Chapter 6. Communism Lurks in Hiding
Mention the theory of evolution in the United States, and the first name that usually springs to mind is that of the late Stephen Jay Gould. For years he was professor of Zoology and Paleontology at Harvard University, wrote many books supporting evolution, and made many media appearances to speak about this topic. When there is an argument about evolution, world-famous magazines like Time and Newsweek quote Gould's view. His books appear prominently in bookstores and in the giftshops of natural history museums.
Gould tried to cover up Darwinism's shortcomings and make up for its refutation in the face of the fossil record. of course, he was not successful. That's why Professor Phillip Johnson of Berkeley, a well-known critic of the theory of evolution, calls Gould the "Gorbachev of Darwinism." 114 Gould himself even confessed his lack of success on many occasions. (For more detailed information, refer to Darwinism Refuted:How the Theory of Evolution Breaks Down in the Light of Modern Science, by Harun Yahya, Goodword Books, 2002)
Stephen Jay Gould was as attached to Marxism as he was to Darwinism, and admitted this openly. For him, Marxism and Darwinism were two sides of one coin. Darwin explains the "dialectics of nature" and Marx explains the "dialectics of history." Gould's attachment of Darwinism was actually the result of his commitment to dialectical materialism. He rigorously defended Darwin because "Darwin applied a consistent philosophy of materialism to his interpretation of nature."115
In 1992, this famous Marxist-Darwinist went on a trip to Russia. A few years before this trip, the Eastern Block had split up; one year earlier, the Soviet Union had collapsed and the Communist Party no longer existed. The whole world was convinced that Communism had fallen. But Gould interpreted the event otherwise. On his return, he stated to reporters that, "Yes, the Russian reality does discredit a specific Marxist economics,"—but went on to say that Marx has been proven right about "the validity of the larger model of punctuational change."116
According to Gould, Marxism is still alive.
Communism is Alive as Well
Stephen Jay Gould's commitment to Darwinism is not an exceptional case. Among the well-known 20th century scientists who accept the theory of evolution, many have been Marxists. In the first half of the last century, individuals like Alexander Oparin and J.B.S. Haldane were all passionate Marxists who carried out their most important experiments in the name of evolution. Western evolutionist scientists like John Maynard Smith and Richard Lewontin are still avid defenders of Marxism.
According to these men, Darwinism and Marxism have the same meaning. Each theory is based on a common philosophical foundation: Dialectical materialism, which Marx applied to history, and Darwin applied to nature. According to these people, the universally held idea that Communism collapsed along with the fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc is wrong, only "a false interpretation of Marxism" has fallen. As long as dialectical materialism lasts, a Marxist understanding of politics will endure.
This idea is accepted by many individuals and organizations that still believe in Marxism. While the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc still existed, these contemporary Communists separated Communist regimes from Marxist ideology. They called existing Communist regimes "real" or "living" Socialism, contending that socialist ideology is not integral to these regimes; even if they collapsed, it would remain.
Their claim—still considered valid today—is that according to Marx, a society must undergo particular evolutions, advancing first from capitalism, then to socialism and finally to Communism. Russia and other 20th century Communist regimes, however, experienced a sudden passage from an agricultural society to socialism, omitting the intervening capitalist stage. Therefore, according to Marxists, it's only natural that these regimes did not succeed. Today, these countries have adopted capitalism, to develop through the "stage of capitalism" that Marx spoke of. When socialism finally comes, it will be stronger and more enduring.
Many who still believe in Marxism have adopted this interpretation. Their number includes leading scientists like Stephen Jay Gould to European Communist parties, from Marxist intellectuals and journalists to separatist Communist terror organizations. Therefore, it's very wrong to think that Communism has passed into history with the collapse of the USSR and the Eastern Bloc, and poses no more threat to the world. Communism is a political expression of dialectical materialism, so that if that theory survives, so will Communism. If a particular philosophy is strong in a society, it is only a matter of its finding an appropriate environment to make itself politically influential. If the philosophy of dialectical materialism becomes strong and widespread, then Communism—its political aspect—may become an influential force.
In today's world, there is generally a strong trust in democracy and a liberal economy. But any international crisis in the liberal economic order could change people's tendencies and psychology. This has happened before. Following the Crash of 1929, a serious economic crisis throughout the whole world quickly increased the popularity of Communism and Fascism in Europe. Communists interpreted the Great Depression as the "collapse" of the capitalist system and used it as an opportunity to influence the masses more easily.
At present, Communists have considerable power, especially in Europe. Communist parties in France and Italy remain strong and in elections, they obtain a high proportion of votes. Almost all the former Eastern Bloc countries have socialist parties led by former Communist party members, who also obtain a substantial number of votes. A new international crisis could push these countries to strengthen their socialist parties and from there, into Communist regimes.
Russia: One Forward, Two Back!
A very narrow line separates Communism and Fascism, which are like two opposite sides of the political fan. Each ideology has a similar social and moral structure and the same model of leadership. Social science includes each in the same class of "totalitarian ideologies." Totalitarianism is a model in which the state controls society with propaganda, oppression and fear, and where opponents are removed by the most merciless methods.
After 1991, Russia's political regime and political culture did not change very much. They just passed from Communism to a kind of Fascism based on the domination of the mafia. Basic changes occurred only in the economy and social structure. Many people became rich very quickly, but most people's living standard fell. A growing chasm formed between the rich and the poor, and Russia acquired a "brutal capitalist" structure similar to that of 19th -century England. With weak state authority and the appearance of organized crime, a kind of "feudal" structure came into being.
Interestingly, these two newly formed structures—"brutal capitalism" and "feudalism"—fulfil the conditions required for the Revolution according to Marxism. From a Marxist perspective, Russia's present structure is "pre-Communist." The Communists who have the majority of the votes and influence state mechanisms, think that in the event of an international crisis that shakes confidence in democracy and a liberal economy, Communists could turn this theory to practice. Russia could once again easily pass into the hands of a Communist regime.
Here, we notice one of Communism's sly tactics: creating an order that arises out of the breakdown of their own chronology of history (the passage from capitalism to Communism). For this reason, they surrendered the Russian people into the hands of the mafia and prepared the environment for the coming of classical capitalism. They crush the people with the very system they've established, trying to make them believe that there is no other solution but Communism.
On the other hand, Communism continues to exist in secret. Russia's present authorities are all former Communists, educated according to Marx's dialectical materialism and have not given up their dreams of a Communist state. On the contrary, they believe that Communism must develop from the capitalist phase and look on while capitalism is exercised because they regard this as a requirement of being a "Communist." They currently support and implement capitalism at this particular time because they are truly Communists.
Those who have adopted the principles of dialectical materialism find it easy to appear to be Communists one day and Fascists the next, in order to eventually achieve their goal. Because the goals of Fascism and Communism are the same—to oppress people—the line between these two ideologies is very indistinct. The only difference is that Communism continues its oppression secretly, under "humanistic" slogans while trying to validate its characteristic oppression and brutality.
Behind these various curtains of secrecy, Communism is still in power in the Russian State, which has a classical Communist structure. The USSR's military control over the Turkic republics still stands. Even in their capitalist system, passionate Communist members continue to oppress the people. Their anti-religious and amoral suggestions alienate society from its moral values and encourage it to dismiss the existence of God. After this, no reason remains for them not to accept Communism.
Russian Communists, who still march carrying posters of Stalin and Lenin, have power that cannot be despised or underestimated. In his 1904 book, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Lenin stated that on the road to any eventual goal, there must be a temporary step backward. This is how the Communists regard the collapse of the USSR in 1991. In this book, Lenin wrote:
One step forward, two steps back... . It happens in the lives of individuals, and it happens in the history of nations and in the development of parties. It would be the most criminal cowardice to doubt even for a moment the inevitable and complete triumph of the principles of revolutionary Social-Democracy, of proletarian organisation and Party discipline.117
The Stealthy Tactic of Dialectical Materialism: One Step Forward Two Steps Back
Those who think that Communism collapsed a few years ago and is no longer a danger today are very mistaken. In accordance with its doctrine of Dialectical Materialism, Communism has only taken a tactical retreat. According to Lenin's book, One Step Forward; Two Steps Back, sometimes Communists must take a few steps backwards and appear to be retreating from their goals in order to achieve them. Chinese school children are taught the "dialectical way of walking"— two steps back, three steps forward.
One concrete example of this is Communist thinking about the family. According to Karl Marx, founder of Dialectical Materialism, the institution of the family must be abolished in order to achieve Communism. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote, "Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the communists."1 and then proceeded to explain their own reasons why the family must be abolished. They proposed that the "bourgeois family" is dependent on capital and private gain, and that when these were removed (that is, after the Communist revolution), the family would disappear too. The family, they claimed, would vanish as a matter of course when its complement vanishes.
In his book Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Friedrich Engels tried to show that in the first period of human history, the family did not exist but appeared only later, as an artificial institution for purposes of exploitation. According to this philosophy of Engels, when the Communist revolution came, the family, along with the state and private property, would disappear..
To achieve these goals, Communists follow the doctrine of Dialectical Materialism. In order to abolish the family, they need a powerful state. But for a state to be strong, first the family institution must be strong. By first taking one step backward, they strengthen the family and the Communist state grows strong. Then one stage later, it abolishes the family.2 Communists are deceiving the people by proclaiming that Communism has collapsed and that family ties have become stronger in Russia. This tactic of Dialectical Materialism is stressed by Lenin in One Step Forward, Two Steps Back. Communism has changed its color like a chameleon and is waiting, while it prepares a suitable foundation.
For this reason, there must be a serious struggle in the realm of ideas with Dialectical Materialism, Communism's founding philosophy, and with Darwinism—its supposed "scientific" basis. Otherwise, Communism, now waiting in ambush, will take its brutal and bloody steps forward..
1- Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1957, pp. 79-80.
2- Dr.Fred C. Schwartz, You Can Trust the Communists to be Communists, Prentice Hall, 1960.
In Eastern Europe and Russia, Communist systems that collapsed in the 1990's are likely to come back to life. But another kind of Communism never has collapsed and, under the appearance of capitalism, continues to gain strength every day. This version of Communism is the worst and most barbarous kind: Maoism.
After Soviet Russia collapsed in 1991, statues of Lenin and Stalin were toppled from their places. Russia abandoned Communism—supposedly. But in China, such has never happened. From Mao's death in 1976 to the present, the Communist Party still governs. China adopted the rules of a capitalist economy and has made great economic advances as a result, but its political system is still Communist. And strangely, Mao, the murderer of tens of millions of Chinese, is still regarded by the Chinese as a holy figure.
On January 10, 1994, Time magazine published an article, "Mao Lives!" reporting a mass pro-Mao movement in China that it termed "Mao-mania":
Mao to ordinary Chinese is still a sphinx, an idol with a hundred faces whose words, like Scripture, are quoted to almost any purpose... . A wave of retrochic has washed over the country as collectors grab up recordings of Mao's preachments, as well as badges, books, cigarette lighters and even yo-yos bearing his image. Not all the souvenirs are gimcrackery: some 5,000 gold-and-diamond watches commemorating his Dec.26 birthday have been selling at the lucky-eight but eye-popping figure of 8,888 yuan: $ 1,530, or 30 times the average monthly wage... . In the south-central province of Hunan, the Great Helmsman's birthplace of Shaoshan draws swelling numbers of pilgrims: more than 1 million in 1992 alone. The town recently unveiled a 10-m-high bronze statue of its favorite son.118
In 1997, the American magazine New Republic published an important article entitled "Mao More Than Ever," describing the "idolization" of Mao in China:
Mao Zedong remains the central, dominant figure in Chinese political culture: he is still an imperial presence; he is still revered; he is, even, still cool. The evidence is everywhere in China. In a 1994 poll, 40 percent of Chinese respondents picked Mao as their favorite leader, compared to less than 10 percent for Deng Xiaoping. "Today Chinese youths don't know or take seriously Mao's mistakes," Yan Jiaqi, a former member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Asiaweek. "They think he was a great leader. They only know Deng's mistakes." In the countryside, new and massive temples have been built to Mao in the Fujian and Guangdong provinces, and another temple is under construction in the northern Shaanxi province of Gushuicun. The temples are frequented by party officials and peasants who believe Mao can do everything from cure illnesses to guarantee a good crop. In 1993, several workers at a Sichuan factory committed suicide on the one-hundredth anniversary of Mao's birth--they were convinced they would join him in an afterlife. Taxicab drivers in Beijing and Shanghai dangle Mao's portrait from their rearview mirrors. Artists are incorporating Mao's image into their works, and a gigantic portrait of Mao still looms over Tiananmen Square. And, most importantly, in the party and in the universities, the fashionable political philosophy isn't democracy; it's the new Maoism.
Mao hasn't made a comeback. He never left. Unlike Germany or Russia, China has never made an attempt to confront its past; it never tried to engage in de-Maoification. The Communist Party has resisted any attempts to confront either the horrors of the late 1950s Great Leap Forward, when a Mao-made famine took tens of millions of Chinese lives, or those of the Cultural Revolution, in which state-sanctioned barbarity reached the nadir of encouraging cannibalism among school children. Efforts to speak the truth about these matters are squelched: when, for example, the Shanghai University journal Society stated in 1993 that 40 million had perished in Mao's famine, that issue of the magazine was instantly recalled.
What informs China's politics is what has informed it for the last fifty years: a philosophy that mixes nationalism and communism and that is built upon the legend of Mao as founding father.119
So, what does this post-Mao capitalism mean? Is it a departure from Maoism in China, or the strengthening of the economic aspect of Maoism? The same article states:
Even after the denouement of the Cultural Revolution—the humiliation of Mao's wife and the other members of the Gang of Four—the cult of Mao lived. Although veneration had, for the time being, receded among the Chinese people, the party continued to occupy itself intellectually with Maoism. Two main groups emerged, Maoist fundamentalists (fanshipai) and nostalgists (huanyuanpai) who yearned for the golden age of the 1950s. The party Maoists kept the faith alive, but, with the barbarity of the Cultural Revolution still fresh in familial memories, they could not much fan it openly. For the nationalist-communist philosophy of Maoism to blossom fully again, there needed to appear a threat to China, an event that would awaken among the people the resting fear that China might lose its greatness, might fall prey to the depredations of the West. This event occurred on June 4, 1989, when Chinese troops mowed down student protesters at Tiananmen Square. In the wake of Tiananmen, the idea of China descending into chaos and collapse prompted the party to revive the idea of class struggle... . China, Jiang [Zemin] said, would continue to pursue economic reforms, but no one should be deluded that democratization would take place. Under Jiang's supervision, the party has promoted "thought reform" in the countryside and carried out Maoist-style education campaigns.
Much of the firepower for these attempts to restore Maoism has come from a group of young intellectuals clustered around party elder Deng Liqun. These Marxist fundamentalists control the People's Daily, the ministry of propaganda and numerous journals such as Seeking Truth... . In 1995 and 1996, they issued two "ten-thousand-word documents" calling for a return to class struggle and Maoism."120
Obviously, Maoism still dominates China. It's not simply an inheritance of aged Communist Party administrators from Mao's time, but a living inheritance for a younger generation still blindly bound to Marxism. Peasants and the uneducated masses view Mao as a supreme being; most intellectuals consciously espouse and disseminate Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology. Chinese capitalism is simply hiding and strengthening Maoism.
China is the world's most populous country, and its economy continues to grow. Its arms production is such that, in the 21st century, it is thought that China will rival the United States as a superpower. That an ever- stronger China is still Maoist, with "Mao-mania" thriving among its 1.2 billion population, shows once again that Communism is not dead but is only hidden. Worse still, this is Maoist Communism, the most barbarous and brutal version.
The Universal Maoist Movement
Mao is alive not only in China, but internationally. After the Soviet Union's collapse, international Communism's center of gravity shifted to Maoism. Communist establishments in place in both North Korea and Vietnam, still rule according to Maoist ideology. Most noticeably, terror organizations in various parts of the world have adopted Maoism and commit acts of bloodshed in Mao-style guerilla wars. Maoist organizations from different countries have joined together in what is called the "Maoist Internationalist Movement," while European Communist parties have gained great support.
On the official Internet site of the Northern Cyprus Turkish Republic, the following analysis appears about the International Maoist Movement:
According to statistics from the International Terror Research Center, in recent years there has been a notable increase in the number of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist terrorist organizations. Sources monitoring international terrorism report that Maoism is engaged in intense activity, in both words and actions. Foremost in their universal objectives and ruthless anti-Western, anti-democratic mindsets are the Maoist "Tamil Tigers" in Sri Lanka, the "Shining Path" in Peru, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and others whose names are only beginning to be heard.
The Maoists' aim is to spread Mao Tse-tung's teachings by means of bloodshed and replace democratic regimes with a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist state, by means of armed struggle. Their underlying objective, of course, is to spread Maoism throughout the entire world.
Maoist terrorist organizations from East and West met twice, in America and India, during 1996, and vowed to pursue a policy of joint action. Folowing the meeting in America, they decided: :
To overthrow parliamentary democracy in countries where they are active.
In order to achieve their aims, to kill not only soldiers, police officers, and members of the state apparatus, but anyone who is not one of them—making no exceptions of children, women, or the elderly.
To construct a centralist, single-party administration in which human rights are disregarded.
To build a world revolution based on Marxist-Leninist-Maoist ideology.
Another important decision taken at these meetings was to build a "Maoist propaganda center" in order to lay the foundations of the "world revolution." This center, known as the Maoist International Movement (MIM), is believed to be active in Canada. Within the framework drawn up by "Internationalist Maoists," publications designed to provoke and incite the people in target countries are prepared, then sent to their supporters in those countries for distribution...121
This discovery, based on solid evidence, shows once again that Maoism is engaged in an international effort. The international Communist net stretches back to Red China's bloody dictatorship and continues as a serious threat to the world.
Religion is Communism's main block, and only a society that lives closely bound to its religion can defend itself against Communism's provocations and deceptions. Those with this strong character will lead the world in the 21st century's struggle against materialism.
Communism is still alive, and in our very midst. Communist or Socialist parties will not find it difficult to rise to power in most of Eastern Europe or even in some Western European countries. If they find appropriate social conditions (as when the Nazis came to power in Germany's elections of 1933), they may establish a lasting Communist regime. Russia experienced a development from Communism to Fascism and then towards savage capitalism, but since the boundary isn't clear-cut between these ideologies, Russia can return to Communism as the result of a social movement. China still regards Maoism's ideas as the only truth, and Communism's influence is still strongly evident in Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam.
Today' s Communism, implementing the "one step forward two steps back" tactic, has taken a step back. It continues its activities in various countries under different names, while giving the impression that it presents no threat to the world. But by supporting the "conflict" argument of dialectical materialism, Communism is an endless fountain of bloodshed. Under whatever appearance or name, still it regards the dialectical conflict as an inevitable law of history and can bring humanity nothing but bring cruelty and misery.
The precaution that must be taken is to dry up the Communist swamp that produces this danger. Otherwise, struggling with the mosquitoes (that is, with Communist supporters) one by one will be of no avail. So long as the swamp is not dried up, the mosquitoes will continue to hatch at an increasing rate.
Following this analogy, how is the "swamp" to be dried up?
The common support for Marxists, Marxist-Leninists, Maoists or any other version of Communism (even Fascism) is Darwin's theory of evolution. As we have seen, Marx called this theory the "basis in natural science for the class struggle in history." Engels considered Darwin the equal of Marx, from the point of view of his dialectical materialist doctrine. Lenin and Trotsky were each influenced by Darwin and after reading him, the young Stalin—studying to be a clergyman—became an atheist. Maoism's and Chinese Communism's intellectual foundations are rooted in Darwinism.
The Marxist student movement that shook the world in 1968 was inspired by Herbert Marcuse, an ideologue influenced by Darwinism and particularly by Darwin's idea of the "struggle for existence."122 The list of Socialists who accepted Darwin as a guide would include a wide spectrum of names, including the revisionist Marxists Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein, and the founder of the famous Fabian Society that is regarded as the source of the English left.123
Without Darwinism, Communism would not exist. Therefore, the only antidote for the Communism that cost the lives of more than 100 million in the 20th century alone, and which is now reorganizing and strengthening in secret, is to refute Darwinism's scientific and philosophical ideas. Once it is established that Darwinian theory is completely bankrupt in terms of science—that living things did not come to be through evolution, but that God created them perfectly—then neither Marx, Lenin, nor Mao, nor the militants who attach posters to their walls and who execute acts of bloodshed, can remain.
By eradicating the deceit of Darwinism, wells of bloodshed like Communism will be destroyed. People will return to God, our true Creator and Lord, and live according to the moral values He has taught. Then, as is commanded in Verse 2:208 of the Qur'an, people will enjoy peace and security:
You who believe! Submit all of you to God and do not follow in the footsteps of Satan. He is an outright enemy to you. (Qur'an 2:208)
115. R.Payne, The Life and Death of Lenin, London:1967, p.609-610
116. Edward E. Ericson, Jr., Solzhenitsyn – Voice from the Gulag, Eternity, October 1985, p.23-24
117. Alan Woods and Ted Grant, "Marxism and Darwinism," Reason in Revolt: Marxism and Modern Science
118. Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meaning of Life, Touchstone, New York, 1996, p.309
119. V.I.Lenin, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back; http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1904/onestep/ch06.htm
120. James Walsh, "Mao Lives!," Time, January 10, 1994
121. Jacob Heilbrunn, "Mao More Than Ever," The New Republic, April 21, 1997
122. Jacob Heilbrunn, "Mao More Than Ever," The New Republic, April 21, 1997
123. Northern Cyprus, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence, www.pubinfo.gov.nc.tr/h040199b.htm