Some brief comments on the Resolution “Denouncing the horrors of socialism” that passed the U.S. House of Representatives on February 2, which every Republican… and the majority of Democrats… voted for:

Whereas socialist ideology necessitates a concentration of power that has time and time again collapsed into Communist regimes, totalitarian rule, and brutal dictatorships;

Say the representatives of this capitalist-imperialist system, in which a few dozen billionaires own more wealth than the poorer half of humanity, a system whose police and military forces (DICTATORSHIP) gun down minorities in the streets, savagely repress movements of resistance, slaughter millions in wars, plunder whole countries, and turn their borders into graveyards for immigrants.

Whereas socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide;

Claim the lying representatives of a country that has directly killed nearly 10 million people (just since World War 2) in its predatory wars and interventions, from Korea and Vietnam, to Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond¹ … and a system in which 350 million children have needlessly died of starvation and preventable disease (again, just since World War 2).

Whereas many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by socialist ideologues, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and Nicolás Maduro;

Say the moronic rulers of a country that brainwashes people with anti-communism and American chauvinism, lumping together a bunch of leaders whose main unifying quality is not that they are all genuine socialists or communists, but just that they have opposed U.S. interests in some way… and expect you not to notice.

Whereas tens of millions died in the Bolshevik Revolution, at least 10,000,000 people were sent to the gulags in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and millions more starved in the Terror-Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine;

Say the rulers of the country with 4 percent of the world’s population but over 20 percent of the world’s prisoners,² disproportionately Black, Latino, and Native American… a country with far more people under “correctional” control than at the peak of the Soviet so-called “gulags”… a country that hated (and still hates) the Russian revolution because it provided a shining example to oppressed and exploited people all over the world that it is possible to seize power and radically change society³ … a country which joined other imperialist powers in invading and blockading the new revolutionary government in Russia, backing reactionary armies in a bloody civil war which killed millions.⁴

Whereas between 15,000,000 and 55,000,000 people starved to death in the wake of famine and devastation caused by the Great Leap Forward in China;

Claim the rulers of a system who expect you to be so brainwashed by decades of anti-communist propaganda that you will believe whatever number they throw at you and won’t even bother looking into what the Great Leap Forward was actually about, what led to the famine, what measures were taken to address it, how the socialist government soon after solved the hunger problem (which had plagued pre-revolutionary China), and how life expectancy actually doubled under Mao from 32 years to 65 years and infant mortality was lower in Shanghai than in New York City.⁵

Whereas the socialist experiment in Cambodia led to the killing fields in which over a million people were gruesomely murdered;

Say the rulers of a country which dropped over half a million tons of bombs on Cambodia (a country half the size of California), including cluster bombs and napalm (jellied gasoline that sticks to and burns human skin), and the toxic chemical Agent Orange, killing hundreds of thousands of people, driving 25 percent of the population from the countryside, and leading to the rise of the Khmer Rouge regime (which had nothing to do with genuine socialism or communism).⁶

Whereas up to 3,500,000 people have starved in North Korea, dividing a land of freedom from a land of destitution;

Say the rulers of a country which bombed every building in North Korea over one story, dropped chemical and biological weapons on civilians, carried out mass rape of Korean women, and murdered over three million people (nearly 30 percent of North Korea’s population!), then backed a brutal puppet regime in South Korea, occupied the country for decades with tens of thousands of U.S. troops and nuclear weapons aimed at the North.⁷

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;

Say the sniveling rulers of the U.S. who are still mad that the Cuban revolution drove out the brutal U.S.-backed dictator Batista and ended 60 years of U.S. neo-colonial domination and exploitation of the island (although it never ushered in a genuinely socialist society).⁸

Whereas the implementation of socialism in Venezuela has turned a once-prosperous nation into a failed State with the world’s highest rate of inflation;

Say the rulers of a country which finds it intolerable that the Venezuelan government has tried to move away from total domination by the U.S. and has used some of its oil wealth to fund some social welfare programs (although not a real socialist transformation of society), and for that simple reason the U.S. has repeatedly tried to overthrow the government, waged economic warfare to punish the Venezuelan people, caused a massive refugee crisis… and then heartlessly slammed the door shut on Venezuelan migrants at the U.S. border.⁹

Whereas the author of the Declaration of Independence, President Thomas Jefferson, wrote, “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.”;

LOL. It is fitting that this quote from one of America’s founding slave owners, who played a key role in justifying and massively expanding the slave system—and who acquired his “fruits” not from the “free exercise” of his own industry, but from the blood, sweat, tears, rape, and torture of hundreds of slaves on his Monticello plantation—would be cited today by America’s modern-day slave owners who rule over a global capitalist-imperialist system which accumulates its “fruits” through the super-exploited labor of billions of people around the world, including hundreds of millions of children, working in sweatshops, fields, and mines, in conditions not much better than literal slavery.

Whereas the “Father of the Constitution”, President James Madison, wrote that it “is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest”;

Said another founding slaveowner who considered Black people (and women) to be property—another fitting quote cited by the representatives of today’s capitalist-imperialist ruling class, whose worst nightmare is a real communist revolution that takes away their “property” (not their personal possessions, but their means of producing wealth), and uses it for the common good.

Whereas the United States of America was founded on the belief in the sanctity of the individual…

See above.

to which the collectivistic system of socialism in all of its forms is fundamentally and necessarily opposed…

True, the system of socialism, particularly as re-envisioned by the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian, is a collective framework in which individuals and individuality can flourish on a much greater scale, and in whole new dimensions, from what is possible under capitalism… and it is COMPLETELY OPPOSED to the bloodsucking imperialist United States of America, and can only come into existence by overthrowing the current system and setting up a new socialist republic on the rubble of the former USA.

Now, therefore, be it 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.

Now, therefore, be it resolved by all the people who can smell the stench of lies on the breath of ruling class politicians (Republicans and Democrats alike) who hate and fear socialism and communism because it represents the radical alternative to their system of exploitation and oppression, that we will:

1. Learn about the real history and reality of socialism in the Soviet Union from 1917-1956 and China 1949-1976, the radical and unprecedented changes that were made in developing economies to serve the masses of people, and working to overcome deep social divisions and oppression (such as the oppression of women and minority nationalities), and forging a whole new culture.

2. Read about the new communism developed by Bob Avakian—a whole new framework for human emancipation, which builds on the core understanding and achievements of previous revolutions, while critically analyzing and breaking with errors (some of them serious and grievous)—and watch how he applies it to the biggest questions facing humanity in his recent interviews.

3. Put real revolution on the map in 2023 and fight together to put an end to the HORRORS OF CAPITALISM.