"These people, who had experience on their own hides twenty-four years of Communist happiness, knew by 1941 what as yet on one else in the world knew: that nowhere on the planet, nowhere in history, was there a regime more vicious, more bloodthirsty, and at the same time more cunning and ingenious than the Bolshevik, the self-styled Soviet regime. That no other regime on earth could compare with it either in the number of those it had done to death, in hardiness, in the range of its ambitions, in its thoroughgoing and unmitigated totalitarianism-no, not even the regime of its pupil Hitler, which at that time blinded Western eyes to all else.....Even in 1943 tens of thousands of refugees from the Soviet provinces trailed along behind the retreating German army-anything was better than remaining under Communism" (p. 342)
I have read other books that support this idea: Mao, Wild Swans, and Red Scarf Girl. I don't think this is a way to provide equality for all unless you mean that some of the elites will decide how much everyone else will suffer, so that we can all have the same amount of stuff (nothing) and not voice our complaints. For communism and the gulags to continue, they just need other people's money.
I really hope that it does not get to this point:
"All you freedom-loving "left-wing" thinkers in the West! You left laborites! You progressive Americans, German, and French students! As far as you are concerned, none of this amounts to much. As far as you are concerned, this whole book of mine is a waste of effort. You may suddenly understand it all someday - but only when you yourselves hear "hands behind your backs there!" and step ashore on our Archipelago. (p. 468)"
Are we that stubborn that we will refuse to listen to the voices of those who have suffered from oppressive governments?
Are we so willing to give away the freedoms we have so that government can decide what we can and can't do?
Are we afraid of liberty, freedom & choice just as George Bernard Shaw says: "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."
I have read other books that support this idea: Mao, Wild Swans, and Red Scarf Girl. I don't think this is a way to provide equality for all unless you mean that some of the elites will decide how much everyone else will suffer, so that we can all have the same amount of stuff (nothing) and not voice our complaints. For communism and the gulags to continue, they just need other people's money.
I really hope that it does not get to this point:
"All you freedom-loving "left-wing" thinkers in the West! You left laborites! You progressive Americans, German, and French students! As far as you are concerned, none of this amounts to much. As far as you are concerned, this whole book of mine is a waste of effort. You may suddenly understand it all someday - but only when you yourselves hear "hands behind your backs there!" and step ashore on our Archipelago. (p. 468)"
Are we that stubborn that we will refuse to listen to the voices of those who have suffered from oppressive governments?
Are we so willing to give away the freedoms we have so that government can decide what we can and can't do?
Are we afraid of liberty, freedom & choice just as George Bernard Shaw says: "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."
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