NO SHOCK HERE: THE LEFT CREDITS KHRUSHCHEV FOR THE COLLAPSE OF THE USSR, (AND NOT REAGAN)

THE NYTIMES today published an OP-ED column by Willima Taubman which credits Khrushchev with ending Stalinism and by extension the givng him credit for ending the USSR (hat tip RCP):

FIFTY years ago today, the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev gave a "secret speech" at the 20th Communist Party Congress that changed both his country and the world. By denouncing Stalin, whose God-like status had helped to legitimize Communism in the Soviet Bloc, Khrushchev began a process of unraveling it that culminated in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union. This great deed deserves to be celebrated on its anniversary.

This is Leftist drivel. IN FACT: Stalinism only ended with and because of Stalin's death, and the Soviet Marxist state only ended because even Gorbachev's "reforms" couldn't save a totalitarian regime which couldn't:

(1) deliver the goods or services to its people; (goods and services which the people TRAPPED under Soviet TYRANNY had recently discovered were WIDELY available in the West - recently, because of detente and because of the availability of Western TV shows in places like East Germany - and specifically shows like "Dallas" which revealed to people trapped behind the Iron Curtian that people in the Free World had better material lives than they did under a system SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED to better distribute "a materially good life" to its citizens); or
(2) keep up with the US in an arms race seriously sped up by Reagan; or
(3) clamp down on genuine human liberation movements like SOLIDARITY - a genuine labor movement that developed in Poland with the help of Reagan and the Pope.

IOW: it was really REAGAN and the Pope (and dissidents in the USSR and Poland and Czechoslovakia) who defeated the USSR, and not Khrushchev or Gorbachev. And more than anyone else, it was Reagan who defeated the USSR - by rebuilding the USA's confidence and our economy and the Pentagon. (Despite Leftists like me opposing him every step of the way!)

Perhaps Khrushchev ended the death camps, but not much else; he continued the arms race, and the USSR's aggressive global hegemony. Of course he had to: the USSR DEPENDED on swallowing up little economies all over the globe to keep its otherwise non-productive economy afloat.

[YUP: the USSR was sort of like a conglomerate that wasn't really making money, but was able to keep afloat by gobbling up other smaller companies and using their cash flow to fend off bankruptcy. When the USSR no longer had a state of the art military capability or the economic resources to redevelop the military capability needed to swallow up more satellites - (because Reagan's arms build up and aggressive stance toward Soviet hegemony had severely raised the cost of this) - the USSR collapsed. Like ENRON.]

It was difficult for me - and ardent Leftist - to accept this truth. But I eventually faced the facts: Reagan and Thatcher - and HAYEK - were right. Marx - and every single solitary regime that ever followed him - was wrong. By 1977, the 1.5 MILLION Vietnamese Boat People, and 3.5 MILLION the victims of Pol Pot tipped me toward the Right (by proving that the Domino theory was CORRECT, and that Marxist tyranny evil).

And then, Deng Xiao Ping's accomplishments in China and Rao's India showed that capitalism and trade were better at eradicating poverty than protectionism and socialism. The Fall of the Wall sealed the deal for me: Even the supposedly over-achieving East Germans were fleeing Marxist tyranny. Everywhere you look socialism has uttrly failed to deliver the goods - literally and figuratively. (Nothing proves this more than the Korean peninsula: the North is impoverished and enslaved; the South free and prosperous. END OF STORY!)

YET - UNBELIEVABLY: Leftists to this day refuse to credit Reagan. Leftists like Taubman and the NYTIMES - are still in DEEP DENIAL. And, it's NO SURPRISE that these same people also deny that Bush's neo-conservatism is nothing more then the contemporary version of classical liberalism, a liberalism which was once strongly put forward by FDR, Truman, and JFK. Today, Bush is only doing what each of these these late great Democrat presidents would've done were any one of them now in office.

The Left denies this about Bush for the very same reason they deny that Reagan caused the USSR to collapse: Accepting these TRUTHS means having to admit you were totally WRONG about everything. That's a hard thing to swallow. But take it from me - you Lefties out there - once you DO IT, it's very VERY liberating! (PUN INTENDED!)

Taubman ends his "ode to Khrushchev" by writing:

In his case, it wasn't the road to hell that was paved with good intentions, but the road from the Stalinist hell in which he had faithfully served, and which he had the courage to try to transcend.

This too is PURE BULLSHIT! After trying to close the chapter on Stalin - and blame Marxism's failures and genocidal rampages on "the cult of the personality", Khrushchev RUTHLESSLY put down revolts in Poland and Hungary, and brought the world to the brink of Nuclear War by using Cuba as a nuclear missile base.

These - and many MANY other despicable acts by Khrushchev - were neither "courageous or transcendent." They were the cruel acts of a tyrant seeking to enslave humanity to an evil and ineffective creed.

Khrushchev - and every other person who ever served Soviet hegemony (like Gorbachev) should always ONLY be remembered as enemies of liberty and therefore traitors to Humanity. Taubman is flat out wrong: NEITHER KHRUSHCHEV OR ANY OTHER MARXIST TYRANT SHOULD EVER BE CELEBRATED FOR ANYTHING! Especially not for inconsequential speeches fully vetted by the Politburo and the Central Committee.

Failure to accept this simple truth - that Soviet Marxism was unequivocably evil and wrong and bad and unjust, and that ALL of its leaders were complicit in countless crimes against humanity, crimes committed decade after decade after decade - only brings SHAME ON TAUBMAN, SHAME ON THE NYTIMES, AND SHAME ON THE LEFT.

Shame but no surpirse. YUP: No shock here; the Left was a Fifth Column then - appeasing and apologizing for totalitarianism, and they are a Fifth Column now - appeasing and apologizing to today's enemies and (as this column proves - when they get the chance) yesterday's enemies, too. YUP: It's a nauseatingly nostalgic "Fifth Column Redux."