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What is fascism?


Ken Estes

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Just now, RETAC21 said:

It's still a too simplistic approach that broadbrushes many of the specific characteristics of Fascism, and misses one of the obvious one: all 1930s fascists movements derived from the Italian one, adding local flavor based on their leader's likes and dislikes, so Nazism was anti-semitic but Falange wasn't (although some of its leaders were). Again, a re-reading of the first pages of this thread put things into much better context and clarify the differences between an authoritarian regime and a fascist one.

re. your checklist, point 4 is incorrect, fascism wanted egalitarianism within the national body, and point 8 is anything but exclusive of fascism

Yes of that list only the 1. can be said to be intrinsically Fascist since it came from Fascist evolution of thought from Marxist class struggle.  4. is false like you said and it is contradictory with 7.

8. is accessory.

 

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12 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

It's still a too simplistic approach that broadbrushes many of the specific characteristics of Fascism, and misses one of the obvious one: all 1930s fascists movements derived from the Italian one,

It misses the Italian source? What? 

"From Latin: fasces, the bundle of rods with a projecting axe-head, carried before the consuls as a sign of the state authority of Rome, and adopted as a symbol of social unity (the bundle) under political leadership (the axe). The name was given by Mussolini to the movement which he led to power in Italy in 1922":

12 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

so Nazism was anti-semitic but Falange wasn't (although some of its leaders were).

It says that too. 

12 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

re. your checklist, point 4 is incorrect, fascism wanted egalitarianism within the national body

Egalitarianism within the national body that's restricted to a specific class of people isn't egalitarianism. 

12 hours ago, RETAC21 said:

, and point 8 is anything but exclusive of fascism

It's not about exclusivity. It's about a combination of factors. cf Tanks have tracks. Bulldozers have tracks. Having that characteristic doesn't make it not a tank or a tank, it's just part of the characteristic set. 

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3 hours ago, lucklucky said:

Yes of that list only the 1. can be said to be intrinsically Fascist since it came from Fascist evolution of thought from Marxist class struggle.  4. is false like you said and it is contradictory with 7.

8. is accessory.

 

How does hostility to egalitarianism conflict with a respect for collective organization? 

Jews and slavs were treated entirely less than the rest of German society. They were also collectively put into slave labor and death camps as the collective organization saw fit. Both of those are clearly congruent with the description. 

 

  1. corporatism
  2. nationalism
  3. hostility to democracy
  4. hostility to egalitarianism
  5. Hostility to the values of liberal enlightenment
  6. the cult of the leader, and admiration for his special qualities
  7. a respect for collective organization
  8. a love of the symbols associated with it, such as uniforms, parades and army discipline
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To be clear, the book defines Egalitarianism as below. Note Jews and other Untermensch had little political decision making in WWII Germany, for example. 

 

egalitarianism

A somewhat vague term, best taken to denote the belief that people are or ought to be equal in at least some, possibly every, respect relevant to political decision-making. Specifically, the belief that there are no relevant differences whereby one person can be supposed to have a greater inherent *right to some benefit than another. From that it is sometimes held to follow that an unequal distribution of benefits is either unjust, since it distin- guishes people on grounds which do not determine their rights, or else inherently in need of justification. See*justice.

At least the following assumptions seem to be involved in the usual forms of egalitarianism:

(i) The ultimate justification for any *distribution of benefits is to be given in terms of the rights of those receiving them.

(ii) Distribution is always within political *control, and so is always, by design or by neglect, the result of political activity.

(iii) There is some common prop- erty in all people which is the single ground of whatever rights they possess.

(iv) This common property is possessed to an equal extent by all people.

All of these assumptions may be doubted, but it is clear that (iii) and (iv) are of perennial appeal, and have been subjects of many attempted a priori justifications, notably by *Kant, who identifies the common property as practical reason, made manifest in the *autonomy of rational choice. (i) must be justified in terms of a theory of distributive justice, sufficient to eliminate all conflicting reasons (such as those stemming from *need, from *utility, or from *natural right) for distribution. In order to make (ii) seem plausible it has been common to argue that egalitarian doctrine applies, not to those benefits which are bestowed by nature, but only to those which arise from artifice. Often the principle offered here is that of *equal opportu- nity, meaning to refer to the opportu- nities available for social, political and material advancement. It is, however, true that almost any human benefit, including physical beauty and intelli- gence, might be conferred or with- drawn by political agency, assuming sufficient human competence. It might then seem as though the logical

consequence of egalitarianism is some kind of genetic engineering, in which it is ensured that everyone has his own regulation measure of beauty, intelli- gence, and innate capacity for well- being. However, this idea normally evokes revulsion, even among the most hardened egalitarians – for it suggests a controlling power, as in Huxley’s Brave New World, who there- fore stands above the equal beings over whose destiny he rules. It there- fore seems that egalitarianism stands in need of a procedure for determining which benefits are to be attributed to humans as their responsibility, and which to be withheld as part of the sacred reserve of ‘nature’.

Much modern egalitarianism seems to stem not from *universalist doctrines about rights so much as a *nihilistic disbelief in them. If there are no rights, no obligations, no values, but only subjective prefer- ences, then no one has the right to anything. From which it follows that no one has the right to any more of anything than anybody else. This conclusion might then be confused with the positive doctrine (in fact incompatible with the nihilist premise) that it is wrong for anyone to possess more of some good than any other. Strictly speaking, given the premise, it is neither right nor wrong.

Opponents of egalitarianism might reject any of (i) to (iv). Commonly they argue that distribution can be made equal only by violating natural rights of ownership; alternatively, that utility, or human fulfilment, requires an element of struggle, competition, success and failure in the pursuit of all goods, and a background of accepted disabilities from which to embark on this struggle. (For the first, see *Nozick; for the second, *Nietzsche.) Moreover, in all its forms egalitarianism, to become a political reality, would require powers of enforcement that, by their very nature, create huge inequal- ities between the enforcers and the enforced. Nothing is more obvious in socialism than the existence, and frequent oppressiveness, of these inequalities.

Edited by rmgill
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Let's try that definition from the same volume. 

 

national socialism

Political movement founded in Germany in 1919, and subsequently led to power by Hitler. Theoretically national socialism was a mixture. As its name implies, it presented itself at first as a *nationalist answer to *inter- national socialism, and appealed to those who could not envisage any resurgence of government after the débâcle of the First World War except along socialist and nationalist lines. However, it was from the beginning combined with *racist doctrines and military ambitions, which reflected both the outlook of the peculiar lead- ers of the party and also the under- lying ideology. Part of the nationalist idea consisted in a belief in Lebensraum or ‘living space’ (see *geopolitics), and in a ‘master race’, or ruling people with a right to expand into that space, expelling those inferior peoples who stood in their way. There thus resurged the idea of the *Volksstaat, a state in which there would be no distinction between political institutions and natural human relations, so that all political activity would bear immedi- ately on society, and all social activity bear immediately on the state. In prac- tice this meant the emergence of the one-party state (see *party), with the ruling party devoted to ensuring maxi- mum social unity; this in turn led to *totalitarian government. The socialist element survived largely in the form of commitment to extensive *welfare programmes and a *mixed economy, together with hostility towards the historical *ruling class, whose rule was to be replaced by that of the *leader (see *Führerprinzip). The survival of some forms of private ownership, the adoption of virulent *anti-semitism, and hostility to the *labour movement and to the left generally, serve to distinguish Hitler’s transformation of national socialism from Stalin’s, in other ways comparable, transforma- tion of its international counterpart.

Like Stalin, Hitler was fascinated by *eugenics, and influenced by the propaganda of *Sanger and others into believing that the genetic endowment of a nation is a prime concern of politics. Hence his anti- semitism led inexorably to the *holo- caust. The same eugenic reasoning that prompted his hostility to the Jews prompted an equal aversion to Gypsies and homosexuals, who were also victims of mass murder.

The name ‘Nazi’ is formed from the abbreviation for ‘National Socialist German Workers Party’. See also *fascism.

 

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 The survival of some forms of private ownership, the adoption of virulent *anti-semitism, and hostility to the *labour movement and to the left generally, serve to distinguish Hitler’s transformation of national socialism from Stalin’s, in other ways comparable, transformation of its international counterpart.

The author to use an expression that i don't particularly like but can't find better at moment  is "pedestrian". Why he particularizes Stalin instead of making the correct reference to Communism.  Why he talks about hostility to "labour movement" since there was also a labour movement with Nazis. It seems he does  equates "labour movement" only with "typical" Left? 

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Probably being pedestrian so as to have a not too verbose a definition that makes the book 2" thick. And also probably because there are separate definitions for Maoism and various other terms. 

Though I hardly think that Roger Scruton could be described as pedestrian in his thinking. 

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Well replacing Stalin with Communism is just a word exchange and show more careful consideration. Written that way seems a tabloid newspaper article in a bad way. Same is valid for some his definitions above which are typical of several Anglo-Saxon authors that contacted Fascism trough its WW2 representation hence probably the reference to Stalin the Soviet WW2 leader.

For example the 4.hostility to egalitarianism  is obviously false either for Fascism and Nazism. Both were Socialist so against the Capitalist social class system in Marxist definition. They both hated with different intensities the bourgeois like the Communists.

The fact that Nazis contrary to Fascists were structural racists don't makes them against egalitarianism within what they considered Germans. They considered Jews and Gypsies foreign.

 

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4 hours ago, lucklucky said:

Well replacing Stalin with Communism is just a word exchange and show more careful consideration. Written that way seems a tabloid newspaper article in a bad way.

Stalin was more or less THE man when it came to Socialism for a good bit of the 20th century. Certainly for it's biggest impact next only to Mao. 

4 hours ago, lucklucky said:

For example the 4.hostility to egalitarianism  is obviously false either for Fascism and Nazism.

I don't see it as obvious at all. 

4 hours ago, lucklucky said:

Both were Socialist so against the Capitalist social class system in Marxist definition. They both hated with different intensities the bourgeois like the Communists.

Which makes them not egalitarian if segments of the population are to be stripped of power, property or political participation. 

4 hours ago, lucklucky said:

The fact that Nazis contrary to Fascists were structural racists don't makes them against egalitarianism within what they considered Germans. They considered Jews and Gypsies foreign.

They're egalitarian among the humans they consider human and not among the humans they don't consider human. That rather contradicts the essentials of egalitarianism. The US is a largely egalitarian system as anyone can hold property, rise to positions of authority and participate in the franchise. 

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Just now, rmgill said:

Stalin was more or less THE man when it came to Socialism for a good bit of the 20th century. Certainly for it's biggest impact next only to Mao. 

Communism not Socialism. In a supposed scholar book ideologies you use ideology term to characterize it. Not personalize, even more in an ideological system that had so many genocidal leaders and spanned several continents, cultures.

 

Just now, rmgill said:

I don't see it as obvious at all. 

Which makes them not egalitarian if segments of the population are to be stripped of power, property or political participation. 

They're egalitarian among the humans they consider human and not among the humans they don't consider human. That rather contradicts the essentials of egalitarianism. The US is a largely egalitarian system as anyone can hold property, rise to positions of authority and participate in the franchise. 

Agreed, for those they consider Germans. The example the Volkswagen "Peoples car".

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On 3/4/2021 at 12:43 PM, bojan said:

Local asshole was also high on religion being important. Funny tidbit:

In WW2 Croatia Ustase were openly supported by more than one local representatives of the Catholic church.

https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/issue/ten-influential-christians-of-the-20th-century

Notice that non of them were politicians, but did far more good than any politician.

"The Gospel is not a truth among other truths. Rather, it sets a question mark against all truths.” Karl Barth 

A quote attributed to Napoléon Bonaparte. "I know men and I tell you that Jesus Christ is no mere man. Between Him and every other person in the world there is no possible term of comparison. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creation of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded His empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for Him."

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20 hours ago, lucklucky said:

Well replacing Stalin with Communism is just a word exchange and show more careful consideration. Written that way seems a tabloid newspaper article in a bad way. Same is valid for some his definitions above which are typical of several Anglo-Saxon authors that contacted Fascism trough its WW2 representation hence probably the reference to Stalin the Soviet WW2 leader.

For example the 4.hostility to egalitarianism  is obviously false either for Fascism and Nazism. Both were Socialist so against the Capitalist social class system in Marxist definition. They both hated with different intensities the bourgeois like the Communists.

The fact that Nazis contrary to Fascists were structural racists don't makes them against egalitarianism within what they considered Germans. They considered Jews and Gypsies foreign.

 

Actually visitef Uncle Joes house in Georgia. 

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14 hours ago, lucklucky said:

Communism not Socialism.

In a strict sense, the USSR was never communist. Property wasn't held by the people, it was held by the state. They had not transitioned to communism, yet, though it is doubtful that they ever would.  Sure, notionally they were referred to as communist nations, but they had not reached that state of being as defined by Marx himself. 

communism

1. A social and economic arrangement defined by the fact that no participant owns significantly more than any other, either because all property is held in common, or because the insti- tution of property does not exist, or (Marx) because ownership is confined to the means of consumption and is excluded from the means of produc- tion and exchange. To be distin- guished from arrangements in which property is not owned in common but by some impersonal, but nevertheless autonomous body, such as the state. (See *socialism, *state capitalism, *state socialism.) Also to be distinguished from arrangements in which equality of ownership is established by isolated, or periodic, acts of redistribution, whether by common consent, by taxa- tion, or by act of state. In all such arrangements, it has been thought, the principle of communism is not achieved, since the individual is permitted to indulge a right of owner- ship, and may well feel an injustice in its abolition. Moreover, periodic equal- ization is compatible with the institu- tions of barter and exchange, each of which is held to be alien to the communist ideal.

According to Marxist theory, social- ism is a stage of development, and leads to communism, hence the frequent Marxist distinction between the two. True communism (or ‘full communism’) is incompatible with any form of exchange. It is the real economic expression of *democracy and is characterized by the slogan ‘from each according to his ability, to each according to his need’ (Marx: Critique of the Gotha Programme). The emphasis on need signifies the disap- pearance of *exchange-value, and its supersession by *use-value alone. It is this in particular which distinguishes communist society from the forms of ‘redistributionism’ which might other- wise be confused with it.

2. Any movement which aims to bring about the state of affairs described above, or which represents that state of affairs as a political ideal. There have been many such move- ments in history, but the principal one in modern times began with the European revolutions of 1848 and the publication in that year of the *Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels. The word ‘communism’ occurs frequently in their writings, but for a long time the word ‘socialism’ was preferred as the name of the ideal, the principal Marxist parties calling them- selves *social democrats. Their political organization began with the first of the *internationals, founded in London in 1864 with the support of Marx. The Third international, or Comintern, founded in Moscow in 1919, in the wake of the 1917 revolution, displayed the final preference for the word ‘communism’. This word was adopted by *Lenin and *Trotsky in order to distinguish their ideals from the less pure intentions, as they saw them, of the European socialists and social democrats, and also in order to emphasize an affinity with the Paris Commune of 1870, which, according to Marx, involved a genuine gesture in the direction that he favoured. The Comintern gave the impetus and name to communist parties through- out the world, and since then the term ‘communism’ has been synonymous for many with the form of govern- ment of which Lenin was the principal inventor, namely:

3. The system of government in which a *communist party rules, with- out permitting legal *opposition.

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On 3/2/2021 at 9:47 PM, rmgill said:

Noone is saying the German and Italian Fascists aren't fascist. The question is to what ethos/order of government do they derive their origins from and what are they like. 

That they murdered millions of soviets doesn't work as an argument as soviets murdered hundreds of millions of soviets. 

  

What strikes me most is how Westerners and liberal Russian “intilligentsiya” is considering ordinary Russians like some sort of insects. Hundreds of thousands or even millions of victims of repressions are not enough for them – they claim tens, even hundreds of millions, just to make figure impressive enough.

    Below if yandex-translated text from http://old.memo.ru/d/124360.html

Speech of the Chairman of the Board of the International Society "Memorial" Arseniy Roginsky at the round table "Historian-between reality and memory", which was held on May 25, 2012 in Dnepropetrovsk as part of the"Literary Expedition".

……………………………………………..

In the early ' 90s, I did a lot of research on Soviet terror statistics. I studied a huge number of reporting "sheets" about terror for all the years, from different regions of the Soviet Union. Our statistics begin in earnest in 1921, and only scattered fragments remain until 1921. And, since 1921 – huge folders. In 1994, I studied everything, painted everything and put it together. Further – it was necessary to publish. I looked at my numbers...

There are people around me in the outside world whose opinion is important to me: there is a traditional intellectual public opinion, and, most importantly, the opinion of former prisoners, of whom there were still a lot of survivors in 1994. And they measured our victims in the entire history of terror by some absolutely unthinkable figures, tens of millions.

And according to my calculations for the entire history of the Soviet government, from 1918 to 1987 (the last arrests were in early 1987), according to the surviving documents, it turned out that there were 7 million 100 thousand people arrested by the security agencies throughout the country. At the same time, among them were arrested not only for political articles. And quite a lot. Yes, they were arrested by the security authorities, but the security authorities were also arrested in different years for banditry, smuggling, and counterfeiting. And for many other "ordinary" articles.

Under all these numbers there are folders with documents. In the annual reports of the security agencies, it is listed: so many involved, including with arrest, including without arrest. Then the table of the movement of the arrested begins. There have been so many completed investigative cases, including so many submitted to a special meeting, so many submitted to courts and tribunals. To non-judicial bodies – so much. Escaped, died – all statistics. There were very few escapes, by the way.

And here is the final figure – 7 million. This is for the entire history of Soviet power. What should I do about it? And public opinion says that we have almost 12 million people arrested in 1937-1939 alone. And I belong to this society, I live among these people, I am a part of them. Not a part of the Soviet government, not of the Russian democracy, but of these people. I just knew for sure that, first of all, they wouldn't believe me. And, secondly, for the circle to which I consider myself a member, this would mean that everything that we have been told about the figures so far by people who are quite respected by us is not true.

And I put all my calculations aside. For a long time. And then (after years) it seemed that it was already possible to publish, but there was no time. ……………

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Death toll of the Holodomor, from 3 to 12 million, most likely estimate 3.5 million.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

Kazakh Famine. 1.5 to 2.3 million.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh_famine_of_1932–33

Dead in WW2, around 30 million. Yes, I realise Hitler attacked (overlooking Stalin knew and could have prepared), but many of the losses were wholly avoidable and created by Stalins own incompetence, such as the Kiev pocket which resulted in the loss of 700000 men.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kiev_(1941)

Soviet Finnish Winter war.  Nearly 26000 Finnish Soldiers, a minimum of 126000 Soviet troops dead.

That obviously isnt including all those deported from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland for which I have no figures. Ive only figures for Estonia, where 11000 people were deported to siberia, and of whom half perished. Thats also not counting all those deported from Chechnya and the Tartars from Crimea. Its also not including the Russian Civil War. And also obvious, including all those, not including all those maimed, scarred or suffering mental problems for the rest of their lives.

You must be looking at way over 50 million, probably closer to 60. No, its not hundreds of millions, but its way higher than that minimalist and apologist estimate.

   
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4 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

What strikes me most is how Westerners and liberal Russian “intilligentsiya” is considering ordinary Russians like some sort of insects. Hundreds of thousands or even millions of victims of repressions are not enough for them – they claim tens, even hundreds of millions, just to make figure impressive enough.   

 

 Attributed to Joseph Stalin, “If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.”

No matter how many people how many times decide what is/or is not "fascism" or its secular relatives communism and socialism, all of it is excessive government control over your life. 

This observation is not new.  In the Bible, 1 Samuel 8: 4-18, you'll note how often the words "He will take...," is mentioned in reference to government. 

The absolutely worse human evil possible -- which has been and currently is still being demonstrated -- is excessive government, aka man's lust for power over others. 

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1 hour ago, Rick said:

 Attributed to Joseph Stalin, “If only one man dies of hunger, that is a tragedy. If millions die, that’s only statistics.”

It is MISattributed to Stalin:

“The death of one person is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic

 This phrase is often used as an illustration of the bloodthirstiness of I. V. Stalin. But this is not the case. Neither by the origin of the phrase, nor by the circumstances of its use.

This phrase gained popularity because of Remarque's novel "The Black Obelisk", written in 1956: "But, apparently, it always happens: the death of one person is death, and the death of two million is only statistics." However, Remarque, most likely, is not its author, but most likely borrowed it from the publicist of the Weimar Republic Tucholsky. In the essay "Franz;sischer Witz" he wrote:

«Der Krieg? Ich kann das nicht so schrecklich finden! Der Tod eines Menschen: das ist eine Katastrophe. Hunderttausend Tote: das ist eine Statistik!»

War? I don't find it very terrible! The death of one person: it's a disaster. A hundred thousand dead: this is a statistic!

And yet, Stalin did utter this phrase. But in the conditions and intonations that radically change the attitude towards her, and the moral image of Stalin.

This happened in the first days of the Great Patriotic War, when the reasons for such terrible losses of the Red Army and the lightning advance of the Wehrmacht deep into the USSR were being analyzed. The question arose of punishing the guilty. Among them was the commander of the troops of the Western District, General Pavlov, and a number of other commanders of the highest command staff. Stalin believed that these people were responsible for the losses. Some, especially fanatical, Bolsheviks were even inclined to think that there was a fact of treachery. However, the version of betrayal did not receive support and was not seriously considered in the future. The conclusion in relation to the command staff was that they showed criminal carelessness and negligence.

Re “excessive government control over your life”  - of course it is nothing good, but still much better to situation when you and your family live under constant danger of  nomad gang killing you or taking you to slave market (as it was on most of  territory of central Russia prior to more or less central Gov established)  or your landlord treating you as property. While in Russia serfdom was relatively soft (since both landlords and peasants were officially servants of Tsar, and landlord killing peasant was treated as damage of valuable property given to him in temporary use to support his ability to serve in cavalry, not mentioning Rus Orthodox church considering it as sin), in places like Poland it was especially bad

“Serfdom in Europe was introduced and abolished, and in some countries this happened several times. The personal dependence of the peasants on the lords has existed since the early Middle Ages, although many farmers still retained their freedom. In some countries, dependent peasants were called serfs, that is, slaves, and there was every reason for this. The power of the landowner over the serfs was absolute: often the peasant could not marry without the permission of the owner. The serfs cultivated the land of the lord, paid their dues, and performed many different duties, from repairs to the farm buildings to military service under the banner of the seigneur.

 

It was profitable for the knights to have their own land, as long as there were many serfs, and their labor was completely free. But in the middle of the XIV century, a huge plague epidemic broke out, which wiped out about half of the population of Europe. There were fewer peasants, and their labor began to be valued quite highly. The feudal lords began to actively entice other people's serfs, which led to the emergence of a real labor market. The farmers now tried to escape from the harsh lords and cling to the owners, who gave them more freedom. As a result, by the fifteenth century, in France, England, western Germany, and many other areas, peasants had almost ceased to be driven to serfdom — work for the master. In France, for example, the corvee was gradually reduced to ten days a year. The farmers were now cultivating their allotments and paying their dues to their masters. The peasants were not yet free, but they were no longer slaves. So in Europe, for the first time, the abolition of serfdom took place, and it was abolished by the plague, the Black Death, equally terrible for peasants and nobles. Since then, it has been the case: the abolition of serfdom was always accompanied by shocks and catastrophes, from which all classes suffered.

 

In the XVI century in Western Europe, the personal dependence of the peasants noticeably weakened, and the most radical way was taken by England. On the continent, the demand for wool increased, and English landowners began to actively drive farmers from their lands to turn arable land into sheep pastures. According to Thomas More's apt remark, "the sheep ate the people," and the peasants who were left without allotments gradually turned into farmhands, vagabonds, or took the land themselves on lease and turned into well-to-do farmers. The wool trade brought considerable income to the English nobles, but grain production in the country fell sharply. The English were now forced to import bread, and more had to be imported every year. The landowners of Eastern Europe were willing to supply grain to the Foggy Albion, but the level of agricultural culture on their estates was quite low. As a result, the German, Danish, Polish and Austrian nobles had only one way to earn more money: to increase the master's arable land and force the peasants to work on it day and night. As a result, half-forgotten serfdom was revived in the eastern part of Europe, and in such forms that the new serfs could envy the medieval serfs.

One of the first to take the path of the "second edition of serfdom" was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Polish magnates had a lot of land, and there were enough people, because the Black Death bypassed the Vistula basin. The gentry gradually curtailed the rights of the peasants, until in 1503 the peasants were forbidden to pass from one lord to another. By the middle of the XVI century, the Polish peasant spent five or six days a week in the corvee, and many were completely deprived of their allotments and lived off rations issued by the owner. The lords had the right to punish, deprive of property, and even kill their serfs. The Imperial diplomat Herberstein noted that in Poland " the people are pitiful and oppressed by heavy slavery, because if someone, accompanied by a crowd of servants, enters the dwelling of a villager, he can do anything with impunity, rob and beat." The sixteenth-century Polish intellectual Andrzej Modrzewski agreed.: "If a nobleman kills a clap, he says that he killed a dog, because the nobleman considers kmetov (peasants) for dogs." The royal power in the noble republic was nominal, so it was impossible to find a ruling on the loose feudal lords.

Similar practices soon spread to the German lands east of the Elbe. Prussia, Pomerania, Mecklenburg and Holstein, like Poland, had access to the Baltic Sea and could supply grain to England, Holland and France, which meant that the local peasants were doomed to serfdom. In particular, the situation of German farmers deteriorated after the Thirty Years ' War, which raged from 1618 to 1648. Many areas of Germany were depopulated, and landowners ' farms began to experience an acute shortage of workers. If at the time of the Black Death, depopulation led to a weakening of serfdom, then in the XVII century, the nobles, on the contrary, tightened the screws. The peasants were deprived of allotments, and they were turned into disenfranchised half-slaves. In Mecklenburg and some other areas, the lords had the right to sell their peasants without land, which reduced the farmers to the level of movable property.

The reason is obvious: the noble farms of the XVII century were oriented to the external market, while the internal market of the German states was narrow and undeveloped. The peasants could not sell their products expensively, which means that the monetary tax would be small. It was much more profitable to deprive the peasants of allotments and rights and force them to work in the master's field, then to sell the grown grain to Holland or England.”

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3 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Death toll of the Holodomor, from 3 to 12 million, most likely estimate 3.5 million.

If you include all victims of all famines and wars that happened in and around USSR to victims of socialism, I hope you would not object to include all victims of all famines and wars that happened in and around British Empire to victims of capitalism?

Relity is, under Socialism population was growing, and under new "freedom" it is falling

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There are multiple causes for population decrease. Among the Baltic states.. Lithuania didn't really see a population decrease. But looking at Lativa and Estonia, the Latvian/Russian population in Latvia in 1989 was 1,387,000/905,000 but in 2018, it was 1,202,000/487,000. A similar demographic change can be seen in Estonia. In 1989 the Estonian/Russian make-up was 963,000/474,000 while in 2020, it was 909,000/327,000. So it could be seen that a big factor to the the decrease of population in these two countries following the break up of the SU was likely just simply ethnic Russians moving out. That is to not say that other factors with perhaps relocation of people within the EU for work or reduction of fertility rate due to modern lifestyle which is a phenomenon seen in plenty of other places. Those other factors could perhaps be viewed as part of a problem with capitalism perhaps. But  I wouldn't really assert it that far.

Edited by JasonJ
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That's your answer to the point about the Holodomor? Population statistics when people had a greater ability to migrate to the west and get out of failing states? 

Did Gorbachov have to remind parents not to eat their children? 

Edited by rmgill
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2 hours ago, JasonJ said:

There are multiple causes for population decrease. Among the Baltic states.. Lithuania didn't really see a population decrease. But looking at Lativa and Estonia, the Latvian/Russian population in Latvia in 1989 was 1,387,000/905,000 but in 2018, it was 1,202,000/487,000. A similar demographic change can be seen in Estonia. In 1989 the Estonian/Russian make-up was 963,000/474,000 while in 2020, it was 909,000/327,000. So it could be seen that a big factor to the the decrease of population in these two countries following the break up of the SU was likely just simply ethnic Russians moving out. That is to not say that other factors with perhaps relocation of people within the EU for work or reduction of fertility rate due to modern lifestyle which is a phenomenon seen in plenty of other places. Those other factors could perhaps be viewed as part of a problem with capitalism perhaps. But  I wouldn't really assert it that far.

In what way “simply ethnic Russians moving out” is better than ethnic Estonians moving out?

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2 hours ago, rmgill said:

That's your answer to the point about the Holodomor? Population statistics when people had a greater ability to migrate to the west and get out of failing states? 

Did Gorbachov have to remind parents not to eat their children? 

So called Holodomor war repeatedly discussed in “Kiev burning” thread, so I think you could easily find my opinion on it there (use https://www.tanknet.org/index.php?/search/&q=famine&quick=1&type=forums_topic&item=38893 for your convenience). People voting with their feet is, surely, better than just dead, but still hardly good.

I do not know why you mention Gorbachev – as the laws aiming to prevent parents from killing their kids in “hunger years” were invented back in Tsars time (now mostly portrayed as “golden age” by liberals), last one by Nikolay II in 1902.

If you would like some reading about what was peasant life in mid-XIX century, here is Leskov’s novel for you https://scisne.net/a-646 I think that after it you will not be surprised by brutality of Civil War in Russia.

Edited by Roman Alymov
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6 hours ago, Roman Alymov said:

In what way “simply ethnic Russians moving out” is better than ethnic Estonians moving out?

It was probably the result of some going back to Russia. Not something like mass starvation policy by the state like with Holodomor. 

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