On this page:
- Beware of Free College Offered on a Sharp Knife
- FROM THE COMMUNIST PLAYBOOK-THE “SHARP KNIFE” OF AGITATION
- Mao’s Plan for World Domination is Alive and Kicking
- Freedom, Art, and the Ugliness of the Berlin Wall
- Artificial Intelligence and the Rebirth of the Soviet Union
- Romania: Thirty Years After Communism
- The Man Who Had Funny Hands
- Scarred Bodies, Broken Psyches under Soviet Communist - Marx Got Economics Right, Comrade
- America, America, I Love You, Let Me Count the Ways
- Cracking the Genetic Code: Stalin’s New Soviet Man
- Ho Chi Minh: Communist Words versus Communist Deeds
- Why the Communists Make War on Religion
- Walmart’s T-shirt homage to mass murder
- DOWN WITH THE WORMS! - ‘Confront, Harass, Create a Crowd, and Push Back!’ (Maxine learned it from Fidel)
- Uncle Joe and Anti-Anticommunism - Deflating Nostalgia for the Golden Age of Terror
- Revolutionary Communists Capturing Hearts and Minds Inside Prison and Out
- Buddhist Letter Implores New U.S. Ambassador to Support Religious Freedom in Vietnam
- A Happy Life in China (YouTube Exchange)
- Socialism’s Cruel Illusion - Feeding the Body, Starving the Spirit
- I Was There: The Monstrous Atrocities that Marxism Has Committed Against Humankind
- Socialist Serfs Reduced to Bartering for Aspirin in Cuba
- Great Leap Backward: Human Rights and Rule of Law in China
- Import Drugs from Cuba? NO WAY!
- “Reflections on a Ravaged Century” (conference report)
- Why Are Communist Atrocities Ignored?
- The Brutality of the Berlin Wall
- WHAT CUBANS HAVEN'T LOST and WEATHER FORECAST FOR CUBA (gallows humor)
Beware of Free College Offered on a Sharp Knife
- Sounds pretty cool today, but what happens when soft tyranny hardens?
by Agustin Blazquez, Cuban-American filmmaker and valued member of ACAT’s Speakers Bureau
November 2021
PERMALINK
Something for America’s new indoctrinated youth to keep in mind about Marxist Socialism is that the authorities keep files on each child from birth to death. So, the free "education" they will be receiving is according to their obedience and unconditional loyalty to the regime at all times. Some of their duty is to report what their parents and friends say in private that shows of political "deviation." No dissent is allowed and they punish the citizens who disagree. Depending on this loyalty you can have access to a university or college after high school, but they cannot chose their career.
For example, if the regime needs teachers, that's the ONLY option. If they need doctors, engineers, architects, mechanics, or other professions, free education is in accordance with the needs of the regime ONLY. After graduation, the regime sends them to places far away where they are obligated to serve for a numbers of years. They cannot change jobs unless the regime decides to transfer them to another location. They cannot chose where they want to live; they live ONLY where the regime places them. Vacations are designated by the regime and awarded in accordance with the conduct of the employee at work. Everything in life is in accordance with your conduct, because everything is political in Marxist Socialist regimes.
However, the children of the ruling elite have special schools separated from the regular citizens, plus other benefits not available to the rest of the population, like free healthcare which is very good for the ruling elite but lousy for the rest of the population. So much for "equity," equality” and "social justice". That's a BIG LIE they use to hook people into Marxist Socialist doctrine. They are masters of deception.
Food and clothing in reality are what the regime allows. Like in Cuba, we were eating elbow macaroni for lunch and dinners for almost a year. There was nothing else to eat. The food was rationed as well as clothing and other items of personal use. Toilet paper? Forget about toilet paper!
I am not enumerating all the inconveniences I suffered in communist Cuba because it would take volumes.
So you, the new indoctrinated youth of America, are exchanging all your freedoms and ability to think for yourselves for a highly regulated and dictatorial existence without a future.
- Sounds pretty cool today, but what happens when soft tyranny hardens?
by Agustin Blazquez, Cuban-American filmmaker and valued member of ACAT’s Speakers Bureau
November 2021
PERMALINK
Something for America’s new indoctrinated youth to keep in mind about Marxist Socialism is that the authorities keep files on each child from birth to death. So, the free "education" they will be receiving is according to their obedience and unconditional loyalty to the regime at all times. Some of their duty is to report what their parents and friends say in private that shows of political "deviation." No dissent is allowed and they punish the citizens who disagree. Depending on this loyalty you can have access to a university or college after high school, but they cannot chose their career.
For example, if the regime needs teachers, that's the ONLY option. If they need doctors, engineers, architects, mechanics, or other professions, free education is in accordance with the needs of the regime ONLY. After graduation, the regime sends them to places far away where they are obligated to serve for a numbers of years. They cannot change jobs unless the regime decides to transfer them to another location. They cannot chose where they want to live; they live ONLY where the regime places them. Vacations are designated by the regime and awarded in accordance with the conduct of the employee at work. Everything in life is in accordance with your conduct, because everything is political in Marxist Socialist regimes.
However, the children of the ruling elite have special schools separated from the regular citizens, plus other benefits not available to the rest of the population, like free healthcare which is very good for the ruling elite but lousy for the rest of the population. So much for "equity," equality” and "social justice". That's a BIG LIE they use to hook people into Marxist Socialist doctrine. They are masters of deception.
Food and clothing in reality are what the regime allows. Like in Cuba, we were eating elbow macaroni for lunch and dinners for almost a year. There was nothing else to eat. The food was rationed as well as clothing and other items of personal use. Toilet paper? Forget about toilet paper!
I am not enumerating all the inconveniences I suffered in communist Cuba because it would take volumes.
So you, the new indoctrinated youth of America, are exchanging all your freedoms and ability to think for yourselves for a highly regulated and dictatorial existence without a future.
FROM THE COMMUNIST PLAYBOOK-THE “SHARP KNIFE” OF AGITATION
By
Dr. Martin Scott Catino
May 2021
PERMALINK
Spinning a particular grievance into an indictment of the entire society is an old communist trick
“What Is Agitation?”
The radical Left is again using its “sharp knife” of agitation to harm American unity and prosperity and to create a world of chaos ruled by autocratic elites. Taken directly from the Communist Playbook (its doctrinal and operational writings), agitators employ tactics that target Americans and compel them to hate their country by believing the millions of contacts between police and citizens each year often end with the death of a “person of color.” The high-profile cases of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Freddie Gray are more recent examples exploited by the Left through misinformation, mischaracterization, and misapplication.
The “evidence of systemic racism” is then used by the radical Left to attack and undermine the entire American political and legal system rather than encourage reform and application of civil liberties. The Playbook asserts to its cadre regarding this approach:
Too many patriotic Americans mistakenly attribute this demonization of the police to the “bias” of mainstream media and the Left rather than a strategic tactic from the Communist Playbook. As the initial quote in this article reveals, agitation involves taking a single issue like alleged “police brutality” against people of color and making it the single narrative to a broad number of people, in this case Americans. Agitators use propaganda relying on the tactics of focus, repetition, emotive media images, gross generalizations, and high visibility victims not to bring improvements to these communities but to “draw blood around it,” generating the hatred needed to channel violence against the state and its structures, to destabilize and polarize Americans, and thereby create the conditions where a radical elite can dominate.
“Drawing blood around” police-related grievances -- real and created -- is a tactic Communists have long used from their Playbook, boasting of the dire consequences that result. Referring to the Communist agitation surrounding the brutal death of Mexican-American Joe Torres in May 1977, and the subsequent Moody Park Riot a year later in Houston, the Playbook referenced in this article stated:
The post-George Floyd protests occurring from May 25 to July 31, 2020 demonstrated the same “bloodthirsty” agitation tactics in the Communist Playbook. The Major Cities Chiefs Association, “Report on the 2020 Protests and Civil Unrest” (October 2020), notes the violence was predominantly Left-wing; nationally coordinated; targeting major cities, the police, police vehicles, and property attacked by arson and looting; and carried out in most cases “by individuals or small groups that infiltrated the larger protests.”
Over 2000 police officers were injured in the line of duty in the short time span of 9 weeks during the Summer of 2020. In one case, protesters attempted to trap police officers between a fire created behind the line of law enforcement and a barricade placed in front of them, a tactic that “was extremely dangerous and presented a high risk of death or injury to officers.” In fact, the radical Left has been targeting the U.S. police for over half a century. [See W. Cleon Skousen, The Communist Attack on U.S. Police, 1996.]
Concerned Americans should be aware of the agitation tactics taken straight from the Communist Playbook, their deceptive nature, and their objective of destroying America. These agitation tactics target the police, but the strategic target is the state and everything patriots hold dearly as personal liberties.
The architects and operators of the agit-prop have given careful attention to popularizing it, prioritizing it, permanently and persistently applying it, nationalizing it, institutionalizing it, and championing its violent methods while repudiating peaceful approaches. These modern-day agitators are committed to making sure the sharp knife of agitation remains “a mighty and indispensable weapon in the Party’s revolutionary arsenal” (Marxist Internet Archive, “On the Role of Agitation and Propaganda”). Therefore, every responsible citizen should resist its influence.
________________________________________________
Dr. Scott Catino is an Assistant Professor at Liberty University Online, U.S. Fulbright Scholar, and member of the Anti-Communism Action Team (ACAT). He served in the United States, Bahrain, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the UAE in various research, supervisory, and advising posts for diverse entities including the Department of Defense, FBI, and private security programs. His research on civil unrest, terrorism, and insurgency has involved field studies around the world as well as numerous publications in scholarly and industry journals.
By
Dr. Martin Scott Catino
May 2021
PERMALINK
Spinning a particular grievance into an indictment of the entire society is an old communist trick
“What Is Agitation?”
- “Agitation, whether spoken or written, generally focuses on one event, and one contradiction, and seeks to make a single idea powerfully clear to broad numbers of people. It is like a sharp knife seeking to expose and make raw a glaring contradiction and draw blood around it.”
Marxist Internet Archive, “On the Role of Agitation and Propaganda,” (original publication December 1978), https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-8/rcp-agit-prop.htm
The radical Left is again using its “sharp knife” of agitation to harm American unity and prosperity and to create a world of chaos ruled by autocratic elites. Taken directly from the Communist Playbook (its doctrinal and operational writings), agitators employ tactics that target Americans and compel them to hate their country by believing the millions of contacts between police and citizens each year often end with the death of a “person of color.” The high-profile cases of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Freddie Gray are more recent examples exploited by the Left through misinformation, mischaracterization, and misapplication.
The “evidence of systemic racism” is then used by the radical Left to attack and undermine the entire American political and legal system rather than encourage reform and application of civil liberties. The Playbook asserts to its cadre regarding this approach:
- Real agitation, by dealing with the particularity of contradiction, seeks to point forward to the broader picture. Its aim is not to leave things at the level of the particular. As Lenin put it, ‘we must make it our concern to direct the thoughts of those who are dissatisfied only with conditions at the university, or in the Zemstvo [town council], etc., to the idea that the entire political system is worthless.’
(What Is To Be Done? Section 3E). (Marxist Internet Archive, “On the Role of Agitation and Propaganda.”)
Too many patriotic Americans mistakenly attribute this demonization of the police to the “bias” of mainstream media and the Left rather than a strategic tactic from the Communist Playbook. As the initial quote in this article reveals, agitation involves taking a single issue like alleged “police brutality” against people of color and making it the single narrative to a broad number of people, in this case Americans. Agitators use propaganda relying on the tactics of focus, repetition, emotive media images, gross generalizations, and high visibility victims not to bring improvements to these communities but to “draw blood around it,” generating the hatred needed to channel violence against the state and its structures, to destabilize and polarize Americans, and thereby create the conditions where a radical elite can dominate.
“Drawing blood around” police-related grievances -- real and created -- is a tactic Communists have long used from their Playbook, boasting of the dire consequences that result. Referring to the Communist agitation surrounding the brutal death of Mexican-American Joe Torres in May 1977, and the subsequent Moody Park Riot a year later in Houston, the Playbook referenced in this article stated:
- Before the rebellion, there had been months of persistent agitation and action by the Party and other mass organizations, exposing and going straight up against the capitalists and cops around the murder of Joe Torres and combatting all sorts of reformist dead-end schemes advanced as a ‘solution’ to police terror. This had a major effect, especially in focusing the anger of the masses against the class enemy. So it was no accident that when the people rebelled on the night of Cinco de Mayo many took up the slogan ‘Joe Torres dead, Cops go Free, That’s what the rich call democracy’ as a battle-cry against the murdering cops.
(Marxist Internet Archive, “On the Role of Agitation and Propaganda.”)
The post-George Floyd protests occurring from May 25 to July 31, 2020 demonstrated the same “bloodthirsty” agitation tactics in the Communist Playbook. The Major Cities Chiefs Association, “Report on the 2020 Protests and Civil Unrest” (October 2020), notes the violence was predominantly Left-wing; nationally coordinated; targeting major cities, the police, police vehicles, and property attacked by arson and looting; and carried out in most cases “by individuals or small groups that infiltrated the larger protests.”
Over 2000 police officers were injured in the line of duty in the short time span of 9 weeks during the Summer of 2020. In one case, protesters attempted to trap police officers between a fire created behind the line of law enforcement and a barricade placed in front of them, a tactic that “was extremely dangerous and presented a high risk of death or injury to officers.” In fact, the radical Left has been targeting the U.S. police for over half a century. [See W. Cleon Skousen, The Communist Attack on U.S. Police, 1996.]
Concerned Americans should be aware of the agitation tactics taken straight from the Communist Playbook, their deceptive nature, and their objective of destroying America. These agitation tactics target the police, but the strategic target is the state and everything patriots hold dearly as personal liberties.
The architects and operators of the agit-prop have given careful attention to popularizing it, prioritizing it, permanently and persistently applying it, nationalizing it, institutionalizing it, and championing its violent methods while repudiating peaceful approaches. These modern-day agitators are committed to making sure the sharp knife of agitation remains “a mighty and indispensable weapon in the Party’s revolutionary arsenal” (Marxist Internet Archive, “On the Role of Agitation and Propaganda”). Therefore, every responsible citizen should resist its influence.
________________________________________________
Dr. Scott Catino is an Assistant Professor at Liberty University Online, U.S. Fulbright Scholar, and member of the Anti-Communism Action Team (ACAT). He served in the United States, Bahrain, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the UAE in various research, supervisory, and advising posts for diverse entities including the Department of Defense, FBI, and private security programs. His research on civil unrest, terrorism, and insurgency has involved field studies around the world as well as numerous publications in scholarly and industry journals.
Mao’s Plan for World Domination is Alive and Kicking
March 24, 2021
PERMALINK
While many in the United States are preoccupied with the seeming importance of Wokitude, so-called climate change, and other fairy tales of the Left, here’s what they’re thinking in communist China:
A top Chinese Communist Party strategist gave a speech in 2016, building on Mao Zedong’s plans for world domination announced in the 1950s. China’s goal, the strategist said is to surpass the United Kingdom, catch up with the U.S., and “become the No. 1 boss.” “The task of our next generation is to put the U.S. under our jurisdiction ... too,” the strategist said.
He laid out a number of devious means by which China intends to reach its goal. “First, create conditions for [the U.S.] to make mistakes... Second, we keep [the U.S.] busy so that it will suffer from depression and want to quit the job itself.” In other words, keep the U.S. fatigued and demoralized, so it will no longer want to be a superpower. “Third, we should get ourselves mixed together with the U.S., so that it cannot fight us. We should create such a situation where you have me inside you, and I have you inside me.” China and the U.S. are now each other’s largest trading partners, so the strategy seems to have worked. Having our pharmaceuticals and medical devices made in China looks like part of the plan, too.
China’s deviousness doesn’t stop there. China waited until the U.S. got militarily involved in Syria and distracted by the Ukraine to build islands in the South China Sea. “We only built the islands then. When the U.S. found that we had built such large islands ..., we immediately said to it, Oh, my dear boss, we will stop it,’ ... we are not building it anymore. The United States was very happy for a few months. They thought, after all, [the U.S. is] still the boss.”
The speech also laid out how China would get its hooks into U.S. politicians and go “deeper” into the U.S. Chinese capital would flow into U.S. investment projects. “We in the Chinese government hope that in the end, every U.S. Congressman's district will have Chinese investment, and China will be able to control one thousand or several thousand votes, and then we can influence (the congressman’s) attitude.” You can add to this the entanglements of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden in Chinese companies and largesse.
If all of the above is not enough to corrupt the ruling class and bring America down, the strategist has another way to do it: “Of course we can also have other evil tricks, such as throwing the world into further chaos.... If there are three external enemies outside the United States, I reckon it will start to feel dizzy. If it has four enemies, it will completely get lost. So China's strategic task is to ensure that there are four enemies [for the U.S.], terrorists are certainly one.” This will keep the U.S. confused and inert, and enable China to dominate the world with all its wonderful values like forced sterilization of minorities and reeducation camps for anyone who thinks the wrong way or resists the Dragon.
This is how China plans to turn America into a wholly owned subsidiary of China and take control of the world without fighting a war with the U.S.
The Chinese Communist Party has a long history of making statements about how they intend to target the U.S. and achieve world domination, starting with Mao in 1956. In 2005, a Chinese official said they had developed a plan to depopulate the United States and replace all current residents with Han Chinese. So you see, there are other things to think about aside from how to pay proper respect to each of the 57 genders. Time to get serious, people.
March 24, 2021
PERMALINK
While many in the United States are preoccupied with the seeming importance of Wokitude, so-called climate change, and other fairy tales of the Left, here’s what they’re thinking in communist China:
A top Chinese Communist Party strategist gave a speech in 2016, building on Mao Zedong’s plans for world domination announced in the 1950s. China’s goal, the strategist said is to surpass the United Kingdom, catch up with the U.S., and “become the No. 1 boss.” “The task of our next generation is to put the U.S. under our jurisdiction ... too,” the strategist said.
He laid out a number of devious means by which China intends to reach its goal. “First, create conditions for [the U.S.] to make mistakes... Second, we keep [the U.S.] busy so that it will suffer from depression and want to quit the job itself.” In other words, keep the U.S. fatigued and demoralized, so it will no longer want to be a superpower. “Third, we should get ourselves mixed together with the U.S., so that it cannot fight us. We should create such a situation where you have me inside you, and I have you inside me.” China and the U.S. are now each other’s largest trading partners, so the strategy seems to have worked. Having our pharmaceuticals and medical devices made in China looks like part of the plan, too.
China’s deviousness doesn’t stop there. China waited until the U.S. got militarily involved in Syria and distracted by the Ukraine to build islands in the South China Sea. “We only built the islands then. When the U.S. found that we had built such large islands ..., we immediately said to it, Oh, my dear boss, we will stop it,’ ... we are not building it anymore. The United States was very happy for a few months. They thought, after all, [the U.S. is] still the boss.”
The speech also laid out how China would get its hooks into U.S. politicians and go “deeper” into the U.S. Chinese capital would flow into U.S. investment projects. “We in the Chinese government hope that in the end, every U.S. Congressman's district will have Chinese investment, and China will be able to control one thousand or several thousand votes, and then we can influence (the congressman’s) attitude.” You can add to this the entanglements of Hunter Biden and Joe Biden in Chinese companies and largesse.
If all of the above is not enough to corrupt the ruling class and bring America down, the strategist has another way to do it: “Of course we can also have other evil tricks, such as throwing the world into further chaos.... If there are three external enemies outside the United States, I reckon it will start to feel dizzy. If it has four enemies, it will completely get lost. So China's strategic task is to ensure that there are four enemies [for the U.S.], terrorists are certainly one.” This will keep the U.S. confused and inert, and enable China to dominate the world with all its wonderful values like forced sterilization of minorities and reeducation camps for anyone who thinks the wrong way or resists the Dragon.
This is how China plans to turn America into a wholly owned subsidiary of China and take control of the world without fighting a war with the U.S.
The Chinese Communist Party has a long history of making statements about how they intend to target the U.S. and achieve world domination, starting with Mao in 1956. In 2005, a Chinese official said they had developed a plan to depopulate the United States and replace all current residents with Han Chinese. So you see, there are other things to think about aside from how to pay proper respect to each of the 57 genders. Time to get serious, people.
Freedom, Art, and the Ugliness of the Berlin Wall
by Michael V. Clinton
8th Grade Student
PERMALINK
Winning entry in the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation middle school essay contest for 2019 under the title ‘Why Is Communism Ugly in Theory and Practice?’ Essay prompt:
In the United States and other developed countries, many people are grateful for the ability to be free, prosperous, and safe, and to make a living based on their efforts and skills. What if I told you that not so long ago, there was a time where numerous countries in the world did not have any freedom, safety, democracy, or meritocracy?
This system was called communism. The word for communism is derived from the Latin adjective communis, meaning “shared” or “common,” but in truth it only means “the equal sharing of misery.” (Winston Churchill) Communism was originally invented by Karl Marx but his doctrine got further degraded by Vladimir Lenin who started a violent revolution in Russia. His rule was by force and by striking fear into the population, killing and deporting at least 300,000 to 500,000 innocent people. This was the start of a horrible regime that created the USSR and spread to several continents.
Despite its seemingly well-meaning façade, communism is a very ugly and immoral concept in theory, and it takes this to a dangerous and deadly extreme in practice, because it values the social group and the state over the individual, much like socialism. Communist governments do not care about how many people they may kill but rather about supposedly helping the farmers and the workers’ class. In communism, no person is important, but in democratic countries like America, everyone is important, so that even if one U.S. citizen gets put into harm’s way with another country, this creates conflicts, disputes, or even war. Communism does not protect and cherish individual people and would not mind physically getting rid of people if this serves its purpose. Communism also allows unchecked power to its ruling elite. Those in power can do whatever they want to another person, group, or even their country.
My mother was born in a communist country and spent her childhood and youth in poverty, oppression, and fear. Her grandfather was a noble and humane person who almost died in a communist camp. He was sent there without a reason, as many other innocent people who were seen as a threat by the communist state. My great grandfather survived by chance and returned home to his wife. He was not allowed to work despite being a capable man in his prime. At least he was alive, and a year after his release from the camp, my grandmother was born. If he had perished, I would not be alive today. No political system should have the power to decide human fate in this way.
This summer my parents took me to see the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie Museum (see photo above). I liked the colorful graffiti on the Wall’s remnants—they made me think of freedom and art, concealing the ugliness of this symbol of division and tyranny. They also reminded people, 30 years later, not to be afraid anymore.
In conclusion, communism is an ugly philosophy and practice because it values the group over the individual, negates basic human rights such as life, freedom, or happiness, and advocates dictatorships.
by Michael V. Clinton
8th Grade Student
PERMALINK
Winning entry in the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation middle school essay contest for 2019 under the title ‘Why Is Communism Ugly in Theory and Practice?’ Essay prompt:
- While visiting Checkpoint Charlie on June 11, 1982, President Ronald Reagan was asked his impression of the Berlin Wall. He responded: “It’s as ugly as the idea behind it.” In an essay of 600–800 words, explain the ugliness of the idea of communism, and its relationship to the Berlin Wall that once divided one of the great cities of the world.
In the United States and other developed countries, many people are grateful for the ability to be free, prosperous, and safe, and to make a living based on their efforts and skills. What if I told you that not so long ago, there was a time where numerous countries in the world did not have any freedom, safety, democracy, or meritocracy?
This system was called communism. The word for communism is derived from the Latin adjective communis, meaning “shared” or “common,” but in truth it only means “the equal sharing of misery.” (Winston Churchill) Communism was originally invented by Karl Marx but his doctrine got further degraded by Vladimir Lenin who started a violent revolution in Russia. His rule was by force and by striking fear into the population, killing and deporting at least 300,000 to 500,000 innocent people. This was the start of a horrible regime that created the USSR and spread to several continents.
Despite its seemingly well-meaning façade, communism is a very ugly and immoral concept in theory, and it takes this to a dangerous and deadly extreme in practice, because it values the social group and the state over the individual, much like socialism. Communist governments do not care about how many people they may kill but rather about supposedly helping the farmers and the workers’ class. In communism, no person is important, but in democratic countries like America, everyone is important, so that even if one U.S. citizen gets put into harm’s way with another country, this creates conflicts, disputes, or even war. Communism does not protect and cherish individual people and would not mind physically getting rid of people if this serves its purpose. Communism also allows unchecked power to its ruling elite. Those in power can do whatever they want to another person, group, or even their country.
My mother was born in a communist country and spent her childhood and youth in poverty, oppression, and fear. Her grandfather was a noble and humane person who almost died in a communist camp. He was sent there without a reason, as many other innocent people who were seen as a threat by the communist state. My great grandfather survived by chance and returned home to his wife. He was not allowed to work despite being a capable man in his prime. At least he was alive, and a year after his release from the camp, my grandmother was born. If he had perished, I would not be alive today. No political system should have the power to decide human fate in this way.
This summer my parents took me to see the Berlin Wall and Checkpoint Charlie Museum (see photo above). I liked the colorful graffiti on the Wall’s remnants—they made me think of freedom and art, concealing the ugliness of this symbol of division and tyranny. They also reminded people, 30 years later, not to be afraid anymore.
In conclusion, communism is an ugly philosophy and practice because it values the group over the individual, negates basic human rights such as life, freedom, or happiness, and advocates dictatorships.