Dreams can be powerful.
Consider the power of the communist vision on one man Sam Herman and his son Victor. Sam was a gunrunner and a Communist organizer in Detroit. In 1931 Sam and his family went to the Soviet Union. Victor says he followed his father; he did what sons do. Sam obeyed a dream that had captivated him. Sam Herman was going to help make the world a better place. After all, doesn’t Socialism mean, as Victor would later write, “the good of everyone everywhere … fairness for everyone and the good life for all?”
Victor tells of his life in the Soviet Union in his 1979 autobiography, Coming Out of the Ice. He tells how he was sent to prison and of his suffering in prison. He learned to like rat to survive prison. He tells about life in Siberian exile and how he described America to his hungry daughter like a fairy tale place where she could have “two potatoes.”
He wrote that he’d follow his father again. And of the Socialism of his father, in which all are rich, Victor saw nothing wrong.
The dream of life with no suffering is powerful. Who doesn’t want to rid the world of hunger and orphans? Who wants to see his child suffer? Socialism is captivating.
Victor reflected on consequences for decisions:
How does a father reckon up accounts when he buys and his child pays? But does not every parent make choices for himself that prove decisive in the life of his child? Isn’t this what history is?
We might say that Victor’s father Sam exercised his right of the “pursuit of happiness.” Like Sam, we might have too narrow an understanding if we think of the pursuit of happiness as the pursuit of material wealth rather than a right way of life.
Being poor didn’t make Victor less American. But you might not know that listening to politicians today. We hear politicians talk about the American dream or the promise of America, and it’s all about how much we’re going to get from the government. The right way to live seems to be defined as getting the most from government.
But if we misunderstand the pursuit of happiness, we may not be pursuing a better world. Unwittingly we may be pursuing the gulag.
Victor had insisted on the truth. He was an American. He refused to deny that. When offered the opportunity to return to America, if he came as a Russian, he refused. When given a Russian pension, he refused to give up his goal. He returned as an American. As Reagan would say of him and those like him, they became the “rulers of the guards.”
Truth is liberating.
There’s nothing wrong with being rich, and there’s nothing wrong with everyone being rich, but we can’t deny the truth and be free. We can’t believe that government can fix everything. We can’t deny that people are endowed with different talents and abilities and some are better equipped to make money than others. We can’t deny that some deal drugs or steal, rather than work.
If we have liberty, some will have more than others; and if we try to make all people the same, all “rich,” we have the gulag.
What was once sold as “socialism with a human face,” a new and improved socialism, was understood by the French philosopher Bernard-Henry Levy as “Barbarism with a Human Face.” As he said, “The dream was not born yesterday, then, but … it always turns into a blood bath.” He, rather like Victor, insists on thinking — even without believing — “the impossible thought of a world freed from lordship.” Well, rather like Victor, he sees possibilities in America.
But do we still think it’s possible to live without the lordship of big government? Once the government owns our income, our homes, our healthcare, and our retirement, what’s left of freedom?
What choices are we making for our children? Will our children know the language of freedom? Or will they only know a “socialism with a Christian face”?
