Living in a communist society (Romania, 1961 to 1989) I was ‘educated’ – like everybody else, into becoming a ‘good member of the working class’.
The indoctrination process included becoming familiar with ‘the classics’ and this was how I ended up reading some of Lenin’s ‘works’.
One concept stuck to my mind. At some point he was explaining that ideas are like axes: very sharp, able to do a lot of things but powerless without a handle to leverage the force with which they are wielded. With axes it is simple, just attach them to a wooden handle and you’re in business.
With ideas things are a little trickier. If you want them to take hold among the targeted section of the population you need to ‘seduce’/convince credible but gullible members of that group that those ideas are “good”. For the society at large and for them in particular.
In theory this should be difficult since people are (supposedly) rational.
In practice it’s not that hard. Even ‘sophisticated’ intellectuals have allowed themselves to act as ‘ax handles’. And no, I’m not going to mention a long list of prestigious people who praised communism, fascism and other aberrations.
I’ll just make good use of my memories.
In 1983, while studying Mechanical Engineering at the Bucharest Polytechnic a Mathematics Professor tried to convince me that wearing a beard will be detrimental to my career. At least he was seemingly speaking in good faith and in the end he let me be.
I know that this idea is hard to understand nowadays. But in those days the communists were so intent in micromanaging every aspect of our lives that even our hair was the object of their ‘recommendations’. Men were supposed to be clean shaven and to have their hair cropped short. There was no formal law on this subject but the recommendation was followed by most people. Specially by those who needed to ‘blend in’.
Next year, 1984, I wasn’t so lucky. I had to shave, just for one day, because another Professor (?!?) stated, point blank, that he wasn’t going to allow me to take the exam if wearing a beard. I showed him my IDs. In all of them I was sporting a lot of ‘facial hair’, including in the one identifying me as a army reserve officer. Military service was compulsory at that time and was almost the norm for college educated people to rise to the rank of officers. He wasn’t the least impressed.
Now it doesn’t make the slightest difference that one of them was sincere in the conviction that his advice was sound while the other was a plain rascal (and a communist party mid level boss), both of them were efficient ‘ax handles’ who helped transforming young people into obedient sheep. One would have expected differently. They were “Professors”!
Let me finish by mentioning the fact that at the beginning we were 6 students sporting more ‘facial hair’ than a simple mustache. At the end of our studies, the five years needed to get the equivalent of a Msc in Mechanical Engineering, I was the lonely bird still hanging on to my beard.
Fast forward to 2021.
I just came across this.
It made my blood boil.
It was not a single famine which had proved how evil communism was.
Every communist regime which had ever existed had imploded under its own weight. Exactly because the subjects were famished enough to get to the streets. And topple the regime.
Even execute the former dictator, as it had happened in Romania.
Capitalism only provided the resources for British, and others, imperialism. That the British had chosen to use those resources in that manner… is something else.
Yes, resources generated by the capitalist free market can be put to bad uses. But not necessarily! Check what’s going on in Scandinavia, for example.
Communism, in contrast, actually wastes the societies it controls.
The British Empire, like all others before, had crumbled because its imperialistic nature, not because it used to ‘sport’ capitalism.
Communism had also crumbled because its imperialistic, dictatorial, nature.
The difference between these two imperialisms being the fact that communism is mainly focused to its ‘inside’ while the ‘classic’ imperialism is focused on its ‘outside’.
The British (capitalist) imperialists have brought ‘in’ a lot of wealth – and civilized, to a degree, its colonies. The Bolshevik Communists have continued the Tsarist imperialistic tradition. In doing so they have wasted the resources of a huge continent and the talents of a marvelous people while keeping the rest of the communist lager decades behind their European neighbors!
While capitalism provides ample resources, and allows people to show whatever side of their souls they choose to bring forth, communism stifles everybody in its embrace.
Please be careful which ideas you choose to promote!
nicichiarasa 