Socialists around the globe, beware – the United States Congress has denounced your horrors! Earlier this month, that beacon of freedom and justice overwhelmingly passed H. Con. Res. 9 to denounce “the horrors of socialism.”
The fateful resolution was introduced by Congresswoman Maria Salazar – of no relation to the reactionary former dictator of Portugal, except, well, for their identical class outlook and foaming-at-the-mouth hatred of all things “communism.”
The Trump-backed Congresswoman from Miami, daughter of Cuban gusano exiles, and longtime media figure on right-wing Spanish-language networks and Fox News shows, is an unsurprising source for a fanatical resolution such as this. Before she was even sworn into Congress, she had already joined the Republicans’s ‘Freedom Force’ – a Congressional bloc aimed at combating the “evils of socialism, Marxism, and the hard left,” and defending, by contrast, the belief in God, country, family, authority, and business ownership.
But Salazar and the ‘Freedom Force’ are not alone in their crusade against this spectre of socialism. In an increasingly rare action of bipartisanship, the unanimous vote of the 219 House Republicans was joined by a large majority of House Democrats, with 109 voting in favour and just 86 voting against.
Meanwhile, Democratic Congresswoman Betty McCollum from Minnesota led the charge against the resolution, arguing that the text is imprecise, lumping together the Soviet Union with ‘socialist’ NATO members like Norway and Denmark, and risks alienating “friends and allies” at a time of crisis when the [imperialist] West should be uniting against Russia.
We have to agree with the assertion that the resolution is “poorly written, sloppy, and ill conceived.” While no actual sources are cited by the text, it is clear that its claims came from such ‘unbiased’ sources such as the Black Book of Communism, and the so-called ‘Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’.
The resolution is clearly based on such ‘unbiased’ sources as the so-called ‘Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation’ / Image: Joyce N Boghosian
The alarmed text of the measure informs the world that “tens of millions died in the Bolshevik Revolution.” And that’s only a small part of “the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide.” In an even more shocking discovery, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has finally realised that the unborn also figure among communism’s victims. In other words, those children never conceived because their (potential) fathers and mothers were victims of communism. This innovative new statistical method raises new questions about the many generations never conceived due to the atrocities of Genghis Khan and sabre-toothed tigers, but that’s a separate topic.
But wait, there’s more! The cherry on top of their accounting masterpiece includes the millions who died in the COVID-19 pandemic, because ‘communist’ China “covered up Covid.” Therefore, we are informed, it’s only fair that “those who have perished from the outbreak must be included in the global count of 100 million deaths at the hands of Communism.”
As anyone can appreciate, tracking the horrors of socialism is no easy task! The figures are constantly growing and it’s hard to keep up with the latest scientific methods in the field. Even the above figures are surely a conservative estimate – why not cover all bases by presenting an even broader estimate and asserting that the “horrors of socialism” have led to somewhere between 100 million and one billion deaths worldwide? What’s a few hundred million when one is desperately trying to whip up a new Red Scare?
The resolution also dedicates space to the alleged specific horrors of Cuban socialism—a topic near to the heart of Salazar and so many other Miami politicians.
“Whereas the Castro regime in Cuba expropriated the land of Cuban farmers and the businesses of Cuban entrepreneurs, stealing their possessions and their livelihoods, and exiling millions with nothing but the clothes on their backs”
Let history not forget the Cuban ‘entrepreneurs’ who were so unceremoniously stripped of their sugar plantations, textile mills, casinos, and corresponding connections to the Mafia in the Revolution! The exiles in Miami have surely not forgotten, and are rubbing their hands, watching, and waiting for their chance to exact revenge and take the island back.
The resolution ends with a string of solemn quotes by several slave-owning ‘Founding Fathers’ of ‘American Freedom,’ including Thomas Jefferson:
“To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, and the fruits acquired by it.”
Fine words from this ‘champion of freedom,’ who himself held more than 600 humans as his property during his lifetime! Never mind that the lives of billions of slaves and workers throughout history and up to the present day have been defined by the “fruits of their industry” being appropriated by others who “have not exercised equal industry and skill.”
To close the resolution, the final nail is driven into the coffin:
“Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress denounces socialism in all its forms, and opposes the implementation of socialist policies in the United States of America.”
These words are reminiscent of Trump’s 2019 vow that “America will never be a socialist country.” And yet, with each resolution against socialism and Marxism, with each warning against any future prospects of socialism taking root in the US, we sense a rising tone, not of confidence, but of ruling-class paranoia and anxiety.
The resolution ends with a quotation by freedom-loving slave-owner Thomas Jefferson / Image: public domain
Despite the best combined efforts of the Democrats and Republicans, the mass media, the Sunday sermons, the high school textbooks, the university professors, and even the Freedom Force, socialism, communism, and Marxism are more popular with the young generations than ever.
No amount of innovative statistical gymnastics and historical revisionism can change the fact that it is capitalism that has murdered countless millions over centuries, that Stalinism was to blame for the very real horrors suffered under its rule, and that the dead end of capitalism is expressing itself more forcefully in the consciousness of millions with every passing day.
Today, the bourgeois politicians can conduct their solemn anti-communist circus in the halls of Congress, satisfied that no one in those chambers will raise a voice in defence of revolutionary socialism. But outside the elegant dome of the Capitol, in workplaces, working-class neighbourhoods, and campuses across the country, the forces of Marxism are on the rise. No Congressional resolution can hide their growing alarm at this fact.