Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism (TV Movie 2005) Poster

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7/10
Overall - Very Informative
Kelly_m-941-3268876 March 2014
Response to B from Mars. Yes - some of what's in this series inaccurate (images and such). However the overlying information reasonably accurate. I personally don't think there is such a thing as unbiased information, weather it be in reporting or documentary making. The real proof - is in the pudding.

Russia - Collapsed, India (command based economy) was heading for collapse, Britain reversed course towards more freedom and less socialism for simple reason, was slowly going broke. China is continuing to move further away from command based type economic structure. Several provinces in Canada had socialist (NDP) governments for awhile and in general, (especially British Columbia & Ontario) proved economically disastrous.

Check out also - Commanding Heights - Battle for World Economy

Ep 1 - Battle of Ideas

Ep 2 - Agony of Reform

Ep 3 - New Rules of The Game

As far as atrocities associated with Marxism/socialism, are plenty of texts out there (some by Russian authors) that provide insight into this. I think Russian Economist Dr. Yuri Maltsev's seminar (on youtube) "Too Big Not to Fail" offers preliminary insight (if you wish to look into it deeper) into what actually transpired in Russia and other places. So though the series may be a bit inaccurate here and there, overall provides good insight into socialist idea's and its failures.

As John Maynard Keynes penned: The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas.

When one looks at the reality of Marxism/socialism, it becomes quite clear, many of these ideas have been far more destructive to society then beneficial.
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1/10
Absolutely pathetic.
toqtaqiya29 December 2011
This so-called documentary reveals itself as propaganda to anyone who knows at least something about politics and history, so I won't write a long review. First of all it was hosted by Ben J. Wattenberg, an American conservative commentator and writer. Wattenberg was in the US air force, and he was a speechwriter to president Lyndon B. Johnson. When the Neoconservatives came to power along with the presidency of George W. Bush such falsifications of history and politics became common in America and in the West in general. Couldn't they come up with an original title? Heaven On Earth sounds corny for anti-communist propaganda. Well, this isn't really surprising because such stuff happened during McCarthyism too. The American elite want to wage their endless wars and revolutions so it's no wonder that propaganda such as Heaven On Earth is being released. When I saw Anne Applebaum (yawn) I knew immediately that this was going to be bull. Seems like the elites in the West are still frightened of socialism if they release propaganda such as this even though they claim that socialism is over and that it will never again resurface. But this isn't even well-made propaganda. The real reason why I'm writing this review is that I noticed a disturbing trend in these anti-communist documentaries. First of all they don't just lie about the Soviet Union and communism in general but they also lie about the current Russian leadership of president Vladimir Putin. So, this is also an attack against Russia herself and her new leaders. These documentaries try to be effective by showing footage of lots of corpses. Disturbingly these corpses are in fact corpses of Russian and German dead from World War I. They're also corpses of Jewish and Russian people who were killed by the Nazis in World War II. The documentaries instead claim that these were the victims of Stalinism. I guess some people in the West have lost all morals if they're resorting to nasty propaganda such as this.
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