The National Socialism or Nazism that developed in Germany abhorred individualism. “The ‘German idea of the state,’…is that the state is neither founded nor formed by individuals, nor an aggregate of individuals, nor is its purpose to serve any interest of individuals. It is a Volksgemeinschaft[5] in which the individual has no rights but only duties.”[6] Collectivist organizations (or states) cannot tolerate individualism; therefore, they often pose themselves as something for the “greater good” or “in defense of” some weaker entity, often ironically, the individual. The Bolshevik[7] Revolution in Russia evolved into one of the bloodiest and most repressive governments in history; and although the United States allied with them in WWII against the Nazis, Winston Churchill vehemently warned America on March 5, 1946 in his famous “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton, Missouri:[8]
A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory. Nobody knows what Soviet Russia and its Communist international organization intends to do in the immediate future, or what are the limits, if any, to their expansive and proselytizing tendencies….From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.[9]
[1] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 2010 (originally published in 1848), The Communist Manifesto, (New York, NY: Arcturus Publishing Limited), pp. 96-97.
[2] Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 2010 (originally published in 1848), The Communist Manifesto, (New York, NY: Arcturus Publishing Limited), p. 98. Emphasis not added.
[3] The SEIU is the Service Employees International union, which is the second largest union in United States and Canada.
[4] Mathew Kaminski, December 6, 2008, “Let’s Share the Wealth: America’s most powerful union boss says Europe offers a good economic model,” The Wall Street Journalonline, [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122852244367484311.html].
[5] From Road to Serfdom – Volksgemeinschaft might be translated as “people’s community,” though under the Nazis it was carried further to imply something like a “racially pure community.”
[6] Friedrich A. von Hayek (Bruce Caldwell, Ed.), 2007 (originally published in 1944), The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents, (Routledge, London: The University of Chicago Press), p. 183.
[7] The Bolsheviks were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), founded by Vladimir Lenin, which eventually became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
[8] Paul Kengor, March 7, 2011, “When Winston Warned America: Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” at 65,” Townhall.com, [http://townhall.com/columnists/paulkengor/2011/03/07/when_winston_warned_america_churchills_iron_curtain_at_65/page/full/].
[9] Winston Churchill, March 5, 1946, “Iron Curtain” speech. For full text of Churchill’s 1946 “Iron Curtain” speech: [http://www.historyguide.org/europe/churchill.html].
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