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Dispelling the myth of the demise of communism
By David T. Pyne
Despite the oft-expressed misconception that Communism died with a whimper during the bloodless revolutions in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989-1991, today Communism is making somewhat of a comeback in much of the world to the point that approximately one and three-quarter billion people live under Communist, renamed Communist Party or Marxist-Leninist control today. While the People's Republic of China has taken up the USSR's old role as the Communist motherland, other notable still-formally-Communist states include North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, and Cuba. Myanmar is ruled by a military junta, which espouses Marxist-Leninism and has closely aligned itself with Communist China. States governed by unrepentant Communist apparatchik dictators-for-life include Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgizistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan and Georgia are ruled by the same former Communist Party bosses that governed them during Soviet times.
Even as Western Europe tilts to the political right, renamed Communist party politicians are returning to power in Eastern Europe. The leaders of their respective national renamed Communist parties have returned to power via the ballot box in Poland, Romania, Hungary, Moldova, Albania and have come to a power sharing arrangement in Bulgaria with the election of a Communist President and head-of-state. Slovakia also seems set to return to renamed Communist Party control in this fall's elections. Many of these former Communist-bloc countries are either current NATO members or will be considered for full NATO membership at a special NATO summit to be held in November of this year. In Russia, the Communist Party controls the speakership of the Russian Duma along with several of its committee chairmanships, though with the recent break-up of the governing partnership between former KGB spymaster and current Russian President Putin and the Communist Party in the Duma, overt Communist influence is currently on a decline. In Ukraine, the Communists remain a force to be reckoned with in the Duma and President Kuchma seems to be increasingly aligning Ukraine with KGB-led Russia.
In fact, Communism has advanced far beyond the Eurasian subcontinent. In Venezuela, recently re-installed President Hugo Chavez has declared himself a Communist and has stated that his goal is to transform his country into a Communist "paradise" similar to Castro's Cuba. In South Africa, the Communist-dominated and one-time terrorist organization, the African National Congress, rules what has increasingly become an essentially one-party state, which is only a decade or so behind its more radical Marxist Leninist one-party dictatorship cousin in Zimbabwe in terms of radicalization. The President of South Africa himself, Thabo Mbeki, unlike his predecessor, is an actual member of the South African Communist Party. In fact, virtually all of southern Africa with the exception of Botswana is ruled by Marxist-Leninist regimes against which the US under which the Reagan Administration fought proxy wars to defeat back in the 1980s. In addition, Ethiopia and several other African states are ruled by revolutionary Marxist regimes.
In what is likely to be the greatest Communist coup since Mao and his Red Army proclaimed the People's Republic of China in Beijing in October 1949, Brazil seems set to elect its first Marxist President in October. Ignacio Lula da Silva, the perennial candidate of Brazil's Communist Popular Front, leads his closest non-socialist opponent by 27 percentage points according to the latest poll, while socialist party candidates account for an additional 28 percent of the vote likely to go to Lula in the second round of voting. Lula has aligned himself with Fidel Castro of Cuba, Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and the FARC narco-terrorists in Columbia through his Forum of Sao Paulo organization, which he founded to increase the influence and joint coordination of Marxist and Communist revolutionaries throughout the Western hemisphere. Lula has further expressed an intention to align Brazil with Russia and Communist China if elected and to provide China with naval bases along his country's long Atlantic coastline.
It is imperative that US policymakers realize that the truth is that
the fight between the West and what remains of the Communist bloc never
really ended since the great majority of
The main difference between the foreign policy of Ronald Reagan and that of President George W. Bush is that while Reagan had a clear-cut vision and strategy of how to defeat Soviet Communism, which ultimately proved mostly successful, Mr. Bush appears to have no strategy to rollback Chinese Communism at all, having chosen instead to pursue a failed strategy of detente with the Communist Chinese. Even worse, the Bush Administration has opted to continue the Clinton Administration's policy of appeasement and accommodation towards the Butchers of Beijing. The US cannot hope to defeat, rollback, or even successfully confront and contain Chinese Communism without a strategy for victory, let alone without any strategy at all. However, such a strategy will first require that the Bush Administration affirm that Communist China is not only an increasing threat, but is still a Communist adversary not merely some fanciful "market economy" trade competitor as they have previously asserted.
David T. Pyne, Esq. is a national security expert who works as an
International Programs Manager in the Department of the Army responsible
for the countries of the former Soviet Union and the Middle East among
others. He is also a licensed attorney and former Army Reserve Officer.
In addition, he holds an MA in National Security Studies from Georgetown
University. Mr. Pyne currently serves as Executive Vice President of the
Virginia Republican Assembly. He is also a member of the Center for Emerging
National Security Affairs based in Washington, D.C. Mr. Pyne serves as
a columnist for American-Partisan.com, OpinioNet.com and America's Voices.
He is also a regular contributor for Patriotist.com. In addition, his
articles have appeared on Etherzone.com and AmericanReformation.org where
he serves as a policy analyst. (c) David T. Pyne, 2002
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