Sean McMeekin: Don't Whitewash the History of Communism

The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie

The Soviet Union collapsed at the end of 1991, taking down with it the threat of international communism, right? Today's guest says no, writing that, "Far from dead, Communism as a governing template seems only to be getting started." Sean McMeekin is a historian at Bard College and the author of the mesmerizing book To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism. Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with him about the history of communism, how its focus on forced equality is inherently violent, and how Josef Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, and others each brought particular flourishes and horrors to its practice.

Gillespie and McMeekin talk about why communism has enduring and resurgent appeal in the West despite its history of violence and economic disaster. "We dodged a certain bullet" with the election of Trump, McMeekin says, but he argues that "whatever party is in power in Washington, I think we always have to jealously guard our civil liberties and we have to just constantly remind ourselves of what our values are and are supposed to be."

1:41 — The enduring appeal of communism
3:55 — The "whitewashing" of Karl Marx's appetite for violence
7:02 — How Vladimir Lenin changed communism
16:38 — American attitudes toward communism
23:44 — Leon Trotsky's idea of "permanent revolution" and Lenin's legacy
28:35 — Violence didn't deter communism's appeal to many
33:33 — The left's flip-flopping on interventionism in World War II
36:54 — Mao, Khmer Rouge, and communism in Asia
45:22 — Western radicals and Maoism
50:27 — Black intellectuals' engagement with communism
57:51 — Is communism making a comeback?
1:06:20 — Does communism still appeal to the young?
1:11:19 — How does Donald Trump map onto all this?
1:16:43 — The politicization of the means of communication

• Video Editor: Ian Keyser

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