Commentary
September 20, 2022
In emphasizing the egregiousness of communism, scholar Ian Easton in his commentary “Xi Jinping and China’s endgame for America” (September 16) cites a book in which it is stated that Marx-inspired regimes caused approximately 100 million deaths in the 20th century with more than half of them occurring in China.
While it is not my intent to deny or to quibble about the accuracy of such a sweeping statement, a sense of perspective may be needed. Various regimes, for the ostensibly stated cause of achieving a utopian communist society, did indeed murder many innocent people. On the other hand, it should also be kept in mind that since the industrial revolution, the Western system of capitalism, in its pursuit for profits, resources, and monopoly markets, had been the driver behind the slavery of Africans, the genocide of indigenous peoples such as the Tasmanians, Herero, Nama, and numerous native American tribes, the butchery of colonial subjects, imperialism, and racism, all of which the repercussions are still seen today in the many unequal relationships between the former colonial powers and their imperial subjects that gained independence.
A case in point is the aftermath of the British Empire which was built by the billions of hours of labor provided by enslaved Africans and on the backs of other conquered, mostly non-white colonial subjects who were forced to work on British plantations. If the British were truly committed to justice and honestly paid reparations for all of its past sins of slavery, economic exploitation, looting, and, according to British scholar Jason Hickel, for the 60 million people sacrificed to famine caused by British colonial policies, Britain would most likely become a bankrupt nation.
The sins of regimes committed in the name of communism should not be forgotten. But before casting the first stone, a serious reckoning needs to take place in the capitalist West for its past behavior before sermonizing on the evils of communism and pontificating any claim of superiority over other social and economic systems or cultures.
Ko Unoki
Fujisawa, Kanagawa Prefecture
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