The Bloody Legacy of Communism

British philosopher Roger Scruton observes how frequently we are reminded of the horrors of fascism.  He has no quibbles with that, but he does note that it has come at the expense of any sense of proportion for the (yet greater) horrors perpetrated in the name of Communism.

‘Do we now appreciate that the Marxist ideology destroys legal order, political opposition and human rights? Do we have some idea of the death toll that has in every case followed the triumph of the ‘vanguard party’? Do we have an inkling of the human cost of collectivisation, or of what the gulag meant in terms of the humiliation and destruction of its victims?

Of course the answer in each case is no.’

‘The problem is not a lack of literature. Invocations of communist terror abound, and include masterpieces that all educated people should know, such as Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago and Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. However, resentment easily overrides the evidence. Just as anti-Semitism has survived constant reminders of the Holocaust, so does the Marxist vision survive the accumulated testimony to its murderous legacy. Resentful people cherish their hatred more than they respect the rights of those who arouse it.

For this reason it is surely time to establish museums devoted to the Marxist legacy.’

Read the full article in The Spectator