Fight the Present

Although I have said I am a Hobbesian totalitarian, I do not in any way support the states and organizations listed here as totalitarian. I am not insane.

Introduction
I am piecing this (not the essay) together from multiple articles and comments across the internet on a broad spectrum of ideologies and opinions which are either borderline or have crossed into totalitarianism. There's no clear organization, but I don't think this will be too disorganized for you, my reader, to see for yourself. In some cases, addresses weren't available, so if you question the content, conduct search engine results on phrases like "difference Nazism Juche"; "totalitarianism"; "North Korean death camp", etc. You will find information from thousands of websites. Claims they are all liars, deceivers, American imperialist propagandists, and Trotskyists are impossible because the chances of 99% (at the very least) of the internet saying these things, and the real world saying these things, are not only astronomical, it verges on absurdity. But, believe in whatever fantasy you want. Note that not just "Juche" is totalitarian.

Essay
Totalitarianism is something debated by people who are death worship sympathisers. "Since there are many institutions to a state, like military, police, industry, and government, it can't be totalitarian, but pluristic". I'm pretty sure that when the government owns every institution, and punishes thoughtcrime, it's totalitarian. Totalitarianism is basically described as being: "Totalitarianism is a term employed by some political scientists, especially those in the field of comparative politics, to describe modern regimes in which the state regulates nearly every aspect of public and private behavior.

The most influential scholars of totalitarianism, such as Karl Popper, Hannah Arendt, Carl Friedrich, and Juan Linz have each described totalitarianism in a slightly different way. Common to all definitions is the attempt to mobilize entire populations in support of the official state ideology, and the intolerance of activities which are not directed towards the goals of the state, entailing repression or state control of business, labour unions, churches or political parties. Totalitarian regimes or movements maintain themselves in political power by means of secret police, propaganda disseminated through the state-controlled mass media, personality cult, regulation and restriction of free discussion and criticism, single-party state, the use of mass surveillance, and widespread use of terror tactics." - Wikipedia.org

In this collection of articles, you will learn shocking things you may have been aware of before, but not to the extent that will be shared. Some of you may not be surprised. Yet a few of you will be sympathisers and apologists for totalitarianism, in which case I say, you can't enslave the human spirit forever.

Totalitarianism isn't just political. Throughout history, there have been other institutions displaying totalitarianistic tendencies, chiefly, if not political, it's religion. In the book 1984 by George Orwell, presented as a satire on the Soviet Union, there were many aspects that could only be described as religious totalitarianism. In the book, the world is divided into 3 superpowers, whose ideologies are indistinguishable. "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a book stamping on a human face---forever." In the world of 1984, humanity grows not less, but more merciless as it refines itself. The old command of the despotisms was "thou shalt" not; the command of the totalitarians was "thou shalt"; "ours" is "thou art". In this way, we can make comparisons from 1984 to the theology of monotheistic religions.

There is also a distinct caste system. At the top is all-seeing Big Brother. Akin to a monotheistic God, he demands utter obedience, complete submission, and devout loyalty. Failure to comply results in one's death. Sounds familiar to the promise of hell to those who fail to love God completely? Next in line come the Inner Party, the administrators. "We are the priests of power." In 1984, power is a religion, worshipped and obeyed. People do not experience love, they do not experience friendship, or compassion, or mercy. There is only fear of Big Brother, hate for the rest of humanity, triumph in the face of a defeated enemy, and worship of Big Brother. In the book, a woman cries out to Big Brother, falls to her knees, and offers a prayer. In short, it is filled with religious totalitarian concepts and metaphors disguised as a political satire novel.

There were the Catholics, arguably the most destructive and totalitarian Christian sect ever to have existed. We simply don't know how many people were murdered by the Catholic regime. We do know that until 1834, from the European Dark Ages and on, the Catholic religion tortured and murdered people across Europe for difference of opinion, and on the basis of fantasy, religious superstition such as witches which shares a Biblical concept, and petty retribution. People were killed slowly, using methods resurfaced by the Stalinists and the Jucheists. Because the Catholic regime is the one true religion, and because God told them to, people took it upon themselves to act as their God, imposing divine justice on people here in this life. Aside from the Inquisitions, there are acts of aggression against the rest of the world, like the Crusades, launched by Christian nations, largely Catholic, the Conquests of the Americas, launched by Christian nations, again largely Catholic, and various intra-religious wars between differing sects of Christianity, such as Catholicism against Greek Orthodoxy, or Catholicism against Lutheranism. It should also be noted that Lutherans, while not as publicized as Catholics for their crimes against humanity, committed terrible acts against other human beings in the name of God. Just about every religion, I exaggerate not, is guilty of crimes against humanity. Even peaceful religions like Buddhism had the Mongolian empire of the Kara-Khitai, an aggressive empire of Buddhists.

The Muslim faith, politically correcting itself as a religion of peace, is no better than its other monotheistic counterparts. While the Jews were said to have exterminated the Canaanites and formed their own empire, and while the Christians are documented to have established a domain over the Roman Empire and Europe, oppressing those who once oppressed them, the Muslims came out of Arabia in full force, slaughtering and killing millions in their drive to conquer the known world for their one true God. When the tide finally settled, an empire of Islamic belief stretched from Spain to India. While the Muslims in various areas were known to be tolerant towards other religions, and while the early to middle Muslim empire was known for its love of knowledge, can we really say the same today? We live in a world where children strap bombs to their bellies, where Muslim mobs demand the heads of those who insult their prophet Mohammed, and where rape victims are punished. Just as many Christians and many Jews reject reality and science, so too do Muslims. In the face of fact, they have fantasy; in the face of truth, they have theology; and in the face of differences, they have dogma.

Long before Judaeo-Christianism, there were many other religions, one in particular ranks among the highest in its totalitarianism meter: Egyptian theology. A living God, Pharaoh was worshipped. A nation of slaves, there were little freedoms, little rights for the majority of people. The nation was a theocracy; ruled by priests.

It is a key concept of totalitarianism to achieve its aims by restricting the free flow of knowledge. In the past this was often accomplished by keeping the masses illiterate of knowledge in order to give them information when it suited the hierarchy best. Thus, there is no freedom of press or knowledge in a totalitarian society. Information is strictly controlled, and by the time any information is disseminated to the masses, is so warped and propagandized it bears little resemblance to reality anymore.

Another key concept of totalitarianism is thought control. By making it an issue to control the minds of others through conversion and brainwashing, you can control your subjects. Most of the time, thoughtcrime is punishable by death to discourage and eliminate stray thoughts and acts. Totalitarians make it their business to convert, to preach, to evangelize, and control others in the effort to become their master. The underlying psychology of why people wish to dominate the minds and lives of others is something most of us will never understand, and those of us who think we do, go mad on the inside, mad from the fact human beings can be so cruel. We may never fully understand the motives for total power. Not even Orwell knew; "I understand the how, I do not understand the why." Though in 1984, it was explained as "power for the sake of power", that's not much of an explanation. While totalitarianism can be explained as state sanctioned sociopathy, it can also be called, in one word, evil. Some of you don't believe in evil as objective; neither do I. But as a concept which means, in layman term, the lack of constructivity, encouragement of unconstructivity, and destruction of life, liberty, happiness, and property amongst others, it really cannot be denied as destructive to the human spirit.

More concepts and attributes of totalitarian regimes include a cult of personality, voter harassment in order to produce an almost unanimous election, brutal reprisals against perceived enemies, purges of citizens and loyal comrades of the party, be it communist or fascist, and religious repression.

Totalitarianism in the 20th century has been most visible of totalitarianism in our textbooks and literature. It is the most visible, the most recent, the most destructive, and the most openly inhuman. It has taken on two major forms, with each form having its own substructures; its two major forms being fascism and communism. While never actually meeting the criteria for communism, the fact some of the communist states claimed to be communist, or were led by communist parties, makes it a simplistic term for their form. I am quite versed in socialist theory, was once a socialist, and have socialist friends. I know the difference between communism and actual utopian communism, so if all you will say is "not communist at all", not only do I already know that, it defeats the purpose of any argument or debate-starter, so I ask you don't argue semantics, since I've already explained my reasoning for terminology, thank you very much.

Starting with fascism, we had Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany as prime examples of totalitarianism. While there were economic freedoms, we also have to acknowledge that the governments of Germany and Italy strictly controlled their economies prior to engaging in total war against their neighbors, and during war, directly controlled their economies completely. Economic freedom was simply a formality prior to your business being liquidated and appropriated for war funds against other nations. While they did share aspects with socialism, they can't be described as socialist because they do not meet the criteria. Welfare was an integral part of German society, but with a catch: only to Aryans, an imaginary race. Keynesian economics played an integral role in German society as well, as the German regime found ways to employ their otherwise unemployed masses. These policies are not strictly socialist, which is why they cannot be called National Socialists, since socialism, as a definition, is the collectivization of production. As far as I know, no German business or sector ever achieved collectivization.
Collectivization of human beings? Yes. As Hitler came to power on the wings of the SS and the SA, he already began work on his plan to exterminate the Jewish culture, religion, and people as part of his anti-Semitic program. Dachau, to my knowledge, in Munich, was the first labor camp opened. If my knowledge from high school serves me correctly, in the early years, it wasn't anywhere near Auschwitz barbarism, but how can that justify the existence of labor camps? How can forced-labor camps ever be justified? How can you justify the murder of innocent people whose only crime was to be different in opinion or in class? Does the child of a capitalist deserve the fate of the father, and does the father deserve to die at all for being born wealthier, or working harder to entrepreneur? When we dehumanize other people for being different than us, we dishonor the memories of those dehumanized by the Nazis, the Stalinists, the Maoists, the Khmer Rouge, the Jucheists, and the list does go on.

As time went on, the Nazi regime waged total war against its neighbors, killing tens of millions of human beings, including homosexuals, religious adherents, differing political ideological members, and "un-Germans". I think it's quite easy to tell, from the Nazi goal of extermination of the Jews, of communism, and the imposition of Aryan superiority, that Hitler dreamed of a slave empire ruled by an elite group of Germans whose aims would be world domination and racial extermination. When the collective German madness was finally stopped by a coalition of free and unfree peoples of the world, the world discovered (actually, finally began to acknowledge) the horrors of genocide. They found camps, of emaciated bodies. They found gas chambers in many camps. They found medical experimentation laboratories, whose experiments largely had "no real purpose or goal". And they found that the human being wasn't such a noble creature after all.

For the first time in history, public trials of war criminals were conducted. I have no idea about nations other than Germany and Japan, but as for Germany, most of its top leaders were brought to justice. The only regret I have about many of their executions is that a person can't die twice. It makes me wonder what is wrong with our species; perhaps we really don't deserve to exist, when our barbaric qualities overshadow our redeeming ones. It's something to thik about, at least.

Then the world focused on the communists. In the 1930s, as a result of Stalin's policies, tens of millions of Ukrainians were starved knowingly. Throughout the Soviet Union, millions of people were rounded up and shot without trial for being a little wealthier than their neighbors. Gun control was established, and no one could resist effectively the acts of a brutal dictatorship whose ulterior purpose for the extermination of millions may never truly be known or comprehended. Millions more were sent to gulags to die. These policies and acts of state-sponsored terrorism and murder lasted from the very late 1920s until the end of Stalin's life, far longer than that of the Nazi regime, which only survived for 12 years.

Taking punishment of political dissent, thoughtcrime, and opinion to the extreme, Stalin's Russia exterminated in a time of peace almost as many as the Nazis murdered in a time of war. People were punished for speaking out against the government, and thousands quietly disappeared. But it wasn't taken quite to the level of 1984's society, or of North Korea's modern society. Stalin's empire lacked the technology necessary to watch everyone who needed to be watched, and it lacked stability of economy.
After the death of Stalin, the Soviet Union largely de-Stalinized due first to the policies of Khrushchev, but information was still controlled, as well as freedom of movement, expression, press, and assembly.

While I would include Maoism and Khmer Rouge in detail, and while I have studied Maoist China, it never quite reaches the heights of insanity or long-lasting barbarism as did Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. What should be said is that tens of millions of Chinese people, possibly more than the casualties of the Second World War, were killed by the Maoist regime. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge's rise to power resulted in the extermination of over 25% of the total population. Re education camps came to prominence in China, North Korea, and Cambodia, although they possibly did exist in Russia, but I have read nothing about Soviet re-education camps, just Soviet death camps.

In 1945, Korea was split along the 38th parallel between a Soviet-supported regime in the north and an American-supported democracy in the south. Korea hadn't been free for almost half a century, since 1909, and this put pressure on the North's leader, Kim Il Sung, appointed by Stalin to rule the North, to unite the Korean people, apparently under the flag of totalitarianism. In an act of Anschluss and aggression, the North Koreans invaded the South. In 1953, after three years of fighting, the borders were largely restored. To this day, North Korea claims (despite 99% of the world saying otherwise) that they didn't start the war, despite documents unsealed in the KGB archives saying otherwise as well. After that point, it was downhill for the North Korean people. An Orwellian dictatorship began to exercise its power on its own citizens, and the establishment of death camps became commonplace. A massive cult of personality, possibly never matched before in modern history, took over people's lives and thoughts. As human freedoms became curtailed one by one, more and more human beings were put into death camps, for political dissent, saying the wrong thing, etc. Since none of these people were ever brought to a neutral court of law, or even any court of law, it's hard to say they "were bourgeois human scum" who "deserved it". Exactly akin to the Holocaust is the existence, as reported by the UN, by surviving eyewitnesses, camp guards, political leaders, and average citizens reporting of mass atrocities, such as medical experimentation chambers in which whole families have been reported to be gassed as pseudoscientists take notes calmly. "They were the enemy, I was told", says one former camp guard, "so I dehumanized them in my mind."

Today, there is absolutely no freedom in North Korea. By freedom (so I don't make my Jucheist readers confused on the issue, because I'm obviously a Trotskyist imperialist Japanese human scum aggressor big fat liar person) I mean, freedom of speech, movement, belief, politics, opinion, thought, assembly, press, information, and property. Today, as I write these words, and as you, my reader, read them, people in North Korea are suffering unimaginable horrors, horrors never seen since the Holocaust.

North Korea was once largely pro-Soviet. After Khrushchev denounced Stalin in 1954 privately, there occurred the Sino-Soviet split, where North Korea went into the Chinese camp. Later, its ideology officially went through an evolution, from Marxism-Leninism to Marxism-Maoism to finally Juche and Songun. Juche is described as being "self-reliance". However, it's quite difficult to be self-reliant when you take hand-outs from other nations due to your almost non-existent economy and infrastructure, wouldn't you agree? Songun is "military-first". This means, in practice, the military receives preferential treatment, gets more food than the regular citizen, and the military is used as a form of repression, and putting down civil disturbances. In a nation where people are starving by the thousands because there isn't enough food to go around because the government is more interested in growing opium than crops (documentary The Secret State), how can North Korea justify or afford spending over 25% of its GDP on the military? America does possess the most advanced military in the world, spends more on it than the rest of the world combined, and spends more than 25% of its own GDP on it, but we aren't in a state of crisis, and we feed our people. North Korea simply cannot afford a military-first policy.

According to the Songun Politics Study Group, Kim Jong Il is quoted as supporting cult of personality, and unwavering loyalty to the leader as "faith". How many democratically-elected leaders receive a cult of personality, and encourage their citizens to be unwavering in loyalty and faith to them?

After being burdened with this knowledge, it's hard to not hate these people, the people who committed these crimes against humanity, the people who sympathise with them, and especially the apologists for them. However, you shouldn't hate their citizens. It's not their fault. We should hate hate itself, because once we become complacent---once we become apathetic, hate will win, and we will die.

Responses to Articles by Stalinists
[equote="A Stalinist article"]The 1930s in Germany
Up to the age of 10 (from 1922 to 1932) I lived in the Weimar Republic, which came into existence after the Kaiser was thrown out in 1919. I experienced all that as a small boy. Obviously I didn't understand anything of what was happening. My parents were very loving and did everything possible for me, but I remember a tumultuous situation - strikes, shootings, recession, 7 million unemployed, blood in the streets. I lived in a working-class quarter outside Hamburg where the people were suffering great hardship. There were demonstrations where red flags were carried, women carrying children and pushing pushchairs, shouting 'Give us bread, give us work', workers shouting 'Revolution' and 'Lenin'.

My father was very left-thinking and explained many things. The ruling class of Germany was very frightened by this situation and decided to do something about it. I witnessed street fighting that I had to run away from, and thought this was all part of life. [/equote]

There was no ruling class of Germany. The Weimar Republic was a republic; it didn't have Inner Party leaders like Stalin's Russia.

[equote="A Stalinist article"]On Christmas Day 1932 I was 10 years old. Shortly afterwards, on 30 January 1933, a bomb exploded at the Reichstag. That was when Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. My mother kept asking how Hindenberg could allow this to happen, because we all knew the Nazis were thugs. We knew they were just a racist party who talked about revenge and beating people up.

I thought it all interesting and exciting, even though my mother told me they were gangsters. I would see brown-shirted storm troopers marching through town and I thought they were very glamorous. As young boys we tried to sing their songs and proudly marched behind them. In the last three columns, at the end of the marches, came the sweepers and if people on the pavement didn't salute the flag, the sweepers would force them to do it. Later I was in the Hitler Youth and was ashamed for my mother to see me.

Hitler appointed to quell working-class rebellion

Hitler was Reichschancellor. Yet 10 years earlier nobody knew him. The Nazi name (standing for Nationalist Socialist German Workers' Party) attracted quite a few people disillusioned with the traditional parties. Some were sincere socialists prepared to give Hitler a chance on the basis he couldn't be worse than the parties that had preceded him. When Hitler and his representatives spoke it was always about making Germany great again, attacking Jews and the lower orders as people we must do something about. It was the God given duty of the German people to sort the world out in the German way, even if they didn't like it.

There were no elections. Hitler was appointed overnight. Elections were abolished in order to put Hitler in power. Why? The Nazis had no tradition. So who put them in power? Hindenberg was a spokesperson for the German ruling classes, the military, the arms producers, the Ruhr barons, the bankers, the Church and the aristocratic landowners. My father said that when Hitler came to power he was a servant of the rich. Now I know my father was right. They had put Hitler there in order to quell the rebellion of working-class people against bad living standards. Hitler was not even a German national. He had been a corporal in the army, a vagabond in Vienna. He had had no education, he was just shouting for revenge. How can it be possible in a highly developed country like Germany, which is very cultured, for someone like him to become Head of the German state and supreme military commander? It would not have been possible for him on his own. His party was nothing. It was his paymasters who made it, wanting to prevent a repetition of the Russian revolution.[/equote]

It's a common fallacy Hitler wasn't elected. In Germany's parliamentary system, at least in the late 1910s to the early 1930s, you could earn a minority share of the votes yet win the election. How is that possible, some of you might say? Hitler earned approximately 36% of the votes. No one individual bloc or party came that close. Therefore, as being the highest voted party or bloc, the Nazi Party was elected into power.
Additionally, the fact Hitler was appointed as Chancellor by the President of Germany in 1933 is not much of an argument Germany lacked democracy prior to Hitler. In America, we appoint our Supreme Court Justicies. In reality, also, we appoint our presidents through the oligarchical Electoral College, not through popular election. Since this article was written by a Stalinist or at least a pro-Stalinist, I should point out that Stalin was never elected by the people to the Central Committee of the Communist Party. He was appointed.

[equote="A Stalinist article"]Hitler had executive power but was not a dictator. He was just a front man. He was not clever enough to run a machine like the German state.[/equote]

Oh my. Hitler, through his pawns, planned the organization of the Holocaust. Hitler may have been an unemployed artist, but he organized a tiny party into the party of a German empire. Hitler planned a great share of the war, and although he made a serious blunder in fighting a three-fronted war (Africa, Britain, Russia), he was a military strategist. Hitler planned the reforms of economy, employing German citizens and implementing Keynesian economic policies.

[equote="A Stalinist article"]The Nazis set up concentration camps.[/equote]

So did Stalin, and Stalin's camps killed more people than Hitler's camps.

[equote="A Stalinist article"]My father had always said we workers must struggle for our rights because the bastards only employ us if they can make a profit and that they were only afraid of rebellion that could lead to revolution. One day some brownshirts came in 2 cars at 3 a.m. and collected one of our neighbours who was a union secretary. He was taken to a concentration camp. My mother told me about this, and from then on my father instructed me to keep quiet about what he said about the Nazis as otherwise he could be sent to a concentration camp too. Taking one person from our area was a clever way of frightening and threatening all the families. I was 11 or 12 at the time and I thought he was an idiot and that I knew it all. My father thought nothing could be done and he had no choice but to keep quiet. The communists were the first ones to be taken away to concentration camps and then even progressive church people and anyone who spoke against the regime. You went if you dared open your mouth. Fear and terror was the basis of Nazi power.[/equote]
I see no difference between Nazi implementation of power and Stalinist implementations. Neither does the extreme majority of this human race, or evidence.

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After reading through about half of the Stalin Society's "Katyn Massacre [a lie]" article, basically all I need to say is there's mounds of evidence showing it did occur. KGB archives, Kremlin archives, and Communist Party documents, freely available on the internet, all show it did happen. It's reasonable to say the Nazis on their side embellished the Katyn Massacre, pumping up casualty lists and lying about Soviet officers involved in the massacre.

The Stalin Society's article simply quotes to Pravda myriad times in order to somehow "prove" Katyn never happened. It cites nothing as evidence at all besides unsourced Stalin-era Pravda articles and unsourced Communist Party documents. An example of such pro-Stalin propaganda and carefully-worded vitriol is here:

[equote="Stalinist articleStalinist article"]In 1922 the Soviet Union experienced severe famine conditions in some areas following on from the wars of intervention when imperialist powers had sought to crush the new Soviet state. Famine conditions recurred again in 1933, particularly, but not exclusively, in the Ukraine. There are two versions to this second famine that are radically different. An objective analysis indicates the famine to have resulted from a combination of poor climatic conditions and sabotage on the part of the rich peasants or kulaks in the face of the collectivisation of agriculture. Ukrainian nationalists however argue that the famine was deliberately contrived by Stalin in order to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people, and resulted in millions of needless deaths, in fact death and destruction on such a scale that it dwarfs the Nazi holocaust. Documentary evidence produced to support this claim is often endorsed by academics such as Robert Conquest, or James Mace of Harvard University. Such evidence is shaky in the extreme and often relies on discredited accounts from the 1930's pro-fascist press in America, or even Nazi documents. Despite this it continues to resurface, most notably in the 1980s as part of an attempt by Ukrainian nationalists to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the famine, and at the same time to fuel the cold war rhetoric of the Reagan era.[/equote]

Here, they blame everyone but themseles. They even blame a minor invasion by a world-wide coalition that happened three years before the famine happened. That's exactly like blaming Hitler's decision to start the Second World War in 1939 on losses he incurred in the Munich Olympics of 1936.

They even use the old communist rhetorical crutch for everything that goes wrong: imaginary enemies; in this case, the kulaks. According to the Stalinists, there were kulaks running around (actually, can't, because Stalin restricted freedom of movement by 1933, and required Ukrainian peasants not leave Ukraine or their villages) apparently eating or burning all the crops. Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Saying: "1930's pro-fascist press in America" makes a lot of sense because as we all know, Franklin D. Roosevelt was a fascist who controlled the press completely, and put his own people into death camps, initiated brutal reprisals against his own people, conducted mass purges of the Democratic Party, committed genocide against other ethnicities in America, and established a one-party state in America.

[equote="Stalinist article"]The same old grainy photographic images appear time and time again, purporting to show victims of the Ukraine famine, but these are almost always undocumented, or if traced back actually come from famine relief documents from the 1922 famine or even earlier. Cobbled together in the film 'Harvest of Despair' such pictures were shown on UK television despite having been rejected by some public service networks in the US because of a blatant lack of objectivity. Ukrainian nationalist organisations in Canada and elsewhere continue to propagate the notion of deliberate famine genocide, while carefully glossing over their own anti-semitic, pro-Nazi and collaborationist origins. A search on the web for 'Ukrainian Famine Genocide' resulted in 845 references to this 'man made' famine, as usual graphically illustrated with pictures for an earlier era. In this talk I will explore some of the background to these various claims and counter claims, with reference to the excellent book on the subject by Douglas Tottle (Fraud, famine and fascism. The Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard. Progress Books, Toronto, 1987. ISBN 0-919396-51-8)[/equote]

Holocaust pictures are largely undocumented and grainy, so obviously, the Holocaust never happened, right?

[equote="Stalinist article"]Some kulaks burned down the property of collectives and even burned their own crops and seed grain.[/equote]

Major flaw in logic here: why would farmers whose only source of income is crop yields burn their own crops? This is just like blaming the Holocaust on the Jews because the Jews deserved it or got what they deserved.
The rest of the article talks about how the American press was controlled by Hearst completely and how it was "fascist"; how scientific analyses of the casualties of the Ukrainian famine, changing because of new evidence, is proof it never happened; and completely changing the subject in order to attack the Ukrainian people, claim the Ukrainian people were collaborators with the Nazis.

I can sum up the Stalinist logic very simply here in the tradition of a "God proof logic algorithm".

A. Everyone but us Stalinists say the Ukrainian Famine happened.
B. It happened because of things 3 to 15 years prior which never actually affected Ukraine.
C. Well, okay, it happened because the farmers destroyed their own crops.
D. What do you mean that makes no sense to burn your own crops?
E. Um... the Ukrainians helped the Nazis.
F. Therefore Stalin is God.

Not only have they invoked Godwin's Law in order to "win" the argument, they make little sense in regards to why farmers would burn their own crops. By burning your crops, especially if you're in a forced collective, means no food. Means starvation. Means death.

Feel free to view the link for yourself. The article again sources nothing and constantly attributes "evidence" to unnamed people, articles, and organizations.

Also feel free to review the rest of the Stalin Society's ersatz articles. I'm sure once you read them for yourself, or get disgusted half-way through, you'll realize they're all insane.

Responses to religious fundamentalists
[equote]Adherants.com or something...
The following email, typical of many we have received from Baptists, came to us on 23 May 2002 from Jacki Brosnan, [EMAIL="[email protected]"][email protected][/EMAIL] :
Q. Your statistics on the religions of the world is bias. The catholics, jw's the mormons should NOT be put in the relm of Christianity they are just a bunch of good for nothing heathens. The name Christian is no longer in their religion, they've taken Christ out of their religion and should no longer be included in the "Christian" section of the statistic. And why isn't Baptists included in the Christian statistic or why isn't it mentioned? We are the only true Christians living on the face of the earth. You see Jesus Christ was a Baptist, He was baptized by John the Baptist not John The Methodist or John the Catholic. All these religions are just a load of rubbish. They all can't get you to heaven. They'll just bring you down to hell. Only by accepting that you are a sinner, the punishment for that is HELL and receiving Jesus Christ into your heart will take you to heaven. Being good will not take you to heaven because to God your good works are just filthy rags. You need to pray to God and mention all these things or you will go to HELL! and one last thing, wanna statistic? Measure the size of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana. Go there for yourself.

Answer: Thank you for writing. I don't have any plans to be in Hammond, Indiana any time soon. I'll take your word for it that it is a big church.[/equote]

Hate's a filthy crutch for refusing to learn and understand sane people's views and opinions. Feel free to email this Baptist. The fact her email is public means the website I got it from had permission, so please don't complain to me about violating privacy. I also notice strong pride, a sin, coming from the "Q" part of the article, not to mention absolute stupidity. John the Baptist wasn't an American Southern Baptist. It was just part of his name. There was no American Baptist Church in 30 CE. This seriously cracks me up almost as much as hearing farmers enjoy burning their own crops. Haha!

Responses to Articles concerning Jucheism
[equote="http://kwl****n.blogspot.com/2003_08_31_archive.html"]Moreover, to offer concessions to Pyongyang, particularly a non-aggression pledge, to induce good behavior assumes the following: that the concessions actually will encourage North Korea to change its behavior, dismantle its nuclear program, and stop making bombs; that
Pyongyang can be faithfully trusted to live up to its end of the bargain; and that the United States has no other means of dealing with the threat North Korea poses other than by giving in to its demands. Given North Korea's flouting of the Agreed Framework and threats to pull out of other agreements, including the 1953 Korean War Armistice, there is no reason to believe that the regime can be trusted, is honest, and is willing to give up its atomic programs in exchange for U.S. concessions. The Korea Initiative, a research project conducted by the Woodrow Wilson Center that has examined secret Soviet archives dealing with North Korean-Soviet relations, also found that North Korea has a long history of extracting aid-for-concessions, adopting superficial reforms to appear to being honoring an agreement, and then reverting to old practices in order to extort more aid.[/equote]

You simply can't trust a nation which breaks treaties. Can't trust Nazis for the same reason. How can you trust a one-man nation?

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[equote="http://www.chosunjournal.com/pierrerigoulot.html"]The Chosun Journal

Comparative Analysis of Concentration Camps in Nazi Germany, the Former Soviet Union and North Korea

Presented at The 1st International Conference on North Korean
Human Rights and Refugees (Seoul, 1999)

by Pierre Rigoulot

Editor, Social History Commentary, France; contributing writer of the
NK section in The Black Book of Communism (Harvard Univ. Press, 1999)

I. Introduction

This paper aims to compare North Korean prison camps with Nazi and Soviet camps to analyze their similarities and differences. Such a comparison in Europe at least is a daring venture, for our knowledge of North Korean camps is new and still very limited. The source of our limited information is in the effort of some people, including the organizers of this symposium, and in the testimonies of a small number of those who defected in the past ten years: Chul-hwan KANG and Hyuk AHN on Yodok Camp No. 15, Myung-chul AHN on several camps and Dong-chul CHOI on Camp No. 11. In contrast, hundreds of books have been published about the Soviet and Nazi camps, and numerous archives are available for the study of these camps. Despite this imbalance, some points of comparison are worth making for they enable us to consider North Korea free from particularism and, I dare say, from exoticism.

The North Korean case is, in the first place, the problem and tragedy of the Korean people. If, however, we can build a bridge between the Soviet and Nazi camps that have so preoccupied the Europeans and the North Korean camps, it will help to raise concern in Europe for the latter as well.
Before going into the main body of my presentation, I would like to make a brief clarification on the methodology used in this paper. I have focused on only one among many facets of repression namely, concentration camps. Famine as in USSR in the past and in North Korea today, massacres that occur outside concentration camps (for example, the massacre in the ghetto of Warsaw, or the activities of the special Nazis groups, massacres carried out by Soviets in Vinitaza and Katyn), and the horror in the North Korean prisons are all important issues of themselves. Recently, the French media featured Soon-ok LEE's account of her experiences in the political prison, and it was appalling to say the least.
Among these important issues, I have chosen to deal only with the concentration camps in North Korea, i.e. a system of concentration camps comprising ten large camps (eleven, according to Mr. Dong-chul CHOI who was an officer in the North Korean State Security Department in the 1980s) that house between 150,000 to 200,000 inmates. This comparative study is composed of four parts. In the first two sections, I will draw some analogies between North Korean camps and the Soviet and Nazi camps. In the latter two, I will focus on their differences. The four sections may be summarized as follows:

1. North Korean camps, as are Nazi camps and Soviet gulags, constitute an element of the totalitarian system, which is made up of: single and compulsory ideology, one-party dictatorship, Fuhrerprinzip, trend towards the absorption of civil society by the political sector, use of terror, and most importantly, a permanent camp system.

2. North Korean camps are a component of the International Communist system. North Korean leaders have been trained, supported and armed by communist states for decades.

3. North Korean camps are within the Asiatic cultural sphere and exhibit strong Chinese influence.

4. Finally, North Korean camps show their own specific features that we must underline.

II. North Korean Camps Are Camps of Totalitarianism

A) Like Soviet and Nazi camps, North Korean camps form a system, that is to say a standing reality, organically linked with political power. It appears and disappears with the regime, and builds a body with its own rules and economy.

The first Soviet camps were set up by Lenin and Trotski in 1918. The first Nazi camps were inaugurated immediately after the seizure of power by Hitler in 1933. I have no evidence of the existence of camps in 1948-1950 period in North Korea, but there is no doubt that camps were filled up just after the 1950-1953 war with real or supposed enemies of the regime; and these camps are still in operation.

From this point of view, Nazi, Soviet and North Korean camps have no relation with the temporary camps that arose in wartimes, for example, during the so-called Spanish "reconcentration" in Cuba in 1896, or in the beginning of the 20th century when the British forces imprisoned the Dutch in South Africa. Moreover, these camps are completely different from the strategic hamlets built by Americans and South-Vietnamese in the 1960s.

B) North Korean camps have developed in a course similar to those of the Nazi and Soviet camps, in that they have shown a trend toward increasing the number of prisoners from more diversified classes.

North Korea first started with imprisoning pro-South Korea sympathizers and political foes purged by KIM Il-sung. In the case of the Nazis, they first interned political enemies such as communists and democrats and proceeded to expand the scope and to intensify the force of repression. As a result, even those groups that posed little threat to the state including Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and diverse asocial groups were forcefully detained in these camps. The Soviets, on the other hand, commenced with the imprisonment of tzarists and open opponents to their regime before striking reformist socialists, anarchists, trotskists, and finally, diverse suspects and millions of the so-called foes, kulaks, who were the wealthier peasants.

C) Nazi, Soviet and North Korean powers share the willingness to deprive inmates of their moral, political and legal identity.

1) Legal identity: People who are arrested are usually sent to camps by a simple administrative decision.

- USSR: the role of the "special conference" (OSSO) and the flexibility of the sentencing.

- Nazi Germany: Arrest is made of the targeted group as a whole, without trial and upon political decision.

- North Korea: Security agents arrest people without trial and without informing them of the length of their sentence.

2) Political identity:

- Notwithstanding some slight variations, the internment in Soviet Camps means loss of civil rights, and renewed or prolonged penalties in the form of assigned residence.

- The case of Nazi camps is similar where the victim is deprived of civil rights and subjected to arbitrary decisions.

- In the North Korean concentration camps, the deprivation of civil rights also exists but in a more complete and definitive form. The exception is Yodok Camp No. 15, where the families of the "criminals", especially those who are deemed "recoverable" are confined.

3) Moral identity: The negation of the individual's legal and political identity is accompanied by the negation of the individual as a moral being. In the three kinds of camps we found:

- efforts to compromise the victims with their executioners (use of prisoners as chiefs of work brigades or chiefs of huts in Soviet Union or Nazi Germany, and as chiefs of working groups in North Korea); surveillance by informants and obligatory pledge of loyalty.

- degrading standards of living (constant hunger, low grade of sanitary conditions, lack of medical supplies). One may do a comparative study on the varying conditions of food supply in the different concentration camps. The conditions of low hygiene and malnutrition in today's North Korea may be comparable to what Margarete Buber-Neumann experienced in Karaganda (Kazakhstan) in 1938-1939. When Buber-Neumann entered the Ravensbr?k camp, after being delivered by Stalin to Hitler, she was offered a towel, a soap and a toothbrush!

- isolation - usually more complete in Nazi and North Korean camps - from the outside world and even from their beloved family also under arrest (Here, some contrasts favorable in the case of North Korea must be made regarding Yodok Camp 15). Compulsory abortion, disappearance of newborn children, separation of mother and baby can be observed everywhere.

Generally speaking, negation of individuality and humanity has reached critical levels in concentration camps. This does not refer only to the kind of dehumanization exhibited by a guard in Yodok Camp who admonished a pregnant woman, "How can a counter-revolutionary and an enemy of the people such as yourself dare to bear a child?" Such brutalities as the use of inmates as targets for shooting practices in North Korea or in medical experiments in Nazi Germany are only part of the story. Testimonies on the three types of camps usually confirm the growth of inhumanity and insensitivity among the inmates themselves. Chul-hwan KANG spoke to me about fathers driven by hunger to steal food from their own children. Robert Antelme in his famous book about Gandersheim camp under Nazi Germany described the inmates stealing pieces of bread and potato peelings from one another. In his Memories from Kolyma, Varlam Chalamov, a long-term inmate, also depicted the loss of humanity in the concentration camp.

D) Finally, the three camps share the same functions that are simultaneously found only in the camps of totalitarian countries: to punish, to isolate, to use, to eliminate and to exterminate.

Elimination is achieved by the very low conditions of work, nutrition and hygiene. Mortality rate can be different depending on time periods and even among camps in the same country. It is always important and necessary that we be cautious about the classical distinction between extermination - something wanted, conceived, and organized for itself - and elimination. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote in his Gulag Archipelago that the only thing that the gulag lacked from looking like Nazi extermination centers was poison gas.

North Korean camps also lack gas, but they are equal to Soviet camps in their severe restriction of food and sanitary conditions and extremely demanding work quotas that induce the deaths of the inmates. Elimination in the North Korean camps aims at the inmates as a group rather than individuals, which is similar to the Nazi extermination of the Jews as a racial group. Usually in Nazi, Soviet and North Korean camps, the weakest are the first victims of such phenomenal and arbitrary crimes. We must acknowledge that in North Korea, though global, anonymous and phenomenal, the extermination is itself the goal. The open goal of the North Korean authorities in the concentration camps detaining those who are "beyond recovery" is to eradicate three generations of their inmates. The verb used by North Korean authorities, myulhada, means 'to exterminate'.

Those who are "beyond recovery" are exterminated gradually and over a lengthy term when compared to the case of Jews, whose extermination by the Nazis was carried out on a short-term (at least, from 1943, of those who were not selected to work).

E) The last typical feature of the camps in the totalitarian states: The detainees are crushed in the name of an ideology that puts a hierarchic order among social, political or racial groups in relation to the group that is considered the ideal or the superior one.

It is why one can find "normal", "severe", and "special" camps in USSR, fake camps (Theresinstadt), camps of internment (as Ravensbruck was for German inmates), camps for elimination (Buchenwald, Struthof) and centers of extermination (as Sobibor or Auschwitz-Birkenau) in Nazi Germany, centers of forced labor (for detentions shorter than a year), one camp, namely Yodok, for people who are recoverable and camps of life detention for people who are beyond recovery, such as Seng-hori camp in North Korea.

III. North Korean Camps Are Communist Camps

I will now underline the analogies between North Korean camps and Soviet camps.

A) Detainment is justified by a historicist ideology. It is in the name of the People or of the working class fighting for socialism, and, of course, in one name of the leader who symbolizes them, that the power is used to repress and throw men and women into camps.

B) Forced work is used in Soviet camps and in Yodok as a punishment as well as a means of regeneration. In other words, it is through forced work that one can come back to the proper practice of the popular class: a physical effort aiming at a transformation of Nature. By adopting the working class behaviour one can rediscover the social origin or political stand in accordance with the Communist state will.

In addition, forced work is a way of elimination in North Korean camps such as Yodok and especially in the camps for those beyond recovery. But even from this point of view we do not depart from communist conceptions. In Soviet or North Korean camps, forced labour means the fulfillment of a norm. And the norm has to be conceived in a planned and centralized system of production typical of all communist states.

Forced labour has not the same crucial place in Nazi camp system. Dachau in the 1930s was not a forced labour camp. It was the breakout of the war and the first difficulties of the German army, that led to the use of the inmates' labour. In the view of the Nazis, the labour was not a means of achieving redemption.

Thus, North Korean camps belong to a communist tradition, like that of the Chinese Laogai or the Soviet gulag. In Yodok, prisoners work in the fields; they fell trees or work in gold mines and pug pits. Works that are more difficult and clandestine are open in other camps: navvy work for military sites, for instance.

It seems, however, that I have to bring out the differences of the North Korean historicist ideology (It will be a good transition to my third and fourth parts on the specificity of North Korean camps!). In North Korea, the so-called "good origin" has a major significance. To be born in a "heroic family", i.e. a family of which a member was marked out as a hero by the Communist Party (even if it took place 50 years ago), is to have near genetic superiority. Chul-hwan KANG's mother, for instance, was not sent to Yodok Camp with her children (although she was, as they were, member of the family of a so-called political criminal) because her father's family was marked out as a heroic family. The children went to camp - at seven and nine years of age - and the Party ordered the daughter of a hero to cut off the rotten branch which represented her family and which was contaminated by an act of treason.

Such a point of view grazes a racial conception, really at stake in North Korea - a confirmation being brought by some eugenic practices. Here we are sent back, of course, to Nazism.

The next two parts will confirm particularities of North Koreans camps in contrast with those of Hitler and Stalin.

IV. North Korean Camps Are Asiatic Camps

Guards in Yodok Camp used to say: "There are only two medicines for the complete eradication of influence of spoilt capitalist ideology: labor and control." Here, "control" means more than the supervision by guards, which can be found in Nazi and Soviet camps as well. "Control" as commonly used by the Yodok guards includes ideological control. In all communist camps in Asia, the transformation of the detainees necessarily involves education of the detainees and their practice of introspection. Such is the way to get rid of the "old man" as the Scriptures would say.
Jean Pasqualini and Harry Wu gave a complete view of these meetings of criticism and self-criticism, and of the repeated autobiographies. These are found in the memoirs of detention in camps of Vietnam and Laos as well. Many books were published in French about the first Vietnam War (1945-1954) and about Vietnam after the seizure of Saigon in 1975. A remarkable continuity can be noted in the way camp inmates are dealt with. The communists of Vietnam used to organize many courses, lectures, meetings with quizzes and songs. Complete with deadening labour, a low-diet regime and promises of liberation contingent upon the "ideological progress", they held a powerful weapon.

At Yodok Camp No. 15 - as well as in the entire country - criticism and self-criticism meetings are organized twice a week. A worship is owed to KIM Il-sung or KIM Jong-il. Lectures are given, too, with daily reading of the Rodong Shinmun and competition of reciting KIM Il-sung's New Year's Address by heart.

It should also be noted that in Yodok, sick, exhausted and starved inmates are given three big copybooks, one pen-holder and one ink pot. The first notebook is named "Notebook for Assessment of Life" used in criticism and self-criticism sessions. The second one is titled "Notebook about the Party Policy" in which speeches by KIM Il-sung are noted. The third is the "Notebook of the Revolutionary History" of KIM Il-sung and KIM Jong-il.

V. Specificities of North Korean Camps

A) The most striking specificity is the familial disposition of the North Korean concentration camps. This can be interpreted in many ways:

1) There is a clear distinction between the so-called political criminal and his family (defined as all people living with him): The criminal is sent to a camp with severe rules, usually for a life-term detention from which there is little chance of release. But his family is usually sent to the "normal" detention center in Yodok.

2) In this camp, the family is not broken up as in the camps of Nazi Germany and former USSR. It can be said that the families are detained as a whole (with noteworthy exception of the criminal). They live in "villages" and their lives roughly resemble the ordinary lives of the poor peasants.

B) In fact, the real name of each village is "Work Group 1, 2, 3, etc." which signifies that in North Korea the camp encompasses the place where inmates work and study. In Soviet and Nazi camps, the prisoner is taken out of a camp limited by barbed wires to a work site located outside. In this regard, a camp such as in Yodok - about 40 kilometers in diameter, encompassing fields, pits, mines, "work groups" (alias villages), schools for children, rivers, mountains, etc. - resembles more of a vast reserve than a Soviet or Nazi camp.

C) The third specificity of North Korean camps is the clear distinction between the "usual offenders" and "political offenders". Here, one must be careful about the term "political offenders" because an inopportune word or an attempt to leave the country can send someone to the camp. The term "usual offenders" must also be employed with care because many of the accusations have one political meaning and origin. Given these precisions, it must be underlined that no usual offender goes to a camp (He is sent to a prison). North Korean camps are reserved for political offenders. The North Korean system thus spares their camps one of the worst nuisances of the Soviet or Nazi camps, namely the confrontation with the criminal underworld, so well described by Alexander Solzhenitsyn.

VI. Conclusion

I had hoped to throw some bridges between North Korean camps, and Soviet and Nazi camps to draw greater attention from the European people to the former. I believe the attempt was successful.
I would like to conclude with the following remarks:

l Each network of camps is so specific that even if it is useful to compare them, it is wrong to put these networks on top of each other and to grade them.

l The difficulties in comparing the networks become more important when we think of factors like war or peace being at stake or the duration of the political regime producing the camps. For instance, as World War II progressed, the Nazi network became very different from what it was in 1933-1940 and added to its usual system of centers of extermination.

l The life spans of the three systems are very different: 70 years for the Soviet camps, nearly 50 years for North Korean camps and only 12 years (half of them during the war) for Nazi camps.

Last but not least, the gulag and the Nazi camps do not exist anymore. North Korean camps, however, still do. Our studies on them cannot be coldly scholastic. Our efforts to expand the knowledge of these camps and to unveil their nature, simultaneously entail deep feelings of indignation and willingness to enlighten our struggle against totalitarianism for democracy and human rights. Such knowledge and struggle can be shared by all mankind. In this regard, North Korean camps are the concern of all.[/equote]

The North Korean slave state is composed of at most 26 million people; extermination and famine have reduced the population, but the government isn't giving out statistics. We may never know how many people have died. We do know at least 200,000 out of a nation of 26 million are imprisoned in North Korean death camps. We do know, through UN reports, multiple eyewitness accounts, etc, that the North Koreans are conducting human experiments. The very experiments they condemn the Nazis and "Japanese" imperialists for.