Word: communism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Competing with him for such devilish distinction is Lenin, who snatched from obscurity the 19th century ideology of communism and devised the modern tools of totalitarian brutality. He begat not only Stalin and Mao but in some ways also Hitler, who was enchanted by the Soviets' terror tactics. Doesn't the presence of such evil--and the continued eruption of totalitarian brutality from Uganda to Kosovo--make a mockery of the rationalists' faith that progress makes civilizations more civilized? Isn't Hitler, alas, the person who most influenced and symbolized this most genocidal of centuries...
...others in their evil pantheon, and the totalitarian ideologies they represented, they are destined for the ash heap of history. If you had to describe the century's geopolitics in one sentence, it could be a short one: Freedom won. Free minds and free markets prevailed over fascism and communism...
...Great Depression circled the globe, democracy and capitalism were everywhere in retreat. The propaganda of the day proclaimed that the choice was one of two extremes--fascism or communism. In Germany, economic collapse led to the triumph of the Nazi party and the installation of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor; in Italy, Benito Mussolini assumed dictatorial power with an ideology called Fascism; in the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin and the communist ideology held sway...
...This electrician's leadership of a labor movement here sparked a chain of events that led to the toppling of communism throughout Central Europe...
However much stronger the Western democracies were after the war, as they went on to discredit not only fascism but communism as well, that strength still came at a terrible cost. "How much happier a world it would be if one did not have to mount crusades against racism, segregation, a Holocaust, the extermination of 'inferior peoples,'" notes presidential historian Robert Dallek. "We don't need evil. We'd do fine without Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot. Think of the amount of money and energy used in World War II--if only they could have been used in constructive ways. Good...