Sunday, March 10, 2013

10 MAR, 2013, 05.53AM IST, YUSUF BEGG,ET BUREAU

10 communist leaders and the rot they spawned

Hugo Chavez, who died earlier this week, belongs to a long line of communist leaders who delivered less than they promised. ET Magazine sifts through history to bring 10 leaders and the rot they spawned.

Vladimir Lenin

Leader of the Bolsheviks, he was the first head of state of Soviet Union. Did his bit to revive the Soviet economythrough his New Economic Policy. Not too fond of democracy. Was the mastermind behind Red Terror that crushed dissidence; also founded Cheka, the dreaded secret police. Still revered by leftist throughout the world.

Joseph Stalin

The verdict is split. Some called him the saviour of the Soviet Union, defeating the Nazis and making the Soviet Union a nuclear as well as an industrial superpower. On the other hand how can one forget the terror he unleashed and the millions of ordinary citizens who died in labour camps or were simply shot dead.

Mao Zedong
Like other communist leaders, The Great Helmsman was a tyrant. China prospered a bit under him. But two of his policies — The Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution — led to the death of millions and the country slipping back into poverty. His brand of communism was exported to many countries, including India.

Enver Hoxha

True that he transformed Albania from a semi-feudal, impoverished country into a modern industrialised one. But in doing so, he resorted to typical Stalinist tactics: large-scale purges, crushing of the opposition, proliferation of labour camps, banning religious activities... So much so that by the mid '70s the country was isolated from the world community.

Pol Pot
In his bid to make Cambodia an agrarian utopia, Pol Pot — born SalothSar, aka Brother No. 1 — transformed the countryside into a killing field. In a short span of five years (1975-79), he was the cause of the death of 1.5 million Cambodians; the country's population then was only 8 million.
Fidel Castro

Like so many revolutions, the Cuban one too began with change for the better: women's rights, better health care, universal education. Also like so many revolutionaries Castro was not too gung-ho about democracy. By the mid '60s Cuba was under a dictatorship, dissidents jailed or killed and the Castro cult blossoming.

Nicolae Ceausescu
If draconian is the defining feature of communist regimes then Ceausescu took it a step further. From marriage and contraception to industrial production, Romania's first family controlled everything. Thanks to his hare-brained economic policies, the country was on the brink of a famine in the mid '80s. Obviously free speech and dissidence were banned.