This past week, Sybren and I took a road trip across America from Texas to Minnesota. We visited our daughter and granddaughter in Kansas and then headed to Minnesota to ride bikes with friends in Minneapolis. All of us support the cause of Multiple Sclerosis and ride in its 50 charity bike rides such as the MS-150. Why did we meet in Minneapolis? Well, that was where the first ride to support MS occurred 40 years ago.
The bike trails here are absolutely beautiful and long. The Mississippi River flows through town separating St. Paul from Minneapolis (hence the name “Twin Cities”), so we rode around several lakes and the Mississippi. The Park Board has owned all the shore land since the late 1800s (Minnesota became a state in 1858,) and over the course of time has created a network of pedestrian and bike paths connecting the parks along the waterways. Minneapolis is truly a lovely city. All obvious traces of the 2020 riots have vanished except the high vacancy rate in downtown (over 80%).
In my last column I wrote about a dog who needs a home. In case you were wondering, thanks to a reader, the friendly white German Shepherd has a temporary home at the Brenham Animal Shelter. He will make somebody an incredibly good dog. Please help us find a loving family for this wonderful creature. He is about a year old, now neutered, and vaccinated, thanks to the kindness of a generous friend.
I also want to give a shout out to a special person. Our superb pet care giver, Jordan Wolkovich of Good Boy Pet Sitting took care of our dogs and chickens while we were away. He takes pet photos, too, and texts them each time he visits. Truly, we are grateful for Jordan and the peace of mind he provides. He is also an excellent pet photographer.
One reason we love our road trips is to discover sites of important history, especially forgotten history, or at least forgotten or unknown to us.
On this trip, we stopped in Abilene, Kansas where we were blessed to visit President Dwight Eisenhower’s childhood home and museum. One of the interesting facts I learned is that he was one of six boys, who grew up in a small one-and-a-half-story home.
Our docent shared that the six boys rotated beds in their four-bedroom house so one boy could have a bed to himself once a week.
To help provide food, their mother had a large vegetable garden and canned over 700 quarts a year in her tiny 6’ x 6’ kitchen. She even baked nine loaves of bread three times a week in her single shelf oven. Looking at the small size of the rooms, I tried to imagine feeding six hungry boys. That work was accomplished through her and her husband’s strong faith and the family’s emphasis on the virtues of faith, honesty, and hard work.
All the boys grew up and became great Christian leaders in their respective fields. Their humble beginnings were not an impediment to their journey in life. It simply strengthened their character. Dwight, of course, became the most famous, first as the
five-Star General, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, and later as our 34th President (1953-1961).
The Eisenhower Museum covered not just Ike’s life, but just so happens, an exhibit focused on the Cold War and the KGB which ties in perfectly with what I want to share today.
Since I had the great honor to interview my favorite writer and geo-political strategist four weeks ago, today I would like to share more of what I have learned from J.R. Nyquist about Communism.
In August, I introduced you to him. If you haven’t read that column yet, click here: https://www.happeningsonthewaytoheaven.com/post/the-journey-of-a-writer. You can also follow his blog at www.JRNyquist.blog.
Here we go.
Look at this map of the world when Eisenhower was president in 1953. You see two communist governments—the world’s largest country—Russia, and the world’s most populous country—China.
Before we dive in, let’s consider three facts about population and productivity of three countries: Russia, the U.S. and Russia’s partner--China.
Russia encompasses 11 time zones, meaning their country possesses the largest landmass of any country on the planet. In Eisenhower’s day, Russia-proper’s population was 102,600,000 [1] but including the satellite nations comprising the U.S.S.R its population was approximately 178,547,000 2., larger than the United States by 20%. Today, Russia’s population is 144,236,933, less than half of the current U.S. population.
Looking at gross domestic product (GDP), Russia produces roughly $2.8 trillion dollars 3. per year, just slightly more than our state of Texas ($2.6 trillion) 4 and about 10% of the output of the United States.
By comparison China encompasses five time zones, slightly larger land mass than ours.
As a sidenote, China only acknowledges one time zone for the entire nation, meaning that when the sun rises at 6:00 a.m. in eastern China it’s light outside. It is also 6:00 a.m. in the western end of their country but won’t be light for another five hours.
China is now the second most populated country in the world with 1.425 billion people, behind India with 1.45 billion people.
For five years, China’s population has been declining by hundreds of 1000s each year. Demographers expect China’s population to continue to decline for the next 40 years. This is in part due to their one-child policy which was in place from 1979 to 2015 when they finally came to their senses. Today, they no longer restrict family size.
See the chart below on population and GDP, comparing the USA to China and Russia.
| United States | Russia | China |
Population |
|
|
|
Current (2023) | 333,287,557 | 144,236,933 | 1,425,178,782 |
1950 | 148,281,550 | 102,580,107 | 553,613,988 |
|
|
|
|
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) |
|
|
|
Current | $25,439,700,000,000 | $2,779,092,236,506 | $17,963,171,479,205 |
GDP per capita | $76,330 | $15,271 | $12,720 |
Looking at the chart above, you can see that, yes, we still outproduce China even though despite sending much of our manufacturing overseas. Their success is due in large part to U.S. investment, our trade policies, our willingness to share technology, and their spying and theft. In 1950, China’s GDP was only $450 billion dollars. 6 That is 4000% growth. Yet, we still outproduce them by 30%.
Another way to look at this is to consider productivity per capita. It takes six Chinese or five Russians to equal the production of one American.
So, those facts should make you proud, but also curious.
Is it clear enough how successful we have been as a country?
So, why is that?
Our prosperity has been due to our cultural Christian heritage. Our faith in God has given us a spirit of optimism, of industriousness, of openness, and of generosity. This has resulted in a land of opportunity, of social mobility, and a respect for the rule of law.
Our legal system is based, in part, upon the Ten Commandments. Think about the three of the ten commandments that command “thou shalt not murder, steal, or covet.” Inherent in those commandments are the natural laws of self-defense, property rights, and self-restraint.
In the not-so-long-ago past, our modern notion of “elites” was as foreign as the “citizen of the world.” The cartoons I watched as a child always played the guy who wanted to take over the world as the BAD guy. We had a culture of social mobility, not a caste system. And American citizenship meant a lot. We produced a government that is accountable to us, not the other way around.
Where do these concepts of “elites” and “citizens-of-the-world” arise?
At their root, these concepts emerge from a Marxist – Leninist perspective. This perspective is anti-God and believes that centralization of power defines progress.
According to JRN one way this centralization occurs is through the distortion of reality. He said, “Marxists never stop falsifying reality.”
As Christians, we are taught to do the very opposite. Always tell the truth, even if it hurts, makes us look bad or even dumb. Make restitution and seek forgiveness when we’ve hurt someone. Humble ourselves and apologize when we’ve made a mistake. We should not be ideologues to a political party, but we should always be diligent to the truth in dealing with ourselves and others.
So, socialism and communism are distorting lenses people wear to re-envision human society. As JRN quoted Marx, “’From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.’ Marx never said anything about inequality.” In other words, these -isms at their core are about consolidating power in the disguise of human compassion.
But Marx did advocate for the abolition of private property. This exposes the heart of socialism and communism which is an active war with the ten commandments. The only way to eliminate property rights is through force, i.e., theft.
Yet, Marx was not alone in that belief.
During the 19th century, there were hundreds of Russian, German, British and French socialists, and communist groups. JRN says the difference between communists and socialists were initially interchangeable. How fast the Communist train should travel created shades of difference between various parties.
Marx faked his compassion for the factory worker and child laborers, as Robert Payne shows in his biography, Marx. “He was insincere.” JRN says, “Marx was a swindler. He was a nasty horrible guy, interested in power. His real hero was Napoleon.”
Marx said there were five stages of human society. Likening his theory to an “Darwinian” evolutionary system, he preached that societies started as hunter-gatherers. As they gathered in larger groups, they sought protection under a “strong man.” This produced the feudal – slavery system. Then as men invented better ways to grow crops, make clothing, herd animals, mine metals, the capitalist system emerged. Then at certain point, Marx believed the oppressed workers would strike and rebel. They would seize control of businesses, industries, and private property. This would institute the next stage of a central government under a socialist system controlled by workers. Poverty would cease to exist. Ample food, clothing, housing, education, and healthcare would become universally available. Then in the future, this central control system would no longer be needed, and society would self-perpetuate itself. In other words, the need for government would literally “wither away.”
No society has achieved nor can achieve Communism.
According to JRN, the significant difference between Marx and Lenin was that Marx was never able to build a movement. His writings did not have a wide effect in his own lifetime. Marx dreamt of taking over Germany. Of course, that didn’t happen. His economic labor theory of value was disproven in his own lifetime. When he died, only 13 people attended his funeral. Marx died in obscurity, and if it hadn’t been for Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, the man we know as Lenin, his ideas might have died, too.
Lenin studied Marx’s and Engel’s works and concluded that the peasants and factory workers must be taught how to revolt. Furthermore, they required a “vanguard” of true militant revolutionary intellectuals to expedite the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie. In other words, they needed Lenin and a strong central committee to control.
JRN said, “Men like Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, and Putin believe they will bring about massive destruction through infiltration and subversion of our society.”
So, then it is important to understand this perspective. Neither Socialism nor Communism are economic systems. From a Communist perspective, JRN says, “Communism is a science of managing human affairs. They use their understanding of psychology to orchestrate massive destruction which necessitates massive lying.”
This is why under these systems, millions of people end up deceived and murdered. How do you take their property? How do you destroy the institutions of society? This becomes the science of socialism/communism.
To accomplish this, leaders coach followers to lie, cheat, and steal. They suppress the truth to such an extent, they must murder, too.
This is why Socialists/Communists infiltrate our political parties. Infiltration is their number one business.
Since this is so patently evil, the question is why do people fall for it?
Those who are compliant get rewarded. JRN says, “Even though both socialism and communism are intellectually dishonest ideologies, they appeal to people who feel alienated from society.”
He continues, “People fall for this who are in a persistent state of alienation; people who are narcissistic; people who have a glamorous image of themselves but are pathetic; intellectual pimps who are willing to support a totalitarian government; men who get a sense of identity by killing someone. All of these are false men. They destroy; they experience a spiritual hell. All their ideas turn into evil. They do monstrous things and become monstrous.”
Yet, the Christian church, the Bible, and Christian principles stand in their way.
Infiltration has been happening since the 1930s. After the feigned collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, infiltration and sabotage accelerated in Western Europe and the United States. While the face and name of Communism disappeared, the Communist structures and the movement did not.
So, while Russia is not openly a “communist country” internally, the communist structures that support the intelligence agencies and run the government are the same with new names. No more KGB. Now it’s FSB and GRU (their military intelligence agency).
In the west, the Communist left uses formulas. JRN says, “The general formula calls for them to eliminate national borders; erase tribal distinctions; and exterminate white people. Take Great Britain for example. That country is building up to a social explosion. The working class is pitted against the Labour Party. The Communists have infiltrated both sides. The stoke the unions and the neo-Nazis.”
Stoking both sides is a common strategy that JRN calls the “scissors strategy.” It is easy to identify the “red” China influence on the Democrat side.
As a sidenote, it’s time to take back the blue from the Democrats. One day I will write about how that happened. But red has always been a color to warn of danger and that is the appropriate color to describe the Democratic party these days.
Back to the scissors strategy. RINOs (Republicans in name only), are not necessarily infiltrators, but do you wonder when important legislation for the good of the country fails to pass because of certain Republicans? Why, when they control both houses of Congress, does nothing happen as promised? The scissors strategy could be one part of the explanation.
JRN stresses the scissors strategy as key. The Communists infiltrate both parties. It is more common for Chinese Communists to infiltrate the Democrats and for Russians, the Republicans. The Communists work behind the scenes to promote people within those parties who will advocate their policies.
For example, this explains why a few prominent Republicans speak Russian propaganda lies about Ukraine. A typical line is that Russia invaded because NATO was getting too close to its border. NATO made Russia nervous.
Remember, NATO is a defensive alliance, which was created after WWII to deter Russian aggression. NATO has never invaded anybody, but Russia has invaded more than 15 countries. Some more than once.
Furthermore, the Russian government has never called their invasion of Ukraine a war. They term it a “special military operation.” 300,000 dead Russian soldiers later, it is a mandatory 10-year prison sentence if a Russian dares to call the special military operation “a war.” So, are we to believe that NATO is the real aggressor?
JRN admires the Ukrainians and has studied their history and has written essays about the Ukrainian war. He co-hosts with Trevor Loudon, the Conservatives 4Ukraine Facebook page that gives daily updates from a variety of sources.
He has authored essays explaining Russian propaganda, discussing the history of NATO, describing details of the Ukrainian Maidan revolution, recounting how Communists inserted themselves in the politics of the Middle East, and researching Russian intelligence psyops.
For example, he showed in one essay how The Protocols of Zion, an antisemitic document that is the source of myths about evil “Jewish bankers” was a forgery of the Tsar's secret police. KGB agents used this to fool western nations.
When I asked him how to spot infiltrators, JRN said, “Communists are highly organized. They are ordered to infiltrate any organization that has influence and power. It may be a small number, but if the organization is growing, you can be sure it will be infiltrated. You can spot them because they refuse to debate. Watch how they reason. Is their logic faulty? Do they try to soften harmful ideologies? These people are not your friends. Get them out of your organization.”
This infiltration problem also exists in the church. Not just the Protestant church, but even the Catholic church, although, JRN says, “The Communists have a harder time infiltrating Catholic institutions because of their longer training and more complex organization.”
They don’t just infiltrate Christian religions.
When Vietnam was under French control, the Communists infiltrated the country including Buddhist monasteries. When the French left per the Geneva Accords, Ngo Dinh Diem became Prime Minister of South Vietnam. He was a Catholic whose family had been Catholic since the 1700s.
After WWII, before Diem became Prime Minister, he received an offer from the North Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh to join the Communist movement. He refused. Instead, he began a counter movement based on peace and anti-communism. But with successful Communist infiltration of Buddhist monasteries, Diem became a controversial president. He was falsely accused of discriminating against Buddhists and prohibiting land reforms. Our CIA believed the Communist propaganda and urged a coup. The already arrested Diem and his brother were assassinated, 20 days before Kennedy was murdered in Dallas on November 22, 1963, thanks to the Communists’ sabotage.
Their infiltration also extends to Muslims. Russians have trained Iran’s top Muslim leadership as well as Syria’s and Egypt’s. They have also trained Yassir Arafat, founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and other leaders in Hamas and Hezbollah.
So, how are we to recognize a Communist in our midst? JRN says to listen to their words.
The Communists have their own vocabulary. When you hear “colonial imperialism,” “American imperialism,” “bourgeois capitalism, “class oppression,” these terms can be a clue to their true thinking. If they support critical theory, analyze events in terms of “inherent racism or white privilege,” watch out.
JRN told me about a book titled For the Whole of their Lives by Benjamin Gitlow, an American Communist who founded the Communist Party USA. He knew Lenin and knew the men who overthrew Kerensky, the first communist leader of the Russian provisional government.
One friend of his, John Reed was an American journalist who documented the Russian revolution as an eyewitness and was also active in starting the Communist party in the United States. He died in Moscow after becoming disenchanted with the Communists.
In Gitlow’s book he describes a letter that Reed’s wife wrote to him after her husband had died.
JRN says, "Reed was required to attend a Communist conference in Baku, Azerbaijan and so was riding a train with fellow Communists. As they approached their destination, the men stopped the train to kidnap farm girls to use them as prostitutes during their meeting. Gitlow says at that moment, Reed realized that he should have known that Communism was evil. Even Gitlow would not bend the knee to Stalin and left the party. While Reed died, Gitlow went on to become a staunch anti-communist."
These two men were attracted by the “utopian” vision. “Utopia” is a Greek word whose literal meaning is “nowhere.” Gitlow says that Lenin corrupted the whole thing. The Russian Revolution was a violent deception.
JRN says, “Lenin succeeded where Marx failed. Marx wrote a largely theoretical opus. Lenin was one of a few men who understood Marx correctly. He had an unfailing sense of “what had to be done.” Likewise, Stalin also knew what to do. JRN believes that Stalin had ideas that made the USSR last longer than it would have. That is why Putin reveres Stalin. He has erected over 40 statues to Stalin since he took power, and he toasted Stalin at his inauguration party. Nor has he ever buried Lenin. Lenin’s body is still on view, exactly 100 years later. Russians are erecting statues to Lenin in the Russian-held Ukraine. So, how can one believe that Communism in Russia is gone?
One of the defectors, Colonel Stanislav Lunev noted to JRN that in 2003 that Putin was bringing Stalin back into favor. In June 2001, Putin called NATO the Nazi Fascist Alliance. It was clear to JRN at that moment that one day Putin would invade Ukraine and would blame NATO in his propaganda for the invasion. JRN says, "It goes to his inner motives of wishing to restore the Republics of the USSR. Putin is on record as saying Lenin’s greatest mistake was allowing the Soviet republics so much independence."
When I asked JRN how the Communists are organized, this is how he explained it. Every country has at least one or more Communist parties and front groups. Until Stalin disbanded it in 1953, there was a representative congress of all the various parties called the Comintern. While the Comintern does not exist in name now, one of the defectors JRN met named Anatoli Golitsyn speculated that a “secret center” still exists but is masked.
The Kremlin stands at the top of this hierarchy. The parties in various countries are organized into committees and subcommittees. Some committees are front organizations, like the Council for a Livable World that helped Joe Biden get his start in politics.
Then, there are clubs, non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Examples of clubs include global warming groups, women’s rights groups, and anti-nuclear groups. Each of these groups have “Cadres,” who orient everyone to the Central committee’s chief objectives. Then there are fellow travelers. These can be people who are not members of the party but share ideology or have relationships with party members. Then there are “useful idiots.” These people believe in the cause but have no idea that the funding or the mission are being directed out of a Communist center in the Kremlin or in Beijing.
There are publications that are published out of Moscow and distributed to each of these political parties, clubs, and NGOs. While committees are run democratically, once the central committee has determined a position, it is published in these journals. Dissent from this position will be cause for expulsion from the party.
So, what are we to make of all this?
Think back to the simple hard life Dwight Eisenhower experienced growing up. Since we know how his life turned out, would you agree that our society, the culture borne out of our Christian faith is a better way? Men like General Eisenhower were great leaders who were not wolves of deceit and sabotage but were true warriors and protectors of our country’s ideals.
Most of you who read Happenings on the Way to Heaven, live in Washington County. I would like to believe that we hold dear the same virtues that Dwight Eisenhower’s parents instilled in their sons. It is my prayer that by reading this, you will work even harder to preserve and pass on our Christian heritage. This is the only antidote to Communism whose true goal is the centralization of global power and destruction of our faith.
Thanks to great patriots, historians, and strategists like J.R. Nyquist, we know who the real enemy is and what must be done.
BOOKS by J.R. Nyquist
The Lies We Believe In: China, Russia and the Communist Revolution in America, 2022.
The Fool and His Enemy: Toward a Metaphysics of Evil, 2020.
Red Jihad, Moscow's Final Solution for America and Israel, 2016.
Origins of the Fourth World War: and the Coming Wars of Mass Destruction, 1999.
NOTES
[4] Wikipedia, “Economy of Texas”
[6] https://sgp.fas.org/crs/row/RL33534.pdf Congressional Research Service, “China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United States, Updated June 25, 2019”
Some more photos from the Dwight D. Eisenhower Museum in Abilene, Kansas.
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