Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site gargoyle.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!bellcore!petrus!sabre!zeta!epsilon!gamma!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes From: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: Nicaraguan Parallel Message-ID: <199@gargoyle.UUCP> Date: Mon, 23-Sep-85 18:33:40 EDT Article-I.D.: gargoyle.199 Posted: Mon Sep 23 18:33:40 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 27-Sep-85 06:48:51 EDT References: <193@gargoyle.UUCP> <28200092@inmet.UUCP> Reply-To: carnes@gargoyle.UUCP (Richard Carnes) Organization: U. of Chicago, Computer Science Dept. Lines: 28 In article <28200092@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes: >The isomorphism (structural identity) >between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia has always fascinated me. >Here are two regimes with quite different ideologies, brought >to power by different social groups, in two dissimilar cultures, >yet as alike as two peas in a pod, and growing even more alike >the longer they existed. And quite *unlike* any repressive >regime before 1917. I see this as one of the central >facts of this century, and a challenge to any political >theorist. To my mind, it disproves, for example, both >Solzhenitsyn's explanation of Communism as something produced >by Marxist ideology, and Richard Pipes's explanation of it as >something flowing from a thousand years of Russian history. >I believe totalitarianism to be an *invention*, as specific >to the 20th century as television or atom bomb. It is a perfect >machine for its purpose, which is to permit the group in power >to stay in power. Once perfected, it is imported by country >after country. This is fine; but one must be disinformed to regard Nicaragua as totalitarian, in my opinion. The reasonably open and democratic elections held last fall have no parallel in Soviet history since 1917, and are sufficient to draw a sharp distinction between the two political systems. Not to mention other differences. If this is totalitarianism, it is a strange variety indeed. -- Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com