Communism

Around the corner from me is a barber’s shop decorated with black-and-white photographs of icons of the 20th century. James Dean is there with the usual cigarette hanging out of his mouth; Marilyn Monroe is perching on the edge of a pool table. A poster for the film Taxi Driver is alongside a photo of Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack — and also a photo of Lenin.

I guess the aim is to appear edgy, alternative and rebellious. But obviously there is no image of Hitler. That would be unacceptable: Hitler was a fascist who invaded countries and killed millions of people. It would be tasteless to display an image of him. But Lenin is apparently OK.

The Victims of Communism memorial to be unveiled in Ottawa sometime this year has a high degree of focus on Vietnam, potentially setting the stage for a strong negative reaction from that nation, Canadian diplomats have warned.

Vietnam is Canada’s largest trading partner in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and as one of the world’s fastest growing economies it will play a key role in Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, according to Global Affairs Canada.

God forbid we offend the communists.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn dedicated his book about the end state of communism ‘to all those who did not live to tell it.’

Just after Christmas 50 years ago, the original Russian edition of the first two parts of The Gulag Archipelago was published, followed by French and English translations the next year. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn dedicated his book “to all those who did not live to tell it.”

This was followed by second and third volumes in 1975 (parts three and four) and 1976 (parts five through seven), with corresponding translations in 1976 and 1978. Harper Collins publishes an authorized abridged edition.

Socialist-leaning progressives — and there seem to be an increasing number of them — often argue that only socialism can protect minority rights, but, in fact, the opposite is true. By largely abolishing private property, socialists deny minority communities the independent wealth needed to counterbalance state power and other hostile forces, leaving them more vulnerable than ever.

In socialist systems, the state controls the nation’s wealth. This would not be a bad thing if politicians and bureaucrats, who govern and administer the state, could be trusted to exercise their powers justly. But in practice it has been shown, time and time again, that these gatekeepers are prone to corruption.

The leader of Norway’s far-left Red Party Bjørnar Moxnes resigned on Monday after being caught stealing designer sunglasses from a shop at Oslo airport.

“I made a big mistake and made things even worse by the way I handled it afterwards,” Moxnes wrote on his Facebook page. “I am very sorry and would like to apologise.”

One year after its opening, many still don’t recognize the extent of the horrors documented in the Victims of Communism Museum.

The Holodomor: 2–7 million dead.

The Gulag: 1.5 million dead.

The Great Leap Forward: 30 million dead.

Just as the spring weather wrapped Brussels in its arms, Malin Björk, a member of the European Parliament from Sweden, put her contempt for Europe’s Christians on full display in the heart of the European capital. She inaugurated an openly hateful exhibition in the parliament, consisting of a dozen highly disrespectful pictures of Jesus Christ. A Swedish photographer had depicted the son of God in multiple settings meant to desecrate the man worshiped by Christians worldwide.

Malin Björk did not desecrate the Prophet Muhammed. She is a communist and therefore harbors a fervent hostility toward religious faith in general. Hate of religion is an integrated part of communist ideology, but for reasons we will get to in a moment, Björk is careful not to let her hate spill over on Islam. She apparently confines her contempt for faith to Christianity …

We must dance on the graves of mass murderers whose legacies continue to infect nations and foment conflicts.

Most people hate to speak ill of the dead. They look for something nice to say about even the not-so-dear departed. People’s natural imperfections usually seem to shrink when they leave this earth.

Not so with Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, as he was named at birth. He later took the revolutionary pseudonym Stalin, often translated as “man of steel.” It was all too accurate, a foreshadowing of the tragic consequences millions of people suffered under his command. He died 70 years ago, with even his closest aides wanting him dead — and they were lucky to have survived, since he may have been preparing to embark on another killing spree targeting those surrounding him.

Virginia Democrats and teachers union kill any thought of a Victims of Communism Day.

So, educating students about the dangers of communism is racist? Who knew?

Virginia Republicans recently introduced House Bill 1816 which would have declared November 7 — the anniversary of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution — Victims of Communism Day. The bill stated that the day would be “suitably observed in each public elementary and secondary school in the Commonwealth as a day honoring the approximately 100 million individuals who have fallen victim to communist regimes around the world.” In addition, the Virginia Standards of Learning for history and social science would add “the study of the dangers of communism.”

It’s entirely predictable, even inevitable, that public broadcasting would favor socialism in all its programming. But it’s a little more surprising when it openly touts The Communist Manifesto.

Since I’m a conservative glutton for punishment, I was driving on the highway on Sunday morning listening to the NPR-distributed program On The Media with host Brooke Gladstone, a longtime fixture on NPR. It was predictable when she chatted with socialist Naomi Oreskes about their mutual loathing of “free-market fundamentalism.” But the next segment was even worse. My jaw dropped.

While two in five Canadians overall subscribe to the idea of socialism—with that number even higher for younger Canadians—few are willing to pay for the tax increases required to finance such a system, says a study by the Fraser Institute.

Among 1,006 Canadians aged 18–34 surveyed, 46 percent of respondents picked socialism when asked “What is the ideal economic system.” The number drops to 43 percent among respondents aged 35–54, and to 38 percent among those over 55.