It’s interesting in the States too, because a lot of the things Bush is getting hammered for, in particular the annihilation of civil liberties and executive accountability, are things Clinton were very keen on as well.

Anyway, I wanted to emphasize that my “socialist atrocities” observation is not meant as bait, but rather as an illustration that, in politics and ideology, no one owns the moral high ground, so we should all make an effort to put rhetoric aside in any discussion. It’s that “Monkey” business I’m always droning on about in my blog

A great many other colonial atrocities, Belgium in the Congo being one of the most horrific examples, were committed in the name of some crown or other.

And I certainly agree that because ‘we’ defeated the Nazis ourselves it definitely massages our self-image to make them out to be the worst of the worst. How else could the Allies have won the Greatest and Most Courageous Victory of All Time(TM)?

The comment about Socialism is not bait I am going to take with my current historical knowledge, but it strikes me that to actually become a proper genocidal maniac you have to basically install a dictatorship in one form or another, and generally the way people do that is a kind of revolution, either a violent one or one by election, in the Hitler style.

And you can’t do that without being the Champion of the People.

On the whole I agree with Ben that it was the orderliness and the fact that it was in a distinctly Western country that made the Nazi regime extra horrible.

But keep in mind that moral certainty is a rare thing in politics. Let’s not forget that, in the century preceding WWII, North American governments carried out a campaign of ghettoization and genocide (physical and cultural) against aboriginals that was, shall we say, on the same moral plane as the Nazis.

The Nazis, let’s not forget, were the enemy and therefore the subject of intense propaganda efforts before and after the war. Stalin was given the benefit of the doubt and even praised by the Western media during the war. So is it any wonder that the enduring popular memory is that Hitler was the epitome of evil while Stalin gets a pass.

Finally, let me close with my own controversial observation: Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao. What do all these guys have in common? They all called themselves socialists and described themselves as(perhaps even believed themselves to be)heroes of the working man.

Personally, I believe political debate should be ying-yang, with both sides recognizing each other’s contribution to the process. Nothing drives me battier than when one side or another adopts an attitude of snide moral self-righteousness. Your essay nicely illustrates the sorts of hypocrisy such attitudes inspire.

nah, the pills are all in order )

just being silly & exorcising my oft misunderstood strain of humour making reference to the holocaust denialists for (clearly un)comedic effect.

by the by: the Gregorian calendar puts the ‘October Revolution’ as actually happening in November. so, a strangely anniversorially coincidental post (90 years give or take the odd day).

LET LIVE FOR CENTURIES THE NAME & WORK OF MR. TOAD!

But you live in Berlin, and I was raised in Vienna, so it’s just that little bit closer to home. Which really does make it sting.

and above all, if you look at the communist manifesto, and mein kampf, and imagine both of these instruction manuals had been perfectly and victoriously implemented, only one of those worlds would be worth living in. i think that makes a big difference.
Also, the US and the UK beat the nazis, so the worse they are seen as, the better the great allies look. nobody beat the soviet union except the soviet peoples.