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Posters of Lenin and Stalin in Red Square, 1947 / Getty Images

BY: Alex Griswold August 24, 2017 12:24 pm

The New York Timeshaspublished several op-eds in 2017as part of its "Red Century" series commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the Russian Revolution.

Many of the pieces have notedatrocities the Soviets carried out. A number of the editorials, however, have also offered defenses for or praise of aspects of communism. Among them:

Women had better sex under communism

"Why Women Had Better Sex Under Socialism,"arguedKristen R. Ghodsee, a professor of Russian and East European studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

"Some might remember that Eastern bloc women enjoyed many rights and privileges unknown in liberal democracies at the time," she wrote. "But there's one advantage that has received little attention: Women under communism enjoyed more sexual pleasure."

Stalinism inspired Americans

"When Communism Inspired Americans," from left-wing Times journalist Vivian Gornick, is a retelling of her childhood spent in a radical Bronx family during the age of Josef Stalin.

"It is perhaps hard to understand now, but at that time, in this place, the Marxist vision of world solidarity as translated by the Communist Party induced in the most ordinary of men and women a sense of one's own humanity that ran deep, made life feel large; large and clarified," she wrote.

"Americawasfortunate to have had the communists here,'"Gornick quoted her mother as saying. "They, more than most, prodded the country into becoming the democracy it always said it was.'"

The Bolsheviks were romantics deep down

University of California, Berkeley historian Yuri Slezkine penned a story on "The Love Lives of Bolsheviks," an account of how a belief in communism spurred Bolshevik leaders towardpassionate love affairs.

The romanticism Slezkine described dimmed a bit when he revealed one of the star-crossed lovers "unleashed the Red Terror [and] ordered the execution of the czar and his family," and anotherbecame "a leading advocate of forced labor in the countryside."

Lenin was aconservationist

Yale senior lecturerFred Strebeigh authored "Lenin's Eco-Warriors," a piece highlighting how Vladimir Lenin, "a longtime enthusiast for hiking and camping," passed reforms to protectRussia's environment.

"For now, at least, Lenin's legacy is preserved and Russia remains the world leader, ahead of Brazil and Australia, in protecting the most land at the highest level," Strebeigh wrote.

The Soviets supported the Harlem Renaissance

"When the Harlem Renaissance Went to Communist Moscow," wrote the University of Pennsylvania's Jennifer Williams. Williams chronicled how black artists in the 1930's thought there was greater opportunity in Moscow, arguingat the time, "the American Negro stands very little chance of achieving true representation" in Hollywood.

"In the Soviet Union, racial equality was not merely incidental but a state project," Williams wrote, detailing how the Soviets recruited Harlem artists for a propaganda film about race relations in America.

Unfortunately for the artists, the USSR's support for the film project was yanked once it achieved its true objective: diplomatic recognitionfrom the U.S. government.

Without the Soviets, we would not have "Star Trek"

Counterculture writer A. M. Gittlitz argued in "Make It So': Star Trek' and Its Debt to Revolutionary Socialism," that the sci-fi series "Star Trek" owed its genesis to Russian Revolution principles.

Gittlitz cited the novel Red Star, a book about autopian colony on Marsthatadheres to communism. That book helped spark Russian "Cosmism," a belief that the future of communism rested in technology and mastering space.

Gittlitz argued "Star Trek" was particularly inspired by Argentine Trotskyist leader J. Posadas. As aleader of Argentina's socialist movement, Posadas argued alien visitors would be socialists and would help "free Earth from the grip of Yankee imperialism and the bureaucratic workers' states."

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The 6 Worst Defenses of Communism Published By the NY Times This Year - Washington Free Beacon

MP Oudekki Loone (Center).

"Honored Minister Stavros Kontonis, I want to express my sincere gratitude and respect for your and the Greek government's decision not to participate in the conference whose topic was 'The legacy of the crimes of communist regimes in 21st century Europe,'" wrote Loone in a letter published on stavroslygeros.gr (link in Greek). "Your explanation of the reasoning behind your decision was perfect! Unfortunately such efforts to indirectly justify the Nazi regime and Nazi ideology are staunchly present in Estonian politics today."

According to Loone, her own decision to celebrate the Soviet victory in World War II on May 9 earned the ire of many Estonian journalists and politicians, but it also earned support. "Thus let me confirm to you that Estonia is not a Nazi state and that here, just like elsewhere, Nazis and supporters of Nazism are in the minority," she wrote.

Loone claimed that the Greek minister's decision was a reminder of European values and gave strength to everyone concerned about the rise of a Cold War-era climate today.

"This conference is a disgrace, but I am certain that a future exists in which such events will not be organized anymore," the Estonian MP concluded. "You only helped to bring on such a future more quickly."

Victims of communism and Nazim were commemorated in Tallinn on Wednesday, the anniversary of the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact which was proclaimed in the European Parliament in April 2009 as the European Day of Remembrance for Victims of Stalinism and Nazism.

Since 2009, EU justice ministers and representatives of organizations that study the crimes of totalitarian regimes have met on Aug. 23 every year; this year, they met in Tallinn for the second time.

Greek Minister of Justice Stavro Kontonis refused to participate in the conference, as he claimed that Nazism and communism could not be compared to one another.

Estonian Minister of Justice Urmas Reinsalu (IRL) has promised to respond in writing to his Greek colleague.

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Estonian MP thanks Greek minister who defended communism - ERR News

Memorial ceremony on Black Ribbon Day at the War of Independence Victory Column in Tallinn.

Minister of Justice Urmas Reinsalu (IRL) said that the condemnation of all crimes against humanity, and human rights violations committed by all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes was the basis of commemoration, and added that Europe should remember the victims of all these regimes.

Today, on the Europe-wide Day of Remembrance for the Victims of all Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes, we commemorate the victims of political terror in a dignified and unbiased manner. We commemorate the victims of communist terror, who in most cases only for their class status were murdered, sent to the communist Gulag, or were stripped of their human rights from the beginning of communist power in Russia to the final days of the communist regimes in Europe. We commemorate the millions of people who in multiple countries were murdered or sent to concentration camps by national socialists and their minions. We especially commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, who were murdered solely for being Jewish. Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes have not disappeared from the world, and we must also remember and commemorate the victims of those regimes, Reinsalu said.

Representatives of the delegations of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Croatia, Slovakia, Hungary, and Czechia issued a joint statement at the ministerial meeting, saying that under the communist dictatorships in Europe, hundreds of thousands of innocent people were executed, killed, imprisoned, tortured, forced to perform slave labor, or deported.

No process of finding out the truth and establishing justice comparable to what had taken place in Germany after the Second World War against the perpetrators of Nazi crimes had ever been undertaken in the more than 25 years that passed since the fall of the communist regimes in Central and Eastern Europe, the delegations said. The memory of the victims of the communist regimes demanded the investigation and prosecution of the perpetrators of those crimes as well.

The delegations also participated in a commemorative ceremony at the War of Independence Victory Column in Tallinn. A memorial conference titled The legacy of the crimes of communist regimes in 21st-century Europe was held at the Tallinn Creative Hub on Wednesday. Former dissident and Estonian MEP Tunne Kelam (IRL/EPP), who delivered the opening speech, said that We must take down the mental Berlin Wall that at times divides our thinking and understanding also today, 28 years after the fall of the physical Berlin Wall referring to the attitude towards the crimes of totalitarian regimes in Europe.

On Apr. 2, 2009, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on European conscience and totalitarianism calling for the proclamation of Aug. 23, the anniversary of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, as a Europe-wide Day of Remembrance for the victims of all totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, to be commemorated with dignity and impartiality.

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Eight EU members make joint statement concerning victims of communism - ERR News

Prague, August 21, 1968

In 1964-through-1968 the Prague Spring took place when democracy started to bloom in the country under imposed Communism. It was a period of political liberalization, in then Czechoslovakia, from the Soviet Union domination. On January 5, 1968, the reformist Alexander Dubek was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KS), and he continued in that post until August 21, 1968 when the Soviet Union and other members of the Warsaw Pact invaded the country to halt the reforms.

During my visit to Prague

I happened to be in Prague on August 21, 2017. My hotel location was not too far from the Wenceslas Square-in Czech Vclavsk nmst, where Vclav Havel, the 1st President of the Czech Republic, called for the Prague Spring. That morning I took a long walk and when I arrived at the Vclavsk nmst square I saw media commotion that arose my curiosity and here is the result of that curiosity.

The former Member of Parliament, Michael Kocb

At the square I was introduced to Michael Kocb, a Czech composer, singer and political activist and a friend of world renowned musician, Frank Zappa.

According to Mr. Kocb, the freedom of the Czech Republic is in a limbo; it is by far not the democracy the people deserve.

Mr. Kocb repeats the much known to Czechs history. On August 21st, 1968, 500,000 Soviet and Polish soldiers, accompanied by 6,300 tanks and 830 military planes, a military force three times the size of then the Czechoslovakian army, invaded the country to suppress the Czech Spring. The result, 137 Czechs and Slovaks lost their life and 500,000 Czechs became refugees. Bitterly he tells me that only, then Yugoslavia, now Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, supported the Czechs dissention, which the Soviet Union opposed, and thus the invasion.

As expected from its deplorable inactions or actions, with the Veto allowance to Russia, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) did not help the freedom fighters and in this case the United States support was missing but joined in support of free Czechs later on.

On October 26th, 1968, the Czech Parliament signed an agreement with the Soviets in which 75,000 Soviet soldiers and their families will be stationed in Czechoslovakia. This contract ceased to exist on March 26th, 1990.

In the early 1990s, Mr. Kocb, then a Member of Parliament and acting Deputy Chair of the Freedom Committee, led a parliament commission which negotiated the repatriation of Soviet soldiers from Czechoslovakia and breaking the contract with the Soviets. Mr. Kocb claims that he also found a Soviet nuclear facility on Czech land, which the Soviets denied existed. On June 30th, 1991, the Czechs kicked the Russians out of their land and though was negotiated and agreed, Russia never compensated the Czechs for its oppression and atrocities but the Czech nation comforts itself with being a free nation.

Mr. Kocb was a friend of late Vclav Havel, the legendary symbol of the Czech Republics liberty. Mr. Havel was the new republic president and Mr. Kocb was his personal advisor for over a decade. Mr. Kocb is also a friend of current president Mr. Milo Zeman and supported him. He seemed to be one of us but he has changed, Mr. Kocb expressed his disappointment in his friend and the reason for the movement to keep the Czech Republic clean of communism.

The Democracy is in question

The current Czech Republic president is Milo Zeman and his proclivity to China and Mr. Putin of Russia is a worrisome to every freedom loving Czech.

One who worries a great deal about the encroaching communism in the Czech Republic is Mr. Peter Marek, the head of a growing civil movement to find justice for those who communism hurt. Mr. Marek is dissatisfied of the current winds blowing from the current presidents palace. After Communism collapsed and we became a democracy so little was done, if at all, to punish the communists and their communism system, which hurt so many, Mr. Marek claims. He wants to find justice for those who were persecuted and murdered during the Communist era. Society is developing with a broken spine, Mr. Marek shared his worrisome. In his opinion, tolerance to Communism and its philosophy is deeply imbedded in the Czech Republic education system and that has to change, must come to an end.

The movement Mr. Marek heads goal is to change the public view through education. First the Czech public and then expand its actions beyond the Czech Republic borders.

In the West Communism is not detested as much as Nazism and it is very well alive, Mr. Marek points to a view that should worry every freedom loving individual in the liberated from the Communism yoke Czech Republic.

Knowing what is taking place in so many USA universities, I left Pragues new town Vclavsk-Wenceslas Square ready to join this initiative. I hope this article will light some fire under people who seek real freedom.

See the article here:
Prague to the World: Without Communism - NewsBlaze (registration) (blog)

Growing up, I always associated communism with being a bad thing and capitalism as being great. Sometimes in life, we just accept what were told if enough people are saying the same thing until we dig a bit deeper to find out for ourselves why we believe it.Today I question if the definitions are mixed up, not my thinking. I spoke to a few Cuban natives who helped put things in perspective for me when I asked them if they had the opportunity to come to the U.S. tomorrow, would they? The response was the same amongst all; an emphatic NO!

One lady explained to me that her health condition is one main reason why she wouldnt go. She went on to say that in Cuba, the government provides free healthcare and free education. She even spoke about how once her roof was leaking, the rain was coming in, and the government stepped in to take care of it.

She told me how freedom for her was having her family and friends around her; this was all she needed in life.

I spoke to a gentleman who was sipping on his rum and enjoying a cigarette when we walked up. I asked him the same questions about feeling free in Cuba and whether he would want to come to the states. He chuckled and said they have their problems in Cuba but he is content and he loves his life. He stated that hes fine with following the path that life has taken him. I equated this statement to one of my favorite poets, Mark Nepo, who speaks about not swimming upstream but to go with the current.

These people may not be able to pull their BMWs or Teslas into the nearest Shell or Chevron to fill up but instead, have to trek for kilometers to get the gas and bring it back in what feels like triple-digit weather. The richness they seem to have that we lack is peace. The only question I have for today is the little boy in I took a photo of with his arms crossed. I wonder if he will grow up to be Tesla or the guy trekking to get gas.

Perhaps while theyre looking through a 1950s television screen, they are seeing a much bigger picture than the latest and future inventions Silicon Valley has to offer.

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Communism, bad for whom? - The Pioneer