American democracy is built on the truth of human equality and creates a free society in which all flourish because all are endowed with the inalienable right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Communism not only distorts, discards, and seeks to remake human nature, but is driven to destroy and replace free society and democratic self-government with a state-controlled society. According to Marxism, only under communist rule would the individual truly be equal and free. Sadly, as history has demonstrated repeatedly, the opposite is true.

Communism: From Theory and Ideology to System of State Control

Communism predicted a socialist future in which the people collectively own the means and mode of production and the goods they produce are available for all who need them, but it has proved to be an inherently flawed and unattainable theory. Marx also prescribed revolutionary activism, and his theory became indistinguishable from a radical ideology that mandates state control of its people by a variety of tools common to all communist and totalitarian regimes: violence, repression, and deprivation.

The German-American political scientist, Carl Friedrich (1901-1984), suggested that totalitarian regimes display six common characteristics: 1) an official ideology; 2) a one-party state; 3) a monopoly on violence; 4) control of all information and mass media (including books, radio and television, movies, and now the Internet); 5) a government-planned and centrally controlled economy, and 6) the use of a party-controlled terroristic security service.¹⁴  Friedrich’s contemporary and fellow German-American, Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), noted that these regimes maintain one additional element: the identification of an objective enemy.¹⁵  A cursory view of any communist or totalitarian state clearly brings into focus each of these characteristics. Communist and totalitarian leaders employed and continue to employ these common tools to achieve the level of state control necessary to compel compliance against their common enemy – anyone who opposes in any way the state, party, or leader.  At its core, a communist totalitarian system is one in which the state first must destroy all aspects of the previous society (political, religious, cultural, and the individual’s own view of the world) to create a new society. It bans all political and social activity not explicitly approved by the regime to ensure its primacy and survival.¹⁶

In nearly all communist countries throughout history, one totalitarian ruler, at the head of an authoritarian party backed by an oppressive, all-encompassing state security service, has established and ensured the preservation of the regime. Below are examples of how such individuals adapted the theory and ideology of communism in their quest to gain power and control their people.

Sergey Nechayev (1847-1882) was an early believer in communist theory and led the Russian Nihilist movement’s revolutionary period of the 1860s through the early 1880s. The group promoted the communist principles of atheism, revolution, and the abolition of private property.¹⁷ Nechayev promoted revolution by any means necessary, spreading his principles and theory to future generations of communist totalitarian leaders through the Nihilist movement and his book, Catechism of a Revolutionary (1869). Nechayev’s approach influenced Vladimir Lenin’s understanding of a revolutionary.¹⁸

Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924) adopted the theory of communism to transform the Russian Empire into the first communist state. Using Marx and Engels’ Manifesto of the Communist Party, Nechayev’s Catechism of a Revolutionary, and his own writings as a foundation, Lenin prioritized violence to expand and institutionalize communism in the new Soviet Union. After the failed 1905 revolution, Lenin gained power in 1917 during the Russian Revolution (1917-1922), which saw 7 million people perish in the nation’s violent birth.¹⁹ He established a one-party dictatorship for Soviet Russia and implemented Marx and Engels’ communist measures, abolishing private property, restricting the freedoms of speech, assembly, religion, and press, and silencing all opponents of the Bolshevik party.²⁰ Lenin oversaw the creation of the secret police (Cheka) and the Gulag, a vast system of forced labor camps.

Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) took control of the Soviet Union following Lenin’s death in 1924. Building on the ideologies of Marx and Lenin, he formulated Stalinism, which furthered the totalitarian police state, produced rapid industrialization, collectivized agriculture, entrenched a centralized planned economy, and proclaimed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union as the leading state of the world communist revolution.²¹ He enlarged the security forces designed to oppress the peoples within the USSR and maintain his position of power. He also expanded the Gulag system, especially during waves of purges in the 1930s that became known as Stalin’s Great Terror.  Stalin systematically eliminated all enemies, real or imagined, throughout Soviet society. He targeted a specific class of people, the kulaks (slightly wealthier peasant farmers). Stalin compelled 320,000 kulaks to give up their harvests and homes and forced them into forced labor camps.²² Later, between 1937-1938, one in every twenty people in the Soviet Union were arrested and over 1.9 million people were imprisoned in the Gulag.²³ The Great Terror included systematic repression, suppression of any dissent, ethnic cleansing, widescale police surveillance, and purges of government and military officials. The resulting death toll is estimated to be 950,000 to 1.2 million people.²⁴ Stalin’s repression, violence, deprivations, and drive for complete state control of the people led to the deaths of as many as 20 million people.²⁵

Mao Zedong (1893-1976) emerged as a key leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the first stage of the Chinese Civil War in the 1920s and applied and added to Marxism-Leninism.  Following the defeat of the Nationalist government in 1949, Mao established the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a single-party state controlled by the Chinese Communists. Mao’s totalitarian system, much like his Soviet counterparts’, used and relied on repression and violence. His Land Reform Movement witnessed the murder of up to 3 million people.²⁶ The Great Leap Forward program (1958-1961), aimed at making strides in industrialization, resulted in famine that killed between 30 to 43 million people.²⁷ From 1966 to 1976, Mao unleashed the Cultural Revolution in China, a movement which sought to reinforce Maoism by eliminating anything associated with pre-communist culture, capitalism, and any other alleged threat to his rule. This period witnessed a reign of terror and brutality that claimed 1-3 million lives.²⁸ Overall, Mao’s policies and actions resulted in the deaths of between 40 and 80 million people.²⁹

Kim Il Sung (1912-1994), educated and trained by both the CCP and the Soviets, was the first totalitarian ruler of communist North Korea. In 1945, following World War II, the allied powers divided Korea into two states along the 38th parallel. The Soviet Union occupied North Korea and installed a communist government. The Soviets appointed Kim Il Sung as the leader of North Korea through an election engineered by the USSR in 1948. After two years of planning and with direct support from the USSR and soon after, the PRC, Kim initiated the Korean War by invading South Korea in June 1950.³⁰ As U.S. and UN forces drove North Korean forces toward the Yalu River, China grew increasingly concerned that the Kim regime would fall. Mao ordered a massive offensive of over 300,000 Chinese troops in early November 1950 that drove the allied forces south of the 38th parallel, where the battle line would remain for the next three years.³¹ The war to unite Korea under communism resulted in more than 4 million deaths, including roughly 2 million civilians.³² After the war, the North Korean leader was responsible for numerous human rights abuses, including public executions of political opponents and the creation of prison labor camps.³³ Today, the Kim dynasty—now in its third generation—still leads an isolated communist regime in the North known for human rights abuses, famine, poverty, and nuclear brinkmanship.

Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969), a committed Marxist-Leninist educated in Paris and Moscow, led the communist Viet Minh against the French during the First Indochina War (1946-1954), taking control of North Vietnam and establishing a communist government. After the war, Ho executed between 3,000 and 15,000 Vietnamese civilians to solidify his control.³⁴ Ho Chi Minh next sparked the Vietnam War (1955-1975), also known as the Second Indochina War, to expand his communist regime through the whole country. By 1975, between 1-3 million people had lost their lives in the conflict as North Vietnam and its forces, along with support from the PRC and later the Soviet Union, defeated the South Vietnamese and their US and other allies.³⁵ North Vietnam’s military quickly consolidated power and eliminated opposition, executing an estimated 65,000 political prisoners after the fall of Saigon.³⁶ Vietnam’s communist government continues to control the country today.

Pol Pot (1925-1998), a Marxist-Leninist and Maoist ideologue and head of the Khmer Rouge movement, led Cambodia’s communist revolution. Pol Pot planned and carried out the Cambodian Civil War (1967-1975), which left 250,000 Cambodians dead in his pursuit of a communist state.³⁷ Following the Khmer Rouge’s civil war victory in 1975, he carried out the Cambodian Genocide (1975-1979), killing anyone or any group deemed to be anti-communist and a threat to his rule, especially political opponents, intellectuals, and religious leaders. Pol Pot forced urban residents into the jungle, abolished money, religion, and the family, and conducted mass executions.  An induced famine resulted in the deaths of about two million people, approximately a quarter of Cambodia’s 1975 population.³⁸

Fidel Castro (1926-2016), a revolutionary socialist influenced by Marxism-Leninism, failed in his first coup attempt in Cuba in the 1950s. After imprisonment at home and self-exile in Mexico, Castro returned with his Marxist-Leninist comrade Ernesto “Che” Guevara to Cuba in November 1956 to wage guerrilla warfare against the regime of Fulgencio Batista, and in January 1959 to win a violent revolution that would result in thousands of summary executions.³⁹ The communists filled the power vacuum; under Castro, Cuba immediately began limiting freedom of speech and the press and officially became a single-party totalitarian regime in 1965.⁴⁰ Castro executed between 7,000 and 10,000 people and imprisoned another 30,000 citizens who had supported Batista.⁴¹ Castro also punished those who spoke out against the new regime; from 1959 through the 1990s, more than 100,000 Cuban citizens experienced life in a Cuban internment camp, prison, or other facility.⁴² Communist rule, including repression of dissent, free speech, and assembly, continues in Cuba today. Cuba’s prolonged economic depression has forced the communist regime to pursue minor privatization of industry and limited economic reform to preserve their place in power and prevent a total collapse of the economy.