Communism: An Unmitigated Disaster

http://www.acting-man.com/?p=51692

In Remembrance of the October Revolution

October 26, 2017 | Author Antonius Aquinas
   


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Communism: An Unmitigated Disaster

This October marks the centennial anniversary of the Bolshevik takeover of Russia and the establishment of Soviet-style Communism which tragically, for the Russian people, would last for some seventy interminable years.  Not only did the Soviet regime liquidate and imprison millions, but its idiotic system of central planning impoverished the country, turning it into an economic basket case, the effects of which reverberate to this day.
 
The communist monster – Vladimir Ulyanov, a.k.a. Lenin. The New York Times was brimming with apologias for communism on the occasion of the revolution’s centennial this year. Apparently word was given to the vast hordes of Marxists still infesting society that they were free to use the platform to publish editorials explaining why the whole thing wasn’t so bad after all. For instance, in one of these screeds we learned that Lenin was a “great environmentalist” because he decided that vast stretches of no-man’s land in the Soviet Union should be designated nature reserves. As one can easily determine by looking at a map of Russia, this is no great feat, since there are large areas with a population density reminiscent of the Sahara. Lenin’s legacy as an environmentalist certainly pales against his crimes (it was not mentioned if any “New Soviet Men” inhabited these regions and whether they were forcibly relocated or exterminated to preserve the pristine state of these areas). Lenin had second thoughts on the unworkable socialist economic system in his later years and introduced the so-called “New Economic Policy”, as the country was on the verge of suffering a famine. This concession to the superiority of capitalism was hastily reversed by Stalin at the cost of millions of lives by means of state-sponsored starvation. Food production crashed due to the coercive collectivization of all economic activity and the former “bread basket” Ukraine became the scene of one of the largest and most brutal democides in human history. But hey, Lenin was a great environmentalist! And didn’t he say that if you wanted to make an omelet, you had to break a few eggs? Stalin concluded that if you want to make a really big omelet, you have to break millions of eggs. [PT]
 

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Just as bad, the Bolsheviks murdered the last Czar, Nicholas II and his family, brutally ending nearly five hundred years of monarchical rule of Russia.  Within a year of the demise of the Russian aristocracy, two other of Europe’s venerable royal houses – Germany and Austria – met the same fate, all three casualties of their insane decision to participate in World War I.  The end of the German Court and especially that of Austria came at the vengeful insistence of then President Woodrow Wilson, who brought the US into the conflict on the pledge to make the “world safe for democracy.”
 
Czar Nicholas II surrounded by his family in 1913. From left to right: Olga, Maria, Nicholas II, Alexandra Fyodorovna, Anastasia, Alexei, and Tatiana. The entire family was eventually executed by the communists. The Russian czars were no slouches when it came to forcibly suppressing political opposition in Russia, and it was hardly surprising that those formerly at the receiving end of the attention of his secret police were set on revenge. The fact that the children were innocent was not considered a mitigating factor in their case though, and it was quite telling that the Bolsheviks had no compunction about murdering them as well. Evidence that their system would be utterly ruthless and completely bereft of even a shred of humanity proliferated from day one. The earliest years of Bolshevik rule in Soviet Russia became known as the “Red Terror”.  It wouldn’t be the last time the system engaged in a murderous rampage. The stupid children supporting socialism nowadays evidently have not the foggiest idea what would await them if it came back to power. Since only very few of them would become members of the tiny privileged ruling elite, they would soon realize that their choice would be between gulag and/or death, or knuckling under and leading an empty life in a decaying dystopia so utterly boring and stifling it defies imagination. [PT]
 
The triumph of the Bolsheviks and the downfall of the German and Austrian monarchies ushered in the Age of Democracy, as other Western constitutional republics at the time and in each passing year began to resemble and adopt features of their supposed Communist foes.
As the 20th century wore on, each Western nation state became more “democratic,” increasing their welfare/warfare state apparatus, imposing more and more radical egalitarian social and economic measures, and adopting greater amounts of economic planning mostly through central banking.  Not only did economic activity become increasingly affected by monetary policy, but central banks were instrumental in the eradication of the gold standard throughout the Western world.
Not only did Communism prove to be a disaster economically in Russia and everywhere else it was tried, but socialism had other debilitating effects.  The quality of the population declined along with the number of ethnic Russians, a trend that ominously continues to this day.
While ingenuity was stifled by the Soviet command economy, its culture, although never as advanced as that of Western Europe, became sterile and overshadowed by the heavy hand of the commissar.  The only memorable literature produced during the period were accounts of the gulag and the repression of dissent.  Music and the arts were similar cultural wastelands.
 
Socialist realism style sculptures. Today these monuments are interesting curiosities, a reminder of how art was used for propaganda purposes in the Soviet Bloc (note that Nazi Germany’s state-sponsored art shared many traits with Soviet art). If you had to live with them, these things certainly got old real fast. Below we show a few monuments that were erected in the former Yugoslavia. Artists were apparently encouraged to create abstract monstrosities there that look like science fiction movie sets. We believe those are actually a lot more interesting, but once again, there was very little stylistic variety. A remarkable feature is the sheer megalomania of many Soviet-era sculptures. For instance, “The Motherland Calls”, a statue of a woman on a hill near Volgograd, is quite possibly the tallest such monument in the world. A very similar giant statue (“Mother of the Motherland”) assaults one’s eyes in Kiev. [PT]
 

Retrogressive Democracies

The West, too, as its nation states became more socialistic and egalitarian, witnessed retrogression in every aspect of society.  The catastrophic drop off in the size of native populations can largely be attributed to crazed feminism, where women were encouraged and given privileges to pursue careers and become “working moms,” which led to the phenomenon of the “dysfunctional family” and declines in the number of child births.
Hans-Hermann Hoppe explains this effect in the American context:
 

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In the U.S., […] less than a century of full-blown democracy has resulted in steadily increasing moral degeneration, family and social disintegration, and cultural decay in the form of continually rising rates of divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, and crime.
 As a result of an ever-expanding list of non-discrimination – ‘affirmative action’ – laws and nondiscriminatory, multicultural, egalitarian immigration policies, every nook and cranny of American society is affected by government management and forced integration.*

 
Hoppe’s seminal demolition of Democracy. Even more translations are out in the meantime, red-pilling people all over the world. The book is an inexhaustible fount of quotable statements, but this actually has a certain disadvantage, as it is very easy to distort the message by taking quotes out of context (as e.g. discussed here). The book is no doubt provocative, and Hans-Hermann Hoppe is well-known for not pulling any punches. But whether one agrees with everything he writes or not (it is best to keep an open mind about that), it is a highly recommended read. The point we want to make is this: do not rely on anyone’s summary or on scattered quotes from the book you may have encountered somewhere. Read the whole thing and think the arguments carefully through. A rudimentary understanding of economic theory may be helpful in grasping some of the points Hoppe conveys, but it is not a sine-qua-non precondition. [PT]
 
A primary reason why the quality of Western life has crumbled so markedly has been the replacement of its “natural elites” with “political elites” via the democratic process.  Every society is led by its leading individuals who through talent, hard work, brains, foresight, moral fortitude, fairness, and bravery come to the top and are looked to for guidance.
Under democratic conditions, however, the natural elites have, in a sense, been “voted out” by the political class, whose members, instead of out-competing their rivals, secure their status by politics mostly through demagogy.
In Soviet Russia, the natural elites were ruthlessly purged by Lenin’s forces and over time any sort of advancement or achievement had to come via the Communist Party.
Despite the overwhelming failure of socialism, Western nation states continue to practice many of its features, a most notorious recent example being that of the passage of Obamacare, the first step on the road to universal health care in the US.  America itself resembles more of a police state than ever before with the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security and the passage of draconian legislation such as the Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The October Revolution should be remembered for what it was: the inauguration of mankind’s first total state.  It, and the social system it spawned, should be roundly condemned by all those who seek prosperity and an advanced civilization.
References:
 

Quote :

*Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed. The Economics and Politics of Monarchy, Democracy, and Natural Order. New Brunswick (U.S.A.): Transaction Publishers, 2001, p. xiii.

 
Image captions by PT
 

Bonus Picture: Alien Planet – Abstract Art in the Former Yugoslavia

 
We are not sure why these abstract monuments are so liberally dotting the landscape of the territory of the former Yugoslavia (successor states: Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia and Kosovo), but many of them are quite striking. Note that this is just a small selection, many more of these can be found there and all of them look as though they were left behind by space aliens. Such a wide variety of giant abstractions made of concrete and seemingly placed arbitrarily in the middle of nowhere doesn’t exist anywhere else as far as we know. [PT]
 
Antonius Aquinas is an author, lecturer, a contributor to Acting Man, SGT Report, The Burning Platform, Dollar Collapse, The Daily Coin and Zero Hedge. Contact him at antoniusaquinas[at]gmail[dot]com https://antoniusaquinas.com/.