I went looking for an alignment chart for communist leaders during the 20th century, and the only one I found was for only soviet leaders…
So, of all the communist leaders, who should be on an alignment chart and where would they fall?
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I don’t know where they’d fall, but I’d say include Castro and Tito for sure. And Mao of course. People who were Dear Leaders for a very long time.
I don’t know if North Korea actually counts as Communist, even if they think they are, but they’d be another one. I’m trying to think of ones who’s connection to the Soviets wasn’t entirely “do what the Kremlin says”.
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Mariya Nikiforova, Nestor Makhno, the Left Socialist Revolutionary Program, the old Left Opposition, the Kronstadt Program, and, uh, Jack London.
P.S. Actually, fill the chart with well-known communist authors.
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Dr. Benjamin Spock ran for POTUS at least once for the Communist Party USA.
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I think that should be a separate one! And it should include Gramsci and Kollantai.
Since this is for my lecture next week, I want more well known leaders of countries instead of theorist, I think.
I did not know that!
I think if it’s the the original leader, Kim Il-Sung, it’s more recognizably communist, in the Stalinist mode. I think after the Secret speech, he began to retool the ideology into the current form today, Juche…
So, here is who I’m thinking to include:
Stalin, Mao, Tito, Hoxja, Castro, Khrushchev, Kim Il-Sung, Ho Chi Mihn, and Nkhrumah
These seem like influential and enough difference between them so that we can making meaningful distinctions along the lines of alignment?
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So, possible alignments:
Lawful good: Nkhrumah
Neutral good: Tito
Chaotic good: Castro
Lawful Neutral: Ho Chi Minh
True Neutral: Kim Il-Sung
Chaotic Neutral: Khrushchev
Lawful Evil: Mao
neutral evil: Hoxha
Chaotic evil: Stalin
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What about Lenin?
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Well, he wasn’t running the Soviet Union long, although he’s obviously important. And I wanted representation from all over the world included… if you did put him in, who would you take out?
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I see your point, LOL - but there would’ve been no Stalin without Lenin, so maybe Uncle Joe can go? Or can there be a tie?
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True, but Stalin makes such perfect “chaotic evil” figure… and he had a huge impact on how communism changed in the middle of the century.
But then again, Khrushchev wasn’t in power that long either… but he kicked off major reforms after Stalin’s death…
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Who made the most difference in how the Party developed - is that a good standard?
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I don’t think alignment works that well-- to begin with, classifying someone as evil doesn’t help understand their ideology, and doesn’t help understand why they might do evil.
I think it might be more helpful to think of 6 basic types:
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Romantic. Thinking in terms of heroism. In the Russian Empire, this traditionally involved assassination, and this is one reason why many Left Socialist Revolutionaries joined the Cheka and supporting extralegal death sentences, while condemning official death sentences.
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Responsible. Thinking in terms of good and bad processes.
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Peacemaking.
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Avenging. But they were the landlord’s children!
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Self-Sacrificing. e.g. Lenin working himself to death.
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Self-Serving. e.g. Mao.
I guess this lends itself to a 4x3 grid if we allow Romantic through Avenging as 4 options (not on a scale) and Self-Sacrificing through a middle ground to Self-Serving (on a scale).
Or a 3x3x3 grid. A lot of people would turn out NNN. Still thinking this over.
Romantic vs. Responsible maps to Chaotic vs. Lawful. Self-sacrificing can do a lot of harm in terms of other-people-sacrificing so it definitely does not match to Good vs. Evil. Peacemaking vs. Avenging might map to Good vs. Evil.
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That’s a good point… I mean, I was more trying to do a silly thing, but if I can also make it productive in terms of helping students to understand that the communist movement in the 20th century wasn’t just full of cookie cutter dictators, but had lots of variety and nuance. Not to mention the actual outcomes of these governments.
I also want to highlight where things actually did work and where things completely devolved into bloody destruction and madness.
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Stalin: Why not both?
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Let’s not forget life-of-the-party Pol Pot.
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Yeah, I’m wondering if I put him in but he’d have to go on the evil side for sure…
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I’m now thinking of a 4x4 grid. Basically similar to the 3x3 D&D grid. It’s the vertices instead of the squares.
That way theres no true neutral, but there’s a difference between leaning one way and being all-out one way. For example, Lenin was definitely vengeful, but not to the same degree as Stalin or Pol Pot or whomever wrote “why are you soft!” Few of the Marxist leaders would go full romantic/chaotic, except maybe some Situationists.
So Pol Pot might be leaning chaotic, full vengeful. And Mao leaning chaotic, leaning vengeful. Stalin leaning lawful, full vengeful. Lenin and Trotskiy leaning lawful, leaning vengeful. Bukharin leaning chaotic in his early leftist period, I’m not sure for his rightist period.
I figure Luxemburg, Nagy, Allende, etc. will help with the better half of the table…
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Mainly because I could not think of where else to put him or who to put in as true neutral? Kim Il-Sung ruled over a relatively brutal Stalinist system, but I’m unsure if he rises to the same level as Mao, Stalin or Hoxha?
Where would you put him? Or better, how would you change the classification to better reflect reality of living in these regimes or to better describe their political programs?
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It’s almost like all leaders are bastards.
I don’t know about Che, he was running the firing squads tidying up after the revolution. So much for primum non nocere!
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Perhaps neutral communist could be Khrushchev or Gorbachev?
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