A number of months ago I was looking through my American Heritage Desk Dictionary for some reason. Like many other dictionaries, the American Heritage dictionary includes entries on major historical figures, including a brief description of each individual, the years of his or her birth and death, and words relating to the individual's name (like adjectival forms). Consequently, on a whim, I decided to look up the entry for Adolf Hitler. Hitler was described as being an "Austrian-born German Nazi dictator." That seemed to me to be a pretty accurate description. Then I became curious about how the dictionary would describe Hitler's contemporary, Joseph Stalin. I turned the pages until I found the entry for Stalin, which described him as a "Soviet politician"--as if Stalin were no different from, say, Barack Obama or George W. Bush. I began to wonder if this description was an anomaly, so I looked up the entry for Mao Zedong. In it, Mao was described as a "Chinese Communist leader and theorist." I later discovered that the American Heritage dictionary describes Fidel Castro as a "Cuban revolutionary [just like George Washington!] and political leader." On the other hand, Benito Mussolini was an "Italian Fascist dictator and prime minister," and Francisco Franco a "Spanish general and dictator." Do you detect a pattern here?
Now, I am certainly not suggesting that the editors of the American Heritage dictionary are cryto-Communists. However, it is odd that this dictionary would describe political figures on what many would consider the far Right as "dictators," but not those on what might be considered the far Left. Instead, the latter are described using neutral terms like "politician" or "leader." I do believe that these word choices reflect a common tendency to avoid acknowledging a moral equivalency between Fascists (including Nazis) on the one hand and Communists on the other. Nevertheless, history demonstrates that, despite their ideological differences, Fascists and Communists have been more or less equally guilty of horrific abuses and repression. Why figures like Stalin or Mao often escape the opprobrium heaped upon Hitler is beyond me. I can only suppose that it has something to do with the fact that the putative goal of Communism--to liberate workers from oppression--is more emotionally appealing then the proclaimed goal of Nazism--to create a master race. Nevertheless, as the Gospels instruct us: "by their fruit you will know them" (Matthew 7:16)--and by their "fruit" we can see that there is little difference between those who act in the name of either of these two conflicting ideologies. It is unfortunate that the editors of the American Heritage dictionary--as well as many others--appear reluctant to acknowledge this truth.
Image of Joseph Stalin from Wikimedia Commons