COMMUNISM: WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A NATION REJECTS GOD?

The Communist atheist nations rejected God more proactively than any other nations. What was the result? Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918 – 2008) was a Russian writer, and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in literature. He wrote revealingly about his own nation:

•                  “Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” (‘Voice from the Gulag.’)

At a recent book fair, I asked a Communist:

•                  How can you, in light of the universal horrors that have accompanied each instance of Communism, still be promoting this genocidal ideology?

He insisted that there were Communist/Atheist success stories and gesticulated excitedly towards the literature on his book table. He added that Cuba specifically stood out as a success story.

I knew that Communist Cuba had been an economic flop, but perhaps its “success” could be measured by other indicators. I admitted that I wasn’t aware of a massive genocide in Cuba. I therefore googled “genocide in Cuba,” prepared to find that perhaps Cuba had been an exception to what happens when atheists reign.

However, I found that this small island had slaughtered 125,000 of its own, and for what?

Communism/Atheist had presented the world with an alluring vision of a workers’ paradise. It is therefore not surprising that many were willing to give it a try. However, what is surprising is that this ideology still has its proponents after such unmitigated horrors over such a short period of time.

At the Mercy of the Idealists and their Utopian States

Although many Christians are being persecuted and even exterminated in Muslim countries, religious persecution has become the established practice in five nations of the world still committed to the idealist, progressive vision of creating a workers’ paradise. I’m talking about the atheistic-communistic “paradise.” (Even though China continues to persecute their Christians, I will not even mention this country, since it is arguably no longer communistic, leaving only four communist nations.)

The worst offender is North Korea:

• Wednesday, October 9th, 2013: This week several prominent defectors from North Korea will be testifying in front of the UK parliament on the horrors of life inside the "Hermit Kingdom." Their stories of incredible loss and escape from the world's darkest nation have helped the UN Human Rights Council for the first time establish a record of the atrocities still being committed today by the Communist dictatorship. Although this report does not mention it, North Korea is also the world’s number one persecutor of Christians. To own a Bible is illegal and we know of at least one individual in recent years who was executed for distributing Bibles. Thousands of Christians worship in complete secrecy and thousands more are imprisoned in some of the most horrific conditions on earth.

• Monday, October 7th, 2013: The President of the United States could decide to impose sanctions upon organizations or individuals in North Korea that participate in the mass persecution of Christians. North Korea is believed to have as many as 70,000 Christians locked up in labor camps around the country. Owning a Bible is illegal and punishable by life in prison or even summary execution.

The conditions are so deplorable that these internments are almost equivalent to death sentences. What is so threatening to the authorities about owning a Bible? If atheism is so patently reasonable, as atheists allege, how could the Bible represent a threat to them? How ironic that atheist-communist idealism should consistently produce the most unbelievable horrors and the most repressive societies. Laos is another of the four:

• Friday, September 27th, 2013: Across rural areas of Laos reports are coming in of Christian communities being pressure to give up their new found faith in Christ. Those who refuse are threatened with forced eviction from their homes. Animism, or the worship of the natural world, is a traditional belief system for many villages in Laos. Last year report also emerged of Christian community leaders being arrested and held in stockades, despite the fact that the Lao constitution guarantees religious freedom.

• Saturday, September 7th, 2013: As one of the five remaining Communist nations on earth, Laos continues to treat religious minorities with contempt. In rural areas Christians, especially newly-converted Christians, face intimidation and harassment at the hands of local authorities. Late last month a large group of 11 Christian families were told they must "recant" their Christian faith or face forced eviction from their homes.

Why is it that atheism-communism is consistently associated with dehumanization and repression, more so than with any worldview? There must be something endemic to it that has produced such uniformly hideous results. Cuba is now heralded among some communists as the communist “success story.” However, this isn’t the portrait that reality has painted:

• Tuesday, January 15th, 2013: The Apostolic Movement, a network of Protestant Churches in Cuba claims that the Government is threatening to destroy Church property and threatening the family members of the Church.  Christian Solidarity Worldwide says, “Once again we call on the Cuban government to uphold the religious freedom of all its citizens and to instruct government officials at the national, provincial and municipal levels to cease their harassment of the Apostolic Movement and other religious groups.”

• Monday, January 7th, 2013: There has been a “dramatic increase in religious freedom violations” happening in Cuba in 2012.

• Friday, January 18th, 2013: Christians in Cuba were optimistic when Raul Castro took over from his brother, Fidel Castro, as the country’s supreme leader in 2009. But three years later, their hope has turned into disillusionment.

Vietnam also persecutes its Christian population:

• Thursday, October 10th, 2013: In recent weeks tensions have skyrocketed between Catholics and the Vietnamese government. Much of it was spurred by an attack by Vietnamese police on September 4th that injured dozens of parishioners peacefully protesting the unlawful arrest of two fellow believers. The Communist Party of Vietnam maintains a very uneasy relationship with the Catholic church and regularly tries to repress protests by members.

• Tuesday, October 8th, 2013: In July, International Christian Concern (ICC) received a tragically long list from a well-placed contact in Vietnam. The list contained the names of 63 Christian pastors and church leaders who remain locked up in deplorable conditions in four prison camps around the country. The prison sentences received by each are staggeringly long, ranging from five to eighteen years.

Each one of the four nations that remain communistic persecutes their own people. Each one of these “progressive” bastions suppresses freedom of expression and liberty. Each of these “paradises” brutally represses contrary opinions. Why then aren’t our Western progressives repulsed by this universal failure of atheism-communism? And why has this top-down philosophy become so thoroughly mainstreamed in our universities and other Western institutions? And why aren’t its horrors deplored among honest people?

Castro’s Cuba: The Communist Poster Boy

The Socialist Workers Party had a book table at the Brooklyn Book Fair. Predictably, they identified capitalism as the prime problem confronting humanity. I was surprised to hear that their representative still held up violent revolution as a possible means to deal with the “injustices and oppression” of capitalism.

I was deeply disturbed by this, but tried to address the communist with a bit of humor:

• Okay, capitalism has been a source of  oppression. But your “progressive” top-down solutions do not seem to have proved any better. I’m sure you still remember names of Stalin, Lenin, Mao, and Pol Pot.

He did, but countered:

• Our model is Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Admittedly, it is a poor country, but it is one where there has been a lot of popular participation in government.

This was the first time I had heard of such laurels placed on Castro’s neck. “Why then did so many try to escape this ‘worker’s paradise,’” I countered. He answered that these boat people were those allowed to freely leave Cuba.

Clearly, my knowledge of Castro didn’t measure up to his. I asked about the reports of genocide. The communist responded that these had all been fabricated. However, returning home, I googled many of these “fabrications.” One reported that 85,675 had been the victims his genocide. This number didn’t include the 16,282 additional deaths due to combat or missing in action. http://www.cubaverdad.net/genocide.htm#Other%20Sources:

Conservapedia.com adds:

• Castro's policies imposed poverty and slavery on millions. In 1959, Cuba was the second richest country in Latin America; today, it is the second poorest. Most pharmacies in Cuba do not even have aspirins. Cuba is plagued with a humanitarian catastrophe involving massive and widespread malnutrition and lack of basic goods; death, suffering, and misery is the result. The streets are now choked with scenes of starving peasants frantically pleading for food. In September 2010, Castro admitted that "the Cuban model doesn't even work."

Sadly, this admission can only after the murder of many thousands:

• Castro has been accused of genocide by Genocide Watch. He has been sued for genocide in Belgium and Spain. The estimated number of deaths attributable to the Castro regime varies according to different sources—but not by much. The number of named, documented victims (with 2 or more sources) established by recent scholarship is 86,000, excluding an estimated minimum of 16,282 deaths in war and combat, for a conservative total of 112,000. R.J. Rummel, in his book Statistics of Democide estimates a range of 35-141,000 killed, which may underestimate the full toll by as much as 50%, since it only covers the years 1959-87. The most comprehensive survey, by Armando Lago, puts the total at 116,730-119,730 killed. The majority (85,000) of these deaths were caused by drowning; the firing squads account for some 30,000. Adding combat deaths to his calculations, we arrive at a total of some 136,000 Cubans killed by the Castro regime. Little effort has been made to calculate boat people deaths in recent years. Cuban exiles claim that as many as 200,000 have been murdered altogether. The death toll from Cuban interventions abroad can be numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

Although decrying imperialism, Castro’s foreign interventions proved costly:

• Cuban military intervention to save the communist MPLA dictatorship in Angola from collapse led to decades of civil war that cost as many as 1 million lives. Castro also dispatched Cuban troops to fight on behalf of the Communist dictatorship in Ethiopia, which killed 1.25 million people through massacre and forced starvation. Soviet and Cuban support for communist violence caused civil wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. Support from the Cuban government was also given to terrorists from the PLO. 

What human good has come from all of this? (What human good has come out of any communist revolution?) Nevertheless, Castro remains a role-model for the Socialist Workers Party. I guess when you only have Pol Pot, Stalin and Castro to choose from, Castro wins!

However, all of this raises a more fundamental question – “Don’t these educated people have anything better on which to place their hopes for a better world?” What is the source of their blind insanity that prompts them embrace hopeless solutions?

I think that this reflects the fact that, fundamentally, this battle is spiritual and not economic. Had it merely been economic, anyone could have weighed the costs and benefits and concluded that capitalism offers the better hope for the oppressed.

However, this battle is far more than economics! It represents the hidden things of our psyche. The editor of World Magazine and former communist, Marvin Olasky, admitted that jealousy had been a key motivator in his adoption of communism.

Olasky subsequently found liberation through Christ, who enabled him to recognize his enslavement to the hidden things of the heart. How will our own progressives come to this freeing awareness?