Status Updates From Workers Paradise Lost. The ...

"Whither Russia? ...universal censorship of reading matter makes a mockery of universal literacy. Isn't there anything good you can say about communism in practice? The truthful answer is NO. Let's have the gist of the 50 Soviet years made clear: Never before have so many paid so much for so little. The communist world...is ringed with walls and mined zones and electrified barbed-wire to imprison its inhabitants..."

"The costs in life. D.G. Stewart-Smith...attempted an estimate. International communism from 1917 to 1964...was directly responsible for eighty-three million deaths--more than the deaths in the two World Wars. At Yalta, Winston Churchill was voicing sympathy" for Russian WWII deaths. "Stalin shrugged. 'Collectivization,' [turning country communist] he told his guest, 'had cost the USSR more lives than the war.' "

21. "In theory, fully industrialized and technically advanced nations like England or the United States could undertake full socialization and retain basic political freedoms. That is the hope which sustains sincere socialists and communists in such countries . . . But, in practice, as Czechoslovakia for one has demonstrated, political freedoms cannot survive under economic dictatorship."

19. Science. "The myth that Soviet communism has fostered progress in science. Pravda ~ "The greatest scientist of our epoch, Comrade Stalin." Sounds like North Korean crap, eh? "Any sign of interest in the culture or science of other nations became prima facie [on its face] evidence of treason. There can be no genuine science without freedom of thought and inquiry, without autonomy for the searching mind."

18. Peaceful Coexistence. I recall it being used all the time with the USSR, with only dopes like Carter actually believing it meant 'peaceful coexistence.' Premier Khrushchev ~ "...the final showdown with 'imperialism' [USA/the West] must be put off as long as possible, hence peaceful coexistence...We must realize that we cannot coexist eternally. One of us must go to the grave...We must push them to their grave."

17. War & Peace. "Yet from the end of its civil war period to date, the Soviet Union has been attacked only once, in June 1941...And on that occasion the 'imperialist West'...rallied at once to its defense, unreservedly and without seeking any quid pro quo...Not once in these 50 years has a Soviet leader conceded the possibility of a permanent settlement short of total communist victory."

16. Imperialism. "No supremely strong nation in history has rejected the temptation of territorial aggrandizement as resolutely as the U.S....the communist insistence that the U.S....engaged in building empires is a blatant propaganda hoax, among the biggest of the Big Lies in our lie-soaked age...In Rumania there was 1 communist for every 21,000 in the population--fewer percentually than in the U.S. today [1967]."

15 De-Stalinization. "Stalin has been out-Stalined by his successors. Millions of young people in a variety of vigilante formations have been invested with quasi-police and quasi-judicial rights, as a civic duty, to spy on their neighbors...As before, the contrast is drastic between the luxuries enjoyed by the ruling elite and the exceedingly low wages of the great majority of workers, employees, and farm laborers."

14 Living Standards. "The high costs of growth, 'are borne primarily by the lower income groups, in contrast with an elite that lives comfortably and free from progressive taxes.'" So much for Bernie Sander's claim of Tax the Rich! "Average earnings for factory and office workers in 1965-1966 have been estimated at 95 rubles a month, about $26 a week ($170 2016)...prices: a small stereo radio, $247.50 ($1,635 2016)."

Chap Collectivization (USSR) "From Eastern Europe to Asia and the Caribbean, the hallmarks of communist rule have been rationing, food queues, acute shortage, occasional food riots, and in both Russia and China, hideous famine." Mao Tse-tung's China suffered a 1960's famine in which maybe 25,000,000 died. In Cuba, rice harvests in 1957 were 760,000 tons. After Castro's communism they dropped to 112,500 tons or 85%!

Chap. Economic Reforms (in the USSR) "The loudest opposition to change comes, not from top economists, but from leading political conservatives, fearful that relaxation in planning might weaken the grip of the dictatorship on the country...If anything is clear, it is that the communist oligarchy has no intention of weakening its own position, whatever the cost in economic waste and dislocation."

Chapter 11 "Planning: The myth that centralized national planning is a magic formula for growth and prosperity...Under communism, political planning...takes precedence over economic planning...It seemed to promise 'order' in place of a free-wheeling economy marked by inequality of income and occasional recessions and depressions...[1967] The abacus, a medieval-calculator-can be found in many an industrial 'giant.'"

1933: "Because one breadwinner could no longer hope to feed a family, additional millions of women flocked to heavy work normally reserved for men, in construction, in coal-mining, road-building, etc.--and this was played up as proof of the growing equality of the sexes." To raise more gold, (ruble was worthless), "Great works of art were sold to foreign museums. The Orthodox churches were stripped of...treasures."

You've seen the documentaries of Hitler turning on his ally Stalin, invading Russia, capturing millions of troops in just weeks. And that Germany's success was due to "surprise." Turns out Stalin knew for months Hitler was going to attack Russia. His Russian soldiers were simply surrendering in droves to escape communism and later to join the Nazis to fight against it. Then they learned the truth about Nazism...

Communists also lied about how bad it was under the czars, esp. in the 'hard labor' prison camps, where in the 1860's, the prisoners did no work on Sundays, celebrated Christmas and Easter. Jews and Moslems did no work on their sabbaths. And re: university " 'the number of places filled by sons of peasantry was far greater than anything that was dreamed of at Oxford or Cambridge' " before the 20th century.

Finally, definitions. 'Bolsheviks' (majority) was the term Lenin seized for his faction of the Social Democratic party gathering in London in 1903. He had a two vote 'majority.' 'Mensheviks' (minority-ites) was the label Lenin gave his opponents "though they spoke for an overwhelming majority of the socialist rank-and-file." Lenin fumed at those who said he planned to abolish private ownership and impose communism.

Using paperback cover rather than the generic cover of the hardback. Written in 1967, the 50th anniversary of the communist USSR, Eugene Lyons exposes the massive faults of the Soviet system. He repeats Lenin's promises and demonstrates how none of them were fulfilled. At this time, we all imagined the Union of Soviet Socialists Republic would last forever. It collapsed 24 years after this book was written.