Difference Between Nazi and Commie Concentration Camps and Crimes Against Humanity

Western Allies fought to free people, USSR merely to change who is inside the concentration camps.

Americans and British fought the WWII to liberate people from totalitarian dictatorship. From a system that puts people in concentration camps and exterminate races in gas chambers. On Western side of the war, it was clear as day who were the good guys and who were the bad guys.

On Eastern Side however it was much more ambiguous. USSR's Gulag was just as cruel as Nazi camps were. In fact, it was Nazi, who imitated Gulag in places like Auschwitz, rather than the other way around. 

Soviets later replicated their Gulag in places like North Korea and Cambodia. Pol Pot was imitating USSR just like Nazi were. So were other communist countries.

So, if both sides commit crimes against humanity, then there are no good guys on eastern front at all. Just two bad guys.

The fact that soon after WWII was over, Cold War begun shows that differences between systems were apparent even then.

However, it was not just a situational alliance that pitted USSR against Nazi Germany. Modern commies just as opposed to neo-Nazism as liberals are. If that is not because they find concentration camps deplorable then why?

The answer lies in different ideologies. Both commies and nazi would not think such a treatment normal for all people. However, there is a difference in how they decide who should be condemned to it.

Nazi

I will begin with Nazi, because their system is much simpler. It's based on their racial theory that ranks all races and ethnicities in order of advancement and desirability. As sort of a tier list with Germans themselves are placed on the topmost tier and everyone else is graded based on how close to Germans they are according to Nazis.

Nazis went to great length to define physical, intellectual, cultural, moral and other criteria, that makes Germans toptear shining example of human beings. Then graded all other races based on how close they are to this benchmark.

Some of their assessments were somewhat dubious for an average person. For example, then considered Japanese to be Asian Germans and Iranians tan Germans, who were almost on the same tier as Germans themselves. However Nazi theories could easily explain how an Iranian is more German than a Pole.

In contrast neighboring Poles, whom average Iranian will have a hard time telling from a German, were considered infinitely more inferior to Germans, Japanese and Iranians. The lowest possible tier was given to Jews and Gypsies (Romani).

That system allowed Germans to build a vision of the future, based on these tier lists:

The top tier races would be given dominion over the world. Germans called them Aryan Master race.

Lesser tier races such as Poles, would be forced to serve the Aryan Master Race.

Bottom tier races would be exterminated down to every single man, woman and child. That clause is what caused Holocaust. Only Jews and Gypsies were to be subjected to this fate. Nowadays attempt to exterminate Jews is called Holocaust and Gypsies are mostly forgotten and discriminated against just as before.

Implication to the individual

In a system like that it is one's ethnicity that determines one's fate. If you are German or part of another near-German Master Race, then your place in this system is secure. You will not be sent to concentration camp and will not be exterminated. Hence you had no reason to fear the Nazis as they will not hurt you in particular.

Some Nations such as Dutch, Luxemburgish or even Czech were considered misguided Germans. On one hand Germans would have subjected them to forced assimilation into German culture, but once assimilated they will be considered as much German as actual Germans are. Unless one has sentimental attachment to their culture or some particular hatred for German one, it's not such a bad deal.

Jews and Gypsies had it worst and had all reasons to oppose it to the death. Nowadays it is Jews who. critizise Nazism most, but you can understand them as they had most to lose.

For an intermediate races situation was well, intermediate. A lot would depend on how high or low one is in the Nazi racial hierarchy. 

Another consideration is how close your contry is to Germany. Germany could plausably resettle Polish territory with their own ethnically German people, but it would be much harder for them to do the same with Ukraine or Russia for example. That is just further away from Germany, why settle Germans there, when you can settle them in Poland instead and push Poles into Ukrainian lands for example.

Some also claimed that Nazis exterminated gays and communists, but there were anti-gay laws in other countries at the time. I think UK only decriminalized homosexuality in 1972 or something like that. As for communists, then it's just a bitter rivalry between two systems. You do not want to be a commie in a Nazi controlled country just as much as you do not want to be a Nazi in a commie controlled one.

Communists

Communists do pride themselves on not discriminating against different ethnicities. There are lots of Soviet Jewish jokes that criticize veracity of that. However overall Soviet repressive system was based on factors other than ethnicity.

In the Civil War era USSR made class as a criterion for repression and discrimination. I have a separate article about that here.

However once USSR exterminated all the upper classes of the Russian Empire, it went after well off members of the remaining two.

By 30s even being a slightly better off than a neighbor was a reason to suffer Soviet concentration camp - Gulag. Kulaks were peasants who manage to farm on the same plot of land slightly better than their neighbors, produce some surplus, sell and make money. KGB deemed them crooks who gamed the system to get rich, confiscated their land and send them to Gulag for 20 years.

Soon even this was not enough KGB went after other suspicious people. By middle 30s even being not just even slightly critical but even not sufficiently enthusiastic about communism could get you branded as 'enemy of the people' and condemned to Gulag.

Soviet KGB often get out of their way to make sure people they condemn to Gulag are guilty of at least something. However, statuary definition of some crimes was altered so ridiculously, that even sneezing in the wrong direction could be deemed a High Treason capital crime.

The enabling law was that of High Treason. Under loose 30s Soviet definition almost any action or inaction can be deemed that. Slight criticism of the party or the system, being late to work, asking uncomfortable questions and so on. 

Being late to work would be deemed intentional sabotage of soviet industry, with the only prove of guilt needed is KGB agent honest opinion.

However, the most typical was simply an accusation of being a spy of an agent of the US government. Stalinist USSR managed to convict 20 million American spies to Gulag before the US government even created CIA. Needless to say, these people were not spies.

Implication to the individual

Unlike Nazis there were not any apparent safeguards from KGB. If in 20s you can be certain you will not be exterminated if you were a proletarian, then by mid 30s anyone could be sent to Gulag.

To make matters worse, they not just send people to Gulag, but they also messing with their minds and psyche by accusing and then convicting them of crimes they have not committed. This hypocrisy and lies are at the heart of Stalinist regime.

Even if you yourself know you are not at fault, people around you would not be so sure. Communism not just exterminated people, they also made broader society think that these people indeed committed serios crimes that warranted such treatment. Thus, even if you are freed, instead of sympathy for a victim of a hideous oppressive regime, you are treated with distain and scorn by those who believe in government false accusations.

Unlike National Socialists of Germany, USSR had no clear criteria for ther repression, so KGB often acted on their selfish whims and emotions and sent people to Gulag they themselves find subjectively unlikable. That is plain arbitrarily, rather than cohesive system.

The whole practice of soviet mass repressions created a sense of constant paranoia in society. Everyone with a modicum of brain and critical thinking lived in constant fear they could be next.

Psychological impact of these practices should be thoroughly studied by modern psychiatrists and scientists.

Comparison

All of that makes Soviet system infinitely worse than that of Nazis. 

At the very least Gestapo will not lie to you about the reasons, that landed you in concentration camp. It was almost always clear where you stand with the Nazis: you either can live with them or have to flee to the foreign nations or forest.

USSR gave you sense of false safety, before unexpectedly arresting you. Afterwards they will make you go through a public humiliation over "crimes" you have not committed, followed by the trip to a death camp.

Years of communism left deep psychological scars on people who were subjected to it. Because of that it is an ideology, much worse than Nazism.

Extra Notes

People who been victims of Nazi atrocities are clearly recognized as such by global community, while victims of communism are still either ignored or sometimes even called enemies of the people by tankies and idiots who want to justify what commies have done.

Also, Nazi had no access to Siberia, so their camps were in much milder climatic conditions.

Finally, Nazis were anti-feminists and clearly placed woman in a subordinate to man position. In contrast commies were filthy feminists and allowed women to get out of man's control.