----- Original Message -----
From: J. van Baardwijk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Saturday, May 26, 2001 9:52 AM
Subject: RE: The Evils of Communism (was RE: American Attitudes)
> At 12:58 25-5-01 -0400, Patrick Sweeney wrote:
>
> >Gautam Mukunda wrote:
> ><<The Soviet Union under Stalin killed _at least_ 20 million of its own
> >citizens. There was nothing under the Czars that was remotely
comparable.>>
>
> <snip>
>
> >On another tangent, don't these deaths have more to do with
> >totalitarianism than economic systems? Was it communism or the fact that
> >he was a dictator that let Stalin kill so many? Could he have been a
> >capitalist dictator and killed 20 million?
>
> Stalin (and many other leaders around the world) killed many people
because
> he was a dictator; communism had nothing to do with that. Hitler killed
> millions of people because he was a dictator (and he *certainly* wasn't a
> communist). Heck, even the Christian Church has killed an awful lot of
> people over the centuries, and most of that happened when communism wasn't
> even invented yet!
For what its worth, seperating ecconomic systems and forms of government is
not very Marxist at all. How much Marx have you read? You do know of the
dictatorship of the proleatariate, right? Marx, commenting on the US, had
very little favorable to say about democracy.
I think the term for a democratic country with ownership of the means of
production by the state is socialistic. Probably democratic socialism.
But, part of Communism is the validity of the dictatorship and prevelance of
the Communist party in society.
In short, the idea of seperating the ecconomics and the government is an
anti-Communist thought. :-)
Dan M.
