A Difference between Communism and Nazism

Instapundit is commenting on why Communists are treated differently by the media and academia than Nazis. This is not a matter of Communist holocaust denial. The typical response to Stalin's holocaust is not to actively deny it but to ignore it. (This is sometimes combined with the premise “If I haven't heard of something, it didn't exist.”) There are two reasons it is ignored. First, Communists made themselves boring. Second, leftists regard lessons from the past as unimportant. If you expect a whole new world different from anything that has gone before, there is no reason to think conclusions derived from the past are valid.

Communist motto: The sun will not rise tomorrow.

Neo-Nazi motto: The sun did not rise yesterday.

There is another reason for academia to defend Communists but not Nazis. Communism was backed by an extremely elaborate theory that required hiring lots of professors to explain. Nazism was much less elaborate. Since the first law of expert advice is to hire experts (Genesis 41:33), experts prefer Communism.