Ignoring Communism’s Crimes Against Humanity

By: Brent Parrish
The Right Planet

There’s a good piece up at RedState.com entitled “If I Were Complicit with Mass Murder, I’d Want to Rewrite History, Too” by Leon H. Wolf. I recommend giving it a good read. I always try and link to well-written articles on the subject matter of communist crimes against humanity.

Leon Wolf’s article asks a somber question I’ve been asking for a long time: why does the left ignore and gloss over the horrific crimes against humanity committed by communist and socialist regimes in the 20th Century? Are they blind to history? Is it a willful ignorance or just inexcusable historical illiteracy? Does the political left condone industrial-scale mass murder and the total squelching of the individual? If they do not condone the innumerable horrors and terrors visited upon hapless citizens unfortunate enough to live under the merciless fist of communistic regimes, then why do so many on the left so ardently and steadfastly embrace Marxian socialism and its insipid anti-human ideology … the very ideology that provided the entire foundation for such crimes to take place in the first place? Such questions demand an answer, as far as I’m concerned.

Wolf points out how, once again, the New York Times is attempting to rewrite the horrid history of global communism, and the left’s long history of supporting it, and lay the blame for communism’s excesses and crimes elsewhere.

Here’s a slice from the NYT article:

As we commemorate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, one of the momentous events of the last century, the left continues its transparent and embarrassing attempt to rewrite their complicity with communist totalitarianism out of history, and attempting to erase Ronald Reagan’s role in its defeat. The latest attempt, by the New York Times, not only seeks to erase Reagan’s credit but also to lay the blame for the most recent Iraq misadventure at his feet…

Oh, imagine that. Once again, the New York Times attempts to whitewash well-documented history in favor of all things Marxist. The New York Times has long shilled for communists and their despotic regimes.

This is something I’ve seen and heard from the left my whole life. No matter how many times socialism/communism has failed they keep wanting to repeat the insanity. The excuses are always the same: if only we had more money … if only we had the right people … if only, if only, if only. No matter how many people suffer and die, it just doesn’t seem to make a difference. In the end, many on the left still believe Marxian socialism is a “noble ideal worth fighting for.”

I don’t know about you, but I call that insanity … criminal insanity.

(The common attribution is to Einstein, though it is not documented.)

In 1962, Ronald Reagan narrated a documentary entitled “Only the Brave Are Free,” which mentions the well-known New York Times reporter and editorialist, Herbert Matthews, who wrote glowingly about the “Reds” during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).

“By far and away the most important part of the foreign aid sought by the communists was the falsification of their true ‘red’ identity by the forces behind the republic at that time. This camouflage was to be achieved by infiltrating and–or–deceiving the news media throughout the world. From the USA, Ernest Hemingway and John Dos Passos came to write, and Herbert Matthews of the New York Times. This was the same Matthews who would say 15 years later, still with the powerful Times, he ‘could see no red in Mao Tse Tung’–then dictator of communist China. And it was the same Matthews who 25 years later would publish front-page articles claiming Castro to be the ‘George Washington of Cuba.’”

One of the more damning timelines documenting the New York Times sympathetic support for communists over the past several decades is laid out in chapter two of Alan Stang’s book It’s Very Simple: The True Story of Civil Rights. The survey by Stang of the Times’ long history of denying communist movements were, in fact, communist movements in places like China, Cuba, Algeria, Ghana, Kenya, Indonesia, Puerto Rico and Canada raises disturbing questions about the New York Times’ editorial agenda.

In regard to the Times’ dismal track record of honestly reporting the despotic nature of communist regimes, Stang wrote:

Let us draw some reasonable conclusions. It is not the purpose of this chapter or book to make an investigation or file an indictment of the New York Times. So let’s say here only the most moderate thing we can say, which is that a trapeze artist, an employee or a doctor who made such a series of mistakes would long since be either dead, unemployed or locked up for criminal negligence.

All we should say, in short, is that there is something very peculiar going on up at the New York Times.

It has long been my unapologetic opinion that what happened to Senator Joseph McCarthy was one of the worst smear jobs in history. And it appears history is proving McCarthy right, especially following the declassification of the Venona decrypts in 1995. The infiltration by communists into the highest offices in the land—in particular, the State Department and Treasury—is astonishing and breathtaking in its scope. The subversive activities by communists and their fellow travelers within the U.S. government was far worse than anything I could have ever imagined, even though I have long believed the infiltration was substantial, despite the left’s attempt to paint anyone of my opinion as “paranoid and delusional.” So, it was good to read the following in Leon H. Wolf’s article regarding the oppressive and brutal history of global communism:

The American Left’s reaction to all of this was almost uniformly to either actively aid the Communist cause or to – in their inimitable style which continues today with respect to Islamic terrorism – naively deny the existence of any danger to America at all. Decoded cables have revealed conclusively that the American government – in particular during Democrat administrations – was infested with communist spies, to the point that one of the primary United States representatives to the Yalta Conference where the United States shamefully doomed Eastern Europe to communist domination was a since convicted communist spy, Alger Hiss (a point which liberals to this day bizarrely refuse to concede). Democrats were decidedly less concerned with either the infestation of the government with communist spies or the expansion of communism itself than they were with the personal life or rhetorical tone of Joseph McCarthy, who (in their narrative) menaced the entire country from his lofty perch as a Senator from Wisconsin.

One of the common tactics used by leftists against those who do not wholeheartedly support collectivism is to paint their opponents as “mentally deranged.” Anyone warning about the inherent dangers that exist in socialistic and communistic systems are often dismissed as merely engaging in “wild charges” and simple “fear-mongering.” As Alan Stang describes it, “these people were either ignored, denounced, pitied or urged to report for immediate psychiatric treatment….”

Sound familiar? Yeah, some things never change, despite all that “hope and change” stuff.

There’s only one point of contention I have with Leon Wolf’s article—the often cited claim “Ronald Reagan defeated communism.” Now, let me be very clear here. There has been no other U.S. president who understood Marxist ideology and communist history better than Ronald Reagan, in my opinion. There is no doubt Reagan put the hurt on the old Soviet Union. Ronald Reagan battled Marxists in Hollywood; he had firsthand knowledge, and understood their strategy and tactics. This is one of the reasons why I believe Reagan was so successful as president: he knew the enemy.

But I don’t even think Ronald Reagan would say he singlehandedly defeated global communism. I find such claims hyperbolic at best. And this is by no means a stab against Reagan or the people who make the claim. And, in Leon Wolf’s defense, I am not saying he personally believes Reagan defeated communism on his own.

Let’s just look at reality as it stands now.

The most populous nation on earth, China, is still ruled by communists. Cuba is still a communist country. Vietnam is still a communist country. North Korea is still a communist country. Laos is still a communist country. But it doesn’t end there. Brazil recently elected a communist revolutionary as president, Dilma Rouseff. Both Africa and South America are chock full of Marxist regimes. The situation in Ukraine often times reveals communist sympathies on both sides of the conflict.

Former Soviet dissident, Vladimir Bukovsky, refers to the European Union (EU) as a “pale version of the Soviet Union.” Until recently, the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) flag featured the hammer and sickle (now replaced with a red star or rising sun symbol).

My point is communism is still alive and well; and its aims are still the same—worldwide domination. Whether or not a nation officially proclaims itself “communist” is not the question, in my mind. The question is, does the nation in question embrace Marxist-Leninist ideology? The religion of Marxism-Leninism operates under numerous banners and “lovable labels.”

Trevor Loudon writes:

Glasnost and Perestroika were merely components of a long term strategy to deny the West an enemy (communism), in the hope of dissolving the Western Alliance. Once NATO was destroyed, or thoroughly compromised, the plan was for Russia to ally with a heavily infiltrated Germany to dominate Europe. Russia would ally with China and the always communist and neo-communist countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, to achieve total world domination.

[…]

Russia is on the march in Europe, her ally China is on the rise in the East, most of Africa is under Chinese domination and most of Latin America is led by Marxists. And the United States has a pro-communist president.

Other than that, the security situation looks fine.

I’m afraid the “defeat of communism” is still a work in progress, to put it mildly. But it sure is good to see more and more people waking up to the abysmal track record of global communism, and the left’s dismissive and minimizing attitude about it all—which tells me everything I need to know about the “left.” I just hope and pray it is not too late for the world as a whole.