The first paragraph of the above had been organised round fatalities which had taken place in the 20 century in some significant numbers. It occurred me, what common denominators are found to the instances of all this body count — other than the default Marx-ism and his communism. Appear 'socialism', 'materialism'. These terms are of overlapping import but are usually or largely present.

On communism

This is not something new and has not always been harmful. It means living in or as part of a commune.

This may be possible (true) in the cases of some small self-contained communities ; some such have existed in the USA and in other parts of the globe.

The idea is found in the Acts of Apostles — although the commune described therein may look not very appealing : One of its members, Stephen, was stoned to death for not having given his assets to the elders who managed the commune. Very similar practices but on a much larger scale were later seen in the Soviet Union etc.

This might be a description of sorts of ('communal') organisation which could have existed earlier. In the later times, there have been Christian communes in Europe, the Moravian Brethren, the Mennonites who later settled in the US, possibly others. Some such communes had achieved some degrees of success, at least for a time.

One notes that this is not the 'communism' of K. Marx and in the cases of communes preceding that "thinker" the communes had virtually nothing to do with the marxist communism such as practiced later — except perhaps by way of his writings having been influenced, as they must needs were, by some earlier events. But in no case any of the earlier communes offered any "proofs" for marxian 'communism' because any such possible propositions are purely arbitrary. (Some such statements may be true but at this point one can only examine the particulars.)

There may have been some ideas of some pristine communism. This seems to have been the vision (somewhat vague) of the Chinese Sun Yat-sen, who had made a few brief and very general remarks on something of the sort.

Sometimes criticised, sometimes venerated, Sun Yat-sen has been one of the most influential people in the early 20th century. His being sometimes claimed for a 'communist', one notes that he was neither a consistent or dedicated 'materialist' nor much of a marxist.

Round 1922 Sun Yat-sen was for a time fooled by an agent of the Kremlin, one M. Gruzenberg alias Borodin. (Sun was an inveterate learner, ever ready to consider new ideas if they be use in China, and he could to an extent fall prey to an experienced manipulator.)

On 26 January 1923 a Joint Statement was signed in Shanghai by Sun Yat-sen and by one Joffe, another agent of the Kremlin. The statement said in part :

"Dr Sun Yat-sen holds that the Communistic order or even the Soviet system cannot actually be introduced into China, because there do not exist here the conditions for the successful establishment of either Communism or Sovietism" etc.

But the signatories parted "on the most cordial and friendly terms". The Statement also contained some certain promises made by the "Russian" government which the Soviets, largely predictably, had never kept in the end.

After his death in 1925 statements had been published attributed to Sun which were overt fabrications (the "obedience of the corpse"* phenomena).

    * Please be on the alert for this 'obedience of the corpse' the reader, when publications appear after the departure of some person which either falsify his work or can even be fabrications by others attributed to him falsely. This seems to have occurred far more often than one would normally expect. The practice could have been known as early as the writing itself and would be most naturally expected from the marxists-leninist, but by no means exclusively so.

This man Sun Yat-sen cannot be claimed for a communist in the marxist-leninist sense. Please note, the reader, that there has been much confusion on this issue, due to the accustomed Bolshevik disinformation and the consequent plain human error. This may be still important because there is presently some kind of struggle going on to lessen the spread of barbarism round the globe, which also has much to do in particular with the security of Taiwan and with the liberation of the mainland China itself from this fallacy-driven corruption.

Applied to an entire state 'communism' seems impossible and any attempts to impose anything of the description have brought disasters. A terror-driven police-state is the only possible state-"communism" in name.

It could only be a dictatorship of a single man or of some 'dictators of the proletariat' : some group whose make-up could be the perfect "anybody's guess" — but the expectations would be extremely low since the people who really work — no matter how poor no matter how rich — would not be normally interested in such propositions as "abolish the private property".

One can distinguish non-marxist communism, non-materialist communism, non-state 'communism' (small as if private-association communities), from the marxist (or, worse, marxist-leninist) calamities.

One may be not interested in any of the above but they should not be confused (and one could well be on the alert for writers who would attempt to do so deliberately).

On 'socialism'

After 1917 the term had been lost —

It does not seem worthy clarification, because it contains a fundamental misconception. The society consist of real individuals and the real individual absent one is only speaking about empty verbiage.

There may have been some 'socialist' movements which were relatively harmless. Under this term often went some admirable, if vague, notions of justice and the like. One good statement known to me, the 'equality under law', or in respect to the law, does not depend on any 'socialism' and does not even, it seems, depend on any particular notions of 'society'.

There have been 'socialist' propositions which were not at all 'materialist' and, to the contrary, contained some notions of Man's spirituality (I am now speaking about anybody who is not a dead body).

Something of a problem may be, how to distinguish between all those versions of 'socialism'. The Englishman Hyndman may have been one of the most reliable writers in his times (in spite of his vagueness on some topics on which his 'socialism' could not provide answers). Albert Thomas in France had much general competence and could often be trusted. Eduard Bernstein in Germany, in part clearly deluded, had some entirely honest parts to him. In Austria, Otto Neurath had produced some linguistic work of unimpeachable integrity, although there may have been some mistakes present regarding some of his associations. In Poland, Pilsudski had simply ditched 'socialism' as outmoded — which many had done for various reasons after 1917. Kerensky, whose own 'socialism' had, in spite of his frantic efforts, contributed to the catastrophy in Russia, had in the end recorded in America an introduction to a documentary on those developments which was hosted and narrated by Ronald Reagan. There may be much more to the story.

There have been 'socialists' whom I do not name now because no invective would be adequate for descriptions which could aspire to be factual. There having been the 'international socialism', several 'national socialisms' had also appeared. In any such trends we find wants or fallacies ; in some of them we find almost all of the most horrific crimes against mankind committed in the 20th century.

On Marxism

With some exactness one can limit "Marx-ism" to (a) what he himself wrote (or did, so long as credibly reported), (b) to the authors he had quoted with approval (so long as the materials be not fabricated) and (c) to other authors' quoting Marx with approval (so long as they were not lying, which was very frequent with the marxists, especially after 1917, and so long as any such materials were not fabricated).

On 'materialism'

(a) a brick consist of matter,

(b) a begonia consist of matter,

(c) a baboon consist of matter,

(d) a Bolshevik consist of matter.

The above was inspired by my reading Lenin. It seems that thousands of tons of ink and paper have already been wasted on the 'subject'. Can a brick fall off a wall ? (Yes). Can a brick jump on the wall ? (No). Can a baboon give a brick to the Bolshevik ? (Possible). Can a brick give the Bolshevik to the baboon ? (The 'statement' is foolish but may be suggestive, please find out about the facts of the economy in Russia, renamed RSFSR or USSR, ca. 1918-21, etc.).

One minds the economy of terms ; also not wasting electricity.