Communists Strike Back: The costs of underestimating an adversary

"It is necessary — secretly and urgently to prepare the terror." - Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, 1918

One hundred years ago this week the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia and communist regimes began a hundred year killing spree that would claim more than 100 million lives. Twenty five years ago I thought that communism was destined for the ash heap of history. Having come of age in the 1980s in Miami during the Reagan years my political awakening as a conservative and anti-communist coincided with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989, the ouster of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in 1990, and the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union on Christmas day in 1991. The wisdom behind the words of the great 20th century poet T.S. Eliot holds true today and is an implicit warning against complacency.

“If we take the widest and wisest view of a Cause, there is no such thing as a Lost Cause because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause. We fight for lost causes because we know that our defeat and dismay may be the preface to our successors’ victory, though that victory itself will be temporary; we fight rather to keep something alive than in the expectation that anything will triumph.”

The revelation that 100 million human beings had been slaughtered in peace time by communist regimes combined with the evidence of the socio-economic backwardness of communism and its rejection by tens of millions was thought to be a mortal blow to Marxist ideology. Many believed that communism had been defeated and let their guard down. Meanwhile the remnants of international communism began to gather regularly in Sao Paolo, Brazil and in the midst of their defeat began plotting their come back on a global scale. This gathering became known as the Sao Paolo Forum.

Communists, by and large, have no difficulty in denouncing Josef Stalin, but attempt to portray Vladmir Lenin as different. The words of the Russian Revolutionary however reveal his true nature. In January of 1918 at a meeting of the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet Lenin explained the necessity of terrorism for communist revolutionaries: "We can't expect to get anywhere unless we resort to terrorism: speculators must be shot on the spot. Moreover, bandits must be dealt with just as resolutely: they must be shot on the spot."

In the United States triumphalism ignored the continued march through academic and cultural institutions of Marxist Leninists and Cultural Marxists of the Frankfurt school that today is better known as Critical Theory.

Twenty five years later the results are in and they are troubling.  The Washington Times reported that Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’s “Annual Report on U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism,” documented "58 percent of the up-and-coming generation opted for one of the three systems, compared to 42 percent who said they were in favor of capitalism.The most popular socioeconomic order was socialism, with 44 percent support. Communism and fascism received 7 percent support each." The same report found that "one in five (23%) of Americans age 21-29 consider Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin a ‘hero’; 26% for Vladimir Lenin; 23% for Kim Jong Un.”
Not surprisingly over 20% of millennials had a positive opinion of Karl Marx.

The crimes of Jong Un, Castro, Pol Pot, Mao, Stalin, and Lenin need to be accurately highlighted to counter the misinformation and disinformation seeking to downplay communist crimes.

How Fidel Castro white washed Communist crimes and plotted its expansion

How Communism came back after its reverses in 1989 - 1991 

Castro tyrants at the Cuban Communist Party Congress in 2016

Fidel Castro on April 19, 2016 at the Cuban Communist Party Congress lamented the passing of the Soviet Union and advocated another revolution just like it.

"Lenin's work violated after 70 years of Revolution. What a history lesson! It can be affirmed that it should not take another 70 years before another event like the Russian Revolution occurs, in order that humanity have another example of a magnificent social revolution that marked a huge step in the struggle against colonialism and its inseparable companion, imperialism."

However, Fidel Castro has done much more than merely wish for the return of Soviet-style communism. The great 20th century poet T.S. Eliot understood that "there is no such thing as a Lost Cause, because there is no such thing as a Gained Cause." This was also understood by the remaining communist powers and parties in the world after the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe in 1989. 

Fidel Castro and Lula Da Silva

 In 1990 following a request made by Fidel Castro to Lula Da Silva the Sao Paulo Forum was established with the goal to rebuild the Communist movement or as they put it: “To reconquer in Latin America all that we lost in East Europe.” This set the course for the rise of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela that has been a game changer both regionally and internationally. Food riots are now breaking out in what was once the richest government in South America.

The hunger, the suffering, and deaths of thousands of Venezuelans should be laid at the feet of Fidel Castro who prepared and backed Hugo Chavez with the assistance of the Cuban military and intelligence services that are keeping Nicolas Maduro in power today. However the communists with their agents of influence in the media will blame capitalism, the United States, imperialism, global warming, and anything else that distracts from pointing the finger at them.

Killing fields in Cambodia

Meanwhile the United States Secretary of State John Kerry said in  August of 2015 that "the United States and Cuba are talking about ways to solve the Venezuelan crisis" and is not alone in this belief within the American foreign policy establishment.

Not recognizing this historic context is a a foreign policy recipe for disaster. 

2017 will mark 100 years since the first communist regime took power in Russia ushering in a century of bloodshed that included a brief alliance with Nazi Germany that plunged the planet into World War Two. The overall death count of victims of communism is 100 million dead and counting.

Reynaldo Benito Antonio Bignone Ramayón with Fidel Castro Ruz

Like the Soviet Union, the Castro regime in Cuba crossed ideological lines to advance strategic interests. In the 1960s Fidel Castro invited in former Nazis to train the regime's intelligence services and purchased weapons from German right wing extremists. In the 1970s and early 1980s the Cuban dictatorship had a solid working alliance with the Argentine military dictatorship at a time when the military junta was disappearing 30,000 leftists in Argentina. This is in the news again now because of newly declassified documents that have emerged confirming the sordid relationship.

Meanwhile tourists continue to visit totalitarian regimes as they have over the past century and returning with happy talk completely divorced from the reality on the ground.

This is why it is so important to remember the crimes of communism and reject attempts to rewrite the historical record by white washing these atrocities.

Extra-judicially executed by the Castro regime on July 13, 1994

In the case of Cuba one must not forget the mass executions at the start of the regime. However the brutal massacres of Cubans continued such as the July 13, 1994 "13 de Marzo" tugboat sinking and the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down. The tugboat sinking involved the killing of 37 Cuban refugees, among the dead were 23 youths. The shoot down involved two planes blown to bits over international airspace by Cuban MiGs killing three American citizens and a Cuban resident who were engaged in the search and rescue of Cuban rafters.

Between June of 2009 and December 17, 2014 high profile Cuban dissidents were killed under suspicious circumstances in Cuba, but the drive to normalize relations meant that there were no consequences for the dictatorship and the killings continued generating a body count. Beginning with Orlando Zapata Tamayo on February 23, 2010 and peaking with the suspicious deaths of Ladies in White founder,  Laura Inés Pollán Toledo on October 14, 2011 and Christian Liberation Movement leaders, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante on July 22, 2012.

Anti-communists of the world need to unite and figure out how to save humanity from another century of communist barbarism.