From the very beginning Mikhail Gorbachev was as much the hard-line Communist as any of his predecessors. I followed this, evaluated this and concluded this easily from my perch in Berlin in early 1985. If Gorbachev was such a reformer, why were American Mission Officers and my personnel in Berlin treated no differently while performing missions than they were under Yuri Andropov, or Konstantin Tschernenko. The willing diplomats, dupes and "useful idiots" talked Perestroika, and the "fellow travelers" encouraged the new Glasnost ["Openness" ... hmm, sounds like ... "Open Society"].
Meanwhile, US Military Liaison Mission Officers were being ruffed up, and one was murdered.
I was the DCSI On-Call-Officer that winter night in Berlin in 1985 when a friend and colleague LTC Arthur "Nick" Nicholson, was shot in the back by a Russian sentry, and allowed to bleed to death in front of his driver in East Germany. The NCO driver was not allowed to administer First Aid. The Russians forced him watch his Officer die. I remember receiving and rendering up the Chain of Command the initial reports and notifications. It was perhaps the most depressing event in my entire military service. LTC Nicholson was a superb Russian Area Specialist, he loved studying that culture. But he knew his job and the territory, and he knew the risks. He was an excellent Officer; he was good at what he did and he spoke Russian well. Few, if any, expected such a wanton act. After all, wasn't "Gorbachev" a new kind of Soviet Leader? So much for Perestroika, Glasnost and Communist lies.
Twenty six years later, you can scarce find information about this incident or this brave Army Officer and his sacrifice for Freedom. Has anything changed? No. A Communist "rose" by any other name smells just as bad today. Prove to me that it is otherwise. Furthermore, if one thinks that former KGB Colonel Vladimir Putin is much different as Russian Prime Minister from his KGB upbringing, then one is whistling past the graveyard. This fact is simply too awful for most "bleeding heart" Leftists and Liberals to believe, so they choose not to believe it. Denial.
Do not be deceived. The Eastern [and Russian] mind has a different regard for human life than in the West. In the West we may treat people badly through omission. But in the East it is also done by commission. Add the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist Ideology to this witch's brew and you draw a better conclusion about the nature of that system. Thousands, tens of thousands, millions of lives are neither an unreasonable, nor an unexpected price to pay to achieve for their objective of Communist victory.
Examine briefly this parallel learning curve: The present Islamist Religious-Political Ideology has proven itself more durable and resilient. It may sound harsh, but short of eliminating every last Islamic Fanatic, we are sadly "mis-underestimating" the mission of defeating the enemy in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East. These fanatical Islamists are the "truest believers." They are like the Communists on steroids. That is one reason why they beat the Russians down. We Americans on the other hand, are being told that if we only understand that culture, then we'll understand that Sharia Law will pose no problems for the World and we can all sit down for tea. Different setting, different era, different enemy, same misleading conclusion by America. But in this Islamic setting, the butchery of Israeli citizens and Jews [and Christians] around the World under the slightest provocation is quite understandable. Was it any different under the Nazis, or the Communists! [Fascist Mussolini was mere bully and a piker in comparison.]
But, back to the immediate topic.
Many Progressive and Liberal Americans seem to have this death wish to be big buddies with Communist butchers. "Uncle Joe" Stalin was simply "misunderstood." These same folks believe that it was the West who started the Cold War. Truth: Every Communist Butcher in the USSR from Lenin to Gorbachev has been hard-line. Their Communist admirers here in the US are hardliners. They tell us not to fear them. Communists now wear nice suits, casual clothes, or farm and ranch clothes. They like puppies and ice cream and pizza. They enjoy everything that you enjoy. See, they look just like you. They are just different Americans in one more American political party. Wrong!
Well, you might say, "American Communists are surely are not like those bad Communists ... are they?" I say, "Yes!"
Bill Ayers, and his revolutionary cohorts in the SDS, saw nothing odd, immoral or wrong while discussing the eradication of 25 Million Americans in their planned, SDS led Communist Revolution. If re-education camps would not produce the right kind of American Citizen, then off with their heads! ... ala Cambodia's Khmer Rouge. It didn't happen in the 1970s as they had hoped and planned. But and unrepentant Bill Ayers still roams America as a free man with his wife and fellow unrepentant terrorist, Bernadine Dohrn.
But now, especially with no Soviet Union, it is very acceptable indeed to talk about these coming "peoples' uprisings" [code for Communist revolution] openly at new, improved SDS gatherings. View the recent on-line video of Van Jones whipping the labor protestors into a frenzy. This is no legitimate movement, it is sedition. It is the takeover of American Labor by Communists. But they look the same as us, dress like us, and they tell us that this is just another way forward.
Don't believe it! These guys mean business. Barack Obama may wear impeccable clothing with nice creases in his pants, but he talks like a Marxist, he theorizes like Marxists do, he believes Marxist economic theory, he spouts Marxist internationalist foreign policy, he shuns national Exceptionalism like a Marxist, and he wants to "fundamentally transform" America ... like a Marxist.
The United States are not now nor ever to be a Fascist, or a Collectivist, or a Socialist, or a Communist nation. If you seriously believe that we can co-exist with these foreign, atheist ideologies in our midst, then you have been living in the dark or under a rock for decades. After 2+ years of this blatant, ongoing Marxist-Communist Revolutionary nonsense, I still hear supposed "conservative pundits" who are still willing to give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt. Folks, there is no doubt as to who or what this man, Obama, is all about.
Study history, learn, apply, resist! There is a revolution going on right under your nose.
