It’s true that certain parts of Europe ban the use of Nazi symbols, even any trade in artefacts. Sure, we understand why, even if basic freedom and liberty says they shouldn’t. However, if it is true, as some will insist, that such symbols be banned why isn’t the same true of the Hammer and Sickle? As many and more were killed by that variant of totalitarianism, the different shade of socialism. If the one set of symbols is too horrific to be shown then why not the other? Aren’t the dead equally in their graves?
We have made this point before:
A useful little test of logical consistency here. If it is true that Nazi symbols and memorabilia should be banned then why shouldn’t the Hammer and Sickle also be banned? If it is true that the Nazi stuff should not be legally banned but still should be entirely socially repudiated then why isn’t that true of that other symbol of murderous dictatorship? Or even, why shouldn’t it be true?
The obvious enough answer being that all too many people are still quite happy with the idea of eliminating the bourgeois while the anti-semitism is limited to only that part of the hard left which is in the Labour Party. But that’s not logic, that’s just observation.
At which point we get a pipsqueak of a request over in the EU:
Members of the European Parliament have called on the Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos, to stop selling Soviet-themed merchandise on the global online shopping platform insisting that it is offends victims of the regime, according to an open letter.
The appeal to the world’s wealthiest man comes after the American retail giant Walmart pledged in September to stop selling clothing with Soviet hammer and sickle symbols following similar complaints.
Twenty-seven MEPs, some from former eastern bloc countries, said they were requesting “the discontinuation of sales of goods with the hammer and sickle symbol, representing the Soviet Union, on the Amazon Inc platform”.
If it were an insistence about the Nazis then there would be hundreds doing the insisting. It’s about the Soviets, it’s a mere handful. Why is that? It can’t be that some still desire to eliminate the bourgeoisie can it, still think that a legitimate political goal?
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The hammer and sickle, as evil as the USSR was, does not represent an ideology which explicitly sought to wipe out an entire group of people.
The USSR wasn't very kind to Jews, nor Kazakhs. Mao's China didn't treat non-Han minorities well (and its successor state still doesn't). There may not have been a direct equivalent of Auschwitz in those countries (though many more died in the gulags and through starvation), but Pol Pot gave it a good try.
Nor were they kind to Chechens, Volga Germans, Tatars, Meskheti Turks, Japanese in the Kurils, and others. The USSR was all about Russian imperialism but is there something specific to communist ideology which calls for Auschwitz?
I think he's a little zealotous, but Dovid Katz doesn't seem to think so: http://defendinghistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Dovid-Katz-on-Double-Genocide-20111.pdf
It does lead into a thought experiment - what if the Nazis had never invaded other countries and never murdered Jews . . . would it be considered cool in metropolitan company to like them and their policies?
Mick Hartley has been sporadically following the Chinese gulags for Muslim Uighurs in the state of Xinjiang. https://mickhartley.typepad.com/blog/2018/11/be-grateful-to-the-party-obey-the-party-follow-the-party.html