Was our fear of communism during the Cold War irrational?

Randall Hoven has a usefull article at American Thinker addressing the myths that have grown up about communism. First he notes a couple of comments by liberals who are saying that our fear of terrorism now is parallel to our supposedly inordinate fear of communism during the Cold War. Then he knocks down one myth after another about communism - myths that I fear that many share today.

For example,

Myth: The Communist ideal is quite innocent, for example, "to each according to his needs, from each according to his abilities."

Fact: "The theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. ... Abolition of the family! ... Communism abolishes eternal truths, it abolishes all religion, and all morality ... this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads ... In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things." (The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.)

Myth: The Communists were guilty of some violence, but no more so than any other form of government, especially considering the Christian Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, slavery in the U.S. and its treatment of Native Americans.

Fact: According to The Black Book of Communism, "the total approaches 100 million people killed." According to R.J. Rummel (author of Death By Government), the figure could exceed 250 million. There is some uncertainty over who is the all-time killer: the Soviet Union or China. The Black Book of Communism attributes roughly 20 million deaths to the USSR (Lenin and Stalin) and 65 million to China (Mao). Rummel's best estimates are 62 million USSR deaths and 35 million Communist China deaths (but could be up to 127 and 103 million, respectively).

R.J. Rummel credibly estimates other death counts throughout history, and he pulls no punches or otherwise minimizes the death counts from Christian and Western movements.

African slave trade with New World - up to 2 million.
Christian Crusades - 1 million.
Spanish Inquisition - 350,000.
North American Indians - up to 25,000.

The numbers from all such incidents combined amount to a tiny fraction of the communist death toll. Importantly, the communist deaths happened recently, while many Americans were dancing the Lindy, listening to radio, watching TV or going to Disneyland. And not caught by simple numbers is the inhuman suffering on biblical scales. In the forced famine of the Ukraine, infants were exchanged between families so they would not have to eat their own children.

And for those who thought the failure of the Soviet Union was simply inevitable, they're just ignoring what people actually thought at the time.

Myth: Communism was flawed and would have fizzled out on its own. "George Bush taking credit for the Berlin Wall coming down is like the rooster taking credit for the sunrise." Al Gore in the 1992 Vice Presidential debates.

Fact: Let's go back to about 1980. At that time, all of the Soviet empire, including most of Eastern Europe, was communist. In Asia, the Communists had China, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, with active communist insurgencies in Indonesia, the Philippines and elsewhere. The newly de-colonized Africa was mostly following the communist model, and certainly rejecting anything like economic freedom. (And as Dr. Phil might ask, "How's that working for you?") In Latin America, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru and Grenada had fallen or were falling to communism.

Even Europe had an active and influential communist parties. Communists were well represented in the parliaments and cities of France and Italy, for example. In all, about one third of the world's population lived under communist rule, with much of the rest threatened by insurgencies and political machinations.

Communism was expanding, and most believed no one could stop it. The Soviet Union and China had the bomb. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, the only response the President of the U.S. at the time could think of was boycotting the Olympics. The emerging Third World was imitating the USSR and China, not the U.S.

I was alive through much of this time. No one, and I mean no one, pro or con, thought communism was a dying force. Quite the opposite, the intelligentsia thought history was on the side of communism. And the anti-communists were largely hunkered down in what they thought would be a perpetual stalemate of Mutually Assured Destruction.

Read the rest. And if you have a young person who might not be hearing the full story, send them the link.