communism

Forward to the Failed Past

Fred Foldvary Current Events, History, Politics , , , , , ,

Some politicians like to use the slogan, “forward.” Sometimes it is more emphatic: forward!

But one may well ask, forward to what? Time and the current of events are always moving us forward already, so evidently the forward-seekers want to change the existing flow sideways. The slogan “forward” has often been used by those who seek greater state-imposed collectivism. As propaganda, “forward!” sounds better than “leftward!” or “towards ever greater statism!”

Several publications of socialist parties during the 1800’s were titled “Forward.” Lenin continued this tradition when he founded the Bolshevik newspaper “Vpered” (or “Vperyod”), which is “forward” in Russian. German socialists had already published the periodical “Vorwärts,” and the German national socialists continued the use of the slogan. Several communist and socialist parties still use “Forward” as the title of their publications. Continue reading →

Fascism and Socialism: What’s the Connection?

Brandon Christensen Liberty ,

A commentator on EconLog has a great, succinct comment in a thread produced by economist David Henderson’s post on fascism and communism. Long explains the difference between the two:

I think it has always been clear among most objective historians that there is little difference between fascism and communism. My take has always been that “fascism” was the word that leftists use to smear rightism as potentially dictatorial. Rightism *is* potentially dictatorial, but the end result is no different than dictatorial leftism.

That’s one reason among many that I like Mises’ terming fascism “socialism of the German pattern,” and communism “socialism of the Russian pattern.” It’s linguistically a little clunky, but still makes for a great terming of the concepts.

Jacques Delacroix has gone to great lengths to explain this concept as well here at NotesOnLiberty. For more on the similarities (and confusion) between fascism and communism, see Fascism Explained and How ’bout Communism?

Santa Cruz Vandals, Drums, and Left-Wing Authoritarianism

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , , , , , , ,

I live in wonderful times in a wonderful place. Important history is re-playing itself before my eyes. This a sequel to my recent previous blogs (“Freedom Fighters…” and, “The Leftist Municipality….”)

The story has to do with the fact that a few fast-moving people dressed in black caused about $100,000 worth of damage in six or seven storefronts withing three blocks of each other. (The damage cost estimate comes from the local paper. I cannot verify it.) That was in Santa Cruz, California.

The vandals came out of a demonstration of a few hundred young people with no particular agenda, except the usual vague left-wing slogans and a few more about the new Arizona law on illegal immigration . (See my posting on that too: “Illegal Immigration…,” “The Arizona Immigration Law…,” and, “Immigration: More on Conservative….”) It was supposed to be a “May Day” celebration, but May Day is the first of May and the demonstration was on the second. Well, nobody is perfect and this is a beach town.

I did not learn much from the videos on YouTube except that one demonstrator was wearing a tie. There seems to be a consensus that the window breakers were few and well prepared and that they had kept their intentions secret. I believe there were fewer than ten actively involved in the vandalism.

There were no police present at the scene for a long time. I pointed out in previous postings: 1 That the police had other priorities, and, 2 That it was not surprising that they did, given the nature of the city government. Here is more, more blatant evidence. Again, this is contemporary political history in a small capsule. Continue reading →

How ’bout Communism?

Jacques Delacroix History, Liberty, Politics , , , , , ,

Note: Most of my adult life and all of my childhood were dominated by the threat of Communism. People of my generation who wanted to know understood well the horrors of Communist societies. We knew of the slave-labor camps, of the mass executions, of the constant spying on ordinary citizens by the secret police, of the betrayals of friend by friend that were everyday life in Communist countries. We were well aware also of the grinding poverty in those countries.

I am concerned that thinking individuals who are in their twenties and even in their thirties now might know little about the reality of Communism as it was practiced. It seems to me that no one asked them to study the matter. A Russian friend of mine is going back to Russia this summer for a couple of months. If a few readers ask, I will request of my friend that he contribute to this blog from there, drawing on the memories of older friends and relatives who survived the Soviet period.

There was once a “Communist” movement whose followers were often motivated by generous impulses and by economic ignorance, in more or less equal parts. There has never been a Communist state, whatever that would be. Historically several Communist parties did achieve political power. None did so through democratic means, although the Czechoslovak Communists may have come close, in 1948. We will never know because the presence of a large contingent of the Soviet Red Army in the country forever mars the analysis. Continue reading →

Communist Dinosaurs

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , , , , , ,

I watch a French two-and-a-half-hour weekly television show that’s pretty good in most respects. It mixes no- hold-barred interviews of politicians with talks with movie directors, authors and artists, including singers.  There is a presidential election beginning in France too. It relies on an an incomplete primary system. To make a long story short, anyone with a grievance or an idea who can get 500 signatures of I don’t know whom can run. That makes for a lively and exotic first round of  balloting. In the second round, things get serious. In any case, this time, there is an explicitly “communist” candidate (Trotskyst branch). She runs for an organization that calls itself “Workers’ Struggle” (Lutte ouvriere).

It’s not clear what her party considers as “workers” but from the candidate’s choice of examples of struggle in her interview last night, there is a strong preference for conventional blue-collar and pink-collar workers. Of course, manufacturing jobs are vanishing from France as they have been doing here. People employed in manufacturing are becoming accordingly scarcer. Bad strategic bet that, defining yourself as a workers’ party when you also define workers that way, (going away, going away, gone!).

The “communist” candidate discourse is loud as it is transparent. Let me summarize: Continue reading →