When the Berlin Wall fell, its crashing din was heard around the world: and for millions of people it was music to their ears. This was not just any event—here was final proof that the evil and, what was equally important politically and economically, the utter impracticality of Communism could not be sustained because it ran directly counter to human nature. Its rhetoric, of course, like all propaganda, was positive and hopeful, but its reality proved altogether different. In practice, Communism created even more injustice, more absurdities, more practical problems, more suffering and death in history by far than any other economic or political system. Communism, and its historical partner in unequalled savagery, Nazism, will for all time remain lasting monuments of unexampled hubris, unreason, atheism, and unalloyed evil. If some men and women can be saints, these two movements show starkly that under their influence many more can become devils.
While history does indeed appear to show that the rich inherently seek ever more power and wealth at the expense of the middle- and lower-classes (without of course ever acknowledging such), the utopian image of Communism set up unique expectations of an everlasting earthly Paradise: where mankind would now be free of avarice, of cruelty to his fellow man, and of the naked lust for power. Communism’s power was that it proclaimed a new humanity. But in reality, of course, it could accomplish no such thing. For human nature doesn’t change. The old class structure was replaced by a new (Communist) class structure. The freedoms, and limitations, of the old system were swallowed up in an all-embracing savage totalitarianism. Big Brother had arrived. The Utopia so blindly hoped for, and believed in, was revealed to be just another earthly hell from which millions sought to escape—so many in fact that Communism had to build walls to lock its people in, which is why its sudden, dramatic crashing downfall was the cause of such hysterical jubilation world-wide.
Now we see, in both China and Russia, a new era of libido dominandi—of the lust for power. Of course, they can’t and won’t publicly declare this—since when does evil ever speak the truth? Still, evil, in its unconscious bow to goodness and reason, must pretend at least to operate under the highest motives; but its actions show unequivocally that power and domination are China’s and Russia’s twin goals.
Russia’s motives revolve around pure power. Putin (and Russia’s military) doesn’t want Russia to be thought of as a second-rate military power—and, being the little man that he is, personally wants to be accorded respect, as well as to be feared, by the world, but especially by the US. It wants a share in world dominion; and it chafes under the greater economic and military power (and he would add hubris) of the US. Putin is a small man with a large ego. He cares little about his own people or their future, otherwise he would develop, or allow to be developed, Russia’s economy in all of its diversity instead of making it depend entirely upon the exportation of oil and gas as it now does. In this Putin shows himself to be anything but a statesman, or to have any other real goals than power for power’s sake. He hears the siren call of libido dominandi. And in this he adds his name to an endless list of tyrants in history.
China has a similar desire to dominate. But unlike Russia, which is trying to relive the good old days of Soviet domination, China seeks world power in large part to make itself an irresistible economic powerhouse. It has now, and will have much more in the future, great economic problems at home it must deal with: lack of vital minerals, oil, gas, etc.; millions of homes, buildings, and schools that are unsoundly built and therefore vulnerable to earthquakes or other natural disasters; lakes and rivers dried or drying up; forests denuded; corruption top to bottom; pollution of unimaginable intensity and duration, etc. China, for political as well as military reasons, doesn’t want to be dependent on the outside world. So it seeks regional domination in order to remain the economic engine of Asia, and will enforce that superiority militarily more and more over time. Its words do not match its actions: its rhetoric is peace and conciliation, but its actions spell confrontation and conflict. Once China gets used to exercising the full panoply of power throughout Asia, it will add world dominion to its desiderata.
The world fondly hopes, and fondly believes, that war, especially world war, is an outworn relic of a bygone era; that the human race, having endured so much suffering and death in the last century, has finally come to its senses and will neither engage in nor permit another such global tragedy. But the storm clouds of war are slowly gathering once again. Communism, past (Russia) and present (China), is not yet finished cursing the world. Incalculable suffering, in Europe near the former Soviet Union and in Asia, is only a misstep away. Tyrants—Xi Jinping of China and Putin of Russia—are strutting the world’s stage once again. The lessons of history have already been forgotten. And so, pronounced Santayana, we shall be forced to repeat them.
Len Sive Jr.