So the Ukraine now lay crushed; its Church destroyed, its intellectuals shot or dying in labour camp, its peasants — the mass of the nation — slaughtered or subdued.
Robert Conquest
In his book, The Harvest of Sorrow, historian Robert Conquest outlined the genocide Moscow’s agents carried out against Ukraine in the 1930s. “It certainly appears that a charge of genocide lies against the Soviet Union for its action in the Ukraine,” wrote Conquest. “But whether these events are to be formally defined as genocide is scarcely the point. It would hardly be denied that a crime has been committed against the Ukrainian nation….” (pp. 272)
And what was that crime, specifically? Conquest offers us the following table (p. 306):
Peasant dead: 1930-37 —11 million
Dying in camps later — 3.5 million
Total —14.5 million
These deaths occurred because of communist social programs having to do with the reorganization of agriculture. The Ukrainian figure of 5 million dead from Stalin’s terror famine amounted to 18.8 percent of the population of Ukraine. By comparison, in World War I less than 1 percent of the populations involved in the war died. Thus, for Ukraine, communism was about twenty times more lethal than World War I. In fact, World War I, as a way of life, is preferable to peace under communism. Conquest then makes a few comments about these death figures:
Let us once more emphasize that the figures we have given are conservative estimates, and quite certainly do not overstate the truth. And if we cannot be more exact, it is because the Soviet regime will not let us. It is not only a matter of Stalin concealing the true facts back in the 1930s.
We owe a number of useful details to honest and courageous Soviet scholars and writers: but, even today, Moscow permits no real investigation of these monstrous events. Which is to say that to this degree the regime remains the accomplice, as well as the heir, of those who fifty years ago sent these innocent millions to their deaths.
Robert Conquest wrote those words in the 1980s. Today Moscow repeats its crime by invading Ukraine, by denying the existence of a Ukrainian nation. Think also of Russia’s accomplices in the West — those monstrous liars and accessories after the fact, who say that Ukraine and NATO are responsible for the war in Ukraine, or say that we must (for our own sake) allow the Ukrainian people to be butchered and oppressed again. It was shameful enough that the world stood by and believed the lies and tolerated Stalin’s genocide against Ukraine. But now, today, it unfolds again! And the dictator in Moscow finds no shortage of apologists and helpers in the West. They misrepresent those, like myself, who think Ukraine should be assisted, by calling us warmongers — as if we are advocating war with Russia. But there is no such advocacy. Ukrainians are already fighting because they have been invaded. It is their war, not ours. But we do have a moral obligation to help them. Furthermore, the evil they are fighting also wants to destroy us.
As Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote in 1849, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” (the more things change, the more they stay the same). Karr also wrote, “Every man has three characters — that which he exhibits, that which he has, and that which he thinks he has.” Of these three characters the third is most dangerous; for there is nothing more dangerous than the falsification of self-knowledge. When we refuse to see evil in the world, it is often because we are incapable of seeing it in ourselves.
For a final insight, we may invert Karr’s aphorism to read, “The world has three faces — that which it appears to be, that which it is, and that which we place upon it.” Shall we put a false face to reality and deny the existence of objective evil? Or will we confront evil and deal with it?
Stalin and Moscow Center wanted to eradicate Ukraine as a nation. This eradication forms the backdrop to the present war in Ukraine. If you want to understand why the Ukrainians are fighting so hard against a country three times their size in population and industry, this is the reason. After outlining Stalin’s attempt to eliminate all Ukrainian literature by killing or exiling all Ukrainian writers, Conquest wrote that “the purge of Ukrainian nationalism was not over, indeed would never be over as far as the Soviet regime was concerned.” (p. 270) And now we see that the purge of Ukrainian nationalism continues today. We might ask in what ways Russia has changed? The goal under Stalin was to eradicate Ukraine. The goal under Putin is the same.
The reason I took up writing about communism, about Russia and China, was the view from my kitchen window (metaphorically). I could see from a comfortable place that terrible crimes were being committed, and that the criminals were never held accountable. NEVER. If we dared to look at the communist bloc, if we dared to peek behind the Iron Curtain, we would find millions of people suffering imprisonment, persecution, even death. Here was real evil that most people did not wish to confront. Why did so many wish to deny or downplay the reality of communist evil? I read the testimonies of gulag prisoners. I read of torture, forced labor and death. I read page after page — sitting in a comfortable house, in a comfortable country, well-fed and free. “Why make yourself upset by reading all that?” someone said to me. “Enjoy your life.”
Is it that easy? Really? — And then I saw communists operating in our universities, deploying the same arrogance in America that killed 14.5 million in Ukraine. Our academic communists have been working to make a Soviet republic out of comfortable people whose chief conceit was, “It can’t happen here.” Yet it can, and it will happen here — in some form or another. And these comfortable people, who were unconcerned about the suffering behind the Iron Curtain, had no sense of where they were headed. Their many compromises with the communists of China and Russia would be their undoing. I was convinced that nothing would get them to change course. They were blind, deaf, and dumb. And they still are.
I remember being criticized by one of my high school students in the 1980s. She said to me, “The problem with you is that you believe in the Devil.” This was rather profound for a fifteen-year-old. She realized that I had seen something evil, and was deeply concerned with it. Like most Americans, and most of her generation, the rule was to SEE NO EVIL. Life is good and one should not waste time by tilting at windmills.
How might I explain the reality of evil, right now, to that fifteen-year old? On July Fourth I went to see the movie Sound of Freedom. It was about battling evil. While the movie is a form of entertainment, the following discussion between Jordon Peterson, Jim Caviezel and Tim Ballard comes very close to explaining what evil is.
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217 responses to “A Question of Evil”
Once again, it’s Bastille Day! And France is still celebrating that date, after meanwhile 234 years, as if a nation was formed at the time rather than destroyed. And it’s the time and place, lest we forget, where everything that haunts us today began…
This was of course the version for soprano, chorus and orchestra of ca. 1830 by Hector Berlioz: Terribleness elevated to the lofty exquisiteness of high art! – Irony of ironies: The first names of Berlioz’ parents were Louis-Joseph and Marie-Antoinette-Joséphine!
Thank you, CO. So enjoyed the Beethoven you posted on the last blog. Beautiful music lifts our spirit and helps us remember the eternal. So needed now in this age of evil.
In my search, I got distracted and ended up with the 3rd and 4th movements of Beethoven’s 5th (which are magnificent anyway), although I had initially been searching for a suitable recording of the elegiac and otherworldly 3rd movement, Adagio molto e cantabile, of his final, 9th Symphony. I meanwhile found an excellent interpretation with the late Günter Wand (1912 – 2002), one of the most underrated conductors ever, and “his” NDR Symphony Orchestra. Light a candle, lean back and enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqMUUX3toy8&pp=ygUOa2VubmVkeSByZXBvcnQ%3D
Yes, credit where credit is due. I am unsure why the Masonic and occultist roots of communism are ignored by most.
Apparently, Hitler & Genossen weren’t the only ones who were steeped in the demonic.
People have been “experimenting” with dangerous ideas for several centuries.
Thank you, Sarah. This is a very interesting video. The primary impetus for communism, of course, is humanity’s inequality of condition. Those who find inequality unfair (in this regard) naturally blame the Creator of the World for making an unfair world. There is, in essence, an anger against God built into this egalitarian worldview. We should not be surprised, then, that Marxism has Satanist corollaries. As a sidenote, Ancient Greece experimented with communism and, in part, ruined themselves with these experiments (which coincided with the breakdown of Greek civilization from the fifth to the second centuries BC). In the modern West, with the French Revolution and the rise of what I call the “New Religion,” there occurred, as Mr. Josh Charles says, an “anti-civilization movement” similar to what happened in ancient Greece. In his book Aeon, the psychologist Carl Jung said this was an Antichrist movement. It promises what Christ promises but delivers the exact opposite. He also said that totalitarian communism was the most effective and destructive iteration of this Antichrist movement (or New Religion). Naturally, this movement continues to shapeshift and adapt to conditions, like a snake that sheds its skin. And as Mr. Kennedy explains in this video, this larger Antichrist movement can be traced back to the Albigensians and to gnosticism. This is a point underscored by political philosopher Eric Voegelin as well.
Another good point brought out in this video: “In communism it is the totalizing state which takes the place of God,” says Mr. Charles. This is exactly right. The New Religion holds that “Nature is sufficient for achieving its own end,” as if a created thing can have “its own ends.” Here is the scientistic aspect of the Antichrist movement. The New Religion suggests, “There is some kind of divinity within you that knowledge will activate” as depicted through the story of eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. The snake tells Eve that eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge (of good and evil) will not kill them, but make them into gods. We now see this playing out, especially under the doctrines of “scientific socialism.” The resulting hubris leads us to the horrors of a mass murdering regime.
All very interesting.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6DLMEuMj-Fo&list=OLAK5uy_m_lKXE7MGxmaIGmnuUGwmTR4vm26gyPJM&index=9&pp=8AUB
Infowars has a different take on the child abuse movie!
https://www.infowars.com/posts/angel-studios-directing-people-to-clinton-podesta-ngos/
Stew Peters is more and more an unreliable voice. He contradicts himself in his monologues. Nothing with him makes sense, and I despair that he will ever make sense of anything.
Stalin ordered transport of grain from Ukraine at that time to purposely cause a famine, it was his work, according to what was privately told to one of the sources at the time living in the Soviet Bloc, and it was published in their then still democratic newspapers, before the country went communist.
Also the recognition of USSR as a legitimate government was illegal and unlawful, because no government authority is granted to criminals, which the bolsheviks have always been.
This was the role of the communists inside the US government even back then, when Roosevelt’s Administration approved it
Ukrainian people are nice people, but their government is and has been in the hands of the communist assets and no free elections exist in those countries, as communists and their assets count the votes, as always. Their controlled opposition is in charge of it all, the openly communist Party members are fully protected and have been so from the so called collapse, the communist fraud. (Sun Tzu, Manuilski).
And in the US – the communist penetration of the US Government is extensive, including the intelligence so called community, and that the last time there was a truly anti-communist American politician was the case of Sen. Joseph McCarthy, before he was murdered (no doubt on Moscow orders). McCarthy didn’t invent anything, he was just good Catholic following what the Catholic Church (that was Pope Pius XII at that time), has always declared as Her condemnation of communism and socialism.
There is no way out of this atheistic evil, as it is the devil himself in charge of these possessed fanatics, it is a truly criminal state run Mafia, nothing less. So what the Russians are doing to Ukraine is evidently a psychological warfare towards the western countries, to show what will come if their communist demands are not met, including (but not limited to) nuclear blackmail. And their controlled opposition in the EU and US etc. Is just playing the Moscow’s game…and the KGB run Kremlin wants to show the “capitalists” in bad light, so that when Moscow finally begin the worldwide communist revolution, it would look like a “legitimate self-defense” – but this is only a speculation, it may not work out this way as the lying communists have still very bad reputation…but they don’t care about this too much, as long as their strategic purpose to conquer the whole world is achieved.
And they know that the western countries are all demoralized and distrustful of their governments, specially now after the poisonous “vaccine” tyranny etc., so that the ordinary citizens are not united in their resolve to defend their still free way of life and their liberties.
God has permitted these evils to befall the mankind because of sin…Job 34 : 30…
There is only one remedy to avert all this, but that belongs to God and His Divine help, otherwise men of their own will not be able to succeed against these communist forces of the devil. The time of the Antichrist is near.
Under US law, even a criminal is innocent until proven guilty in a Court of Law.
When the “court of Law” is infiltrated by communist criminals themselves then there is no more justice left, and this communist criminal Mafia worldwide must NEVER under any circumstances be given any chance to succeed in taking over the state powers, for then they are always used for the communist evil and UNJUST purpose, as the bloody history of communism fully documents.
Moreover, there is no authority granted to the state powers run by subversive communist elements, as this ideological communist goals are destructive of justice and truth, and eliminate in full the essential liberty of conscience, without which the state is no longer free society but full tyranny, and no sound mind would allow himself to collaborate with that evil…only those who love evil, this atheistic communist evil, themselves.
Your assertion is inaccurate on the grounds that communists somehow deserve the benefit of a doubt – and that is absolutely not true – they only deserve true justice because of who they are and for what they stand – worldwide atheistic communism – that alone must be the guiding principle of all freedom loving men, justice served against the communists.
Even if it would mean military court marshal and subsequent executions – upon conviction, there is no other alternative as these fanatics and terrorist communist Mafia will otherwise never quit their plans to take over the whole world.
Tucker questions Republicans about Ukraine war support.
(Best of clips.)
https://www.banned.video/watch?id=64b1d61087699e60aa6f50fa
Tucker is asking the wrong questions. Too bad.
The main irritating thing with Tucker, IMO, is that he’s in love with the sound of his own voice. I don’t think he asks honest questions seeking answers that can be considered objectively. He asks loaded questions, trying to elicit a sort of answer that he has already guessed at, so that he can then shoot it down with more of his endless bloviating.
https://apnews.com/article/ukraine-russia-prisons-civilians-torture-detainees-88b4abf2efbf383272eed9378be13c72
This is a chilling report of Russian brutality and the enslavement of Ukrainians. It reads as if the Soviet gulag had never gone away — and, of course, it did not go away.
I was hoping for the possibility of it being exagerated. But, it aligns with communism’s history and nature.
I’m afraid these reports are true. We have heard of the mass stealing of children — a monstrous practice. This is the Russian state. This is an old and sorry pattern of behavior.
Such evil and tragedy. No wonder Ukranians fight so hard.
In conversations about Stalin’s terror famine, I have had Ukrainians break down into tears over what their grandparent’s generation suffered. The depth of these wounds are profound, and to have this kind of thing repeated, necessarily has a profound effect. I do not think Germans or French, with their moral uncertainty regarding their own respective histories, could muster similar moral conviction for fighting a nuclear superpower. Meanwhile, the Russian people have so acquiesced to brainwashing, to the twisting of their thoughts, that they have gone along with the lies and fantasies of their rulers. So this tragic war finally sets loose a primary moral conflict — between the old lies that hide behind the new lies, and the truth found in the suffering of the Ukrainian people.
Russian KGB and related services (no matter what they call themselves now) have long used the various front covers for their purpose, including establishing NAZI organizations in targeted countries, run by communist agents, to discredit the genuine opposition and to discourage all resistance when communist revolution finally begins – it is a very cunning strategy.
The same applies to what has happened in Ukraine with these so called NAZI outfits that Putin was complaining about, it is the same scenario, same plan. And the communists complaining about the Jews and the CIA, without saying that the “Jewish conspiracy (nonsense)” and the “CIA evils” are deliberate KGB etc. deception operation and nothing less.
(Like the JFK assassination, which for many years was believed to have been executed by CPUSA asset trained by the KGB in Moscow…and all of a sudden we are to believe that the US Government has done so instead…what a convenient assertion…!)
When communist assets complain about the “Jews”, “Freemasons” and the CIA, it is evident that they are just executing their own operation – including psychological and disinformation warfare.
One of the indications that Russian military and anything that pertains to state power is fully controlled by the communists, including GRU and KGB agents, in Ukraine they managed in one (or more) instance to dig a deep ditch in front of the Catholic Church and murder the local civilians and dumped them into that ditch, leaving it partially open with the limbs sticking out of the mud…to demonstrate the horrible picture of their atheistic diabolical hatred for God and His Church, even though what is in Ukraine etc. is no longer the true Catholic Church and the Bergoglio Sect Novus Ordo is communist directorate and nothing less, and he is NOT the Pope as heretics can NEVER assemble in valid Conclave and elect true Pope themselves, as they are automatically excommunicated and have no authority in the Catholic Church whatsoever.
Ukraine is the staging ground for all else which will come afterwards, and so the poor victims are the ordinary people of Ukraine, which is the Russian objective. They want to teach the rest of the world a lesson about Russian communist brutality and Ukraine is the means to do it.
And the KGB propaganda used to blame the “Nazis, CIA and the Jews” for these communist operations is just another proof that these devil’s servants have no other target but to destroy everything good in this world and replace it with their atheistic communist diabolical slavery.
The ONLY thing these criminals understand is force and active resistance, and true justice without hesitation – and all these are missing today in this world, as the nihilistic decadence have replaced this essential characteristic of the truth and justice upholding society as such…which of course is the purpose and strategic goal of the Communists in the first place – to demoralize, the Gramscian plan to deceive and to take possession of the minds of the people by communist deception and indoctrination…and it has worked on those who have sold their soul to the devil and have become his slaves…a fully worldwide occurrence it is.
Jeff, do you think that what you said about Stalin and Bukharin also applies in China ? Did China give too much freedom to its population so that now the CPC can not go back to controlling everything ?
China crushed the democracy movement at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The CCP realized that Glasnost was a dangerous experiment that could go out of control. Deng Xiaoping privately said that Gorbachev “must be an idiot.” The Chinese system was better prepared for economic freedom without democracy. This Revolution was meant to prepare China for economic liberalization while ripping up the Soviet-style economic bureaucracy of the CCP system. The people forced to wear dunce caps were often communist party officials. Mao had reinforced the hold of Marxism over the mind of the youth, knowing that Deng would allow those youth greater economic freedom. Many Chinese who are my age look back on the cult of Mao with religious awe. But their children do not have this regard for Mao built into them. It is thought by some that China is only a few years behind Russia in suffering a crisis. The CCP leaders realize that only a war can fix the consciousness of another generation on the old ideology. This is one of many factors pushing the CCP to war.
Deng was aware of the real motives of Perestroika and Glasnost, the final phase of the long range strategy. He probably had to say that so that Westerners believe in the Sino-Soviet split
Let me offer another view. Deng said Gorbachev was an idiot to his own children, who quoted him later. This was not meant for outside consumption. It was what Deng thought. The Chinese communists were correct in arguing that false liberalization could go too far and trigger genuine liberalization. The Communist Party has to draw a line somewhere. Gorbachev was unable to draw that line. The difference between facade and the reality is unclear because so much of our world is actually based on appearances. In fact, appearances can become reality. At some point deception can be a two-way street, leading to the suicide of the old system. Gorbachev was “an idiot” in Deng’s view because he could not discern that fine line between deceiving the world and deceiving himself.
Thus, the fraud of Soviet liberalizing led to genuine liberalization, so that some countries were lost in the process. The Kremlin strategists and top KGB officials ultimately realized that the process had gone awry, that real setbacks had occurred; yet they believed their opening to the West would bring Moscow’s agents to power in key countries, like Germany and the United Stats. As long as the USSR could be reestablished later, the damage to the West would be worth the damage done to the Soviet system. But this may have been a miscalculation, as we see Russia’s current problems in Ukraine today. Communism’s agents in the West are not rushing to rescue Moscow. This is the most interesting fact of the present crisis. Russia’s agents in Germany and America have either betrayed Moscow, or are too timid to act decisively in Moscow’s favor. Biden is, indeed, dragging his feet with regard to military assistance for Ukraine. Why? Because he is Moscow’s agent, yet he is limited by the general sympathy that is felt for Ukraine. Andrei Illarionov has noted that the $48 billion in military aid authorized by Congress, Biden has only sent $17 billion. Biden thinks Moscow should be grateful, but Moscow is not feeling any gratitude.
So you see, the Deng may have been right to say Gorbachev was “an idiot.” Politics is not so simple as, “We fooled everyone.” The problem might be that you fooled yourself by giving too much freedom to people who ran with it.
Apparently Wagner fighters are training troops from Belarus.
“This was reported in the Ministry of Defense of Belarus.”
https://twitter.com/SpriterTeam/status/1679841326513242112
It’s also being reported that Russian troops are withdrawing from Belarus. We heard a few days ago they were withdrawing from Zaporizhzhia, so it makes me wonder what is going on?
I’m curious about that angle myself. From all appearances Wagner in general was the most effective, from Russia’s point of view, combat force arrayed against Ukraine. It seems a bit odd to me that Russia would pull their most effective fighters from the front and use them as training cadre for people who aren’t even actively involved in the war as far as we know. Maybe this is a prelude to a serious commitment by Belarus, using their troops to help the Russians more actively, actually on the front lines in Ukraine? Maybe the leadership of Belarus is deluded enough and beholden enough to Moscow that they’ve agreed to some aggressive action against the Baltic States? Lots of possibilities here.
Forgive my skepticism regarding Wagner’s effectiveness. These units are composed, in part, of criminals who were released from prison on the condition that they serve. They are therefore likely to be risk-takers, and more willing to attack, and more likely to take losses. This does not make them better troops. If they were so effective, why was Prigozhin always demanding more artillery support. Gen. Ivan Popov was arguing for more artillery support for his 58th Army before they sacked him. All infantry is more effective when given more artillery support. That is in the nature of modern warfare. From military maps I have reviewed, Wagner units consist of rifle battalions. I doubt they these formations are more effective than guards tanks formations, or guards mechanized infantry. If Wagner is going to Belarus, it may be to help Lukashenko and solidify Kremlin control of that country.
Jeff, I think your last sentence is the real reason why Wagner would be “exiled” to Belarus.
Thanks Jeff for talking about moral conviction. That is what you are all about.
The common Ukrainians show that every day. They are amazing!
Kevin Taylor