"Bolshevik Freedom"
Shortly after the October Revolution of 1917 which formed the first Socialist Soviet Union in Russia, Vladimir Lenin created "The Whole-Russian Extraordinary Commission for Combating Counter-Revolution and Sabotage," or Cheka, for short. It was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations, initially formed to fight against counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs.
Cheka created 5 classifications that those counter-revolutionaries fell into:
1. any civil or military servicemen suspected of working for Imperial Russia;
2. families of officers-volunteers (including children);
3. all clergy;
4. workers and peasants who were under suspicion of not supporting the Soviet government;
5. any other person whose private property was valued at over 10,000 rubles.
At the direction of Lenin, the Cheka performed mass arrests, imprisonments, and executions of "enemies of the people". In this, the Cheka said that they targeted "class enemies" such as the bourgeoisie (the upper-middle class), and members of the clergy. The first organized mass repression began against the libertarians and socialists of Petrograd in April 1918. Over the next few months, 800 were arrested and shot without trial.
Within a month, the Cheka had extended its repression to all political opponents of the communist government, including anarchists and others on the left.
Many victims of Cheka repression were 'bourgeois hostages' rounded up and held in readiness for summary execution in reprisal for any alleged counter-revolutionary act. Lenin's dictum was: that it was better to arrest 100 innocent people rather than to risk one enemy going free. That ensured that wholesale, indiscriminate arrests became an integral part of the system.
The proceeding crackdown on all who opposed, or were accused of opposing, was given the name "Red Terror."
The stated purpose of the Red Terror was to eliminate counter-revolutionaries who belonged to former "ruling classes". Martin Latsis, chief of the Ukrainian Cheka, explained in the newspaper Red Terror:
"Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, his education, his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror."
Grigory Zinoviev declared in mid-September 1918: "To overcome of our enemies we must have our own socialist militarism. We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russia's population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated."
In short, the Cheka was the power that forcefully attempted to stamp out all political opposition to the new communist government. They policed labor camps; ran the Gulag system; conducted requisitions of food; subjected political opponents to torture and summary execution; and put down rebellions and riots by workers or peasants, and mutinies in the desertion-plagued Red Army. During the Red Terror, they killed between 500,000 and 1,000,000 people.
In America today, our government is changing. We have elected and re-elected our first Marxist president. The same socialistic ideas that were established by Lenin in 1917 Russia are now beginning to be implemented here. The same ideologies of class warfare and uniting the poor against the rich are being spread by our leaders, just as they were by Lenin and the Soviet leaders of 1917. And just as in 1917, there are groups that oppose such socioeconomic changes. However, in today's world, a violent oppression of such opposition like the one instituted by the Russian Cheka would be immediately condemned...especially in a place such as America. Not saying that a future violent oppression won't happen here, but as of now, it would not be tolerated. And so, a new Cheka is needed in order to progress socialism here (and the rest of the "civilized" world).
In America, the Constitution makes suppression harder than in other parts of the world. The First Amendment protects against the type of censorship that was instituted by Lenin early into the Soviet reign that closed down all newspapers critical of the régime and prevented all state papers from writing anything derogatory about the government. The 2nd Amendment protects the people's right to own weapons, which makes violent suppression harder. Again, not saying that those won't be done away with in a future America, but as for now, they still stand to protect against government suppression to opposition.
But today a new Cheka has been formed. It is no longer a physical arm of the government, as it was in Russia.
The American Cheka exists directly in the minds of the American people. It's quite brilliant actually. Instead of a quick revolution, like in Russia in 1917, the move towards socialism here in America has been a slow one. Ronald Reagan warned about it 40 years ago when he quoted the Socialist Party candidate Norman Thomas, saying, "The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism,' they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." The slow socialist revolution here in America has also slowly introduced the new Cheka. This new Cheka has been implanted into the very souls of Americans for the past 40 odd years. It started in the schools. The removal of God, prayer, and the Pledge of Allegiance from the public schools has since spread into all aspects of public life in America, slowly building the new Cheka. All aspects of opposition to the socialist movement have been weeded out of our minds over the past 40 years, and now there is a whole generation of people who have been groomed to be part of the new Cheka. It is no longer the government that wields the oppressive power for the "revolution;" it is the people themselves.
Let's revisit those classifications of counter-revolutionaries created by the original Russian Cheka.
1. Any civil or military servicemen suspected of working for Imperial Russia.
In today's America, the Justice Department has classified returning veterans as threats to national security, citing instances of soldiers traumatized by war having mental breakdowns and turning their weapons on the general public. While this occurrence happens rarely, the public has been warned to be wary of all military and ex-military personnel.
2. Families of officers-volunteers (including children).
Most military families (including children) support fully the military and those who are in it and, due to their inner knowledge of war and the importance of our military to our freedom, hold conservative values about patriotism, warfare, and the necessity of a strong and active military. Those ideas are today being labeled as "war-mongering" and a strong military is viewed as unnecessary.
3. All clergy.
Perhaps no other group of people has been as demonized in current America as has the "overtly religious." Organized religion has been deemed "old-fashioned" and even foolish in an ever increasingly secular society. Organized religions' stand against abortion and gay marriage has served as a rallying cry to label all who hold such beliefs as "intolerant extremists." In today's America, religious has become synonymous with intolerant, and so is mocked and railed against.
4. Workers and peasants who were under suspicion of not supporting the Soviet government.
In today's America, all people who are considered a certain social, ethnic, or economic group are expected to support one way of thought...today it's the Democrat way...all the time, no exceptions. With the advent of a black man as that Democrat, that perception is intensified. Any person of a minority race (or any woman) who supported Mitt Romney for President was vilified in the most vilest of ways.
5. Any other person whose private property was valued at over 10,000 rubles.
Barack Obama has introduced the class warfare of Marx to demonize the wealthy in America today. An increasing number of Americans want to "tax the wealthy" and movements such as Occupy Wall Street are instilling the idea that the rich are the problem. It reached such a frenzied point in the campaign season that Mitt Romney was being criticized for being a successful businessman.
The very same groups who were singled out as opponents to socialism in 1917 are being singled out today. The very same people who were targeted by the original Cheka are being targeted by the new Cheka. Although today, the new Cheka will not bust down your door in the middle of the night and haul you off to a gulag or shoot you. The new Cheka, cultivated in American minds for over 40 years, will oppress you verbally, mentally, and emotionally. The new Cheka lives under the mask of tolerance; it's why those claiming to be the most "tolerant" will lash out in the most intolerant manner towards anyone with a different view. It's because they are not really tolerant, they are the Cheka. The new Cheka has been raised in the minds of the populace;
it IS the populace. The new Cheka does the same job as the old Cheka, they only do it in a more subtle manner. And they've disguised their true motive so well that the common person now in America is part of the Cheka. From celebrities to media to teachers and professors, the wave of the new Cheka has swept through the American people until it has overtaken the majority.
Now it does it's work, oppressing any who oppose the rise of socialism here in America. It will label you as racist, misogynistic, homophobic, backwoods, old-fashioned, unintelligent, foolish, Islamophobic, extremist, and any other derogatory name it can think of. It will seek to brand you as something so terrible that no one should ever listen to anything you say again. It will seek to silence you, to intimidate you, to isolate you, to abrogate you, to shut you up any way possible. It still follows Lenin's dictum. That's why anyone who would criticize President Obama is called a racist; it would rather label 100 innocent people as racists than let one person free to speak against it's rulers. Wholesale and indiscriminate targeting is still an integral part of the system. The new Cheka does the exact same job as the original Russian Cheka from 1917: to weed out and indiscriminately eliminate any political opposition. And just like Grigory Zinoviev said in 1918, it's goal is to carry the majority into socialism and annihilate the rest. Although this time it won't do it through the force of violence, it will do it through the force of the populace.
That is the new Cheka. This is the new Red Terror.
