Why Is The New York Times Trying To Rehabilitate Communism?

From The Federalist:

Disturbingly, most entries are in this vein of talking about the idealism and human warmth and just plain caring of the people who denied the gulags and the mass starvation in Ukraine. Sure, they may have abetted the torture and murder of millions, but their “devotion to creating a more just world was infectious,” “the party was possessed of a moral authority that lent shape and substance…to an urgent sense of social injustice,” and all of it was infused by “an inherent optimism for the future, implied by socialism and progressivism.” The overall thrust of the series is summed up in a call to try Communism again, but maybe this time try not to have any gulags. No, really.

This time, people get to vote. Well, debate and deliberate and then vote—and have faith that people can organize together to chart new destinations for humanity….We may reject the version of Lenin and the Bolsheviks as crazed demons and choose to see them as well-intentioned people trying to build a better world out of a crisis, but we must work out how to avoid their failures.

Meanwhile, we can actually tune in live and see what happens when someone tries to act on this idea of reviving the Communist ideal. A few years ago, leftist pundits were praising Venezuela as a socialist miracle. Then the socialist regime hit the Thatcher Line: it ran out of other people’s money (in this case, oil company money) and the illusion came crashing down. The result: desperate poverty, shortages, squalor, children dying in hospitals from lack of medicine and equipment, refugees fleeing in makeshift boats. (Read more.)

Share