Archive for the ‘Communism’ Category
The Reality of CommunismWhat Is Social Democracy and Why Is It a Capitalist Dictatorship? – revcom.us
In this article, through analyzing these similarities and differences and examining the views of the defenders of social democracy, we show how democracy/dictatorship under socialism is qualitatively different from these models and from any expansion or improvement of bourgeois democracy/dictatorship. At the end, we will take a look at Karl Popper's social democratic theory.
Today, defenders of social democracy as a desirable model for Iran's future are an active force on the political scene, and this idea has great influence among intellectuals. These intellectuals completely separate the history of democracy in Iran from the larger historical context of Iran's integration into the framework of global capitalism (capitalist imperialism). Like the other countries of the global South, Iran is a country under the domination of imperialism. It is subordinate to the requirements of capital accumulation in the central countries (the metropole) and, internally, its [development] is lopsided and fragmented.
The development of capitalism in Iran has gone through various turning points, each of which was dependent on major changes in the global capitalist system. (For further discussion refer to the chapter on economics of the Manifesto and Program of the Communist Revolution in Iran-2017.) The defenders of social democracy in Iran reject this decisive fact. As a result, their solution for Iranto extend to Iran the political superstructure that prevails in the imperialist capitalist countries of the Westis futile and impossible to implement in Iran.
Bob Avakian explains in his book Democracy: Can't We Do Better Than That?, the tendency of social democrats can be divided into two groups: one of these focuses on various reformist schemes to achieve economic democracy in Europe (the so-called social democrat defenders of the welfare state). Those in this first group, who became partners-in-power inside their own bourgeois states, emphasize that democracy is impossible without economic justice. Therefore, the distribution of imperialist plunder among wider sections of the population is at the center of their program. In relation to democracy, the practice and essential role of this group has been to defend and advocate for bourgeois society and its traditions in the Westagainst the challenge of Soviet social imperialism in the past, and now against genuine revolution and revolutionary communism.
The other group of social democrats tries to distinguish themselves from the usual cheerleaders for Western imperialism by presenting their views on democracy with a more radical, and even Marxist, formulation. But, in the final analysis, their attempts to make Marxism align with bourgeois democracy are futile, as well.
Let's look at some of the views of Iranian supporters of social democracy. One of the most well-know names among these intellectuals is Mohammad Reza Nikfar. During the Jina uprising, he theorized and idealized how this type of democracy could counter theocratic and monarchic rule. Ultimately, there are no more than two ways to deal with the current chaos and disarray: an integration [of the populist movement with the existing system] based on equality and participation, or consolidation based on authoritarian power, repression and control. This is a choice between the honor and dignity of [being] a citizen versus the historical degradation and indignity of [being] a peasant.1Apart from the fact that the historical conditions of degradation and subjugation of the Iranian people have not been so selective as all that, we must emphasize that Nikfars ideal of equality and citizen participationthe essence of the bourgeois democratic idealhas already failed.
Because Nikfar ignores the larger context of Iran's integration into the global capitalist system (though he is well aware of its history), he cannot factually and scientifically explain why all bourgeois-democratic efforts have failed in Iran, and continue to fail. There are two world-historical obstacles: first, in an imperialist world, bourgeois democracy cannot be extended to the countries it dominates (especially of the kind of welfare state specific to a handful of countries). To do so would require radical changes in the relationship between the countries of the Global North and the Global South, and any such attempt would disrupt the internal cohesion of the imperialist countries (aside from the fact that bourgeois democracy in these countries itself is today threatened by fascist forces).
What makes social democracyand bourgeois democracy more generallypossible in those very few countries is their plunder of countries in the Global South. Dictatorial regimes [in the dominated countries] are synonymous with the relative prosperity and domestic political stability needed for the existence of bourgeois democracy in the imperialist countries.
Second, although a large part of what was considered the communist movement in Iran thinks that the era of bourgeois revolutions in the Global South is still ongoing, the reality is that the era of bourgeois revolutions has ended. This kind of thinkingthat the bourgeois revolution has not yet been exhausted because it has yet to become pure in the Global North and because the Global South has not yet benefited from the many blessings it has conferred on the Global Northcan be seen in the ideas formulated by the likes of Habermas,2 and are fostered by many intellectuals of the Global South.
However, any problem that remained unresolved in the era of bourgeois revolutions can no longer be solved within that same framework, because in practice (and not in fantasy), that framework has become the globalized framework of capitalist imperialism. And today in particular, any attempt at bourgeois democracy turns into an outpost for imperialism, which ultimately contributes to the spread of the influence of Islamic fundamentalism (and elsewhere, Christian fundamentalism), as an alternative. Simply put, to solve all the leftovers from the past, such as the horrible return to dark-age ideology and more traditional social relations, requires the two radical ruptures that Marx emphasized, breaking with traditional property relations and breaking with traditional ideas.
In order to validate his political theory of social democracy, Nikfar turns an important fact upside down. He writes: "The duality of situations in the world result from discrimination which leads to the duality of position and to the conditions that are a result of exploitation. Discrimination precedes exploitation, from an analytical and logical standpoint, and also from a historical standpoint.3But in reality, unlike what exists in someone's mind, the relation between discrimination and exploitation is the other way around. Not necessarily in a one-to-one way, but in a complex relationship, exploitation ultimately lays the foundation for a system that is an inseparable part of all forms of oppression and discrimination.
The relationship between discrimination and exploitation is multifaceted and multilayered. When Marx formulated the 4 Alls,4he explained their inner and dialectical relationships. He also clarified which is primary and their interval [what proceeds from what]. By turning this reality upside down (saying that discrimination precedes exploitation), Nikfar concludes that it is possible to solve the problem of discrimination within the framework of capitalism, and sees no need for a revolution with the aim of crushing the capitalist system and replacing it with a socialist system working to abolish the 4 Alls.
Other defenders of social democracy also see such a revolution as unrealistic. For example, Mehrdad Darvishpour, borrowing from Frederic Jamison,5writes that defending the achievements of the welfare staterather than romantic and unrealistic declarations about the abolition of classes and abolition of wage laboris the important task of Left forces today.6He considers the project of social democracy to be integrating the defense of democracy with social justice, the defense of the environment, gender equality and the elimination of discrimination (including combating racism and ethnic discriminations) that has stood opposed to classical Left projects, such as the negative expropriation of private property and the establishment of state socialism.
But expropriation of private ownership of the means of production and the establishment of socialism (proletarian democracy/dictatorship), which he calls a classical project, is a vital requirement for creating a material basis for social justice and for ending discrimination and protecting the environment. Because in reality, despite what anyone thinks, the source of these problems is the actual workings and dynamics of capitalism. Although it is a necessity for socialism, today and in the future, to rupture with the practices of early socialism in the Soviet Union and China (as Bob Avakian did by summing up the first wave of communist revolutions and laying the foundations of the new communism), this never was and never will be possible with a social democratic outlook. Expecting to achieve the 4 Alls within a bourgeois democracy, by something called intertwining, is not realistic, but utopiansomething we revolutionary communists are accused of.
Of course, Darvishpour writes that his pet project, both from the point of view of making progress and [to maintain] it in the long-term, is a far more effective way to simultaneously defend and expand the public welfare.
Similarly, Faraj Sarkohi, in a program called The Necessity of Social Democracy in Iran,7asserts that the survival of society, its sustainable development, and even the growth of capital in it cannot be based on discrimination. In his statements, we see a more honest example of social democracy and its purpose: to make capitalism rational! This project attempts to prove to the capitalist system and its uncontrollable driving force of expand or die, that it will be more effective and sustainable to take into account the rights of women, blacks, immigrants and the environment. He intends to use the capitalist mode of production based on the exploitation of labor power, but make profits more fair, and thereby reduce the oppression that is woven into this system.
Occasionally, he borrows sayings from Marxist literature, like the final goal is to eliminate exploitation. But how does he intend to achieve this goal? By simultaneous emphasis on socialism and on democracy, and implementing them step by step, until the majority of the workers become conscious (according to Faraj Sarkohi). This type of analysis and his proposals are examples of separating the political superstructure from societys economic base.
One of the most important theorists of this kind of error is Agnes Heller.8In her collection of essays, shelike other theorists of the Budapest schoolsought a democratic socialism that would be the opposite of what Bob Avakian calls the mechanical and economist socialism of the Soviet bloc. But instead of rupturing with it, she gets caught up in idealism. She misconstrues the relationship between societys economic base and its political and ideological superstructure. This ultimately leads her to regard democracy as an ideal that can be grafted onto either a capitalist economic infrastructure or a socialist one!
Agnes Heller writes, [T]he same democratic principles, to the extent that they are formal principles, can serve as fundamental principles in the constitution of either a capitalist or a socialist society, and adds: formal democracy, indeed, can be transformed into socialist democracy without undergoing the slightest modification. The principles of formal democracy prescribe how to proceed in dealing with the affairs of society, how to find solutions to problems, but in no way do they impose a limit on the content of various social aspirations. (Emphasis added by Atash)
In contrast to the idealist fantasy of Agnes Heller, Avakian emphasizes:
.[D]emocracy, as a set of formal principles, cannot be made to service socialism as well as capitalism without undergoing the slightest modification.... to repeat the most basic point, democracy under socialism must undergo a qualitative, radical transformation from what it was under capitalismit must be invertedso that democracy is practiced among the ranks of the new ruling class, the proletariat, while dictatorship is exercised by the proletariat over the former ruling class, the bourgeoisie.
Without the two radical ruptures Marx and Engels spoke of as decisive without the uphill battle that must be waged for it after socialism is first established there is no socialism, let alone the ultimate achievement of communism. What are needed in the political realm are principles that reflect this and serve the struggle to overcome the resistance of the overthrown bourgeoisie (and newborn bourgeois class forces) and to enable the masses of people to become masters of society in every sphere. what is needed is the application of democracy (and dictatorship) with an open, explicit, class content, and not the principles of formal democracy without the slightest modification.9
Another of the social democratic theorists is Karl Popper (a philosopher of Austrian descent). He laid out his theory, a critique of Marxism, in his well-known book The Open Society and Its Enemies.10Popper's criticism of Marxism is that it takes an essentialist approach to capitalist exploitation and the state, because it doesnt consider them to be reformable. In the 1990s, the reformist wing of the Islamic Republic zealously promoted Popper's theory and this book. In fact, it became a major theoretical prop of their policy of reforms and was used to mobilize a section of the intellectual community around a belief in the reformability of the Islamic Republic.
According to Popper, the Marxist theorythat any form of state, without exception, represents the dictatorship of this or that class, and that even the most democratic of them is in fact a class dictatorshipis an essentialist theory. In his view, it is possible for a state to exist that is not a dictatorship. Popper sees democracy and dictatorship as two different planets, saying that where democracy is there is no dictatorship and vice versa. One of his important criteria for a state to be democratic and non-dictatorial is that people can vote out their political leaders. In a very important critique of Popper's comments, Bob Avakian responds:
the people can dismiss (vote out of office) particular politicians, they cannot by this meansor any means, other than revolution"dismiss the capitalist class (the bourgeoisie) which in reality rules society, which exerts control over the electoral process itself, and which in any case dominates the political decision-making process, and, most essentially, exercises a monopoly of legitimate armed force no seriousand certainly no genuinely scientificanalysis of the dynamics of political power and of the political decision-making process in democratic countries, such as the U.S., can lead to any other conclusion than that all this is, in reality, completely monopolized and dominated by the ruling class of capitalist-imperialists, and that others, besides this ruling class, are effectively excluded from the exercise of political power and meaningful political decision-making, notwithstanding the participation of the populace in elections.11
Ultimately, Popper's solution is this: instead of asking what class is ruling, Marxists should ask how to contain it! But there is no experience to show that the masses of people can contain the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, which has a security and military apparatus. The existence of such illusions (which have always been promoted by the ruling class) have always dealt irreparable blows to the opponents of capitalism and to freedom fighters on the path to liberation.
Popper's solution to capitalist exploitation is also to contain it. He opposes the unlimited freedom of capitalism, saying: Under an unbridled capitalist system, the economically strongest person is free to bully the economically weak and steal his freedom.... We must demand that the policy of unlimited economic freedom be replaced by state-planned economic intervention.12
Here we are up against a theoretical bait-and-switch, in which Popper shifts words around to distort the nature of capital. As Raymond Lotta writes, Capital is a social relation and a process, whose essence is indeed the domination by alien, antagonistic interests over labor. (Raymond Lotta, America in Decline.)13And the bourgeois state (whether its form is social-democratic or liberal-democratic or fascist), is vital to the imposition of this [social] relation. Without it, the bourgeoisie can never dominate the labor force. No demand can stop unbridled capitalism, because the law of expand or die is the intrinsic law of capitalism, and physical violence the inevitable result: even to the extent of causing devastating wars and the destruction of the environment.
All the countries that the Iranian social democrats present as examples and models of social democracyincluding the Scandinavian countriesare imperialist capitalist countries that as a result of the plunder and super-exploitation of the Global South, to some extent and for a period of time, are able to provide welfare and certain political rights in order to secure their own headquarters.
But today, we are seeing these same countries take off their democratic gloves and openly show their fascist iron fist. And it is astonishing to see so many of our social-democratic intellectuals adopt a deafening silence toward Israel's genocidal crime against the Palestinian peoplethat is much like their deafening silence about the massacre of political prisoners in 1988 [in Iran]!
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Why Did the Berlin Wall Fall? – The Imaginative Conservative
The Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain seemed to be permanent fixtures of the political landscape of Europe after 1961. But to everyones surprise, the Berlin Wall opened on November 9, 1989. This stunning event triggered a chain reaction throughout Eastern Europe, accelerating a process that had begun a decade earlier. Using a little poetic license, one could claim that what took ten years in Poland took ten months in Hungary, ten weeks in East Germany, ten days in Czechoslovakia, and ten hours in Romania. A peaceful revolution of unprecedented magnitude rippled across the continent throughout 1989 in a political, moral, and spiritual earthquake that changed the course of history. The rest of the Soviet Union would tumble two years later in the aftershocks. Nearly 400 million people were freed and scarcely a shot was fired. But why?
As it turns out, I was an eyewitness to much of this chapter of history. I experienced East Germany when it was under grim, deadly communist domination in the 1980s. I was an international television correspondent in Europe reporting on Germany and Russia, and stood at the Berlin Wall on the spot where the first victim was killed trying to flee to freedom in the West. I was there in Germany when the Berlin Wall opened up in November 1989 to great jubilation, and I helped people who fled communism start a new life in the West. After the communist regime imploded in Moscow in 1991, I went to Russia to join western efforts to build order in the ashes of the collapsed empire.
Why did communism collapse in the peaceful revolution of 1989-91? If Herodotus were writing the history, he would give several different reports from a variety of sources. In 1989-1991, most people reporting the events gave the accounts listed below. I know these arguments well because I also made them before doing my own research:
1) The economic system of the Soviet Union was breaking down, leading to an implosion.
2) The military buildup of the United States and NATO countries during the Cold War effectively backed down the Soviets, bankrupting them.
3) The extended empire of the Soviets became too large to govern effectively, and it collapsed from its excessive weight and dysfunctionality.
4) It was the triumph of free markets over the command economy: people in Eastern Europe rebelled because they wanted a Western standard of living.
Some people subscribe to the great man theory of history, claiming:
5) Mikhail Gorbachev did it, by allowing new freedoms, which whetted the appetite for more freedoms, which got out of hand.
6) Ronald Reagan did it, by combining forces with Margaret Thatcher.
7) Pope John Paul II did it.
Or there is the explanation that it was all a mistake:
8) The opening of the Berlin Wall was the result of a bungled press conference Gnther Schabowski gave on Nov. 9, as he attempted to explain the new travel policy of the very new East German regime.
Or for those who contend great historic events are seldom, if ever, monocausal, we have the answer:
9) All of the above.
The best answer is 9) because all of these factors played a part. But none of these answers explain why tens of thousands of ordinary people suddenly took to their streets in the fall of 1989 to face down armed troops under orders to shoot them. The economic argument falls short because people do not typically risk their lives for a bigger refrigerator or a vacation visa. Nor do any of these theories explain why this revolution, unlike almost all others in history, remained peaceful. Nearly 400 million people were freed, and scarcely a shot was fired. That is definitely not normal. People rose up in rebellion in East Germany in 1953, in Hungary and Poland in 1956, and in Czechoslovakia in 1968. Each time, the uprising was met with Soviet tanks and bullets, as the people seeking freedom were beaten, imprisoned, or killed. These quashed rebellions that ended in bloodshed make the success of the peaceful revolution of 1989 even more astonishing.
I missed the most important part of the story when I was reporting from Europe for American television throughout the mid-80s. But I got a second chance after I got to know people from communist countries by serving them. When the first wave of 300,000 political refugees escaped from the Soviet Union in the late summer of 1989, they surged into West Germany, where I was living at the time. With the opening of the Berlin Wall in November, people from all the East bloc countries flooded into West Germany, far exceeding the capacity of the government or the Red Cross to care for all of them.
It became clear in prayer that I was to go and serve these refugees who had escaped from communism. So one friend and I launched a small private initiative to try to help people arriving near Cologne, who were in thirteen emergency shelters throughout the city. We brought them blankets, coats, and food, tutored their children, and helped parents find a job and a place to live. And we listened. We heard hundreds of stories from people who fled Poland, Hungary, Kazakhstan, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia. Many of them had dodged bullets, while carrying their children on their shoulders through the forests, as they fled.
Several months later, with the same spiritual clarity, it became clear to me in prayer that I was to go to the countries the refugees had fled, to find men and women who had resisted communism, and that I should write about their experiences. So in blind obedience, and I do mean utterly blind, I went to Poland, East Germany, Hungary, and later Russia. Eventually I interviewed 150 people from throughout all the nations of the former Soviet Union, to ask them why they had resisted communism. I listened to people who had been imprisoned, beaten, and tortured, because their convictions did not align with communist ideology. I met the widow and children of Alexander Men, the great Russian Orthodox priest called the C.S. Lewis of Russia, who was murdered in 1990. These remarkable people explained to me why they had resisted communism with every fiber of their being.
Many of the political prisoners and leaders of the peaceful revolution throughout the former Soviet Union told me that at its core, the resistance to communism went beyond political, economic, and military confrontation to its roots in a moral and spiritual dimension. While certainly not all, or even very many, people who resisted communism were religiously motivated, Christians in significant positions of leadership throughout the entire East Bloc were crucial in keeping this revolution peaceful. Their moral authority had a disproportionate influence on people around them.
The people I interviewed told me that the events of 1989 began a decade earlier in Poland, when the newly elected Pope John Paul II visited his homeland in the sunny summer of 1979. His message was not a political one. Instead, he reminded his countrymen that they were children of God with dignity, rights, and duties that transcended the state. John Paul II reminded the Polish people that their identity was not primarily political, but spiritual. He rose above the political realm to address the Permanent Things. Again and again, Pope John Paul repeated a phrase that was to echo throughout his papacy: Be not afraid! Millions of people who crowded the streets grew stronger as they listened. He ignited their courage in such a powerful way that it sent seismic shocks throughout not only Poland, but all the neighboring countries as well. Through the words of Pope John Paul II, people under the communist yoke began to rediscover the source of Truth, reclaiming their courage to give witness to it in their lives.
A handful of moral leaders emerged in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and East Germany who, over the coming years, would develop small cells of civil society and a second culture. Karol Wojtyla (before he became Pope John Paul II) was certain that the culture was the most important realm to change, and that a healthy culture was the fruit of human souls rooted in faith. He spent his young years as an actor, playwright, and poet, performing Polands traditional works to keep the culture alive. As a young priest, he took kayak trips with young couples to talk candidly with them about living their faith vibrantly in a marriage and family. These couples were to become lifelong friends of the future pontiff, while providing him with authentic lifelong friendships with lay people whose spirituality he understood and admired.
To live out the second culture, sometimes it was necessary to keep it hidden below the surface. Its members in Poland founded underground newspapers, wrote and performed plays, just as Intellectuals organized a flying university to teach in peoples homes, and launched new organizations to focus on about civil liberties. Similar movements sprang up in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and East Germany, as well as the Baltic countries. Artists painted and exhibited works of art in traveling shows in private homes, while playwrights like Vaclav Havel talked for hours over littered ashtrays and endless cups of coffee. The goal shared by all of these various people was life free of the communist constraints, free from the culture of the lie, a life devoted to Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. The work of the peaceful revolution was not primarily political in its intention. Instead, the focus was on the pre-political realm, the culture, the human soul and mind. The character that was formed in these cells of civic order began a process of transformation from the inside out in each person, and from the bottom up in the culture in which they lived. They sought Truth in a culture where everyone said something other than what they meant as a matter of survival. Aleksander Solzhenitsyn and Vaclav Havel said communism fostered the culture of the lie. These two men spoke the truth, even if the cost was incarceration. Their no was a response to a higher and more compelling yes.
The Polish theologian Josef Tischner described Solidarnocz as a huge forest of awakened consciences. It was an apt metaphor for the entire peaceful revolution that would awaken consciences and summon forth courage across Eastern Europe over the next decade, building cells of civil society and strengthening the character of people with a willingness to stand erect, despite threats and opposition. The leaders who emerged shared the conviction that God exists, that the culture of the lie must end, and that there are some things worth dying for.
The rise of communism came in the Soviet Union because, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn said, men forgot God. The central promise of communism was to build an earthly paradise through human efforts, while denying the existence of God. Communism was rooted in Rousseaus proposition that mans nature can be changed by his material circumstances to bring about his perfected state. Marx and Engels inhaled the Hegelian vapors of three ascending ages, which were to bring about the perfected state of man. Lenin and Stalin put steel behind the intoxicating vision. If violence was necessary to bring down the upper classes and abolish private property, so be it. The gulag silenced voices of dissent, as did psychiatric prisons and firing squads. In the end, the Soviets killed at least 62 million of their own citizens to quash all resistance. Stalin alone is responsible for at least 40 million of those deaths.
As a former communist who disavowed his earlier convictions, Whittaker Chambers explained: There were two faiths on trial in the twentieth century: faith in God and faith in man. The communist vision is the vision of man without God. Many of the people whose faith was in God were exterminated, including the 40,000 priests in Russia who were killed between 1918 and 1940.[1] On a single night in October 1929, three hundred political prisoners were executed in the Solovky camp, many of them bishops who had contributed to the Solovky Memorandum, which articulated their beliefs:
The Church recognizes spiritual principles of existence; communism rejects them. The Church believes in the living God, the Creator of the world, the leader of its life and destinies; communism denies his existence. . . . Such a deep contradiction in the very basis of their Weltanshauungen precludes any intrinsic approximation of reconciliation between the Church and state, as there cannot be any between affirmation and negation . . . because the very soul of the Church, the condition of her existence and the sense of her being, is that which is categorically denied by communism.[2]
While the first phase of the Russian Revolution killed the countrys aristocracy, the next phase attempted to eradicate the spiritual nobility. The Cheka, the predecessor of the KGB, in a 1921 document spelled out its intentions to corrupt the church from within, because the communists knew that resistance fed by religious faith posed a genuine threat to them.[3]
Citizens were imprisoned for owning books such as Alexander Solzhenitsyns Gulag Archipelago, the possession of which merited a one-year in prison sentence in East Germany. In Russia, writing poetry that mentioned God, as in the poems of Irina Ratushinskaya, resulted in seven years of imprisonment that nearly killed her before she was released in a prisoner exchange before the Reykjavik arms talks between President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. Nikolai Saburov cheerfully went to prison in Russia for smuggling Bibles from the West and printing copies on homemade samizdat (self-made) presses made from parts of washing machines and bicycles. Each time he was released from his three-year prison term, he printed more Bibles, only to be arrested and imprisoned again.
Merely declining to swear allegiance to the communist party was dangerous. A brilliant student of economics, Anatoly Rudenko, was sent to a psychiatric prison after he refused to join Komsomol, the communist youth organization, at two universities. Anatoly would not swear allegiance to the communist party because it was atheistic, and he had become a Christian. By Soviet logic, he must have been insane because he did not believe the communist ideology he had been taught in their schools. Anatoly was arrested and put into a psychiatric prison where perfectly sane people entered and were filled with drugs that made them drool, roll imaginary balls with their fingers, and hallucinate. Some were injected with a solution that would instantly and painfully raise the body temperature to 105 degrees, damaging brain tissue irrevocably. It was only because the Baptist Union of the USA insisted on the release of a fellow Baptist that Anatoly was spared the fate of the other prisoners unraveling all around him.
In Leipzig, East Germany, in October, 1989, armed with nothing but small candles and prayer, courageous people faced down armed troops under orders to shoot them. Beginning seven years earlier, Lutheran Pastor Christian Fhrer had invited people to the Nikolaikirche for the Friedensgebete Monday afternoon at five to pray for peaceful change in East Germany. What began with a handful of people sometimes dwindled to one or two, but Pastor Fhrer continued undeterred for the next seven years. In 1989, the group began to swell, gaining strength of hundreds in the spring, then thousands in the summer, until the communist officials were apoplectic in September. They asked each other How many people can we shoot at once?
On October 9, 1989, tanks rolled into Leipzig, along with water cannons, attack dogs, and several thousand soldiers and military police in riot gear. The Leipzig newspaper had warned the day before that any insurrection would be put down if necessary, with a weapon in hand. Thousands of pints of blood were flown into Leipzigs hospitals and surgeons were put on alert to treat the expected shooting victims. Parents were urged to pick up their young children from school early, to avoid a bloodbath in the city. Despite these ominous preparations, 70,000 ashen-faced people took to the streets on that Monday. Leipzig threatened to erupt into civil war. Hundreds of members of the communist party squeezed into the pews to prevent legitimate protesters from being seated in the Nikolaikirche. Outside the walls of the church, ashen-faced people filled the streets for blocks in all directions. Despite panicked warnings, Pastor Christian Fhrer began the service at the stroke of five with the church packed to overflowing and opened with the Beatitudes, Blessed are the peacemakers.
As the final benediction was given, Christian Fhrer says that a palpable presence of the Holy Spirit descended on this fearful mass of people, most of whom were not practicing Christians. The pastor described it this way: The spirit of Christ, the spirit of non-violence and renewal fell on the masses, moved the people deeply and became a tangible force of peace. It was like the Book of Acts when the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius and his household. This is something quite remarkable because these people were mostly not Christians. And yet the people behaved then as if they had grown up with the Sermon on the Mount.[4]
In this spirit of peace and courage, the people grabbed each others elbows and held small candles as they walked out of the church. The power was contagious and what had been an amorphous mass of frightened people became a purposeful phalanx walking out of the church into the city. The young military draftees outside nervously held their weapons, hoping they would not be ordered to fire into the crowd, knowing that if they refused, they themselves would be shot from behind. The demonstrators looked the soldiers in the eye and began the march on the wide street that ringed the center of Leipzig.
Nineteen-year-old Raphaela Russ remembers, With amazing composure the mass began to move, past the curious onlookers who hemmed the edges of the streets, past the mobilized security forces, past the barking dogs in the narrow streets and alleyways.[5] As they marched past tanks and water cannons, some chanted keine Gewalt (no violence) while others thwarted provocateurs planted by the Stasi, encircling them to remove stones from their hands. A human chain protected the Stasi building and no one smashed even one window of their headquarters. Despite justified frustration at forty years of repression, no one so much as knocked the hat off a soldier. Although the troops had live ammunition, not one of the 70,000 people demonstrating provided provocation for the soldiers to open fire. At the end of this very tense evening, the forces for peaceful change had won. Christian Fhrer said, The soldiers were prepared for everything except candles and prayer. He was astonished at the outcome, saying We were just grateful for the role God let us play in this amazing drama. It certainly was not the few Christians among us. God wrote history that night.
After the television coverage of this extraordinary event, demonstrations like the one in Leipzig spread to cities all across East Germany. The East German communist party unceremoniously dumped Erich Honecker as its standard bearer, replacing him with Egon Krenz. Committees scrambled to meet the demands of hundreds of thousands on the streets, who spoke through the banners they carried. They wanted the freedom to refuse military service with a weapon aimed at fellow Germans. They wanted the freedom to travel, to speak freely, and to buy goods from the West. And hundreds of thousands of them took to the streets all over East Germany throughout October and early November. The evening of November 9, Gnther Schabowski came out of a meeting and read a statement about new policies for granting visas to cross the wall, which journalists pounced on. When does that take effect? one asked. Schabowski fumbled and said he guessed it meant immediately. The journalists went into a frenzy and immediately began broadcasting.
Anyone who heard the radio reports that any East German could get a travel visa the same day ran out of their house in their pajamas and headed for the Berlin Wall. Wild lines of Trabis, the little unreliable cars made in East Germany, snaked up to the border honking in a chaotic chorus. Hordes of people on foot mobbed the cross-points, where the border guards were overwhelmed and uncertain what to do. Their superiors didnt believe what they were being told on the phone. More people swarmed the gates. Finally the border guards just shoved their caps back and lifted the barriers to let the tidal wave of people pass through. Families that had been separated for forty years ran to embrace each other, showered in champagne, flowers, and tears. Young people scaled the wall and danced on it. No one, I repeat no one, knew or even suspected that the Berlin Wall would open then. The East German regime didnt even intend to open it.
That is the natural explanation. Here is the supernatural one. That same night, November 9th, people gathered at the Nikolaikirche in Leipzig once again. This time it was a silent march through the city to commemorate the 51st anniversary of Kristallnacht, the night of violence against the Jews before World War II began. As these Germans walked through Leipzig, they asked Gods forgiveness for the violence the Nazis had committed against the Jewish people. As they prayed and walked around the city of Leipzig for the seventh time, the Berlin Wall opened unexpectedly and the communist regime fell with a crash as resounding as that of the walls of Jericho.
Throughout 1989, the people once dominated by the Soviets were throwing off their shackles, daring to live as if they were free. Poland had already held its first free elections in June, while Hungary had literally snipped the barbed wire on the border in May, asserting its independence from Moscow. Czechoslovakia staged its fantastic Velvet Revolution later in November, ejecting communist leaders with swift dispatch in merely two weeks. Romanians toppled Ceausescu in December, in a swift revolt that lasted only hours. Theirs was the only violent chapter of the otherwise peaceful revolution of 1989. In October, 1990, East and West Germany were reunited, cementing the new relationship of sovereignty free from the Russians. All the former Soviet satellites were exploring alliances with the West.
Disappointed Soviet hardliners concluded Mr. Gorbachev had been too soft, and they attempted a coup in Moscow in August of 1991. The natural explanation is that they failed to convince enough others. The supernatural explanation is more complicated. Here is what several people who were participants in the resistance told me. Three Christians took a shipment of Bibles they had received the previous night from America. Leading them was Fr. Alexander Borisov, who had recently been elected to the Moscow City Council, a man of proven character who had been blocked from ordination for fifteen years because he refused to share information about his congregation with the KGB. Anatoly Rudenko, who had been released from the psychiatric prison, was passing out Bibles to the tank drivers sent to put down the demonstrations. He was joined by Shirinai Dossova, a Muslim convert to Christianity, who went right up to the tanks and pounded on the sides of them until a baffled driver popped open the top of the tank in exasperation to say What? She handed the tank driver a Bible and said, It says here not to kill. Are you going to kill me? And she put herself squarely in front of the tank and looked him in the eye. Her courage overcame the tank drivers willingness to fire. Another Christian dissident met them there. Alexander Ogorodnikov, a Christian dissident who had been incarcerated for eight and a half years in Soviet prisons, formed a human chain around the Russian White House, where the beleaguered parliament was locked in, expecting to be crushed by tanks and bullets any moment. Alexander, Anatoly, Shirinai, and Fr. Borisov mustered the courage to stand and resist the tanks and military forces, inspiring others to join them. They stood vigil, praying through the night. People were being baptized, kneeling to pray. The members of the newly elected Russian Parliament, the Duma, waited tensely inside the Russian White House, defended only with a handful of pistols among them. Those I interviewed told me they were certain that they would be crushed by the military any moment. But as the night wore on, a strangely opaque fog settled in, shrouding the Parliaments building from visibility. The helicopters intending to attack could not see to land. And at the same time, the military personnel on the ground refused orders to roll their tanks over the bodies of the human chain of private citizens defending the Russian parliament. When the morning finally dawned, much to everyones surprise, the forces of peace had won this battle, too. Four people had been killed. The choir from Fr. Boriss church sang to mourn their deaths and celebrate the victory. He preached from a balcony above the square.
After the failure of the attempted coup in Russia, the aftershocks of the political and moral earthquake shattered the remaining shell of the communist hierarchy. The desire for freedom had been swelling in Ukraine and the Baltic countries as well, drawing people to the streets of Estonia to sing traditional songs from their pre-communist past in what came to be called the Singing Revolution. Citizens of Latvia, Lithuania, and Ukraine had all staged demonstrations by this time, and there were no consequences for protesters. By December, the remaining hull of the Soviet empire heaved, groaned, and crashed. Aside from a few fossilized hardliners, it seemed there were no more true believers in the utopia communism had promised. Of course, the old communists just got new business cards and started doing business with the West. The difficulties in Russia since indicate that its people may have entered their wilderness years, just as the Israelites were forced to wander forty years in the desert to unlearn the traits of slavery from Egypt.
The college students I teach now were all born after the Berlin Wall fell. The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union was so recent that most students have not covered that era in world history. They do not know that the threat of nuclear war with the Soviet Union was real. But considering the magnitude of the communist menace, which dominated US and European foreign policy for half a century, it is a dangerous blind spot when students conclude today that communism is a good idea, as a concept, as two blithely remarked to me not long ago. Many of the people who lived under communist regimes would vehemently disagree with them.
The bloodiest century ever proved that modern totalitarian governments are utterly deadly killing machines. But big numbers tend to wash over us with little impactmillions, billions, whatever. Perhaps this will put the numbers in perspective. Starting as far back as humans have kept records, in 4000 BC, and tallying up to 1987, some 133 million people were killed worldwide. But in one century, the 20th century alone, 207.5 million people were killed, well beyond all the people killed in all previous centuries together.[6] But the truly stunning number is this: 169 million people were killed by their own governments.[7] Let that sink in for a moment. These people who died were ordinary citizens, not soldiers fighting other soldiers in wars, but 169 million victims of totalitarian regimes that systematically killed their own people.[8]
Stalin alone was responsible for 42 million of those deaths, making him the biggest killer of all time.
Solzhenitsyns Gulag Archipelago gives some of the best inside reporting on Soviet prisons. There were executions by firing squads, freezing isolated prison cells, beatings with truncheons, water hoses, rapes, and mass graves. And to flesh out the story, anyone can now check the massive records compiled by the Stasi, Securitate, KGB, and the secret police in every communist country. Nothing worked very well under communism, except the secret police, who amassed detailed information from neighbors, relatives, co-workers, and informants in every neighborhood and organization. Just because youre paranoid doesnt mean that someone isnt out to get you.
The bloodbath in Chinas Tiananmen Square in the summer of 1989, where tanks rolled and bullets hailed down on protesters, was a grim reminder that there was nothing inevitable about success in resisting communism. It almost always ends in massive bloodshed. The uprisings in the Arab Spring toppled leaders but failed to produce lasting order. Why was 1989 in Eastern Europe different? I think the answer lies in the response of the Solidarnoscpriest, Jerzy Popieuszko, who was murdered in 1984 by Polish security officials. They beat him to death, bound his body with chains, and dragged his body to dump it into the Vistula River. Before he died, this priest and martyr preached to his countrymen, We must overcome evil with good.
No other response to the evil of communism could be sufficient. But if we take this hard-won legacy so lightly that we do not teach our own young people about these events that took place in 1989, we are not worthy of the sacrifice of 169 million innocent lives taken by totalitarianism. We in the West should not be too self-congratulatory, Solzhenitsyn warned us, because we are none too healthy ourselves. To the extent that the West has lost the moral core necessary for self-governance, we are at risk of losing everything. As one astute young East German woman put it shortly after the Berlin Wall fell, We knew that Marx was a false god. But we dont want to worship the golden calf of the West, either. The danger we face in America is the golden calf we have made for ourselves, which we worship in our modern temples of consumerism. We, too, must overcome evil with good. No other response will be adequate.
I only hope in moments of trial to remember the remarkable courage and integrity of the unsung heroes whose faith shattered communism. Their souls were luminous and as uncompromising as diamonds.
This essaywas first published here in July 2019.
The Imaginative Conservativeapplies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics as we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please considerdonating now.
Notes:
[1] Hill, KentThe Soviet Union on the Brink: An Inside Look at Christianity and Glasnost, Multnomah Press, 1991, 84.
[2] Quoted in The Soviet Union on the Brink, 76-77.
[3] Vyacheslav Polosin, The Eternal Slave of the Cheka, Izvestiia, Jan. 22, 1992.
[4] Authors interview with Christian Fhrer in Leipzig Feb. 28, 1991.
[5] Raphaela Russ wenn es sein muss, mit der Waffe in der Hand! Die Revolution der Kerzen: Christen in den Umwlzungen der DDR, ed. Jrg Swoboda (Wuppertal: Oncken Verlag, 1990) 144.
[6] These numbers are drawn from The Black Book of Communism, Anne Applebaums Gulag, Alexander Solzhenitsyns Gulag Archipelago, and R.J. Rummels Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH, which aggregates all of these sources.
[7] Some estimates put this total at 262 million.
[8] These numbers are drawn from The Black Book of Communism, Anne Applebaums Gulag, and Alexander Solzhenitsyns Gulag Archipelago. R.J. Rummel at Freedom, Democracy, Peace; Power, Democide, and War http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH puts the number of killings by the Chinese in the 20th century at 76 million.
The featured image is a photograph of East and West Germans converging at the newly created opening in the Berlin Wall beside the Brandenburg Gate, taken on December 21, 1989, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
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Why Did the Berlin Wall Fall? - The Imaginative Conservative
1947 and now – The Interpreter
A Moscow leader aggressively expanding. Conflict between Jews and Palestinians. An unpopular Democratic president in the United States suffering a polling slump one year before the election. Sound familiar? This, in fact, was the situation in 1947.
A year later, Harry Truman hadnt solved these international problems, which of course fester to this day. But he had settled on clear policies. He had also won re-election, fostering in the process a bipartisan coalition that would endure for decades. Small wonder that Joe Biden is keen to talk up the parallels between then and now.
How did Truman do it? He began with obvious strengths. With so much of Europe and Asia still devastated by the Second World War, the United States was in a pre-eminent economic position. Other players, from London to Canberra, had not only become accustomed to working with Americans during the war, but were also desperate to follow Washingtons continued lead. Truman, although inexperienced, surrounded himself with an impressive team, most notably George Marshall, his secretary of state in 1947 and 1948 and an almost universally respected bipartisan general.
Yet beyond Washingtons corridors of power, most Americans were not enthusiastic about assuming the leadership role that Truman and Marshall wanted the United States to adopt. No one forgot the decision to reject the Versailles Treaty and membership in the League of Nations after the last war. In 1946, demobilisation and domestic reconstruction were the political priorities. That year, the Republican Party exploited this mood to win control of Congress, promising the country a smaller state and lower taxes. Some of the new Republican intake including a young Richard Nixon were also hyper-partisans, prepared to conflate liberalism with communism at the start of a witch-hunt that Joe McCarthy would spearhead a few years later.
Trumans problem in 1947 was that he needed this Republican-controlled Congress to appropriate money for many of the foreign policy programs he had in mind, including most notably the Marshall Plan. Having lost the last four presidential elections, Republicans had little incentive to help the unpopular Democrat in the White House. Nor were they keen to spend money on foreigners, especially when their backers in big business told them that such a move would be inflationary.
Yet the Republican Party was a place where hierarchy mattered. Its senior figures, led by Senator Arthur Vandenberg, had been convinced by the war that the United States could not retreat from global leadership. They agreed to support Trumans policies, if Truman gave them political cover with a speech that scared the hell out of America.
Although there were obvious perils in the president exaggerating the danger, the news agenda appeared to support the thrust of Trumans rhetoric. Moscow, in particular, seemed bent on expansion. Its takeover of Czechoslovakia in the spring of 1948 proved particularly powerful in mobilising Republicans during the final push to approve the Marshall Plan.
Among those voting in favour was Nixon. In 1948, the young congressman acted in defiance of the main political supporters in his home district. Within a few years, he used this vote to cultivate the image of a responsible internationalist, who could be trusted with power at the national level.
Three-quarters of a century later, Biden will have a far greater scope to campaign against a Congress that has literally done nothing other than wrangle over its internal leadership while conflict rages in Ukraine and war erupted in Gaza.
In the spring of 1948, Truman also recognised the new state of Israel. It was a decision that generated much controversy inside the administration Marshall even threatened to resign for officials wanted to avoid alienating the Arab world, given the obvious strategic importance of oil and the Suez Canal. Truman, however, was convinced that supporting the creation of the state of Israel was the right thing to do, a homeland for the Jews being vital, in his view, in the wake of the Holocaust. Nor was Truman blind to the political advantages that would accrue, given the power of the Jewish-American vote in key swing states.
Truman based his re-election campaign in 1948 on concrete foreign policy achievements. Despite the crucial support Republicans had given him, he showed them little gratitude. On the stump, he railed against the do-nothing Congress, even though it had only recently passed the Marshall Plan.
Three-quarters of a century later, Biden will have a far greater scope to campaign against a Congress that has literally done nothing other than wrangle over its internal leadership while conflict rages in Ukraine and war erupted in Gaza. Whether he can convince these legislators to act in the coming months and whether he can translate this political dynamic into votes next November remain to be seen. But as Truman showed, even presidents with poor polling numbers have the power to seize control of the agenda, to lead, and to win.
Albania’s deal with Italy on migrants has been welcomed by many … – Las Vegas Sun
Published Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023 | 7:59 a.m.
Updated Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023 | 10:36 a.m.
SHENGJIN, Albania (AP) When the leaders of Albania and Italy announced a contentious agreement earlier this week to jointly process some asylum applications of migrants arriving by sea, some in the Western Balkans country saw it as reciprocation.
Italy had welcomed thousands of Albanians fleeing poverty after the fall of communism more than three decades ago, and Albania's current government wanted to pay back the Italians' hospitality.
On Monday, Albania said it agreed to shelter thousands of migrants while Rome fast-tracks their requests seeking asylum in Italy, up to 36,000 a year. A memorandum between the countries says Italy would agree to remove migrants whose applications are rejected. The European Commission has requested more details.
The deal , which must be approved by Albania's parliament, already has been criticized by rights organizations and other groups , and it could backfire against Albania as it aspires to EU membership. Italy's left-wing opposition parties are protesting the deal.
Meanwhile, ordinary Albanians are divided.
Bib Lazri, 66, a resident of the northern Albanian village of Gjader, where one of two accommodation centers is set to be built, said he welcomed the move given the historical ties between the two countries.
All my kids are abroad. They (the Italians) have welcomed us for 30 years now, Lazri said. It is up to us to say a good word, to keep them and show our open heart.
In 1991, around 20,000 Albanians came on one dangerously overcrowded ship that reached the southeastern Italian region of Puglia. It was less than a year since political pluralism was announced in Albania, which for decades under communism had been closed to much of the world, and only months after the first democratic election.
Poverty was widespread and basic goods, including bread, were in short supply. Albanians saw Italy as their Western window. Many of the Albanians settled in Italy, obtained work and raised families.
Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama announced the five-year deal on Monday in Rome standing beside Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni. Rama expressed gratitude on behalf of Albanians who found refuge in Italy, and escaped hell and imagined a better life.
But for many other Albanians, confusion and even anger is the main feeling for the surprise announcement.
Albania will offer two facilities, starting with the port of Shengjin, a main tourist spot about 75 kilometers (46 miles) south of the capital Tirana that has attracted almost 1 million tourists this year in the surrounding area.
Many fear that the accommodation center will have a negative impact on the country. Albania has become a major tourism magnet this year, bringing more than 9 million tourists to its pristine coastline so far.
A refugee camp at the port is not compatible with the governments idea of a European elite tourism, said Arilda Lleshi, a 27-year-old human rights activist, speaking from Tirana.
Many people were upset by the fact that such an agreement with wide social impact was done without a wide social consultation, Lleshi said. It seems our prime minister continuously takes over to resolve the worlds issues to get some credit internationally, without consulting with people beforehand.
Those who will be deported will be sent to Gjader, 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the Shengjin port, at a former military airport.
Italy has committed to pay for the construction of two centers that can hold up to 3,000 migrants at a time.
Albania would also provide external security for the two centers, which would be under Italian jurisdiction. While the memorandum offers Albania broad security and financial reassurances, it fails to describe what migration procedures would be followed inside, experts noted.
It was not written by a migration expert, said Hanne Bierens of the Migration Policy Institute Europe. We have a lot of questions about how it would work.
Migrants will be brought to Albania on Italian ships, and Italy agrees to remove any whose applications for international protection have been rejected, under the memorandum.
However, it does not outline how they will be repatriated, which is often a long and difficult process. Nor does it say where migrants will be screened for transfer to Albania, whether at sea or on Italian soil.
The head of the port where the migrants will be processed, Sander Marashi, supports the government's agreement, saying that the facility won't be problematic for the port's normal operations.
Such an agreement shows that ... Albanians hospitality is not only words but deeds too, Marashi said.
But some Albanians were surprised and not clear about what the agreement meant.
Albania has a recent history of welcoming refugees fleeing conflict and poverty, temporarily hosting around 4,000 Afghans in 2020. A small number of Afghans are still in Albania waiting to move to the United States or to other Western countries.
Rama also mentioned how Albanians welcomed ethnic Kosovo Albanians to escape massacres by Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in 1999. Albania also sheltered Jews and hid them from the Nazis during World War II.
Requests by The Associated Press to interview government officials at the central and local level about the new deal with Italy were declined.
The agreement must be approved in parliament before it takes effect. Albania's political opposition has asked the prime minister to report to parliament before it is voted on. A vote hasn't been scheduled yet.
Rama's governing Socialists have 74 seats in the 140-seat parliament, so in theory, the government shouldn't have any issues in passing it. But the deal has created such consternation among some sectors of the population that passing it could become problematic.
Albert Rakipi of the Albanian Institute for International Studies considered the deal as ridiculous, deceitful and unsustainable, and unreasonable.
None of the thousands of people risking their lives to reach Europe dream of a future in which they are placed in camps in a small and poor country just outside" the borders of European Union countries, Rakipi said.
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Associated Press writer Colleen Barry in Milan, Italy, contributed to this report.
Follow Llazar Semini at https://twitter.com/lsemini
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Follow APs global migration coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/migration
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Albania's deal with Italy on migrants has been welcomed by many ... - Las Vegas Sun