The Obama administration and Democratic leadership could easily save some money by incorporating old Soviet propaganda posters like those above to manifest their actions and vision.
Today, the Obama administration is inserting federal government dictates into major aspects of life and the economy in the USA. In the USSR, the governing Communist Party directed and controlled all aspects of life and the economy.
Today in the USA, political correctness is used by American progressives to control speech and to suppress undesirable criticism. In the USSR, speech-control played a major role in silencing the opposition.
The nuanced difference is that those who critique Obama administration policies are accused of being racists or bigots; in the USSR, individuals who criticized the government were described as spies, traitors or "enemies of the people."
Today in the USA, class warfare is a constant component of the speeches made by the president and other leaders of the Democratic Party. As in the socialist USSR, entrepreneurs who are using their ideas, vision and energy to start businesses and generate jobs are presented as un-reconcilable enemies of the working people.
No Comparison
There is no country in the world where socialism brought more progress, a better standard of living and better opportunities for its citizens than what people in free-market countries experience. Nevertheless, the schools and media in the USSR lied about the superiority of socialism over capitalism, just as they do now in the United States.
Courts constituted another level of control and enforcement of government policies in the USSR. Genrih Jagoda (1891-1938), soviet commissar of the interior and chief commissioner of state security, said:
"Opposite to the capitalists/bourgeois courts, our court's decisions are not based on dogmatic laws, but are strictly justified by revolutionary sensibilities."
Today in the USA, the commissar's stand is reflected in the decisions of many liberal judges. Wisconsin County Court Judge Maryann Sumi issued this statement March 2011:
"It seems to me the public policy behind effective enforcement of the open meeting law is so strong that it does outweigh the interest, at least at this time, which may exist in favor of sustaining the validity of the law."
The mainstream media dutifully assert Democratic Party talking points, educators preach about the greatness of socialism and the evils of capitalism, and all Judeo-Christian religious references are removed from the public space. Still, American progressives could easily reuse some Soviet propaganda visuals.
In the USSR, after all religious symbols and references were removed from schools and public places, images of the party leaders were ubiquitous in all official and public venues.
Democratic leadership labeled the Tea Party movement "extreme," and President Obama declared Paul Ryan's 2012 budget plan "radical." I used to live in a country where people who valued individual liberties and despised big government were considered "extreme," where any proposal to save the economy by using free-market solutions would be called "radical."
This country was the USSR (1917 to 1991).
By 1950, citizens of the USSR were afraid to express their opinions, and rarely objected or critiqued any government regulations. Independent thinkers with even the slightest objection to government directives were sidelined or removed from society. Their knowledge, experience, talents and ingenuity were lost.
Thousands Killed
People of East European socialist countries, controlled by the Communist Party of the USSR, yearned for a freer society.
In 1956, the Soviets crushed the spontaneous revolt of Hungarian people against socialist policies imposed by the Soviet Communist Party. More than 2,500 Hungarians were killed.
In 1968, thousands of the Soviet troops entered Czechoslovakia to stop the liberation and decentralization of their economic system from the rigid, centrally controlled socialist structure imposed on the Czechs by the USSR.
In 1980, a nongovernment anti-communist union was organized in Poland. The Solidarity movement was joined by millions of citizens of all straits. They demanded liberty from the socialist government oppression. The Soviet media called them "extreme elements."
The alignment of three great leaders — Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher — who clearly understood the true inhuman and degrading nature of socialism made it possible for survival and eventual success of Solidarity.
And by the end of 1990, the inefficient, unproductive, inhuman, centrally controlled socialist economy of the USSR collapsed. The Chinese communist government, witnessing the collapse of the USSR, introduced elements of capitalism into its economy.
Moving Backward
Today, the dynamic capitalist society of the USA, driven by the individuals' ingenuity, is being replaced by the regressive socialist model of the government mandates, used in the USSR more than 80 years ago. President Obama and his supporters call it "Moving America Forward."
Timid Republicans, who compromise on the destructive or failed government programs, and who vote for judges in the image of old Soviet commissars, will not reverse the course. To restore the USA, it will take gutsy patriots such as Paul Ryan and other proud and concerned leaders to stand up to the progressives' propaganda attacks.
• Kunin lived in the Soviet Union until 1980, working as a civil engineer. She is now a retired software developer living in Connecticut. The other 15 articles she has written for IBD are available in the Special Series section of IBDeditorials.com.
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