Zoney wrote:
On Tue, 15 Feb 2005 06:34:16 -0800, the Epopt of Boskone sean@epoptic.org wrote:
I would imagine there are few who would directly equate the Nazi regime with Soviet Russia.
I have to agree with Zoney here: few would consider them equivalent. Soviet Russia was directly responsible for an order of magnitude more deaths than the Nazis, and indirectly responsible for two orders of magnitude more.
I do not doubt that assertion, but it's more to do with the specific circumstances involved. Eastern Europe was mentioned. Well, the USSR sure wanted to control those countries, but the complete eradication of their peoples was not attempted (even if less "total" activities were going on). I don't doubt many in Eastern Europe would not like to see a hammer and sickle, but I don't think it's remotely comparable to what the Swastika stands for to Jews.
And also, if we are to begin considering "indirect deaths", well, the US is responsible for quite a lot "indirectly".
To say that it was the "USSR" that wanted to control those countries suggests that you have ignored all history prior to 1917. Russia had visions of pan-slavism long before that. The Soviet system became a means to an end; it permitted a level of industrialization that was previously inconceivable in Russia. It almost succeeded, leaving Yugoslavia as the only slavic country that was never under Russian control. The problem there was that Tito chose his own independent form of communism, and Russia could no longer take it over without putting itself in a contradiction.
The other thing that reading a little history will reveal is that anti-semitism in Russia did not suddenly spring up in 1917. Transferring that attitude to a symbol, and pretending it is brand new is a gross misrepresentation of history. Symbols can be a magnifying glass that focuses pre-existing tendencies in a society.
It is not unusual for politicians (in the broadest sense) to manipulate symbols for their own purposes. The symbols don't do anything by themselves. The swastika like its Christian ancestor in the Crusades promoted and still does promote militancy, and that is probably what makes it more hateful than the hammer and sickle which after all are more keen on promoting hard work in the factory and farm respectively. The neo-nazis don't want to relegate themselves into obscurity by promoting hard work. The hammer and sickle represented a movement (at least in theory) that would improve the life of the workers. The swastika primarily grew out of resentment for the onerous reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles. Berlin was one of the great sin cities of the 1920s; in that context the Nazi Party could promote itself and its Christian swastika as the defender of wholesome family values.
Many of the Soviet and US crimes during WW2 were absolved because they were both on the same winning side. The Dresden and Hiroshima massacres were no less odious than anything the Nazis did, but I wouldn't class them as "indirect", unless "indirect" includes dropping bombs on people that you can't see. "Indirect" might more appropriately include deaths of children from inadequate medical care occasioned by sanctions against any medical equipment that might even remotely be converted to military purposes.
The United States manipulates symbols when it requires schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In that, The Flag is foremost, and "the republic for which it stands" is only an afterthought. The entire US national anthem is about the flag in battle, and the single phrase "land of the free" doesn't show up until the last line. When you succeed in making people believe in a symbol it is very easy to transfer that belief into whatever you want that symbol to stand for.
Ec