Lev Mekhlis
On the eastern front during World War Two, each division under Soviet command was appointed with one political commissar. The purpose of these commissars was to instil party solidarity with the soldiers and to ensure the war against Germany was conducted according to communist party guidelines. During the opening stages of Operation Barbarossa, they proved themselves to be largely ineffectual, as they frequently substituted the orders of the commanding officers with their own. This led to many needless and bloody Soviet defeats. One of the most notorious commissars was named Lev Zakharovich Mekhlis. He was a favourite of Josef Stalin, being such a vocal proponent, as well as participant in the Great Purges of 1936-38. For the whole course of the war, Mekhlis was sent around from headquarters to headquarters, executing Red Army officers for alleged insubordination. His presence was resented by the entire army. Mekhlis was adamant that deserters, malingers, and panic mongers were to be shot on the spot.[8] He also interfered in matters of command, being partially responsible for the fall of Sebastopol and Kerch to German forces in 1942. His orders at Kerch forbade the troops from digging in, and forced the command to move to the front trench. The Germans shelled the front trench and as a result, all Soviet division commanders at the battle were killed.[9]
The nature of collectivism and socialism allows those like Mekhlis who have no discernable talents besides following orders and murdering people to rise to positions of authority. Mekhlis knew how to suck up to Stalin and he could spout socialist rhetoric, but he was a demonstrably ineffective military commander and he was responsible for thousands of unnecessary deaths. Collectivist ideology breeds complicit pieces of human waste like Lev Mekhlis.
4. Explosion of Birth Rates in Communist Romania
During the early 1960s, Communist Romania was approaching zero population growth. Nicolai Ceausescu, the dictator of the country, decided that if the Romanian population was to grow, it would be through government legislation. Thus his government passed laws that abolished abortion, outlawed contraceptives, and divorce, collectively known as Decree770. Gynaecology exams were also mandated and pregnant women were closely monitored by the government to ensure that they did not get an abortion. Romanian couples who did not have children were forced to payer higher taxes, whereas non-working mothers received subsidies from the state. As a result of these policies, Romania’s birth rates exploded, nearly out of control. In 1968, Romania’s population had increased by nearly 100%.[10][11] It also didn’t help that Communist Romania faced a debt crisis during the 1980s that reduced the standard of living drastically. Families were forced into overcrowded apartments without heating or adequate food. Orphanages became bloated, nightmarish hells full of starving unwanted children. Even long after Ceausescu was thrown out of power, his idiotic pronatalist policies could be seen in the Romania’s overcrowded orphanages, prisons, and mental asylums.[12]
The failure of these policies stands as testament to the ineffectiveness of central-planned economies and of collectivism in general. Outlawing all forms of birth control has the tendency to make birth rates explode, but in the poverty of communist Romania, such high birth rates could not be sustained. How his country was going to accommodate all the children being born under these policies, Ceausescu likely did not take into account. I believe such negligence is characteristic of most laws passed by other socialist regimes.
