Why does the Left get away with genocide?
Children are growing up without proper knowledge of the terror, economic failure and mass murder that took place under Communism
ecently, I went to a party and spoke to someone who turned out to be a history teacher at one of Britain’s topperforming schools. We somehow started chatting about Stalin and she said — in passing — that there had been good aspects to his Five Year Plans. I had difficulty believing she had really said that. As a result of the Five Year Plans there was extraordinary human waste, terror and starvation. Soviet economic performance was poor compared with that in the West. The production figures were lies because, as Robert Conquest wrote, “to admit failure meant instant arrest”.
I was appalled that she should see the Five Year Plans in an “on the one hand, on the other hand” sort of way. I only just managed to avoid having a row. Afterwards, I checked exactly what children are being taught in schools. I bought a copy of the CGP GCSE Modern World History revision guide. I found that what the teacher had told me is the standard line. Just recently, I looked at the revision guide again to see what it said about a key part of the Five Year Plans: The collectivisation of farms. The collectivisation consisted of taking livestock and land from small farmers and peasants and putting them into the hands of collectives of farm workers who were instructed to cooperate.
The policy was catastrophic. Production decreased. People starved. Some farmers were not keen to have their property taken away. They were imprisoned or killed. Some collectives hid grain to avoid starvation. If discovered, they were killed, too. In all, up to ten million died as a result of the collectivisation in one of the greatest man-made disasters the world has ever known. So what does the revision guide say? It has a section headlined: ‘There were Pros and Cons to Collectivisation’. It warns students that facts and opinions can be mixed and that people are not always telling the truth. Then it goes on to list the ‘pros’ and ‘cons’. The first ‘pro’ is that collectivisation “ended the forced exploitation of peasants by greedy landlords and got rid of the greedy and troublesome kulaks [small-scale farmers]”. The second is: “It helped peasants work together”.
It is true that the guide indicates that children should try to discriminate between propaganda and truth. But given the millions who died, this is repulsive. It would be grotesque to suggest as a subject for discussion the possible pros and cons of the Holocaust. It would be sickening to offer the idea that forced labour camps “helped people work together” even if you expected children to knock the suggestion down.
It is similarly horrible to suggest such a thing about collectivisation and its terrifying enforcement. In the guide’s coverage of the Holocaust there is, of course, no mention of Pros and Cons. The guide rightly asserts: “The Jewish people suffered terribly at the hands of the Nazis — and you need to know how. This is horrific ...” That is how it should be. But with the collectivisation of farms, students are advised to give a “balanced answer”.
The Communists in the Soviet Union were responsible for the deaths of a minimum of between 13 and 15 million people, the second worst rate of deaths caused by human action after those caused by Mao Ze Dong in China. But young people are not taught this. In a recent poll, people aged 16-24 were asked who they would associate with crimes against humanity. A higher proportion chose former British prime minister Tony Blair than either Mao or Lenin. Children are growing up without proper knowledge of the terror, economic failure and mass murder that took place under Communism. They are therefore more likely to be seduced by similar ideas. That is why I am hoping to help create an organisation that will build a museum of Communist terror in London, documenting what happened. The Great Terror of Communism should be as much a part of what everyone knows as the Holocaust.