[Editor's Note] This series is a reprint of The Epoch Times' English translation of the book How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World by the editorial team of Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.
Table of Contents of the Book
Preface: How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World
Introduction: How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World
Chapter One: The Specter’s Strategies for Destroying Humanity
Chapter Two: Communism’s European Beginnings
Chapter Three: Tyranny in the East
Chapter Four: Exporting Revolution
Chapter Five: Infiltrating the West
Chapter Six: The Revolt Against God
Chapter Seven: The Destruction of the Family
Chapter Eight: How Communism Sows Chaos in Politics
Chapter Nine: The Communist Economic Trap
Chapter Ten: Corrupting the Legal System
Chapter Eleven: Desecrating the Arts
Chapter Twelve: Sabotaging Education
Chapter Thirteen: The Media – The Specter’s Mouthpiece
Chapter Fourteen: Popular Culture – A Decadent Indulgence
Chapter Fifteen: The Communist Roots of Terrorism
Chapter Sixteen: The Communism Behind Environmentalism
Chapter Seventeen: Globalization and Communism
Chapter Eighteen: The Chinese Communist Party’s Global Ambitions
Conclusion: How the Specter of Communism Is Ruling Our World
What is Included in This Part?
Chapter Eight: How Communism Sows Chaos in Politics
Introduction
1. Communism: The Politics of Humanity’s Destruction
a. The Convergence of Politics and Religion in Communist Regimesb. The Religious Character of Liberalism and Progressivismc. Contemporary Liberalism and Progressivism: Variants of Communism
2. Bringing Government Under Leftist Control
3. Hatred and Struggle: The Invariable Course of Communist Politics
4. Politics Through Violence and Lies
a. How Communism Uses Violence and Liesb. Instigating Violence in the Westc. Confusing the West With Lies
5. The Road to Totalitarianism
a. Eradicating Free Will and Suppressing Moral Agencyb. Totalitarianism via Welfare, Technology, and Excessive Regulation
6. Communism’s Threat to Basic Values
References
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CHAPTER EIGHT: HOW COMMUNISM SOWS CHAOS IN POLITICS
Introduction
Communist ideology did not fade into history with the end of the Cold War; before and after the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, subversion has spread Marxist ideas throughout the free world, and left-wing movements have taken hold in many democratically elected governments.
Superficially, the free world appears to understand the damage wrought by communism. Yet in the 170 years since the publication of The Communist Manifesto, governments around the globe have been openly or covertly influenced by Marxist theory.
Most people associate communist politics only with countries under the rule of communist parties, or where Marxist economic doctrines are openly followed. But in reality, Western leftism follows the same underlying philosophy of struggle embodied by the “traditional” communist regimes of the East. In some respects, the free world has even surpassed the self-avowed communist states when it comes to putting leftist causes into practice.
Even as America faced off with the Soviet threat during the Cold War, forms of communism found their way into almost every aspect of Western society under the guises of liberalism, progressivism, and socialism. The left wing has a strong foothold in the US political landscape and is dominant in many European countries. Thus, without bringing the Western world under its overt political control through war or violent revolution, the communist specter has co-opted the governance of Western nations by feeding social unrest, undermining traditional morality, and pushing socialist policies. Its aim is to set the West on a demonic path, bringing about the destruction of mankind.
The United States has been and remains a strong bastion of freedom and anti-communism. Given the vital role America plays on the world stage, it is crucial that we pay particular attention to communism’s influence in American politics and government.
1. Communism: The Politics of Humanity’s Destruction
For thousands of years, the main institution of political power was the monarchy, which received its authority from the divine. Heaven endowed the ruler with the divine right of kings. Emperors and kings performed a sacred role as intermediaries between man and the divine.
Today, many nations are run by democracies. In practice, democracy isn’t direct rule by the people, but rather the rule of representatives chosen by the people. The election of a president is a democratic procedure. Once in office, the president has broad powers over politics, economics, the military, foreign relations, and so on.
Since the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the drafting of the US Constitution during the following decade, democracy has been linked with freedom, prosperity, and individual rights. But the fundamental cornerstone of social stability and harmony, as well as human rights and freedom, is a society’s moral values. Democracy alone cannot guarantee that good people will be elected. As the overall moral standard of society sinks, the winning candidates may well be those who specialize in empty or inflammatory rhetoric or are prone to cronyism. The damage to a democratic society is huge when it does not make provisions for maintaining the moral standards set by the divine. The advantages of electoral representation disappear and are subsumed into mob politics that throw society into chaos and fragmentation.
a. The Convergence of Politics and Religion in Communist Regimes
Communist ideology functions like that of a cult. It forces its followers to accept its malign philosophy of struggle, submit to its political programs, and betray their conscience in carrying out the directives of the revolutionary movement or party. Communist regimes persecute religion and spirituality with the cruelest methods, so as to destroy the divine and replace traditional faith with its own atheistic religion.
The communist regimes of the East, especially that of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), are often mistakenly described as a modern form of ancient despotism. Many see the CCP as having continued the imperial system. However, traditional Chinese monarchs did not claim to define moral values. Instead, they saw themselves as acting with restraint under moral standards set by gods or Heaven. The CCP, on the other hand, monopolized the very concept of morality itself. No matter how many evils it commits, the CCP still insists that it is “great, glorious, and correct.”
Morality is set by the divine, not man. Standards of good and evil stem from divine commandment, not the ideological pretension of some political party. Monopolizing the right to define morality inevitably leads to the mixing of church and state, which, as in the case of the CCP and other communist parties, manifests as the typical features of a malicious cult.
The Communist Party enshrines Marx as its spiritual “Lord” and takes Marxism as universal truth. Communism’s promise of a heaven on earth lures its followers to lay down their lives for it. Its cult-like features include, but are not limited to, the following: inventing doctrine, crushing opposition, worshipping the leader, regarding itself as the sole source of righteousness, brainwashing and using mind control, running a tight organization that one can join but never leave, promoting violence and bloodlust, and encouraging martyrdom for the religious cause.
Communist leaders such as Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and Kim Il Sung all had their own cults of personality. They were the “popes” of the communist cult in their respective countries, with unquestioned authority to determine right and wrong. Whether or not they killed and lied, they were always correct, which was justified by explanations that they were motivated by a higher purpose or that they were playing the long game. The citizens of these countries were made to abandon their own understandings of moral good. Being forced to lie or do evil under the Party’s command brought people psychological and spiritual trauma.
Traditional orthodox religions teach people to be good, but the cult of communism, being built on hatred, takes the exact opposite stance. Though the Party also speaks of love, the “love” it advocates is predicated on hate. For example, proletarians are capable of class friendliness because they face a common enemy: the capitalists. In modern China, the way to show patriotism (literally “love of country” in Chinese) is to hate America, hate France, hate Japan, hate Korea, hate Taiwan, and hate overseas Chinese who criticize the CCP.
b. The Religious Character of Liberalism and Progressivism
Liberalism and progressivism have now become the standard of “political correctness” in the West. In fact, they have developed to the point of becoming a secular religion. Western leftists have used different labels throughout history, sometimes calling themselves “liberal” and sometimes calling themselves “progressive.” Proponents of liberalism and progressivism advocate “progress” as absolute moral good and attack any dissenting opinion as heresy. Similar to communism, atheism, evolution, and scientism, liberalism and progressivism replace the belief in God with humanist reason, effectively taking man himself to be a god. They share the same enemies as communism and blame social problems on perceived injustices or defects in the capitalist system, which they intend to subvert or overthrow. The methods of radical liberals and progressives are similar to those of communist revolutionaries. They think their cause is so important that no means are off-limits.
The quasi-religious characteristics of liberalism and progressivism are inseparable from the theories that gave rise to them. Rapid scientific progress since the eighteenth century greatly strengthened humankind’s confidence in its own ability and fueled the progressive intellectual trend. French philosopher Marquis de Condorcet, a pioneer of progressive thinking, stated in his work Sketch for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind that reason leads people to the path of happiness and morality or goodness. Following this, progressivism became more aggressive and began pushing reason onto the altar of worship.
Progressive thinking allows one to view reason, conscience, and the Creator as separate, fostering the idea that humans do not need the Creator’s salvation and can use their own rationality and conscience to sweep away the evils of greed, fear, jealousy, and the like. In this view, humans can do away with the divine and establish a paradise on earth. The arrogance of progressivism is exhibited in a statement by nineteenth-century French politician and art critic Jules-Antoine Castagnary: “Beside the divine garden from which I have been expelled, I will erect a new Eden. … At its entrance, I will set up Progress … and I will give a flaming sword into his hand and he will say to God, ‘Thou shalt not enter here.’” [1]
Filled with this kind of thought, people entertain an illusion of controlling humanity’s destiny and manipulating its future — that is, that mankind can play God — to create a utopia, a “paradise on earth.” This is the essential idea of communism. The struggle to achieve this so-called paradise has caused a deluge of blood and misery.
c. Contemporary Liberalism and Progressivism: Variants of Communism
The Rebellion Against Classical Liberalism
Classical liberalism, working from the philosophy of natural individual rights, advocated constitutional restrictions on the power of royalty or government so as to protect personal freedom. Individual rights and dignity are divinely bestowed, while government is built by the citizens and has the express duty of protecting its people. Separation of church and state was established to prevent the government from infringing upon the thoughts and beliefs of the citizenry.
Contemporary liberalism is nothing other than the betrayal of classical liberalism in the name of “freedom” as a result of communist infiltration. On one hand, it emphasizes absolute individualism — that is, extreme indulgence in desires and disregard for morality. On the other hand, it emphasizes equality of outcome instead of equality of opportunity.
For instance, when discussing the distribution of wealth, modern liberals focus only on the needs of the recipients instead of the rights of taxpayers. When it comes to policies designed to address discrimination, they focus only on those who were historically wronged and ignore the people who become victims under these policies. In law, they obstruct the need to punish criminals for the ostensible purposes of protecting the innocent from unjust sentencing or of protecting the underprivileged, who are presumably victims of oppression. In education, they ignore the potential of talented students with the pretext of supporting and helping low achievers and those from underprivileged families. They use the excuse of free speech to lift restrictions on publishing obscene or pornographic material.
The focus of contemporary liberalism has silently evolved from advocating freedom to promoting equality. Yet it is unwilling to be termed “egalitarianism,” as this would instantly brand it as a form of communism.
John Locke, known as the father of liberalism, stated his views on religious tolerance and the separation of church and state in his “A Letter Concerning Toleration.” The main aspect of toleration as Locke envisioned it is that the state, which holds coercive power, must respect and tolerate the personal beliefs of the individual. Whether one’s belief in the path to Heaven is right or wrong is a matter to be left to divine judgment. One’s soul should be under one’s own control; the state should not use its power to impose belief or disbelief.
The tolerance that classical liberalism advocates is indeed a virtue deserving of promotion, but communism has appropriated “tolerance” as an avenue to moral corruption. Contemporary liberalism neglects the real purpose of toleration, transforming it into the absence of judgment. It developed the political concept of being “value-free,” which in truth means losing one’s moral bearings and confusing good with bad and virtue with evil. It uses an attractive phrase to open the floodgates to an onslaught of demonic concepts, pushing anti-morality and anti-tradition under the guise of freedom.
For example, now tolerance is often taken to mean the disproportionate defense of the LGBT movement, a typical manifestation of the value-free concept. Anyone who speaks out against the promotion of LGBT lifestyles risks being attacked under the pretext of safeguarding individual freedom and equality and of fighting discrimination against a minority group.
The Essence of Progressivism: Moral Relativism
Guided by humanity’s traditional values, it is normal to use our intelligence to improve our living conditions, increase wealth, and reach new heights of culture. In the “progressive era” of American history from the late nineteenth century to the early twentieth century, government reforms corrected various corrupt practices that arose in the process of economic and societal development. But after communists infiltrated the United States, they hijacked terms such as “progress” and “progressivism” and infused them with their deleterious ideology. It was only logical for communism to have hijacked progressivism, though this was unbeknownst to most people. Modern-day progressivism is the direct application of Darwin’s theories of evolution in social science, with the result being continuous deviation and perversion of traditional morality in the name of “progress.” Even today, communism continues its open deception under the progressive banner.
During this progressive revolution, atheists viewed traditional morality as a hindrance to progress and demanded a reevaluation of all moral standards. They denied the existence of absolute moral standards and used society, culture, history, and present-day conditions to establish their system of relative morality.
Moral relativism is a core aspect of Marxist ideology. It holds that whatever conforms to the interests of the proletariat (the Marxist ruling class, in essence) is moral, while whatever does not conform is immoral. Morality is not used to restrict the actions of the proletariat, but as a weapon for the dictatorship of the proletariat to use against its enemies. In tandem with the progressive movement, this moral relativism has gained influence in politics, education, culture, and other aspects of Western society.
It is not wrong for people to seek happiness and progress, but when certain “-isms” begin to supplant traditional moral values and beliefs, they act as the tools with which the communist specter leads people toward degeneracy and destruction.
2. Bringing Government Under Leftist Control
In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels list ten measures by which to destroy fair exchange and the rights of the individual, which they call capitalism. Many of these measures are already being implemented to move the United States and other countries progressively to the left and eventually establish communist political control, such as the implementation of “a heavy progressive or graduated income tax” and the “centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.” On the surface, communists seem to advocate some positive things, such as the end of child factory labor and the creation of a free public education system; however, their goal isn’t to ensure a nation’s welfare, but rather to seize and maintain political power. Marx and Engels wrote:
The first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.
The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.
Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production. [2]
In America, the Left has spent decades fighting Marx’s “battle of democracy” in order to control the levers of power and introduce socialism. Thus, while overt communist influences in the United States were relatively few during the twentieth century, the situation has since changed drastically.
In the 2016 and 2020 US elections, an openly socialist candidate came within reach of the presidency. Socialism, which, in communist vocabulary, is the “primary stage” of communism, was once viewed with scorn by most Americans. The candidate himself said that he thinks there are a lot of people who get very nervous when they hear the word “socialist.”
However, surveys conducted throughout the 2010s showed that roughly half those born in the millennial generation (between 1980 and 1996) had a positive view of socialism. A 2018 Gallup poll showed that 57 percent of Democrats said they had a positive opinion toward socialism. [3] This continues a trend stemming from a 2011 poll by the Pew Research Center that showed 49 percent of US adults under the age of thirty viewed socialism positively, while 46 percent had a positive view of capitalism. [4]
The illusions that many in the West hold about socialism today mirror the experiences of countless impressionable young people who embraced communism in the last century in the Soviet Union, China, and elsewhere. Those belonging to the younger generation lack a deep understanding of their own history, culture, and traditions. Their resistance to socialism, which to them looks mild and humane, is nonexistent. The great communist deception of the twentieth century is repeating itself in the twenty-first.
Marx’s axiom “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need” is quite effective for deceiving the young, who fantasize about a life of generous socialist welfare as seen in various parts of Europe. However, these countries’ welfare systems have caused many social problems. As American economist Milton Friedman said: “A society that puts equality — in the sense of equality of outcome — ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. … On the other hand, a society that puts freedom first will, as a happy by-product, end up with both greater freedom and greater equality.” [5]
High-welfare socialism promotes the continuous expansion of government and leads people to vote away their freedoms. It is an important step in the specter’s plans for enslaving humanity. When all or most countries make the transition to socialism, it takes but a few simple steps to replace democracy with totalitarianism. Once the socialist primary stage is completed, political leaders will immediately implement communism. Private property and the democratic process will be abolished. The welfare state will metamorphose into a yoke of tyranny.
To enter the political mainstream in the United States, communists must infiltrate one or both of the two major parties and use them to take control of congressional votes. Meanwhile, communist candidates must take up key positions in the government and the courts. The extent to which communism has subverted US politics is quite severe. In order to secure a stable voting block, US leftist parties have magnified the animosity between low- and high-income groups, while attracting an increasing number of immigrants and “vulnerable” groups such as the LGBT community, women, minorities, and so on.
A billionaire with a history of supporting left-wing movements has heavily funded leftist candidates to run for president of the United States and other important positions across the country. Key among these have been the secretaries of state, who, in many states, are responsible for electoral affairs and play a critical role in resolving disputes. The billionaire has dedicated much aid to the campaigns for these positions. [6]
Even when illegal immigrants commit crimes on US soil, leftist authorities turn a blind eye and set up sanctuaries to protect them from law enforcement. Additionally, left-wing parties have fought for the voting rights of illegal immigrants. Of course, the motive isn’t necessarily to benefit the illegal immigrants or the general population, but to bolster the Left’s voter base. On September 12, 2017, a city near Washington, DC, passed a bill to grant noncitizens the right to vote in local elections, including green card holders, temporary residents on student and work visas, and even those with no documentation of legal immigration status. It attracted widespread media attention for its potential effects on the electoral system in other parts of the country. [7]
The administration of the 44th US president was heavily infiltrated by communists and socialists. Many groups that supported that president had clear links to socialist organizations. The president himself granted amnesty to almost one million illegal immigrants via an executive order, after legislation to do so failed to pass Congress. This former president is a follower of the para-Marxist Saul Alinsky. Following his election, he appointed advisers from far-left think tanks and brought in a universal health care system that fined those who refused to enroll in it. He furthered leftist aims by ceasing the enforcement of federal laws against marijuana, supporting the legalization of gay marriage, allowing transsexuals to join the army, and so on. In 2016, his administration issued a directive to public schools to allow students who identified as transgender to enter the bathrooms of their chosen gender, regardless of their physical sex — in other words, boys and men could enter girls’ bathrooms simply by identifying as female, and vice versa. Schools were told that if they refused to implement the bill, they would lose federal funding. In response, a coalition of thirteen states sued the federal government, arguing that the directive was unconstitutional.
3. Hatred and Struggle: The Invariable Course of Communist Politics
Struggle and hatred lie at the core of communist politics. Turning people against each other by sowing hatred and division is the primary means by which communism corrupts society, overturns its morality, and usurps political power to establish its dictatorship.
In 1926, Mao wrote in his article “Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society”: “Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution.” The Communist Party arbitrarily creates concepts of class where none previously existed and then incites these arbitrarily divided groups to struggle against each other. This is a magical weapon the communists use in their rise to power. [8] To promote its cause, the Communist Party selects and exaggerates certain issues that stem from the decline in moral values. Then it claims that the root cause of these issues is not moral weakness, but rather the structure of society. It singles out particular classes as the “oppressors” and promotes popular struggle against these classes as being the solution to society’s ills.
The hatred and struggle of communist politics are not limited to the antagonism between workers and capitalists. Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro said that the enemy of the Cuban people was the corruption of former President Fulgencio Batista and his supporters and that supposed oppression by large plantation owners was the source of inequality and injustice. The Communist Party promises that by overthrowing the so-called oppressors, an egalitarian utopia can be created. Castro and his fellow revolutionaries used this promise to take over Cuba.
In China, Mao’s innovation was to promise the peasants ownership of the land they worked on, the workers ownership of their factories, and the intellectuals freedom, peace, and democracy. This turned peasants against landlords, workers against capitalists, and intellectuals against the government, allowing the Chinese Communist Party to seize power.
In Algeria, communist leader Ahmed Ben Bella stirred up hatred between different religions and ethnic groups: Muslims against Christians, and the Arabs against the French. This became Ben Bella’s springboard to secure communist rule.
The Founding Fathers of the United States built the country on the principles outlined in the Constitution. Family, church, and community formed strong bonds across American society, which became ever more prosperous throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The success of the American Dream de-emphasized concepts of social class and made it difficult to concoct class struggle in the United States.
But communism uses whatever opportunity it can to promote division. Using labor unions, it magnifies conflicts between employees and employers. It uses racial divides to foment struggle between different groups. It promotes the women’s rights movement to foment struggle against the traditional social structure. It creates divisions around sexual orientation, using the LGBT movement. It divides the believers of different religions and uses “cultural diversity” to challenge traditional Western culture and heritage. It divides people of different nationalities by pushing for the “rights” of illegal immigrants and creating conflicts between foreigners and citizens. It pits illegal immigrants and the general public against law enforcement officers.
As society becomes increasingly atomized, a single misstep can trigger a struggle. The seeds of hatred have been planted in the hearts of the masses, and this is precisely the sinister aim of communism. Lenin is widely quoted as saying, “We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, scorn and the like toward those who disagree with us.” [9] The political tactics used in the West employ all sorts of “social justice” issues to incite hatred and intensify social conflict.
In the 1931 Scottsboro Boys case, nine black boys were accused of raping two white women, triggering severe racial discord across the country. The Communist Party USA (CPUSA) sprang into action, using the incident to attract many new followers, including Frank Marshall Davis, future mentor to the 44th president. The goal of the American communists in the Scottsboro Boys case was not merely to boost Party membership among the black population and progressive “social justice” activists, but to vilify America as a country rife with inequality and racial discrimination. Claiming that these were the prevailing conditions throughout the entire country, they promoted communism and leftist ideology as the only means of liberating Americans from this supposedly pathological and evil system.
In 1935, riots broke out in black communities in New York’s Harlem neighborhood following rumors that a black teen had been beaten to death after he was caught shoplifting. (In reality, the Puerto Rican teen had bitten a shop assistant and was himself unscathed.) The CPUSA jumped at the chance to organize protests, according to Leonard Patterson, a former Party member who had played a role in the incident. Patterson described how communists were specifically trained in Leninist tactics for instigating and inflaming conflicts, such as transforming protests into violent riots and street fighting, as well as deliberately fabricating conflict where there was none to be found. [10]
In contemporary America, communist groups have been involved in every large-scale social conflict or riot. In 1991, footage widely broadcast by the media showed Rodney King, a black resident of Los Angeles, being beaten by white police officers after a high-speed chase. The widely viewed clip cut out the first 15 seconds of footage, which showed King, a paroled felon, resisting arrest and behaving belligerently, though his vehicle companions had complied with police. The four officers involved in the incident were ultimately acquitted of criminal charges. After the verdict, a crowd of protesters outside the Los Angeles Police Department’s headquarters was about to disperse when something suddenly spurred them to riot. Someone hit the back of a passing car with a metal sign, and the protest swiftly descended into violence, with burning, smashing, and looting. [11]
When asked about the participation of communists in the incident, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block said that there was no question that the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) was involved in the rioting, looting, and arson. During the events, fliers circulated by various communist groups, like the RCP, the Socialist Workers Party, the Progressive Labor Party (PLP), and the CPUSA, could be found all over the streets and college campuses. One of the fliers distributed by the PLP read: “Avenge the King verdict! … All the racist cops must pay! … Turn the guns around! Soldiers unite with the workers!” According to a police officer in the Los Angeles Police Department, people were already handing out such fliers before the verdict was announced. [12]
Whatever the profusion of organizations that incite riots and violence in Western society today may call themselves, be it “Indivisible,” “Anti-Fascist,” “Stop Patriarchy,” “Black Lives Matter,” or “Refuse Fascism,” they are all communist groups or proponents of communist ideas. The violent Antifa group consists of people of various communist leanings, such as anarchists, socialists, liberals, social democrats, and the like. Refuse Fascism is a radical group founded by leftists including those from the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. The group was behind many large-scale protests aiming to overturn the result of the 2016 US presidential election.
Under the guise of exercising free speech, these groups work tirelessly to provoke conflicts in Western society. To understand their real objective, one need only look at a 1943 directive by the CPUSA to its members:
When certain obstructionists (to Communism) become too irritating, label them, after suitable buildups, as fascist or Nazi or anti-Semitic and use the prestige of antifascist and tolerance organizations to discredit them. In the public mind, constantly associate those who oppose us with those names which already have a bad smell. The association will, after enough repetition, become ‘fact’ in the public mind. Members and front organizations must continually embarrass, discredit and degrade our critics. [13]
4. Politics Through Violence and Lies
In communist doctrine, no means are considered too excessive. Communist parties publicly proclaim that violence and lies are their tools for conquering and ruling the world. From the first appearance of the communist regime in the Soviet Union to today, within only a century, communism has caused the deaths of at least one hundred million people. Communist Party members have abducted, tortured, murdered, destroyed, and lied. They have used every extreme method possible. The degree of their evil is shocking. Furthermore, participants profess to have no regrets.
The lies fabricated by communists vary in size, both in communist countries and in the West. They range from relatively small lies, such as a hoax, fake news, or the framing of a political opponent, to a series of systematic lies of considerable scale through complex operations. For instance, the CCP staged a self-immolation incident in Tiananmen Square and blamed members of the spiritual practice Falun Gong — all to incite public hatred against the practice.
Big lies, or great deceptions, are also used, and this is the hardest to manage, because the big lies are almost equivalent to the entirety of communist ideology. Their scale is so enormous, their operations so multifaceted, their duration so long, and the people they touch so numerous — including some who are sincerely dedicated to the cause — that the truth of the situation is lost. The communist specter fabricated the lie that a “great unity” was the goal of communism. Because this claim cannot be disproven in the short term, it was the deception on which the entire communist project was based. Communists claim that they are establishing a heaven on earth, but this is precisely their greatest lie, and the only fruit this lie has borne is a hell on earth.
The previous chapter analyzed how communism usurped the notion of progressivism through yet another Great Deception. In the past few decades, communism has hijacked a number of social movements and brought people to turmoil and revolution, which will be discussed in later chapters.
a. How Communism Uses Violence and Lies
Communist parties encourage class conflict — and this conflict is a struggle to the death. As The Communist Manifestostates: “The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.” [14] Lenin wrote in The State and Revolution: “We have already said above, and shall show more fully later, that the theory of Marx and Engels of the inevitability of a violent revolution refers to the bourgeois state. The latter cannot be superseded by the proletarian state (the dictatorship of the proletariat) through the process of ‘withering away,’ but as a general rule, only through a violent revolution.” [15]
During the process of seizing power — as seen during the Paris Commune, the Russian Revolution, or the CCP’s rise — communist parties use extremely violent and bloody methods. Regardless of whether their enemies are young or old, healthy or weak, communist parties burn, rob, and murder them; they exhibit a wickedness that shocks the soul. So numerous are the crimes that have been committed under violent communist regimes that they are impossible to count.
The communist cult employs lies and violence to maintain power. Lies are lubricants for the violence and also a way of enslaving the public. Communist parties are willing to promise anything, but never consider making good on their promises. To satisfy their needs, they change their stories as much as they like, with no moral baseline and no sense of shame.
Mao, Ben Bella, and Castro all claimed they would never establish totalitarian regimes. But once in power, they immediately initiated high-pressure totalitarianism, carrying out purges within the party as well as persecution campaigns against dissidents and the ordinary public.
Additionally, language manipulation is one of the main methods the communist cult uses to deceive people — that is, altering the meanings of words and even turning words into their opposites. As the altered language is repeatedly used, its distorted meanings become deeply rooted in people’s minds. For example, “God” is equated with “superstition”; “tradition” is equated with “backwardness,” “foolishness,” and “feudalism”; “Western society” is equated with “hostile” or “anti-China forces”; and the “proletariat” becomes “the masters of state-owned assets.” Though the people have no power under communism, the communists say that “all power belongs to the people.” Pointing out injustices is labeled as “inciting subversion of state power.” Therefore, when talking to those who have been deeply poisoned by the communist cult, people tend to find that the two sides often lack a shared basis for communication because they cannot even agree on the meanings of words.
The cult of communism not only tells lies itself, but also creates an environment to make the entire population join it in lying — including through forced political study, mandatory statements of one’s political stance, and political vetting. This is meant to force people to say things they don’t believe and thus demoralize them and degrade their sense of right and wrong. After people become aware of communist fabrications, they respond with their own lies. The communist cult knows that people are lying to it, but this is acceptable because lying itself is part of the game. What’s dangerous for communists is when people start telling the truth.
The enforcement of a culture of falsehood is a means of moral degeneration engineered by the communists. This book has noted repeatedly that the CCP regime desires not only to kill the physical body, but also to engender extreme moral corruption. In this regard, the communist specter has partially achieved its goal.
b. Instigating Violence in the West
The communist specter is composed of the elemental force of hatred, and its theories are infused with hate. It promotes class struggle and attributes the root of every problem to traditional social structures. It talks about the rich exploiting the poor in order to incite grudges and hatred against the rich and incite revolution and violence. With the expansion of communist movements, its manipulation, violence, and lies have become commonplace in the West and have filled society with rancor.
A society with a greater tendency toward violence will become less stable and more divided. In American society, some politicians and political operatives attack their enemies by unscrupulous means, like deception, personal attacks, and the like. These days, the irreconcilable differences between the two major parties make them appear as incompatible as fire and water.
Left-leaning parties and politicians claim that they’ll protect the rights of the people and follow the regulations of a democratic society. But when they come to power, under the influence of the communist specter, they use all methods to suppress dissent and arbitrarily deprive others of their rights.
Not everyone wants conflict, but it only takes a few core communist activists to stir things up. After the 2016 presidential election, Antifa extremists locked onto their target — conservatives — and went after them at rallies and elsewhere. They stopped supporters of the president and conservative thinkers from speaking at events and, in some cases, even physically attacked them.
In June 2017, Steve Scalise, the House of Representatives majority whip, was shot and wounded by a supporter of another party while attending a baseball practice. One leftist official from Nebraska even said he was “glad” that Scalise was shot and wished that he had died. That official was soon removed from his post as a committee chairman at the state level of his party.
c. Confusing the West With Lies
Communism has a negative reputation in the West, so lying is its only means of expanding its influence. Some politicians promote policies that are basically communist but come packaged under another name, using slogans like “freedom,” “progress,” and “the public interest.” For instance, the establishment of a socialized health care system isn’t called socialist, but instead “Medicare for all” and “universal health care,” or it’s justified as being supported by public opinion. When leftist politicians want to force employers to pay a minimum wage, they call it a “living wage.” They make empty promises to get elected, similar to what communist parties do gain power. In fact, their goal is to advance socialism, and their tactics mirror the communist promises of creating “heaven on earth.”
Specifically, politicians use warped and redistributionist fiscal and tax policies — such as giving tax incentives to trade unions, government programs, and minority enterprises — while increasing taxes on other enterprises and the wealthy. The result is that the beneficiaries of those policies (including the poor, trade unions, and so on) become reliant on the politicians who favor them, and then support them in elections. Such politicians then have a stable, long-term hold on that area, and can build their political machine. At the same time, businesses are squeezed financially and thus shrink, go out of business, or move, resulting in a constant decrease in tax revenue and job opportunities in the city, eventually causing the city to go bankrupt.
In the past, people believed that the United States was a truly free society and the last bastion against communism. But today, people see clearly that high taxation, a highly developed welfare state, collectivism, big government, social democracy, “social equality,” and the like — all derived in one way or another from socialist and Marxist-Leninist ideological DNA — are enshrined in policies and put into practice. In particular, the younger generation simply isn’t aware of the history of brutality in communist countries. They yearn for and pursue an illusory ideal, and are deceived by the new guise that communism has taken on. The result is that they unknowingly walk on the road to ruin.
5. The Road to Totalitarianism
The totalitarian control exercised by communist regimes over the lives of their subjects is well-documented. But communism’s ideological offshoots in democratic countries are stealthily working toward the same goal through advocating laws that aggressively expand government power and increase regulation over society and the economy. More frightening is the fact that today’s authoritarians have science and technology at their disposal, giving them powers of surveillance and social control on a scale the tyrannies of the past could scarcely have imagined.
a. Eradicating Free Will and Suppressing Moral Agency
When human beings follow the traditional values established by the divine, the development of their culture will follow an orthodox path, allowing them an important channel to connect with the divine. The different social and political systems seen across humanity are likewise derived from their respective cultures.
People are endowed by the Creator with free will and the ability to manage their own affairs. They must manage themselves through self-discipline, moral conduct, and responsibility for themselves and their families. After studying American politics in the nineteenth century, the French political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville came to greatly appreciate American society. He was impressed with Americans’ ability for introspection, their understanding of evil, their willingness to solve problems with patience, and the general lack of violence in solving social problems. He thought that the greatness of the United States lay in its ability to correct its own mistakes.
What the communist specter wants, on the other hand, is to instigate people to oppose tradition and morality, and to block the path for people to incline toward goodness and toward the divine. People in communist countries are transformed from being God’s people to becoming subjects of the devil, all without noticing it. In communist countries, the government monopolizes social resources so that everything must be carried out by following the instructions of communist party leaders, who themselves must exhibit sufficient “party nature” if they are to survive the vicious factional struggles that characterize communist regimes. Ordinary citizens or the rank-and-file cadres who try to follow their conscience and act morally almost invariably end up violating the party’s ideological line, and are either demoted or labeled enemies of the state. They then become the underclass, forced to struggle at the bottom of society.
In free societies, governments are also moving toward authoritarianism, with “big government” coming to control almost everything. One of the key features of authoritarian politics is a strong central government that plans and directs the economy. At present, Western governments have tremendous power to intervene in and control the economy to achieve government plans; they use the instruments of state revenue and expenditures, taxation, and debt financing.
Expansion of the central administrative power, local governmental control over the lives of citizens, and numerous laws and court rulings have resulted in an all-round expansion of governmental power and unprecedented societal control. “Political correctness” is an excuse to deprive people of their freedom of speech. Those who openly denounce sinister policies are dismissed as engaging in “hate speech.” Those who dare to oppose political correctness are marginalized, isolated, in some cases fired, and in extreme instances threatened or attacked.
Deviated political standards have replaced upright moral standards. These standards are then enforced with the power of the law, regulation, and public attacks, thus creating an atmosphere of social terror and pressure. This social terror can then suppress people’s free will and their freedom to pursue kindness. This is the essence of totalitarian politics.
b. Totalitarianism via Welfare, Technology, and Excessive Regulation
Contemporary Western society is now rife with laws and regulations governing the minutia of nearly every aspect of society, from workplace practices to the raising of children. State welfare is increasingly seen as a default necessity, rather than as a form of emergency aid for the truly disadvantaged. Advances in technology have enabled governments to enforce their red tape on a scale never before possible. Encouraging and accelerating this process are leftist groups and politicians, who market it as progress.
In fact, the expansion of government oversight and state welfare poses a grave threat to liberty and morality. In the nineteenth century, Tocqueville observed that “if despotism were to be established amongst the democratic nations of our days, it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them.” [16]
From the federal level down to the state, county, and municipal levels, thousands of new laws are passed every year. Just about everything has a law or rule limiting it. The US tax code is tens of thousands of pages long, while the recent health insurance law amounts to over twenty thousand pages. Even judges and lawyers cannot comprehend all the laws, not to mention an average citizen. A person can break a law without even realizing it.
Furthermore, no matter how perfect the law may be, it is only an external form of restraint and cannot govern the human heart. As Lao Tzu said, “The more laws are promulgated, the more thieves and bandits there will be.”
People ignore the fact that social problems are caused by unleashing the evil side of man. As they create more and more laws, ignoring the crux of the matter, a vicious cycle is formed, and society begins its step-by-step march toward totalitarianism.
Throughout history, competent governments maintained the ability to allocate resources to the poor, such as during times of famine, drought, or flooding. Meanwhile, charities existed organically in local communities and religious organizations. The British jurist A.V. Dicey observed that in the twentieth century, however, governments began to see the welfare of individuals as something to be regulated and provided for by taxation:
Now before 1908 the question whether a man, rich or poor, should insure his health, was a matter left entirely to the free discretion or indiscretion of each individual. His conduct no more concerned the State than the question whether he should wear a black coat or a brown coat. But the National Insurance Act will, in the long run, bring upon the State, that is, upon the taxpayers, a far heavier responsibility than is anticipated by English electors. … [Unemployment insurance] is in fact the admission by the State of its duty to insure a man against the evil ensuing from his having no work. … The National Insurance Act is in accordance with the doctrines of socialism. … [17]
However, large government-established welfare states are riddled with inherent weaknesses. There is no such thing as a free lunch. High levels of welfare are based on high taxation, which causes all manner of social ills. The Nordic model of socialist welfare was once considered a positive example of socialist prosperity to be imitated by the West, yet in Northern Europe, the tax rate-to-GDP ratio is among the highest in the world, with many of the countries’ tax rates hovering at around 50 percent.
Analysts have pointed out several fatal problems with socialist medical welfare. It is unsustainable, as people want to benefit from free services more than they pay into them. There are no rewards or penalties for performance, and medical industry practitioners don’t need to assume any legal responsibility for what they do. It causes huge losses to the government: People steal through loopholes, abuse the system, and engage in underground trade. The government decides the life and death of the people through the medical system, and it’s plagued by bureaucracy. [18]
In 2010, a 32-year-old man named Jonas in northern Sweden had to suture his own bleeding wound after waiting hours for medical care. After accidentally cutting himself while renovating his home, he first went to an outpatient clinic, which was closed, then went to the emergency room. There, he waited for an hour for assistance as his wound continued to bleed. Finally, noticing a needle and thread that the nurses had left out, he attempted to treat himself. The hospital staff later reported him for violating the law by using hospital equipment without authorization. [19] This is just one example of how a socialized welfare scheme can lead to ridiculous outcomes. Because everyone wants free medical care, resources are abused. The clash between limitations on resources and the demand that things be free causes imbalances in the supply and demand equation. The lack of supply means long wait times and inadequate care. Those who really need care are thus harmed by socialized medicine.
In addition, while cradle-to-grave welfare appears desirable to many, the population’s dependence on the government lays down the foundation for an autocratic regime. This principle is reflected clearly in the Marxist understanding that socialism is merely the primary stage of communism.
Greater involvement by the authorities in the regulation of society or in the lives of individual citizens requires larger systems of state control: the hiring of personnel and drafting of regulations require money, which is generated from taxation. With the expansion of the state also comes the creation of powerful political cliques that have a vested interest in keeping and enlarging the scope of their authority.
Technology makes it even more convenient for governments to control their populations. The Chinese Communist Party is the most obvious representative of this issue, but the same dangers are present in Western countries, particularly in Europe, where socialist programs are already ubiquitous.
Today’s China has the largest surveillance system in the world. In public places and on the roads, surveillance cameras are everywhere. In just minutes, faces on a blacklist can be pulled from a sea of 1.4 billion people. The surveillance software embedded in WeChat on cellphones enables open surveillance, and privacy is completely absent for anyone with a cellphone. There is simply nowhere to hide.
As technology becomes more and more advanced and governments become bigger and bigger, a continuation on the path of socialism in the West would result in a similarly horrifying fate — of being constantly monitored, pressured, and managed. This ultimate scenario is by no means an exaggeration.
In addition to physical surveillance and censorship, the government can also utilize big data and financial information to have targeted citizens fired from their jobs. Banks can be made to cancel their mortgages. A government with these technological means can revoke the licenses of disobedient citizens and cut off their access to the welfare that, because of other economic policies, is their only means to maintain their livelihood.
6. Communism’s Threat to Basic Values
Communist ideologies have wreaked havoc in the political sphere for centuries. In the East, communist regimes mobilized the forces of the state to crush political opponents, destroy traditional culture, and kill tens of millions of people. In the West, left-wing movements have steadily taken over the democratic process. While eschewing overt violence and dictatorship, the policies they advocate follow the same philosophy of struggle.
Lust for power, wealth, and fame have existed as long as humanity itself, as everyone harbors the capacity for evil as well as good. Taking advantage of the moral weaknesses inherent to human nature, the specter of communism has cultivated networks of “agents” around the world.
Due to communist infiltration, today’s Western societies are divided to an unprecedented degree, with the Left using all its power to obstruct and thwart those who hold traditional views in politics. It is no exaggeration to say that the West is now in a war over its own values.
Leftist political influence has proven extremely resistant to the attempts taken to weaken or reverse it. Politicians and activists under communism’s sway collude with the media to discredit the opposition and spread misleading information to confuse the public. Left-wing officials ignore or obstruct government decrees, divert public resources to support their ideological agendas, and enact policies that exacerbate social division and conflict.
In 2018, according to a poll conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, more than 80 percent of respondents said they believed that Americans were heavily divided on important values and that the country was more deeply divided on politics than in the past. [20]
The state is unmatched in its ability to marshal human and economic resources. Wielded properly, political power can bring great benefit to the entire nation, and improve the international community. But as seen throughout history, and in the history of the communist movement, abuse of that power leads to monstrous crimes.
Former US President Reagan said in his first inaugural address: “From time to time, we have been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?” [21] President Donald Trump said that in the United States, “we don’t worship government — we worship God.” [22]
The unity of a country requires a common set of values and a shared culture. Although doctrines differ among religions, the standards for good and evil are similar. In the United States, this makes it possible for people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds to live side by side in harmony. However, when the people are divided over questions of basic morality, the very survival of the country is at stake.
References
1. Jules-Antoine Castagnary, Philosophie du Salon de 1857, as quoted in Franklin L. Baumer, Modern European Thought: Continuity and Change in Ideas, 1600–1950 (New York: Macmillan, 1977), 335.
2. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” in Marx & Engels Selected Works, vol. 1, trans. Samuel Moore, ed. Andy Blunden, Marxists Internet Archive, accessed April 17, 2020, https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm.
3. Frank Newport, “Democrats More Positive About Socialism Than Capitalism,” Gallup, August 13, 2018,https://news.gallup.com/poll/240725/democrats-positive-socialism-capitalism.aspx.
4. “Little Change in Public’s Response to ’Capitalism,’ ’Socialism,’” Pew Research Center, December 28, 2011, https://www.people-press.org/2011/12/28/little-change-in-publics-response-to-capitalism-socialism.
5. Milton Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (Boston: Mariner Books, 1990), 148.
6. Matthew Vadum, “Soros Election-Rigging Scheme Collapses: The Secretary of State Project’s death is a victory for conservatives,” FrontPage Mag, July 30, 2012, https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/139026/soros-election-rigging-scheme-collapses-matthew-vadum.
7. Rachel Chason, “Non-Citizens Can Now Vote in College Park, Md.,” The Washington Post, September 13, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/college-park-decides-to-allow-noncitizens-to-vote-in-local-elections/2017/09/13/2b7adb4a-987b-11e7-87fc-c3f7ee4035c9_story.html?utm_term=.71671372768a.
8. Mao Zedong, “Analysis of the Classes in Chinese Society,” in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung: Vol. I, Marxists Internet Archive, accessed April 17, 2020, https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/index.htm.
9. Bilveer Singh, Quest for Political Power: Communist Subversion and Militancy in Singapore (Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International [Asia] Pte Ltd, 2015).
10. Leonard Patterson, “I Trained in Moscow for Black Revolution,” Speakers Bureau of the John Birch Society, YouTube video, posted by Swamp Yankee, August 20, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuXQjk4zhZs.
11. William F. Jasper, “Anarchy in Los Angeles: Who Fanned the Flames, and Why?” The New American, June 15, 1992, https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/15807-anarchy-in-los-angeles-who-fanned-the-flames-and-why.
12. Ibid.
13. US Congress, House, Committee on Un-American Activities, Soviet Total War, ‘Historic Mission’ of Violence and Deceit (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1956).
14. Marx and Engels, “Manifesto.”
15. Vladimir Lenin, The State and Revolution (1918), 381–492, Marxists Internet Archive, accessed April 17, 2020, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm.
16. Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. ii, Henry Reeve, trans., (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1889), 289.
17. Albert Venn Dicey, Lectures on the Relation Between Law & Public Opinion in England, During the Nineteenth Century (London: Macmillan and Co., 1919), xxxviii, Online Library of Liberty, accessed April 17, 2020,http://oll.libertyfund.org/pages/dicey-on-the-rise-of-legal-collectivism-in-the-20thc.
18. Paul B. Skousen, The Naked Socialist (Salt Lake City, UT: Izzard Ink, 2014), Kindle edition.
19. Peter Vinthagen Simpson, “Jonas, 32, Sewed Up His Own Leg after ER Wait,” The Local, August 3, 2010, https://www.thelocal.se/20100803/28150.
20. Juana Summers, “AP-NORC Poll: Most Americans See a Sharply Divided Nation,” The Associated Press, http://www.apnorc.org/news-media/Pages/AP-NORC-Poll-Most-Americans-see-a-sharply-divided-nation.aspx.
21. Ronald Reagan, “First Inaugural Address of Ronald Reagan” (speech, US Capitol, Washington, DC, January 20, 1981), The Avalon Project, accessed April 17, 2020, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/reagan1.asp.
22. Donald Trump, “Remarks by President Trump at the 2017 Values Voter Summit” (speech, Omni Shoreham Hotel, Washington, DC, October 13, 2017), White House, accessed April 17, 2020, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-2017-values-voter-summit.
Category: Perspective
