By Monique Thurston

The heat is relentless and the humidity oppressive. It is futile to wipe my brow; it is both tiring and ineffective. My head resting against my backpack, my knees slightly bent; I am reading on a suspended wooden bunk in a third-class train compartment on a New Dehli-to-Madras run. It is a sweltering August in the late 1970s, and I am on a journey to cross the Indian continent. I have a lot of time ahead for reading and thinking.

Across from me, another bench hangs from the ceiling, held by two steel chains. On it sit three thin Indians sharing the small space. Legs and arms are dangling; there is a constant swaying motion. The three men are in perpetually jockeying for position, trying to get some comfort.

I cherish my space and stop looking at my unfortunate neighbors. I am the only woman in this compartment, and it would be inappropriate to propose sharing my bench. The steel wheels make a monotonous rolling and clicking noise under my feet. I live a perfectly rhythmic but uncomfortable situation.

I am reading “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch ” by the Russian writer Aleksander Solzhenitsyn. When I packed my bag back home, I had agreed to carry three books. I knew space was going to be limited when leaving for such a long trip. So the correct choice of book was of paramount importance. I thought that somewhere, far away from Western Europe and its intellectuals, it would be good to delve into the extent of the horrors and damages of Communism. That regime killed and tortured 95 million people in various countries all over the planet, including the former USSR, China, North Korea, Eastern Europe, Africa, Vietnam, South America and Afghanistan.

Horrible indeed was the daily lot of Ivan Denisovitch! In the Siberian deep freeze, deprived of food and proper clothing, Ivan was cold, hungry, beaten, lonely, spiritually and physically tortured for 10 years – a victim of the communist police of Stalin, who for more than two decades jailed just about anybody for just about anything.

While Ivan was suffering unspeakable misery under communist Russia, in peaceful post WWII Europe, a conspiracy between the Leftist intellectuals and the media made sure that nobody would understand the sickness of a system that they so much venerated.

In the 1930s, the repression endured by the Soviet citizens was unspeakable. Slowly but methodically Stalin was building more concentration camps that ensured an endless supply of slaves for his grand projects.

It is only in 1956 that Khrushchev somberly and solemnly recognized in front of the Communist Party “s leaders the extent of the reign of terror under Stalin, who was affectionately called by the communists of the world “The Little Father of the People.’ As I lie motionless on my bench in the torrid heat of the Indian continent, discovering the Siberian ordeal of Ivan, I could not but shiver at the betrayal and deceit the academic elite and writers had visited on the youth of my generation.

Indeed, it would take more than 20 years for the French elitists, the French communist party and other leftist groups to recognize the Soviet atrocities.

The propaganda of the Left worked diligently at trying to understand or even to justify the concentration camps. “The re­ education camps in the Soviet Union were the ultimate achievement of the suppression of the exploitation of man by man ” wrote one leftist journalist.

In the educational system, where the Left was – and still is, especially today in America – very powerful, the French youth was constantly brainwashed by pro-Soviet Marxists and communist professors. In several prestigious institutions, communist teachers in the political sciences controlled the thoughts of their students. They taught Marxism, as well as the history and geography of the Soviet Union.

A textbook on Soviet history written in 1945, well before light was shed on the horror of the camps, would stay in use in French schools well until the 1970s. Jean Baby, a professor of political sciences who taught Marxism, said, “There never were any persecutions in the U.S.S.R “. In 1930 Stalin starts the gulag; millions of people will die.

It takes 26 years for the world to discover the truth!

The Leftists in Europe drink wine, smoke cigarettes and listen to revolutionary songs for several decades, all the while ignoring, rejecting – or worse, justifying – what Ivan and millions like him had to endure. Sadly, there was no limit to the intellectual value of the Soviet Union to its detractors, apologists and, by definition, America-haters.

Invariably mixed with this communist delusion, a rabid anti-Americanism was not far ahead. Soviet propaganda found in the French Left the perfect ally for its anti-American disposition.

It was in the late 1970s that I read the story of Ivan during my Indian trip. It was then that I dis­covered how even the most atrocious crimes can be ignored or downplayed for the sake of a totalitarian ideology.

It was then I discovered that indeed it was a blindness that did not allow the intellectuals in France to recognize that “Communism was a neurosis ” (Pierre Emmanuel, Jean Sevilla).

So why should I worry? Why should the Americans worry?

Didn’t America win the Cold War? Didn ‘t the Iron Curtain melt under the free world’s protests? Didn’t the Berlin Wall collapse with the jubilation of all the people it had kept in its grip? Isn’t Communism or Socialism in the Western World a definitive element of history, ready to be analyzed like any other totalitarian adventure that tempted the human race at one point or another?

Far from it! I deluded myself for the last three decades, especially since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the scenes of ecstasy at a liberated Eastern Europe, images of which the mass media was all too happy to shower on us.

But 9-11 has brought to the forefront the socialistic stronghold that American elitists have on the hearts and minds of average Americans, whether they are students, media consumers or union members. And the specter of Ivan is coming back to haunt me.

Here are some very important facts that to the average voter are rarely, if ever, reported in mainstream media:

(At the time of publication of the piece 25 years ago):

Fifty-nine members of the U.S. House of Representatives are members of an organization called the Progressive Caucus. Until 1999 that organization’s website was hosted by the Democratic Socialists of America.

U.S. Rep. and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi serves on the executive committee of the Progressive Caucus. Another socialist, Rep. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, provides the caucus with inspiring ideology.

In 1999, when WorldNetDaily exposed them, the Progressive Caucus established their own web site. The Democratic Socialists of America seek to work within the Democratic Party and impose their views on Americans.

The close connection between the Progressive Caucus and its 59 congressmen – representing 30 percent of the Democrats in the U.S. Congress – is alarming. The Democratic Socialists of America is the U.S. branch of Socialist International, an organization that spearheads and promotes socialist parties in countries with totalitarian and non­totalitarian regimes.

Furthermore, the avowed and openly expressed socialistic views of powerful public officials are quite disturbing. For instance, Brenda Stokeley, the New York City district council president of AFSCME (the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees) spoke during the Workers ‘s World Party national conference in N.Y. on Dec. 6 and 7, 2003. She said, “The first thing we have to do is to remind ourselves that we are fighting for socialism.”

At that same conference, entitled “Reviving the Worldwide Struggle for Socialism ” Stokeley endorsed Howard Dean as candidate for the Democratic nomination in the name of the AFSCME.

It is chilling to know that this conference received contributions and solidarity statements from the Communist Party of Cuba, the Workers Party of Korea and other communist organizations, some European.

On Sept. 28, 2003 a march was organized, called “End Occupation in Iraq, Palestine and Everywhere!” There, again, was Brenda Stokeley.

In their mission statements, the purpose of both those on the Far Left and those who are Islamic radicals is to defeat what they see as American imperialism. The similarity of that goal is chilling.

Can American politicians associated with those radical political forces have the political fortitude to combat our current enemy, radical Islam?

It is important to understand what the Far Left stands for in this country and to realize the fact that the Democratic Party does not reject the Far Left in any open fashion.

The massive implications of such ideological choices could affect our national security.

American universities have spent four decades indoctrinating their students at how decayed America “s institutions were, thereby degrading America ” incredible progress in the area of civil rights, technology and the general improvement of quality-of-life conditions.

Instead, these academic elitIsts have hammered into us their vitriolic message about how “Racism ” and “imperialism “are prevalent in the American system. The vast majority of college students have never been taught about the sufferings of Ivan Denisovitch and others like him at the hands of Stalin and his communist, totalitarian regime.

For too many of them, the socialist and communist temptation is so great that it fills their hearts with glowing and flowing love for humanity without any the clue about the historical horrors associated with those regimes.

From Al Qaeda , ISI , the Muslim Brotherhood to communists and other Far Left groups, both here and abroad, there are millions bent on destroying our way of life.

Through the Progressive Caucus and its connection to the Democratic Socialist of America, the Far Left has infiltrated the Democratic Party. That leaves a truly painful choice for traditional democrats!

Our own state is slowly but surely becoming a source of mockery across the country because of its fiscal absurdity.

Waging class warfare in an effort to cure the state ‘s mounting financial woes, Amanda Janoo is entering a slippery slope. Faithful to the mantra of redistribution of wealth (a tenet you find in the mission statement of the DSA) coupled with the concept of degrowth – it leaves a bitter taste.

Served by such a governor, I am concerned that some of Vermont hardworking people will eventually vote with their feet. Legions of young people have already fled the state.

Ivan, the communist regime’s inmate, is long dead. His sufferings have stopped, along with the sufferings of 95 million other victims of totalitarian Far Left systems in our world. Their torture has been silenced, not only by time, but also by the complicity of intellectual elites who still promote the validity of such ideologies.

AS Ethen Allen bravely fought the British in 1775 for Vermont’s freedom, it is time for Vermont to fight the totalitarian temptation in order to cure its financial woes.

May Ivan’s pain keep us wary and aware at all times of anyone who would see no harm in pushing us down the slippery slope that could reproduce the totalitarian temptation.

May every politician have a wide-eyed view of the strange bedfellows he or she is associated with. And any Vermonter who calls himself a traditional Democrat should require full disclosure from his or her leader.

The author is an Addison County resident.