November 7th, 1917 was a dark day in human history, as John Zmirak writing at The Stream reminds us ~ A Bloody 100th Birthday for the Russian Revolution ~
One hundred years since the small but devout faction of Marxists called the Bolsheviks lost a popular election. It was the last one Russia would see for 70 years. Instead of accepting the people’s will, the Bolsheviks overthrew that country’s fledgling provisional government. That revolution unleashed a nightmare: a vicious civil war, the mass killing of clergy and religious believers, the slaughter of businessmen and landlords, and the building of concentration camps, 20 years before Hitler. In a single day, the Bolsheviks were known to boast, they killed more dissidents than the Spanish Inquisition had in 300 years.
That the vast majority of Russians opposed Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s utopian vision for their country mattered not one whit. The murderous tyrant had other plans. Acting rapidly to quash all dissent, immediately after overthrowing Russia’s fledgling Provisional Government Lenin abolished all private ownership of land and banned the non-socialist press.
By 1922, as his miserable life was nearing its end, Lenin grew increasingly paranoid that others were maneuvering for power (he was correct – Joseph Stalin certainly was) and also began to realize what a vast state of corruption the Bolsheviks had created. One wonders if he ultimately ever realized that, devoid of morality, an authoritarian regime can only descend into soul-destroying wickedness.
Sadly for the Russian people, Lenin’s despotism only gave way to Stalin’s ~
Contrary to the wishful thinking of Western leftists, Stalin was a faithful Bolshevik, and an orthodox Marxist. His policies followed Lenin’s goals to their logical end: the extermination of religion, the persecution of ethnic minorities, and the seizure of all private land. According to genocide scholar R.J. Rummel, the number of people murdered in the Soviet Union during 70 years of Communism is probably 61,911,000. That’s about the number of people now living in California and Florida. All shot, starved, frozen, beaten or worked to death in pursuit of “utopia.”
What a glorious legacy. And yet, apparently it’s one that appeals to the American millennial generation. According to a recent poll, ~ Half Of Millennials would rather live under socialism or communism than capitalism.
Marion Smith, executive director of (the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation), was genuinely concerned, asserting, “Millennials now make up the largest generation in America, and we’re seeing some deeply worrisome trends. Millennials are increasingly turning away from capitalism and toward socialism and even communism as a viable alternative.”
These young people have been woefully mis-educated. Perhaps, as I’ve mentioned before they need to read The Gulag Archipelago. Or as Zmirak suggests, watch this tragic film about the Ukrainian genocide ~
Famine 33 (1991) is the first movie made in Ukraine after the fall of the Soviet Union.
It dramatizes the artificial famine that Stalin inflicted on Ukraine in his quest for
Marxist equality in farming. That resulted in between four and twelve million
deaths, and caused the outbreak of cannibalism within families.
The New York Times denied that the famine was even happening. Its reporter
on the spot, Walter Duranty, was a Communist sympathizer and Stalin’s
personal friend. Duranty won a Pulitzer for his coverage, which the
Times has never returned.
Something needs to wake up these naive, idealist-yet-ignorant, young people before they mindlessly embrace totalitarianism. (Maybe send them to Venezuela for six months?)
Fun fact: The Bolshevik Revolution is also known as the “October Revolution” even though it occurred on November 7th. At the time, Russia was still following the Julian calendar, which trailed much of the rest of the world by 11 days. It wasn’t until March 1918 that they switched to the Gregorian calendar.
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Related:
Making the World Safe for Communism—Again ~
A recent surge of Communist nostalgia suggests that a Marxist revival of sorts may be afoot in some elite American quarters. Nowhere is this more apparent than in “Red Century,” the New York Times editorial page’s yearlong series of op-eds commemorating the centenary of the October Revolution[…]
Taking the “Red Century” project as a whole, then, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Times’ editorial-page editors seek to put a fresh and attractive gloss on totalitarianism.
A musical tribute to… Communism
Putting a happy face on communism
Survey Finds High Support For Communism Among Millennials
Millennial Communists ~ Young and confused ~
Sometimes it is hard for people to accept that there really aren’t many new ideas. Sure, there are new policy innovations and new possibilities created by technology. But the really big ideas about how we should organize society vary between being merely antique and downright ancient. Plato argued for collective ownership of property on the grounds that it would erase social divisions. Aristotle disagreed, insisting that, “when everyone has a distinct interest, men will not complain of one another, and they will make more progress, because everyone will be attending to his own business.”
