On Communism (Reply to a Patreon Question)

some of you may be surprised that I'm
making such a short video in response to a reasonably profound question someone is written in asking me why am i an anti-communist I'll read that letter in just a moment um obviously I could give very long answer research into the history of communism has been a significant part of my adult life I could also make a whole separate video but the fact that communism was a significant part of my childhood but that's a story for another day I've studied the history of communism in Russia in China but of course most notably I think for many of my viewers you're aware that have studied the history of communism in Cambodia and Laos among actually other examples in preface to this video I'll just say I have often been in a difficult position especially when talking to older people who don't get it who can't appreciate my perspective the fact that I have an anti-communist the fact that my critic of communist the fact that I reject communism as a philosophy as a political movement otherwise does not mean that I applaud uncritically American foreign policy not at all so Cambodia in brief is one of the worst disasters in the history of communism it's also one of the worst disasters in the history of American foreign policy it's both the fact that you know it's one type of disaster doesn't mean you would ignore the extent to which it's another type of zester and right next door Laos is you know a real interesting contrast Laos also is one of the worst disasters in the history of American foreign policy and although you could say communism has been a bit of a disaster there it was a much less dramatic much less extreme disaster than than Cambodian communism so it's rarely mentioned on the lists of the greatest atrocities the greatest body counts or the greatest examples of mass starvation caused by communism so turning to the question of God and I've gotten a question from a guy named Ben who is a 21 year old student living in Ireland he writes I've been following your channel for about a year now and have found your output engaging and stimulating I've recently become increasingly interested in left-wing politics and it's been a great time studying the thought of Marx and angles and those who continued their line of inquiry with all these letters I do actually skip a little bit I compress a little bit what these people have said to me he then mentions that he s you read my article robert jay lifton and the self-directed cult so alright I'm surprised thanks for reading that article that's not one of my most popular publications but that's actually an examination of both communist thinking and other forms of cult-like thought with some comparative statements some of the cult-like aspects of historically real communism um he asks I would like to know briefly your reason for being anti-communist it's very rare to find somebody who isn't extremely right-wing taking that position I'm curious about opposing views because I'm not fully satisfied with all the conclusion of many left-wing thinkers I understand the historical reason for being anti-communist very readily what I'm interested in knowing it about is what it is in far-left thought that you're in disagreement with philosophically so end of a statement from this person it's me and by the way I appreciate thank you he's donating the one dollar a month to support me by a patreon I encourage all of you to sign up also you too can send me questions and I'll make videos in response to them now the body count of communism the millions of deaths through persecution through violence through war through civil war the censorship the refusal to allow democracy the refusal of freedom speech all of those things are tremendously important but they're not what I mentioned first and foremost in response to this question the most fundamental succinct an important reply I can give for why I am NOT a communist and why I am anti-communist looking at communism as a philosophy as an ideology as a chapter in the history of political science communism asks the wrong questions and it does not have any of the right answers of the two parts of that statement the most fundamental and most important is the claim that they're not asking the right questions I do think that you can participate in a school of thought or a philosophy you can be an adherent or you can be a proponent of a philosophy simple because it is asking the right questions and it may not have any of the right answers I think that today if you were engaged with tera vaada Buddhism another philosophy I'd know a lot about did a lot of research on etc etc I think it would be possible to really be an adherent and a proponent of Buddhism simply on the basis of the fact that you believed it was asking the right questions and some people in India and some people in Africa have actually converted to tera vaada Buddhism have become involved with the religion and the philosophy because they felt that way now what questions might you latch on to and terrified about ism many people in India actually latched on to the anti rich element so terrifed it was like communism engineered parallel that the critique of the attack on the privileges of the wealthy of the elite they latched on to the anti-racist antique caste system elements which are there from ancient Buddhism you know with ancient India had its own racists the conceptions its own elitist philosophies and you get counter points to those philosophies within the ancient Canon of philosophy of Buddhism some people in Africa I think we're interested in that too so attacks on the privilege attacks on the the elite and the attempts of that religion in its own terms to in some sense be promoting the interests of the poor and the downtrodden which it's inconsistent on I mean terrible Buddhism is not a revolutionary philosophy it's not a utopian social philosophy that's it never offers to destroy the inequality of rich and poor to replace it something better but nevertheless those elements are there and those questions are being asked whether or not within Buddhist philosophy you find really useful answers to the question whether or not you find a better or social system to replace the socialism we've got with so in many cases simply having the right questions is enough to pull people in is enough to sustain a political philosophy a social movement etc it's enough to sustain faith because unlike communism Buddhism is quite open about the fact that it relies on faith I think the communist in many ways also appeals to and relies on faith so my rejection of communism in that fundamental philosophical sense can just be summed up with that and nothing more it asks their own questions it gives the wrong answers if you want to read several hundred pages expanding on this Karl Popper is a philosopher or philosopher of science who devoted many many pages in a book called the poverty of historicism - looking at the philosophical roots of communism and what he calls historicism the attempt to fetishize certain episodes in the history of Europe particularly the French Revolution and how that formed the foundation for Marx and angles the philosophy there they presented the theory they presented and then the permutation of that philosophy under Lenin in Russia now in real world terms so I recognize that question he really asked me to speak to the philosophy not to the historical reality the episodes of what actually happened in Cambodia or France for that matter or Japan Japan is some bizarre history of communism believe not aura or China or what have you you know in terms of the glorification of an whitewashing of communism I think it's it is tremendously important to face up to just how terrible communism was under Lenin many many people wish to remember Lenin as a relatively good leader in contrast to Stalin in a later period of Russia's history the reality is and this is one of the things that sort of most forgotten their most ignored Russia had elections in the year 1917 it was in the last couple of months in 1970 I think November of 1917 I often remember them as the elections of 1918 because the the convention of the elected representatives the first Parliament happened in January of 1918 that Parliament was allowed to exist for one day and after that the Bolsheviks who lost the elections who God has ever called um under 25% of the vote so there would have been a minority Member of Parliament that would have been a minority party within problem they hunted down and killed one at a time the elected representatives from all of their parties so one of the you know most fundamental criticisms of American foreign policy when America was engaged in active anti-communist uh covert ops around the world was that America itself did not have enough faith in democracy being able to tolerate diverse opinions such as communism that is a very true and very deep cutting criticism of American foreign policy and Laos as an example of that in Laos America could have allowed the country to have a democratic Parliament which they had at one point and to have a parliament where communists were a minority party where they were one voice among many debating the future of the country and espousing their views America should have allowed that and in many ways communism would have lost its mystique it would have lost its edge it would have been just another party in the house of parliament that had opinions about taxes and improving the roads and expanding the electricity network and all the pragmatic day-to-day activities of government they could have been standing in that problem at debating those things as equals with other parties who had different views within a democratic system and actually Laos as an example there were many if you're interested in Latin America's history other countries of the world where America felt they could not tolerate that in America covertly were primarily talking about the CAA but other CIA State Department other other organs of American foreign policy but especially you know the Dulles brothers at that time John Foster Dulles etc um they shut down that Parliament they prevented that from happening and they really forced the country into a civil war situation where the Communists became an armed opposition in exile with their own zone of control fighting against the government of the capital city etc and that's a pattern that played out around the world partly because America wanted that way or at least the Dulles brothers certain people who were very powerful with in American foreign policy want it that way that is very sad however you can't overlook crucially that in the history of communism starting already with Marx and Engels the refusal to allow democracy the refusal to allow the fair conte of contrasting opinions that is actually built into communism it's obviously it's evident in Lenin when Lenin decided to shut down that Parliament and instead ultimately hunt down and kill every representative of the winning party the socialist revolutionary party who were themselves far left-wing there are called social democrats or socialist democrats in historical retrospect but in any other context they would have just been considered a rival communist party they're called the socialist revolutionaries for God's name you know they are far left but the Communists in Russia were especially brutal and hunting down and killing their their close competitors that way they didn't want to have another legitimate political party representing the future of communism future social having contrasting opinions they didn't want to have a parliament they didn't wanna have open debate and built into the philosophy of Marx and Engels you have to look at how they responded to how they built their own philosophy on the historical experience of the French Revolution and in many ways their opinion both Marx and Engels right at the beginning this process was that the French Revolution was not violent enough was not extreme enough that it should have gone further in its extremist tendencies to talk about not learning the lessons of history Marx and angles from the start embraced the notion that violence is the only way to progress in history of the world and yes some of those ideas they took from little bits and pieces of Hegel but that's much exaggerated now in retrospect if you actually look at how much you know Marx in DES capital volume one he is almost nothing in common with Hegel but people like to point to this idea as being a Hegelian idea in Markman but the amount of time those guys spent going over the details of the french revolutions much more important to the progress of their thinking but these are people who embraced an historical path of violence and they thought that we're gonna live in a period when the you know contest between communism capitalism became more and more violent and that violence not democracy not debate not the free interplay of ideas was going to be the only way for this philosophy to progress and in that one aspect they say it's already in Marx already and angles of course it's already in Lenin but we don't even have to talk about Stalin or Mao Zedong or Pol Pot we don't to get into Cambodia or these other even more extreme examples at its core this is a problem with communists that totally vitiates and totally invalidates anything else in its philosophy that might be worthwhile and for a contrast tera vaada buddhism does not have that problem and tera vaada buddhism also appeals to some of these sentiments in humanity of wanting to be pro-poor and anti rich to challenge established elites to a static challenge feudalism itself if you like whether you're looking at an aristocratic society or a capitalist society in which there's a you know an elite of wealthy people who are almost aristocrats whatever your social circumstances may be and has to be said Cole popper mentions this briefly - in his critique it's very interesting to point out the extent to which even Catholicism in the modern world appeals to the same sentiments as communism that very often Catholics justify their faith justify what their their religious organization is doing in terms of advocacy for the poor helping the poor so communists never had any exclusive claim to those sentiments to those be seized for their social movement but although Catholicism is also guilty of atrocities on an unbelievable scale I think you can argue that that's not built into the core philosophy of Catholicism although I'm an atheist I don't agree with Catholicism it is very easy of course to argue likewise with Buddhism with tera vaada Buddhism that massacres and this kind of violence and hunting down and killing people who disagree with you is not in any way built into the DNA of tera vaada Buddhism it's not in the core philosophy it's not in the core political philosophy or social program not at all in the contrary tera vaada Buddhism in theory you shouldn't even be killing insects it's very anti violence although in some ways it's resigned to violence being inevitable that would be another video so yes even in trying to constrain my answer as requested in this letter from my patreon supporter it's very very important that we recognize the role of violence in the philosophy itself not as a leader corruption that crept into the philosophy not as something incidental or accidental but as a core issue and problem within communism from the first and as bad as communism was as I've said so briefly and vaguely in asking the wrong questions and having the wrong answers this most ensured that it could not adapt that it could not become a better philosophy with the passage of time and indeed it didn't and it encouraged you to look under any heading for example agricultural policy why is it that this philosophy on a macro scale fostered such absurd notions at a under a smaller heading like agriculture why is it that they continued to have ridiculous false pseudo scientific ideas about agriculture even when millions of people were dying even when the consequences were so terrible well again part of that their refusal to allow a democracy their refusal to look positively on some kind of Socratic exchange of opinions criticism recognizing what's wrong and adapting your core principles the the very anti progressive elements within communism from the first already in Marx and Engels already in Lenin the same principles that led them to hunt down and kill not just people who disagree with them in an extreme way not people who are example monarchists but of wanting to hunt down and kill a rival party so similar to the Communists as the socialist revolutionaries a tendency that again you can see in the history of China the history of Cambodia elsewhere where it's the people who maybe agree with them on nine points out of ten who are seen as the most dire threat to the Bolshevik Party or whatever the ruling Communist Party is that same tendency which is hardwired into the philosophy led to a refusal to ever accept of you know recognizing oh my God we're promoting agricultural policies that instead of increasing the amount of food is resulting in starvation we're pursuing economic policies that are causing whole industries to collapse and are leaving people without shoes in clothes all these ridiculous sorry I mean go disco means there are ridiculous examples of that so yes you know these are very fundamental problems that you can find the roots of in the philosophy but it's important that you don't examine the philosophy in isolation because when you're looking at when the philosophy was put into practice the defects of that philosophy become all the more evident to all of us they become writ large with enormous body counts with some of the worst episodes in the history of human nature and again if you can't learn from that in the same way that Marx and Engels really refuse to learn from what went wrong in history of the French Revolution you know you're trapped in the same cycle of making excuses for some of the worst disasters in human history instead of recognizing the disasters really learning from what went wrong and then adapting and moving forward and from my perspective I mean the failure of communism the failures plural were so fundamental I I think there's absolutely no way moving forward in 21st century that we can't how there's no other way to adapt other than discarding communism itself root and branch in principle and in practice