Hacker News Reader

Comment by ch4s3 | Hacker News Reader

There was a whole series of ethnic cleanings in the USSR [1], the CCP is currently enacting at least 2 efforts to erradicate non Han minority groups, the Khmer Rouge set about the mass murder of Muslim Cham and Vietnamese in Cambodia, the Ethiopian Derg were accused of similar atrocities.

[1] https://www.abc-clio.com/products/c6927c/

View on HN

I know about the ethnic cleanings. Communism as an ideology does not endorse eugenics through mass murdering people. Nazism as an ideology does.

On the contrary, Leninism mandates terror and ethnic minorities are always among the first targets of terror and repression. Stalinism was synonymous with Russian chauvinism, and saw other ethnic groups as inherently counter revolutionary. Chinese communism is also an ideology of Han supremacy. These are all flavors of communism, but Naziism was a particularly German flavor of fascism, so I think the comparison is appropriate. Stalin ran death camps for ethnic minorities, and it was part an parcel with Stalinism.

> These are all flavors of communism, but Naziism was a particularly German flavor of fascism, so I think the comparison is appropriate.

So you hit it right there.

Neither fascism nor communism necessarily include mass murder.

Naziism does.

I would argue that fascism and communism inevitably lead to mass murder because they tend towards totalitarianism and the use of terror. This comes with the caveat that the terror need not necessarily target an ethnic minority.

This is getting away from the original point. If you associate with a nazi then yes I believe you are guilty by association. There is no coexisting with a belief that doesn't believe you have the right to exist in the first place. If you believe that communism is in the same lane then feel free to throw them in the bin as well.

My whole point is that historically they are in the same bin, and doubly so for any Leninists and Maoists.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com