austin-murphy-the-triumph-of-evil

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72 THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL
bination of West German bribes, extortion, and marketing to destroy the
East German economy and the people's will to preserve their system
and independence.
It should also be noted that the people in some Eastern European
countries, such as Serbia (Economist, 1993) and Bulgaria (Economist,
1990), actually voted to maintain rule by reformed versions of their
communist parties even after opening up their political system to West­
ern-style elections that permitted manipulation by Western media and
economic extortion (lAC, 1998a). Despite the fact that anticommunist
capitalists exercise a virtual monopoly over the media in some countries
like Russia (Associated Press, 1996a) and threaten to "resist" (imply­
ing economic boycotts and even civil war or other "upheavals") if the
people vote communism back into power (Associated Press, 1996b),
many Eastern Europeans continue to vote for left-wing political parties
that are reformed versions of the communist parties which previously
ruled Eastern Europe (Murphy, 1995). Such parties have been elected
into power in Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, and Lithuania in the mid-
1990s (Economist, 1995), as well as in Yugoslavia (Economist, 1997)
and Mongolia (Associated Press, 2000).
DISPELLING OTHER COMMON MYTHS ABOUT COMMUNISM
Many people have many other misconceptions about communism and
the causes of its collapse. These misconceptions are spread by the myths
and strong anticommunist bias that exists in the mainstream press which
is controlled by concentrated capitalist money and is heavily influenced
by the CIA (Herman and Chomsky, 1988). As stated by Ralph "McGe­
hee, a highly decorated CIA veteran, 'Disinformation is a large part of
[the CIA's] covert action responsibility, and the American people are
the primary target audience of its lies"' (Goff, 2000).
Quality of Life, Freedom and Individuality
Due to the widespread existence of a dominating one-party rule and
more leveled income under communism, there is often the perception
that normal life was harshly regimented under communism (Pipes,
1993). In fact, communism freed people from unemployment, poverty,
crime, major money anxieties, excessive social frictions, and economic
inequalities and thereby actually created the opportunity for a higher
quality of life (Falck, 1998), as Marx and Engels ( 1988a) predicted.
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CHAPTER J
Some evidence on the relative value of rights and freedoms under
communism is provided by a recent 1999 Russian survey (Whitehouse,
1999). This survey found that 68% of the Russian people felt "the right
to free education, medical help, and financial support in old age" to be
among the most important human rights, and 53% indicated as impor­
tant "the right to a well-paid job in one's area of expertise," whereas
only 14% and 8% mentioned "freedom of speech" and "the right to
elect one's leaders", respectively, as important. In addition, even though
only 23% listed "the right to private property" to be important, a sepa­
rate question found 40% wanting a Western-style capitalist/democratic
system, perhaps because they still associated a higher standard of living
with such systems (and incorrectly assumed, as so many do, that the
capitalist system was the cause of Western wealth). Despite the latter
perception among a significant number of Russians that is perpetuated
with Russian capitalist political slogans like "Don't you want to live as
in Europe?", an even more recent survey indicated that 48% of the Rus­
sian people prefer "state planning and distribution" compared to only
35% of Russians favoring "private property and the market" (Econo­
mist, 1999).
Further evidence on the value of the various benefits of communism
is available from a very limited survey that I conducted of Germans
who had emigrated from communist East Germany to capitalist West
Germany before unification in 1990. The survey found that the emi­
grants would have been willing to give up 21.04% of their West
German income to have the communist advantages of virtual elimina­
�ion of unemployment, drugs, crime, uncertain prices, and life-sustain­
Ing money anxieties. The survey also indicated that these same Ger­
mans would have been willing to give up 6.69% of their income to
avoid having the East German political system and secret police. A
separate and more thorough survey of East Germans in the 1990s indi­
cated that they had felt overall freer from government interference in
th� 1980s in communist East Germany than they did in the united capi­
�hst Germany in the 1990s (Northoff, 1995). This latter finding is espe­
ctally important fo r putting the relative value of communist freedoms
and repression in an interesting perspective.
Exaggerations of Political Repression
Much of the USA government and mainstream press propaganda
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