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morally repellent) rationalization for this position. "Like it or not, the
construction of socialism is privileged in that to understand it one must
espouse its movement and adopt its goals; in a word, we judge what it
does in the name of what it seeks...."
Seeking to justify Soviet political violence associated with the Purges,
Leo Huberman and Paul Sweezy, two American academic Marxists,
asked in 1953, "Is violence used to perpetuate a state of affairs in which
violence is inevitable, or ... [is] it used in the interests of creating a
truly human society from which it will be possible at long last to banish
violence altogether?"
This was rationalization the Nazis also could have gladly endorsed;
after all, once they purified the world ofJews there was not going to be
any further need for violence.
The human costs of Chinese social engineering under Mao were as
momentous as any. The Chinese gulag literature is still in its infancy
though rapidly growing; the violence and irrationality associated with
the "Great Cultural Revolution" is becoming somewhat better known.
The unique contribution or by-product of the Chinese Communist re–
pressions has been a more far-reaching atomization of personal and
group relationships than either the Soviet or Nazi system managed to
achieve. Under Mao greater use was made of grass roots coercion, vio–
lence, intimidation, mutual denunciation, and organized group controls
than in either Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union. As far as I know,
only in Communist China were public denunciation boxes available on
the streets; only there were parents presented a bill for the costs of the
ammunition used to execute their children or other relatives. Only in
China were inmates pressured to undergo "thought reform" which
largely consisted of mutual denunciation and chastisement in supervised
groups. Family disruption and separation caused by the political stigmati–
zation of one member also appeared to have been more widespread in
China than in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. The Chinese were
advised that "to join the Youth League you must admit that you have a
reactionary class background. . . . This is the first step. Afterward you can
draw a clear line to separate yourself from the contamination of your
family. Only by criticizing your father will you show that you are quali–
fied to join the revolutionary ranks." The more we learn of the political
violence and repression in China under Mao, the more compelling the
question raised in the beginning of these reflections becomes.
The self-evidently warlike character of Nazism and more recently the
fear of nuclear war also tilted the scales against Nazi Germany when
contrasted with Communist countries and particularly the Soviet Union.
Nazi Germany engaged in little peace propaganda; it was hard to mis-
