There are some things that are clearly impossible. Jeremiah the prophet asked, “Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil?” (Jer. 13:23). There is something else that is impossible: A communist utopia.
The Scourge of Communism
In all its years, communism has left a trail of murder and mayhem. Communists try to persuade people that communism is the answer, but as people give it a try and want something better, communism turns brutal. In the book, Why Not Kill Them All? sociologist Daniel Chirot and psychologist Clark McCauley write that especially in Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia, a fanatical certainty that socialism could be made to work motivated communist leaders in “the ruthless dehumanization of their enemies, who should be suppressed because they were objectively and historically wrong.”
This is the uniform conclusion of scholars from a variety of backgrounds. Rudolph Rummel’s 1994 book, Death by Government, claims that 110 million people were killed by communists from 1900 to 1987. In 2010, Steven Rosefielde wrote Red Holocaust concerning which he says, “Twentieth and twenty-first century communism is a failed experiment in social engineering that needlessly killed approximately 60 million people and perhaps tens of millions more. These high crimes against humanity constitute a Red Holocaust that exceeds the combined carnage of the French Reign of Terror, Ha Shoah [the Nazi-fueled Holocaust], Japan’s Asian holocaust, and all combat deaths in world War I and II combined.”
In a Wikipedia entry titled “Mass killing under communist regimes,” many examples are given to show how communism, and communist leaders, will exterminate the opposition. A vast array of terms have been coined to describe the grisly slaughter of the opposition: “mass killing,” “genocide,” “politicide,” “democide,” “classicide,” “holocaust,” “crimes against humanity,” and many others. A number of authors write that the number of victims of communist regimes has been “extremely extensive and ideologically based.” The Black Book of Communism claims an association between communism and criminality: “Communist regimes turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government.” Should we be surprised? These people are atheists and have no morality. Life is cheap. Their dialectical ideology is their “god.”
Mao’s Cavalier Attitude Toward Nuclear War and the Death of 300 Million People
The Soviet leaders of the old Cold War era were guided by a degree of moderation, pragmatism and even “moral restraint”—I am speaking in comparative terms—that is not evidenced by China’s leaders today. They are living under the militant shadow of Mao Zedong. In November of 1957, a conference of communist and workers’ parties from around the world was held in Moscow. Mao revealed his heart when he said: “Since our power is so strong, why do we still hold talks with the United States? Just fight! What’s the big deal about nuclear war? There are 2.7 billion people in the world and even if half of them died, another half remained alive. There are 600 million people in China and 300 million will be left. Then what am I afraid of?” (LTC Robert Maginnis, Give Me Liberty, pp. 129–130).
Kind of scary, isn’t it? The death of 300 million people by nuclear war is no big deal, according to Mao. How do you fight an enemy who has no regard for 300 million people? I would suggest a little education. (I am again speaking in figurative terms. Where Mao is, the only education is by divine wrath. There is no graduation) Did he not realize the worldwide effects of a nuclear exchange and its deleterious effects for the next 1,700 years? Probably not. Mao had a dislike for educated people, like doctors and engineers. In the Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), Mao revealed his ignorance. He decided that industrialization would make China a world power. But there was a need for high quality steel. The solution (according to Mao)? Backyard furnaces in every home in every commune. Huge efforts on the part of the people were made to produce steel out of scrap metal. To fuel the furnaces, the local environment was denuded of trees and wood taken from doors and furniture. Pots, pans and other metal objects were requisitioned to provide for the production of high-quality steel. Male farm workers, and men from schools, factories and hospitals were taken to operate the backyard furnaces. The result? Low quality lumps of “pig iron” of negligible economic worth. China has certainly come a long way in technology, but I wonder if the communist leaders still think that the loss of 300 million lives is “no big deal”?
How much of this kind of thinking is in the heads of the shakers and movers in China’s military today? In January of 2019, news.com.au/technology reported that “Beijing has a devastating plan to force the world out of the East and South China Seas—and it could cost the U.S. 10,000 lives. Rear Admiral Lou Yuan told an audience in Shenzhen, that the ongoing disputes over the ownership of the East and South China Seas could be resolved by sinking two of America’s super carriers, each carrying a crew of 5,000. Beijing has annexed several reefs in the South China Sea—territory claimed by several nearby nations—engaging in an enormous geo-engineering project to build artificial islands upon which it has placed heavily fortified airfields and ports.
LTC Robert Maginnis zeroes in on the real issue when he writes: “The U.S. threatens communist China on many fronts, but the worst is truly existential for the communist regime: ideological. America stands for human rights, freedom of speech, and an assortment of liberties—all values and principles that Beijing’s communist tyrants opposed because, should those intangibles become standard fare among the Chinese people, the CCP won’t remain in power” (Give Me Liberty, Not Marxism, p. 123). With good reason, China is more worried about America’s Christian writers who speak the truth about China’s antichrist-style government than about America’s military! The military can be shackled by godless leaders in the White House. God’s truth can’t, and it will eventually prevail.
Communism in Latin America and Cuba
According to Daniel DiMartino, writing for economics21.org, Venezuela had one of the most robust economies in the hemisphere until communist leaders Hugo Chavez and later Nicolas Maduro implemented their socialist policies: widespread nationalization of private industry, currency and price controls, and the fiscally irresponsible expansion of welfare programs. The country today is in shambles.
The “woke” crowds and some American leaders on the progressive left—the same ideologues who idolize Mao—have cast Fidel Castro in a favorable light, claiming he brought prosperity and gain to the people of Cuba. But a closer scrutiny shows he was a dictator whose security apparatus controlled and terrorized his people even while dispensing free healthcare and education, a profoundly mixed legacy which has polarized opinion about Castro. “As other countries in the region turned away from authoritarian rule, only Fidel Castro’s Cuba continued to repress virtually all civil and political rights,” wrote Jose Miguel Vivanco of Human Rights Watch. Castro was a dictator who hounded his critics, scorned elections, and ran a brutal police state. Peaceful attempts at democratic reform, such as the Varela project, triggered swift crackdowns, including the so-called Black Spring of 2003.
Christopher Sabatini, a faculty member at Columbia University, writes that Cuba under the Castros “has been a totalitarian state since 1959. There are no democratic elections. Cubans are not allowed to congregate freely and are limited in their freedom of expression and access to information. There’s only one official newspaper run by the Communist Party, and it consists almost entirely of propaganda to support the party and its policies” (theglobalamericans.org).
Yet Castro is loved by BLM, a pro-Marxist racist organization seeking to divide people and destroy the American republic. Want proof? Here it is. As reported by Peter Hasson for Fox News, following Castro’s death, a BLM post said: “We are feeling many things as we awaken to a world without Fidel Castro. There is an overwhelming sense of loss, complicated by fear and anxiety. Although no leader is without their flaws, we must push back against the rhetoric of the right and come to the defense of El Comandante.” In the post, BLM also expressed gratitude to Castro for harboring Assata Shakur, a convicted cop-killer who fled to Cuba after she escaped from prison in 1979. “As a Black network committed to transformation, we are particularly grateful to Fidel for holding Mama Assata Shakur, who continues to inspire us.” This darling of BLM was convicted in the first-degree murder of State Trooper Werner Foerster during a shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike in 1973.
There are several groups in Cuba seeking deliverance from communist oppression, all reported on by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, a research and human rights nonprofit devoted to commemorating the more than 100 million victims of communism around the world. One group that is typical of the struggle against communism in Cuba is the San Isidro Movement, a group of Cuban artists, journalists, and academics formed in 2018 to protest the government’s increased censorship. The group formed as a reaction to Decree 349, a law that sought to require that artistic activity had to be authorized in advance by the Cuban Ministry of Culture. The group took its name from the San Isidro area of Havana where it was formed. Isn’t this exactly what is happening in America—increasing censorship. I pastored for a while in the Florida Keys. Our church was less than a hundred miles from Havana. Castro was no friend of anyone except those motivated by a satanic ideology that makes sinful man the master of his destiny. This foolish idea was set forth in National Geographic (April 2017, p. 40): “Like any other species, we are the product of millions of years of evolution. Now we’re taking matters into our own hands.”
We must pray for the billions who are living under the boot of communism, and especially for our country and the growing numbers of deluded individuals who are embracing Marxism. One day the rebellion will end. “Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them” (Jude 14–15).