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The past few years have seen the rise of political extremism at home and abroad. Violence is the hallmark of extremism, violence by mobs or by armies. We have become very familiar with violence. At home the trend erupted on Jan. 6, 2021, with the climactic assault on the U.S. Capitol and the anti-climactic violent riots after the George Floyd murder. But were lucky. Our democracy has mostly weathered the storm and the threat of civil war, which was considered a serious possibility by many, has receded.

We can only hope that the 2022 elections, unlike those of 2020, do not set off another firestorm of subversion and denial, no matter who comes out on top. And that the 2024 presidential election is held in a peaceful and fair way. Democratic Europe hopes for the same. But on the margins of Europe, the pressure has slowly mounted and gained strength. Finally, the forces of chaos became too powerful for civilization to resist and the Russian invasion of Ukraine exploded.

Those twin scourges of the 20th century, communism and fascism, which we had assumed were safely dead and buried, have been resuscitated. Once again, they have the power to motivate people and they have returned to haunt the twenty-first-century.

We can best see the union of communism and fascism in Russia. Communism found its secure home in Russia with the Bolshevik revolution. The birth of the communist Soviet Union in 1917-1920, which included many nationalities such as the Ukrainians, was bloody and violent.

Thousands died so that Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Leon Trotsky and other communist satraps could have their communist regime.

In 1941, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, whose rulers were almost all Russians. This was the battle of the century, the life and death struggle of communism and fascism. Communism, with ample help from capitalism, won the war. But not until the fascist Germans had killed 27 million Russians, Belarussians, Ukrainians, Jews, and others, by reliable count. Almost all the killing occurred in what historian Timothy Snyder calls the Bloodlands, in his book about the war between Adolph Hitler and Stalin. Ukraine is in the Bloodlands. The present war is the latest chapter in the bloody saga of that unhappy territory.

Strange, given this history, that we now find a convergence of communism and fascism in Russia. Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer and incarnation in one personality of tsars such as Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great and communist tyrants such as Lenin and Stalin, has led Russia out of her communist past, not into liberal democracy as many had hoped, but into a new version of fascism. However, his communist KGB mentality remains. Russia is again the repressive and highly efficient police state it was under communism. The Lubyanka prison in Moscow is again filled with enemies of the people. On top of that, Russia is also now a fascist dictatorship.

Fascism is reactionary, built on notions of religion, national identity and racial superiority. In spite of his KGB training, Putin attends church, and the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow has endorsed his war. The war is premised on the doctrine that a nation has to recover its lost brethren, as Hitler wanted to do with the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia, and as Putin claims he wants to do with the Ukrainians.

Putin says the Ukrainians are really Russians, if only they would just admit it.

If they wont admit it, then he will beat them until they do. Gone from Putins rhetoric are communist bromides like the class struggle. Putin has thrown out the communist idea that nationalism is a distraction to divert the exploited masses from the class struggle. Putin has embraced fascist nationalism, aided and abetted by the oligarchs, the new nobility, much like Hitler was enabled by the Krupps and other wealthy industrialists in Germany.

All of this is a done deal, and like the snake that swallowed its own tail, the extremes of left and right, communism and fascism have joined, and are now one and the same beast.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D, is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS. He teaches U.S. Military History and Mexico/U.S. Border Studies. He is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D, is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS. He teaches U.S. Military History and Mexico/U.S. Border Studies. He is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

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COLUMN: The Convergence of Communism and Fascism | Joe Barrera - Colorado Springs Gazette

The past few years have seen the rise of political extremism at home and abroad. Violence is the hallmark of extremism, violence by mobs or by armies. We have become very familiar with violence. At home the trend erupted on Jan. 6, 2021, with the climactic assault on the U.S. Capitol and the anti-climactic violent riots after the George Floyd murder. But were lucky. Our democracy has mostly weathered the storm and the threat of civil war, which was considered a serious possibility by many, has receded.

We can only hope that the 2022 elections, unlike those of 2020, do not set off another firestorm of subversion and denial, no matter who comes out on top. And that the 2024 presidential election is held in a peaceful and fair way. Democratic Europe hopes for the same. But on the margins of Europe, the pressure has slowly mounted and gained strength. Finally, the forces of chaos became too powerful for civilization to resist and the Russian invasion of Ukraine exploded.

Those twin scourges of the 20th century, communism and fascism, which we had assumed were safely dead and buried, have been resuscitated. Once again, they have the power to motivate people and they have returned to haunt the twenty-first-century.

We can best see the union of communism and fascism in Russia. Communism found its secure home in Russia with the Bolshevik revolution. The birth of the communist Soviet Union in 1917-1920, which included many nationalities such as the Ukrainians, was bloody and violent.

Thousands died so that Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Leon Trotsky and other communist satraps could have their communist regime.

In 1941, the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, whose rulers were almost all Russians. This was the battle of the century, the life and death struggle of communism and fascism. Communism, with ample help from capitalism, won the war. But not until the fascist Germans had killed 27 million Russians, Belarussians, Ukrainians, Jews, and others, by reliable count. Almost all the killing occurred in what historian Timothy Snyder calls the Bloodlands, in his book about the war between Adolph Hitler and Stalin. Ukraine is in the Bloodlands. The present war is the latest chapter in the bloody saga of that unhappy territory.

Strange, given this history, that we now find a convergence of communism and fascism in Russia. Vladimir Putin, the former KGB officer and incarnation in one personality of tsars such as Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great and communist tyrants such as Lenin and Stalin, has led Russia out of her communist past, not into liberal democracy as many had hoped, but into a new version of fascism. However, his communist KGB mentality remains. Russia is again the repressive and highly efficient police state it was under communism. The Lubyanka prison in Moscow is again filled with enemies of the people. On top of that, Russia is also now a fascist dictatorship.

Fascism is reactionary, built on notions of religion, national identity and racial superiority. In spite of his KGB training, Putin attends church, and the Orthodox patriarch of Moscow has endorsed his war. The war is premised on the doctrine that a nation has to recover its lost brethren, as Hitler wanted to do with the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia, and as Putin claims he wants to do with the Ukrainians.

Putin says the Ukrainians are really Russians, if only they would just admit it.

If they wont admit it, then he will beat them until they do. Gone from Putins rhetoric are communist bromides like the class struggle. Putin has thrown out the communist idea that nationalism is a distraction to divert the exploited masses from the class struggle. Putin has embraced fascist nationalism, aided and abetted by the oligarchs, the new nobility, much like Hitler was enabled by the Krupps and other wealthy industrialists in Germany.

All of this is a done deal, and like the snake that swallowed its own tail, the extremes of left and right, communism and fascism have joined, and are now one and the same beast.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D, is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS. He teaches U.S. Military History and Mexico/U.S. Border Studies. He is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

Joe Barrera, Ph.D, is the former director of the Ethnic Studies Program at UCCS. He teaches U.S. Military History and Mexico/U.S. Border Studies. He is a combat veteran of the Vietnam War.

Go here to see the original:
COLUMN: The Convergence of Communism and Fascism - Colorado Springs Gazette

There is so much misunderstanding of the relationship between religion and communist views. More often than not, people only associate communism with atheism due to misquoting Marx in his comment of religion being the opium of the masses. Due to misquoting and misinformation, the general thought has been that no one of religious faith or practice could possibly be a communist and vice versa. This is simply not true.

As members of the CPUSA, our guidance and understanding of how to make lasting change for the better is Marxism. Its a systematic approach to understanding society how it works, how it develops, and how it can become more just. Theres nothing in Marxism as a way of understanding society and social change that is incompatible with whatever religious faith you may hold. The views, voices, and efforts of progressive people of faith are in harmony with the goals of our Party, especially in regard to seeking peace and justice for all. The doors of the Communist Party USA are, and always have been, wide open to people of faith. This openness is made even clearer in our vision of the CPUSA that includes all people regardless of religion (or none), race, nationality, gender identity, sexual orientation, and ability.

Join the Religion Commission!

We have people at all levels of the Party who are active in their communities of faith and its because of this that a commission was created several years ago for religious members of the Party to work together. The Religion Commission of the Party functions as the opportunity for members to come together to discuss their faith journey and how it brought them to the Party. We also discuss the work we want to do within our communities of faith on behalf of the Party and vice versa.

The Commission meets monthly to discuss upcoming projects we want to work on, articles members are writing on behalf of the Commission, and meetings for book discussions that involve religion and Marxism. We are an active part of the Party that seeks to remove the stigma and misinformation about religious communists. We hope to bring the perspective and concerns of the faith-based community to the Party while also promoting the Party in our own faith communities!

So, if you are curious in seeing your faith in action with the mission and values of CPUSA, then the Religion Commission welcomes you! We hope you take the opportunity in contacting us, and we hope to see you at our next meeting!

For more information, contact the Recording-Secretary of the Religion Commission at religion@cpusa.org

Image: Oliver Hammond (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

Originally posted here:
Person of faith? The Communist Party welcomes you! - Communist Party USA

HISTORYThe Party: The Communist Party of Australia from Heyday to Reckoning Stuart Macintyre Allen & Unwin, $49.99

In late 1941, after the Soviet Union entered World War II, a symphony concert audience in Sydney heard something remarkable. The orchestra began with the customary God Save the King. Then, the conductor suddenly switched to that anthem of the communist movement The Internationale.

This represented a turning point. No longer was this song reproduced in scratchy recordings or sung in meagre choruses in half-empty halls. The Communist Party was still illegal but its respectability and popularity began to soar. Three years later 23,000 had joined the party. This was the heyday of Australian communism with access to the wartime government and control of the countrys key trade unions.

In the post-war years, many so-called Red Army communists melted away. In The Party, the sequel to The Reds (1998), Stuart Macintyre demonstrates how blind devotion to the Soviet Union created irreconcilable problems for the party as the Cold War deepened.

Its opponents, rapidly increasing in strength and stridency, could point to its divided loyalties and its alien ideology. Worse, in the event of a third world war, which seemed imminent in the early 1950s, communists would become a fifth column for the Soviet Union. Potential treason was darkly hinted at.

Police break up an election meeting of the Australian Communist Party at a Bondi Junction hotel in April 1951. Credit:Norm Herfort

In this context, the Menzies government sought to ban the Reds. All the while, ASIO, convinced that this enemy within posed a threat to national security, intensified its surveillance, job vetting, passport control, harassment, and infiltration with informants. Its files on individual communists, which Macintyre has used adroitly, thickened.

Assailed by the government, vilified in the press, and condemned by the broader community, the party remained steadfast. As Stalin had reminded communists, they were people of a special mould. Fortified by the belief that history was on their side, their faith in the righteousness of their cause, the virtues of the Soviet experiment, or the wisdom of Uncle Joe, was rarely dented. Until 1956.

Macintyres discussion of Khrushchevs revelations of Stalins crimes and the impact on Australian communists is brilliantly synthesised, combining prodigious scholarship with nuanced analysis. Notwithstanding the leaderships denial and suppression of discussion, party members who eventually read the secret speech were shocked to the core and left in droves. When the Hungarian revolt of late 1956 was crushed by Russian tanks, the internal fractures deepened and the decline of the party accelerated.

From the mid-1960s, the party embarked upon de-Stalinisation: a new, independent path without the ideological direction, rhetorical shibboleths or financial support from Russia. After condemning the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia the first communist party in the world to do so it began, writes Macintyre, clearing away the dogmas that had brought it undone.

Originally posted here:
The enemy within: How the Communist Party ground to a halt in Australia - Sydney Morning Herald

Will the U.S. continue to play a leadership role in the new world order? Thats the key political question raised by the Ukraine crisis. The answer depends, more than anything else, on U.S. domestic politics.

In the old world order, which took shape after World War II, the defining conflict was democracy versus communism. In the late 1940s, the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin was aggressive and expansionist, just like Russia today under Vladimir PutinVladimir Vladimirovich PutinRepublican senators introduce bill to ban Russian uranium imports Hillicon Valley Invasion complicates social media policy Defense & National Security Blinken details Russia's possible next steps MORE. But the confrontation with communism had an ideological edge thats not so clear in the conflict with authoritarianism.

Communism was the ultimate big government menace. It threatened democratic political values and free enterprise economic values. It carried an even bigger threat for Americans atheism. Communism was typically depicted as godless communism. The United States is the most religious advanced industrial society in the world. More Americans say they go to church and believe in God, the devil, angels, heaven and hell than citizens of any other wealthy country.

There is a particular historical reason why that is true. Many groups, like Puritans in the 17th century and Jews in the 20th century, came to America seeking religious freedom. People who seek religious freedom are likely to be personally religious. In the U.S., they passed their strong religious values down from generation to generation. Churchgoing is a powerful norm in the U.S. Religious people are likely to see godless communism as a dire threat.

Authoritarianism is now replacing communism as a threat to Americas democratic values. Some authoritarian regimes are communist (China, North Korea, Cuba) and some are religious but not tolerant (Iran, India). Even here in the U.S., there is a streak of authoritarianism visible in Donald TrumpDonald TrumpGOP talking point could turn to Biden's 'underwhelming' Russia response House Oversight Committee opens investigation into New Mexico 2020 election audit Hunter Biden paid off tax liability amid ongoing grand jury investigation: report MORE and his supporters.

Authoritarians worship strength and have contempt for weakness. Trump has called Vladimir Putin very, very strong. He told a conservative conference last month that Putin took advantage of Biden being weak when he decided to attack Ukraine. Those views are not uncommon. In a YouGov poll taken last month, 57 percent of Americans called Putin a strong leader. Only 30 percent called President BidenJoe BidenRepublican senators introduce bill to ban Russian uranium imports Energy & Environment Ruling blocking climate accounting metric halted Fauci says officials need more than .5B for COVID-19 response MORE a strong leader.

During both the Cold War confrontation with communism and in the showdown with authoritarianism today, U.S. leaders have had to contend with a long tradition of isolationism. When President Harry Truman announced the Truman Doctrine in 1947, the U.S. abandoned its historic isolationism and embraced a policy of containing the spread of communism. Since World War II, whenever there has been a serious threat to international order or humanitarian values, the rule has been that unless the United States does something, nothing will be done.

What would have happened if the U.S. failed to act after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990? Most likely, Kuwait would now be part of Iraq. What Putin is threatening to do now is end Ukrainian sovereignty and make Ukraine part of Russia.

Having acted decisively in Kuwait, the first President Bush left the crisis in Bosnia to the Europeans. The U.S. had no vital interests there. What happened? The Europeans failed to do anything, and a new horror entered the worlds vocabulary ethnic cleansing. After seeing video of Kosovo Muslims being forced into railway cars and sent to concentration camps, the U.S. felt morally compelled to step in and lead a coalition to end the brutality.

Since World War II, the U.S. has acknowledged international interests as well as national interests. That is what President Clinton meant when he called the U.S. the worlds indispensable nation. We protect world order and defend humanitarian values.

During the debate over whether to act in Syria, Ben Rhodes, President ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaThe Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Facebook - What now after Zelensky's speech? Senate panel advances Biden Fed nominees to confirmation votes Best way to tackle inflation: Confirm Biden's Fed nominations MOREs deputy national security adviser, said: The U.S. for decades has played the role of undergirding the global security architecture and enforcing international norms. We do not want to send a message that the United States is getting out of that business in any way.

Apparently, the American public agrees. Polls are finding strong support for U.S. sanctions on Russia. In a YouGov poll for CBS News taken just before Bidens State of the Union speech, most Americans said they would be willing to send U.S. troops to protect NATO allies. That is our legal obligation under the NATO treaty. But a solid 71 percent said the U.S. should not send troops to Ukraine, which is not a member of NATO. President Biden drew that line clearly in his State of the Union speech: Our forces are not going to Europe to fight [in] Ukraine but to defend our NATO allies in the event that Putin decides to keep moving west.

President Biden is a traditional Democrat who fully embraces his partys longstanding tradition of embracing international interests. Donald Trumps America First policies are a repudiation of those interests.

At least one Republican is speaking out against him.

Rep. Liz CheneyElizabeth (Liz) Lynn CheneyEx-RNC chairman blasts Trump: 'Not fit to lead this nation' Watch: Weekend stories you might have missed Will the US continue to play a leadership role? MORE (R-Wyo.) told a Republican group, Those people in our party who are advocating for the United States to withdraw from the world, who are advocating that somehow the United States shouldnt lead in the world any more, the kind of world that we will all be living in, we can see now on a daily basis on our television screens when you see whats happening in Ukraine.

Bill Schneider is an emeritus professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University and author of "Standoff: How America Became Ungovernable"(Simon & Schuster).

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Will the US continue to play a leadership role? | TheHill - The Hill