Leninists of all stripes are taught to hate and to dehumanise those that they consider enemies. On numerous demonstrations the repetitive chant of “We hate Tories and we hate Tories,” can be heard. This hatred is not new. In 192o Lenin’s pamphlet, Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder, was published. In it, Lenin argued that “working-class hatred for the bourgeois ‘class politicians'” is “noble” and “the basis of any socialist and communist movement and of its success.”
Alessandro Orsini (Anatomy of the Red Brigades: The Religious Mind Set of Modern Terrorists [Cornell University Press]. pp.2-5) explains how far this hatred extended:
For the Red Brigade terrorist who has finished his or her educational pathway, the enemy is a “pig” who arouses “absolute loathing.” When the enemy becomes a “filthy pig,” his life no longer has any value.
Enemies are “parasites” that “infest” the world. Given a vision of society of an “absolutely perfect world,” murder, such as that of Marco Biagi, becomes “a historic necessity.”
One should not be surprised by the statement of one Italian Red Brigades militant [emphasis added by Orsini]:
If I win, I don’t want any positions or honors. I just want the job of getting rid of our enemies, all those who have to be got rid of. It’ll be a difficult task because there will be millions of people who have to be eliminated. That’s what I want to do after [the revolution].
Hat Tip: Paul Bogdanor.
