Animal Farm (spoilers to those who have not read it)

[Haggridd]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Melody" <Malady579 at h...> 
wrote:
 
> 
> Haggridd wrote:
> > Melody, "Eventually" can be a long time for those stuck in the 
> > horrors of such a system.  
> 
> Yes.  I am sorry if I spoke lightly of it.  It was not my intent. 
 I know that, dear.  But the abstract nver does justice to the 
reality of these things.
> 
> Haggridd:
> > Orville's thesis is that the Communists 
> > had set out to achieve brutal power consciously, with malice 
> > aforethought, and planned each step of the way.  To paraphrase 
from 
> > his negative utopia "1984": the only way you know-- really know-- 
> > that you have power is your ability to make others suffer.
> 
> Is that really true?  From the beginning, the whole goal of those
> seeking Russian power or in this book "the pigs" was in full 
knowledge
> that it will drive the quality of life down for those they stood 
on? 
> They purposefully engaged in practices to see how far they can drive
> the people down?  I thought all they wanted was power and the
> appearance of glory, so they did all they could to keep those two
> myths alive to those in and outside their reign.  
> 
> I never knew if Communism started in Russia with idealism truely in
> mind, or if those seeking its coming saw the evil innate in the 
system
> and exploited it.  
> 

Unfortunately, it was really true.  Lenin's revolution was not 
idealistic, but a cynical putsch.  Read Solzhenitsyn for his views on 
the October Revolution.


> I just thought, and remember I was in elementary school when the 
USSR
> fell, that Russia became corrupt not because it started that way, 
but
> because it did not account for the greed in people.  
> 
Corruption is the almost inevitble result of the prohibition of 
private property in favor of the National ownership of the means of 
production.  It is no longer important what one does, but who one 
knows in the bureaucracy.  One is compelled to beg or bribe what they 
had previously earned by right.  The system carried the seeds of its 
corruption.



> > During that time they caused 
> > the death of perhaps fifty million people.  Not enemies, not the 
> > Nazis in World War II, but their own people:  men, women, 
children, 
> > dead by an "arranged" famine; dead by working them to death in 
the 
> > frozen north, building canals that didn't work, or hydroelectric 
> > plants so inefficient that a new wave of oppression was started 
to 
> > hide the embarassment over this failure; dead by visits in the 
> > middle of the night to kidnap unsuspecting citizens; engineers, 
> > officers, other parties which had been allies, dead.  
> 
> And did the world do anything?  

No. The world had the unenviable choice of Nazi Germany vesus 
Communist Russia.  In the short run, it was more important to defeat 
National Socialism-- but what a choice to have to make.

Did the UN?  
 
There was no UN until 1945, and by virtue of the Soviet Union being a 
permanent member of the Security Council with the veto, the UN was 
organizationally unable to act against the USSR.

I never knew it was that
> bad.  It is sad that public and even college courses get to the last
> century of world history in the last weeks of class, and thus skim
> over them.  What we should know best is our recent history.  It is 
so
> important and so tender still.
> 
> 
I agree with you.  I think that starting the course at the beginning 
of the cnetury of wars (the 20th) would be far more eductional.


> > Perhaps instead of taking comfort that totalitarianism hasn't 
lasted 
> > over 100 years, 
> 
> Everyone tries to take comfort in evil not lasting.  That is the
> essence of fairy tales and even Harry Potter.  Evil will happen. 
> People will suffer.  I try to find comfort in the fact that it will
> not last forever.  I guess that the pendulum will swing the other 
way.
>  Maybe that is because that is the only comfort I can find, because 
I
> *know* evil things will happen.  Maybe because I have never lived
> under a regime, I don't understand, and cannot understand, what it 
is
> I am trying to comprehend.
Things change only when individual persons act.  There is no cockwork 
mechanism that chnges the blance every so many years.  People will 
always have to pledge "their lives, their fortunes and their sacred 
honors" to achieve change.
> 
> 
> > ...the question should be why it took seventy years of this 
> > horrror and misery for the people to do whatever was necessary to 
> > throw off this yoke.  And countries such as the People's Republic 
> > of China are far better at this than the Soviets ever were.  Of 
> > course, they've only been in power fifty-five years.  We have 
> > fifteen years yet.
> 
> And why does the world do nothing?  Why hasn't the UN done 
anything? 
> Because China says they are shifting into an "UN approved" 
government,
> or because they are so big and their army can crush anyone that 
tries?
> 
China is also a permanent member of the Security council with veto 
power.
> 
> Melody
> who has always asked too many questions and been overly curious

Haggridd, who is still optimistic for humanity