Thanks, Foxy.

Dear Joe (Loudmouth),

We hear about the cruelties of the Nazis but hardly
ever about the Communists. Whereas both the Nazis and the
Communists had committed unheard of cruelties. Concentration
camps - on both sides - operated at a high pitch prior to
and during the war years. While the USSR policy of mass
murder preceded that of Nazi Germany, most notably with the
artificial Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33, the wholesale
destruction of the Russian peasantry, and later of the
peasantry and intelligentsia in the occupied territories as
well, the Nazis soon matched Soviet terror with their
wholesale slaughter of Jews, Gypsies, and others, in equal
numbers, if not proportions of their populations. As
stated in - "The New KGB":

"There is no dispute about the enormity of HItler's holocaust.
But it is equally important to be as aware of the accomplishments
of the Soviet Secret Police, which brought death to at least
four times as many Russians, Poles, Jews, Latvians, Lithuanians,
Estonians, Japanese, Koreans, Chinese, Gypsies, and Romanians,
as Hitler did in his eleven years as a leader of the '1,000-year
Reich."

Foxy,

I've read both books and indeed all of Conquest's output. While these two are astonishing works, my favourite Conquest book is "Reflection on a Ravaged Century".

If it wasn't for the fact that he was a conservative writer (although he started off as a communist) he would easily be considered the greatest historian on the 20th century.

The history of these and his other books on the USSR is almost as interesting as the books themselves. Initially most of his information came from interviewing Russians and others who were witness to the atrocities since, obviously, the Russian government suppressed all documentary evidence. As such apologists for the USSR and leftists in general derided the books as lacking evidence and treated them as right wing propaganda.

It was only after the fall of the Sovit Union, when actual documentary evidence was available, that it became clear that Conquest was mostly right and understood the truth more than any of his critics.

"Mulling a new title for “The Great Terror”, his pal Kingsley Amis suggested “I told you so, you f$$king fools”.

Amis is also worth a read.

"I wonder if Trump's ever read any of these books?"

Unknown but I do recall Hillary refering to them at some point. Still she and Obama obviously didn't take much notice given how easily Putin bent them to his will - Georgia, Crimea, Donbas, Syria,Uranium One, EU defence systems. Its interesting how people cheered while Obama bent over backwards for Putin for 8 years , and now cry foul when Trump doesn't fix the problems Obama caused in one.

mhaze,

You do surprise me at times.

Hi Foxy,

I believe politics is all cause and effect, given certain conditions the outcome will be as it is. There is at this time, no danger to Australia from political extremism, the conditions simply are not there for extremism to proliferate.

Dear Paul 1405,

I'm also optimistic about our country's future.
With a few reservations.

I shall repeat what I've stated previously - "At all
times, vigilance is the price of liberty. We
must remain vigilant. We must not heed the siren
calls of demagogues, charlatans, and ideologies.
The measure of our society is our fidelity to our
principles. We must remind our government and our
people to remain faithful to those principles or
otherwise our society, like so many in the past
will be swept on the ash heap of history."