When the Past is Forgotten.Communism is Infiltrating our Democracy
By Joseph Kuhns
Joseph Stalin
After a career in law enforcement, I embarked on a second career in teaching. I spent twelve years teaching history at a Catholic girls' high school in New Jersey. I taught a course called “Western Civilization”.
Near the end of the course, we reached the unit on the Russian Revolution. As an introduction to the subject of Joseph Stalin, I would ask my students “Who was the greatest mass murderer in history?” Immediately, twenty-five voices would answer in unison “Hitler”. I would say “Hitler?" Haven't you ever heard of Joseph Stalin?” They would answer: “Who was he?”
I explained that he was the dictator of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953 and carried out the murder of 20 million of his own people.
I would then show them a very good film on Stalin entitled “Stalin, Man of Steel” produced by The History Channel. This film covered in depth Stalin's campaign of mass murder of people he even suspected of opposing him and Communist power.
One interesting aspect was that the film, made after the fall of the Soviet Union, included interviews with four old men who had been part of Stalin's machine of mass murder. And the most interesting thing about them was that they seemed like perfectly ordinary men. My students agreed there was nothing unusual about them at all. Had they spoken English instead of Russian, they each could have been anyone's grandfather.
So I posed to my students the following question: “How do you think Stalin got these very ordinary men (and many thousands like them) to participate in mass murder?
My students had no idea, so I proposed the following answer. To get ordinary people to participate in this mass murder, all Stalin needed to do was to indoctrinate them to accept four simple ideas:
1. There is no God.
2. The purpose of human existence is to create the perfect society (utopia, “the workers' paradise”) in this world in the here and now.
3. The achievement of this paradise on earth is the ultimate determinant of what is morally right or wrong. Anything that contributes to achieving this perfect society is good and moral, while anything that impedes this is morally evil. In other words, to achieve this ideal world, the ends justify the means.
4. Anyone who stands opposed to the great cause of achieving Communism is not only wrong but also evil. He is the “enemy of the people” and has no rights. He can be suppressed and destroyed.
Does this have any relevance to us today? Unfortunately, it does. When you look at the present political landscape of America, you see something very worrying. With the emergence of the extreme Left (often referred to as the “Woke Left”) in this country, one sees the reappearance of the very same four points listed above.
Riots and unrest have become routine and are highly organized.
Now I am not suggesting that they are about to institute murderous programs like Stalin did. I am just stating that their mindset is disturbingly similar in important respects to those who did Stalin's will.
Concerning the first point (There is no God), when you listen to the Woke Left and read what they say, they appear to be entirely devoid of any religious sentiment at all. They are very hostile to religion. There is no place for God in their vision of the world. They are particularly hostile to Christianity and Judaism.
What they aspire to is entirely in the here and now. If people adopt the atheist position, they are faced with a question. If you reject the idea of some kind of spiritual realm and spiritual destiny, then why are we here? What is it all for? The Woke Left believes, as do the Communists, that utopia can be constructed here on earth and that is their goal.
The Woke Left is always angry. They could be called the “Permanent Outrage Mob.” And they are angry about everything in the world that they consider less than perfect. They always need to have something to protest. They cannot understand why the world cannot be perfect.
Most Americans, influenced by the Judeo-Christian Tradition, accept that Man himself is sinful, and each individual has within himself an inclination towards evil. This idea is not accepted by the Left. Rather, they believe, as did Karl Marx, that all evil is caused by bad social structures. All problems are “systemic”. Thus, if you could reform all social structures, you could perfect society.
How do they intend to remold society to remove all imperfection? They will do it by means of an all-powerful state which can use its power to change all social structures to create “social justice” and “equity”.
If we consider the third point listed above, we again see a connection to the rejection of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Recall the line in the novel The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky: “If there is no God, then everything is permitted”.
For the Woke Left, there seems to be the belief that their ideas are so perfect and righteous that they are justified in using any means to achieve them.
It is perfectly all right to violate the civil law to bring before the public eye the things they are outraged about. It is all right to block traffic on a busy bridge or roadway, to disobey and even assault the police, and to disrupt the functioning of a university by occupying buildings. It is all right to deface and vandalize “crisis pregnancy centers” (facilities that provide services to pregnant women but will not do abortions) or even churches. It is okay to harass people who disagree with you, even Supreme Court Justices, by having threatening demonstrations in front of their homes, or getting people they don't agree with silenced on social media or fired from their jobs. The Woke Left's cause is so entirely correct, so admirable, that anything they need to do to further it is justified. The ends justify the means.
The fourth point above, the belief of Stalin's people that anyone who does not support the Communist cause is not just wrong but evil and therefore has no rights, is also reflected in our current situation.
Members of the Woke Left have no tolerance for those who disagree with them. If you disagree with them on any point of their ideology, you will very likely not be able to have a calm, rational debate with them. Instead, they will start screaming at you. They are likely to start calling you names, like fascist, racist, white supremacist, homophobe, transphobe, etc. If a Conservative tries to give a talk at a college campus, they will often try to prevent him from speaking, claiming his talk is “offensive”. They do not recognize the right to free speech of those with whom they disagree.
Some of them, like Antifa, regard it as justifiable to physically assault and injure people who have a different opinion. After all, such people are “fascists” and therefore have no rights.
As a final thought, after I had taught the lesson about Stalin, some curious student would ask the obvious question: “How come we never heard of Stalin?” I would suggest to her that perhaps those with influence over the education system didn't want them to know about him. They wanted students to only associate mass murder with Nazis, but not with Communists. Why? Because many of our educational professionals are sympathetic to Marxism, and the history of Stalin and communist leaders like him is an embarrassment to them.
Joseph Kuhns has 25 years of experience in law enforcement and 12 years as a high school teacher.