The Rise & Fall of the Russian Empire with Michael Malice - WBD612

Michael Malice is an anarchist, author, and podcaster. In this
interview, we discuss his latest book, The White Pill: A Tale of
Good and Evil. It charts the rise and fall of Russia, its
insidious evilness, how western intellectuals supported and
justified the communist state from afar, and why it is impossible
for those in the west to comprehend how pervasive a totalitarian
regime can be.


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Ask anyone to name the evilest empires in history and it is
highly unlikely that the Soviet Union will be anyone’s first
suggestion. And yet, the regime is estimated to have killed 61
million people during the 20th century, most of them by Stalin.
It is called democide, the mass murder of citizens by their own
government, and the Soviets are history’s worst.


The killings of people throughout the Soviet empire took various
forms but included executions, famine, forced labour, starvation,
mass deportations and massacres. Human life was cheap, and nobody
was immune from the wicked regime. And, in addition to the
violence, the state employed an all-encompassing oppression of
its citizens, involving surveillance, censorship, and fear.


The reality of the Russian Communist State was maintained well
beyond the moment it should have ceased functioning, chiefly
because everyone had been brainwashed, from workers to the
leaders. That this fairytale was a sham couldn’t be hidden
forever, and once the facade started to give it didn’t take long
for the whole edifice to crumble away to dust.


So why has the evilness of the Soviet Union been downplayed in
the west? There are many reasons, but an intellectual affinity
for communist ideals is the root cause. Western intellectuals
were often in favour of the Soviet Union and its goals of
creating a socialist utopia, and many supported the idea of the
state as a progressive force. This attitude was rife in the
1930s, but, it still has centres of support today.


That a massive country can rapidly change its governance
structure, inflicting violence and fear on millions and millions
of people, and maintain its position for decades despite
corruption, abuses and stagnation, is a salient tale for us all.
Notably, as many of the cultural elites defended the regime from
afar, and, that this story has been largely forgotten.