Tea at Trianon: Communism: The Forgotten Holocaust

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Communism: The Forgotten Holocaust

Why have we stopped teaching our children about the horrors of Communism? To quote:

We have failed to teach the horrors of the Bolshevik Revolution specifically and of communism generally. Those horrors include over 100 million corpses generated by communist governments, starting with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917—that is, “St. Petersburg 1917.” For perspective, 100 million is twice the combined deaths of World War I and II, the two deadliest conflicts in history. Even then, 100 million dead, which is the estimate provided by the seminal Harvard University Press work, "The Black of Book of Communism," is a conservative figure. The latest research claims that Mao Tse-Tung was responsible for the deaths of at least 70 million in China, and Joseph Stalin alone may well have killed 60 million in the USSR.

We now have an entire generation of Americans born after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and USSR. They didn’t live through the mass repression and carnage that was Soviet communism. They need to learn about it, just as my generation learned the evils of Nazism. (Read entire article.)

Elizabeth@ Pine Cones and Acorns said...: Sadly this is just the tip of the iceberg of things that we are failing to teach our children.

A very interesting article, thank you for sharing. I have "shared" it on my facebook page I hope you do not mind.

Have a wonderful weekend, Elizabeth; October 6, 2012 at 9:51:00 AM EDT
Proverbs Thirty One Woman said...: I had a lady tell me recently that it was a myth that communism brought misery. I was speechless. I think the problem goes beyond not teaching people history - it's more about twisting history. Sadly, there are a great many universities out there that teach communism is a beautiful thing.; October 6, 2012 at 8:18:00 PM EDT
julygirl said...: Tis true, tis true. Even immediately after WWII it was not taught in school. We were only made aware of it as a threat to our Capitalism and in competition with it. Not until my children were adults and on their own chose political historical reading about Stalin, etc., was I aware of the horrors of 75 years of Communism upon the people in the countries that comprised the USSR.; October 7, 2012 at 1:51:00 PM EDT