Marxism and Mass Murder, Richard Wolff & Jordan Peterson.

and then he said Stalin killed and he
came in numbers ten million people I think here so it's on huge number of people who killed and or by implication Marxism killed because for him Marxism and Stalin killing were more or less the same real quick question for you what was Karl Marx's opinion on class warfare was he in favor of class warfare or was he against it did he think it was a bad thing what was Karl Marx's opinion about violence between social classes class struggle was he for that was he against it was he someone who was trying to minimize the violence of the working class against the bourgeoisie and the aristocrats or was he someone who said it would be good to have more and more of that kind of violence real easy real easy question for any Marxists to answer um let me just actually what what did Karl Marx a Marx and Engels together in this case they co-wrote some of their works you know what what did Marx and angles have to say about the French Revolution in the most violent period of the French Revolution the great terror did Mark say that that violence was really bad that that should be minimized that in the future you know in the class struggle the people shouldn't do those bad things that happened in the French Revolution was that Karl Marx's analysis of the French Revolution of the great terror or did Karl Marx say that in the future the revolution should be more violent did Karl Marx criticize the French revolutionaries for trying to stop the great terror from holding back the violence of the great terror and the French Revolution did Mark say that they should go further be more violent be more extreme which one was it and finally does it count for nothing if a major historical figure like Joseph Stalin like Lenin or like Mao Zedong does it count for nothing in your book if those people are sincerely trying to carry out the precepts and principles of Marxism if when they draw the dotted line between principle and practice if they came to these conclusions does that count for nothing today so I criticize that I explained to him okay see that Marxism is a bigger older thing that mr. Stalin indeed a bigger and older thing than mr. Stalin mr. Stalin was born in 1878 December December of 1878 Karl Marx died in 1883 their lives overlap Marxism was not some ancient difficult to understand doctrine during the lifetime of Joseph Stalin now if I were to say to you that Buddhism in Japan really is very profoundly different from Buddhism as it was taught in India during the lifetime of the Buddha you have to say well there's a gap of more than two thousand years 2,000 years and a gap in terms of the translation of languages that I think I can genuinely say view in the audience you cannot imagine you cannot imagine how profoundly difficult it is to get an idea from the philosophy of ancient India written in Pali sometimes translated or adapted into Sanskrit into a language like Japanese in the modern Japanese ancient or medieval Japanese difficult in 2,000 years a little bit of a gap okay 1883 is the death of Karl Marx and you know what there were a lot of people a lot of people in Moscow who could read German the gap linguistically and culturally within the same century between Russia and Germany it's not it's not really a very powerful or potent excuse especially not when you're talking about someone taking a set of political principles and putting them into practice and the results including the devastation of the economy sometimes starvation scarcity and oh yeah massacres mass murder including ethnic cleansing including attempted genocide I tried to remind him that history is full of killings done in the name of things what else objective his history is full of mass murder that we don't condemn really that's that's how you read history what I tried to give them examples that would make in twitch so I gave examples like I don't know Christianity I reminded in Spanish Inquisition to kill large numbers of people so your argument is nobody in their right mind would condemn the Spanish Inquisition so up then they are for why would anyone condemn Marxism the crowd applauds I reminded him of wars in the medieval time in which Christian princes kill each other Catholics to Catholics Catholics to Protestants the whole information 100 years or the 30 Years War you know though those were normal people die do you know of any political party anywhere in the world that now claims that the Spanish Inquisition was a good thing any political party current present day 21st century political party that really seriously argues that the 30 Years War was a good thing do you know any political party anywhere on the spectrum left right or center that today is making excuses for wars in which Catholics persecuted Protestants or Protestants exterminated Catholics and they say they look back on that history and say wow this was this was a positive this was a good this was these were massacres these were mass murders we should make we should make excuses for um here's the thing I talked to Marxists I talked to communist all the time and they are precisely the people who just like you Richard Wolffe want to make excuses for want to present a positive rationale for mass murder by communist regimes Lenin style Mao Zedong depending on what flavor of communism there are part of just a few are bold enough to take it all the way and try to back up the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia Cambodia comes some people they seem to stop short of justifying to that mass-murdering about I don't know why I mean for a penny in for a pound right just this this is the thing I think if you took a survey of Christians who are alive today something like ninety nine point nine percent would look back on the history you're mentioning and say that's regretable and bad and wrong and if you ask them what elements of Christianity are meaningful to you personally you know you're gonna get some answers like the Sermon on the Mount be good to your neighbor you know there's cherry-picking there's no it's it's not it's not really going to be it's not really going to be internecine fighting in the Dark Ages and the Renaissance this is not really what Christians look back on as the pride and joy of their tradition and it's not what they're trying to revive today it's not something trying to advance as historically inevitable or morally positive or for the upliftment of humanity the way that Marxists doctrinaire Marxists must defend and propound class warfare class struggle and yes yes y'all mass murder so if you want to tell me that killing large numbers of people in the name say of Christianity means you shouldn't be a Christian you know what I am opposed to mass murder I'm opposed to this kind of internet violence so therefore I'm opposed to any form of Christianity that endorses that advances that or bakes excuses for it I'm also opposed to any form of Islam that does I'm also supposed any form of Buddhism racism yeah you know what I challenge accepted their challenge accepted their professor wolf I know you think you caught me in a double bind like it would be really difficult for me to commit to a position of being opposed to mass murderer for both Christianity and Marxism both both Christianity and communism but you know what I feel right now I'm willing to take that step I reminded him the others that the 20th century had two things that had called world wars in which we more people were killed than Stalin ever managed if anyone can define this convincing well you know more people died in World War two than were choked by Joseph Stalin Joseph Stalin had only killed 1 million people you know would you look at you a pro from then I wouldn't I mean I do you think something is wrong and bad in principle or maybe you think it's good in principle but unfortunately in practice it had terrible unforeseen side effects in the case of the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin it's bad both in principle and in practice just pause and think about this excuse being made on the total number of people total number of deaths attributable to the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin some estimates put that at 15 million some estimates put it at 20 million getting into the realm of numbers that are in some ways highly speculative um I don't know total combat casualties for World War two I'm looking at 25 million if you thought it would be really flattering to the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin to compare the number of millions of people he killed the deaths he's responsible for his regime is responsible for to the total number of deaths that Adolf Hitler is responsible for plus battles taking place all over the world world war 2 included Japan it included some parts of Africa I mean it's really not a very fair comparison but nevertheless Joseph Stalin looks absolutely terrible in this comparison it's not flattering in any way those were wars among the coolest countries fighting over colonies fighting over trade but do you know any political party anywhere in the world that says it was a good thing that England conquered India - any anywhere left-wing right-wing said you know anyone who Nell looks back at that history says yeah this is something we should make excuses for history of British colonialism in India do you know do you know any political party anywhere in the world really says you know that that transatlantic slave trade you know King Charles the fifth of Spain you know um you know the the the genocide in North America the enslavement of the native peoples there and then you know slaves in Africa and the boats do you know any political party making positive excuses for that positive rationalization for that I don't not even the crazy right wing lunatics um believe it or not if you look at the manifestos of those guys the guys who actually are responsible for for mass shootings unless you it's not their line of reasoning at all but bizarrely um the problem here is professor wolf that you are a member of the school of thought you are a member of a political tendency called communism that is still to this day actively rationalizing and glorifying violence by communist regimes and the violence of communist revolutions that's the issue it's a little bit different and the connection between your ideology even if you define it as Marxism rather than communism and that violence it's not hard to draw the dotted line not at all now conversely if you were to talk about the definition of capitalism and then you talk about genocide there's no clear dotted line from one the other there's nothing inexorable inevitable or or stated propounded by the ideology of capitalism that would make genocide a good thing there's nothing in the ideology that binds capitalism the particular form of government or conquest of the British Empire heading out to conquer and control India nothing about you know King Charles of Spain trying to get this transatlantic slave trade going the nice am I supposed to say see capitalism kills I mean by his logic this is as good an argument as he in this so what but if we're gonna count the dead I think you're trouble I think it's a crazy metric but you brought it up it seems so easy for people on the far left to convince themselves that they have the cure for an illness and even if they can't quite define for us what the illness is or how the cure is gonna work they assure us that there were these books written by brilliant men more than a hundred years ago and if only we could follow the blueprint set down in those books we could build this perfect hospital that would cure us not just individually but wouldn't a sense purify and transform our society some of them will tell you that this blueprint for a perfect Hospital has never been tried it's never really been built in this world but you know the truth is they took this blueprint that built this hospital in Russia and it was a disaster it failed the outcomes were terrible by every metric and every measure not just mass murder and another group of people they took this blueprint and they built this hospital in China and it failed millions and millions of people died but not just that the society created was terrible in so many ways by every metric and every measure and another group of people they took this blueprint and they tried to build this perfect hospital they were imagining this cure for for this the sickness they imagined ruin the society they were part of and they tried to build it in Yugoslavia and they tried to build it in Cambodia and they tried to build it and Laos they tried to build it in the Czech Republic again and again and again you know what when things fail they don't always fail in just the same way in some places that the hospital failed this way in some place that failed that way it collapsed a little bit different each time but how much perspicacity does it really take to look and say hey guys that the problem it isn't just the construction workers it isn't just the execution if you go back to the plan if you look at the blueprint there's something fundamentally wrong here there's a reason why this ideology and this plan has been linked to mass murder repression starvation again and again and again and yeah you know what obviously some of the problems crept into the hospital after it was built I mean let's just say the hospital had a rodent infestation well maybe that wasn't in the blueprint maybe that wasn't the but maybe there were some corruption that came in afterwards what you have to ask yourself at this point in 2019 is why would you want to be one of the people making excuses for mass murder I don't know any other theater of political discussion in which it's necessary to move past the stage of saying hey this guy this guy is making excuses for mass murder I don't know any other theater of political debate what's necessary to move past that and deal with the details of the particular rationale of the particular excuses professor wolf shame on you [Music]