Aldarion
Neoreactionary Monarchist
Why Utopia Leads to Genocide
Genocides had been part of human history since its beginnings. Israelites carried out genocide of native Caananites inspired by God’s promises of them as the chosen people. Romans destroyed C…
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Genocides had been part of human history since its beginnings. Israelites carried out genocide of native Caananites inspired by God’s promises of them as the chosen people. Romans destroyed Carthage as a revenge, and during the age of colonization Europeans carried out genocides in their quest for resources.
But particularly dangerous had been utopian ideologies. Ideologies that promised better future if only a certain group of people could be destroyed. To these people, genocide is a small price for an ideal society of peace and harmony.
Lenin and Stalin had their utopia of international socialism. It ended in genocide. Hitler had his utopia of national socialism. It ended in genocide. Progressives have their utopia of progressive socialism. Genocide is ongoing.
All socialist attempts to establish utopia always end up in genocide. Why?
There are several reasons.
First is basic nature of the attempt. In order to establish utopia, society has to be remade from the ground up. This requires forcing people to act not just according to the central dictate, but also against their very nature. The result is the necessity of usage of force to impose desired reforms. And if pushback is significant, this can easily go from “normal” terror to trying to wipe out and murder entire segments of the society. There can be no surprise that the largest genocide in history was a consequence of Mao’s “Great Leap Forward”, surpassing by far genocides done by Hitler and even Stalin.
Most utopian ideals, especially those of socialist nature, require harmony and thus ignorance of the harsh reality of human difference. Nazism ignored differences of class in favor of race, while Communism ignored any differences other than class.On the second anniversary of the Khmer Rouge victory, President Khieu Samphan depicted in bucolic terms a Democratic Kampuchea with freely flowing water, freshly flowering plants, and smiling people. Modern progressivism ignores differences of race, sex, culture and anything which makes humans anything more than serially produced soulless shells.
And to establish utopia, past has to be destroyed and rubble cleared out.
Second is psychology. Believers in utopia typically do not allow anything to stand in their way. They will establish their utopia, by any means necessary, because its establishment will resolve all problems and justify all evils done in its name.
And because utopia will solve all the problems, this means that there is no logical reason for anyone to oppose it. Thus anyone opposing socialism must be inherently evil, and thus can and must be destroyed. For this reason, socialists developed propensity for targeting groups seen as enemies of socialism. From 1918. until 1953., Soviets targeted for purges entire groups characterized as enemies of socialism. Between 1918. and early 1930s, targets were defined primarily in class terms, such as kulaks. But from 1930s until death of Stalin in 1953., the designated enemies were increasingly defined as members of particular ethnic and national groups, including Koreans, Chechens and Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Germans, Jews, and many others that were seen as somehow incompatible with or resistant to the siren call of socialism. Every single one was seen as carrying a nefarious trait within his body, a genetic or blood resistance to socialism. Only way to save Socialism was the purge of such groups. Nazi, of course, claimed that only the Aryans were “culture-producing” people, with everybody else being only worthwile as a slave or else dead.
Khmer regime in Democratic Kampuchea, like other socialist regimes, targeted the enemies of the revolution, urban dwellers, peasants who retained “individualistic” views, and, especially, ethnic and religious minorities. The enemies were microbes threatening the healthy body, rotten parts which had to be eliminated. In Yugoslavia, Serbs were seen as oppressed by the inferior peoples around them, especially Croats but also the Muslims and others. The solution was genocide, as at Ovčara and Srebrenica.
Third is organization. Much as explained in the first reason, establishing utopia requires fundamental reorganization of the society. And this reorganization has to be centrally managed, with ideologues responsible for basically everything.
This is why genocides became especially pronounced in 20th century. Growth in the power and capability of the state allowed it to affect society in profound and extensive ways. And utopian ideas in 20th century were linked to mass-based social movements that established revolutionary regimes with the aim of utilizing state as the agent of social transformation. It is no accident that most prevalent perpetrators of genocides in the 20th century were revolutionary socialist regimes – Nazi Germany, Communist USSR and China, and Khmer Rouge Cambodia. All of them had identified one or more groups which had to be exterminated because they stood in the way of utopia. Racial socialisms such as Nazism were the most open about who the “enemy” that needed to be exterminated was, as the definition was carried out in ethnic terms – Jews, Slavs etc. Class socialisms such as Communism however were potentially far more dangerous, as the definition of the “enemy” could always be expanded as the ruling class saw fit. Literally any individual or group could at any time be declared an “enemy of the people” and slated for extermination.