Sixty-two years ago, author and ex-communist Howard Fast wrote that he had "only one important task in front of [him] to define this thing, to explain it, to picture this unholy god in his own frightful nakedness; so that if there is another generation in [his] land that must face the agony of [his] generation, they will never see this avenue as a road to any future that man should face without loathing." His 1957 book titled The Naked God: The Writer and the Communist Party was Fast's coming "to grips with the "hollow, rigid, 'political' incantations of the movement's cultural high priests."  It is a book that "explains, in terms of specific instances, the whys and wherefores of total commitment to a false ideal."

This unholy god was communism, and it is with great alarm and fear that we must, yet again, teach Americans of the evil inherent in socialism which is always the first step to communism.  With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hypnotizing impressionable and miseducated millennials we are headed toward a tattered future.

Howard Fast was devoted to communism but eventually realized that it needed to be exposed so that its tenets would wither and die. He wrote that "an idea must be bent over the anvil of truth to see if it can survive some strong blows."  As an important literary figure in the Communist Party, Howard Fast's defection was a shock.  He had spent thirteen years as a devotee to Communism until Nikita Khrushchev's "secret report" finally revealed the "terror, the fear, the hollow pretenses, the bestiality, [and] the inhumanity that characterized the leadership." 

Khrushchev "exposed the mechanism of terror and the system of arbitrary rule that had dominated the country for thirty years.  He deployed dozens of documents and a wealth of detail to reveal the brutal character of the terror.  The document catalogued the assassinations, the lawless mass deportations of non-Russian peoples, and the methodical falsification of history written by Stalin himself."  Khrushchev revealed that "Stalin was a bloodthirsty criminal responsible for systematic physical and psychological terror." 

How do we wake up a generation that cannot even identify New York and Ohio on a U.S. map?  How do we expose Ocasio-Cortez, a recipient of a college degree, who does not even know the three branches of government?  It is terrifying that she is embraced by many young people who certainly have never heard of Stalin, let alone his heinous crimes.

Nomenclature is vital and Emina Melonic has written in "Collectivism and Contradiction," that "the phenomenon of collectivism is nothing new.  Collectivism does the most damage to the order of things when it becomes a political reality, such as… with national Socialism and Communism.  Both ideologies not only contributed to the erosion of the society that values ethics but its proponents committed mass murder and genocide -- all in the name of a collectivist unit that was supposedly meant to bring people together."  In fact, "[c]ollectivism has an entirely different form in our present time; it is insidious because it revels in the ambiguity of concepts. Without a doubt, people have a desire to be part of a larger reality and sometimes this desire is born out of good intentions. But the failure of such naïve people lies in an inability to see the difference between a collective and a community. The intellectual and societal neglect of this rather large and important distinction has created a totalitarian monster originating mostly from a mutated version of Marxism and the newly formed globalist ideology. Today, 'conquering the world' means eradicating the society which values both the good and the beautiful under the guise of compassion, care, and a so-called 'one-world togetherness.'"

Thus, the left "has created a society that promotes diversity as long as that diversity fits into a particular ideological category which makes a distinction between 'us' and 'them.'" Hence, "an individual has no capability to make his own decisions and choices because that requires targeted and precise deliberation. The only choice... such an individual can make is to cease having control over his own decisions."

As Investor's Business Daily highlights, "students today are relentlessly drilled with a progressive catechism of guilt over America's long-admitted shortcomings and history.  The result is a generation raised on moral equivalency, diversity and a jaundiced view of their nation's own past."  It is no wonder that "such anti-Americanism and socialist ideas go hand in hand."

What Howard Fast discovered in 1957 has never been taught to the latest generation of young people.  Yet, it "is a cold, hard and disturbing fact that, during the 20th century, socialist regimes -- also called 'communist' and 'Marxist' and 'People's Republic' regimes -- have been responsible for the intentional or negligent murder of more than 100 million people."  It is vital to remember that "socialism, communism, and Marxism, [are] all variants of the same disease."  They are all false ideologies which bring suffering.

Apart from the degradation of the spirit and the eventual loss in life, socialism costs a great deal of money. For example, "Sen. Warren's blue print for democratic socialism would cost the U.S. $42 trillion, requiring tax rates on everyone of 60% or higher."  Moreover, under Ocasio-Cortez’s New Green Deal "the United States of America would certainly collapse. On the left, 'from each' comes first, and the deal takes away the people’s mobility. 'To each' comes last, and the people get only the health care the government wants them to have. Promoters such as Kamala Harris don’t even bother to lie about it."  Moreover, "other deprivations would be sure to follow, as they did in the USSR, China, Cuba, and most recently Venezuela. The Green New Deal, in effect, is the Democrats’ version of the Khmer Rouge’s 'Year Zero,' a suicide note for the freest, most prosperous nation in human history."

When Howard Fast completed reading the secret report "something broke inside of [him].  He explained that "the edifice that [he] had become a part of… came crumbling down in ashes -- ashes of grief, horror and helplessness."  He "wrote that it was 'some small comfort' that, until recently, he was ignorant of the facts in Khrushchev’s report. He knew that Jewish culture was being systematically destroyed, that writers, artists and scientists were intimidated [.] But all these things, he rationalized, were 'a necessity of socialism'".

As Philip Deery explains, "Fast's Jewishness caused problems within the Party which sought to expel him because of his 'Jewish nationalist point of view.'" Yet, the information over the treatment of Soviet Jews stretched back to 1949.  Fast was presented with compelling evidence of anti-Semitic practices (arrests, executions, closure of Jewish newspapers, magazines, printing presses and schools) in the Soviet Union.

Nonetheless, it took eight years for the scales to fall from his eyes. He stated that "...such blind faith was finished. Never again can I accept as a just practice under socialism that which I know to be unjust... Never again will I remain silent when I can recognize injustice -- regardless of how that injustice may be wrapped in the dirty linen of expediency or necessity. Never again will I fail to question, to demand proof. Never again will I accept the ‘clever’ rationale, which appears to make sense but under scrutiny does not."

The present-day resurgence of anti-Semitism among the Democratic Party and the British Labour party is sad but predictable.  In fact, "Marxism and Nazism are political twins, offshoots of totalitarian socialism." In January 1953, Peter Meyer wrote in Commentary magazine that "Stalin is mobilizing anti-Jewish hatred and wooing anti-Semitic allies with the same purpose in mind that Hitler had.  The free peoples should have learned their lesson by now." Yet 66 years later, have we?

It is no surprise that "[t]he only real opponent of fascism has been conservatism, which champions small government, free markets, Judeo-Christian civilization and individual rights" all of which are an anathema to those espousing socialism in America today.  But it boggles the mind that socialism still garners support among American Jews today. When will they learn?

Anyone who has, for example, studied Castro's Socialism is acutely aware that this "Communist monster brought death to everything his socialist reign of terror touched."  In fact, "Castro made a mockery of human rights.  His minions murdered children and the left cheered.  It locked up black people and gays."  Bernie Sanders extols Cuban medicine but this "is one of the left’s obsessions because it proves that tyranny and slavery in the service of progressive goals works. Cuban doctors are slaves and not only does the left know it, it supports and defends it."  The ignorant Ocasio-Cortez nonchalantly maintains that her version of socialism will never resemble Venezuelan socialism that currently sees Venezuelans eating from garbage cans and doing everything they can to leave their homeland.

No matter what label you use, socialism is death.  It cannot be allowed to metastasize in America.

Eileen can be reached at middlemarch18@gmail.com