Left no friend of freedom
Mood:  incredulous
The Left is No Friend of Freedom
By Daniel G. Jennings
Recently leftists like Christopher Hitchens and Noam Chomsky have began bewailing the lack of commitment to the causes of freedom and human rights by their fellow leftists. The question I have to ask is why are these people surprised by the left's lack of interest in freedom and human rights?
Historically the left has been no friend of freedom. During the 1920s and 30s when the world's first Communist dictatorship, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was committing some of the worst atrocities in human history the left was hailing it as a utopia and a symbol of human progress. Even though the crimes of Lenin and Stalin were well-reported in the news media outside Russia (America's largest chain of newspapers the Hearst Press accurately reported many Stalinist horrors) most leftists chose to believe the Stalinist propaganda. Very few leftists spoke out against the deaths of millions of innocents at the hands of the Communist utopians. There were no protests and no serious leftist outcries at the cynical deals non-Communist leaders made with these monsters. The British abandoned several independent Republics including Georgia to Lenin and stabbed the anti-Communist White Russian forces in the back in the early 1920s in a dress rehearsal of the appeasement of Adolph Hitler. Nor did the left have any serious problems with Stalin's deal with Hitler in 1939 which led to the occupation of four independent countries and the deaths of many innocent people.
Many of the world's most prominent leftists proudly and openly praised Lenin and Stalin. British author H.G. Wells, the father of modern science fiction, wrote apologies for Lenin that were downright criminal in nature. George Bernard Shaw, the greatest playwright in the English speaking world in the 1930s praised Stalin's penal experiments (in other words the Gulag). American educator John Dewey after seeing Soviet Russia said he had "seen the future and it works." These leftists showed little or no interest in the fate of the millions of average people oppressed, imprisoned, tortured and murdered by the Soviets. Nor did they seem to care about the almost total elimination of human freedom in Russia.
Nor did the left take any particular notice of the horrendous atrocities committed by Chinese Communist madman Mao Zedong in the 1950s and 60s. Atrocities that included the worst famine in human history and the Cultural Revolution an all out assault upon China's traditional culture. The left's response to Mao's barbarism was admiration. Many American and European leftists proudly waved the "Little Red Book," the Bible of Mao's vicious storm troopers, the Red Guards, in 1960s protests. There was not a single protest against Mao's crimes on American college campuses in the 1960s. No leftists picketed President Nixon when he made his cynical trip to China to slavishly cultivate Mao's friendship in the early 197Os.
As with Lenin and Stalin before him, Mao had a host of willing admirers among world leftists. American journalist Edgar Snow praised Mao's virtues, sang his praises and promoted his sick cause. Indian Prime Minister Jemal Nehru courted Mao's friendship even when Mao's brutal People's Liberation Army was invading Indian territory and killing Indian soldiers.
Disturbingly enough the left only became critical of Red China when Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping adopted reforms that encouraged capitalism. The left wing elitists who completely ignored the deaths of twenty million Chinese peasants in the 1950s and 60s and declined to take the world leaders who ignored this horror to task for it, were horrified by the deaths of several hundred students in China in 1989 in Tinnimin Square.
With the left's history of ignoring and whitewashing the crimes of tyrants past. Why should anybody be shocked when today's leftists have absolutely no respect for freedom and basic human rights? After all they're only staying true to character.