Why Isn't Communism as Hated as Nazism? | 5 Minute Video

Summary

The script by Dennis Prager explores why the term 'communist' isn't as reviled as 'Nazi' despite the significant human suffering caused by communism. He attributes this to ignorance of communist atrocities, the unique horror of the Holocaust overshadowing others, the seductive language of communism, the lack of acknowledgment and atonement by former communist states, the fact that communists mostly killed their own people, and the left's view of World War II as a 'good war' against fascism. Prager calls for recognition of communism's evils and learning about its victims.

Takeaways

• 📚 The script addresses the question of why the term 'communist' is less commonly used as a term of revulsion compared to 'Nazi' or 'fascist', despite the significant human suffering caused by communist regimes.
• 🤔 It suggests that widespread ignorance about the history of communism contributes to its lesser-known negative reputation, especially because the left, which dominates academia, often does not teach the evils of communism.
• 🔍 The Holocaust is highlighted as a unique and unparalleled act of evil, which has overshadowed the scale of deaths caused by communist regimes, leading to a worse reputation for Nazism.
• 📖 The script argues that communism is often associated with appealing theories, unlike Nazism, which is inherently linked with heinous ideologies, influencing how intellectuals perceive and write about their histories.
• 🇩🇪 Germany's thorough examination and atonement for the evils of Nazism contrasts with Russia's and China's lack of similar acknowledgment for the atrocities committed under communism, affecting how these histories are perceived globally.
• 🏛 The script points out that communist regimes primarily killed their own citizens, which is considered less noteworthy by 'world opinion' compared to the murder of outsiders, as seen in the case of the Nazis.
• 🌏 It notes that the left views World War II as the last 'good war' against Nazism and fascism, not extending this view to conflicts against communist regimes, which affects public perception.
• 🗣️ The speaker, Dennis Prager, emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and learning about the victims of communism to counteract the ignorance and moral confusion surrounding its history.
• 🏛️ The script criticizes the continued veneration of communist figures like Lenin and Mao, suggesting that this reverence hinders a full recognition of the crimes committed under their leadership.
• 📈 It implies that the left's reluctance to condemn communism as it does Nazism contributes to a skewed understanding of 20th-century totalitarian regimes and their impacts.
• 🌱 The final message is a call to action for good people to educate themselves about the atrocities of communism, to honor the memory of its victims and to seek a more accurate historical narrative.

Q & A

Why are the terms 'Nazi' or 'fascist' more commonly used to describe evil individuals or regimes, compared to 'communist'?

The script suggests that this is due to widespread ignorance of the communist record, the left's reluctance to loathe communism, and the dominance of the left in academia which leads to less teaching of communism's history.

What is the significance of the Holocaust in shaping the perception of Nazism compared to communism?

The Holocaust is considered unparalleled

Outlines

00:00

🔍 The Underrated Horror of Communism

This paragraph delves into the question of why the term 'communist' is not as reviled as 'Nazi' or 'fascist,' despite the extensive human suffering caused by communist regimes. It points out that ignorance about the history of communism, the left's reluctance to condemn it, the unmatched evil of the Holocaust, and the intellectual appeal of communism's theories contribute to its lesser infamy. The paragraph also contrasts the German acknowledgment of Nazi atrocities with the lack of similar recognition for communist crimes, particularly in Russia and China.

Keywords

💡Nazi

The term 'Nazi' is short for National Socialist German Workers' Party, which was a far-right political party in Germany that existed between 1920 and 1945. It is often used to describe the regime led by Adolf Hitler, characterized by totalitarianism, racism, and genocidal policies. In the video, 'Nazi' is used to highlight the extreme evil associated with this regime, particularly in the context of the Holocaust.

💡Fascist

Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. The term 'fascist' is used in the video to describe regimes similar to the Nazis in their oppressive nature, but it is noted that the term is less commonly used in comparison to 'Nazi'.

💡Communist

Communism is a political ideology that seeks to establish a classless society where all property is publicly owned, and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. In the video, the term 'communist' is used to discuss the historical atrocities committed under communist regimes, contrasting its lesser-known negative reputation with that of Nazism.

💡Holocaust

The Holocaust was the genocide of six million European Jews and millions of others, including Romani people, Polish people, Soviet prisoners of war, and others, by Nazi Germany during World War II. It is used in the video to underscore the extreme atrocities committed by the Nazi regime.

Highlights

People often use terms 'Nazi' or 'fascist' but rarely 'communist' to describe evil, despite the massive human suffering caused by communism.

Communism has resulted in the deaths of over 90 million people and the enslavement of entire nations, yet it doesn't have the same negative reputation as Nazism.

Reason 1: Widespread ignorance of communism's history, as the left tends to overlook its evils and academia rarely teaches about it.

Reason 2: The Holocaust carried out by the Nazis is

Transcripts

When people describe particularly evil individuals or regimes, why is it that they use the terms

“Nazi” or “fascist,” but almost never “communist?”

Given the unparalleled amount of human suffering communists have caused, why is “communist”

so much less a term of revulsion than “Nazi?”

Communists killed 70 million people in China, more than 20 million people in the Soviet

Union (not including about 5 million Ukrainians), and almost one out of every three Cambodians.

And communists enslaved entire nations in Russia, Vietnam, China, Eastern Europe, North

Korea, Cuba and much of Central Asia.

They ruined the lives of well over a billion people.

So, why doesn’t communism have the same terrible reputation as Nazism?

Reason Number 1: There is, simply put, widespread ignorance of the communist record.

Whereas both right and left loathe Nazism and teach its evil history, the left

– and I’m talking about the left, not traditional liberals like Harry Truman or John F. Kennedy –

has never loathed communism.

And since the left dominates academia, almost no one teaches communism’s evil history.

Reason Number 2: The Nazis carried out the Holocaust.

Nothing matches the Holocaust for pure evil.

The rounding up of virtually every Jewish man, woman, child, and baby on the European

continent and sending them to die is unprecedented and unparalleled.

The communists killed far more people than the Nazis, but never matched the Holocaust

in the systemization of genocide.

The uniqueness of the Holocaust and the enormous attention rightly paid to it have helped ensure

that Nazism has a worse name than communism.

Reason Number 3: Communism is based on nice sounding theories; Nazism isn’t.

It’s based on heinous sounding theories.

Intellectuals in general – including, of course, the intellectuals who write history –

are seduced by words – so much so, that they deem actions as less significant than words.

For that reason, they haven’t focused nearly as much attention on the horrific actions

of communists as they have on the horrific actions of the Nazis.

They dismiss the evils of communists as perversions of “true communism.”

But they regard Nazi atrocities (correctly) as the logical and inevitable results of Nazism.

Reason Number 4: Germans have thoroughly exposed the evils of Nazism, have taken responsibility

for them, and have attempted to atone for them.

Russians have not done anything similar regarding Lenin's or Stalin's horrors.

To the contrary, Lenin, the father of Soviet communism, is still widely venerated in Russia.

And as regards Stalin, as University of London Russian historian Donald Rayfield puts it,

“People still deny, by assertion or implication, Stalin's holocaust.”

Even less so has China exposed the greatest mass murderer and enslaver of them all, Mao Zedong.

Mao remains revered in China.

Every Chinese currency note has his picture on it.

Until Russia and China – and Vietnam, and Cuba, and North Korea – acknowledge the

evils their countries committed under communism, communism's evils will remain less known than

the evils of the German state under Hitler.

Reason Number 5: Communists murdered mostly their own people.

The Nazis, on the other hand, killed very few fellow Germans.

“World opinion” – that largely meaningless and amoral term – deems the murder of members

of one's own group far less noteworthy than the murder of outsiders.

That’s why, for example, blacks killing millions of fellow blacks in Africa elicits

almost no attention from “world opinion.”

And Reason Number 6: In the view of the left, the last “good war” was World War II,

the war against German Nazism and Japanese fascism.

The left does not regard wars against communist regimes as “good wars.”

For example, the American war against Vietnamese communism is regarded as immoral, and the

war against Korean communism – and its Chinese communist backers – is simply ignored.

Until the left, and all the institutions influenced by the left, acknowledge how evil communism

has been, we will continue to live in a morally confused world.

In the meantime, all good people owe it to the victims of communism

to learn what happened to them.

Even worse than being murdered or enslaved is a world that doesn’t even know that you were.

I’m Dennis Prager.