Communism on parade?

Dr. Paul Kengor - Guest Columnist
http://www.visionandvalues.org/

Friday, September 28, 2012


Far too many Americans - especially younger ones - are ignorant of the catastrophe of communist governments. Don't expect schools to tell them the truth.

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"What do you think of this?" So began a phone call from Todd Starnes of FoxNews radio. Starnes asked me for a comment on a shocking story: A band at a high school near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, performed a halftime show titled, "St. Petersburg 1917," a musical commemoration of the Bolshevik Revolution, replete with hammers and sickles, military uniforms, and red flags.

"No way," I responded. "Are you sure this wasn't a joke, a parody?"

It wasn't. And parents of the students aren't laughing.

The superintendent of the school genuinely pleaded innocence. "It's a representation of the time period in history, called 'St. Petersburg 1917,'" she said. "I am truly sorry that somebody took the performance in that manner. I am." She continued: "If anything is being celebrated it's the music…. I'm just very sorry that it wasn't looked at as just a history lesson."

Well, as a history lesson, I give it a giant, red "F."

To be fair to the superintendent, she sincerely doesn't seem to understand what's so bad about this incident, and why it's in bad taste. In fact, therein is the basic problem: We have failed to teach the horrors of the Bolshevik Revolution specifically and of communism generally.

Those horrors include over 100 million corpses generated by communist governments, starting with the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917 -- that is, "St. Petersburg 1917." For perspective, 100 million is twice the combined deaths of World War I and II, the two deadliest conflicts in history. Even then, 100 million dead, which is the estimate provided by the seminal Harvard University Press work, The Black of Book of Communism, is a conservative figure. The latest research claims that Mao Tse-Tung was responsible for the deaths of at least 70 million in China, and Joseph Stalin alone may well have killed 60 million in the USSR.

And yet, far too many American are ignorant of this catastrophe, especially younger Americans. I know. I've been observing it carefully for years. I could give a thousand examples, but here are just a few:

One former student of mine, John, told me about his first assignment as a teaching assistant in a high-school history class. He offered to cover some of the lectures on the 1930s Soviet Union. His supervising teacher agreed. So, John methodically covered the famine in the Ukraine, Stalin's purges, the Hitler-Stalin Pact.

John was pleased at how the students were electrified, hands in the air, many questions -- clearly learning these hideous things for the first time. Yet, he also noticed the dirty looks from his supervisor. Later, the teacher testily reprimanded him: "Look, John, I want you to ease up on the Red-baiting and commie-bashing. Besides, these students are going to get a decidedly different view on communism from me." She promised to teach "a softer side of communism."

Another student of mine, Sean, told me of the elite Christian private school he attended, where the newly hired teacher, fresh out of a major university, told the students he was a "Christian communist," and that anyone who is a Christian should be a communist.

Another student told me of a teacher who "convinced the entire class" that Marxism was a "wonderful" but "misunderstood" idea that simply had not been tried correctly. "He absolutely brainwashed us," she told me bitterly.

These are merely three anecdotal examples.

What's true for high schools is even worse at the university level. I lecture around the country, sponsored by groups like the Young America's Foundation and Intercollegiate Studies Institute. I'm often requested to give a talk titled, "Why Communism is Bad." When I read passages directly from the Communist Manifesto, or when I cite authoritative sources on the maimed and dead, the students are aghast, eyes wide open. Rarely are their professors in attendance.

Those same professors, incidentally, write the textbooks used by high schools. Several years ago, I did a comprehensive, two-year study on "World History" and "Civics" texts. The study looked at roughly 20 texts used in public schools. Their treatment of communism is scandalous. The greatest abuse is the sins of omission. I could not find a single text that listed figures on the dead under communist governments. These omissions were not repeated for historical abuses like the Inquisition, the Crusades, slavery, or the internment of Japanese Americans. "Right-wing" dictators like Cuba's Batista and Chile's Pinochet were treated far more harshly than Fidel Castro, who generated many more victims and was still in power.

I could go on and on.

In short, we now have an entire generation of Americans born after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and USSR. They didn't live through the mass repression and carnage that was Soviet communism. They need to learn about it, just as my generation learned the evils of Nazism. Unfortunately, they are not. And so, we shouldn't be surprised when they merrily march to the triumphal sounds of the Bolshevik Revolution.

http://www.onenewsnow.com/perspectives/paul-kengor/2012/09/28/communism-on-parade

Editor's note: A version of this piece first appeared at FoxNews.com

I read your post and I had no idea this was going on. I graduated from high school 7 years ago and I have never heard of these events in history. However I do know that communism has had its share of atrocities. I wonder what could be the motive of keeping history away from our youth? Are they trying to make communism seem "okay"? Is it a way to ease a one world government into the picture during the next generation? I can't tie my opinion to fact but it really makes you think about the direction we are heading in. Thanks for posting this.

Welcome to the forums PawneeStud!
Glad you've posted with us...

I'll be the first to admit that I know only a fraction of the motives of the powers that be...
but for sure socialism and communism has reared it's ugly head.
Do your research young one.

Be blessed!

History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books-books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon?”


Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code

sure glad Stalin didn't kill those 25 million Russians!

never glad about death

never can prove the numbers either


there were several wars in Stalins time, and war is hell, always has been in any government,,,,

I have heard from some who made it as intellectuals in the cultural revolution
and lived through it. Their stories of what happened in China
were chilling and eye opening. Forced labor camps in the most primitive
conditions while people were worked to death in the most appalling
concentration camp like conditions in the "re-education camps" -
their crime was not being ignorant. There was even worse. Canabalism,
people summarily and publicly beaten to death, purges by the Red Guard.

from the Wiki on Mao

Nationwide political campaigns led by Mao, such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, are often considered catastrophic failures; and his rule is believed to have caused the deaths of 40 to 70 million people.[4][5] Severe starvation during the Great Chinese Famine, mass suicide as a result of the Three-anti/five-anti campaigns, and political persecution during both the Anti-Rightist Movement and struggle sessions all resulted from these programs. His campaigns are further blamed for damaging the historical culture and society of China, as relics and religious sites were destroyed in an effort to rapidly modernize the consciousness of the nation.

http://asianhistory.about.com/od/modernchina/f/What-Was-The-Cultural-Revolution.htm

http://factsanddetails.com/china.php?itemid=67

Mao and Stalin were the reality of Communism and it is a history
lesson written in blood and subjugation for those who love and
value freedoms such as those we enjoy in the USA. We need to
understand and teach our children in the hope that subsequent
generations will never experience such atrocities themselves.

actually there was only one,WWII!