The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) governed the USSR from 1917 to 1991, ending with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation replaced the CPSU in 1993.
How do socialism and communism compare? Socialism is a form of idolatry in which the state, the central government, assumes the role of the ultimate problem solver. Socialism begins as a democratic movement. The Soviet Union (USSR) began as democratic socialism.
Under a socialist government, the people retain ownership of property. Communism is advanced socialism, the next phase after socialism. Under a communist government, the state assumes ownership of all property but gives permission to use state-owned property.
Chinese communist leader Deng Xiaoping, a very powerful leader, set aside much of the communist elements and introduced capitalism. Under Deng’s capitalism, China retained a communist government but a limited number of Christian missionaries were allowed to enter the country and along with the Christian missionaries were Christian businessmen who taught business principles to the Chinese people. One Christian businessman, a personal friend, taught business principles in China over several years. Late in his ministry, he remarked, “John, the Chinese are doing capitalism better than we (the U.S.A.) are.”
Regarding my late friend’s observation, through a combination of the reforms by Deng Xiaoping and the teaching of western (Christian) capitalist businessmen, China produced an astounding number of billionaires. In this year of 2021, the Chinese billionaires number over 600, second only to our own country.
The democratic socialists might say, the Communist Chinese Party (CCP) is doing socialism right. Let’s modify the tense of the verb: the CCP was doing communist (socialist) capitalism right before 2020.
Billionaire Jack Ma (Alibaba fame) objected to Xi Jinping policies and now — where’s Jack? Even as you read this, Chinese billionaires are finding ways to flee the country. To the democratic socialists I ask, how is Xi Jinping’s socialism doing for the country now?
Back to the Ukraine.
Nikita Khrushchev, was born and raised near the eastern border of the Ukraine with Russia. Serving under Joseph Stalin, Khrushchev was over the Ukraine. At this point, I refer to my personal copy of Khrushchev Remembers, chapter 7 Famine in the Ukraine.
“We were supposed to supply the State first and ourselves second. We had been assigned an output plan of something like 400 million pood [7.2 million tons] for the year 1946. This quota was established arbitrarily, although it was dressed up in the press with supporting scientific data. It had been calculated not on the basis of how much we really could produce, but on the basis of how much the State thought it could beat out of us…There were heartbreaking letters. One farm leader wrote, “Well, Comrade Khrushchev, we’ve given everything away. Nothing is left for us…” [page 232]
Nikita Khrushchev had predicted famine and was underway. On pages 234 and 235 he relates instances of cannibalisms. I cannot and will not retell the horrors of cannibalism witnessed by Khrushchev.
The result of Stalin’s policies was the Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932–33—a man-made demographic catastrophe unprecedented in peacetime. Of the estimated five million people who died in the Soviet Union, almost four million were Ukrainians…The ensuing starvation grew to a massive scale by the spring of 1933, but Moscow refused to provide relief…The traditional Ukrainian village had been essentially destroyed, and settlers from Russia were brought in to repopulate the devastated countryside.
Encyclopedia Britannica, The famine of 1932–33
“So when millennials talk about concepts like democratic socialism, we’re not talking about these kinds of ‘Red Scare’ boogeyman. We’re talking about countries and systems that already exist that have already been proven to be successful in the modern world.” [Business Insider: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez explains what democratic socialism means to her]
Does her list include the ‘successful’ socialistic Holodomor, the mass starvation in the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33?
Why can AOC and other democratic socialists not point to a single successful socialist country? Because there has never been one in the history of the world.
John White
Rockwall, Texas
John N. White 