I've never personally liked Communism as an ideology, but after reading The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels I can say it's official: I don't just dislike it or have a merely opposing ideological view, I hate Marxist Communism.
I do not hate the communist; I really don't. But what is espoused, according to Marx and Engels own words and the real world application seen throughout the history of those words, is what I despise. For two main reasons:
First, it is a revenge doctrine. Following is a list of quotes from The Communist Manifesto:
"...overthrow of bourgeois supremacy..." (p.22)
"The distinguishing feature of Communism is not the abolition of property generally, but the abolition of bourgeois property" (p.23).
"The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at" (p.24).
Already, it can be seen that Marx and Engels are targeting a specific group, the "bourgeois", who, by all appearances, are considered the enemy of the proletariat, for extermination. Notice the last quote. While they attempt to justify and define their meaning of "freedom", can it really be said that abolition, i.e. to abolish someone's freedom, in any form is a correct policy, especially since only one group is being targeted? That's discrimination. And it's revenge, as will be seen. (Consider this: Aren't the communists really just trying to become the oppressors and make the bourgeois the oppressed? It's a position switch. As if to say, "You did this to us, now we will take our revenge and do it to you." Basically: the slave becomes the slavemaster.)
Speaking of the bourgeois individual, they wrote, "This person must, indeed, be swept out of the way, and made impossible" (p. 25).
What if someone said that you must be made impossible? That you must be swept away? Don't you have the right to at least exist? Even if your behavior, ideas, beliefs, attitudes, and treatment of others are all wrong, it doesn't equate to annihilating you.
"... the first step in the revolution by the working class, is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class..." (p. 30).
Again, this just proves that Marx and Engels want their piece of the pie. They just want to be the ones on top. It's revenge, plain and simple.
"The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, [read: steal] by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie..." (p.30). (Insert mine.)
Espousing unethical ideologies in order to bring about the success of your party is not right.
"... this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads..."
despotic: of, relating to, or characteristic of a despot
despot: a ruler with absolute authority, a person exercising power tyrannically
I thought the point of the communist revolution was "to establish democracy" (p.30)? But apparently, in order to do that, they need to be totalitarians first. And since the communist says that it's the class, (p.30, lines 9-10) and not one individual, who rules, (i.e. a despot) then we have a contradiction in their ideology. By the way, when Marxist Communism successfully overthrows a nation, who ends up ruling? The working class or one man, one despotic, genocidal maniac of a man (e.g. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot)?
"Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels" (p. 30).
So, if you immigrate, or have immigrated, you lose all you own, and if you don't kowtow and agree with the system, they're coming after you and you're going to lose everything, too. It's Gulag 101.
"Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution" (p.44).
Why? If such a revolution was so grand, so proper, so ethical and right, why fear it? Because Marx and Engels know that the people they intend to overthrow stand to lose everything, even their lives, at the hands of the Revolution. They fully intend a violent take over, and even though there may be an argument for justification for change, there is no justification for the mass, revenge-driven slaughter of millions of people.
"...war breaks out into open revolution, and...the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation..." (p. 21).
Again, it's revenge. Marx and Engels want the proletariat to do to the bourgeois what the bourgeois has done to them: Ruin them utterly. Violence is one of the foundations of their doctrine.
They themselves say it best: "...the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons-the modern working class-the proletariat" (p.15).
Don't be deceived. The "death" mentioned in this passage is not the death of an idea. It's not the death of some metaphorical, intangible concern or way of life. It's real, literal death. Not just death of a way of life, but death of life, human life itself, as proven by every communist revolution in history.
Reason #2
The second reason I hate Marxist Communism is the results of real world application, as I will demonstrate, evidenced by what happened in Cambodia during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, a Marxist Communist party, from 1975-1979. I will compare quotes from “The Communist Manifesto” to an autobiography called When Broken Glass Floats: Growing Up Under the Khmer Rouge by Chanrithy Him.
"Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists" (p.26, Marx and Engels).
"The bourgeois family will vanish as a matter of course..." (p.27, Marx and Engels).
"Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents? To this crime we plead guilty" (p.27, Marx and Engels).
"...the hallowed co-relation of parent and child, becomes all the more disgusting..." (p.27, Marx and Engels). I realize that this is about bourgeois family relations, not all family relations, and is said only in terms of how the proletarian family is "torn asunder". But keep this in mind for later.
Now, please read from Chanrithy's autobiography, from the chapter called "Worse Than Pigs", where she describes in detail how her three year old brother dies from diarrhea and starvation.
"Now time becomes hard to measure. We mark its passage in terms of who has died and who is still alive. Time is distilled and recalled by death." (p.120, Him).
The Khmer Rouge forced everyone to give up all personal property (a familiar word to Marx and Engels) including watches and other timepieces.
"We have to weigh our desire for such contact against the risk of being punished for exhibiting 'family intimacy'—a connection the Khmer Rouge frowns upon" (p.121, Him).
"Even while working, we are not permitted to talk with family members. Harder still, we have to sneak visits when we are supposed to be working. And we have to decide whether the energy consumed by walking half a mile should be used instead to find food, for we are all starving" (p.121, Him).
Let me explain what has happened. When the Khmer Rouge took over, they wanted to create an agragarian utopia. So they forcibly evacuated Phnom Penh and other cities and marched millions of people into the countryside, with no where to live and no food to eat. They had to build their own shelters and then were forced to clear fields of mud all day long in order to plant crops. Men, women, children, young and old, all were forced by this new Marxist/Communist regime, to this Revolution. Compare this to item 8 and 9 from pages 30-1 of the Communist Manifesto:
"8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture."
"9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country, by a more equable distribution of the population over the country."
It seems like the Khmer Rouge took Marx and Engels at their word. Chanrithy and her family were no exceptions.
"Communism deprives no man of the power to appropriate the products of society..." (p.25, Marx/Engels).
"Tadpoles. Crickets. Toads. Centipedes. Mice. Rats and scorpions. We eat anything" (p.121, Him).
So communism deprives no man? This is what Chanrithy writes about that:
"Angka (The political/institutional name for the Khmer Rouge) doesn't care. It no longer gives us anything. No salt, no meat, no rice. Every day I search for edible leaves, anything to survive" (p.121).
Communism deprives no man of the products of society, like say, food, and yet, when someone actually takes Marx and Engels at their word and institutionalizes their ideology over a nation, like Pol Pot did in Cambodia, the people live (then die) a completely deprived life, with no food to eat, even as they attempt to become an agricultural industry, created for the express purpose of growing food. Have you ever seen such sick and diabolical irony?
Like I said, reason #2.
In chapter 5, Chanrithy tells us what happened to her father and other family members. They must have been considered bourgeois.
"Pa, Uncle Surg, Uncle Sorn, and the other men were not taken to an orientation. They were taken to a remote field outside Year Piar to be executed. Upon their arrival, they were unloaded off the oxcarts and forced to dig their own graves. After they finished, the Khmer Rouge cadres tied them up, then killed each one with a hoe. The bodies tumbled into the very pits they had readied to catch them" (p.92, Him).
"...the bourgeoisie forged weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons..." (p.15, Marx and Engels).
I wonder if Marx and Engels envisioned garden hoes as the weapons mentioned in this passage. I wonder if they realized how literally they would be taken by the Khmer Rouge many decades later when they bludgeoned Pa, Uncle Surg, and Uncle Sorn to death. I wonder if, when they said they were guilty of the crime of trying to stop the exploitation of children, they realized how many orphans they were going to create in the process. Don't exploit the children! Just murder their parents.
"What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers" (p. 21, Marx and Engels).
"...forced to dig their own graves" (p. 92, Him).
I guess I could go on and on, but I think I've made my point, and I think history makes its own case against Communism. We cannot say that Cambodia is an isolated incident. Neither can we say that Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge took Marx and Engels out of context. These quotes show proof that Angka followed The Communist Manifesto to a tee.
1,700,000 killed in Cambodia. Over 21% of the country's population.
As I've stated, Communism, on paper and in application, according to Marx and Engles, is a revenge doctrine that does nothing more than incite hatred, untold suffering, mass murder, and eventually, left unchecked (as it always has been) Marxist Communism leads to the genocidal, sometimes near obliteration of entire nations. And since I believe that's what Marx and Engels wanted in the first place, we owe it to the world, to each other, and to the memories of the hundreds of millions dead, to not espouse Marxist Communism in any way, shape, or form.
To see the remnant of Pol Pot’s version of Marxism in action:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=sIDcwLPSHTo&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5dmu-7sddik&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=1IDsCKsXVv4&feature=related
Here is part one and two of ten:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=BUYRNYHeWKM&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6Rero8S3WeI&feature=related
The other eight can be found there under related videos.
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