Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Communist leaders

As the IB seniors know, we've been studying four major communist leaders over the past couple of weeks (if you dont know,a) you have probably been living under a rock and, b) Mr. Brown will come after you wish his little spray bottle):
Stalin, Lenin, Castro, and Mao

How could they justify the murders, corruption and other atrocities? Was it faith that they were doing the right thing for the country? Or was it personal ambition? Or a combination of both?

While reading Crime and Punishment, I found a quote from Svidrigailov "...Reason is the slave of passion, you know, why, probably, i was doing more harm to myself than anyone!" (280) Does this apply to the people under these leaders? The Chinese population of the time (especially the children who were being educated) seemed to worship Mao, saw him as a god, and wouldn't even wash their hands if he had shook them. Yet, the famine that was a result of his "vision" for the country killed millions, and he would kill anyone believed to be a rightist. Did the peoples adoration blind them to this? Or was it fear (isn't there a syndrome like this in kidnappings...? I may be totally making this up, but I think the kidnappee starts to like their abductor...)?

17 comments:

riverJordan said...

Not to attack you or your question in any way Dani, but I honestly think that the very act of asking for a reasoning behind the atrocious acts that some of the these men committed is to take away the weight of the actions themselves. Killing millions of people in a concentration camp or gulag, whatever it is called at the time, is a monsterous act, pure and simple. To attempt to justify it with any sort of meaning is just as horrific as the killings themselves. If you can rationalize something, you can rationalize it into oblivion just as quickly.

It is my firm point of view that you simply cannot teach this sort of history. At least, not in the same way that one may approach say colonialization. What you are looking at is so far from your own experience that it can't be explained, and never should be.

What I'm saying really is to rationalize the act is no better than to commit it yourself. It may sound harsh, but you're trying to place reason where none ever, and will ever lay.

Mr. Pseudonym said...

No offense riverJordan, but to say that colonialization is easier to learn than about the communist's revolutions is a tad contradictory. Are you simply saying that learning of genocide is less palatable than wholesale ethnicide? Yes, it is true that they committed terrible atrocities, but it is really our job to try and understand what they were thinking. "Know thine enemy to know thyself." The colonization of the America's was horrible as well, and the slaughter of entire cultures was a horrible, horrible aspect of it, but apparently more acceptable than other mass murders?
I do understand your point of view. No one like learning of the concentration camps, or the gulag, or any of that, but if we ignore it we are just revising history to make it soft and gentle. History isn't.

More to the original point, however, is that you have to realize that these people say the slaughter just as a means, and in their minds then ends justified the means. There is no real excuse for their actions, but it is in some way similar to one of the attributes associated with god, that he allows suffering now to make salvation that much sweeter, or to make salvation possible. After all, without sin, there is no forgiveness for it; and similarly without blood there is no communism. The Manifesto made it clear that there would be a lot of deaths, but that in the end it would be a-ok! and they used the justification of the almighty Marx as the basis for their amoral acts.

Dani said...

I'm not asking for excuses through rationalization, but what their personal reasoning was for why these acts were acceptable.

I don't understand how the reasoning takes away from the act...if anything i find it to make it worse. Consider Raskolnikov, his reasoning is pretty vague, Ivanovna was "a louse" so thats a justification for killing her. That act of atrocity where a man kills two people because he doesn't consider one to be a detriment to society.

Thanks Wolf! That helps a lot, even though i don't see how they can claim to be contemporaries of Marx, but I guess thats another "end that justifies the mean". However, wouldn't the populace see this? That he is not the god they thought he was? I understand the sin/forgiveness, good/evil duality but I don't see how that could be acceptable.

Sierra Tamkun said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sierra Tamkun said...

I think that both Jordan and Wolf have excellent points, but honestly, I feel like we over analyse alot of the time. Here's an example. Next election. Obama runs, alright? He runs, and let's say (and really, this is hypothetical, I don't know all of his policies, this is an example, so read it as such) what he says makes sense to more than just the democrats. Suddenly, inexplicably, he is appealing to lots of people, to most people. What he wants to do seems like it will really benefit the country. he denounces the Bush administration, winning the support of some, and then proceeds to suggest new reforms that will benefit all, winning over more of the population. And then there's the election, and Obama '08 fliers are everywhere. And he wins. And everyone is so happy. But the fliers don't go away. Obama is now on TV, on commercials, giving weekly addresses, posters with his smiling face grace our streets, schools are filled with Obama, he's everywhere. And from what you hear, he's doing great! the country is wonderful, production is up, troops are leaving Iraq, the national economy is growing, and enviromental polution is down! Granted, you hear this on the news, but why would that lie to you? And then he comes to your town, to speak to you, and you're lucky enough, as he leaves, to shake his hand. That hand touched a great man.

People didn't know better. it was the personality cult. The dictators freed the people from teh old regime, and so they must be good, right? It isn't a justification. But many times, people see what they want to see. They let these things happen.

Oh, and all genecide is horrible. Whether it was teh persecution of the Native Americans here or the concentration camps or Darfur, it's terrible. And it happens moe than just once. I think we focus on The 20th century and forget that it has happened before, many many times before.

Mr. Pseudonym said...

Of course Sierra, now we have some more safe guards in place, like the blagosphere, which is harder to control than other forms of media.

Dani said...

Sierra that is incredible. Thanks a ton, it is a fabulous analogy.

Dani said...

However, wouldn't it become obvious what was happening since its a fairly major part of history? And as wolf said, what about the internet/ People would have access to information that could persuade them otherwsie. What would have happened had the populace known about Mao's famine?

Mr. Pseudonym said...

There is also a lot more criticism of our leaders then there was then. You must realize that they came into power when the President was still respected. It was easier to fall into that kind of trap when one is less critical of their government.

Dani said...

Critical or skeptical? Or cautious?

riverJordan said...

ok- It's not skirting around the hard parts of history, Wolf. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be taught. Period. I'm saying that a person shouldn't try to put a rational meaning behind what was going through Hitler or Stalins minds' while they were killing off millions of people! And yes, Sierra, the people didn't know better due to the extreme tact and manipulation those leaders excersied in the government controlled media. And the ones who did were certainly in no position to speak up otherwise.

And, I recently read an article by Stephen King in which he recounts what would happen to Hitler should he be confronted by some of the bloggers/talkshow hosts today. Place him on Harball with Jimmy Stewart and see where he is then.

All that I was/am trying to say is why try to find reason where obviously none existed? Yes, the events should be taught, but the inner psycology of those who sparked them should not.

katrina337 said...

riverjordan: my question to you is how can you effectively teach history without teaching it's inner psychology?

Just because you're saying the justification behind the killings doesn't mean you agree with what happened.

riverJordan said...

How can you teach history? Well, you can condem the actions of those in question outright an unprecedented horror. Why enter inner psychology and find what one could only expect from someone to commit such deeds? Besides, the role of a historian is to predict how future generations will perceive a particular event, so why should you need to know what Hitler ate for breakfast and if he wanted to have sex with his mother to do that? Hey- I know that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 and in doing so led directly or not to the killings of thousands. Do you really need to know more to make a judgement on this? Why examine what was inside the man's head when his actions speak clear enough?

katrina337 said...

Because knowing the psychology behind the actions is, in my opinion, fascinating, and I believe that to better be able to understand what's going on in the present, we need to be able to thoroughly understand what happened in the past-including psychology-wise. If you understand the basis for someone's actions, you can more effectively understand how that portion of history came into being, how it differs from the present, and how it will continue to differ in the future. I don't doubt that you can teach history without teaching the inner psychology, but I'm arguing that you can't teach history effectively without also teaching the psychology of it.

riverJordan said...

Well- I certainly don't think that "fascinating" is a word that I would enjoy using when refering to a man who tortured and killed millions of people. If you want inner psycology, go study Mother Theresa, or Ghandi. Investigate why they brought all the GOOD into the world, rather than all the EVIL of Hitler or Stalin. Oh but that's right- humanitarians just aren't as interesting as mass murderers. Once again, I restate myself. Why do you need to go into Hitler's mind to determine that history will differ from it's present time. Anyway- that's an obvious point. Yes, I understand the basis for actions part, but really, there are other forces at work other than what's inside the mind and the justifications for or against it. There are a multitude of historical consequences that led up to the events which those men caused. Why not spend more time investigating those rather than the inner psycology- which in my opinion is an imperfect science anyways?

Dani said...

Who says the reasons have to be good? If you understand what was going on at the time then its less likely to be repeated. I think its invaluable to understand why they thought that they were doing something good in order to keep it from happeneing again.

Wait...why couldn't it be fascinating? The psychology, however twisted, would still be interesting (at least in my opinion). Think to crime and punishment, at least my class agreed that part of the reason its an interesting read is because of the complexity and underneath that the reasoning from Raskolnikov.

Mr. Pseudonym said...

I think that it is necessary to study their (flawed) reasoning, so that the next time someone comes and tries to use the same reasoning we can see through it. If we completely ignore the motives of those leaders then we are refusing to acknowledged it might happen again.