Meanwhile .. in Red Square

swampyankee · Aug 2, 2017

Maybe Knutsen wasn't, but assuming that industrial action was universally due to communists -- Ford probably blamed Jews -- was a technique used by some employers, especially large ones, to get the government to help them continue maltreating employees. Knutsen was far better than Ford, who hired people to beat the carp out employees.

Certainly, not all large employers blamed communists, but many did, and blaming outsiders and foreigners for poor employee--employer relations has a long and dishonorable history.

michaelmaltby · Aug 2, 2017

".... blaming outsiders and foreigners for poor employee--employer relations has a long and dishonorable history."
True .... but International Communism was never and has never been a chimera ... are you watching Venezuela? The Capitalist economy has been destroyed and citizens deprived and mistreated by the "state" on a far larger scale than anyone could imagine in this day and age when communism has been so universally discredited and rejected worldwide.

swampyankee · Aug 2, 2017

I'm watching Venezuela being turned into non-democratic state, yes, but the late Chavez and his cronies be any different had they been claiming any other ideology to justify their aggrandizement and grab for power? Are they really any different from Papa Doc Duvalier?

Their common ideology is kleptocracy. They could call themselves anything and the result would be the same.

In any case, Venezuela now doesn't mean that attributing all unrest to some Red Menace was valid; this seems to have been a common belief "our good {American|British|German|etc} workers can't be unhappy on their own; it must be some evil outsiders." Just because a threat exists, it doesn't mean that it's the cause of everything one doesn't like.

michaelmaltby · Aug 2, 2017

"... Are they really any different from Papa Doc Duvalier?"

Along with his son, loathsome figures, no doubt, but they never destroyed the Haitian economy and during my visit I found it was absolutely safe to travel anywhere at any time ... alone.

".. attributing all unrest to some Red Menace was valid"

Only the Red "menace" was self-declared proponent of world revolution .... their words and actions invited fear and distrust. This was a conspiracy in the real sense of the word and reacting accordingly was not and is not paranoia.

swampyankee · Aug 3, 2017

I think we are, to some extent, talking past each other: it was to Stalin and Lenin's benefit to destabilize the democracies, by playing to the fears of the people dominating government and industry: we've seen the same sort of communism to the democratic nations was to their benefit, and many of the members of the ruling classes took the bait hook, line, and sinker. Lenin and Stalin knew that the best environment for success was repressive rulers and dissatisfied workers, and the economic conditions that many countries faced following the Great War, such as the number of British coal mines that were no longer economically viable, would cause economic disruption and worker dissatisfaction.

Incidentally, Haiti was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere under Duvalier. He obviously managed the economy magnificently.

michaelmaltby · Aug 4, 2017

.... people were poor ... they weren't starving

swampyankee · Aug 5, 2017

michaelmaltby said:
.... people were poor ... they weren't starving

That's not what the data show: there was starvation during Duvalier's regime, especially during Baby Doc's. See, for example Haitians overthrow regime, 1984-1986 | Global Nonviolent Action Database.

Communist regimes don't have a monopoly on starving their people.

michaelmaltby · Aug 5, 2017

Read with interest .... no one is suggesting Communist regimes have a monopoly on mistreatment ... however, your link doesn't jib with my own observations traveling widely in Cuba, 1972, and Haiti, 1973 .... two very different nations with different histories but both sharing origins of colonialism and poverty.
Canada (Quebec) is currently being deluged by Haitian refugees escaping the US. They understand the meaning of hard work and are productive ... and are not saddled with socialist notions of entitlement.

swampyankee · Aug 6, 2017

No, they're not. Few, if any, immigrants are. Indeed, if one looks at the statistics some of the most dependent populations in the US are rural ones that have been here for generations. The US also has a history of treating Haitian immigrants much more harshly than those from Cuba, possibly on racial grounds.

There do seem to be, however, large numbers of people who believe maltreatment of people is limited to a particular group or ideology, whether it be political or religious; I'm not including you in this group. Most of the communist regimes came to power because they overthrew some form of absolutist regime, like Battista or the czar (yes, I know the czar had abdicated before the bolsheviks took over, but his successor's hold on power was still tenuous. He was also naive, in arming the bolsheviks out of fear of an encroaching pro-czar force which turned out to be illusory), not because they replaced a democratic system.

As an aside, when I was in college, our assigned readings included Lenin. Read him and you will find one of the most cynical, self-aggrandizing, power-obsessed human beings to ever inhale. No wonder the Germans chose him to be the ultimate weapon to get Russia out of the war.