Contents

Overcoming the Crisis of Socialism
by The Communist Party of Brazil

Cultural Marxism
by William S. Lind

The National Council of Churches Speaks
by Mark D. Tooley

Glorification of a Tyrant
by Kathryn Jean Lopez

Red China on the March
by Steven W. Mosher

Overcoming the Crisis of Socialism
by The Communist Party of Brazil

Editor Note: The following address was given to the 14th annual International Communist Seminar in Brussels, May 2-4, 2005 by a spokesperson of the Brazilian Communist Party. Though the translation is rough in places the overall message is clearly discernable. The document was sent to us by an expert on Communist activities throughout the world and for that we are grateful. The Spanish was translated by Doug Peters of Colorado Springs.

Contribution to the XIV International Communist Seminar, “Internationalist Experiences and Tasks of Communists in the Struggle against Imperialism”
Brussels, May 2-4, 2005, www.wpb.be/icm.htm, wpb@wpb.be, Communist Party of Brazil

Esteemed Comrades,

It is with a sense of satisfaction as well as international and anti-imperial [anti-U.S.A.] cooperation that the Communist Party of Brazil participates once again in the XIV Annual International Communist Seminar.
We offer solidarity to the Workers Party of Belgium, praising your efforts for such international cooperation and carrying out all these years these timely debates.

Comrades and friends,

In South America we see a new political moment of resistance to North American imperialism. This new reality is a direct product of the fatigue and dismantling of the Neo-liberal [anti-socialist] model, which encourages our struggle of resistance in the political, economic and social spheres.

On the political level, the patriotic and progressive forces of the left, reunited in a wide front, have assumed the national governments in Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina and more recently in Uruguay. In other parts, victories of the democratic [pro-Communist] forces at the local level or advances in the conformation of political fronts strengthen a generally positive picture of resistance. In the same way it is necessary to highlight, as a telling factor in the regional political picture, the fact that the people in the streets overthrew nine corrupt presidents or Neo-liberals in the last 13 years. Ecuador was the last just a few days ago. Very soon now, the presidential elections will be held in Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador and lastly in Brazil. At that point we will be able to confirm these general tendencies to the left.

Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela since 1998, has taken steps that show the way to economic change, a possibility open by external factors, such as the fact that the price of petroleum reached a historic high. After its bankruptcy in 2001 by the Neo-liberals, Argentina was forced to renegotiate its exterior debt, and obtained success in reducing it to little more than $40 billion U.S. dollars. In general, we can affirm that in the entire region, the struggle between the old and the new, between Neo-liberalism and its antithesis [socialism], is being developed ardently at this historic moment.

In Brazil, we will complete in a few weeks two and one half years of government under Lula. The victory of Lula was of great significance for our country, with repercussions in the entire world. A progressive [Communist] government in Brazil makes it possible for the country to move toward economic and social progress. That creates conditions more favorable in the development of the struggle of the Brazilian people with a socialistic meaning that can have strategic repercussions in the display of forces in the world. Since Brazil is a great country in terms of territories and population, endowed with great natural resources, it is projected to become a world power within 20 to 30 years. Therefore, a perpetual experience of an advanced government, post Neo-liberal, can be an important contribution to our country for humanity, for the building of a future of peace and development. Because of the complexity of the task, we understand that the complete overcoming of Neo-liberalism in our country is a task of overthrowing capitalism.

For the past two and one half years, the Lula government has made some important advances. In the foreign affairs arena, Brazil has made some commitments in defense of a multipolar world, and thus, in direct opposition to the unilateralism of Bush, the war and the occupation of Iraq.

Brazil is looking for ways to raise up a contemporary Alliance of the South, between the developing countries, whose most recent example will be realized in Brasilia on May 8, [2005]. At this Summit the heads of State of the Arabic Countries and of South America will attend. Other advanced fronts of action refer to the struggle for balanced commercial relations between the rich countries and the developing countries, resulting in the creation of G-20 in the World Organization of Commerce, partially balancing the correlation of forces in this field.

On the domestic front, we live in a moment of intense democracy in which, the government of Lula is looking to rebuild the national State, replacing the Neo-liberal period, and furthering the promotional instruments of economic development. Recently, the agreement with the International Monetary Fund was renewed, freeing the country of this unfortunate guardianship.

Even then, the economic policy is to overcome the former Neo-liberal model that in general was maintained. Part of this problem refers to the insufficient conviction of the major forces of government that changes in the economic policy are the basis for substantial advances in the transition of the model. It is also limited by the intense pressures of the dominant class against the government. In this way the government of Lula can be characterized as a dual government.

In the present correlation of political forces, we believe the government of Lula will fail to bring about any further transition to a much higher Neo-liberalism. The Communist Party of Brazil participates in the government and seeks to unite the broad majority of the Brazilian people and the democratic and patriotic political forces to support economic changes.

In October we will hold our 11th Congress, which means a deep debate of tactics and strategy, above all finding our own way to bring about the overthrow of Neo-liberalism in our country. The object is to make a way for the advancement of a strong Communist Party, adequate for the demands of our time.

Comrades,

The debate at the present annual Seminar of Brussels, about “Internationalist Experiences and Tasks of Communists in the Struggle against Imperialism,” is a timely debate in historic times.

In this beginning of the XXI Century, the dominant ideas in the world are conservative, reactionary and counter-revolutionary. Their hegemony is a direct product of the overthrow of the socialist camp and of the installation of the crisis of socialism that generated confusion and dispersion between the most advanced forces, including the Communists.

Since 2000, the world observed the climb to power of the fragment most reactionary of the North American bourgeoisie that looks to reverse the growing tendency long term, of the political, economical, military and cultural power in the world. Their object is to perpetuate or, at least, postpone as long as possible, the disposition of the actual unipolar world order, deeply unfavorable to the interests of the people. The lamentable re-election of George Bush in 2004 should aggravate this aggressive tendency.

This reality requires of the Communists a repeated sensible tactic, more adequate for the demands of the time. This is not just about the Communists and the revolutionary forces facing this enemy with strength, but it has to do with a united front, together with the heterogeneous patriotic, democratic and anti-imperialist sectors.

In this sense, with distinct blending, but endowed with common general objectives, there are a number of diverse experiences in recent days that seek to reunite the Communists more firmly, or the progressive forces, in the broad initiatives of debating common experiences in the struggle against the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist forces including also alternatives to Neo-liberalism. Among these activities we highlight the following initiatives:

This International Communist Seminar, a rich and long-lasting experience in its 14th Annual gathering; the International Gathering of Communist Parties and workers organized annually since 1998 in Athens, by the Communist Party of Greece. This year it will hold its 8th conference. In the 2004 Conference, it was decided to work toward the proposal of internationalization by the Parties; in Latin America, the Gathering of the Forum of Sao Paulo, whose next meeting will be held in Brazil this coming July; The diverse meetings of the Partisan Press, particularly in Europe, that meet annually with diverse Parties in important debates; different international seminars and sporadic meetings by diverse parties, for example the International Seminar that the Communist Party of Brazil organized in 2003; The Seminar “The Parties and the New Society”, was promoted by the PT of Mexico, which this year had their 9th annual conference; the meeting promoted in Cuba “About the Globalization and the Problems of Development,” that this year held its 7th annual gathering, and the 4th Annual meeting against the ALCA that was just held; and finally, the Seminars of the Communist Parties of Latin America and Europe, whose 4th annual gathering we sponsored this past January in our country.

We consider this past meeting a very fruitful experience. As well as this year’s meeting in Porto Alegre, and the three previous ones (Santiago – 2004; Buenos Aires – 2003 and Montevideo – 2002). They were characterized by debates of the highest level politically and ideologically about important up-to-date themes as well as informative presentations regarding the national reality of each country, in a rich interchange about the tactics and strategies of each party present.

Participants of this 11th Initiative were Communist parties of South America, also the Communist Party of Cuba and 5 Communist parties of Europe (Spain, Portugal, Greece, France and Italy). The conference this year debated the theme “The Current Processes of Integration in Latin America, Continent in Transformation, in Europe and Between the Two Regions”. The 2006 gathering of the Seminar will be held in January next year in Caracas, Venezuela, at the same time as the 11th Social Forum of the Americas.

Comrades,

Marxism-Leninism suffered great setbacks during the period of 1989-1991. But we must consider the fact that in general, the deep and incurable ideological divisions of other periods have cooled and new forms of cooperation and interchange have surfaced.

As we have highlighted, the recent experiences show that the seminars and debates centered on up-to-date themes and theories designed for the Communists and the most advanced forces in the most appropriate form, with a greater flexibility of cooperation among Communists, is a picture of the times in which we live.

To advance as groups toward a more rigid form would be a mistake and a precipitation, because of the diversity of each country, its historical-social makeup and the path of life of our parties is so accented that whatever pretense is given to frame these factors into an organic form will result in something less than desired.

In our opinion, the relationships between the Communist parties should happen because of mutual interest and respect, of each of these completely autonomous and independent political groups, in a relationship of equality and non-interference in the internal affairs of each one. In our present time our differences must not become obstacles for an intense cooperation; we must value the points of unity and convergence and not be divided. The goal of consensus must come through maturity and debate, but not through a desire to impose our points of view on the others. It is in the bilateral and multilateral relationships that we can study and learn from what appears to be positive in these contrary experiences.

Moreover, our present times require an open mentality in the relationships of the Communist parties, because the reality doesn’t permit the rigid classification of ideologies and statistics of other parties which can easily slip on the sterile or childlike sectarianism—inappropriate historically and in our present day.

In the same form that we have established bilateral or multilateral relationships based on mutual interests, it is up to each party, out of your own experiences, to define your ideology and not allow any foreign party “to judge” the correctness of this position.

The Communist Party of Brazil desires to relate with all the Communist parties, revolutionaries, patriots and anti-imperialists, without exclusion and defending the cooperation between Communists, which should intensify as a requirement of our times. We believe that the aspects of collaboration are one of the most contemporary forms of productive cooperation. Moreover, it is important that our cooperation transcends the practical aspects of our political and social struggles, in particular the struggles of the masses that have anti-imperialist feelings. For example, the struggles against the war and for peace. Another recent example of extremely positive coordination of positions between the Communist parties, in practical terms, was the success of the activities of the 5th World Social Forum last January.

With this, I would like to mention another outstanding form of cooperation among the Communists and their allies, in the scope of the anti-imperialist struggles of masses, in a united front; addresses the growing coordination of the struggles between the diverse social movements brought out by the World Social Forum. The fantastic mobilizations against the war in 2003 and 2004 for example, came out of the coordination of efforts of the social movements. Moreover, the World Social Forum took a more plural ideological space, where the Communists of the entire world amplified their voice and presence. It is a fact that the general feelings of the World Social Forum are affirmed as anti-imperialist and anti-capitalist, which makes this a phenomenally positive event in our time and an outstanding time of ideological debate.

In the 2005 gathering of the World Social Forum, in which many of you were present, there was a growing presence of the Communists and their revolutionary allies. This resulted in two great activities. The most important was the gathering of those against the war to discuss the struggle for peace and their opposition of imperialism. Under the leadership of Cebrapaz (acronym for Brazilian Center for Solidarity of the Peoples and Struggles for Peace) and the World Counsel on Peace, with the support of nearly 40 entities that are fighting for world peace, this was one of the high points of the forum held in Porto Alegre.

The second great event gathered more than 30 Communist parties in the World Social Forum, by way of its institutions and theoretical magazines and the coordination of the Maurice Grabois Institute, tied to the Communist Party of Brazil, to discuss the various aspects on the struggle for socialism today. Coordinated on a worldwide level for a period of 6 months, these two activities are important examples of how we can advance by cooperating among our parties around concrete projects and struggles.

In the area of social struggle, we highlight the reemerging of the organization of the masses on a worldwide level: the World Federate Syndicate, the World Federation of Democratic Youth, the International Democratic Federation of Women and the World Counsel on Peace. All of these, at various levels, have restructured and adapted to the new reality resulting in a new thrust of activities. Here again is another important example of mutual cooperation between the Communists and various groups.

Comrades,

Finally, it is at the borders of each country where the struggle is developing for sovereignty, for democracy, for social rights, and in a word—for socialism. The concept of globalization reaffirms the centrality of the national question of each country, at the same time it strengthens the need for cooperation and interchange between the Communists and the advanced forces. It is in this way that the Communist Party of Brazil, a poor party, belonging to the working class, dialectically patriotic and internationalist understand the present situation in which we live. We repeat our gratitude to the Workers Party of Belgium for their efforts in making this important annual seminar happen. This is fundamental to the identification of the convergence of the struggle to overcome the crisis of socialism.

Cultural Marxism
by William S. Lind

Cultural Marxism is a branch of western Marxism, different from the Marxism-Leninism of the old Soviet Union. It is commonly known as “Multiculturalism” or, less formally, Political Correctness. From its beginning, the promoters of cultural Marxism have known they could be more effective if they concealed the Marxist nature of their work, hence the use of the terms such as “multiculturalism.”

Cultural Marxism began not in the 1960s but in 1919, immediately after World War I. Marxist theory had predicted that in the event of a big European war, the working class all over Europe would rise up to overthrow capitalism and create communism. But when war came in 1914, that did not happen. When it finally did happen in Russia in 1917, workers in other European countries did not support it. What had gone wrong?

Independently, two Marxist theorists, Antonio Gramsci in Italy and Georg Lukacs in Hungary, came to the same answer: Western culture and the Christian religion had so blinded the working class to its true, Marxist class interest that Communism was impossible in the West until both could be destroyed. In 1919, Lukacs asked, “Who will save us from Western civilization?” That same year, when he became Deputy Commissar for Culture in the short-lived Bolshevik Bela Kun government in Hungary, one of Lukacs’s first acts was to introduce sex education into Hungary’s public schools. He knew that if he could destroy the West’s traditional sexual morals, he would have taken a giant step toward destroying Western culture itself.

In 1923, inspired in part by Lukacs, a group of German Marxists established a think tank at Frankfurt University in Germany called the Institute for Social Research. This institute, soon known simply as the Frankfurt School, would become the creator of cultural Marxism.

To translate Marxism from economic into cultural terms, the members of the Frankfurt School—Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Wilhelm Reich, Eric Fromm and Herbert Marcuse, to name the most important—had to contradict Marx on several points. They argued that culture was not just part of what Marx had called society’s “superstructure,” but an independent and very important variable. They also said that the working class would not lead a Marxist revolution, because it was becoming part of the middle class, the hated bourgeoisie.

Who would? In the 1950s, Marcuse answered the question: a coalition of blacks, students, feminist women and homosexuals.

Fatefully for America, when Hitler came to power in Germany in 1933, the Frankfurt School fled—and reestablished itself in New York City. There, it shifted its focus from destroying traditional Western culture in Germany to destroying it in the United States. To do so, it invented “Critical Theory.” What is the theory? To criticize every traditional institution, starting with the family, brutally and unremittingly, in order to bring them down. It wrote a series of “studies in prejudice,” which said that anyone who believes in traditional Western culture is prejudiced, a “racist” or “sexist” or “fascist”—and is also mentally ill.

Most importantly, the Frankfurt School crossed Marx with Freud, taking from psychology the technique of psychological conditioning. Today, when the cultural Marxists want to do something like “normalize” homosexuality, they do not argue the point philosophically. They just beam television show after television show into every American home where the only normal-seeming white male is a homosexual (the Frankfurt School’s key people spent the war years in Hollywood).

After World War II ended, most members of the Frankfurt School went back to Germany. But Herbert Marcuse stayed in America. He took the highly abstract works of other Frankfurt School members and repackaged them in ways college students could read and understand. In his book “Eros and Civilization,” he argued that by freeing sex from any restraints, we could elevate the pleasure principle over the reality principle and create a society with no work, only play (Marcuse coined the phrase, “Make love, not war”). Marcuse also argued for what he called “liberating tolerance,” which he defined as tolerance for all ideas coming from the Left and intolerance for any ideas coming from the Right. In the 1960s, Marcuse became the chief “guru” of the New Left, and he injected the cultural Marxism of the Frankfurt School into the baby boom generation, to the point where it is now America’s state ideology.

The next conservatism should unmask multiculturalism and Political Correctness and tell the American people what they really are: cultural Marxism. Its goal remains what Lukacs and Gramsci set in 1919: destroying Western culture and the Christian religion.

It has already made vast strides toward that goal. But if the average American found out that Political Correctness is a form of Marxism, different from the Marxism of the Soviet Union but Marxism nonetheless, it would be in trouble. The next conservatism needs to reveal the man behind the curtain—old Karl Marx himself.

Lind is the Director for The Center for Cultural Conservatism of the Free Congress Foundation.

The National Council of Churches Speaks
by Mark D. Tooley

The political action arm of the left-leaning National Council of Churches (NCC) was not very hopeful that President Bush would embrace its own themes in the State of the Union address. So before any details leaked out about his message, it issued its own “faithful” version of what a State of the Union address should be. Call it pre-emptive leftism.

Naturally, the NCC warned against the supposed theocratic ambitions of religious conservatives. Instead, it is promoting its own theocracy of the Left, in which worship is aimed at the welfare state, the Planet Earth, and multicultural understanding.

The NCC’s “Faithful America” project starts its fantasy speech in an exalted tone, such as most presidents of either party would employ. It speaks of how “the United States of America has grown from a band of fledgling colonies to one of the grandest nations in the history of the world,” thanks to “the wisdom of its founders, its constitution, and, at a few pivotal times, its elected leaders.”

The NCC quotes the Hebrew prophet Micah’s injunction to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God.” The council later expands on the theme of humility, insisting awkwardly, “It is only through dialogue, the free expression of ideas, and respect for all points of view that justice can reach its full height.” The NCC wants to see that “everyone has a voice around the national table.”

But, apparently, some voices are more equal than others at the NCC’s table. The council’s “State of the Union” quickly descends into a fierce polemic against conservatives, “fundamentalist” Christians, and Republicans. According to the “Faithful America” project, the state of the union is “troubled indeed,” thanks to “ultra-conservative judges sympathetic to [a] fundamentalist agenda,” routine use of torture by the United States against detainees in the war on terror, a “cruel and reckless” Republican-controlled Congress, an “out-of-control war machine,” an “immoral” war in Iraq, and gutted environmental standards that are “killing the earth.”

The nation faces “ruination,” the NCC warns prophetically—unless the nation takes a sharp turn to the Left.
Although comprised of 35 mainstream Protestant and Orthodox denominations, the NCC is staffed by liberal activists in New York who long ago set aside genuine Christian ecumenism in favor of radical political action. Thanks to current general secretary, former Democratic Congressman Bob Edgar, the NCC has prioritized its political advocacy.

“It’s going to inspire some people and anger others – we’re not mincing our words here,” admits “Faithful America” director Vince Isner about the NCC’s version of the State of the Union. “But our hope is that people of faith and conscience will begin talking seriously about their role in shaping a more perfect union.”

That NCC activism is increasingly funded by such left-wing philanthropies as the Ford Foundation, George Soros’ Open Society Institute, Ted Turner’s UN Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the National Education Association, the Sierra Club, the AARP, and such luminaries as Ben Cohen (of ice cream fame), folk-singer Peter Yarrow, and actress Vanessa Redgrave.

The NCC now gets more funding from left-wing philanthropies than from its member churches. This monetary infusion has rescued the NCC from financial collapse, but it has also enhanced the tensions between the NCC’s traditional religious constituency and the confrontational leftist style that the NCC staff and leadership prefer. The Antiochian Orthodox Church withdrew from the NCC last year over the council’s leftward tilt. And even the leftist-led mainline Protestants continue to give the NCC less and less funding.

At the NCC’s General Assembly in November, delegates from many denominations grumbled about the NCC staff’s political priorities and lack of accountability. Some Orthodox delegates privately speculated that Bob Edgar would soon depart.

But the NCC State of the Union fearlessly insists the council will not temper its hard-edged political message. Aside from the few references to Micah, Jesus Christ, and “Native American Tradition,” the diatribe could have come from MoveOn.org.

Few of us would dare approach the Supreme Court and openly declare, “My views are better, truer, and more important, than theirs and therefore you should interpret the law in light of me,”’ the NCC observes of conservatives hoping for judicial restraint from the courts. These advocates of judicial restraint are tools of “well-funded and organized Christian fundamentalist groups” hoping to foist their “Christian fundamentalism” on the nation through the courts, the NCC speech alleges.

Of course, the NCC seems unaware that it is attempting to foist its own narrow religious understanding on the nation. Based on a few out-of-context scriptural references to “justice,” the religious Left insists that God wants an expanded federal welfare state, the U.S. out of Iraq, and ratification of the Kyoto Global Climate Accords.

The NCC is also distressed about torture—not as practiced by North Korea or Saudi Arabia, but by the U.S. naturally. “The world has been shocked and outraged by the revelation that the U.S. has engaged, and perhaps continues to engage in torture of its detainees,” the NCC opines. “Yet using 9/11, the White House has tragically adopted a policy that bears little resemblance to the example of Christ.”

Indeed, President Bush has “declared himself above the law in matters of torture,” the NCC insists, charging that the United States is “outsourcing” its torture to other nations. But the council does not name those regimes, nor would it ever criticize them directly. Ever multiculturally sensitive, the NCC almost never criticizes Islamic governments. In fact, it rarely criticizes any nation except for Israel and the United States.

Among its domestic State of the Union concerns, the NCC excoriates Congress’s “cruel and reckless decision to cut billions from aid programs.” It is referring to the reduction in the rate of increase in domestic spending from 39 percent over the next five years to 38 percent. Even the NCC admits that this shift in spending is “tiny,” but insists more children will be “frozen into lives of poverty” and more seniors will “suffer and die for lack of medical care.”

This latest congressional budget is one of the “most immoral budgets in American history,” the NCC declaims melodramatically, without acknowledging the enormous increases in social welfare spending under the current administration.

If we say we care about the hungry but feast on corporate greed—if we say we love peace but kneel at the altar of an out of control ware machine—if we cherish our children but steal their very futures through our own reckless spending—then all the excuses in the world cannot mask our true intentions,” the NCC asserts, without nuance.

Not surprisingly, the NCC similarly lacks nuance in its Iraq perspective. The war there is “unjust, unnecessary, and immoral,” as well as an “arrogant first strike” and the “most successful terrorist recruiting campaign ever.” This war has shown that all the “firepower on earth cannot atone for moral weakness.”

Hinting at its own pacifist inclinations, the NCC asks, “Can there truly be a moral justification for war as a way of settling differences between members of the human family?”

Hurting people is bad enough, from the NCC perspective. But harming “the planet” is criminal indeed. The Bush Administration “refuses to acknowledge U.S. responsibility” to halt weather patterns that are “killing the earth,” according to the council. Among Bush’s other outrages, he has refused to sign the Kyoto treaty and has been “gutting” environmental standards for power plants.

The NCC State of the Union diatribe, unhinged from most traditional Christian teaching, and relying almost entirely on clichés of the secular left, is an accurate reflection of the left-wing philanthropies who fund the council rather than the churches who still belong to it.

It is an arrogant dinner guest who seizes the conversation and shouts his proclamation so loudly that nobody else can speak,” the NCC complains of the Christian “fundamentalists” whose influence it seeks to counteract. But unlike conservative religionists, the NCC’s politics of the left have little following among American churchgoers. The NCC is shouting quite loudly itself. But who is listening?”

—FrontPageMagazine.com February 1, 2006

Glorification of a Tyrant
by Kathryn Jean Lopez

Is a Che T-shirt on the Christmas wish list of someone you love? If you love truth, justice and basic human rights don’t fulfill that request. Give your loved one a quick history lesson instead.

It might not sound familiar, but you’ve probably seen it. Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara is probably at your local mall, his mug likely on a T-shirt—an idiotic fashion statement.

According to the founder of a company that sells Che products: “Che’s image has a rock ‘n’ roll edge to it that we’re looking for.” Che is chic for the sophisticated baby—actresses Jennifer Connelly and Kate Hudson reportedly dress their little ones in Guevara. One mom whose son wears Che told the New York Observer that 1-in-10 kids in her New York City neighborhood probably own a Che shirt. “Some people probably think it’s an icon of what’s cool.”

Quick quiz for Jennifer, Kate and other Che customers: Who said this? “Hatred as an element of struggle; unbending hatred for the enemy, which pushes a human being beyond his natural limitations, making him into an effective, violent, selective and coldblooded killing machine. This is what our soldiers must become...” Can you say, El Che?

The henchman of Fidel Castro’s “Cuban Revolution,” is a romantic cult hero once described by the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sarte as “not only an intellectual, but also the most complete human being of our age.” In a just world, however, a complete Che Guevara portrait would include an executioner’s soundtrack. As a biographer wrote: “Che, as supreme prosecutor, took to his task with a singular determination, and the old walls of the fort rang out nightly with the fusillades of the firing squads.”

Instead, we are gagged with Che, the young, handsome doctor, whose only fault seems to be having been born with asthma. Che was killed 38 years ago and, in death, his history has been turned into a myth that culminated in the 2004 “Motorcycle Diaries,” executive-produced by Robert Redford.

The movie was an ode to the young Che’s South American journeys as a 20-something idealist. Never mind who he was to become. Writer Anthony Daniels has noted, “It is as if someone were to make a film about Adolf Hitler by portraying him as a vegetarian who loved animals and was against unemployment. This would be true, but...rather beside the point.”

Che Guevara attracts the same undeserved hero worship as “Uncle Fidel” Castro, whom Hollywood also adores. The cult of Che only promises to grow when Oscar-winner Benicio del Toro plays him in an upcoming Steven Soderbergh movie, set to start filming in the new year.

Unfortunately, Che chic isn’t a meaningless fad. It’s not nothing to those who suffered or died under Che’s hand. And it’s not harmless when you consider those citing Che today. A presidential candidate in Bolivia—where “only images of the Virgin Mary are more ubiquitous, and even then it’s a close-run thing”—recently told New York Times Magazine, “I like Che because he fought for equality, for justice. He did not just care for ordinary people; he made their struggle his own.”

Any reference to Che and “struggle” should include the labor camps and executions he inflicted on the Cuban people, and the tyranny he helped established to oppress them. Something got severely lost in translation from firing squads to T-shirts and the Oscars.

Some people won’t be fooled, though. There’s a slowly growing anti-Che market out there (one that makes much more sense than fans of Marxist Che going capitalist). Hollywood even gets into the backlash a bit, with a light hand. In the January-release comedy “Grandma’s Boy” (which has nothing to do with politics or revolutions), the main character is seen sporting a Che-with-Mickey-Mouse-ears T-shirt. Other Che-parody shirts on the market include one with a fake Che quote: “My ultimate goal as a socialist revolutionary was to have my face plastered on the T-shirts of rich white kids” and another with a Ronald Reagan mug in Che’s place. You know, the guy who helped take down communism instead of an avowed communist. Counter-Che-ism, though but a shadow of the pro-Che market, is out there.

Some smart Argentines reportedly say: “Tengo una remera del Che y no se por que,” or “I have a Che T-shirt and I don’t know why.” Next time you’re at the mall get into a discussion about why you—or your kids—are without one.

—The Washington Times, December 3, 2005, p. A11

Red China on the March
by Jack Skelly

In January 2005, Grenada established diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China, breaking off its longstanding relationship with Taiwan in the process. The sudden move followed a hotly contested election in which the ruling party won by the smallest of margins. The PRC has opened a substantial embassy in the tiny island nation—Ambassador Shen Hongshun and entourage arrived in April—and is rebuilding, at considerable expense, the national soccer stadium that was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan in September 2004. Other aid has been promised, including funds for scholarships in China and the renovation of the main hospital.

China’s move into Grenada clones a pattern it has followed elsewhere in the eastern Caribbean. Exactly the same scenario was played out last year in the neighboring island of Dominique, and some years ago in St. Lucia. Each of these island republics now has a full-scale Chinese embassy, a completed or promised national soccer stadium, and is receiving continuing aid. Dominica, for example, is slated to receive a staggering U.S.$112 million in aid, which works out to $1,600 for each of the island’s 70,000 inhabitants. Some of this aid was cash, ostensibly to ease the government’s cash flow problems. Coincidently, Chinese construction battalions have landed a number of government-funded infrastructural projects in the region, such as a contract to build a storm drainage system in Castries, the capital of St. Lucia.

Chinese immigration to the region is picking up, and a cultural offensive is underway. The relationships between China and the islands’ ruling parties are increasingly cozy, with leading politicians regularly being invited to China for all-expenses-paid “familiarization” tours. Those not important enough for the “foreign guest” treatment receive their dose of propaganda in their own homes. Shows touting China’s history, culture, and peaceful intentions are broadcast for hours on the islands’ state-owned television channels—all paid for by Beijing, of course. Let a hundred flowers boom, one might say.

But Chinese moneybags-diplomacy is not cheap, and Beijing’s rulers are not known for their largess—unless, that is, it serves their strategic interests. So what does Beijing hope to gain from its investments?

The immediate target is Taiwan, of course. By causing those few nations which still recognize the island-democracy to break off ties, Beijing hopes to undermine Taiwan’s de facto independence and hasten the day of reunification—on its terms. The PRC is fighting the Chinese civil war even in the Caribbean. Look for St. Vincent and the Grenadines to break ties with Taiwan in the next year or two.

But this alone does not explain China’s continuing aggressive and expensive efforts to bring these small nations—Grenada has less than 100,000 people—under its sway. With staffs ranging from five to ten people, these embassies are able to hold regular meetings and informal dinners with leading political figures, and to monitor the eastern Caribbean’s political and economic environment on a daily basis. By way of contrast, the U.S. doesn’t even maintain a single diplomat in any of these countries. Instead, the U.S. ambassador to Barbados is jointly accredited to the other island nations in the Eastern Caribbean and is a complete stranger to most eastern Caribbean figures in the public and private sector.

These islands are right in our backyard (the Caribbean has been called the soft and vulnerable underbelly of the United States), and China’s actions in the West Indies are of a piece with their well known activities in Cuba and Panama. While none of these islands have any great military potential for electronic eavesdropping, and none sits aside a maritime choke point, it would be foolish to forget the lessons of the Cuban missile crisis of the early 1960s. Dealing with an expansive China in the Far East will be complicated enough without having a dozen aggressively pro-Chinese nations sitting in and around the Caribbean basin.

For now, however, it seems that China has a different purpose in mind. Recall that each of these independent nations is a member of countless international bodies, chief among them the general assembly of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. In some of these organizations, their representatives hold considerable rank. The ambassador from St. Lucia to the U.N. actually presided over the general assembly during its 2004 session. If the nations of the Caribbean could be induced to vote consistently with China in either of these bodies, this PRC-led bloc could become a force to be reckoned with. It would prove especially useful to Beijing in the event of a future confrontation with the U.S. over Taiwan, for instance, or over trade.

China is widely believed to be flaunting WTO rules, in part by keeping its currency significantly undervalued. (The recent 2.1 percent revaluation of the yuan was insignificant.) Suppose that an unfair trade case were brought against China by the U.S. government in the WTO. Such cases are resolved, ultimately, by a vote, with WTO rules requiring a supermajority of 62 percent of the member states. Who knows if the governments of Grenada, Dominica, and St. Lucia, having been the beneficiaries of significant amounts of PRC largess, would vote with the U.S. or with China?

What should we do to counter China’s moves in the Caribbean? First, we must stop taking the region for granted, reacting only after the fact, as we did after a communist coup in Grenada in 1983. That crisis, it is well to recall, would have been much worse if other Caribbean nations had not taken a firm stand against the Russian and Cuban-supported coup, and voted in favor of U.S. intervention. Would the new crop of politicians, so assiduously courted by China, come down on our side in the event of a similar problem?

To put it another way, can we allow China, an up-and-coming superpower, to replace the U.S. as the predominant political influence in the region? Opening embassies in each of these states, so that we are in a position to make America’s case directly to local government officials, is essential. Thwarting China’s efforts to buy friends and influence governments requires not just foreign aid—although this should be increased—but private investment as well. Increasingly, foreign investment is coming from everywhere but the United States. A Free Trade Zone for the West Indies would be a good first step toward fixing this.

China has a long history of establishing tributary relationships between it and lesser states, supporting local tyrants in return for their allegiance. While we work to bring transparency and openness to China, we don’t want China to bring corruption and deception to existing democracies and international organizations. The Caribbean can’t wait.

—National Review Online, February 15, 2006