A Christmas Miracle: The Collapse of the Soviet Union on this day in 1991

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him. " - Mohandas Gandhi

 

Christmas returned to the Kremlin

Thirty four years ago, on December 25, 1991, a regime born in 1917 and formerly named in 1922 came to an end. 

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or as it was also known, the Soviet Union, was formerly brought to an end on Christmas day and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. 

 The last day of the Soviet Union was Christmas day. 

Let that sink in.

 Now there are those who claim that the world is a less stable place without the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Gorbachev claims that it could have been reformed. 

Academic Stephen F. Cohen goes further and quotes approvingly both Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the adage: "Anyone who does not regret the breakup of the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who thinks it can be reconstructed has no head." 

Vaclav Havel, a man who had both head and heart, understood why this kind of regime was so profoundly inhuman: "As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it."

The optimism expressed by Gorbachev and the nostalgia of Cohen fail to take into account the human cost of the USSR. The Soviet Union took the lives of an estimated 61 million human beings. It was a brutal and evil system that allied with Nazi Germany to start WW2 in 1939, and afterwards spawned other brutal regimes around the globe that claimed over 100 million lives. Their lives mattered. Vaclav Havel, in his 1990 New Years Speech, called on his countrymen to remember. 

"The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own newfound freedom." 

The number of lives lost is only the material accounting and does not take into account the spiritual ruin visited upon billions and its aftermath to the present day. The late Czech president  explained it in the  same address.

"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."

The destruction, both material and spiritual, generated by the Soviet Union over seventy years will take centuries to repair and transcend. That hard truth may not be cause for celebration, but the end of the system that wreaked so much damage is cause for celebration, not regret. To do otherwise is to be heartless. The fact that it happened without violence on Christmas Day in 1991 is also cause for joy. 

Criminally, Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022 expanded his war into Ukraine in what some view as an attempt to resurrect the Soviet empire and the rivers of blood are flowing again, and we do not know how it will end. Gorbachev passed away on August 30, 2022 a respected figure abroad, but reviled in Russia. He was in many ways the polar opposite of Vladimir Putin.

This is why Ukraine is celebrating the end of the Soviet Union over social media this Christmas.

On this day in 1991, the Soviet Union finally ceased to exist. A moment that went down in history as a triumph of liberty.

Its dissolution ended a regime built on repression, censorship, political terror, genocidal famines, mass deportations, and the systematic erasure of… pic.twitter.com/4xVa7YhpYe

— MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) December 26, 2025

People of goodwill should join them in celebrating the end of this evil regime. 

Secondly, the largest remaining communist regime, the Peoples Republic of China, remains in power and  with the aid of smaller communist powers (Cuba, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, and their networks) is backing Putin's invasion of Ukraine. 

The Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021. It is a tragedy that they did not go the same way as the Soviet Union in 1991.

Over seven million people have died due to a pandemic unleashed by the communist dictatorship in Beijing. However, this is a small number for the Communist Chinese Party that has killed more than ten times as many Chinese people to advance communist policies in China alone. 

People of goodwill must also continue to work for and pray for the day that a second miracle can be celebrated with the the end of communism in China, and a third miracle with the defeat of the Russian invaders in Ukraine.  

A Christmas Miracle: The End of the Soviet Union on December 25, 1991

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him. " - Mohandas Gandhi

 

Christmas returned to the Kremlin

Thirty three years ago, on December 25, 1991, a regime born in 1917 and formerly named in 1922 came to an end. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or as it was also known, the Soviet Union, was formerly brought to an end on Christmas day and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. The last day of the Soviet Union was Christmas day. Let that sink in.

 Now there are those who claim that the world is a less stable place without the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Gorbachev claims that it could have been reformed. 

Academic Stephen F. Cohen goes further and quotes approvingly both Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the adage: "Anyone who does not regret the breakup of the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who thinks it can be reconstructed has no head." 

Vaclav Havel, a man who had both head and heart, understood why this kind of regime was so profoundly inhuman: "As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it."

The optimism expressed by Gorbachev and the nostalgia of Cohen fail to take into account the human cost of the USSR. The Soviet Union took the lives of an estimated 61 million human beings. It was a brutal and evil system that allied with Nazi Germany to start WW2 in 1939, and afterwards spawned other brutal regimes around the globe that claimed over 100 million lives. Their lives mattered. Vaclav Havel, in his 1990 New Years Speech, called on his countrymen to remember. 

"The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own newfound freedom." 

The number of lives lost is only the material accounting and does not take into account the spiritual ruin visited upon billions and its aftermath to the present day. The late Czech president  explained it in the  same address.

"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."

The destruction, both material and spiritual, generated by the Soviet Union over seventy years will take centuries to repair and transcend. That hard truth may not be cause for celebration, but the end of the system that wreaked so much damage is cause for celebration, not regret. To do otherwise is to be heartless. The fact that it happened without violence on Christmas Day in 1991 is also cause for joy. 

Criminally, Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022 expanded his war into Ukraine in what some view as an attempt to resurrect the Soviet empire and the rivers of blood are flowing again, and we do not know how it will end. Gorbachev passed away on August 30, 2022 a respected figure abroad, but reviled in Russia. He was in many ways the polar opposite of Vladimir Putin.

Secondly, the largest remaining communist regime, the Peoples Republic of China, remains in power and  with the aid of smaller communist powers (Cuba, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, and their networks) is backing Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021. It is a tragedy that they did not go the same way as the Soviet Union in 1991.

Over seven million people have died due to a pandemic unleashed by the communist dictatorship in Beijing. However, this is a small number for the Communist Chinese Party that has killed more than ten times as many Chinese people to advance communist policies in China alone. 

People of goodwill must continue to work for and pray for the day that a second miracle can be celebrated with the the end of communism in China, and a third miracle with the defeat of the Russian invaders in Ukraine.  

A Christmas Miracle: The End of the Soviet Union

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him. " - Mohandas Gandhi

Christmas returned to the Kremlin

 

Thirty two years ago, on December 25, 1991, a regime born in 1917 and formerly named in 1922 came to an end. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or as it was also known, the Soviet Union, was formerly brought to an end on Christmas day and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. The last day of the Soviet Union was on Christmas day. Let that sink in for a moment.

Now there are those who claim that the world is a less stable place without the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Gorbachev claims that it could have been reformed. Academic Stephen F. Cohen goes further and quotes approvingly both Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the adage: "Anyone who does not regret the breakup of the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who thinks it can be reconstructed has no head." Vaclav Havel, a man who had both head and heart, understood why this kind of regime was so profoundly inhuman: "As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it."

The optimism expressed by Gorbachev and the nostalgia of Cohen fails to take into account the human cost of the USSR. The Soviet Union took the lives of an estimated 61 million human beings. It was a brutal and evil system that allied with Nazi Germany to start WW2 in 1939, and afterwards spawned other brutal regimes around the globe that claimed over 100 million lives. Their lives mattered. Vaclav Havel, in his 1990 New Years Speech, called on his countrymen not to forget:  

"The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own newfound freedom." 

The number of lives lost is only the material accounting and does not take into account the spiritual ruin visited upon billions and its aftermath to the present day. The late Czech president  explained it in the very same address.

"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."

The destruction, both material and spiritual, generated by the Soviet Union over seventy years will take centuries to repair and transcend. That hard truth may not be cause for celebration, but the end of the system that wreaked so much damage is cause for celebration, not regret. To do otherwise is to be heartless. The fact that it happened without violence on Christmas Day in 1991 is also cause for joy. 

Sadly, Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022 expanded his war into Ukraine in what some view as an attempt to resurrect the Soviet empire and the rivers of blood are flowing again, and we do not know how it will end. Gorbachev passed away on August 30, 2022 a respected figure abroad, but reviled in Russia. He was in many ways the polar opposite of Vladimir Putin.

Secondly, the largest remaining communist regime, the Peoples Republic of China, remains in power and  with the aid of smaller communist powers (Cuba, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, and their networks) is backing Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021. It is a tragedy that they did not go the same way as the Soviet Union in 1991.

Over 6.8 million people have died due to a pandemic unleashed by the communist dictatorship in Beijing. However, this is a small number for the Communist Chinese Party that has killed more than ten times as many Chinese people to advance communist policies in China alone. 

People of goodwill must continue to work for and pray for the day that a second miracle can be celebrated with the the end of communism in China, and a third miracle with the defeat of the Russian invaders in Ukraine.  

Christmas Message from the Christian Liberation Movement

 "We have not chosen the path of peace as a tactic, but because it is inseparable from the goal for which our people are striving." - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas

Ceremony for Mr Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, 2002 Sakharov laureate with EU's Pat Cox

Twenty one years ago this week on December 17, 2002 in Strasbourg, France while receiving the Sakharov Prize from the European Union Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas explained what motivated his movement's choice to embark on a nonviolent struggle:

"We have not chosen the path of peace as a tactic, but because it is inseparable from the goal for which our people are striving. Experience teaches us that violence begets more violence and that when political change is brought about by such means, new forms of oppression and injustice arise."

Oswaldo's full written speech is available online, and required reading, and video of the speech is also available online. 

He ended this speech affirming the Christian foundation of the movement he founded and led: the Christian Liberation Movement.

"We dedicate this prize and our hopes to the Lord Jesus, born in a lowly manger. Thank you and Merry Christmas." 

Oswaldo paid the ultimate price for freedom.  Let us remember and honor him by sharing the truth about the circumstances surrounding his murder and the murder of MCL youth leader Harold Cepero on July 22, 2012.

Their murders demonstrate that Nonviolent resistance to a brutal dictatorship is not without risk, and after 64 years in power even more so.  

Nonviolent scholar Michael N. Nagler in his book, "The Nonviolence Handbook: A Guide for Practical Action" in the following passage provides a description and analysis relevant to what is taking place in Cuba, and may be useful in understanding where things stand in the struggle today:

"Conflicts escalate when they are not resolved, and if they are left untended they can rapidly get out of control." From the nonviolence point of view, the intensity of a conflict is not necessarily a question of how many guns or how many people are involved (the same metric would work for a quarrel between lovers as between nations); it is primarily about how far dehumanization has proceeded. If someone no longer listens to you, is calling you names or is labeling you, it’s probably too late for petitions. In terms of knowing how to respond, we can conveniently think of this escalation in three stages that call for distinct sets of responses. Let’s call these three stages Conflict Resolution, Satyagraha (active nonviolent resistance), and—hopefully this is rare, but it helps to know it exists—Ultimate Sacrifice.

The Christian Liberation Movement released the following statement that has been translated below from the original Spanish. 

Christmas Message from the Christian Liberation Movement 

We are very close to celebrating the Nativity of the Lord and we want to unite in good wishes with our people.  

Just as the people of God walked through the desert, in the midst of tribulations and in the diaspora, they never stopped looking with their hearts towards Jerusalem, so our people walk in the midst of oppression and exile, looking towards Cuba with hope in their soul. and in every thought. The hope that the faith and determination of a people who want to be free and seek happiness in their own country gives us. 

Those imprisoned for political causes have also marked the year. They have been kidnapped and with dignity they bear the full weight of repression for the freedom of our people. Their faces are also that of hope.  

The Letter to the Hebrews in chapter 13 tells us “Remember those who are in prison as if you were in prison with them.”  

Extreme poverty rates are increasing and the difficulties of putting bread on the table has become a true miracle. While the caste that has kidnapped the rights of Cubans lives in the midst of luxuries and privileges, segregating citizens. 

But injustice will not prevail because our hope comes from above, it comes on Christmas from Jesus Christ, a defenseless child cold in the middle of the night in his poor manger. 

That next year we can all meet in our homeland, our fraternal Cuban National Home so that our lives can be reborn in freedom, the spiritual life of the Cuban soul and we can find happiness in the land that God gave us and the Virgin of Charity, Mother of all Cubans bless.

Let us celebrate this birth with joy and hope, so that God continues with us on this long journey.  

Let us return our hearts to God, because the freedom of Cuba will necessarily pass through faith and values. 

Merry Christmas! God bless our beloved Cuba! 

 All Cubans, All Brothers and Now Freedom!  

Christian Liberation Movement 

 December 24, 2023

 

Mensaje de Navidad del Movimiento Cristiano Liberación 

Estamos muy cerca de celebrar la Natividad del Señor y queremos unirnos en buenos deseos con nuestro pueblo.

Así como el pueblo de Dios caminó por el desierto, en medio tribulaciones  y en la diáspora nunca dejo de mirar con el corazón hacia Jerusalén, así camina nuestro pueblo en medio de la opresión y el exilio mirando mira hacia Cuba con la esperanza en él alma y en  cada pensamiento. La esperanza que nos da la fe y la determinación de un pueblo que quiere ser libre y buscar la felicidad en su propia patria.

Los presos por causas políticas han marcado también el año. Han sido secuestrados y con dignidad asumen todo el peso de la represión por la libertad de nuestro pueblo. Sus rostros son también el de la esperanza. 

La Carta a los Hebreos en su capítulo 13 nos dice “ acuérdense de los presos como si también ustedes lo estuvieran”

Los índices de pobreza extrema aumentan y las dificultades para llevar el pan a la mesa se ha convertido en un verdadero milagro. Mientras la casta que ha secuestrado los derechos a los cubanos vive en medio de los lujos y privilegios segregando a los ciudadanos.  

Pero la injusticia no prevalecerá porque nuestra esperanza viene de lo alto, viene en Navidad de Jesucristo, un niño indefenso con frío en medio de la noche en su pobre pesebre. 

Que el próximo año nos podamos encontrar todos en nuestra patria, nuestro Hogar Nacional Cubano fraterno para que renazcan nuestras vidas en libertad, la vida espiritual del alma cubana y encontremos la felicidad en la tierra que Dios nos entregó y la Virgen de la Caridad Madre de todos los cubanos bendice. 

Celebremos este nacimiento con alegría y esperanza, para que Dios continúe junto a nosotros en este largo caminar.

Volvamos nuestros corazones a Dios, porque la libertad de Cuba pasará necesariamente por la fe y los valores. 

¡Feliz Navidad! Dios bendiga a nuestra amada Cuba!

Todos Cubanos, Todos Hermanos y Ahora la Libertad!

 Movimiento Cristiano Liberación

24 de diciembre 2023

Fuente: https://mcliberacion.org/2023/12/mensaje-de-navidad-2023-movimiento-cristiano-liberacion/

A Christmas Miracle: The End of the Soviet Union

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him. " - Mohandas Gandhi

Christmas returned to the Kremlin

Thirty years one ago, on December 25, 1991, a regime born in 1917 and formerly named in 1922 came to an end. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or as it was also known, the Soviet Union, was formerly brought to an end on Christmas day and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. The last day of the Soviet Union was on Christmas day. Let that sink in for a moment.

Now there are those who claim that the world is a less stable place without the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Gorbachev claims that it could have been reformed. Academic Stephen F. Cohen goes further and quotes approvingly both Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the adage: "Anyone who does not regret the breakup of the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who thinks it can be reconstructed has no head." Vaclav Havel, a man who had both head and heart, understood why this kind of regime was so profoundly inhuman: "As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it."

The optimism expressed by Gorbachev and the nostalgia of Cohen fails to take into account the human cost of the USSR. The Soviet Union took the lives of an estimated 61 million human beings. It was a brutal and evil system that allied with Nazi Germany to start WW2 in 1939, and afterwards spawned other brutal regimes around the globe that claimed over 100 million lives. Their lives mattered. Vaclav Havel, in his 1990 New Years Speech, called on his countrymen not to forget:  

"The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own newfound freedom." 

The number of lives lost is only the material accounting and does not take into account the spiritual ruin visited upon billions and its aftermath to the present day. The late Czech president  explained it in the very same address.

"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."

The destruction, both material and spiritual, generated by the Soviet Union over seventy years will take centuries to repair and transcend. That hard truth may not be cause for celebration, but the end of the system that wreaked so much damage is cause for celebration, not regret. To do otherwise is to be heartless. The fact that it happened without violence on Christmas Day in 1991 is also cause for joy. 

Sadly, Vladimir Putin on February 24, 2022 expanded his war into Ukraine in what some view as an attempt to resurrect the Soviet empire and the rivers of blood are flowing again, and we do not know how it will end. Gorbachev passed away on August 30, 2022 a respected figure abroad, but reviled in Russia. He was in many ways the polar opposite of Vladimir Putin.

Secondly, the largest remaining communist regime, the Peoples Republic of China, remains in power and  with the aid of smaller communist powers (Cuba, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, and their networks) is backing Putin's invasion of Ukraine. The Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021. It is a tragedy that they did not go the same way as the Soviet Union in 1991.

Over 6.8 million people have died due to a pandemic unleashed by the communist dictatorship in Beijing. However, this is a small number for the Communist Chinese Party that has killed more than ten times as many Chinese people to advance communist policies in China alone. 

People of goodwill must continue to work for and pray for the day that a second miracle can be celebrated with the the end of communism in China, and a third miracle with the defeat of the Russian invaders in Ukraine.  

A Christmas Message from the Christian Liberation Movement

Ten years ago following the murder of their national coordinator and youth leader by Castro's secret police, the Christian Liberation Movement re-released this Christmas message by Oswaldo Payá.

 

 Happy New Year 2023 to all Cubans. Year of Liberation 

 The MCL Coordinating Council has decided to re-release the Christmas message of 1990, which our national coordinator Oswaldo Payá wrote on behalf of our Movement. Reading it we found that its contents, twenty one Christmases later remains equally beautiful and appreciated. Today, on behalf of your people, we say to you: Thank you for this gift Oswaldo. Hopefully Cubans today will start making this utopia possible. 

It is is our hope that it will be so: 

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas wrote MCL's 1990 Christmas Message

  

Christmas Message 1990

The rifles will be buried face down, the words of hatred will vanish in the heart without reaching the lips, we'll go out into the street and all of us will see in the other a brother, let us look to the future with the peace of he that knows that he forgave and he that has been forgiven. Let there be no blood to clean or dead to bury, the shadow of fear and of catastrophe will give way to the reconciliatory light, and Cuba will be reborn in every heart, in a miracle of love made by God and us.

That will be the Liberation, it will be the new life and all of us will have the sensation that we are all good and want to be good, that everyone wants the other to be happy, it will be like that special time, and it will be like Christmas, that same Christmas when Jesus arrives.

Cubans!, that this hope not die, let us not be discouraged. We believe it is possible and we work and struggle with all our hearts, to make this, that many call utopia, possible and for which, if necessary, we will give our lives without claiming the lives of others.

That those who hold power and for a long time have had great privileges and have lived as the rich in the midst of a poor people reflect on it.

The people have no voice and want to express themselves. The nation disintegrates and Cubans want to save her, save Cuba for all, Cuba is greater than the power of a few and those that have that power that do not feel attacked, because the people awake, do not abuse the nobility of the Cuban people. Come on men of power! For you to there is a place among the people if you descend from the stands, and that is better than power.

Let all within Cuba and outside Cuba reflect. Let us act with great courage, but with a lot of responsibility, with great firmness but especially with much love.

Let us not turn to violence and force, but we will not submit or allow ourselves to be intimidated by them. Yes, we want change, changes in all of society, because the heart of Cuba has already changed, and we have renovated it in hope, work, suffering and sorrow. We have renovated ourselves and do not want Cuba to sink and our children with her. That violence not explode, that repression not explode, that the truth break out, and let there be an outbreak of Peace and Freedom.

No one in Cuba wants to submit to a foreign power, or return to other forms of injustice. Let us not fool ourselves any more, Cubans know what we want: we want reconciliation among all, we want a reunion with our distant brothers in exile, we want to work for our Country and our families, with boundless generosity to our hard work and positive creativity, we want dialogue, we want to solve this juncture of our history together, with love, we want freedom. We know it is possible and we will achieve it, it will be everyone’s victory.

Yes, Jesus is coming, he who was also a victim of violence, victim of the mob and its repudiation, victim of the pride of the powerful and of the slaves of the lie. Jesus is coming and he brings the victory of life over death, of love over hatred. He is the only one who brings true Liberation. That is Christmas.

The Christian Liberation Movement wishes you a Merry Christmas!

December 2012

The original Spanish text is available here.

A Christmas Miracle: The End of the Soviet Union

"My religion is based on truth and non-violence. Truth is my God. Non-violence is the means of realising Him. " - Mohandas Gandhi

Christmas returns to the Kremlin

Thirty years ago, on December 25, 1991, a regime born in 1917 and formerly named in 1922 came to an end. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or as it was also known, the Soviet Union, was formerly brought to an end on Christmas day and replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States. The last day of the Soviet Union was on Christmas day. Let that sink in for a moment.

Now there are those who claim that the world is a less stable place without the Soviet Union, and Mikhail Gorbachev claims that it could have been reformed. Academic Stephen F. Cohen goes further and quotes approvingly both Putin and Mikhail Khodorkovsky with the adage: "Anyone who does not regret the breakup of the Soviet Union has no heart. And anyone who thinks it can be reconstructed has no head." Vaclav Havel, a man who had both head and heart, understood why this kind of regime was so profoundly inhuman: "As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it."

The optimism expressed by Gorbachev and the nostalgia of Cohen fails to take into account the human cost of the USSR. The Soviet Union took the lives of an estimated 61 million human beings. It was a brutal and evil system that allied with Nazi Germany to start WW2 in 1939, and afterwards spawned other brutal regimes around the globe that claimed over 100 million lives. Their lives mattered. Vaclav Havel, in his 1990 New Years Speech, called on his countrymen not to forget:  

"The rivers of blood that have flowed in Hungary, Poland, Germany and recently in such a horrific manner in Romania, as well as the sea of blood shed by the nations of the Soviet Union, must not be forgotten. First of all because all human suffering concerns every other human being. But more than this, they must also not be forgotten because it is these great sacrifices that form the tragic background of today's freedom or the gradual emancipation of the nations of the Soviet Bloc, and thus the background of our own newfound freedom." 

The number of lives lost is only the material accounting and does not take into account the spiritual ruin visited upon billions and its aftermath to the present day. The late Czech president  explained it in the very same address.

"The worst thing is that we live in a contaminated moral environment. We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought. We learned not to believe in anything, to ignore one another, to care only about ourselves. Concepts such as love, friendship, compassion, humility or forgiveness lost their depth and dimension, and for many of us they represented only psychological peculiarities, or they resembled gone-astray greetings from ancient times, a little ridiculous in the era of computers and spaceships."

The destruction, both material and spiritual, generated by the Soviet Union over seventy years will take centuries to repair and transcend. That hard truth may not be cause for celebration, but the end of the system that wreaked so much damage is cause for celebration, not regret. To do otherwise is to be heartless. The fact that it happened without violence on Christmas Day in 1991 is also cause for joy. 

Sadly, the largest remaining communist regime, the Peoples Republic of China, remains in power and continues to do harm around the world with the aid of smaller communist powers (Cuba, Laos, Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela, Vietnam, and their networks). The Chinese Communist Party celebrated the 100th anniversary of its founding in 2021. It is a tragedy that they did not go the same way as the Soviet Union in 1991.

Time to pray and work for a new miracle in China

Over 5.4 million people have died due to a pandemic unleashed by the communist dictatorship in Beijing. However, this is a small number for the Communist Chinese Party that has killed more than ten times as many Chinese people to advance communist policies in China alone. 

 People of goodwill must continue to work for and pray for the day that a second miracle can be celebrated with the the end of communism in China, and a new dawn of freedom around the world.

Cuban Grinch, dead five years, outlawed Christmas in Cuba for 29 years. Political show trials through Christmas 2021 show toxic legacy continues

 

The fictional original Grinch, and the more sinister real life counterpart

American children's author, Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss brought the Grinch into existence in 1955, and wrote about How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 1957. In  the story the Grinch, a creature covered in green fur, decides to stop Christmas from coming. He does this by dressing up like Santa Claus then proceeds to expropriate all of the presents, the Christmas tree, and the food for the Christmas feast among those observing the holiday.

Although not covered in green fur, Fidel Castro dressed in a green camouflage uniform throughout his dictatorial rule. He claimed to be a force of liberation, but in short order began expropriating everyone's property, mass executions, and turned the country into a vast prison. In the case of Cuba children were familiar with the Three Kings, and propaganda murals portrayed Mr. Castro and other revolutionaries in that light.

The Independent (Ireland) in 2017 had Fidel Castro on the short list of Grinch like figures who were sworn enemies of Christmas, and there is reason for the comparison.

 Fidel Castro canceled Christmas in 1969 under the pretext to prevent work shortages for the 1970 ten million ton sugar harvest but continued the ban through 1997. The Cuban dictator would send mobs to intimidate Cubans who attended religious services. Three Kings Day and Easter were also abolished. 

Priests who stayed behind often paid a terrible price.

In 1976 the Castro dictatorship adopted a constitution which turned Cuba into an atheist state. 

Unlike the Grinch, Fidel Castro did not restore Christmas due to a change of heart.  It took 29 years and a Catholic Pope leveraging the old dictator.

Pope John Paul II negotiated for the return of Christmas as an official holiday in Cuba in conversations surrounding his 1998 visit to Cuba. 

Cubans were finally no longer subjected to state repression for observing Christmas, and began to be officially observed on December 25, 1998. 

Despite the formal return of Christmas, repression still takes place over the holidays on the tropical island.

State Security does not go on holiday.

Ten years ago, on Christmas day 2011 three Ladies in White Leticia Ramos Herrería, age 42, Sayma Lamas, age 43, and Elizabeth Pacheco Lamas, age 20 were beaten up and detained by state security agents. The secret police punched and kicked the women and stopped them from attending Christmas Mass.

Lady in White Leticia Ramos

Cuban independent journalist and labor activist Iván Hernández Carrillo in a series of tweets on January 5, 2017 reported on repression against Lady in White Leticia Ramos Herrería and her family in order to prevent them giving toys to children on January 6, 2017:

Combined forces of the national police and secret police raided the home of Lady in White Leticia Ramos this morning (tweeted on January 5th at 1:53pm). Armed forces confiscated the toys that were in the home for Three Kings Day in Cárdenas, Matanzas (1:54pm). In the raid they brutally beat up Randy Monteoca and Alexey Ramos son and brother of the Lady in White, were also arrested (1:55pm). Since this morning the situation of Lady in White Leticia Ramos is unknown, her mobile phone is off or outside the coverage area (6:14pm).  This morning at 11:05am Iván Hernández Carrillo tweeted that "Leticia Ramos and her son Randy Monteoca released yesterday afternoon, the latter with a 2,000 peso fine.

This state security operation was not taking place in a vacuum.  Not only were human rights overall in serious decline in Cuba, but religious repression in 2016 reached levels not seen since 1992.

The Office of Religious Affairs (ORA), an arm of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party, continues to oversee religious affairs in Cuba, and exists to monitor, hinder and restrict religious activities.

Meanwhile,the repressive apparatus continues to grind on destroying Cuban lives. Over 90 Cubans have been subjected to political show trials between December 13th and December 23rd. 

CiberCuba reported today on the condemnation of a father and daughter present during the July protests.

Fredi Beirut Matos, (64) Katia Beirut Rodríguez, (36), condemned 20 years in prison

Fredi Beirut Matos, (age 64), and his daughter, Katia Beirut Rodríguez, (age 36), both witnessed the killing of Diubis Laurencio by police, in Havana, were both sentenced on Thursday December 23, 2021 to 20 years in prison for the alleged crime of sedition. Independent journalist Claudia Padrón Cueto denounced on her Facebook profile, based on a previous publication by a relative, that their "greatest crime is they witnessed how police killed Laurencio, a Black man, from a poor neighborhood who was unarmed, who was shot. The military prosecutor's office says it was in self-defense. The videos of his death show that the only thing that he had was a cell phone in his hand. Fredi and Katia were direct witnesses and they are paying for it, " 

The proceedings continued today on Christmas Eve in the Isle of Pines.

Vicente Morin Aguado reports in Havana Times that the prosecution is requesting that Martha de los Ángeles Pérez Acosta, Ramón Salazar Infante and Francisco Alfaro Diéguez be sentenced to three years in prison, and Juan Luis Sánchez González be sentenced to eight years in prison for "inciting public disorder." 

What did they actually do? They proclaimed in a city park the lack of existing freedoms, and called for democracy.

Hundreds of Cuban families are suffering across the island this Christmas as the dictatorship launches another wave to terrorize and silence Cubans.

The Cuban Grinch died in 2016, but his toxic legacy continues.