Free Republic

Putin has called for Communist leader Vladimir Lenin's body to be preserved in its mausoleum on Red Square, comparing the embalmed body of the founder of the Soviet state to the relics of saints. "Many are saying that having Lenin's Mausoleum runs counter to the tradition. But what runs counter to tradition?" Putin told a meeting with celebrities who campaigned for him in the March 2012 presidential election, according to the Kremlin website. "Just go to Kiev Pechersk Lavra or check out Pskov Monastery or Mount Athos. You'll see the relics of saints there." Putin cited almost word-for-word the present-day...

The “infamy” of December 7, 1941, is deeper than most Americans have ever imagined. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was almost certainly the result of a Soviet plot—“Operation Snow”—carried out by Harry Dexter White, a figure of enormous influence in the Roosevelt administration and a known Soviet spy. Americans remember Pearl Harbor as the work of a Japanese military machine hell-bent on a war of conquest. The truth is more complicated. The imperial regime had faced severe political shocks throughout the 1930s. Two attempts on the life of Emperor Hirohito—one by a Japanese communist whose father was a member...

Russia’s Vladimir Putin has declared war on the Internet, and not just within his country’s own borders. Putin’s war may be coming soon to a laptop or smart phone near you. For years we’ve been told by Putin’s apologists that his moves against traditional media didn’t matter because it was impossible to strangle Russia’s feisty Internet. But for a KGB dictator, “impossible” is a meaningless term. Putin’s campaign consists of a three-part pincer movement, and now that he has essentially been made “president for life”, he is pursuing it with greatly renewed vigor. … Throughout Putin’s first twelve years in...

Road to MoscowBill Clinton’s Early Activism from Fulbright to Moscow By Fedora SummaryDuring the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton’s student protests and Moscow trip generated much controversy, but few answers. While Clinton’s government files from that era seemingly remain unavailable even today, there is at least more information available than in 1992. The public record reveals that Clinton’s social network and views on Vietnam were influenced by a pattern of contact between Communist agents and sympathizers and Clinton’s academic and political associates. This pattern is documented here through an analysis of Clinton’s antiwar activity up through the time he left Oxford...

So much for the Reset Button. Clearly some Russian agents were taking premature advantage of Obama’s flexibility. An indictment was unsealed today in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York charging 11 members of a Russian military procurement network operating in the United States and Russia, as well as a Texas-based export company and a Russia-based procurement firm, with illegally exporting high-tech microelectronics from the United States to Russian military and intelligence agencies.The microelectronics allegedly exported to Russia are subject to strict government controls due to their potential use in a wide range of military systems,...

MOSCOW — Russia's President Vladimir Putin turned 60 on Sunday, the official retirement age in the country he has dominated for the past 12 years, as critics snickered that his image of an energetic, young macho leader no longer corresponds with his age.... ...A survey by independent pollster Levada this week showed that despite his age, Putin was still popular with the ladies, with 20 percent of Russian women saying they would like to marry him.

(CNSNews.com) – The Obama administration’s new ambassador to Azerbaijan raised eyebrows this week with a gesture interpreted by some as paying homage to the country’s late dictator – a one-time KGB general installed by military coup who oversaw an autocratic regime before handing power to his son. “The new U.S. envoy to Azerbaijan, Richard Morningstar, has honored memory of national leader of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev,” the Azeri news site News.Az reported. “The newly appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the United States in Azerbaijan visited the monument to great leader in the park in front of the Heydar Aliyev’s Palace....

Paul Ryan claims fondness for the music of Rage Against the Machine, a hard-left, union-backing and "peace-marching," grunge group. Ryan specified that the music -- rather than lyrics -- forms the attraction. For this, the band's outraged lead guitarist (Harvard-graduate) Tom Morello recently took to the pages of Rolling Stone magazine to denounce Ryan as "clueless." "Ryan is the embodiment of the Machine our music Rages against!" raved and ungrateful Morello, proving that for leftists it’s “politics uber alles!” (Can you imagine Ted Nugent or Trace Adkins insulting their customers?) "Paul Ryan's love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing,”...

This column has already told the story of Frank VanderSloot, an Idaho businessman who last year contributed to a group supporting Mitt Romney. An Obama campaign website in April sent a message to those who'd donate to the president's opponent. It called out Mr. VanderSloot and seven other private donors by name and occupation and slurred them as having "less-than-reputable" records. Mr. VanderSloot has since been learning what it means to be on a presidential enemies list. Just 12 days after the attack, the Idahoan found an investigator digging to unearth his divorce records. This bloodhound—a recent employee of Senate...

Communism has continued to swallow countries because resistance to Communism fell away after 1991.The adoption of a private property system in Russia did not signify the triumph of capitalism. It signified a new kind of danger which involves the subversion of capitalism through capitalism itself argues sovietologist J.R. Nyquist.

Very interesting video of former Russian KGB agent, and defector, Yuri Bezmanov explaining how the Communists use division and crisis to bring about "revolution" framed against OWS footage and Obama's speeches.

Many conservatives and Christians see the encroachments of socialism and secularism. If they want to know what is driving this process forward, and the answer is surprising. It has been the work of the Communist International led by Moscow -- decade after decade.

Armed Russian police raided the homes of anti-Putin activists ahead of a mass demonstration in a major new crackdown on dissent. The fresh wave of arrests was today compared with the days of Stalin by opponents on Russian language Twitter. Hello1937 was trending on the social networking site—referring to the year 1937, which was seen as the worst for Stalin purges. The coordinated early-morning raids targeted the young politicians who were thought to represent the biggest threat to Putin's 12-year rule. The Investigative Committee said the raids targeted Alexei Navalny as well as Ilya Yashin and Sergei Udaltsov over a...

Once upon a time the Cold War and the threat of nuclear annihilation helped to maintain a certain focus. America and its European allies were supposedly upholding capitalism and freedom against Soviet Communism. Then the Soviet Union broke apart and we got our hands on the “peace dividend.” Money could be diverted from weapons to social programs. The West was free to pursue its own socialism – leading to bankruptcy. In 1990 a Soviet dissident named Sergei Grigoryants, who was twice imprisoned by the KGB, gave a speech in which he warned of the deceptive reality behind of the collapse...

Moscow (CNN) -- Former Soviet spy Leonid Shebarshin, who was very briefly head of the KGB, was found dead Friday in his apartment in Moscow, an apparent suicide, officials said. The 76-year-old left a suicide note, the state-run news agency Itar-Tass reported Friday, citing city police. A weapon was found near the body, Investigation Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin said. The contents of the note were not disclosed "in the interest of the investigation," according to police, the news agency said. Shebarshin was alone in the apartment, it added.

Turns out he’s not Kenyan after all. He’s KGB. All this time, people were worried that President Obama was born in Africa and that his radical agenda had been crafted by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Saul Alinsky on the streets of Chicago’s South Side. Now we know his real radical hidden agenda is in service of the Kremlin.

Vladimir Putin, Russia’s current prime minister and future president, has shown a strong interest in Asian affairs. In his second term, Putin would undoubtedly like to maintain good ties with China, consolidate Moscow’s first-among-equals status in Central Asia, manage the regional repercussions of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan, prevent a war or major crisis in the Koreas, and deepen Russia’s integration into East Asia’s more dynamic and prosperous economic networks. At the same time, Putin is eager to strengthen Russia’s position in Europe. It’s a big to-do list, but Russia has already succeeded in raising its profile in Asia...

Russia needs to launch a major military buildup to prepare for life in a dangerous world where international law is breaking down, the West feels free to intervene in sovereign countries, and rivals could invade Russia to seize its rich trove of natural resources, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has warned. In his fifth programmatic article detailing what he will do if he wins a new six-year presidential term in elections that are now less than two weeks off, Mr. Putin pledged, among other things, the biggest rearmament program in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Over the next...

Putin Pledges 400 ICBMs for Russia in Ten Years Russia’s armed forces will receive over 400 modern intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), more than 100 military spacecraft and over 2,300 new tanks within the next ten years, Prime Minister and presidential candidate Vladimir Putin said. Earlier media voiced fears that by 2020, Russia’ ICBM arsenal could reduce by more than half as over 400 missiles would go beyond their maximum service life without timely replacement. “Within the next decade, the armed forces will receive more than 400 modern ground- and sea-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, eight ballistic missile submarines, about 20 general...

Is WikiLeaks biased against the West and the US in particular? This news item would tend to indicate so. According to Christian Science monitor Moscow correspondent Fred Weir, Kremlin funded media outlet Russia Today, is to hire WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. This despite the fact that Assange remains under house arrest in Britain, awaiting a Supreme Court decision on his extradition to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations