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communism (or socialism), was compromised by the Soviet Union even
in the eyes of many on the left.
The 1960s created a sharply increased awareness of the crimes of the
United States, associated with capitalism, the white race, white males,
and the Western world as a whole. Many on the left who were increas–
ingly preoccupied with the evils the United States represented and its
alleged responsibility for a wide variety of global problems deemed it
morally unqualified to criticize communism. The communist systems
and their spokesmen offered critiques of the United States (and the
Western world as a whole) which were congenial to native critics. Pres–
ident Reagan's reference to the Soviet Union as an "evil empire"
inspired widespread and enduring derision, as would the idea of "the
crimes of communism" in some circles.
In Soviet studies the so-called revisionists held the United States
responsible for the Cold War, dismissed the concept of totalitarianism
and its applicability to communist systems, and sought tenaciously to
redefine the "crimes of communism" (without using such terminology)
as far as the victims of Stalin's regime were concerned. Those of other
communist states, except Cambodia, were almost totally ignored. These
scholars were also anxious to dismiss any connection between Marx–
ism-Leninism and communist practices. They preferred to attribute their
repression to chaos, bungling, accident, local feuds, unintended conse–
quences-anything that was not a major, defining attribute of these
political systems and their leaders.
Discussions of the crimes of communism have also been scarce
because the topic almost inevitably leads to totalitarianism. Few of
those who reflected on these crimes could fail to see that they, or the
worst of them, were connected to the totalitarian characteristics of these
states. Stalin's Soviet Union, Mao's China, Pol Pot's Cambodia, Cuba
under Castro (for much of his rule), North Korea under (and after) Kim
II Sung were totalitarian . But so was Nazi Germany and for that reason
the term came to be avoided as it drew attention to the similarities
between political systems wholly discredited (Nazism, fascism) and
those-the communist ones-many sought to save from total disrepute
on account of their putative, early idealism and association with the
ideas of Marxism. These systems were viewed by some with greater
indulgence because they were seen as counterweight to the power of the
United States, NATO, or the West. Moreover, in the United States but
apparently not in France, the far better known and documented evils of
Nazism also diverted attention from the evils of communism. As did the
