Free Republic

In view of the brutal and hellish record of its failed communist messiahs, past and present, it is only right that the ideology and actions of the current government of Cuba be confronted and resisted by the U.S. istorian Paul Johnson, author of Modern Times, described the 1930s as “the age of the heroic lie.” “Saintly mendacity” became its most prized virtue. Stalin’s Soviet Union was built on sanctified fabrications that characterized communist ideology and practice. The creation of Stalin as a communist messianic figure was part of the “saintly mendacity.” Johnson wrote that views of Stalin written in the...

We know that history holds many surprises. One doesn't expect to learn more about the secret history of of the Gulag than we already know from both Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Acrcipelago" and Anne Applebaum's "Gulag: A history." This feat, however, is exactly what author Tim Tzouliadis has accomplished: the previously unknown story of the thousands of Americans who, during the Depression, sought employment and a better future in the "worker's paradise" built by the Bolsheviks. All kinds of Americans joined the exodus. Some of them were Communists or fellow-travelors but the majority were average Americans - skilled workers promised paid passage,...