The Continuing Appeal of Communism in the West
Just when you thought Communism was over, and no longer is a threat or has an appeal anywhere in the modern world, comes this dispatch. According to a three day meeting of experts on Czech Communism held recently in Prague, Communism still has a great appeal:
Communism is still a significant phenomenon and people may tend to see hope in it mainly in the times of a crisis, Jiri Kocian, deputy head of the Czech Science Academy’s Institute of Contemporary History, told CTK at the end of a three-day conference on communism Saturday.
According to the participants, many Czech citizens view the Communist era as one of “social certainties.” In other words, they may not have had freedom, but they knew what they could get in terms of the basic necessities, insufficient as it may have been. The academic experts recommend that the textbooks in their country inform students what the reality of Communism was, and how it led to repression, political murder, and persecution. The experts made the following observation:
“The Communist Party is naturally more in focus of inhabitants at the moment when the state is coping with a certain crisis phenomenon,” said historian Jan Kalous, from the Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes (USTR) that organised the conference along with the Institute of Contemporary History and the Czech Radio.
Kalous cited the example of the 1930s affected by the Great Depression starting in 1929.
Historian Jiri Pernes also said at the beginning of the conference that communism is a constant threat, among others because this ideology is comprehensible even for not very educated people.
Moreover, the poor will always blame the rich for their poverty and they will be striving for a change to their situation, Pernes added.
Two weeks ago, I spoke at a seminar in Prague convened by one of the sponsors of this meeting — The Institute for the Study of Totalitarian Regimes — on the topic of the uses in both the East and the West of the Rosenberg case and the Rudolf Slansky purge trial in Czechoslovakia which occurred contemporaneously in the mid 1950s. My audience was composed of some younger scholars, but mostly older contemporaries of the Communist era in Prague, who well remembered the reality of life under the Soviet satellite. I was told that today, few younger than they even know who Slansky was, and know anything about the reality of life under Communism. The findings of this recent meeting do not surprise me, since I had heard that during the discussion.
Do the experts’ conclusions sound familiar? Anyone see any resemblance to the calls of Occupy Wall Street? Indeed, the heart of the OWS complaints is the concept of “income inequality,” with the resulting call that income be redistributed so that the “poor” take more from the rich, so that all will be equal. The end result of such poor logic is the call to go to the large homes of wealthy citizens, measure the living space of their domiciles, and by government action move a number of poorer families into their residence to share their large living space. As many of us who know history recall, this is indeed what the Bolsheviks did in Soviet Russia after the October Revolution in 1917.
I happen to have some friends who consider themselves radical activists, but who live in a home for the two of them valued at well over a million dollars, but which has room for at least four or five other families. These people argue vociferously for income equality and redistribution of wealth, because it isn’t “fair,” and everyone deserves a good life. Hence they support a super high minimum wage via a new federal law, as well as every other legislative measure that would tax the rich at the highest level possible and produce equality of result by government action. I am always tempted to ask them to drive to the nearest ghetto, and invite some of the less fortunate to move in with them. Somehow, I don’t think had I made such a request, it would have been acted on. Indeed, I would probably be asked to promptly leave their premises and drive back home. They would have quickly slammed the front door in my face.
When I stayed some time ago at my friend Harvey Klehr’s home in Atlanta, I facetiously noted to him that it was a beautiful home, and that he should open it up to those less fortunate. Harvey looked at me and said, as we all would, “I worked hard for this and it’s mine. Sorry.” But Harvey is no radical, and he responded as most of us would.
I was told in Prague that a few weeks earlier, at the same Institute, the Polish editor and former dissident Adam Michnik, known as a moderate and not a firebrand conservative, spoke and without naming the group he was talking about, talked about the recent calls in America he had read about for equality and fairness. Michnik said he had heard such calls in his youth in Communist Poland, and saw no difference in what the current occupiers were calling for than what the Communists in his day in Poland had demanded.
The OWS crowd certainly don’t call themselves “communists.” If anything, those who get the most comment are self-proclaimed anarchists and others are socialists, radicals of various stripes, demagogues, anti-Semites, members of various fringe ultra-left groups like the Workers World Party and International Answer, and others of that ilk. But put together, they form a sometimes incoherent but nevertheless group of radical activists bent on overthrow of the system — not banking reform, political change in Washington, or anything remotely possible. Unlike the Tea Party activists, who moved to try and have a political influence, these protestors demand “revolution,” an all-encompassing phrase that means little but which reveals their favored stance.
Even Paul Berman, whose comments in The New Republic reveal the brilliant and subtle thinker succumbing to the revolutionary romanticism of his youth, writes the following:
Yes, yes, at Occupy Wall Street the madmen, the madwomen, the Groaners and the neo-Muggletonians will eventually have their day, and the movement will be ruined. Already the Maoists of the Revolutionary Communist Party are at work, together with Ron-Paul-ists, according to another of my informants. Visiting the demonstration on Thursday I noticed that the Workers World Party (which secretly controlled some of the big anti-Iraq War demonstrations, in the name of advancing the cause of North Korea) was already in evidence. The costumed neo-hippies and neo-anarchists will prove to be no match to the fanatics of Leninist discipline. Sooner or later the screw-ball groupuscules will wreck the whole thing. “Creative destruction” is originally Bakunin’s phrase, but the destructiveness of the Revolutionary Communist Party will not be creative. So the movement will stumble and fall, and a lot of young people will feel a little embittered and distraught.
I can excuse Berman for hoping that the message of Wall Street’s failures is the main concern of the occupiers — rather than the foolish remedies they are demanding. Yes, as he correctly writes, “Wall Street has led the country and the world over a cliff.” But OWS is doing very little to pressure for the kind of meaningful political change that will put them in their place. Instead, their actions are the self-destructive kind engaged in by all radical groups; the kind of dangerous remedies that Michnik alluded to in his Prague talk.
Among those supporting OWS are the Communist Party, U.S.A., and other similar groups that hark back to the Old Left. They are all, for good reasons, tying their cart to this new movement. Disciplined and organized, they will undoubtedly gain new recruits, because they have a message and a strategy, and an organizational institution that they pledge will lead to results. Hence they inform their members:
A big challenge for the CPUSA and left, progressive movements is to link these demonstrations with the labor led all-people’s coalition and help deepen understanding that the path to progress must be through electoral and political action including defeating Republican Tea Party reaction in 2012.
Of primary importance is linking it with the burgeoning fight for jobs and especially passage of the American Jobs Act.
We can also play a role in offering more advanced programmatic ideas like nationalizing the banks and socialism.
To have a positive impact, the CPUSA and YCL must be a part of the “Occupy” movement, participating at every level and building greater local support for the actions among labor and progressive forces.
Just as SDS in its earliest days welcomed Communists into its ranks, less they be accused of Red-baiting, the OWS occupiers too see the Communists as allies who have the same goals as they have. In that regard, the OWS crowd is right. There is little difference between what they want and the Communists want. In our country, the resurrection of communism as a creed will take place under a new guise. Today it is OWS; tomorrow it might be something else.
So, in our country as well as in the Czech Republic, the nostalgia for communism has its adherents and supporters.
Scary and interesting piece, Ron. I would add an item or two: many persons in the US, past and present, were reluctant to try for upward mobility. Capitalism was new, and barely present in the late 18th century. Surely in the South, the puritan ethos was missing among the slaveholders, and their chief ideas had terrific currency during the interwar period here. They harkened back to antifederalism and the resentment against the (new) money power. I alluded to that here: http://clarespark.com/2011/10/30/collectivism-in-the-history-establishment/. But also in other blogs, such as this one, I explored the success of quasi-communistic, communitarian propaganda since the end of the Civil War. See http://clarespark.com/2009/07/29/a-synthesis-for-antisemitism-since-the-american-civil-war/.
“These people argue vociferously for income equality and redistribution of wealth…”
Well, that’s one way of putting it. The overwhelming majority of Democrats, however, just want to see an end to the high-end Bush tax cuts and other loopholes for the rich, which add to the ever widening disparity of wealth. But I can understand your fabrication of a straw man. I mean, you must be getting desperate. Just look at your front-runners:
MR. 9-9-9, besides the alleged groping, is absolutely proud of his lack of knowledge about everything from Medicare to China to Uzbeki-becki-becki-becki-becki-stan-stan.
GOV. ZELIG is, well, Zelig. Is he sympathetic to OWS today … or was that yesterday?
GOV. YOSEMITE SAM (Cayotes beware!) doesn’t understand that Miller Time is AFTER the speechifyin’. Now what three departments do you want to abolish, Gov?
What to do … what to do?
Play the Commie Card!
Looks like Ron struck a nerve.
Well, that’s one way of putting it. The overwhelming majority of Democrats, however, just want to see an end to the high-end Bush tax cuts and other loopholes for the rich, which add to the ever widening disparity of wealth.
Yeah, because giving tax cuts to the people who actually pay most of the taxes is just so unfair.
Oh, by the way, those are now the Obama high-end tax cuts. He signed the bill last year that extended the rate reductions for a couple years. He owns it now.
Right, and by “rich” you mean YOUR definition of rich. YOUR standards of having just enough, which naturally will not mean you have to open up your wallet to people living on the wrong side of 8 mile road in Detroit. I am one of “Obama’s rich,” but I can assure you I’m not anywhere close to Bill Gates rich by a factor of over 1000. So can I demand that Bill Gates buy me a boat and a hose in Seattle and my next supercomputer so that we lessen the disparity of our wealth? Also, you will NEVER be able to get the super-rich to pay income taxes at a rate comparable to the average doctor or lawyer or small business owner unless you have very low tax rates where the cost of sheltering income outweighs the cost of just paying the taxes. They have smarter attorneys, trust and foundation set-ups, can hop on a private jet to Switzerland to put gold bars or cash in a safety deposit box, and can park whatever amount of revenue they want for living expenses in tax-free Munibonds. But if you want to ensure the small business guy never gets to be a big business, by all means, regulate him to death, while his big competitors can afford the lobbyists and Congressional donations to create loopholes for themselves….
As has been widely reported, 47% of working Americans pay NO federal income taxes. If tax rates are cut then obviously only those actually paying taxes will get a tax cut. You can’t cut taxes for those that pay none. You Lefties always whine about fairness but don’t seem to be happy with the fact that the upper income earners already pay the majority of income and other taxes. How much is enough for you? At what point does one cease to work for oneself and instead become a wage slave to his fellow Americans and the government?
“High end” is relative, and the tax cuts did stimulate the economy.
The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 broadly lowered income, capital gains, dividends, and estate taxes….According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Bush tax cuts actually shifted the total tax burden farther toward the rich so that in 2000-2004, total income tax paid by the top 40% of income-earners grew by 4.6% to 99.1% of the total.
The second major misconception spread by the left about the Bush tax cuts is that the lower tax rates caused the federal deficit woes we face today….In fact, the Bush tax cuts actually increased government revenue.
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/03/lying_about_bushs_tax_cuts.html
Two things I’d love to have you explain to me.
1) Why is it an article of faith that income disparity is a bad thing? Why should government have ANY say in who makes how much? Unless the income is the result of robbery or fraud (which are already illegal) how does it hurt anyone else? Explain to me the exact mechanism by which Bill Gates making millions causes your compensation to be lower than it otherwise would be. Explain to me how he’s hurting the economy or hurting anyone else.
In other words, how can this focus on income disparity be explained as anything other than jealousy, avarice, and a desire to take something you haven’t earned?
2) What makes you think you’ll ever be able to eliminate inequality? Look at the knuckleheads “occupying” various cities. It’s been less than two months and they ALREADY have a “1%” of their own.
The tax code is supposed to raise revenue to run the government. That’s it, period. Using it for social engineering, “social justice” or any other such nonsense is how nations get into trouble, with our current predicament being a prime example.
Great comment. There is always the underlying assumption that the government owns our income; I’ve heard Bob Beckles argue that taking a tax deduction on home interest is the same as taking food stamps…….that is, keeping more of your own money because of a legitimate deduction is the same as people who pay no income tax at all getting free handouts from those who do: this sort of nonsense is insane, but widely accepted on the left as perfectly legitimate conversation you can’t argue with.
Great comment, James. One little adjustment, though.
Your “The tax code is supposed to raise revenue to run the government,” leaves an awful lot of room for govt to expand endlessly as it has done. We need to downsize it to conform with constitutional limits…. defense, customs, and border control (and even the latter is totally politicized and ineffective).
Disengenuous and dishonest. The fact is, that the overwhelming majority of Jackass Party supporters are communists at heart, and ashamed to admit it. They want a huge, totalitarian government to blow their noses, wipe their butts and tuck them in at night. They are so infantile that they cannot see that such a relationship necessarily entails their servitude and enslavement to the political entity which so nurtures them. They choose to remain ignorant of the Russian, Cuban, Chinese experiments and failures in communism and of the genocides drenching the soils of those countries. What they seek is to be kept by permissive parents while they indulge in promiscuity, narcotics, sloth, chaos and vicious entertainment. Since we foolishly allow them to elect such permissive political parents we must bear the necessary consequences. The solution is self evident; but we have not got the courage to implement it.
Dig beneath the veneer of a progressive and you will find a Marxist. If you attempt to call them out on this, they will always object by playing semantic games with you until their dying breath. All the while they will exude an arrogance born of supposed intellectual and moral superiority.
Dig beneath the sanctimony and moral preening, and you will discover that the only morality progressives know is the simple-minded siren song of equality. However, this is by no means morality, it is sheer laziness masquerading as virtue.
What progressives will never understand is that true charity is personal, not collective. Personal morality is hard, which progressives refuse to consider. Instead, they want the easy way out, by adopting the pretense of morality, a lazy vicarious excuse for morality. Progressives want to feel good while letting the State enforce their collective morality for them.
Progressives are nothing but morality masturbators.
figures a ron paul supporter would be bling as tto the TRUE nature of OWS. this comes from the same man who thinks Iran should get nukes. you like ron paul have no ability to see past what your enemies tell you. you are so proud and certain of your ‘superior’ thinking, that anything that reality must be disolved for you to survive. its liberterians like you who make the rest of us look bad. you ignore Obvious dangers and blatent threats then condem anyone who reconises the reality and gravity of the situation. you are the ones who let people like stalin and hitler come to power. you are a fool and NO patriot. you are a leaf blowing in the wind afraid to take a stand on anything. you are dumber and worse than the ows commies you support. theres no strawman argument except the ones paulites put out.
Suggested reading: Why Your Tax Bill Might Surge Next Year by CPA Bob Jennings-available on Yahoo or Fox Business News.
“Play the commie card”; and vacation in the Gulag! Communism is not the solution to greed, because there is no possible objective authority for an atheistic philosophy. Men are entitled, by their Creator, to possession of properties, and such is clearly indicated by the commandments contra stealing and coveting. Men are also required, as a condition of salvation, to love their neighbors as they love themselves. The greedy bastards who violate this commandment forfeit eternal happiness in favor of a very brief temporal luxury. That tradeoff is stupid on its face. One cannot simultaneously love and rape,(economically and otherwise), his neighbor. That many do is not chargeable to the capitalistic system; but to greedy bastards who do not believe that they will pay an eternal price for their covetousness. They are aided and abetted in that regard by perverted religionists who assure them that none of their deeds subsequent to their conversion experience will be charged to them. This is the necessary consequence of the false doctrine variously called, Once Saved, Always Saved; Eternal Security or Perseverance of the Saints, taught by all major protestant denominations. No less palatable is the RCC doctrine holding that wearing a bit of a certain cloth about ones neck assures one of salvation; probably inspired by masonic aprons and/or mormon underwear.
Folks, God gave us His New Testament as the sole guide for our eternal happiness. What keeps us from simply following its clear directions?
“Communism is easy to understand, even for uneducated people”.
The number one profession for communists has to be University Professor. There are probably more communist University Professors than there are communist plumbers.
It’s no surprise that communism and universities go hand in hand. Universities are a hothouse implementation of communism. At the top you have the ruling class… the deans and trustees, who enjoy near absolute power. Below them are the tenured professors, who are very, very privileged. Parallel to them are the administrators, who run the day to day “government” of the university. Below them are the graduate students, working as near slaves to the professors, striving to become professors themselves some day. Below the graduate students are the great masses of undergraduate students, great unwashed massesof serfs pouring labor and money willingly into the system in exchange for the opportunity to listen to the wisdom of the professors.
From the standpoint of the professors, the system is magnificant. They love their power, prestige, authority and unaccountability. Some revel in the ego glory of teaching, others farm their duties out to graduate students so they can spend their time in deep thought. Still others play the cutthroat university politics required to become a dean or department head. Even then there is little danger. If you fail politically, you’re still a tenured professor. At worst you will have to return to the classroom or research lab.
The pay and benefits are top notch and retirement is early and generous. From their standpoint it’s wonderful and how the whole world should be. Why wouldn’t they believe that they would naturally be part of the privileged upper class in a communist society? They already live in a communist society and they already are the upper class!
What they fail to understand is that they live in a completely artificial society, propped up by tuition money. They imagiine that in a communist society they would naturally comprise the ruling class. That is where they are wrong but there is no way to make them understand or believe it. To do so would requre them to acknowledge to themselves that they are privileged far above and beyond their value and achievement, and quite frankly that would scare the shit out of them. Professing communism is their way of denying this to themselves. They think that they would make themselves safe and secure by extending the unreality of the university to the entire world, when in truth they would be doing quite the opposite.
Having worked for almost 28 years in central administration at a top five research university I can add nothing to your analysis, except perhaps that all these people are firm in their belief that, heretofore, communism just hasn’t been done right.
@Ron
“So, in our country as well as in the Czech Republic, the nostalgia for communism has its adherents and supporters.”
I’ve travelled extensively through eastern Europe on business over the years, and have friends there, and can only add that a part of the nostalgia is coming from the younger generation that didn’t have to live through it. From my observation, the older generation doesn’t talk about it and the schools don’t teach much of what happened. Some of the Russians I know miss the USSR superpower status, and the prestige surrounding it, but the don’t seem to grasp why it all imploded (the answers I get usually place the blame on Yeltsin or Jews).
Communism appeals most strongly to those radicals who imagine that THEY will be the ones running everything after the dust has settled. But they won’t be. The revolution always devours its children, though never soon enough.
It also appeals to those who reject two of the Ten Commandments: “Thou shalt not steal” and “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.”
They always forget that it is the strong, ruthless and unsympathetic men like Joseph Stalin that rise to the top. The quiet, thoughtful intellectuals who seek “fairness” get purged as not having the best interest of the party at heart. Some comrades are more equal than others.
Yeah Ron R.
There are commies and Maoists at OWS….
Along with veterans, working men and women. Yes, all types of Americans take exception to the control of OUR government for the purpose of greed.
I’m a vet. Combat Infantry Badge, and a body broken down by my years of service. Service for what? Your 1% uses American sweat & blood as if it were just another commodity, and people all over our great nation are wising up to “What’s going on”. Those sending our jobs overseas are the criminals. Business & Industry uses our military to make the world safe for their Bottom Line. Those using K Street lobbyists to write laws for the purpose of stealing from those who toil (-like the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000) are criminals; and yes, I’m aware both parties are guilty. Just like TARP, the last “BiPartisan” effort from our congress.
Most Americans see where our leaders are taking us. Our pay and benefits will lower, until wage parity between American workers and Chinese workers is achieved! We know which side you’re on Ron R.
And all those Americans “taking exception” have resorted to the time honored way of effecting change in America: street protest, smashing windows, smashing restaurant wash basins, hurling bodily wastes at police, going topless, wearing disguises, and making common cause with communists. Good luck with that.
Whatever grievances OWSers have they will will be ignored as the naifs and dilettantes from the suburbs are supplanted by leftist thugs, already much in evidence. Germany of the 1920s saw street protests too but the dainty concerns of the bourgeoisie didn’t seem to matter much when the only significant street action ended up being violent clashes between communist thugs and SA thugs. SEIU thugs have already given us a preview of that approach.
You argue for the positive presence of a loyal opposition with legit grievances. Pathetic. In earlier times of political turmoil, those kinds of people were lucky to escape with their lives or without a severe beating if they dared to venture into the street.
Communist thugs aren’t interested in higher taxes on the top 1% or the revival of Glass-Steagall. It’s important that we all understand what any communist agenda is. It’s nothing that depends on the rule of law.
First of all, working men and women are NOT at the OWS. They have to work, after all.
And secondly, you, sir, are a raving anti-semite who has already made your wish to kill every jew on the planet VERY clear.
You have no credibility here.
I have been to LA, SF, and Oakland.
People with middle class outlook are in extremely short supply. It is just that simple. It is primarily activist types and the social misfits that coalesce around them. Everybody there is extremely eccentric.
In Oakland there are a bunch of halfway house type black guys hoping to get lucky with some liberal hippie chicks.
It is just that simple.
“Moreover, the poor will always blame the rich for their poverty and they will be striving for a change to their situation, Pernes added.”
E.g. the poor will always expect the more affluent to bail them out, support them in a no-work, Bohemian lifestyle, forever and a day. And this shouldn’t be a surprise – if there’s a worse combination than some starry-eyed, a-historic, dreamy view of Socialism/Communism, coupled with the expectation of easy entitlements from their Democrat overlords, damned if I can think of it.
Oh yeah, and having some race-baiting, class-warfare demagogue as President doesn’t help matters much.
Actually, Communism, like every other form of tyranny in history, appeals to a specific sort of person. Namely, the sort who wants to be able to scream “Obey Me Or Die!” at everybody else.
This is why Communism inevitably degenerates into either self-destruction by decay, or nihilistic self-destruction by violence. Those who have this mindset are generally noted for their incompetence at anything which is actually useful or constructive. As a result, either things fall apart because no one can maintain them, or things are destroyed because those in power become enamored of destruction for its own sake.
For those who would point to the PRC and Cuba as counter examples, I would advise them to look past the rosy picture painted by those states’ Propaganda Ministries. Their rulers know that their economies are falling apart, but they are using capitalist methods to try to stave off the collapse. Eventually, they will either have to give up on communism, even the “small c” sort, or die, but neither they or those still hoping for a Radiant Future will admit it. (Yes, I mean YOU, Tom Friedman.)
Based on both governments’ previous track records (“Great Leap Forward”, “Cultural Revolution”, sugar cane cutters, Angola, etc.), I suspect that when they are faced with the choice, the rulers in both will choose to go out in a blaze of glory, taking as many peasants as they can with them, rather than admit that they have been factually wrong from the beginning. Think Berlin in April and May of 1945, and you are probably looking at Beijing and Havana’s futures. Although it is as likely to be self-inflicted as to be the work of foreign armies.
Elsewhere, the OWSies are simply one more bunch of would-be rulers, demanding everyone else’s tribute in recognition of their self-perceived superiority. This, too, is typical of self-described “socialists” or “communists”- the belief that they are just inherently “better” than everyone else, and therefore everyone else should bend the knee in recognition of that fact. If they don’t, well, we’re back to the whole “Obey Me Or Die!” thing again.
If this sounds like I am comparing Communism to hereditary-nobility based feudal states, congratulations- you get an “A”. There is no significant difference. (Sartorial pretensions do not count.)
The reason both sorts of states eventually fail is that in neither one do the rulers have to prove that they actually are competent. Questioning their “fitness to rule” results in the “Obey Me Or Die!” reaction, yet again. Usually backed up by the headsman or a firing squad, whichever is more trendy at the time.
Tyrannies of any form are a dead-end development in social evolution. But they will continue to be pursued by those who, as Orwell said, dream of a future with their boot on everyone else’s face.
And there is never any shortage of such would-be gods. Unfortunately.
clear ether
eon
“If this sounds like I am comparing Communism to hereditary-nobility based feudal states, congratulations- you get an “A”. There is no significant difference. (Sartorial pretensions do not count.)”
True, that. Who was it, Frank Herbert (?), who said that fanatical Egalitarians always yearn to be nobility. For everyone’s best interests, of course.
A lot of the noise coming from the OWS protests is from people who’re angry that their worthless but incredibly expensive degrees aren’t buying them a comfortable, middle-class life in some cushy job featuring high pay and little work (in other words, working for the government). They can’t understand why having a BA in Left-handed Lesbian Poetry or an MA in Puppetry is insufficient to help them land a job. In other words, they’re morons.
All their lives, they’ve been coddled and told their excrement has no odor. Everyone gets a thophy just for showing up because competition is bad. They partied hardy at college and ran up a lot of debt. Now, with their worthless piece of paper, they’re actually expected to pay back that debt. It’s sooo unfair!!
These are the people who’ll embrace communism and socialism because of the false promise of fairness. They’ll be the next generation of willing executioners.
How I long for the day when anyone who calls himself a communist or marxist is treated with the same scorn that we lay on those who call themselves Nazis.
More to the point, they want other people to cover their mistakes. The man who, famously, spent a large amount of money getting a master’s degree in puppeteering wasn’t actually too far wrong – there are jobs to be had in the field, and if he wants to make that his life’s work he’s welcome to it. The problem is that he’s not willing to put in the time and effort to get one of those jobs, and he wants the rest of us to cover his losses in the meantime. If he were only willing to admit that the job he seeks may be harder to find than he thought and that it might take a few years to obtain, than I could respect him for it.
More succinctly, yes, there are many people who earn degrees in “fringe” professions. The problem is, every last one of them wishes to be richly rewarded for it. It’s a rare person nowadays who wants to work in something that doesn’t pay well, but do it for the experience and the intangible rewards.
They, at least, seem to understand that some things you do because you love it, not because you can live like a King.
This, I fear, is a direct result of the unrealistic expectations bred by the weepy socialist academics and their peculiar notions of what it means to be “rewarded” for one’s efforts.
“For those who would point to the PRC and Cuba as counter examples, I would advise them to look past the rosy picture painted by those states’ Propaganda Ministries. Their rulers know that their economies are falling apart… but neither they or those still hoping for a Radiant Future will admit it.”
Ah, the Castro hanger-ons. They seem to hudle together mainly in faculty lounges, media buros or law offices on the coasts. The old murderer does come to NYC now and again.
http://www.peoplesworld.org/from-pww-s-archive-oct-28-1995-fidel-castro-cheered-at-harlem-meeting/
His own daughtger defected in 1993 and has made more than a few public appearances to talk about Fidel’s “love island,” but she doesn’t draw much western media attention. I wonder why?
The last communist in the world will be most certainly be found hiding in a faculty lounge on an American university campus.
All too true. the Bosheviks merely replaced one aristocracy with another – their own – based not on heredity but on adherence to Party. And the Bolsheviks were far worse because, say what you will of the Romanov’s, they didn’t kill 50 million of their own people.
I like to ‘adjust’ peoples’ names to reflect their personalities and/or politics; having read one of Friedman’s books and the occasional column he is to me Tom Fraudman.
As always, centuries of failure prove nothing. Communism is the political equivalent to perpetual motion machines in physics. PPM’s don’t work, they can’t possibly work, but if they WOULD work it would be so damn wonderful and everything. So every so often some “inventor” comes up with a new “concept” of a PPM that “solves” all the problems with the previous designs and sure enough, folks jump on the bandwagon again.
eon has it right, the appeal and yearning is not for communism per se but for authoritarian tyranny and control by what eventually are revealed as defective personalities. Communism is merely the deceptive means to falsely sell the yoke of slavery as the delusion of freedom and equality.
Unfortunately, too many mistake the defective, narcissistic controlling personality type (e.g., Obama) as one of competence and chomp at the bit for his saddle and quirt.
Lenin’s concept of “the vanguard” explains all you need to know about these neo-feudalist, socialist-royality wannabes.
It’s not “communism” per se, it’s the willingness to sacrifice freedom for security. And when security is threatened, that tradeoff does start to look better to many citizens.
During the Great Depression of the 1930s, we did have the Communist Party USA–but we also had the German-American Bund, which admired how Hitler was putting people back to work in Germany. We had Father Coughlin and Huey Long as independent demagogues too.
And of course in Italy and Germany, free peoples suffering under economic chaos voluntarily threw away their democracies in favor of Fascism.
Ordinary human beings are pragmatists, not philosophers. A political system is judged worthwhile only as long as it continues to meet the basic needs of the people for employment, life’s necessities plus some luxuries, and a stable currency. If any or all of that fails, the people will start looking for alternatives to their current system. They may well take all that brave talk about freedom and liberty and chuck it out the window.
This is why I always found Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged” to be horribly naive. In that novel, the collapse of America’s mixed economy is followed by a switch to democratic capitalism. But history has shown that when a nation’s economy collapses, it leads not to more democratic capitalism but to dictatorship.
sinz54-
You are misreading Atlas Shrugged. The novel is a dramatization of the role of the human mind (and necessity of political freedom so that rational and productive people can act on their judgments) in human life and prosperity. Rand did not intend it to be a literal prophecy nor a tactical handbook for revolution.
Everything you said about Communism could be said equally about Fascism, including the sense of being part of the Volk, and the sense of being taken care of by the party. Plus, they have the added appeal of scapegoating. No wonder they’re flocking to OWS.
This is because Communism and Fascism are an example of distinction without difference.
When bad people with bad ideas do bad things in the name of those bad ideas, the ideas themselves (and especially their rationalizations) tend to be crafted in such a way as to facilitate those bad actions. Therefore they tend to be very similar, if not identical, and are really just the window-dressing used to disguise pure evil.
This is why you hear the very same excuses and justifications again and again regardless of time or place.
“Historian Jiri Pernes also said at the beginning of the conference that communism is a constant threat, among others because this ideology is comprehensible even for not very educated people.”
I think that should say ESPECIALLY for not very educated people.
(1) The only difference between Communism and Fascism is that Communism is International Socialism, while Fascism is National Socialism. Benito Mussolini, a leader of the Socialist party in Italy, invented the Fascist party during (?) or after (?) World War I to be a nationalist party.
(2) So far as I can tell, the organizers of the “Occupy Wall Street” and similar demonstrations are communists. These people are anti-democratic, since they claim to represent 99% of the population without the slightest evidence and eschew or oppose elections. They are certainly selfish, greedy, lazy, and full of envy, wanting the state to give them everything. Many also have enough money to have cell phones and computers. Interestingly, they started performing around the time that Steve Jobs died, Jobs having worked and made his own job and wealth, as well as that of many others. (One of the OWS people complained that her Mac Computer, cost over $5000, had been stolen!)
Right after the US Constitution was completed, a person ran up to Benjamin Franklin and asked,”So, what did you give us Mr. Franklin?”
And Benjamin Franklin was reported to have replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
I think it’s about time we end the current United Nations and create a new United Nations. A United Nations of democracies, republics, and parliamentary democracies. Throw out all of the dictatorships, monarchies, theocracies, and communist nations. If they think that their brand of government is so great, let them have it. But there is no reason on this planet why we have to condone them or support them through the UN. Let them live in their “worker’s paradise” and then we’ll check in on them in about 20 years or so and see what’s left of them.
If people still think that they were better off under communism, even after they have seen what life is like WITHOUT communism, then they deserve what they get. They are hopeless fools. Sheep that are just waiting to be fattened up until they are finally slaughtered for one reason or another. And if that’s the way they want to live their lives, fine. But if people in this country want to go that route, want to take away from us the most successful republic that the world has ever known, then mark my words, the day will come in the United States when these two sides will clash. You’ve started to see some of it happen in Wisconsin and now in Oakland, California. If this is what some “Americans” want, to follow Marx instead of Madison, then there will be a fight one day, and it won’t be a pretty one.
Yes, Mr. Franklin,at least some of us want to hold on to what you and your friends created well over 200 years ago. And there are many of us still out there who will not let you down.
To see the difference between communism and capitalism one only needs to look at North and South Korea.
As far as the US going commie – I’d prefer an amiable split. Split the country – with some forced relocations. But no commies are allowed in free states. After they implode we can reclaim the land – in about a 100 years (if not sooner) or so. But one thing is certain – I’m sick to death of them and I don’t want to share MY wealth with them any longer.
Since I have absolutely zero interest in small c communism, I am very nervous about the lifelong ties that Sen. Obama has to raging, frothing, fringe left
voices. I also think that this sham that since Bill Ayers COMMITTED his
heinous acts when Sen. Obama was 8 years old, it shouldn’t hold sway with
anyone that a relationship formed some time later.
Bill Ayers and his wife of no soul still adhere to the belief that the acts
were legitimate and justifiable and if you believe that as they do, you are
most likely a disgraceful cretin.
Moreover, the “I was 8″ argument does not apply to the litany of haters
swimming like remora around Sen. Obama, assisting in keeping clean and
insulated… the predatory instincts of this administration and the outer elements of it, with some inner elements shelved or in “deep background” currently. Van Jones got bumped from the roster…but the DOJ is filled to the brim. Czars and czarinas…and the NLRB is simply handing out thrones to despots. Cass Sunstein wants to shut down our voices and the noose is growing tighter.
Rev. Wright, the Nation of Islam (including high ranking staffers Cynthia
Miller and Jennifer Mason), Michael Pfleger, Michael Klonsky, Carl Davidson,
Khalid al Mansour, ACORN, the SEIU, the New Party, Sam Graham-Felsen, Noam Chomsky,Frank Marshall Davis, Rashid Khalidi, the late Edward Said, Robert Malley, Samantha Power, Tony McPeak, Zbigniew Brzyzinsky, Susan Rice, Franklin
Raines, Jim Johnson …because these are not household names…they carry less
impact on the electorate. They shouldn’t…but the Stupid Party is our standard bearer…so, expect nothing and hope for less.
Put another way, Louis Farrakhan, Arafat, the Daily Kos, Julius and Ethel
Rosenberg, Benedict Arnold, Michael Moore, Charles Manson and
Squeaky Fromme would fit into this cadre nicely. And Pat Buchanan and James
Baker would find it comfortable in the Middle East advisors club.
So, we can cease the sophistry about Bill Ayers attempted murder when Sen.
Obama was a child and focus on the manifesto that led Ayers and Dohrn to
believe for a nanosecond that killing our young men in uniform and their
innocent dates at Ft. Dix, or murdering Brinks truck drivers or bombing
police stations and trying to kill some of the very men who walk into a
crumbling tower…or even gloating about the murder of an innocent actress
and an elderly couple and sticking a fork in her pregnant belly…is somehow
a belief system that can be “acceptable” or exonerated…is simply beyond
the pale. But small c communists grab the totalitarian stick and wield it with impunity.
A separate, but equally dangerous belief system is one in which people of
the Jewish faith are stereotyped and demonized with false traits and
attributes…making them the scapegoat for the flaws, failures and festering
sores of dying regimes. “Jews start all the wars” was a drunken,
slobbering slur uttered by Mel Gibson, in a tequila soaked rage. But, when
the sober assemble and utter the same slur…in geopolitical policy meetings for a leaders of France and the US each of whom has amassed a blended cocktail of Israel haters with ingredients spanning an entire life…while turning a blind eye toward the all star lineup, …suffocates the words “Never Again” and replace them with “It couldn’t be, could it?”
Khalid al Mansour (aka Don Warden), Rashid Khalidi, the late Edward Said,
Tony McPeak, Samantha Power, Susan Rice, Robert Malley (and more especially
his parents), Zbigniew Brzyzynski, Anthony Lake…is a lineup that would put
James Baker and Pat Buchanan on the back bench when it comes to antipathy toward Israel in particular and Jews in general.
To suggest that any serious concerns raised by the individuals with whom
Sen. Obama chooses to surround himself…is merely “guilt by association”…
is now a proven empty canard.
Of course one would look at the totality of the picture and come to
conclusions about what one thinks and how they think…about an array of
subjects.
It is not “guilt” by association…but deeper understanding of the
underlying belief system…by LIFELONG association. The argument about Ayers or Wright or Khalidi or Frank Marshall Davis, or Heather Bloom or the Midwest Academy or ACORN or SEIU is dead wrong on three counts. To suggest that it was a fleeting association is a lie. To suggest that it is not meaningful is a sham. And to suggest that the only moment in time that is of consequence is when the bombs blew up…is an intentional misdirection.
Ayers matters. Dohrn matters. Frank Marshall Davis matters. Michael Pfleger
matters. Jeremiah Wright matters. Michael Klonsky matters. The radical
professors at college, including Edward Said matter. Khalid al Mansour
matters. Robert Malley matters. Sam Graham-Felsen matters. The Nation of
Islam staffers Jennifer Mason and Cynthia Miller matter. They matter because
Sen. Obama’s flirtation with and immersion in people and ideas that froth
with rage and hate against America and Israel matter. At least to anyone who
says “Never Again”. And that matters…to me.
We are facing a fiscal Holocaust. Let it not be said that this generation cowered silently in a corner when the atrocities were being committed around them, when the propaganda machine was priming the pump and covering up the Final Fiscal Solution.
Let it not be said that we allowed a totalitarian regime to swallow freedom and liberty…without so much as raising a finger to stop it. It is long past time to admit we should have seen it coming…more importantly, we ought to see freedom going. How do we dare to not stand and be counted? Never again.
I would like to add a personal observation regarding Ft Dix terrorist plan. My father was career Air Force and we were stationed at Pease AFB NH in 1970. I was 11 years old at the time. If Ayers & Co. were planning the same event at
Pease during the same time-frame, it surely would have affected “the children” of the time. The Officers Club was directly across the street from where I went to school K-1. The same facility was the transit area where “families” lived while either leaving for new assignment or waiting for their housing. In addition, the ubiquitous sight of boys riding their stingray bycycles with baseball gloves slung around the handlebars could have been riding in front of the officers club at the time of a terrorist act. I’m sure they all would have been acceptable casualties since they were all “enemies of the people”.
Soros in his own words.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/open-society-soros-explains-the-anti-capitalist-pro-marxist-tactics-he-uses-to-fundamentally-transform-countries/
It’s obvious to most of us here why communism doesn’t work – it flouts human nature – people need incentives. BUT, I’ve often wondered why that is so. Why don’t we just share with each other freely. What I’ve come up with is that our societies are too big. When you live in a small tribe – up to approx 100-200 people at most – you know everyone and care about them and the welfare of your tribe. You lose this in a large society. If you’ve ever worked at a tiny company that grew, you see this same effect – after about 100-200 people, the place starts to change. Perhaps small communes can work as they did in Israel, but how could we ever get a large society working like that?
ATETENTION OWS MORONS AND THEIR SUPPORTERS: Fun fact for you. if you make over 30k per yr YOU ARE PART OF THE 1% IN THE WORLD! anyone who supports higher taxes for the ‘rich’ needs to begin automatically more of their money to their beloved govt if you make over 30k. i dont want to hear about tax cuts from bush or any of that nonsense. , either give more of your money as an example or you are a lying hypocrite like barr, mike moore, simmons and obama and pelosi. dont argue with me and try to slide out of it. either you put up or shut up!!
signed the 53% and real Americans
The appeal of communism is the wonderful utopian ideal that we will all work together for our own purposeful common cause. It is not going to happen, because some how “freedom and individuality” was brought forth. Laziness, sloth, greed, envy and co-dependence are in favor of someone else doing the heavy lifting.
Working together for a common cause still sound good, but how do I know that you will carry your end.
This doesn’t surprise me. My in-laws in Russia (born about when Stalin died) still don’t think the Soviet Union was that bad. No one was rich, but everyone had food and shelter, and if they didn’t say or do something stupid, they stayed out of the Gulag. I suspect most ethnic Russians feel the same way.
Communism failed not because it was unpopular, but because it was unworkable. Still convinced that democracies are somehow exempt from the laws of economics, the West is fast approaching its own 1989.
A small head of cabbage, plus an onion stored in the cupboard. Living 6-8 people in a studio apartment in one of Moscow’s barrack type buildings. Having to line up at the state bakery for bread for hours only to find that bread was sold out when you got there. Such were living conditions of some people we became acquainted with after they fled the Soviet Union. Who wants to go back to that?
“….The end result of such poor logic is the call to go to the large homes of wealthy citizens, measure the living space of their domiciles, and by government action move a number of poorer families into their residence to share their large living space. As many of us who know history recall, this is indeed what the Bolsheviks did in Soviet Russia after the October Revolution in 1917″….
This very thing was masterfully shown in the movie Doctor Zhivago, which if I’m ever elected King, will be mandatory viewing for every dunderhead in this country. Twice for those who got a public education.
Being in my late 30′s and visited Prague a few times, befriending some cafe/restaurant owners during that span say they remembered communism when children and don’t wish to go back to such archaic nonsense.
Wonderful place, BTW. Beautiful churches, good hearty food, birthplace of Dvorak, beer was cheaper than water (most recent stopover Summer 2010).. woohoo!
I agree I love Prague. Visited for the first time in 1992 or thereabouts. It was not long after the iron curtain fell. In those days the bohemian crystal and stores that sold porcelain goods were sold out of all merchandise by 10am, having been open about two hours. Credit to the commies, they took good care of the historical buildings, the opera etc. Just beautiful.
One aspect of Marxism I’ve never understood. I thought Marx *predicted* that society would go through a certain sequence of changes *naturally*, because of the systemic contradictions or whatever. Yet it appears most Marxists aren’t content to let evolution take its course and instead try to force communism into being. If communism can’t exist without capitalism “laying the groundwork” more or less, and if the progression from capitalism to communism is inevitable, why do communists spend so much time hating capitalism and trying to destory it? Wouldn’t it be better to ensure that capitalist society is as prosperous as possible so that the proletariat inherits that prosperity? Why bankrupt the business and close the factories you expect to own after the revolution?
The reason communism has any appeal in the west is because we don’t have any idea how much social engineering is getting delivered. The workers get their W-2′s for being wage slaves and independent contractors get their 1099-MISC. Recently fired workers on unemployment might get their 1099-G but the hardcore unemployed/illegal alien getting food stamps/section 8 housing/medicaid and other government benefits does NOT get a 1099-GOV. Why is that? Neither party things it is important to report “income” distributed by the government because then they would lose power in delivering the bacon. When an #occupyWallSt protestor has to fill out forms for the free money they receive or go to jail for failure to file….THEN we’ll see some changes!!!
Excellent article Ron. And you’re exactly right. OWS is nothing more than the resurrection of communism. I went down there a couple of weeks ago and talked to a few people. I mentioned that it seemed communist in nature and they all balked. They said NO, it’s not communist!
But then I began pointing out the similarities – and as a last resort I pointed over to the table the Communist Party USA had been allowed to set up right in the middle of Zuccotti Park! Even they began to realize their denials rang less and less true.
Ron, One big error in your article: on page 2 you write, ‘Yes, as he correctly writes, “Wall Street has led the country and the world over a cliff.”’
The investment firms on Wall Street did our govt the favor of packaging subprime mortgages in a form that made them globally saleable to so-called “savvy investors” of many lands. It was actually our govt that forced our banks to lend to unqualified home buyers and thereby created the bubble and the bust. The OWS demonstrators are wrong about the origins of this mess just as they are wrong about pretty near everything else. Sowell’s book, “The Housing Boom and Bust,” gives a good account of the chain of fools.
Why do you suppose one of the ten read “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods”?
I suggest that once you start coveting with a clean conscience, which is the case for all Communists, Socialists, Democrats, Occupy actors, priests and priestesses, etc., once you sign up for the religion of envy, absolutely anything goes.
You use the color of law to enable your own shameless determination to make certain no one does any better than you.
And while it’s tricky to create wealth, it’s absolutely trivial to destroy it.
Hi Ron,
very interesting article! I hav a blog for Czechs and Slovaks living abroad and I think that most of them would agree with you – especially the older generation who experienced the defects of communism from the first hand.
I will be linking to your article soon, meanwhile I would be honored if you checked my website.
Thanks!