[First published August 3, 1999, in The Washington Times]

Welcome to the Age of Equivalency. Last Sunday (Aug. 1) The New York Times published a full-page report about the Corcoran Gallery’s current exhibition. With a catalogue by its curator, Leah Bendavid-Val, the famed Washington venue displays an “enormous and instructive show of 232 images.” The question, of course, is what kind of instruction Propaganda and Dreams: Photographing the 1930's in the U.S.S.R. and the U.S. intends to impart.

Since America’s socialists feel they must conceal their true political designation — as an alarmed Bill Clinton reminded the dangerously sincere Prime Minister of Italy on April 25, 1999 — the need for other means of identification has been with us for some time. This column is an attempt to fill that need.

During the Great Depression of the 1930's, and especially during the Spanish Civil War of 1936, glorifying the Soviet Union was quite the thing to do in America. The alliance occasioned by World War II went even further in portraying communism in a highly favorable light. Who in America bothered to remember that only two years earlier the natural embrace of National Socialist Germany and Soviet Socialist Russia was concluded between Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin who celebrated the treaty with a “which of us can kill more Poles?” contest.

But when the Soviet Union once again showed its true colors by initiating the Cold War against the West and humanity in general, it became much less popular for America’s socialists to extol the greatness of their masters in Moscow.

As the number of those killed in the name of socialism continued to climb toward the hundred million mark, new approaches had to be found — and were.

On the one hand, every effort is made to ascribe the abject failure of the Soviet Union to Stalin’s bestiality, even though it began with Lenin and continued for nearly forty years after Stalin’s death. Also, by suddenly calling the Soviet system state capitalism, the suggestion is that socialism has yet to be tried properly. The brochure to the Corcoran exhibition comes up with yet another method: It ascribes Soviet practices to a “Russian collective impulse rooted in village life, rather than Marxism or Communism.”

But deep down, socialists know that these are hard sells in America, just as the socialist label itself. That’s why Equivalency was invented. The United States, they will have you believe, is not all that different. In the present case, propaganda by the U.S. government is not all that different. Where America is different, writes the curator of the Corcoran Gallery, is that “Americans...believed that the individual had a basic right to act aggressively on his own behalf.”

(Decide for yourself which the curator finds more to her liking: the collective impulse of the village, or aggressive individuals.)

The Age of Equivalency was ushered in by the authors of the so-called National Standards for U.S. History, who portray the Cold War as a “sword play between the United States and the Soviet Union.” For those who might have forgotten, the Cold War was initiated with the Soviet blockade of West Berlin. In response, the United States organized the airlift, supplying Berlin from the air in an historic exercise of self control. Given the balance of forces at the time, any other power would have flaunted its nuclear capability; the United States did not even issue a threat.

But that, of course, did not impress the history department of the University of California at Los Angeles, where most of the authors of the overwhelmingly socialist National Standards draw their share of the tax-payers’ money. And since even they conceal their political beliefs, we need the tools offered here.

This is how it works. It’s a fair bet that anyone who seriously suggests parallels between the U.S.S.R. and the United States is a socialist since it can be done only by deliberately misrepresenting the American side, and by legitimizing the Soviet side. It is another fair bet that anyone who equates the blacklisting of the so-called Hollywood Ten in America with the tens of millions killed on the other side is also a socialist at heart.

Portraying the Soviet Union as a legitimate experiment with lofty goals gone wrong provides the basic clue. But, to be on the safe side, ask apologists for the Soviets whether they view the Third Reich in a similar vein.

For there is your ultimate proof. A sure hallmark of a socialist is the frantic insistence on separating twentieth century’s evil twins: National Socialism and Soviet Socialism. Like much else, the practice was begun by Josef Stalin who ordered the misnomer “fascist” to be applied to Nazi Germany to avoid the obvious analogy.

Perhaps, some day the Corcoran Gallery will give us an exhibition of photographs portraying the 1930's in the Third Reich alongside those from the Soviet Union. Then, a picture being worth a thousand words, we will have cause to celebrate.

For the surest sign of socialist thinking is the shameless assertion that, while the Third Reich was evil, the Soviet Union was benign.

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The publication in France of "The Black Book of Communism" (reviewed in the Washington Times by Ben and Daniel Wattenberg, January 8) is setting off shockwaves in French political circles. But the book's real impact could be in America. At long last, we will have the tools to confront "Communism -- The Idea."

Three centuries in the making, communism has offered the only challenge to the principles of the American Founding. It has done so under a bewildering variety of labels, all based on the identical doctrine: that human reason is supreme, and that certain people are capable of comprehending and arranging the world around us; that such people should guide all others toward an increasingly perfect and just society in which all desires will have been either eliminated or satisfied.

Unlike the American quest for the best possible world, communism thus promises the perfect world. For Lenin, that meant a world where no one owned anything. For Hitler, one without Jews and ruled by Germans. Stalin combined it all -- no Jews, no ownership, and a world domination by Russia. Mao hunted down those who possessed Western books.

All for social justice. All "in the best interest of the people."

Eyebrows were raised when my 1995 essay "The Battle for America's Soul" detailed the parallels between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union as "The Unlikely Twins." Even more skepticism greeted the assertion that both grew out of nineteenth-century German philosophy. It comes as a relief that Tony Judt (New York Times, December 22, 1997) and Alain Besancon (Commentary, January 1998) published the same conclusions. Having grown up under both tyrannies, there was the troubling possibility that I had developed obsessions and mistaken them for reality.

For sure, a lot is asked of native-born Americans with no experience of foreign occupation or tyranny, to see all this in the same light as those who lived through it. Even the often-shown horror pictures of the nazi concentration camps must appear as something from another planet. Visual record of the horrible deeds elsewhere is not accessible, and reports of them have been obscured by the beguiling language of socialism: "peace, compassion, international brotherhood."

But reality is that even Mussolini was a socialist who, thrown out by fellow-socialists, formed his own socialist party named "fascist" after a symbol from ancient Rome. Reality is that Hitler's outfit was called the National Socialist German Workers' Party, with a manifesto copied from Marx. Reality is that Lenin's Bolshevik Party was based on German books. Differences merely reflected local conditions. Jiang Zemin, China's current president speaks of "Socialism with Chinese characteristics."

Might some people be working on socialism with American characteristics?

Most Americans prefer the notion that communism went out with the dissolution of the Soviet Union. But communism, remember, was not born in the Soviet Union. Why would it have died with the Soviet Union? Is it likely that the millions who signed on to The Idea just shrugged their shoulders in 1991 and drank a toast to the rule of law and free enterprise?

Remember also: socialists, whether they realize it or not, are committed to building communism because socialism -- President Jiang Zemin reminds us -- is but a phase on the road to communism.

Many see a difference between socialists and communists. But Marx, in the Communist Manifesto of 1848, already differentiates among seven types of socialism, dismissing all except his own. Since his doctrines are described as "socialist" and the publication is called "Communist Manifesto," it is just a game with words. The most successful word game was devised by Stalin, who renamed Hitler's regime "fascist" to cover up the fact that it, too, was socialist.

For several decades, we have been fooled about nazism and communism as "opposites." Nazis were the ultimate evil but communists -- Hollywood assured us during the 50th anniversary of the HUAC hearings -- were good people. The "Hollywood Ten" of 1948, and many others since, believed that communism was really a good idea with a few "mistakes" along the way.

By mistake, a hundred million people were killed in various terrible ways, so the "Black Book of Communism" informs us. That, and the irrefutable evidence of methods identical to those of Nazi Germany, should open many eyes at last. There is nothing we can do about the past. But we can do something for the future. We can change the words we use.

As Alain Besancon points out in Commentary, the current vocabulary for our political spectrum is of Soviet origin. It placed socialists and communists on the left, "capitalists, imperialists" on the right. Once nazis entered the picture, they became the far right, and room was created for "moderates" in the middle.

Each of these propositions is a deception.

Placing communist socialists and national socialists at opposite ends feigned a quality difference between their agendas, and the people who joined them. It also hinted that everyone on the "right" was in some proximity to the hated nazis. Recently, "extremist" has been added to move those on the "right," rhetorically, ever closer to nazis.

Accompanying this has been the refusal by persons who espouse classic socialist tools to be called socialist. What else should we call people who advocate redistribution, class warfare, classification by ancestry, political correctness, revisionist history, school-to-work, speech codes? Or do they not realize they are socialists?

If so, millions of Americans might reconsider their stance once they realize its origins. Millions more might rediscover America's founding principles once they accept that nazism was just another form of socialism. So let us restore clarity.

There are the principles of the American Founding: the rule of law, individual rights, guaranteed property, and a common American identity. They bring, maintain, and defend freedom.

Then there is the road to socialism: "social justice," group rights, redistribution through entitlements, and multiculturalism. They crush the human spirit, and enslave the participants.

One is home-grown, secured by the sacrifice of countless generations, and uniquely successful. The other is of foreign origin, propagated around the world by political operatives, and has produced the greatest tragedies of recorded history.

It should not be difficult to choose.

But there is no middle.

[First published July 15, 1997 in The Washington Times, under the title: "Behind the benign masks of socialism"]

PBS has begun to air a documentary series under the title "Russia's War: Blood Upon the Snow." Surprisingly, judging by an early segment, a belated exposure of Soviet bestiality under Stalin is on the minds of the makers. Belated, because the facts have been available since 1956 at the latest. Surprising, because American television generally conveys the sense - more and more each year - that Communists were martyrs, that the Soviet Union really meant well, and that anyone disagreeing with that view was either senile (President Reagan) or a pathological bigot (Senator Joseph McCarthy).

I must be forgiven for a measure of suspicion. It is not easy to believe that, of all networks, PBS would suddenly have a complete change of heart about Communism. I will therefore speculate about the real purpose of the series, with every intention of happily eating my words in the event of being wrong.

Not one, but two warning signals go off. The first is about World War II which, it appears, is a major focus of the series. There has been an unmistakable tendency in our media (culminating around the 50th anniversary of VE-Day) to chronicle the victory as largely the accomplishment of the Red Army, underplaying - if not ignoring altogether - the role of Britain and the United States. One wonders if our journalists ever visited the American graves, stretching as far as the eye can see, on the Western shores of Europe. One wonders if our journalists have heard of the Battle of Britain that broke the back of Luftwaffe, the German air force. That made all the difference for the Red Army, since the Soviets had no air force of their own.

The second alarm bell has been ringing since about 1994, when the Russians first put out word that they, too, were "victims of Communism." Could the PBS series, made with the wholesale participation and cooperation of the Russian Government, aim to hammer home just such a notion? Incessant references by the narrator to Stalin as "the Georgian" would point in that direction. Hitler, we are reminded, was Austrian. Yet, in 1945 and since, no one has sought to absolve Germany and Germans of their culpability. Not even the Germans themselves.

What harm, I hear you ask, can possibly come from the exposure of horrendous crimes, properly documented at last? The first concern has to do with the confusion already surrounding the word "communism." Technically speaking, Communism is simply the final phase, the ultimate goal of Socialism. In other words, it is a variant of Socialism. So is what we call Nazism. "Nazi" is short for National Socialist, merely another variant of Socialism. Stalin ordered Nazis to be referred to as "Fascists" only to avoid the obvious analogy with Soviet Socialism. Germans never were "fascists" - the Third Reich was ruled by the National Socialist German Workers' Party.

Socialism, by whatever name and in all its forms, is the ultimate evil. Sooner or later, it destroys everything in its path: law, morality, family, prosperity, productivity, education, incentive - finally life itself. Portraying Stalin as the cause of evil puts the cart before the horse. Socialism creates the conditions for a Stalin; socialism creates the conditions for a Hitler.

Socialism was much the same before and after Stalin, before and after Hitler. In my native Hungary, a mere six months of Leninist rule during 1919 (years before Stalin) destroyed the national fabric to the point where its legacy tears apart the country even today. Socialism remained the same under Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, or Brezhnev. As for the murder of tens of millions, the torture and the gratuitous cruelty, they may have been ordered or sanctioned by leaders, but they were committed by people against other people. Russians committed them, just like Germans or Japanese. And Russia went on to enslave civilized nations with consequences we cannot as yet assess.

Yes, Stalin and Hitler, the prize disciples of Lenin, were twins. So were Communism and Nazism. In Budapest, when the Gestapo left, the NKVD (then GPU) did not even bother to change the building in which the tortures and murders took place. They kept the building, and the personnel.

Therefore, let us be clear about Stalin's role. He may have been top of the heap, but no "lone ranger." And let us, also, assess accurately the role of Russia's Red Army in the defeat of the Third Reich. Why did they fight? What were they after?

When Hitler came to power, Russia remained firmly at Germany's side. Such a tradition goes back many centuries, especially with reference to Poland - a favorite plaything of Prussian kings and Russian Tsars. Only after Germany's vicious attack on Russian civilians, as well as on the military, did Russian blood boil to the point of an all-out campaign. Subsequently, pursuing the enemy beyond their border provided feed for Russia's centuries-old appetite for expansion.

Thus, the Red Army was motivated by the triple passions of defending the beloved homeland, revenging unspeakable atrocities on its soil, and conquering fresh rich territories for Mother Russia.

By contrast, America's armed forces in Europe defended the cause of liberty for all. They responded to the suffering of others with righteous indignation.

Above all, they gave their lives without any expectation of gain.