A post here in April outlined some worries by Baby Boomers about the British millennials cohort, age from about twenty to forty, and their scant knowledge of the past and their abject unappreciation of our Country’s democracy and the sacrifices made by their ancestors to establish it, eh?

Well, the UK now faces ANOTHER General Election next week, which will be the third in just fifty-four months, which means an average of just 1½ years apiece for each government, when nowadays we are ‘supposed’ to have 5 years free of such national upheavals, aren’t we?

Nevertheless, that means we all, including millennials, need to caste our votes on 12 December, whatever our knowledge or political leanings, doesn’t it? Yes, but unfortunately, obviously with some exceptions to this overgeneralization, the millennials group of people have now only ONE WEEK to reeducate themselves on the major aspects of political doctrines, individual past records, and endemic economic success or failure, to avoid making silly errors when they vote, don’t you think?

For a start, do they know anything about communism (Marxism-Leninism), what it is, and what is its history and outcomes, when that ideology is actually implemented in society?

Well, communism/Marxism is a theory and method conceived by Karl Marx during the 19th century and is the total replacement of market capitalism by the establishment of a socioeconomic order structured society, with a utopian concept whereby social classes are eliminated, everyone is equal, nobody owns property nor anything else, the State alone makes the decisions in all matters and it governs the whole shebang and totally plans the economy, it itself controls the means of all production and services, everything is nationalised, and of course all religion is abolished – as then the State is the sole god eh?

It is a telling fact just how state communism was brought about, isn’t it? Yep, it resulted during the final phase of World War I from a 1917 revolution that included the assassination of Rasputin, but didn’t just end with the abolishment of monarchy but with the wholesale slaughter in a mansion cellar of the Romanovs family, even their doctor and servants– thereby commenced the communist tyranny that lasted there and in its ‘acquired’ republics for over half a century until the disintegration of soviet union in 1991

[Shocking wanton massacre:       ex-tsar Nicholas II, ex-tsarina Alexandra, their five children Olga [daughter 22], Tatiana [daughter 21], Maria [daughter 19], Anastasia [daughter 17], Tsarevich Alexei [son 13], family doctor Eugene Botkin, and their four remaining servants]

Unfortunately, the corpse of Russian communist tyranny has had new life blown into its lungs by Vladimir Putin who has circumvented its constitution to completely run the show for 20 years and has succeeded in exporting its vile influence around the World, and has established cold war2, while the forces of good appear transfixed, eh?

It only took half a dozen years for Stalin to grab total power in the Soviet Union and become one of the vilest murderous dictators the world has ever seen, as his regime was first estimated to have killed 20 million or higher, and later archival revelations detailed a minimum of eight thousand executions, over one and three quarter million in prison camps, nearly a million in forced resettlements, and at least six and a half million by famine, You see mass killing has always been the way of communists doing their business

There is a basic problem with communism in that despite its good intensions it delivers bad outcomes, and that’s primarily because it goes against the grain of entrenched animal behaviour and clashes confrontationally with basic human instincts and inescapable desire for freedom.

That means that whenever and wherever communism has been introduced, it has to be ‘imposed’ by force and violence, so it becomes a system with a police state, military control, firing squads, informers, punishment crews, jailed dissidents, labour camps, repression, one party state, political persecution, and socialist revolution, all inevitably accompanied by misery, poverty, and oppression

One wonders if the millennials have ever heard of the Berlin Wall or even understand the significance of its very existence or demise. That monstrosity delivers a very clear message and a telling example of just how communism fails its population, doesn’t it? Yes, because there we have there a very real comparison site result of the Marxist type of modern communism verses established democratic capitalism.

You see, at the end of WWII Germany was split in two – so twins by analogy if you like. So, we all have had an opportunity to witness one answer to the the nature versus nurture debate – one of the oldest issues in psychology. Half of Germany was acceded to the Soviets and became communist East Germany DGR, while the other half was retained by the Allies and was therefore a democratic Federal Republic FRG, plus that the city of Berlin, although located in the east half, was also divided and became East Berlin and West Berlin respectively

Well, the Berlin Wall was built in 1961 by the communists simply to stop their citizens escaping to the western sector – in a dozen years 15% of the East German population had absconded to the W est. The large concrete Berlin Wall was the world’s deadliest border, with guard towers manned by shoot to kill sentries together with its with dog runs, and accompanied by a wide area (later known as the “death strip”) that contained mines, anti-vehicle trenches, wooden fakir beds of nails, and other defences against ‘non-prisoner’ potential escapees.

However, after 30 years the people started smashing it down in November 1989 as their oppressors finally gave up when the East German communist system had suffered utter collapse as the country was bankrupt.

By then, the GDR ‘twin’ was both grimy and wretched, housing was without developed facilities, food was basic and sparse, and the scared people were poor, deprived, and without even the common things prevalent in normal society, and certainly most of them could only dream of owning even a ramshackle motorcar – well at least the roads were empty, eh?

That contrasts of course with the affluent FRG ‘twin’, with its people living in a relative paradise with their upmarket fast luxury cars and a Western lifestyle to match. Within a year Belin was unified, and it became the capital as East Germany was absorbed, and Germany became a single country once again.

If you need another example of twins’ different development, perhaps you could consider north and south Korea? They share a border and were once united but their system outcomes are as different as chalk and cheese

North Korea is now a communist country, one of the most isolated economies in the world today, reliant on Chinese support and led by dynasty politics, it operates under a command economy and suffers from economic mismanagement, applies a doctrine of songun (military-first), poverty is extensive with forty percent of the population living below the poverty line, food is problematic and there have been periods of mass starvation, pervasive censorship prevails and there is extensive media manipulation. Human rights are non-existent, as demonstrated by prison camps, torture and inhuman treatment, arbitrary detention, discrimination, absence of freedom of expression, violations of the right to life, no freedom of movement, and enforced disappearances, 200,000 prisoners incarcerated in camps that are dedicated to political crimes, and subjected to forced labor, physical abuse, and execution

Whereas neighbouring South Korea has gradually stabilised into a liberal democracy of a multi-party system with a President as head of state, executive power exercised by the government, and substantial development in education, economy, and culture. It is a mixed economy, combining free market principles with central planning by the government. It is a country that generally respects basic civil and political liberties, although however it reportedly maintains unreasonable restrictions on freedom of expression, association, and assembly. Because of the Korean war the South was one of the poorest countries in the world for over a decade, but all that was changed through growth of the industrial sector and its transformation into a successful exporter of everything from consumer electronics and smartphones to kimchi food and K-Pop music, and now that tiny Asian nation it has even surpassed India on several socio-economic parameters

Then we have China, the world’s third largest country after Russia and Canada, which has established a major foothold of communism in Southeast Asia, and has followed the normal pattern of communist society with oppression of the population by military force, as exampled by power being preserved with tanks against student democracy demonstrators in the Tiananmen square of Beijing, the capital of China, in in the same year as the Berlin Wall came down. It was a tragic showdown with death toll possibly of several hundred to thousands and as many as 10,000 people were arrested – a disgraceful national episode that is still hidden by its government from its people by widespread rigid censorship.

As most recently exposed, leaked classified documents confirmed prevalent claims that China operates a vast prison camp network chain, which is used to detain at least a million people from the nation’s Muslim minorities. As you would expect from such a regime, it said they had been fabricated when we know well that the documents are consistent with mounting evidence that the country runs detention camps that are secret, involuntary and used for ideological “education transformation, eh?

Chairman Mao, a Chinese communist revolutionary, of ‘red book’ infamy, was the founding father of the People’s Republic of China, established through civil war of course, which he ruled with an iron fist from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. He has been blamed for a famine that cost up to 45million lives in China during the communists’ ‘Great Leap Forward’ between 1958 and 1962

[Today, other than Russia, the existing Communist states in the world are in China, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam]

Then of course there is Socialism, which shouldn’t normally be confused with communism, except that in Britain the socialist Labour party has been taken-over by the Marxists and its leader Jeremy Corbyn is are of that ilk. Six years ago second in command and now Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said on camera ‘Look, I’m straight, I’m honest with people: I’m a Marxist’, as well as at the same time he celebrated the global financial crisis that all but destroyed our lives, cost hundreds of thousands of jobs, plunged our economy into a recession and forced our taxpayers to bail out the banks with his triumphant words ‘I waited all my life for banking crisis’

Socialism is at its core an economic philosophy, whereas communism is economic but overrulingly political, while extreme socialism verges on Marxism. Here in the UK, the socialists are intent of delivering the latter, and have been vocal advocates for the regime in Venezuela, which they have described as being socialism in action, but what has been the outcome for that country, eh?

Well, in Venezuela there is an ongoing, uncontrolled, and growing crisis, brought about by a extreme socialist regime that embarked on a disastrous social-justice escapade to redistribute wealth from business to the State with nationalisation, and well-off to poor, implementing a revolutionary ultra-left-wing ideology (Chavismo), which was enacted with brutal suppression and simply destroyed the former Venezuelan democracy, eliminated independent media, and controlled justice and the courts – implementing social policies that resulted in government uncontrolled overspending, which caused shortages, and allowed the inflation rate to grow like Topsy. So, while twenty years ago, it was the richest economy in South America due to its oil, with substantial production and massive reserves, today their democracy and freedom is in the gutter, there is hyperinflation of 10 million % the highest in the world, the community is largely poverty-stricken, and water, sanitation, electricity, medicine, money, and even food, are all either rationed or unavailable, the health system has buckled as there are no medicines, and the oppressed population have been on the streets demonstrating for 2 years, but in a premeditated policy of the authorities, they face illegitimate force, with violent and lethal acts [over 160 people have been killed].

On the other hand, free market capitalism brings its own problems, not least of which is that some get obscenely mega rich and indeed the wealth gap between rich and poor widens, but don’t believe a word of the crap propaganda that the poor get poorer, will you? The fact is that global extreme poverty has dramatically declined by half over 30 years so we are well on the way to reaching the UN goal of eradicating poverty by 2030, aren’t we? Market forces and commerce have not only significantly helped in that, but has fostered equality and health as well.

[Capitalism becomes more palatable when accompanied with a reasonable dose of socialism]