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TheHolodomor: 27 million dead.

The Gulag: 1.5 million dead.

The Great Leap Forward: 30 million dead.

These are just some of the grisly atrocities documented at theVictims of Communism Museum. Communism has left a trail of blood from Potsdam to Peking. The museum is dedicated to the memory of the some 100 million people who have lost their lives to this odious ideology.

The museum has been open for nearly a year, yet it has received little recognition in the mainstream press. AWashington Poststory on the museumnoted without irony that this philosophy that killed tens of millions also inspired generations of activists in America. Apparently, the museum isnt balanced enough in its history of communism. Next to the exhibit on Stalins crimes they need to note the legions of left-wing labor activists it provided guidance to. Thats a sad reflection of our times: another indication that, at its philosophical foundation, the modern West struggles to contemplate and understand the wreckage that was imposed on millions of people by Marxist communist states. The reasons why are troubling and indicate that certain forms of Marxist ideology seeped into the Western mind, although not to the point that the American-led West was unable to defeat the Soviet Union.

>>>How Cultural Marxism Threatens the United Statesand How Americans Can Fight It

Its easy to think of communism as an unfortunate system afflicting poor souls in the far reaches of the earth. As British historian Arnold Toynbee sardonically put it, History is something unpleasant that happens to other people.

Yet history is never far from us. Substantial forms of the same spirit that animated the Bolsheviks run rampant in the West today.

The hesitancy of news outlets to recognize the importance of the Victims of Communism Museum has been entirely in keeping with the refusal of Western elites to reckon morally with communisms casualties. Why wouldnt leading outlets cover a museum that details the atrocities of communism, one of the biggest human-rights disasters of the 20th century? FromNew York TimescorrespondentWalter Durantyand Vice PresidentHenry Wallaceto Prime MinisterJustin TrudeauandHollywood, there has been no shortage of prominent communist sympathizers. We do not say that media outlets refusing to report on the museum are engaged in the same moral degradation as was Duranty, who lied about the Ukrainian starvation by Stalin. However, many Western thinkers and politicians found the ideology attractive or felt the need to dismiss its opponents. Why?

Alexander Solzhenitsyn spoke to this point eloquently in his famedHarvard commencement address of 1978. While the audience expected a nicely delineated comparison between a wicked communist East and a free, liberal West, Solzhenitsyn excoriated the latter, characterizing it as afflicted with the same sickness that led to the horrors of the surveillance state, the KGB, and the Gulag.

The seed that bore this bitter fruit was planted centuries ago, he claimed, in the soil of Renaissance humanism, when man turned his gaze from God to himself and embraced the aphorism of Protagoras, Man, the measure of all things. Looking upon his own desires, he soon pursued earthly pleasures until everything beyond physical well-being and the accumulation of material goods, all other human requirements and characteristics of a subtler and higher nature, were left outside the area of attention of state and social systems, as if human life did not have any higher meaning.

Mans focus on himself reduced him to the material, temporal world. Whereas before he had seen himself as both spiritual and physical, his worldview was now diminished solely to the latter. Unshackled from piety, he was in his behavior not beholden to a superior being, nor did his ends remain spiritual.

As he further developed the arts of science, technology, and industrial scale, the Renaissance humanist abolished the physical limits that had been present since his beginning. Thus the modern world rose from the spires of Western Europe, destined to conquer the globe.

On this topic, Leo Strauss frequently referred to a quotation of Horace: You can drive out nature with a pitchfork, but she will come back. Modern man rejected that sentiment as he exercised his industrial prowess.

What results are two sides of the same modernist coin. Communism rejects the dignity of the human person, rejects the existence of God, and rejects moral truth itself. In its aim to abolish the family, religion, and private property, which are merely institutions that capital owners control to maintain power, communist ideology casts a totalizing control over the human soul. In the end, communism in practice must violently reject all higher limits that had been placed before it, in the hopes of creating the workers paradise.

Western liberalism, on the other hand, maintained limits for man as long as religious faith remained its foundation. Solzhenitsyn pointed out that the rights enumerated in the early American republic were granted on the ground that man is Gods creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Divine limits were preeminent in the American Founding and were what allowed for such freedoms to be permitted by the republic.

With the leaps of industrial prowess, though, Man continued his turn from God that began in the humanist age. Increasingly, he eschewed those limits instilled by God and nature and turned toward what he could accomplish materially.

The communist East had violently abolished the limits and duties of man. The liberal West had discarded them voluntarily.

Modern man, impious, statist, and commercial, is left with only earthly ends. This false anthropology of the godlike man has become firmly entrenched in both communist and liberal nations. The former believes that man as the state can achieve all aims; the latter, that man as individual can do the same.

>>>A Politics Worthy of Man

This abandonment of the spiritual ends and limits is why so many in the West cannot condemn the crimes of communism. The ideology provides an end in their temporal world, in which man need not adhere to the natural limits placed on him.

The words of Solzhenitsyn cry out this inevitability: The current of materialism which is farthest to the left, and is hence the most consistent, always proves to be stronger, more attractive, and victorious. Humanism which has lost its Christian heritage cannot prevail in this competition. Of course, American military, technological, political, and moral power provided the crucial reserves in defeating the Soviet Union. Reagan invoked spiritual and moral sentiments in his challenge to communism and rallied the opponents of communism to defeat it. The West was not wholly unregenerate, a fact that Solzhenitsyn overlooked. But he still accurately grasped the trends in Western thought that have led it to turn on its biblical heritage.

With those words in mind, we should contemplate the horrors shown at the Victims of Communism Museum not as distant historical facts but as the eventuality of the fallacy of hope that is modernity. This is not a call to return to a premodern age, which is neither possible nor desirable. Rather, we should seek to reignite that piety that understands man as Gods creation, not self-made, that recognizes our limits, and that sees our end not in an earthly paradise of this world but in the everlasting world of the hereafter.

Solzhenitsyn closed with declaring that the world will demand from us a spiritual blaze. If we want a viable alternative to a closed world of abysmal ends, then we would do well to heed him.

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Victims of Communism, Victims of Modernism - Heritage.org

Andres Davila | Asst. News Director

The Soviet influence on Cuba and the Caribbean is not to be forgotten as the Cuban Research Institute hosted a panel discussion on the history and its impacts on May 16 at Graham Center.

The discussion centered on the history of Soviet communist activities in the Caribbean region, with a notable focus on its increased expansion following infamous dictator Fidel Castros rise to power in Cuba.

Sebastian Arcos, associate director of the Cuban Research Institute, spoke about the vitality of this conversation prior to the event in an interview with PantherNOW.

Its important to understand the past so you can analyze and understand whats going on right now. Because many things that have happened before will happen again, said Arcos.

The panel included three guest speakers who are experts in both Cuban and Soviet history: Sandra Pujals, a history professor at the University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras, Lilian Guerra, history professor at the University of Florida, and Radoslav Yordanov, an associate for the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University.

Arcos would also warn that what happened in Cuba could happen in the United States.

Today, there are people who dismiss the idea something like what happened in Cuba could happen in the United States. And its a mistake. Democracy and freedom [are] something that you do every day, he said.

This is not a new statement; Venezuela resonates with Cuba as the Latin American nation is still under the power of dictator Nicols Maduro, who shares similar beliefs as Castro.

Even in the U.S., Republicans and Democrats have attacked each other with terms, such as fascists and communists respectively particularly as the 2024 elections loom.

Throughout the panel, the speakers examined the different aspects of how the Soviets came to Cuba and the Caribbean region to expand communist thoughts across the region. Professor Pujals began the talk with the history that expanded across Latin American cinema and other forms of media.

They [Caribbean figures] are all trained by the Soviets at the end of the 20s or beginning of the 30s. Even though they might break away from communism because of Stalinism, their visions had been created by this training that [had] to do with the Soviet presence in the region, said Pujals during the discussion.

This is a reference to how Soviet thinking was impacted across cinema, mentioning two figures that were notable for maintaining the vision of communism, but breaking away from them: Seki Sano, who is deemed The Father of Mexican Theater, and Claude McKay, an advocate for civil liberties in Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s.

Moreover, Professor Guerra discussed how she began her research on Cuban history, touching upon her book Visions of Power in Cuba: Revolution, Redemption, and Resistance, 1959-1971. She brought up how Cuban education was incorporated by Marxist ideals, being backed up as Castro promoted these ideals to schoolchildren.

The idea was to achieve a communist personality in every child and so this also extended to the selection of teachers having Marxist principles, said Guerra in the discussion.

Professor Lilian Guerra presenting her research on communism in Cuba | Andres Davila, PantherNOW

Expanding more on the Soviet impacts, Professor Yordanov emphasized that even though the Caribbean region had major influences from those beliefs, it was expanding heavily in Eastern Europe. [the Caribbean region had more Soviet influence based on their relation with the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.]

Belgrade wasnt all of that by any stretch of imagination. Bucharest is equally wary of [the coup] and relationships that existed only Castro might have and he was not so straightforward, said Professor Yordanov at the event.

He refers to the 1944 Romanian coup detat which was a tactic for the Soviet Union to gain more territory, as well as the influence on communism in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, happening simultaneously.

This generates more evidence of Castros relationship with the Soviet Union, thus leading to the buildup of the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Revolution.

After multiple aspects of what communism came to be in Cuba, Sebastian Arcos hopes that this brings more attention to how the United States should approach their relationship with Cuba.

The United States should promote free trade [among] more Latin American nations. [They] shall be open up to free trade [because] the idea that we should protect our own markets because we are a rich country [is] actually a bad idea for capitalism and democracy overall.

Read more:
Communism: FIU event discusses Soviet influence in Cuba and the ... - PantherNOW

Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka said that if any other country wanted to join the Russia-Belarus union, there could be nuclear weapons for everyone.

The defense ministers of Russia and Belarus on Thursday signed a document on the deployment of Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russian...

Last week, Russia moved ahead with a plan to deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, in the Kremlins first deployment of such warheads outside Russia since the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, spurring concerns in the West.

In an interview published on Russias state television late on Sunday, Lukashenka said that it must be strategically understood that Minsk and Moscow have a unique chance to unite.

He further pointed out that Kazakhstan should also join the Union State of Russia and Belarus. No one is against Kazakhstan and other countries having the same close relations that we have with the Russian Federation, the Belarusian dictator said.

If someone is worried ... [then] it is very simple: join in the Union State of Belarus and Russia. Thats all, there will be nuclear weapons for everyone, he emphasized.

On Sunday, the Belarusian Defence Ministry said that another unit of the S-400 mobile, surface-to-air missile systems arrived from Moscow, with the systems to be ready for combat duty soon.

source: Reuters

Original post:
Nuclear communism: Lukashenka offers 'nukes for everyone' - TVP World

Translator Angela Rodel, left, and author Georgi Gospodinov have won the 2023 International Booker Prize for Time Shelter. They are pictured above in London on May 23, 2023. David Parry/The Booker Prizes hide caption

Translator Angela Rodel, left, and author Georgi Gospodinov have won the 2023 International Booker Prize for Time Shelter. They are pictured above in London on May 23, 2023.

This year's winner of the The International Booker Prize is a unique spin on time travel. The novel Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, with a translation by Angela Rodel, imagines the 'first clinic of the past,' in which Alzheimer's patients can visit different time periods of their lives on different floors.

"One day, when this business really takes off," therapist Gaustine tells the narrator, a writer, "we'll create these clinics or sanatoriums in various countries. The past is also a local thing. There'll be houses from various years everywhere, little neighborhoods, one day we'll even have small cities, maybe even a whole country. For patients with failing memories, Alzheimer's, dementia, whatever you want to call it. For all of those who already are living solely in the present of their past."

In its review of Time Shelter, The Guardian wrote, "From communism to the Brexit referendum and conflict in Europe, this funny yet frightening Bulgarian novel explores the weaponisation of nostalgia."

Gospodinov's novel was chosen from a shortlist of six books from around the world.

"Intricately crafted, and eloquently translated by Angela Rodel," wrote the International Booker Prize jury, "Time Shelter cements Georgi Gospodinov's reputation as one of the indispensable writers of our times, and a major voice in international literature."

Unlike the original Booker Prize which rewards novels written in English, the International Booker Prize honors fiction translated into English from around the world. This is the first time a Bulgarian novel has won.

Gospodinov and translator Angela Rodel will share the prize money of roughly $62,ooo equally. In addition, the shortlisted authors and translators each receive approximately $3,000.

Time Shelter is Gospodinov's third novel to be published in English. A poet and playwright, he is the most translated writer from Bulgaria to emerge since the fall of communism.

Literary translator Angela Rodel is a Minnesota native who lives in Bulgaria. In addition to Time Shelter, she translated Gospodinov's novel The Physics of Sorrow, as well as a short story collection by Bulgarian writer Georgi Tenev.

In a statement, Gospodinov said, "It is commonly assumed that 'big themes' are reserved for 'big literatures,' or literatures written in big languages, while small languages, somehow by default, are left with the local and the exotic. Awards like the International Booker Prize are changing that status quo, and this is very important."

Original post:
Georgi Gospodinov and Angela Rodel win International Booker ... - NPR

The Western world, in the midst of being primed for a war with China, often has a limited understanding of who this supposed enemy is. Is it a communist force ready to challenge the U.S.s capitalist and hegemonic structure? Is it an economic ally providing an indispensable factory floor for our corporate interests? Or is it somehow a combination of both? Joining host Robert Scheer this week on Scheer Intelligence is Suisheng Zhao, professor and director of Center for China-U.S. Cooperation at the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies, who hopes to provide clarity to these ever growing questions.

His new book, The Dragon Roars Back: Transformational Leaders and Dynamics of Chinese Foreign Policy, attempts to frame China and its history for todays moment in time. It demonstrates that it was never just communism that drove China to be the world power it has become but rather nationalism. Zhao focuses on three leaders in Chinas contemporary history, who serve to represent this dragon that has roared back to the world: Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and their current president Xi Jinping. Zhao and Scheer go back and forth, diving into the nuances of each rulers time and their relation to the international order.

[The Chinese leaders] are all first nationalists, then Communist Party members. They all share the same dream to make China prosper and [be] powerful and also redeem the so-called century of humiliation, Zhao says. These are the dragons roaring back, and under their leadership, China will not be denied its place in the world. This place was once respected and a sort of peaceful balance was achieved during the era of Nixon and Mao. Fast forward to today however, and, despite successful economic interdependence being achieved between the two countries, the U.S. has rejected the possibility of a multipolar world with its advances in Taiwan, and this can of worms that Nixon and Kissenger worked to quell has suddenly burst again.

Scheer and Zhao agree on what The Dragon Roars Back strives to clarify: I think what your book challenges is the centrality of the enemy that we had after World War II, of an ideology of communism, and says the real problem is nationalism and that China, with its great history and its importance, is driven by nationalism, which is now threatening our view of the world, Scheer says. This nationalism and enormous success under Xi, Zhao responds, is now challenging U.S. predominance in the world, which perhaps the U.S. cannot accept.

See more here:
The China Dragon Roars Back Whether the US Likes It or Not - KCRW