Ronald Reagan's "Evil Empire Speech" on March 8, 2023 was about much more than the Soviet Union and is even more relevant today

"How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."  - Ronald Reagan, September 25, 1987

 

Forty years ago President Ronald Reagan gave a speech that recognized America's past sins, the improvements and sacrifices made to be better, and called on Reverend Clergy to take action due to "the resurgence of some hate groups preaching bigotry and prejudice. Use the mighty voice of your pulpits and the powerful standing of your churches to denounce and isolate these hate groups in our midst. The commandment given us is clear and simple: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.'" He addressed other moral challenges in the United States, before looking outward to the communist threat. President Reagan went to first principles, and Vladimir Lenin's belief that "Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war." Lenin's evil morality has been examined in this blog before.  The 40th president also reflected on the spiritual nature of the struggle. This speech is even more relevant today in its entirety than in 1983, and should be required reading.

RONALD REAGAN, “EVIL EMPIRE SPEECH” (8 MARCH 1983)

President Reagan: Thank you…[Applause]…Thank you very much…Thank you very much…[Applause subsides]…Thank you very much…and, Reverend Clergy all, and Senator Hawkins, distinguished members of the Florida congressional delegation, and all of you:

I can’t tell you how you have warmed my heart with your welcome. I’m delighted to be here today.

Those of you in the National Association of Evangelicals are known for your spiritual and humanitarian work. And I would be especially remiss if I didn’t discharge right now one personal debt of gratitude. Thank you for your prayers. Nancy and I have felt their presence many times in many ways. And believe me, for us they’ve made all the difference.

The other day in the East Room of the White House at a meeting there, someone asked me whether I was aware of all the people out there who were praying for the President. And I, had to say, “Yes, I am. I’ve felt it. I believe in intercessionary prayer.” But I couldn’t help but say to that questioner after he’d asked the question that–or at least say to them that if sometimes when he was praying he got a busy signal, it was just me in there ahead of him. [Laughter] I think I understand how Abraham Lincoln felt when he said, “I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”

From the joy and the good feeling of this conference, I go to a political reception. Now, [Laughter] I don’t know why, but that bit of scheduling reminds me of a story–[Laughter]–which I’ll share with you:

An evangelical minister and a politician arrived at Heaven’s gate one day together. And St. Peter, after doing all the necessary formalities, took them in hand to show them where their quarters would be. And he took them to a small, single room with a bed, a chair, and a table and said this was for the clergyman. And the politician was a little worried about what might be in store for him. And he couldn’t believe it then when St. Peter stopped in front of a beautiful mansion with lovely grounds… many servants, and told him that these would be his quarters.

And he couldn’t help but ask, he said, “But wait, how–there’s something wrong–how do I get this mansion while that good and holy man only gets a single room?” And St. Peter said, “You have to understand how things are up here. We’ve got thousands and thousands of clergy. You’re the first politician who ever made it.” [Laughter and Applause]

But I don’t want to contribute to a stereotype. [Laughter] So I tell you there are a great many God-fearing, dedicated, noble men and women in public life, present company included. And yes, we need your help to keep us ever mindful of the ideas and the principles that brought us into the public arena in the first place. The basis of those ideals and principles is… a commitment to freedom and personal liberty that, itself is grounded in the much deeper realization that freedom prospers only where the blessings of God are avidly (mispronounces and corrects himself) sought and humbly accepted.

The American experiment in democracy rests on this insight. Its discovery was the great triumph of our Founding Fathers, voiced by William Penn when he said: “If we will not be governed by God, we must be governed by tyrants.” Explaining the inalienable rights of men, Jefferson said, “The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.” And it was George Washington who said that “of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”

And finally, that shrewdest of all observers of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, put it eloquently, after he had gone on a search for the secret of America’s greatness and genius–and he said: “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the greatness and the genius of America. America is good. And if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” [Applause]

Well, I’m… [Applause] ..Well, I’m pleased to be here today with you who are keeping America great by keeping her good. Only through your work and prayers and those of millions of others can we hope to survive this perilous century and keep alive this experiment in liberty, this last, best hope of man.

I want you to know that this administration is motivated by a political philosophy that sees the greatness of America in you, her people, and in your families, churches, neighborhoods, communities–the institutions that foster and nourish values like concern for others and respect for the rule of law under God.

Now, I don’t have to tell you that this puts us in opposition to, or at least out of step with, a–a prevailing attitude of many who have turned to a modern-day secularism, discarding the tried and time-tested values upon which our very civilization is based. No matter how well intentioned, their value system is radically different from that of most Americans. And while they proclaim that they’re freeing us from superstitions of the past, they’ve taken upon themselves the job of superintending us by government rule and regulation. Sometimes their voices are louder than ours, but they are not yet a majority. [Applause]

An example of that vocal superiority is evident in a controversy now going on in Washington. And since I’m involved, I’ve been waiting to hear from the parents of young America. How far are they willing to go in giving to government their prerogatives as parents?

Let me state the case as briefly and simply as I can. An organization of citizens, sincerely motivated, deeply concerned about the increase in illegitimate births and abortions involving girls well below the age of consent, some time ago established a nationwide network of clinics to offer help to these girls and, hopefully, alleviate this situation. Now, again, let me say, I do not fault their intent. However, in their well-intentioned effort, these clinics decided to provide advice and birth control drugs and devices to underage girls without the knowledge of their parents.

For some years now, the federal government has helped with funds to subsidize these clinics. In providing for this, the Congress decreed that every effort would be made to maximize parental participation. Nevertheless, the drugs and devices are prescribed without getting parental consent or giving notification after they’ve done so. Girls termed “sexually active”–and that has replaced the word “promiscuous”–are given this help in order to prevent illegitimate worth/birth (quickly corrects himself) eh or abortion.

Well, we have ordered clinics receiving federal funds to notify the parents such help has been given. [Applause] One of the nation’s leading newspapers has created the term “squeal rule” in editorializing against us for doing this, and we’re being criticized for violating the privacy of young people. A judge has recently granted an injunction against an enforcement of our rule. I’ve watched TV panel shows discuss this issue, seen columnists pontificating on our error, but no one seems to mention morality as playing a part in the subject of sex. [Applause]

Is all of Judeo-Christian tradition wrong? Are we to believe that something so sacred can be looked upon as a purely physical thing with no potential for emotional and psychological harm? And isn’t it the parents’ right to give counsel and advice to keep their children from making mistakes that may affect their entire lives? [Slight crescendo of voice and emphasis–Long Applause]

Many of us in government would like to know what parents think about this intrusion in their family by government. We’re going to fight in the courts. The right of parents and the rights of family take precedence over those of Washington-based bureaucrats and social engineers. [Applause]

But the fight against parental notification is really only one example of many attempts to water down traditional values and even abrogate the original terms of American democracy. Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged. [Applause] When our founding fathers passed the First Amendment, they sought to protect churches from government interference. They never intended to construct a wall of hostility between government and the concept of religious belief itself. [Murmurs of agreement, Applause]

The evidence of this permeates our history and our government. The Declaration of Independence mentions the Supreme Being no less than four times. “In God We Trust” is engraved on our coinage. The Supreme Court opens its proceedings with a religious invocation. And the members of Congress open their sessions with a prayer. I just happen to believe the schoolchildren of the United States are entitled to the same privileges as [Continues over applause] Supreme Court Justices and Congressmen.

Last year, I sent the Congress a constitutional amendment to restore prayer to public schools. Already this session, there’s growing bipartisan support for the amendment, and I am calling on the Congress to act speedily to pass it and to let our children pray. [Applause]

Perhaps some of you, read recently about the Lubbock school case, where a judge actually ruled that it was unconstitutional for a school district to give equal treatment to religious and nonreligious student groups, even when the group meetings were being held during the students’ own time. The First Amendment never intended to require government to discriminate against religious speech. [Applause]

Senators Denton and Hatfield have proposed legislation in the Congress on the whole question of prohibiting discrimination against religious forms of student speech. Such legislation could go far to restore freedom of religious speech for public school students. And I hope the Congress considers these bills quickly. And with your help, I think it’s possible we could also get the constitutional amendment through the Congress this year. [Applause]

More than a decade ago, a Supreme Court decision literally wiped off the books of fifty states, statutes protecting the rights of unborn children. Abortion on demand now takes the lives of up to one and a half million unborn children a year. Human life legislation ending this tragedy will someday pass the Congress, and you and I must never rest until it does. [Applause] Unless and until it can be proven that the unborn child is not a living entity, then its right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness must be protected. [Applause]

You…You may remember that when abortion on demand began, many, and indeed, I’m sure many of you, warned that the practice would lead to a decline in respect for human life, that the philosophical premises used to justify abortion on demand would ultimately be used to justify other attacks on the sacredness of human life–infanticide or mercy killing. Tragically enough, those warnings proved all too true. Only last year a court permitted the death by starvation of a handicapped infant.

I have directed the Health and Human Services Department to make clear to every health care facility in the United States that the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protects all handicapped persons against discrimination based on handicaps, including infants. [Applause] And we have taken the further step of requiring that each and every recipient of federal funds who provides health care… services to infants must post and keep posted in a conspicuous place a notice stating that “discriminatory failure to feed and care for handicapped infants in this facility is prohibited by federal law.” It also lists a twenty-four-hour; toll-free number so that nurses and others may report violations in time to save the infant’s life. [Applause]

In addition, recent legislation introduced by–in the Congress–by Representative Henry Hyde of Illinois not only increases restrictions on publicly financed abortions, it also addresses this whole problem of infanticide. I urge the Congress to begin hearings and to adopt legislation that will protect the right of life to all children, including the disabled or handicapped.

Now, I’m sure that you must get discouraged at times, but there you’ve done better than you know, perhaps. There’s a great spiritual awakening in America, a [Applause]…a renewal of the traditional values that have been the bedrock of America’s goodness and greatness.

One recent survey by a Washington-based research council concluded that Americans were far more religious than the people of other nations; 95 percent of those surveyed expressed a belief in God and a huge majority believed the Ten Commandments had real meaning in their lives, and another study has found that an overwhelming majority of Americans disapprove of adultery, teenage sex, pornography, abortion, and hard drugs, and this same study showed a deep reverence for the importance of family ties and religious belief.

I [Applause]…I think the items that we’ve discussed here today must be a key part of the nation’s political agenda. For the first time the Congress is openly and seriously debating and dealing with the prayer and abortion issues–and that’s enormous progress right there. I repeat: America is in the midst of a spiritual awakening and a moral renewal. And with your biblical keynote, I say today, “Yes, let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.”

Now, [Applause]…obviously, much of this new political and social consensus I’ve talked about is based on a positive view of American history, one that takes pride in our country’s accomplishments and record. But we must never forget that no government schemes are going to perfect man. We know that living in this world means dealing with what philosophers would call the phenomenology of evil or, as theologians would put it, the doctrine of sin.

There is sin and evil in the world, and we’re enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might. Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal. The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens…for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war is now a point of pride for all Americans. We must never go back. There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country. [Long Applause]

I know that you’ve been horrified, as have I, by the resurgence of some hate groups preaching bigotry and prejudice. Use the mighty voice of your pulpits and the powerful standing of your churches to denounce and isolate these hate groups in our midst. The commandment given us is clear and simple: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” [Applause]

But whatever sad episodes exist in our past, any objective observer must hold a positive view of American history, a history that has been the story of hopes fulfilled and dreams made into reality. Especially in this century, America has kept alight the torch of freedom, but not just for ourselves, but for millions of others around the world.

And this brings me to my final point today. During my first press conference as president, in answer to a direct question, I pointed out that, as good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. I think I should point out I was only quoting Lenin, their guiding spirit, who said in 1920 that they repudiate all morality that proceeds from supernatural ideas–that’s their name for religion–or ideas that are outside class conceptions. Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. And everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat.

Well, I think the refusal of many influential people to accept this elementary fact of Soviet doctrine illustrates an historical reluctance to see totalitarian powers for what they are. We saw this phenomenon in the 1930s. We see it too often today.

This doesn’t mean we should isolate ourselves and refuse to seek an understanding with them. I intend to do everything I can to persuade them of our peaceful intent, to remind them that it was the West that refused to use its nuclear monopoly in the forties and fifties for territorial gain and which now pr-proposes 50 percent cut in strategic ballistic missiles and the elimination of an entire class of land-based, intermediate-range nuclear missiles. [Applause]

At the same time, however, they must be made to understand: we will never compromise our principles and standards. We will never give away our freedom. We will never abandon our belief in God. [Long Applause] And we will never stop searching for a genuine peace, but we can assure none of these things America stands for through the so-called nuclear freeze solutions proposed by some.

The truth is that a freeze now would be a very dangerous fraud, for that is merely the illusion of peace. The reality is that we must find peace through strength. [Applause]

I would a-[Applause continuing]…I would agree to a freeze if only we could freeze the Soviets’ global desires. [Laughter, Applause] A freeze at current levels of weapons would remove any incentive for the Soviets to negotiate seriously in Geneva and virtually end our chances to achieve the major arms reductions which we have proposed. Instead, they would achieve their objectives through the freeze.

A freeze would reward the Soviet Union for its enormous and unparalleled military buildup. It would prevent the essential and long overdue modernization of United States and allied defenses and would leave our aging forces increasingly vulnerable. And an honest freeze would require extensive prior negotiations on the systems and numbers to be limited and on the measures to ensure effective verification and compliance. And the kind of a freeze that has been suggested would be virtually impossible to verify. Such a major effort would divert us completely from our current negotiations on achieving substantial reductions. [Applause]

I, a number of years ago, I heard a young father, a very prominent young man in the entertainment world, addressing a tremendous gathering in California. It was during the time of the cold war, and communism and our own way of life were very much on people’s minds. And he was speaking to that subject. And suddenly, though, I heard him saying, “I love my little girls more than anything–” And I said to myself, “Oh, no, don’t. You can’t — don’t say that.” But I had underestimated him. He went on: “I would rather see my little girls die now; still believing in God, than have them grow up under communism and one day die no longer believing in God.” [Applause]

There were…There were thousands of young people in that audience. They came to their feet with shouts of joy. They had instantly recognized the profound truth in what he had said, with regard to the physical and the soul and what was truly important.

Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian darkness–pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the State, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.

It was C.S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable “Screwtape Letters,” wrote: “The greatest evil is not done now…in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is…not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result, but it is conceived and ordered; moved, seconded, carried and minuted in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice.”

Well, because these “quiet men” do not “raise their voices,” because they sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like other dictators before them, they’re always making “their final territorial demand,” some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simpleminded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.

So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States in a position of military and moral inferiority. You know, I’ve always believed that old Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the Church. So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride–the temptation of blithely..uh..declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.

I ask you to resist the attempts of those who would have you withhold your support for our efforts, this administration’s efforts, to keep America strong and free, while we negotiate–real and verifiable reductions in the world’s nuclear arsenals and one day, with God’s help, their total elimination. [Applause]

While America’s military strength is important, let me add here that I’ve always maintained that the struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.

Whittaker Chambers, the man whose own religious conversion made him a witness to one of the terrible traumas of our time, the Hiss-Chambers case, wrote that the crisis of the Western world exists to the degree in which the West is indifferent to God, the degree to which it collaborates in communism’s attempt to make man stand alone without God. And then he said, for Marxism-Leninism is actually the second-oldest faith, first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with the words of temptation, “Ye shall be as gods.”

The Western world can answer this challenge, he wrote, “but only provided that its faith in God and the freedom He enjoins is as great as communism’s faith in Man.”

I believe we shall rise to the challenge. I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last–last pages even now are being written. I believe this because the source of our strength in the quest for human freedom is not material, but spiritual. And because it knows no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who would enslave their fellow man. For in the words of Isaiah: “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no…might He increased strength. But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary.” [Applause]

Yes, change your world. One of our founding fathers, Thomas Paine, said, “We have it within our power to begin the world over again.” We can do it, doing together what no one church could do by itself.

God bless you, and thank you very much. [Long Applause]

Communists Lie and Communism Kills: Brief overview of a terrible idea

“How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.” - Ronald Reagan

Communism prior to Marx
The word and idea of communism predates Karl Marx and first arises out of Enlightenment ideas that would fully express themselves in the French Revolution. French philosopher Victor d'Hupay in his 1777 book Projet de communauté philosophe, advanced Enlightenment principles that are the basis of a communist philosophy defined as a lifestyle called a "commune" that advises to "share all economic and material products between members of the commune, so that all benefit equally from each other's work". Communists are initially defined as those living in the commune. 

The Jacobins, supported the idea of redistributing wealth equally among the people, including Jean-Paul Marat and Gracchus Babeuf. Babeuf was involved in the Conspiracy of the Equals of 1796 intending to establish a revolutionary regime based on communal ownership, egalitarianism and the redistribution of property. The plot was however detected and he and several others involved were arrested and executed, but there attempt would inspire radicals in the future.

Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, the Communist League, and the Communist Manifesto
On February 21, 1848, The Communist Manifesto, written by Karl Marx with the assistance and patronage of Friedrich Engels is published. This political pamphlet was commissioned by the  Communist League which had come into existence in 1847and is considered the first Marxist party.   

The darker aspects of Marxism had already been self evident to some of his contemporaries as early as 1844 as Joshua Dill, the  Assistant Director of Publications at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, documented in in the September 15, 2017 article "Communism: A bad idea even in 1844." 

The Manifesto didn't offer anything new in communist theory, but a synthesis of these ideas packaged in a way that made it readily accessible, unlike some of other Marxist works such as Das Kapital. 

They were also blessed by some good timing because the tract predicted that revolution was imminent, a natural outcome of materialist historical processes, and within days of the publication, coincidentally, revolutions broke out first in France and then across Europe, but were put down by conservative forces.

Third time was the charm for totalitarianism: The Three Internationals 
Three international communist networks that span over a century sought to establish a global political network to destroy existing political orders around the world.

The  First International, also known as the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) 1864–1876 aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist political groups and trade union organizations that were all based on the working class and class struggle. It was founded in 1864 in London. The first congress was held two years later in 1866 in Geneva, Switzerland.  This network had over five million members but it split in 1872 over conflicts between communist and anarchist factions and  dissolved in 1876.

The Second International was founded on July 14, 1889 and excluded the anarchists. Their influence is still felt today around the world and important days of action were set up by them. In 1889 they declared May 1st as International Workers' Day. In 1910 they declared March 19th International Women's Day but then changed the day to March 8th to celebrate the women's marches during the Russian Revolution in 1917. They campaigned for the eight hour work day. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin had been a member since 1905. 

The Second international dissolved in 1916 over differences of how to respond to World War One but formed again in 1923 and a version of it continues to the present as the Socialist International. There were three primary divisions: parties that remained loyal to their nation state, anti-war socialists, and communists like Lenin who sought to exploit the war to unleash worldwide revolution with a redefinition that would come to be known as Marxism-Leninism in which a vanguard party leads the change to a communist future.

Vladimir Lenin

"There are no morals in politics; there is only expedience. A scoundrel may be of use to us just because he is a scoundrel." - Vladimir Lenin

Communist Morality
The first leader of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin on October 2, 1920 in a speech to Russian communist youth stated:  "The class struggle is continuing and it is our task to subordinate all interests to that struggle. Our communist morality is also subordinated to that task. We say: morality is what serves to destroy the old exploiting society and to unite all the working people around the proletariat, which is building up a new, communist society." This is at the heart of communist morality, the ends justify the means, a profound immorality and a pillar of international communism.

The Third International was founded by Lenin in 1915 and held its first of seven world congresses on March 2, 1919 and was also known as the Communist International, and was known by its abbreviated form the Comintern. It was an international communist organization that advocated world communism. The International intended to fight "by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State". The communists came to power in Russia on November 7, 1917. The Comintern was officially dissolved by Joseph Stalin in 1943 to calm the fears of his non-communist allies, but this totalitarian network remained intact but not as visible.

The power of propaganda
The Communists were excellent at diagnosing problems in society and using propaganda to exploit them, even if their solutions did not improve them. The Communist Manifesto is a perfect example of this. However they also operated in international totalitarian networks to spread the propaganda and to engage in coordinated international campaigns to achieve political power. These innovations would give communists an organizational and message advantage over traditional political parties.

Totalitarian networks and propaganda pioneer: Wilhelm Münzenberg

Perfecting totalitarian networks
The pioneer in totalitarian networks was Wilhelm "Willi" Münzenberg who impacted much of the 20th century. Münzenberg met the Russian communist revolutionary Lenin in Bern, Switzerland in 1915. It was León Trotsky who recognized in Münzenberg the talent to organize clandestine networks from almost nothing. He was part of the original Bolshevik network prior to the 1917 revolution. Following the arrival of the Soviets to power and the COMINTERN as a means to disseminate the Soviet revolution and consolidate dominance of Marxism-Leninism over the global Left; Münzenberg also used it to organize cultural power and further expand international influence.  

The first congress of the Communist International included delegates from communist or socialist parties from Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Estonia, Armenia, France, Switzerland, China, Korea, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Sweden, the United States, Azerbaijan, Yugoslavia, and the Netherlands among other countries. In 1921 Münzenberg became the director of clandestine operations of propaganda aimed at the West. To create networks of supporters Münzenberg used all the resources propaganda from high culture to the most basic. He organized the media: film, radio, theater, books, magazines, and newspapers. He was able to connect to and use all types of formers of opinion respected by the public: writers, artists, actors, priests, ministers, teachers, businessmen, scientists, and psychologists. 

The Münzenberg network was one of the key factors for the direction taken in political attitudes that operated in the 1930s. He manipulated and influenced public opinion using a network of writers and intellectuals such as: Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Lillian Hellman, George Grosz, Erwin Piscator, André Malraux, André Gide, Bertolt Brecht, Dorothy Parker to Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt. He organized protest marches, politicized writers conferences, politicized art festivals, ad hoc committees signed by famous celebrities for causes without end.  

These networks are still active today and have operated over the years in campaigns for Angela Davis (1970), Mumia Abdul Jamal (1982-2011), the Cuban Five (2000- 2014) just to name a few high profile cases.

Edmund Burke and Roger Scruton

Conservative Critique of Communism
It is no accident that modern conservatism is traced back to a profound and nuanced rejection of the French Revolution of 1789 found in the writings of Edmund Burke, and especially Reflections on the Revolution in France published in November of 1790. Burke knew the basis and structure of a traditional society and the threat of revolution to these important social structures that make civilization both possible and tolerable. This critique of the Revolution applies to Communism, and the followers of Edmund Burke, and Roger Scruton, one of his intellectual descendants in an essay titled  "What can Europe learn from communism?"explained one of the great errors of communism and the fragile superiority of democracy in a free society.

"The great error of the communists was to eliminate opposition, to conscript the people into a ‘unity’ that they had not chosen and were not allowed to question. The great benefit of democracy is that it makes opposition possible and also legitimate. But this has the consequence that, in a democracy, more than half the people at any moment might be living under a government that they did not choose, maybe a government that they hate. What makes that possible? Why do democracies not break down, under the pressure of popular dissent? The answer is simple: they don’t break down because the loyalty of the citizen is not towards the government, but towards something higher, something that is shared between all the citizens, regardless of their political beliefs and inclinations. This higher thing is the nation, the entity to which we all belong, and which defines the first-person plural of democratic politics."

The results time and time again when communists take power and dissent is outlawed and elections no longer contest power between political parties, but only to ratify fidelity to the ruling class, the end results are piles of dead bodies, destroyed societies, and generations of mistrust among the survivors. Despite the claims made about education and healthcare in these regimes, children have been treated horribly. The paradox of communism is that it spawns societies that are profoundly antisocial. Police states with informants spying on neighbors does not build social bonds, but paranoia and distrust.

Communists today embrace this statement when they dispute the death count of 100 million victims of communism, and manufacture their own numbers, including millions of victims of communism, in their lists claiming over a billion dead due to capitalism.

1. Weirdly enough none of those deaths happen in "capitalist" countries
2. Longevity & survival have improved at breathtaking pace *everywhere* over the past century. But yes, "capitalism hasn't saved enough people" totally = "all the people capitalism has killed" https://t.co/beD343Q6fX

— Cathy Young (@CathyYoung63) August 24, 2020

Responding to some false claims against capitalism 
Beware of the small print used by the communists. Out of the 1.6 billion deaths they blame on Capitalism a fair amount can be challenged, but some are just absurd. Consider the following taken from the embedded Tweet above in small print:

World War 2 was started by an alliance between Nazi Germany and the Communist Russia. Both regimes were hostile to capitalism and liberal democracy. On August 23, 1939 they signed the Hitler Stalin Pact and over the next month launched invasions from each country dividing up Poland and starting WW2. Therefore, the dead in that war can be laid at the feet of fascism and communism, not capitalism. However, if liberal capitalist regimes like the United States had not supplied billions in aid to the USSR, after the Nazis double crossed Stalin and invaded Russia in June 1941, the outcome of the war might have been very different.

The claim that India between 1947 and 1990 had a "capitalist policy" is not true. The first elected leader of an independent India was Jawaharlal Nehru and he was a democratic socialist who believed that "Socialism is after all not only a way of life, but a certain scientific approach to social and economic problems." India under Nehru nationalized the means of production and the banks, but despite being a socialist regime, it remained a democracy. This meant that opposition parties were able to run for office in contested elections, and there was a free press to report on the economic failures of socialism. To call this a "capitalist policy" is a falsehood.

Worse yet the Famine of 1932-33 (Kulak policy and weather) was a famine manufactured by Josef Stalin. It is a crime of communism, and to blame it on capitalism is a lie.

The Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia in a communist revolution with backing from Beijing in 1975 and were forced out of power by the Soviet backed Vietnamese in 1979 and in the space of less than four years killed over 2 million people, or a third of the entire population. They were and are true believing communists who carried out a radical and profound revolution.

Lastly, the communists blame capitalism for over 306 million deaths due to cigarettes between 1960 and 2011. Capitalism did not force individuals to buy and consume cigarettes. Liberal democracies carried out public campaigns against cigarette smoking and restricted its use, and taxed it heavily.

What is equally interesting and not mentioned is that cigarette smoking is also widespread in communist regimes that do not have capitalism, and in China it was tobacco production that drove their economy in the early 1990s.  People freely choosing to smoke, and other bad habits cannot be blamed on capitalism.

People not statistics
 
Some psychologists argue that as the number of victims increase into the hundreds, and thousands that compassion collapses out of the human fear of being overwhelmed. Soviet dictator Josef Stalin put it more succinctly: "When one man dies it's a tragedy. When thousands die it's statistics."  

Therefore will highlight specific victims of communism from around the world over different decades.

Milada Horakova of Czechoslovakia (1950)

Milada Horakova at her show trial in 1950

Milada Horakova was hanged with three others in Prague’s Pankrac Prison as a spy and traitor to the Communist Czechoslovakian government on June 27, 1950. She was a  lawyer, social democrat, and a prominent feminist in the interwar and postwar periods. She had been a member of the Czech resistance to the Nazi occupation of her homeland and survived a Nazi prison. After Czechoslovakia was liberated from the Nazis in 1945 by the Soviets she became a member of parliament in 1946 but resigned her seat after the Communist coup of 1948. However she refused to abandon her country.

Adam D. E. Watkins in his 2010 paper "The Show Trial of J U Dr. Milada Horáková: The Catalyst for Social Revolution in Communist Czechoslovakia, 1950" explains the importance of the show trial in gutting democratic traditions and replacing them with Stalinism:

The study deconstructs the show trial’s influence on inducing a country to foster the Communist movement against decades of democratic traditions. The research reveals the impact of the show trial of Dr. Milada Horáková in 1950 and how it was instrumental in reforming a society, marked the beginning of Stalinism, and ushered forth a perverted system of justice leading to a cultural transformation after the Communist putsch. Furthermore, the revolution truncated intellectual thought and signified the end of many social movements – including the women’s rights movement

According to D. E. Watkings Horáková was seen by the public as a symbol of  the First Republic and of democracy. Unlike others who did break under the relentless psychological and physical torture she never did. The communists tried to edit her testimony for propaganda purposes but as Radio Prague in their 2005 report on the discovery of the unedited tapes of her trial:

[S]he faced her show trial with calm and defiance, refusing to be broken. Audio recordings - intended to be used by the Communists for propaganda purposes - were mostly never aired, for the large part because for the Party's purposes, they were unusable.

Because she refused to cooperate her punishment was particularly severe, even for the death penalty. In 2007 her prosecutor Ludmila Brozova-Polednova who in 1950 had helped to condemn Horakova to death, now 86, was tried as an accomplice to murder. During the trial Radio Prague reported that a note written by an anonymous eye-witness to Milada Horakova's execution quoted the young prosecutor recommending: "Don't break her neck on the noose, Suffocate the bitch - and the others too." Milada Horáková  was executed in Pankrác Prison on 27 June 1950 by a particularly torturous method: "intentionally slow strangulation, which according to historians took 15 minutes^. She was 48 years old." The urn with her ashes was never given to her family nor is it known what became of them.

Milada Horáková: 25 December 1901, Prague – 27 June 1950, Prague

In a letter to her 16 year old teenage daughter Milada explained why she had refused to compromise with evil. Her daughter received the letter 40 years later after the end of communist rule:

The reason was not that I loved you little; I love you just as purely and fervently as other mothers love their children. But I understood that my task here in the world was to do you good … by seeing to it that life becomes better, and that all children can live well. … Don’t be frightened and sad because I am not coming back any more. Learn, my child, to look at life early as a serious matter. Life is hard, it does not pamper anybody, and for every time it strokes you it gives you ten blows. Become accustomed to that soon, but don’t let it defeat you. Decide to fight.

June 27th, the day of Milada Horakova's execution is now recognized in the Czech Republic as “Commemoration day for the victims of the Communist regime.”

Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (1975)

Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie I

Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie I was believed to be the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. Selassie had served first as regent of Ethiopia from 1916 to 1930 and was emperor from 1930 to 1974. He was the heir to a dynasty that traced its origins to the 13th century, and from there by tradition back to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. At the League of Nations in 1936, Emperor Selassie condemned the use of chemical weapons by Fascist Italy against the people of Ethiopia. Ethiopia was the one independent African state during a time when the rest of the continent was under colonial rule. H.I.M. Haile Selassie , the lion of Judah, resisted the Fascist invasion of his homeland Ethiopia and warned the world of its threat when he addressed the League of Nations. He would go into exile in Great Britain but returned home after the defeat of the fascists.

Emperor Haile Selassie's internationalist views led to Ethiopia becoming a charter member of the United Nations, and his political thought and experience in promoting multilateralism and collective security are still viewed as part of his enduring legacy. Despite inspiring the founding of a religion that today has up to 800,000 followers he remained an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian until his death.

Raul Castro & Fidel Castro with close ally Mengistu Haile Mariam

Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed in a communist  military coup and it is believed that the officers smothered him and that Mengistu Haile Mariam: "ordered the emperor's body to be buried head down in the palace and had a lavatory erected over the grave so that he could express daily his contempt for the monarch." Winston Churchill had described Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie I as "the only enlightened Abyssinian prince." In December 1994 The New York Times reported that an Ethiopian court described "how Emperor Haile Selassie was 'strangled in his bed most cruelly' in 1975 by order of the leaders of a Marxist military coup."

Less than a decade after Mengistu fled into exile on November 5, 2000, Haile Selassie was given an Imperial funeral by the Ethiopian Orthodox church. Bob Marley's widow, Rita Marley, participated in the funeral.

 Laura Inés Pollán of Cuba (2011)

Laura Pollán, founding leader of the Ladies in White

Laura Inés Pollán Toledo was a courageous woman who spoke truth to power and protested in the streets of Cuba demanding an amnesty for Cuban political prisoners. A woman who had been a school teacher, before her husband was jailed for his independent journalism in 2003.

Laura Pollán became a dissident when her husband Hector Maseda was imprisoned during the Black Cuban Spring of 2003 along with more than 75 other activists and civil society members. She was one of the founders of the Ladies in White and challenged the Castro regime on the streets of Cuba. Following brutal repression in an effort to prevent them from marching through the streets of Havana Laura Pollan directly and nonviolently challenged the regime: "We will never give up our protest. The authorities have three options — free our husbands, imprison us or kill us. 

Despite all the efforts of the Cuban communist dictatorship that has a monopoly over force and the mass media in Cuba, Laura was able with a small group of courageous women to take to the streets and demonstrate. Not once or twice but on a weekly basis since her husband was unjustly imprisoned in March of 2003. The dictatorship did everything they could to stop them, including brute violence. Bruises and broken bones did not deter these ladies and they continued marching with casts and slings.

Over a 100,000 people dressed in white took to the streets in Miami in the spring of 2010 to protest the violence against these women led by Gloria Estefan, who had organized the demonstration in solidarity with this movement.

Laura's husband marches with Ladies in White carrying image of his murdered wife

In the summer of 2010 the dictatorship finally began the process of releasing the bulk of the remaining prisoners of conscience from the group of the 75 and the last of them were released in the spring of 2011. Unfortunately, there were new prisoners of conscience whose release the Ladies in White would continue to demand.  Laura recognized that "[a]s long as this government is around there will be prisoners because while they've let some go, they've put others in jail. It is a never-ending story."

Five days before she became suddenly deathly ill, as the violence and threats escalated, she let the dictatorship know that: "We are not going to stop. If they have imprisoned our sisters thinking that we would give up, they are mistaken. We are very united (...) all the women's movements are very close."

On October 14, 2011, Laura Pollan, one of the founders of the human rights movement the Ladies in White died after years of suffering physical and psychological assaults against her person. Finally, she would become a victim of the Cuban healthcare system that following the Castroite dictum of inside the revolution everything outside of it nothing - would suffer and die in a matter of days while under the supervision of doctors who were revolutionaries first and doctors second. A Cuban doctor, who reviewed her case file, described it as a death by purposeful medical neglect.

Liu Xiaobo of China (2017)

Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo who died imprisoned in China in 2017

Nonviolent dissident, scholar and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison for the crime of speaking. He had already been jailed for more than a year for being one of the authors of Charter 08 that sought to gather signatures in a petition calling on the Chinese regime to gradually shift toward democracy. Liu Xiaobo had played a prominent role in the June 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square engaging in a hunger strike that he mentioned in a statement he made on December 23, 2009 during the political show trial he was being subjected to:

But I still want to say to this regime, which is depriving me of my freedom, that I stand by the convictions I expressed in my "June Second Hunger Strike Declaration" twenty years ago ‑ I have no enemies and no hatred. None of the police who monitored, arrested, and interrogated me, none of the prosecutors who indicted me, and none of the judges who judged me are my enemies. Although there is no way I can accept your monitoring, arrests, indictments, and verdicts, I respect your professions and your integrity, including those of the two prosecutors, Zhang Rongge and Pan Xueqing, who are now bringing charges against me on behalf of the prosecution. During interrogation on December 3, I could sense your respect and your good faith.

Hatred can rot away at a person's intelligence and conscience. Enemy mentality will poison the spirit of a nation, incite cruel mortal struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and hinder a nation's progress toward freedom and democracy. That is why I hope to be able to transcend my personal experiences as I look upon our nation's development and social change, to counter the regime's hostility with utmost goodwill, and to dispel hatred with love.

Chinese Dissident Liu Xiaobo was arrested on June 23, 2009 and charged with “inciting subversion of state power” for co-authoring Charter 08, a declaration calling for political reform, greater human rights, and an end to one-party rule in China that has been signed by hundreds of individuals from all walks of life throughout the country. On December 25, 2009 Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison and two years' deprivation of political rights. The Beijing High Court rejected his appeal on February 11, 2010."

Liu Xiaobo with his wife, Liu Xia

On January 19, 2010 Havel met with the Executive Director of Human Rights in China, Sharon Hom, and engaged her in a dialogue/interview about Liu Xiaobo, Charter 08 and the struggle for democratic reform in China. When asked about the similarities between China today and Czechloslovakia in 1977 explained that:

The similarities, I would say, are in the basic structure of human rights reflected in a democratic system, which of course the regime doesn’t want. The regime wishes for the dictatorship of one party. I think this is where Charter 08 and Charter 77 are similar: they have similar targets and similar messages to deliver to the [respective] regimes.

On February 3, 2010 both Czech and Slovak members of parliament nominated Liu Xiaobo for the Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination was also endorsed by Vaclav Havel and many of the former spokespersons of Charter 77. The 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate, Herta Müller, in a letter to the Nobel Foundation on behalf of Liu Xiaobo wrote:

I have urgent request to make to you today. As you know, Vaclav Havel nominated the Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo for the Nobel Peace Prize 2010.[...]I, too, believe that Liu Xiaobo deserves the Nobel Peace Prize because in the face of countless threats from the Chinese regime and great risk to his life, he has fought unerringly for the freedom of the individual.

Eight months after the rejection of his appeal on October 8, 2010 the Nobel Committee in Norway awarded this Chinese dissident and Amnesty International prisoner of conscience the Nobel Peace Prize despite threats from the Chinese regime. As December 10th, the day for the ceremony to recognize the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo, approached the Chinese regime engaged in a human rights crackdown in Mainland China. Neither he or his wife, Liu Xia, who has been kept under house arrest, were allowed to attend. The actress Liv Ullman read the final statement that Liu Xiaobo read out at his December 2009 trial titled: "I Have No Enemies: My Final Statement" already mentioned and cited above.

Unjustly imprisoned for over eight years China's Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiabo was seriously ill in mid 2017 and although granted medical parole continued to be arbitrarily detained, although  in a hospital diagnosed with terminal liver cancer his access and movement continued to be restricted. His wife, Liu Xia said that her husband, according to The Guardian, "cannot be given surgery, radiotherapy or chemotherapy," allegedly "because the cancer is so advanced." Chinese Human Rights Defenders reports that individuals in custody, like Liu Xiaobo, had been denied medical treatment in what is a life threatening form of torture.

Liu Xiaobo died on July 13, 2017. Four days later on July 17, 2017 the man who had received the Nobel Prize on Xiaobo's behalf in Oslo, Dr. Yang Jianli in Washington, DC, at the monument to the Victims of Communism in an act of remembrance, spoke of his friend and the culpability of the Chinese communist regime.

In April 1989, when the Tiananmen democracy movement just broke out, he returned to Beijing from New York and became the most important intellectual leader of the movement. After the Tiananmen Massacre, he shouldered both moral and political responsibilities and continued to fight from inside China while many others left the country and even abandoned the movement. He was in and out prison and spent half of the past 28 years after the Tiananmen Massacre in incarceration. Never wavering in spirit, he shared the sufferings of his compatriots and gave his life for them. He is a martyr and saint. Yes. Liu Xiaobo is a martyr and saint who possesses a moral authority that his persecutors can only envy. His legacy of love, justice, peace and sacrifice will surely far outlive the deeds of those who persecuted him. That is exactly why the leaders of China are so afraid of him, so afraid of his words and deeds, and so afraid of his legacy. They are afraid of the inevitable comparison between Liu Xiaobo’s Chinese dream and Xi Jinping’s; they are afraid of the unavoidable likening of the Chinese Communist regime to the Nazis regime because Liu Xiaobo has been the first Nobel Peace Prize winner who died under confinement since Carl von Ossietzky, a German pacifist and an opponent of the Nazis, who died in 1938.

Milada Horakova, a feminist, was a member of the Czech resistance to Nazism. H.I.M. Haile Selassie, the lion of Judah, resisted the Fascist invasion of his homeland Ethiopia and warned the world of its threat. Laura Inés Pollán Toledo was a school teacher, turned human rights activist, to free her husband, a journalist jailed for his writings. Liu Xiaobo was a literary critic, poet and human rights activist who advocated for nonviolent change in his homeland. He was also a Nobel Peace Prize laureate. They were all murdered by communist regimes through executions or other nefarious means. These are four cases out of the over 100 million lives murdered by communist regimes.

It can happen here

Do you know what U.S. citizens have in common with Cubans, Venezuelans, and Nicaraguans? They all at one point said that "it couldn't happen here."  There are signs in the streets of the United States that some of those same forces are using the symbols and tactics of international communism and using force and intimidation on Americans to comply.

However, it is early enough in the process that a non-violent and moral stand of resistance to these forces can stop them before they take and consolidate power, but one cannot live in denial.

1) In a scene that played out several times Monday, a Black Lives Matter protest that began in Columbia Heights confronted White diners outside D.C. restaurants, chanting “White silence is violence!” and demanding White diners show their solidarity. #DCProtests pic.twitter.com/fJbPM76vb0

— Fredrick Kunkle WaPo (@KunkleFredrick) August 25, 2020

Venezuela's Maduro and Ethiopia's Mengistu: Brothers in crimes against humanity.

History repeats itself.

Dictator spends years denying there is a humanitarian crisis in his country and orders the importation of high cost luxury items while people die of hunger. Eventually the outcry of the humanitarian catastrophe forces him to allow humanitarian assistance to enter his country, but after years of suffering for the populace. A music concert is held to raise awareness and funds for humanitarian assistance.

In 1985 for Ethiopia and 2019 for Venezuela concerts were held to save lives.

This is Venezuela  today with Nicolas Maduro, but it was also Ethiopia in 1984 under Mengistu Haile Mariam. Both shared two things in common: Marxism-Leninism and a close alliance with the Castro dictatorship that included thousands of troops and intelligence agents to assist them. The first shipment of Red Cross humanitarian aide finally arrived on April 16, 2019.  According to Reuters, the "United Nations estimates that a quarter of Venezuelans are in need of humanitarian assistance, with 1.9 million suffering from malnutrition and some 300,000 whose lives are at risk due to lack of medicine."

Fidel Castro lounging with Mengistu Haile Mariam, in Ethiopia in 1977

Famine is not due to inefficiencies in the system or incompetence but rather it is a feature of the system that uses hunger to consolidate political control and power.  This is why in 1984 in the midst of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians dying of hunger, Mengistu Haile Mariam was importing cases of Scotch Whisky and denying their was a crisis.

This is why over at least the past three years Maduro has denied there is a humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and rejected aid shipments as war material or more recently an imperialist provocation. One should not be surprised if one looks at who he idolizes.  

Mengistu's portrait hangs alongside a banner with Marx, Engels and Lenin in Ethiopia

Last year Maduro celebrated the life of Chinese mass murderer Mao Ze Dong on the anniversary of his death. On Monday, April 22, 2019 he celebrated the birth of Russian mass murderer Vladimir Ilich Ulianov, known better by his revolutionary name of Lenin, over social media claiming that "Lenin continues today to be living history."

It is important to recall that famine was used as a political weapon in Russia, China, and Ethiopia under the communists. It is also important to remember that the Cubans played a role in the manufactured famine in Ethiopia and may be doing it again in Venezuela today.

The Spanish scholar George Santayana was right, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."