In yet another reference to the Hitler/Stalin Equation, an unsigned review in
The Economist this week (Nov. 11-17, 2006) of Norman Davies'
Europe at War 1939-1945, one finds the observation that “The biggest and bloodiest struggle by far of the European war was between two gangster regimes whose awful treatment of their own people and neighbours is unmatched before or since.” Putting aside some doubts about whether even the horrors of the second world war can compare to the genocide performed on the native Americans and the African slaves who were brought to the Americas to replace their lost labor power, it is the first part of the statement that is interesting. “Two gangster
regimes.” Hmm. This raises the spectre of two barbarians having a chance encounter in the forest and just having at it until one of them falls. Supposedly, Mr. Davies’ book serves to correct the impression here in the U.S. and apparently in England as well, that it was largely through Anglo-American sacrifices that the war was won. If so, this is no news to the left, which has always understood what the war was really about. Present day historians spend vast amounts of ink documenting Stalin’s evil ways, very little ink documenting the huge amount of support that Hitler received from the West while it was itself struggling to survive the Great Depression. And although the Soviet experiment certainly did implode due to its own internal weaknesses, (weaknesses which most Marxists outside of the Soviet empire themselves tirelessly chronicled), one should not overlook the fact that the U.S.S.R. was in a state of siege virtually from the moment of its inception and that terrified capitalists expended untolled trillions of dollars of their citizens’ wealth in their efforts to remove the threat. By equating Stalin with Hitler, more is at work than merely documenting a communist or socialist experiment under a “gangster regime;” the clear intention is to impugn communism and socialism in themselves.
In yet another reference to the Hitler/Stalin Equation, an unsigned review in The Economist this week (Nov. 11-17, 2006) of Norman Davies' Europe at War 1939-1945, one finds the observation that “The biggest and bloodiest struggle by far of the European war was between two gangster regimes whose awful treatment of their own people and neighbours is unmatched before or since.” Putting aside some doubts about whether even the horrors of the second world war can compare to the genocide performed on the native Americans and the African slaves who were brought to the Americas to replace their lost labor power, it is the first part of the statement that is interesting. “Two gangster 
regimes.” Hmm. This raises the spectre of two barbarians having a chance encounter in the forest and just having at it until one of them falls. Supposedly, Mr. Davies’ book serves to correct the impression here in the U.S. and apparently in England as well, that it was largely through Anglo-American sacrifices that the war was won. If so, this is no news to the left, which has always understood what the war was really about. Present day historians spend vast amounts of ink documenting Stalin’s evil ways, very little ink documenting the huge amount of support that Hitler received from the West while it was itself struggling to survive the Great Depression. And although the Soviet experiment certainly did implode due to its own internal weaknesses, (weaknesses which most Marxists outside of the Soviet empire themselves tirelessly chronicled), one should not overlook the fact that the U.S.S.R. was in a state of siege virtually from the moment of its inception and that terrified capitalists expended untolled trillions of dollars of their citizens’ wealth in their efforts to remove the threat. By equating Stalin with Hitler, more is at work than merely documenting a communist or socialist experiment under a “gangster regime;” the clear intention is to impugn communism and socialism in themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment