Stalin and Mao never intentionally caused any famines. These claims are based on lies from the Black Book of Communism, which has been disavowed by its own authors and serious academics.
Alexander Finnegan?s answer to What is the most biased book you?ve ever read?
Communists are always blamed for being violent. But this is untrue.
Mark Twain on French Revolution and the Reign of Terror:
?There were two Reigns of Terror if we would but remember and consider it. The one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in heartless cold blood. The one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years. The one inflicted death upon ten thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million. Our shudders are all for the ?horrors? of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak. But what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heartbreak??
Compare this to capitalism, which has built within it the imposition of artificial scarcity for the purpose of maintaining market prices. For example, insulin manufacturers price gouge on insulin. If you are a Type 1 diabetic and you don?t receive insulin, you die. Thousands of diabetics die from insulin rationing every year. Why? Capitalism permits price gouging. This occurs in many areas, including people dying from malnutrition due to hunger. The U.S. government pays farmers not to grow food because if they did, the market would have so much food the price would collapse and the capitalism market would crash. Under a socialist system the farmers would get paid for growing to capacity and the food given to those who need it. But not under capitalism.
These protesters are distributing the ashes of their dead loved ones on the steps of the insulin manufacturer who price gouges, causing their family members to die from being unable to afford sky high insulin costs.
Capitalism is also responsible for imperialism because the capitalist system must grow every year or go into recession or depression. New sources of oil, raw materials, cheap labor, and consumer markets must be found. When a developing nation resists the advances of corporate power from abroad, the military is used to force the public into compliance. In Iran the government wanted to nationalize the oil reserves to benefit the people of Iran instead of Western oil companies. The CIA sent in operatives and fomented a coup, installing the Shah, a brutal dictator. This happens routinely around the world in Latin America as well. Democratically elected governments are overthrown and right wing puppets are installed.
People around the world see through the capitalist lies about ?freedom and democracy? coming from the U.S. and its aggressive military. Human rights are used as an excuse to invade other nations for economic purposes. Meanwhile, the U.S. is allies with the most brutal, repressive, and largest human rights violator in the world, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is a leading purchaser of lucrative arms contracts from the U.S.
Meanwhile, nations like the Soviet Union are demonized as being brutal, repressive regimes that killed millions. In fact, the USSR was not so cartoonishly evil. Was it a utopia? No. But for a country that was destroyed after WWII, it did great things. It was mismanaged after the death of Stalin, but even with its weaknesses a single mother with children could live well. And after the fall of the Soviet Union Russia has never recovered. 30 years of neoliberal capitalism has resulted in no middle class, mass emigration, deindustrialization, a negative birth rate, and the rise of massive inequality thanks to corrupt oligarchs. But somehow we are supposed to mindlessly repeat the mantra: ?Socialism never works, socialism never works, socialism never??
