Military Regimes – Part 2

This is a follow up to the Military Regimes – Part 1 post below…

The atrocities described in my earlier post were all committed in the name of anti-communism. And yet, elsewhere in the world, especially in Asia, there were (and still are) thuggish regimes that are communist. My theory is that these ideologies are just an excuse. From what I can tell, the Chinese Communist Party is definitely not Communist now, if it ever was. Sure, they mumbled the right words (if you were a communist sympathizer), but they were in the business of filling the role of supreme Emperor.

Similarly, Bordaberry and Videla didn’t exactly believe in the free market. Importing electronic equipment into most South American countries was a no-no (except, of course, for those with the right connections). Pinochet may have done a lot of the right things from the point of view of many who call themselves capitalist, but on most of these capitalist experiments, the military and the state (think Social Security, or the sources of information, or, if I recall correctly (perhaps I’m wrong here), even the copper mines remained state owned).

Am I right – are all these regimes – those calling themselves communist and those calling themselves anti-communist, just the same thing: a group of verminous thugs clinging to power? Why have so-called communists been successful at taking over countries in Asia, and so-called anti-communists been successful at taking over countries in Latin America? Is it just proximity to the US and the former USSR or is there something else there?