Most vilify the Nazi regime for their crimes against humanity. Yet, the Soviet Union is often seen as a lesser evil. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The failure of nationalism in Russia lead to a Leninist-Marxist revolution. The fear of communism flowing into Germany lead the Germans to embrace the Nazi regime. The conflict between the two lead to the deaths of millions and the most deadly war in history.
A study by the Holocaust Memorial Museum puts the death toll of the Holocaust at 15 to 20 million people. A 1993 study by the Russian Academy of Sciences counted 20 million dead by the Soviet Union. In the aftermath, most condemned the swastika and all it signified to the dustbins of history. But now, the Soviet Hammer and Sickle and the ideology it signifies is re-emerging in the West.
Many modern marxists argue the Soviet Union’s failures were an accident of history that began with Stalin. Given another chance the Soviet Union could be a utopia. That is the lie that has made it permissible to champion the Soviet hammer and sickle on campus by groups like the Carleton Revolutionary Student Movement.
To blame the failure of the USSR on its policy or leadership would be an understatement. The ideology of Leninist-Marxism doomed the Soviet people from the start. But before it can be clear how the ideas of the state lead to atrocity, we first have to understand the atrocity. To illustrate the horrors of the Soviet Union, this paper will explore how the state sanctioned torture and mass murder through the Soviet prison camps.
The Gulag Archipelago was the Soviet’s prison system. It was home to various forms of torture that disregarded human suffering and life. Guards squeezed prisoners’ skulls with iron rings; dropped people in tubs of acid alive; tortured people through sleep deprivation and thirst; and beat them to a bloody pulp. They buried people alive, not to torture them, but because dead bodies were heavier and harder to carry to their graves.
The Soviets got away with torturing and killing people by hiding behind Leninist-Marxism. This ideology gave total power over the economy and military to the state. So when people protested the government starved them by moving all the food out of their region, making it very hard to fight back and take power away from the communist party.
This lack of accountability meant there was no standard for evidence needed for the state to detain or kill anyone they thought was a threat. An anonymous accusation was all that was necessary for the state to arrest people, force them to confess, and send them to a prison camp.
The Communists began renaming, instead of abolishing, the authoritarian policies they revolted against. For example, Lenin, the first Soviet leader, renamed and redefined the death penalty, instead of getting rid of it. First it was called “the death penalty,” meant to kill anyone who threatened the power of the state. Now, under Lenin’s rule, it was called “the Supreme Measure,” meant to defend the working class from people with opposing ideas. It had the same effect, but instead of being a necessary evil, it was a social good intended to kill protesters.
This is the rabbit hole the USSR fell down with their ideology of Leninist-Marxism. Instead of freeing people, it justified how keeping them enslaved to a tyrannical government was for their own good. The state maintained total control over people through terror—even as it eroded the public’s trust in their institutions.
The Soviet hammer and sickle signifies fascism, radicalism, and mass murder. Therefore, it ought not be excusable for students nor faculty to champion the symbol. It is necessary to treat the hammer and sickle with at least the horror and intolerance we would treat the Nazi swastika, as both signify crimes against humanity and ideas that justify those crimes.
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