----- Original Message ----- From: "// ravi" <ravi at platosbeard.org>
But wait, what of all the talk about Eugene Debs and his 1 million votes? It seems like all over the white world, the workers were in a bit of an angry mood. After WW2, the Soviet Union appears to have been effectively not a threat to capitalists but the perfect example for them to illustrate the “dangers of communism”, setting the stage for witch hunts at a “golden age” in the USA.
All of which, if right (very arguable, I admit), suggests that the guy who argued against a very simple, algorithmic view of these things is not off base. Bad shit went down in the 30s due to capitalist excess in the previous decade, but that led to regulations, safety nets, good stuff. Yes?
----- I'm not sure which part of my argument you're arguing against from the above. WWI went a ways to discrediting the ruling class in Europe, and what the war didn't accomplish, the depression finished off. There was plenty to be angry about, including, for desert, WWII. I believe that the two world wars killed over eighty million white "civilized" people. There's normally about a ten to one ratio of wounded to dead, so think about it.
If communism and class struggle had not been attractive options, what need for the witch hunts?
And the Soviet Union was a threat. It was a threat ideologically -- a worker state that pulled a vast area of the earth out of feudalism and into the modern, electrified, industrialized age. With high literacy, free health care, free education, etc. First in space. This was amazing stuff! It was also a threat geopolitically in the support the USSR offered the former colonies, etc.
The regulations, safety nets, etc. where put in place to save capitalism. Though the broad popular push back played a large part in setting the tone and direction.
Joanna