EKIP– Expert Club for Economics and Politics A Different Opinion
Doug Bandow, Cato Institute, USA
One of America's most significant actors and singers, Paul Robison, was born a century ago. An impressive talent who fought against widespread racism, Robison seems to deserve the celebration of his centennial this month. Unfortunately, he also had a different, more ugly side - Robison was an avowed communist and winner of Stalin's Peace Prize in 1952.
We all make mistakes, but Robison knew what he was getting himself into. In 1949, in Moscow, he met his friend and Yiddish author Itzik Fefer, who informed him of Stalin’s anti-Semitic purges. Upon his return to the States, Robison assured reporters that he had never heard a word of anti-Semitism. Fefer was later murdered by Stalin.
There are still apologists for communism
It is interesting how Paul Robison, who died in 1976, would have reacted to the collapse of communism. Some unrepentant communists remain to this day: 24 are housed in Sunset Hall, a nursing home in Los Angeles opened by Unitarians. There you can find a portrait of Robison, a bust of Lenin, and books on Marxism, Chinese dictator Mao Zedong, and Trotsky. The residents of Sunset Hall spend their time nostalgically looking back on the good old days. Gladys Forman (now 90), who was only eight years old, was called a “little socialist” by her father. She predicted that despite its collapse, communism would rise again.
Jacob Darnov was a messenger for the Soviet army and unashamedly declared that Lenin was the greatest politician who ever lived.
Wayne Friedlander, who until recently ran Sunset Hall, considers these people "giants" to whom he, a former member of the Democratic Student Society, owes a lot. "Giants."
Yes, giant fools. How else can one call people who have promoted and still defend the most misanthropic and deadly philosophy in human history?
How is it possible that some of the bloodiest regimes in history still have supporters?
In his book "Death by Government," Professor R. J. Rummel catalogs the disastrous archives of the "politicians" so beloved in "Sunset Hall." The Soviet Union was the greatest killing machine in history, claiming more than 62 million victims. The number is terrifying. During Stalin's most brutal purges, the secret police even set quotas.
Rummel explains that the system of killings and arrest quotas was not successful. Finding "enemies of the people" was not an easy task even for the local NKVD, which was extremely diligent in uncovering "conspiracies." In order to cover the assigned quotas, it was necessary to resort to shooting those arrested for minor crimes, already released prisoners, and mothers and wives seeking information about their arrested relatives.
The second deadliest regime, surpassing even the Third Reich, was that of Mao Zedong. According to Rummel, the Chinese communists killed about 35 million, the Cambodians 2 million, the Vietnamese and North Koreans 1.7 million. Poland killed 1.6 million through ethnic cleansing after World War II. In Yugoslavia, meanwhile, the number of victims was 1.1 million. Weaker communist dictatorships are scattered throughout Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe. In some of these slaughterhouses, the number of people killed is only in the hundreds or tens of thousands, which is an indication of a rather sentimental communism. What is striking about this is not that sincere believers in communist ideas survive, but that The New York Times published a story about Sunset Hall on its front page. But would such a thing have happened if the group of old men were Nazis who dream of a resurgence of Nazism? Absolutely not.
Everyone condemns the apologists of Nazism, but those of Communism?
The efforts to rehabilitate former communists from Hollywood's Cold War blacklist are an example of the same shortsightedness. Yes, many of them suffer, some unfairly. But not getting credit for a screenplay you wrote is not the same as being sent to the Gulag.
Steven Rosenfeld of the Washington Post says, "What's missing from the discussion is an appreciation of the content of the political views that many people in the film community held." The people on the blacklist were supporters of a tyrannical dictatorship that oppressed, murdered, and enslaved entire nations. The refusal to hire them should come as no surprise, any more than the refusal to hire prominent Nazis should. The real victims are the 100 million shot by despots, highly praised by spoiled leftist intellectuals in the West.
The horrors of the 20th century are, thank God, a thing of the past. And even if we choose to forgive all those who supported bloodthirsty totalitarian dictators, we must never forget them. No matter how charming and talented the apologists of communism may seem today, their reputations remain stained with blood.
