<<Yes, I was [following the thread.] Maybe you didn't notice that my question was not about Minh vs. Pinochet. My question was about the concept of needing to "cleanse" society.>>
My apologies, Prince. Communist theory was that the "greed" of "human nature" was a product of the social environment. Capitalism produced greedy humans and capitalism's defenders claimed that the greed was part of human nature, rather than of the prevailing system. The theory was that following a communist revolution, true socialism would ultimately follow, producing a "new man," i.e., "socialist man," thereby abolishing greed, since the "need" for greed (capitalist society) would be all gone. Since true socialism had not been achieved in one great leap, even in the U.S.S.R., the belief not unreasonably grew that its advent was being road-blocked by greedy and/or parasitic individuals whose permanent removal would greatly benefit all the rest of society by clearing the road to socialism. So you have this talk of "liquidating" reactionary or anti-Soviet elements, parasites, etc. I don't know that "cleansing" was part of the vocabulary, but it might have been.
We all have different words for it. "Making our streets safer" is a good slogan with regard to the lumpen criminal element, "war on terror" is a good way to deal with those who object to U.S. Middle Eastern policies - - the concept is that there is an internal enemy, somebody who is opposed to the general welfare and that person has to be "dealt with."
The concept of "cleansing" society of "gangrenous elements" is universal, but the particular language you objected to was associated with the Nazis, of course. Frankly, I don't know that Ho Chi Minh ever used that kind of language, the Communists were more partial to the word "purge," which also draws from imagery related to bodily health. But, yeah, Uncle Ho undoubtedly had hostile elements liquidated. Chiang Kai-Shek in 1929 had his hostile elements (the communists in Shanghai) liquidated by boiling them alive in railway boilers. Uncle Ho was a lot more humane, so "liquidated" usually meant shot.
Communists are generally about making the world a better place for everyone, but sometimes take shortcuts which Western Liberals and other delicate souls find kind of harsh. Maybe they are kind of harsh. I certainly can't defend every single decision to liquidate an individual. The point at issue in this thread between plane and I was whether harsh communists are the moral equivalent of harsh fascists. Since fascists are motivated only by greed or in some cases racial hatred PLUS greed, they have no feeling for the humanity of their victims and thus are much more evil and sadistic in their methods. Thus, Pinochet, Hitler, Bush, and Chiang. To compare these monsters with Uncle Ho is absolutely ludicrous. Uncle Ho brought his people through decades of struggle against the world's greatest powers, France, Japan, China and Amerikkka, a struggle against all odds which ended in total victory and resulted in national liberation for all of Viet Nam. The enemies of the people, both external and internal (remember the Tiger Cages) were extremely violent and cruel, and victory required that Uncle Ho match their violence or go down to defeat. If you want to know what kind of tortures the Vietnamese Resistance fighters were faced with, read "A Bright Shining Lie" by John Paul Vann, an Amerikkkan officer who was there. IMHO, "re-educating" the bastards was far too good for them. But it shows that at bottom, communism has a heart.
