kun, you are a malcontent. Lazy. Both intellectually and physically. It’s easier for you to support stupidity like Bernie Sanders or Lizzy Warren. Here is my suggestion to you: live Communism. Then you won’t be a lazy leftist.

Finally, your last statement is irrelevant. My point was that I learned history from people who lived it. You learned it second hand from Soviet sympathizers who likely didn’t live it either. It’s still crap.

To begin with your last posts first, production of aircraft, tanks, etc. in the UK and especially USA presumably had an advantage the USSR didn’t enjoy: the Nazis didn’t occupy huge swathes of British or American territory, nor were those two countries obliged to take entire factories apart so that they could be reassembled in portions of their countries not occupied by the enemy. The Soviets still ended up inflicting by far the most amount of casualties on the Nazis, bore the brunt of their offensive, and were still in a position to march westwards into Berlin. I could talk about wartime production numbers, but to me the more significant facts are that the Soviets defeated the Nazis despite all sorts of Western “analysts” predicting their doom at the hands of Hitler, and the fact that the Soviet people arose in unity against the Nazis precisely because, as the anti-communist hero Victor Kravchenko pointed out, they saw that what they themselves built in the 1920s and 30s was their own, and wanted no return to Tsarism or something even worse (as Nazi occupation and extermination would obviously be.)

As for your longer post…

The USSR was not a fascist state, nor is “totalitarian” a satisfactory way of analyzing governments. I already noted that the capitalists knew very well who were the true fascists, and many statesmen and businessmen welcomed the rise of fascism as a counterweight against the communists. To once again quote Mises: “The fact that the capitalists and entrepreneurs, faced with the alternative of Communism or Nazism, chose the latter, does not require any further explanation. They preferred to live as shop managers under Hitler than to be ‘liquidated’ as ‘bourgeois’ by Stalin.” Hitler in power repeatedly stated his wish to defend private property. The Soviets effectively abolished said type of property.

The USA and UK both played important roles in the wartime anti-fascist coalition, no one denies this. But what’s important is that the USSR not only played the main role in said coalition, but throughout the 1920s and 30s it was the only country which consistently opposed the fascists. While FDR was allowing American businesses to export to Franco’s Nazi- and Fascist-backed troops, while the British cabinet decided not to stand up to Hitler remilitarizing the Rhineland lest Hitler’s prestige among Germans shatter and the possibility of a communist revolt occur, while Poland discussed with the Third Reich the possibility of working with it to annex the Ukraine, etc., etc., the Soviets were calling for collective security in Europe, rendering assistance to the Spanish Republic, and so on and so forth.

“To simplify this even more, if this place is so bad, Kun, why don’t you move to Cuba? North Korea? Vietnam?”

Because I am an American. There were many Americans who emigrated abroad to the USSR and elsewhere, but they usually did this because they faced repression at home (or, during the 1930s, economic depression.) I don’t see why I have to go a country with an entirely different culture and where I will have no contact with friends and family. There’s also the fact that I doubt Cuba, the DPRK or Vietnam would love to let random Americans in just because they profess an ideological sympathy of some sort.

“Sorry, my man, my dad was GI Joe fighting the Japanese in New Guinea.”

So was Robert G. Thompson, who was later persecuted for his communist views. Hundreds (if not thousands) of communists and leftists served in the war.

Ship Production WWII:

British: 6,771
USA: 890
USSR: Under 100

So clearly, the capitalists outproduced the communists. Not only that, but if you look at the USA v USSR in tank production, most of the 106,000 soviet tanks were the POS T-34s, which were garbage tanks that took HUGE losses when confronting the Germans. Even the early Sherman was every bit the equal to the T 34, and had a better gun. Give it up Kun. The communists were/are losers. Get with the program.

Aircraft production WWII:

British: 177,025
USA: 324,000
USSR: 136,223
German: 133,387

Tank Production WWII:

British: 47,862
USA: 102,410
USSR: 106,025
German: 67,429

Ship Production WWII:

British:

But the history of the Holdomor is still contested. Census data and Soviet records have been analyzed since the initial look at the situation in the 1980′s, and still no conclusion is accepted by all sides. Records are inconsistent and the number of people who died as a result of the famine varies between historians, ranging from 3 million to 14 million dead. Causes of the starvation are debated, and the nature of the Famine as a weapon of Stalin’s regime against the Ukrainians is central to the debate. Many parties in modern Ukraine want to define the Holodomor as an act of genocide, while Russia today opposes that point of view, as do many modern historians.

Based on Soviet actions that are well documented and corroborated beyond that of communist sympathizing academics, I choose to believe that the famine was caused by Totalitarian oppression. Given that people in North Korea, China, Vietnam, and Cuba (among others) have suffered throughout the 20th and into the 21st centuries, my conclusion is that collective farming, enforced by the point of a gun or not, is a failure, as is communism, which I’ve pointed out multiple times IS A UNMITIGATED FAILURE. It has NEVER existed as a system of government on this earth. Ever. Period. No academic is going to try to back justify a position that demonstrates the pure implementation of Communism…it ALWAYS manifests as fascism/totalitarianism.

As to the history of WWII, we really wouldn’t know if the world would have successfully fended off fascism had the United States not been involved, but one thing is certain….Japan would have targeted another entity in its effort for world domination, and it would have likely been the USSR. I’m wagering that the fascists would have won without US intervention, and thus you would be an SS officer instead of a “communist” today.

To simplify this even more, if this place is so bad, Kun, why don’t you move to Cuba? North Korea? Vietnam? I’ll tell you why. Because, like the people in Zombie’s next essay, and most of his essays, you are a hypocrite. You love all of the luxuries afforded you in this capitalist society (including a lovely education system from which you seem to have benefitted) but you want to sit and throw darts at our history, selectively pointing out any flaws, real or imagined, and backed up with “history” as told by communist sympathizing academics. Sorry, my man, my dad was GI Joe fighting the Japanese in New Guinea. My Stepmother, as mentioned before, lived fascism in Paris. Their life experiences are REAL history. You know nothing but what you choose to believe from those who wish to make you into a revolutionary. It’s crap.

No, I am very obviously talking about the 1932-33 famine which gripped the Ukrainian SSR during that period and also affected other parts of the USSR.

As for Conquest, as I noted he is one of the standard bourgeois historians on the USSR under Lenin and Stalin. That being said, “In correspondence Dr Conquest has stated that it is not his opinion that ‘Stalin purposely inflicted the 1933 famine. No. What I argue is that with resulting famine imminent, he could have prevented it but put ‘Soviet interest’ other than feeding the starving first-thus consciously abetting it.’” (R.W. Davies & Stephen G. Wheatcroft. The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. 2004. p. 441.)

Collectivization itself was a massive process which did in fact involve participation on the part of both workers and peasants. Two good reads on this subject by bourgeois historians are “The Best Sons of the Fatherland” by Lynne Viola and “The Socialist Offensive” by R.W. Davies, neither inclined towards Marxism and certainly not inclined towards Stalin.

What “belligerent nationalism, and racism, militarism, etc.” characterized Soviet society in the 1930s?

The capitalist state is ruled by the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. This can assume two forms: either an open dictatorship (fascism being the most blatant form) or varying shades of bourgeois “democracy,” which, although guaranteeing some liberties for the working class, does not give it real choice or power. The issue is not between “Big Pharma” and “small pharma” or whatever. Small businesses are known as the petty bourgeoisie, they vacillate politically because they are always at the mercy of the “big” bourgeoisie yet they aren’t workers either. The bourgeois state is obliged to give the petty bourgeoisie all sorts of tax breaks and other means by which they can continue to exist (otherwise they’d be economically ruined and definitely side with working-class forces), just as that same state inaugurates welfare and other policies meant to stave off working-class revolt.

The Soviet government was able to find famine relief from a great many organizations expressing solidarity with the October Revolution in the USA, UK, France and elsewhere. As for the bourgeois famine relief operations, “Until August 1921, Herbert Hoover’s activities as Food Relief Administrator were directed toward giving direct aid to the White Russian armies and withholding all supplies from the Soviets. Hundreds of thousands starved in Soviet territory. When, finally, Hoover was compelled to bow to American public pressure and send some food to the Soviets, he continued – according to a statement by a Near East Relief official in the New York World in April 1922 – to ‘interfere with the collection of funds for famine-stricken Russia.’” (Sayers and Kahn, The Great Conspiracy: The Secret War Against Soviet Russia, 1946, p. 106.)

Saying that the USA “saved the world from fascism” is ludicrous. Bourgeois commentators were amazed by the output of Soviet wartime industry whereas before the Nazi rout at Stalingrad many of these same commentators had confidently predicted the “inevitable defeat” of the USSR. One short read on this, which you can find online, is the paper “Why didn’t the Soviet economy collapse in 1942?” Soviet troops took by far the greatest losses in combating the Nazis, something admitted to by American and British officials at the time.

And this does not change the fact that Henry Ford was awarded a medal by the Nazis, was a vicious anti-Semite and anti-communist, and a member of the America First Committee which was likewise backed by fellow Nazi apologists such as Charles Lindbergh. Of course once the USA did enter the war Ford knew he could make a profitable investment off of its proceedings, but as I already noted his plants were also operative in Nazi-occupied territories.

In fact it was the Soviets who most thoroughly de-Nazified Eastern Europe, whereas as has been recently acknowledged the West took up the support of all sorts of “former” Nazis in the battle against Communism.

*Ami Horowitz went to the UC Berkeley campus and waved the Israeli flag and the flag of the terrorist group ISIS.
*Students said nothing when they saw Horowitz waving the ISIS flag and yelling justifications for the group’s actions.
*Students were outraged at the sight of the Israeli flag, yelling f**k Israel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCBINSWCiAE&list=UUXIJgqnII2ZOINSWNOGFThA

He wouldn’t have called it “The terror famine” if it wasn’t done at the point of a proverbial gun. This supports my main point; Stalin, a so-called Communist, is no different from and in fact in many ways worse than Hitler, Mussolini, etc.

You should also shelve the Soviet propaganda and pick up Webster’s New World Dictionary for an accurate definition of fascism: A System of Government Characterized by Dictatorship, belligerent nationalism, and racism, militarism, etc. That sounds eerily similar to what Stalin was doing to the Ukrainians in the 1930s! Purging the Kulaks, making sure that “vermin” didn’t get food? Top down dictatorship forcing people to abide by his version of the Communist Manifesto? Did the Ukrainians have choices in the 1930s? Did ANYONE in the Soviet Union?

In what way does Capitalism create dictatorship? Surely you aren’t going to pull the old “I’m a victim of Big Oil/Big Pharma/Big Food/Big Auto/Big Box Stores” routine here, are you? Geez. If you don’t like WalMart, don’t shop there. On the other hand, don’t like Obamacare? Uhhhh. Oh well. Guess I gotta suck it up. The dictator has imposed his vision on me and Johnny Gruber is pretty happy that dumb little old us are paying more for inferior care. Doesn’t matter, though! He got over on US and got paid BIG!!!! At any rate, note that the United States, fascist US of A, saved millions from starvation in the 1920s. That’s right, mean old Capitalist pig-dog America saved millions of Soviet lives with famine aid. As we’ve done with dozens of other countries across the globe, throughout time.

In fact, Kun, it was the United States industrialists, including Henry Ford, who worked with FDR to churn out so many tanks, guns, planes, and ships that the superior equipment of the Germans couldn’t possibly keep up. The Soviets were damn near beaten in the winter of 1941. It’s a damn good thing that the Germans weren’t prepared for a Russian winter, and the advantage they had with their tanks was taken away by the bitter cold, the deep snow, and the subsequent thaw/mud. They say that Ford’s Willow Run plant turned out a new bomber every minute or so at the height of production. Can a Communist society do that? How about a fascist one? Nope. We saved the world from fascism BECAUSE of capitalism.

Choices, Kun. It’s about choices. Are there choices in Communism? No. Are there choices in fascism? Nope. Is there a choice in Capitalism and specifically in a capitalist Democratic Republic? Yes, until a Communist is elected, and he takes those choices away. Then it devolves to…Socialist/Communism. Which is essentially fascism. Same old story of humankind since…well, at least 1,000 years ago.

Speaking of the Ukrainian government, it has long since rehabilitated the supposed “patriots” of the Insurgent Army (UPA), which collaborated with the Nazis during the war. The idea that the famine was intentional is not taken seriously by basically all historians on the USSR. Even Robert Conquest, the foremost conservative anti-communist historian on the Stalin era, has said that it wasn’t intentional. I’ve already given sources on the famine and its causes.

As for quoting Stalin, such quotations are taken from the Soviet archives which began to open up under Glasnost and onwards, they were never meant to be seen publicly, at least not for many decades.

I am aware of the American journalist you talk about, his name was Walter Duranty. He wasn’t a communist nor even a liberal, but his reports were far more accurate than that coming out of the NYT beforehand. To quote Frederick Schumann, a historian of the USSR back in the day, in his book “Soviet Politics at Home and Abroad,” “The New York Times, not to be outdone, ran such headlines as ‘Russia a Gigantic Bedlam—Maniacs Stalk Raving Through Streets.’ In the same paper, which even then was the most accurate and reliable in the world, Lenin was constantly resigning, dying, fleeing to Berlin or Barcelona, being murdered or arrested by Trotsky, etc., while his régime was perpetually disintegrating, dissolving, collapsing, falling or otherwise passing from the scene.”

It is true that the Soviet government tried to minimize what went on in the Ukraine. The archives also note that the Soviets hid the fact they appealed to the Red Cross for help in assisting the famine victims. At the time the Soviets viewed the famine as having been carried out primarily by sabotage from the better-off peasants (i.e. kulaks) and those under their influence, and saw no reason to publicize the situation abroad (since at any rate Britain, France and the like were hardly likely to assist in any way.)

Fascism is, in fact, a specific form of capitalism. The bourgeoisie were not done away with, but in fact strengthened under such a system through close cooperation with the state and the suppression of the workers’ movement. To quote no less a person than Von Mises (speaking in the late 1920s, when praise for Mussolini’s Italy was at a high pitch):

“Against the weapons of the Bolsheviks, weapons must be used in reprisal, and it would be a mistake to display weakness before murderers. . . . Fascism can triumph today because universal indignation at the infamies committed by the socialists and communists has obtained for it the sympathies of wide circles. . . . It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error.”
(Ludwig Von Mises. Liberalism: A Socio-Economic Exposition. Kansas City, MO: Sheed Andrews and McMeel. 1978. pp. 49-51.)

If you replaced “European civilization” with capitalism you’d more or less have the Marxist analysis of fascism.