Communism
Communism is a left-wing materialistic and violently atheistic ideology created to justify the overthrow of Capitalism, replacing free market economics and democracy with a "dictatorship of the proletariat". Under Communism, the political system replaces the private ownership of the means of production with "collective ownership" of the economy, this is to be accomplished through direct "democratic" control by the workers.[1] Twentieth century Communism was based on Karl Marx's manifesto which proposed to establishment of a "classless society." However, all Communist societies have had a class structure, notably the USSR, which was dominated by a self appointed Nomenklatura.
In the belief that "people cannot change", governments under the banner of Communism have caused the death of somewhere between 40 million to 260 million human lives.[2][3][4][5][6][7] Dr. R. J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii, is the scholar who first coined the term democide (death by government). Dr. R. J. Rummel's mid estimate regarding the loss of life due to communism is that it caused the death of approximately 148,286,000 people between 1917 and 1987.[8]
President Ronald Reagan in an address before the British House of Commons said,
| “ | What I am describing now is a plan and hope for the long term -- the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.[9] | ” |
Today, communism continues to rule over at least one-fifth of the world's people.[10]
Communist Theory and Practice
The idea of communism is that every one must be equal, free, and have a good living. It also requires that everyone must contribute to society (capitalists do so as well, for everyone does, but in a selfish, twisted sense. As to why, capitalists "contribute" to society as well, but in the end it benefits them only) by using his or her ability to produce goods or wealth for the betterment of society. This attitude is as old as mankind but it was given a name by Karl Marx. In theory, a stateless, classless society in which the means of production is collectively owned and goods and services are freely distributed according to need as oppose to wealth or social status.
Communism and atheism
Most Communists are atheists, because religion is the drug of the masses, tricking gullible people into believing in inane desert scribbles. Some Communists are religous, in example, people who follow Jesus's socialist-esque teachings. But, religion is a lie, so yeah. I'm doing this to piss you guys off, by the way. But I am a Communist, so yeah screw you and your McCarthyism.
Atrocities and Repression
Conservatives and fascists alike lie about about how murdered millions of people. Many people died in famines, but this is due to weather, not because a certain mustachioed man is the great Satan or whatever. There is no credible proof that Stalin and Mao and Castro repressed people.
Similarities between Communism, Nazism and liberalism
There are none. Liberals are pussies and Nazis are JUST LIKE YOU Conservatives.
Communists cite scripture
Some Communist ideology has made its way into the Church as a Social Gospel, interpreting the Gospel as less redemptive of sin and more of a public works campaign and activism. They often cite Jesus feeding the masses and warnings to the wealthy who believed self-seeking is all this world has to offer. Communists often cite the Acts of the Apostles, as early Christians practicing some form of sharing for the common good:
| “ | And all that believed were together, and had all things common; And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need. (Acts 2:44-45, KJV)
Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, (which is, being interpreted, The son of consolation,) a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus, Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles' feet.(Acts 4:34-7, KJV) |
” |
But as Arnold Toynbee has pointed out, this Marxist view denies the most crucial points,
| “ | The passage in the Acts represents the philanthropy of the primitive Christian Society as flowing from a God-given grace which was the fruit of a belief in the divinity of Jesus. In other words, the charity which is here depicted as moving the primitive Christians to go—in their mutual concern for one another's welfare—to the extreme length of sharing all their worldly goods is not a mere love of Man for Man (which is the limited literal meaning of the word ‘philanthropy’), but is a spiritual relation to which God is a party as well as His human creatures. In fact, this Christian Socialism is a practical application, on the economic surface of life, of the fundamental religious truth that the brotherhood of man is a consequence of the fatherhood of God - a truth which is driven home with special force by a religion which teaches that God is not only the Father and Creator of man, but also his Savior, Who has been incarnate in human shape and has suffered, and triumphed over, death.[11] | ” |
Adolf Hitler noted that Communists made excellent converts to Nazism, because the same personality type was attracted to both. "[T]here is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separates us from it. There is, above all, genuine, revolutionary feeling, which is alive everywhere in Russia except where there are Jewish Marxists. I have always made allowance for this circumstance, and given orders that former Communists are to be admitted to the party at once. The petit bourgeois Social-Democrat and the trade-union boss will never make a National Socialist, but the Communists always will."[12] Josef Stalin also recognized that ex-Nazis and ex-fascists were natural recruits for post-war Communist regimes. As Stanley Payne notes in his A History of Fascism: 1914-1945, "All over Soviet-occupied eastern Europe, most rank-and-file former fascist party members, together with many lower-level leaders, were welcomed to fill the ranks of the initially exiguous local Communist parties. The psychological transition seems to have been an easy one, for obvious reasons."[13]
Cuban communism
Cuba remains a communist state controlled by the Castro brothers since 1960 and under U.S economic sanctions.
Asian communism
The CCP in China retains an autocratic regime controlled by the Communist party, which allows no democracy or dissent. However it does allow capitalism, and has experienced a very rapid growth of the private sector and the middle class. Observers expect that the regime's efforts to control public opinion and forestall the will of the people will be more and more difficult.
North Korea remains a brutal dictatorship controlled by the same family. Laos, and Vietnam are also run by the old Communist cliques.
Collapse of the Soviet bloc
The shooting down by the Soviets on Sept. 1, 1983 of Korean Airlines Flight 007 may have been a contributing factor for the downfall of the Soviet Union as well as for the whole Soviet block. It being a catalyst for the collapse of the Soviet Union may be inferred from the fact that NATO had decided, under the impetus of the U.S. administration, to deploy Pershing II and cruise missiles in Europe, primarily West Germany. This deployment would have placed missiles just 6-10 minutes striking distance from Moscow. But support for the deployment was wavering and many doubted that the missile deployment would find enough support to effect it. When the Soviet Union shot down Flight 007 with 269 people aboard, including conservative Democratic Congressman Larry McDonald —an act which U.S. President Ronald Reagan characterized as a "massacre"—enough support was galvanized for the deployment. The deployment caused great resources of the Soviet Union to be diverted from inner economic use to military expenditures to counter the U.S. and NATO missile deployment. Between 1989 and 1991, many communist governments fell. The Berlin Wall in Germany, which had become a symbol for the division between the West and communist states, was torn down largely in response to Ronald Reagan in 1989, and there was also a large revolution against Romanian dictator Nicolaie Ceausescu. In 1991, the USSR broke up into several countries - each which reformed to capitalism. Some of these remained under autocratic governments, but some have embraced democracy. With the collapse the remnants of Communist parties have dropped their old names and ideologies, but still operate on the left of the political spectrum.
American communism
- Main article : Committees of Correspondence
With the collapse of Soviet communism and the conversion of Chinese communism to "state run capitalism," the spiritual and ideological center of world of communism and the Marxist-Leninist tradition shifted to the United States. Several prominent American communists, rudderless without Moscow direction, formed a new organization in 1992 called the Committees of Correspondence for Democratic Socialism.
The initial organizational conference was held in Berkeley, California, July 17-19, 1992. Charlene Mitchell, a former leader of the California Communist Party, speaking at the conference said, "the collapse of socialism in Eastern Europe left the United States in a near unchallenged position of world leadership." Mitchell continued,
| “ | What began as a moment to take stock and ponder where to go from there has now become a very different entity. People from the Communist Party, from CrossRoads, from the Democratic Socialists of America, from NCIPA [National Committee for Independent Political Action], from Solidarity, from the Socialist Organizing Network and many others, including independent leftists and independent socialists, have come together here in Berkeley. | ” |
Criticizing U.S. actions in the First Gulf War, Mitchell stated,
| “ | progressive forces were nearly powerless in the face of an onslaught of demagogic, patriotic jingoism and yellow ribbons. This war, fought for no legitimate reason, was the crowning height of President [George H.W.] Bush's New World Order. Previously, the Soviet Union helped to provide a certain balance to rein in the crazies in this country. Now, that balance is no longer there. It is now up to us, the American people, to rein in our own crazies. The left must take a major responsibility in organizing this task. | ” |
Notorious communists
Well known communists include:
- Salvador Allende
- William Ayers
- Fidel Castro
- Raul Castro
- Hugo Chavez
- Carl Davidson
- Frank Marshall Davis
- Bernardine Dohrn
- Friedrich Engels
- Che Guevara
- Benjamin Jones
- Van Jones
- Kim Il Sung
- Kim Jong Il
- Kim Jong Un
- Lazar Kaganovich
- Vladimir Lenin
- Mao Zedong
- Karl Marx
- Ho Chi Minh
- Pol Pot
- Paul Robeson
- Joseph Stalin
- Yakov Sverdlov
- Leon Trotsky
- Genrikh Yagoda
- Yakov Yurovsky
Further reading
- Pipes, Richard. Communism: A History (2003), by a leading conservative historian
- Pipes, Richard. History of Communism: A Brief History (2002)
- Priestland, David. The Red Flag: A History of Communism (2009)
- 100 Things You Should Know About Communism
See also
- List of Communist States
- Communist Party of the United States of America
- Cold War
- Capitalism
- Iron Curtain
- Progressives for Obama
- Socialism
- Social Effects of the Theory of Evolution
- Korean Airlines Flight 007 for the connection of the shootdown by the Soviets of KAL 007, with 269 people aboard, on Sept. 1, 1983 with the heightened U.S./Soviet confrontations of 1983-4.
- The Soviet/ U.S naval confrontation over KAL 007
- KAL 007 and the Soviet Top Secret Memos
Notes and references
- ↑ http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1968/11/workersdem.htm
- ↑ The Black Book of Communism
- ↑ The Black Book of Communism
- ↑ http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM
- ↑ Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclysm
- ↑ Memory and Ideology
- ↑ The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression
- ↑ http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/NOTE1.HTM
- ↑ President Ronald Reagan Speech to the British Parliament, June 8, 1982. Retrieved from International Republican Institute 05/24/07.
- ↑ Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, Documenting Communism's Crimes Against Humanity.
- ↑ Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Annex II to Vol. V, Part C (i) (c) 2, p. 585, Marxism, Socialism, and Christianity.
- ↑ quoted in Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks
- ↑ http://www.lietuvos.org/istorija/communism/
