Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

“Our lives are miserable, laborious, and short. Nearly the whole of the produce of our labor is stolen from us by human beings. Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished forever.”

– Animal Farm

“There are no statues of Hitler in Germany” spouted Rev. Jesse Jackson in 2017, as he promoted the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville, North Carolina.  Lee was the defeated leader of the Confederate Army in the Civil War but hardly an equal to Hitler.  Yet, while Hitler is statue-less, the world still regularly ogles the likes of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Marx along with the left’s favorite radical, Che Guevara.  Even though communism has taken root in more countries, endured longer around the globe, and led to the murder of hundreds of millions of its own people, it has yet to lose its revolutionary luster.

Poverty was the default position for most people from the beginning of time until the Industrial Revolution created a dramatic shift from rural drudgery to city living.  Industrialization produced an increase in wealth, an improved standard of living, and independence on a level yet seen.  But it also brought its share of detractors.

Political philosopher, Karl Marx, who wrote the 1848 “Communist Manifesto” and famously said: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” saw a conflict for the working class resulting from supposed capitalist exploitation.  His philosophy of equality for the masses led to an uprising of totalitarian leaders throughout the world, all with their own special kind of autocracy that gave them excessive control over the lives of their citizens.

Communism was always the ultimate goal for the Marxist devotees.  Socialism was merely the first foot in the door.  The greed of capitalism needed to be defeated before the miraculous transition into a classless, stateless Garden of Eden could occur.  Yet, this utopian idea of equality never fully materialized, due mostly to the corrupting power concentrated in the hands of a few.  It should come as no surprise that many of Marxism’s finest: Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Romania’s Nicolae Ceausescu, and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, departed this earth as billionaires.

Communists have always had a hostile relationship with religion, viewing the church as a rival for the hearts and minds of the people.  Nevertheless, they found a way to emulate the language of religion, as well as the fervor congregants had for their God.  The government became the church and their political leaders the new Deities.  This secular religion would rival the gospel as the benevolent bestower of all good things.  The Marxist doctrine was behind the creation of Liberation Theology, a political movement in Latin America, formed to convert poor religious peasants over to teachings of collectivism.  Religion gave hope to the hopeless and was called an “opiate for the people” by Marx, himself, with the opiate power to whoever controls it.

In George Orwell’s 1946 book, “Animal Farm”, Orwell hoped to remind us that while Naziism had been defeated, the totalitarianism of communism had not.  Animal Farm is a parody of the utopian ideals of communism with characters mimicking Soviet leaders.  A farcical story told through the lives of animals who came to believe that their sad lot in life was due to man’s dominion over them.  Their lofty ideals as illustrated in the philosophy of Animalism, resulted in a downward spiral from the brotherhood of all to concentrated power back into the hands of a few—an all too predictable conclusion.

Today’s modern communist countries of Cuba, Laos, North Korea, Vietnam, and China provide a mixed bag of economic prosperity and ruin.  While Cuba and Laos languish, Vietnam and China are growing after the introduction of markets into their economies.  North Korea, the most isolated, still maintains concentration camps and public executions.  A recent Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom finds China, Vietnam, and Laos mostly unfree, while North Korea and Cuba are deemed repressed.

Marx’s century of communist experimentation has not produced a single successful nation.  Let’s keep the statues raised, and never forget the past.