May 29, 2025

MM#412--What's Wrong With Communism?...Everything!

FAN MAIL--We would love YOUR feedback--Send us a Text Message What happens when high school students throw "Prom-munism" complete with hammers and sickles? Something is deeply wrong when American teenagers celebrate an ideology responsible for over 100 million deaths. Our guide for this horrific tale is the great Paul Kengor and his book the Political Incorrect Guide to Communism. This eye-opening episode examines the alarming trend of young Americans viewing communism and socialism sy...

FAN MAIL--We would love YOUR feedback--Send us a Text Message

What happens when high school students throw "Prom-munism" complete with hammers and sickles? Something is deeply wrong when American teenagers celebrate an ideology responsible for over 100 million deaths.

Our guide for this horrific tale is the great Paul Kengor and his book the Political Incorrect Guide to Communism .

This eye-opening episode examines the alarming trend of young Americans viewing communism and socialism sympathetically. We dive into shocking examples of schools commemorating the Bolshevik Revolution and other communist milestones, while exploring recent polling data showing 45-51% of Gen Z and millennials viewing socialism favorably - with a significant percentage actually supporting the elimination of capitalism.

The historical evidence is damning. We break down the death toll by country: 20 million in the USSR (with some estimates reaching 61 million), 65 million in China, 2 million in Cambodia, 2 million in North Korea, and millions more worldwide. These numbers exceed the combined casualties of both World Wars. For perspective, even Hitler's Holocaust, while unspeakably evil, claimed approximately 10 million lives – a fraction of what communist regimes inflicted on their own populations.

What explains this disconnect between historical reality and contemporary perception? We examine how educational materials like Howard Zinn's widely-assigned textbooks present a Marxist interpretation that minimizes communist atrocities while emphasizing capitalism's failings. This selective teaching creates dangerous historical amnesia that dishonors victims and risks repeating tragic mistakes.

Listen now to arm yourself with historical facts and help ensure the next generation understands the true legacy of these deadly ideologies.

Key Points from the Episode:

• 51% of Americans aged 18-29 view socialism positively compared to 45% for capitalism
• 2019 survey showed 70% of millennials would likely vote for a socialist candidate
• Communist regimes killed approximately 100 million people (USSR: 20M, China: 65M)
• Communist death toll exceeds combined casualties of both World Wars
• Howard Zinn's Marxist textbooks have influenced generations of students
• Four essential books document communism's true history and atrocities

Keep fighting the good fight and ensure we have eyes to see and ears to hear the truth about history's deadliest ideology.

Other resources:

PragerU Hall of Evil Series

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00:00 - Welcome to Theory to Action

00:38 - American Students Celebrating Communism

02:22 - Youth Trends: Embracing Socialism

06:32 - Communism's Death Toll: 100 Million+

09:37 - Books You're Not Supposed to Read

15:20 - Closing Thoughts and Call to Action

WEBVTT

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Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life.

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Now here's your host, david Kaiser flourishing life.

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Now here's your host, david Kaiser.

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Hello, I am David, and welcome back to another Mojo Minute, as always.

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Let's begin with our opening quote.

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Did you know American high school students have recently put on events?

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American high school students have recently put on events celebrating communism To school teachers.

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The real villains are the red-baiting anti-communist, and communism killed ten times as many people as Nazism.

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Graduating seniors at Cottonwood Classical Preparatory School in Albuquerque, new Mexico, picked the perfect theme for their 2015 spring prom.

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The killer concept they picked for the premiere dance of the year prom moonie-ism.

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The grand event would unfold under the banner, the literal red flag of Lenin, stalin, mao, marx and Castro For their big party.

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The students looked to the party.

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They invoked a different kind of party animal the rapacious mass murderers, whose marquee event was a carnival of carnage, a legacy of over a hundred million dead victims.

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Now there's something to dance about Holy smokes, holy smokes.

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Indeed, I agree.

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And folks, this was a classical prep school.

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So much for learning Aristotle and Dante.

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Huh, this wasn't just a one-off, this was not an outlier in the big scheme of things.

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There seems to be a trend.

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Now.

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That quote comes to us from Paul Kengor's wonderfully and very insightful, politically incorrect guide to communism, and Paul Kingor, by the way, is my new favorite author Boy.

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This guy can write and write very, very well.

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This book is pithy in your face, spitting facts right back at all the young Che Guevara's and young Mao worshipers, and I love it.

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And so we have to ask could this be?

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Could this be just be the 20 and 30 and 40 year olds that are having been taught Howard Zinn in our high schools?

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Could it be that?

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What did they say during Barack Obama's reign?

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The chickens are coming home to roost.

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Let's go back to the book.

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Three years earlier, in September 2012, a band at the New Oxford High School near Gettysburg, pennsylvania, home of one of the great moments in American history, gave a salute to one of the worst moments in history.

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They performed a halftime show titled St Petersburg 1917, a musical commemoration of the Bolshevik Revolution.

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The band's website posted a photo of the beaming students holding the hammer and sickle, the symbol that Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky elevated in St Petersburg in 1917.

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And here again, not everyone was laughing.

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Quote there is no reason for Americans to celebrate the Russian Revolution, said one irate parent, rightly so.

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I am sure the millions who died under communism would not see the joy of celebrating the Russian Revolution by a school 10 miles from Gettysburg.

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He added it was glee meets the Russian Revolution.

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I'm not kidding you.

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They had giant hammers and sickles and they were raving them around.

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He asked who thought this was a good idea, said another parent.

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If I was Lithuanian or Estonian or Ukrainian, I'd be a little hot, I'd be really hot.

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It's insulting to glorify something that doesn't need to be glorified in America.

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The parent wondered what reaction might have been if the band had chosen a Nazi theme, celebrating the music of 1935 Berlin.

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The superintendent of the school defended her students.

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It's a representation of the time period in history called St Petersburg 1917, she objected.

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I am truly sorry that somebody took the performance in that manner.

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I am.

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She continued.

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If anything it is being celebrated, it's the music.

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I'm just very sorry that it wasn't looked at as just a history lesson, unquote, a history lesson that deserves a giant F.

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I completely agree An F indeed.

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Let's back up here, though.

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Let's do our due diligence.

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Let's not assume anything.

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What is the fascination with communism and its evil sister, socialism?

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So if we do take that step back, try to get more perspective, do we in fact have a problem with our young people viewing communism and its evil sister, socialism, sympathetically.

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Well, let's go to some polling.

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A 2008 Gallup poll found 51% of Americans aged 18 to 29 had a positive view of socialism, compared to 45% for capitalism a significant shift from 2010, when 68% viewed capitalism positively.

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That's a dramatic shift in eight years.

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A 2019 YouGov Victims of Communism survey reported 50% of millennials ages 23 to 38 and 51% of Gen Z's ages 16 to 22 had an unfavorable view of capitalism, with 70% of millennials likely to vote for a socialist candidate.

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2020 yougov poll showed 49 percent of gen z and 43 percent of millennials viewed socialism favorably.

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31 percent of gen z and 35% of millennials supported the gradual elimination of wait for it capitalism for a socialist system.

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A 2021 Axios poll indicated that only 42% of Americans aged 18 to 24 had a positive view of capitalism had a positive view of capitalism.

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In a 2023 Fraser Institute poll noted 45% of Americans aged 18-24 viewed socialism as the ideal economic system for the US.

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So it does turn out that a big chunk of young people, around 45-62% have a favorable view of socialism, and a smaller group, roughly about 13 to 18 percent, even lean towards communism.

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But here's the thing these terms are often misunderstood.

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Many think socialism just means more government services or social democratic policies, not full-on state-controlled economies.

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Ah, okay, now we're getting somewhere.

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Paul Kengor's book is onto something, though.

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The appeal comes to us from frustrations with capitalism.

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But the critics argue this shows a lack of awareness about socialism's horrid and horrific track record in history.

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All right, so what is socialism's and communism's track record in history?

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And as the young kids say, let's bring the receipts.

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We shall Going back to the book.

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The 1999 Black Book of Communism, a highly respected work published by Harvard University Press, attempted the thankless task of tabulating the total communist death toll in the 20th century.

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It had come up with a figure approaching 100 million souls.

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Here's the general breakdown the USSR 20 million dead.

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China 65 million dead.

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Vietnam 1 million dead.

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North Korea 2 million dead.

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China 65 million dead.

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Vietnam 1 million dead.

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North Korea 2 million dead.

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Cambodia 2 million deaths.

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Eastern Europe 1 million.

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Latin America 150,000.

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Africa 1.7 million.

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Afghanistan 1.5 million.

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And the international communist movement and communist parties not in power about 10,000.

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The US-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, the preeminent institution for detailing communist crimes, agrees with the estimate of over 100 million deaths.

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Estimate of over 100 million deaths.

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But in fact these frightening numbers are quite conservative.

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Take the figure for the USSR, where the Black Book records 20 million dead.

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Most accounts of the total Soviet death toll exceeds 33 million and some estimates are twice that.

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Cold War historian Lee Edwards, citing the epic work on domicide by political scientist RJ Rummel, estimates the Soviet governments were responsible for the deaths of some 61.9 million of their own people from 1917 to 1987.

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Oh man, oh dear.

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The amount of death and carnage left in the wake of these tyrants cannot be put in the words.

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One last quote brings this all home for us.

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By comparison, hitler's horrific genocide against the Jews, the gypsies, the mentally disabled and others he deemed misfits killed approximately 10 million, six of them, six million of whom were Jews.

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The Holocaust, hitler was a master of death and evil, but his death toll doesn't approach that of Stalin or Mao alone, not to speak of what communist ideologue en masse has done.

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Another chilling figure for comparison the combined dead from World Wars I and II, the most destructive conflicts in human history, was approximately 50 to 70 million.

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One must combine and then double the tolls of the two world wars to achieve numbers comparable to communism's mass slaughter.

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Think about that.

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There are more people who throw out lines in their rhetoric this is worse than Hitler and you are a Nazi, and those lines are supposed to be the worst of the worst of the worst.

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Yet the real killer is the real tyrant.

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The real evil lies in the socialist dictators and the communist thugs who have killed so many, so so many.

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We must then ask why are they being given a free pass by the young folks?

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The one answer comes quickly to mind Howard Zinn and its dreadful high school history textbook, the people's history of the United States.

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Zinn was a Marxist and he was defending Marxism, and we have spoke from this microphone many, many times about it, and we will keep speaking about it, because communism and its evil sister, socialism, belong, as Reagan correctly stated, on the ash heap of history.

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So in today's Mojo Minute, four books you are not supposed to read Number one A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia by Alexander Ukulev, written in 2002.

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Number two Marx and Satan, written in 1986 by Richard Wurmbrandt, and the 1999 Black Book of Communism by Harvard University Press.

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This one's quite expensive, but keep an eye out for it, because it's worth it if you can find it on the cheap.

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And number four, hungry Ghost, mao's Secret Famine, by Jasper Becker, written in 1996.

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And so we end where we began with the question what's wrong with communism?

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Our answer everything.

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Everything from all the people who lived under its brutal tyranny, and that is all the people who actually were able to live and tell us about it, because most died and there are not too many who actually live to tell about it, as we have seen, not many at all.

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Let's not have blinders on and let's pray God that we have ears to hear and eyes to see and, as always, keep fighting the good fight.

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Thank you for joining us.

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We hope you enjoyed this Theory to Action podcast.

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Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources.

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Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.

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Thank you.

MM#412--What's Wrong With Communism?...Everything!

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