Comparison: USA v. USSR

By Luke ExilArch

Is life today in the USA like life yesterday in the USSR?

The centralisation of political power in the hands of the federal government has allowed it to create a totalitarian state that in many ways is reminiscent of the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Yes, there still are significant differences between the USA and the former USSR. Consumer goods are readily available in the USA (although our gigantic trade deficits indicate they are not produced here.) Some of our Constitutional rights remain intact, albeit eroded.

But let’s look at the similarities. Quotations about the USSR are from USC Professor Rodger Swearingen’s book - “The World of Communism” (1962).

Constitution, Government, Political Parties

USSR:

“In theory, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a federally organised constitutional democracy ... in practise, the constitution is relatively unimportant. ... The various republics have little actual power ... The Soviets have a “one-party system of government” ... No other political parties are deemed necessary ... The nature of the Communist system makes voting in the Soviet Union a meaningless gesture, an exercise in rubber-stamping the party’s choice.”

USA:

The USA claims to be a Constitutional Union of States, but the federal government routinely disregards the Constitution. The fifty State governments have little actual power. We are continually told that we have a “two party system.” In pr actice, the two nominal parties function as one party, having no significant areas of disagreement. Third parties are legal, but deemed unnecessary. Only two of the 535 members of Congress are independents.

As a result of the one-party system, voting is a meaningless gesture. The reelection rate for Congressional incumbents is 95 - 98%.

Politicians

USSR:

“There are fundamental differences between professional politicians in other systems and in the Communist system. ... In communist system, he who grabs power grabs privileges and indirectly grabs property. Consequently in Communism, power or politics as a profession is the ideal of those who have the the desire or the prospect of living as parasites at the expense of others.”

USA:

Federal judges and Congressmen are paid a minimum salary range of $145,000 to $158,000. These salaries place them in the top 5% of all income earners - public or private.

Yet federal judges complain constantly that they are underpaid, and Congress automatically grants itself a pay raise every year.

In the event that tax revenues become insufficient to pay these salaries, federal judges decided in Kelo v. City of New London that private property can be grabbed and sold in order to generate more taxes.

Many would agree that the federal government has an essentially parasitic nature.

Foreign Policy

USSR:

“The fundamental attitude of the United States toward other peoples is that they should have the right to determine their fate themselves, without any other nation telling them what they can or cannot do. ... our policy generally has been “hands off” ... we have not adopted a policy of wholesale intervention in all countries of the world for the purpose of imposing American-style regimes on people everywhere.”

“The Soviet policy has been the opposite. While paying lip service to the principle of self-determination, the Russians have repeatedly, as a matter of policy, interfered with the affairs of other states whenever they thought it to their advantage, and whenever they thought they could get away with it.”

“The United States finds it difficult to combat such a ruthless foe by traditional, peaceful means. The Communists have no reluctance about using force. ... If the Soviet threat were removed, we could, no doubt, move more quickly to abolish such unbecoming means altogether.”

USA:

Regardless of what it might say, the federal government does not believe that other nations have a right to self-determination. The federal government currently stations troops on over 6,000 military bases in 146 different countries.

That government routinely deploys those troops to enforce UN resolutions or impose what it calls “democracy.”

Contrary to Professor Swearingen’s prediction, the fall of the USSR did not result in the federal government curtailing the “unbecoming means” of force. On the contrary, it occasioned a binge of warmongering. Since the fall of the USSR, the federal government launched wars in Panama, Iraq (twice) Somalia, Bosnia, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.

The “Bush doctrine” claims that the federal government has the right as the “world’s sole remaining superpower” to launch “preemptive wars” against other countries.

Religion

USSR:

“The current phase ... is one of rampant propaganda against religion. Mandatory public schools teach atheism as a regular part of the program.” “From the first grade, the child learns that “there is no God.” “The government press maintains a constant campaign against religion.” ... This takes the form of making jokes about the “old-fashioned people” who still believe the “nonsense about God.”

“Why, then does the Soviet government permit some churches to remain open? Isn’t this freedom of religion? ... Religious freedom is more than an open church building. It has to do with attitudes, laws, policies and goals. True, there are a number of of Protestant, Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches open throughout Russia. So long as the churches remain open, the men in Moscow can use this fact to convince the uninformed that there is religious freedom. After all, the churches are open!”

USA:

In theory, the Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion. In pr actice, federal judges have ordered a “separation of church and state” that finds no mention in the Constitution.

Government schools or government funded organisations are ordered to make no reference to religion. For example, federal judges banned public school students from reciting the pledge of allegiance because it contains the words “under God.” The whole point of the phony “separation of church and state” is to ensure that the Christian religion never affects “attitudes, laws, policies and goals.”

But the Churches are open.

Education

USSR:

“The search for genuine truth has no place in Communist education. Students are not allowed to hear both sides of a question in courses in the social sciences and humanities. Much of his education turns out to be indoctrination and propaganda. His education is specialised, limited and slanted. If he is bright, he will have been well prepared to be a cog in the Soviet machine.”

USA:

“Politically correct” curricula in the social sciences and humanities amount to propaganda and indoctrination. State and local public schools operate under the direction of federal authorities - the “No Child Left Behind Act” (a/k/a the “No Child Moves Ahead Act”)

Local school boards lack authority to prescribe their own curriculum. For example, a federal judge ordered that Georgia schools must teach evolution as a fact, not just a theory.

The federal government’s educational system is designed to achieve mass indoctrination and produce a politically uniform, tractable citizenry.

Press

USSR:

“The Soviet Press ... has no freedom, no life of its own. There are 10,000 newspapers in the Soviet Union, but not one dares express an opinion which differs in the slightest degree from the official Party view on any major issue” ... On the other hand, the “press of the Free World represents a wide range of differing political viewpoints and purposes.”

USA:

Nominally, there are thousands of newspapers and radio stations and hundreds of television channels. But the FCC and the Department of Justice (sic) allow most of them to be owned and controlled by a few media conglomerates.

According to media expert Tom Wolzien, 80% of the prime time TV audience is watching channels owned by media conglomerates such as Viacom, Disney, Time-Warner, News Corp. and NBC/Universal. For example, he notes that of the top 25 cable channels, 20 are now owned by one of the big five media companies.

In exchange for the federal government granting them an oligopoly, the media conglomerates refrain from criticising its policies or exposing its corruption. Paul Craig Roberts notes that the media’s historical role as government watchdog has diminished as a result of media consolidation.

The media conglomerates permit a narrow range of political viewpoints that more or less correspond to those of the Republicrat Party. The voices of independent journalists like Nat Hentoff, Joseph Sobran or the late Samuel Francis are not heard.

Family Life

USSR:

“Many of the jobs customarily held by men in America are done by women in the Soviet Union” The USSR boasts: “we have eliminated discrimination based on sex.”

“From the Soviet government’s point of view, it is in fact essential that as many women as possible work ... The great majority of families in the Soviet Union would find it difficult to exist on the wages of the husband alone. Salaries are too low ... Sunday is almost always taken up by shopping. ... Recreation in leisure time, as we know it in the United States, is not part of the average Soviet citizen’s daily life.”

Divorce is legal for almost any reason. “The old quip was “Just marriage is grounds for divorce in Russia” The early revolutionaries prided themselves on the contempt with which they held the marriage relationship”

USA:

Through various trade, monetary, immigration and tax policies, the federal government has depressed the value of its citizens’ labor. According to the federal government’s own statistics, the average private sector hourly wage, adjusted for inflation and before taxes, declined from over $9.00 in 1973 to $7.50 in 1996.

During this period, families found it difficult to exist on the wages of the husband alone. Women were pressured to enter the workforce in order to maintain their family’s standard of living. This hardship to family life was sold as “women's liberation.”

Since most women are employed outside the home during the week, weekends are filled with household chores, errands and shopping. Many families lack time for recreation. Paid vacations of two weeks or more, which used to be standard for America’s middle class, are becoming a rarity.

Also, as America’s culture has become less Christian and more materialistic, Sundays are often spent at the shopping mall.

Divorce and cohabitation have become rampant. As a result, 37% of America’s children grow up apart from one or both of their biological parents - the highest percentage among Western nations.

Possibility of Reform

USSR:

“Why don’t people in the Communist countries rebel against the system, or leave, if it’s a bad as we hear it is?”

“Rebellion is never an easy task. It is especially difficult in a totalitarian police state ... we find an extensive system of surveillance ... All Soviet citizens must carry identification papers.”

“Economic and social pressures are now the favourite means of enforcing the party’s demands for strict conformity. ... Punitive unemployment can be the equivalent of a death sentence in the Soviet Union today. Not only does the individual lose his job and housing; no one will hire him.”

“The fact that people who conform get ahead and live more happily also promotes acceptance of the Soviet system.”

USA:

In order to identify and eventually suppress political dissent, which it calls “extremism,” the federal government is increasing surveillance of its own citizens.

The Patriot Act (sic) allows warrantless seizures of private records without probable cause and “sneak and peek” searches of private residences.

For years, the federal government has been using the Social Security Number and Drivers’ License to identify and track its citizens. The government’s use of surveillance cameras is expected to rise sharply.

Again, due to federal government policies, good jobs are hard to find, and once secured, people are reluctant to jeopardise their employment by engaging in dissent or resistance.

Many Americans subscribe to “politically correct” conformist views in order to “get ahead,” or out of a reasonable fear that an honest expression of their views will lead to reprisals, such as getting fired.

Conclusion: USA v. USSR

A “totalitarian” government is defined as one in which an “authoritarian government tolerates only one political party, to which all other institutions are subordinated and which demands the complete subservience of the individual to the state.” OED

Such a government will centralise all political power at the federal level, in order to impose its policies universally and uniformly. The centralised government will feature only one political party (either nominally or in pr actice) in order to limit the scope of political debate and marginalise dissent. Anything that can limit the authority or discretion of government officials, like a written Constitution, is routinely dispensed with. The members of the ruling political party enjoy lavish salaries and privileges. Private property is subject to heavy taxation and the threat of confiscation.

Randolph Bourne observed that for totalitarian governments, “War is the Health of the State.” Such governments respect the sovereignty of other nations as little as that of their own citizenry.

Totalitarian governments insist that all other human institutions - Church, School, Press and Family - must obediently serve their purposes. No institution may rival their power or stand in their way. No person, even the divine Person, may stand above or apart from totalitarian governments. Their subjects are not allowed to pledge allegiance to the State’s being “under God.”

If any person reserves to himself the autonomy to think or act freely, to form his own beliefs and purposes, the totalitarian government will seek his destruction. The complete subservience of individuals to the State means that individuals cannot be free to serve anything or anyone else. The totalitarian State permits no rivalries.

Since totalitarian governments repress human freedom to the point of denying human nature, their own citizens will eventually seek to overthrow them. Totalitarian governments know this, and try to quash incipient rebellion through the use of surveillance and other police-state tactics.

The inexorable conflict between the totalitarian government’s need for repression and man’s desire for freedom can only be resolved by revolution.

The federal government - Not in control

Recent events indicate that the federal government is losing control over parts of the United States and its economy.

The governors of New Mexico and Arizona have declared a state of emergency because the federal government has allowed an invasion of illegal immigrants. In the aftermath of a predicted hurricane, the National Guard was unable to protect our Gulf Coast citizens from violence, looting and a complete breakdown of public order. The price of oil and gasoline is increasingly unaffordable, threatening the existence of our economy’s transportation and distribution network.

Despite these national emergencies, eighty thousand members of the National Guard are in Iraq and Afghanistan, including more than a third of the Louisiana and Mississippi Guard.

The National Guard’s deployment to the Middle East has rendered it less capable of protecting our country’s borders or responding promptly to a natural disaster. The National Guard is part of the organised Militia of the Several States, but the federal government has usurped its Constitutional mission, which is “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 8

In the face of these domestic calamities, Bush II and the Republicrats remain fixated on foreign countries. They are telling U.S. citizens to “stay the course” on federal government’s military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush II administration continues to provoke oil-rich Iran and Syria, looking for an excuse to spread war throughout the entire Middle East. One of his so-called Christian supporters, Pat Robertson, has called for the assassination of the Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected President of another oil-rich country, Venezuela.

The federal government seems incapable of dealing with our country’s problems except by attacking other countries. This militaristic and expansionist approach characterised the penultimate phase of another welfare/warfare empire - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as explained by Seweryn Bialer in his book, The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline.

Mirabile dictu, the USSR’s final phase was the breakup of its federal government on Christmas Day, 1991.

Is the collapse of the federal government impossible, or just, for some, inconceivable?

Some commentators have remarked that not a single media or academic expert predicted the collapse of the USSR.

One reason might be that American establishment had become too emotionally invested in the USSR to be able to conceive of its destruction. Well into the 80s, the political left continued to sympathise with communism in general and the USSR in particular, opposing President Reagan’s hard line and supporting a nuclear freeze. For decades, the Cold War against the Soviets united and galvanised the political right. To varying extents, the full continuum of America’s political establishment defined itself in relation to the USSR. To contemplate its fall was to stare uncomfortably into a void. So no one looked.

But to say that the USSR’s collapse was unpredicted is not to say that it was unpredictable. Looking back, cracks in the Soviet edifice were visibly widening. The collapse of the USSR could have been predicted, even though it was not. But this only confirms Mark Twain’s observation: “The art of prophecy is very difficult, especially in respect to the future.”

For elites and their minions in media and academia, the notion that the United States federal government could collapse is similarly inconceivable. But their inability or unwillingness to imagine such an event does not mean that it is unpredictable. Like their predecessors who missed the harbingers of the Soviet collapse during the 1980s, they are so invested in the status quo that they are blind to the forces that imperil it. If anything, their collective myopia is yet another sign of the federal government’s vulnerability.

As outlined in the first part of this essay, the federal government’s gradual slide into totalitarianism yields numerous points of comparison between the USA and the USSR. These similarities and others suggest that the the federal government may soon imitate the USSR in one conclusive aspect - by unravelling. Examples of these other similarities are:

Demographics: Falling birthrate

A nation that does not invest in its birthrate has no future.

At the time of its dissolution in 1991, the USSR’s birthrate was 17 per thousand. The USSR’s ethnic Europeans, the Russians, were on the verge of becoming a minority. The Russians had dwindled to just 50.2 % of the population of the USSR as a whole.

The remainder of the USSR epitomised the false ideal of diversity, and was an agglomeration of various ethnicity's, nationalities and religions - Asian, Islamic and Pagan. Wikipedia fulsomely praised this ethnic hodgepodge as making the USSR “one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries.” (But not for long.)

For 2005, the birthrate in the United States is projected to be 14 per thousand, low enough for America to be ranked 164th out of 220 nations.

To deal with this birth dearth, the federal government has not created incentives for childbearing, like Australia did with its “baby bonus” tax credit. Neither has the federal government re-criminalised the twin evils of abortion and homosexuality.

The federal government’s answer to the falling birth rate is to encourage mass immigration. The combination of a falling birth rate and mass immigration from Third World countries means that our country’s European-American population is on the verge of becoming a minority. The Census recently announced that Texas has joined California as “minority-majority State.” European-Americans are projected to become an ethnic minority nationwide by the year 2050. In the meantime, mass immigration is transforming America into a facsimile of the USSR: a powder keg of various national, ethnic and religious groups that sooner or later will detonate.

Decline in Economic Production

The economy of the USSR was notorious for its inefficient and ultimately inadequate economic production. But the undeniable decline of the Soviet economy was not necessarily reflected in all of its official statistics.

Many economists questioned the accuracy of communist countries’ economic data, a product of governments controlled by one political party. Their suspicions were later proven to be well-founded. For example, in 1989, the communist government of the former East Germany announced that its budget deficits, trade deficits and currency inflation rate were much higher than had been previously disclosed. According to the New York Times, this revelation caused “gasps of amazement” from those who attended one its Parliament’s final sessions.

Like the USSR, the federal government’s rosy press releases about the growth in America’s Gross Domestic Product doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. As was the case with the USSR and East Germany, one-party governments tend to provide inaccurate economic data. Lacking a true opposition party, the Republicrats are free to “cook the books.” No one is watching.

Yet certain undeniable facts indicate a decline in economic production. Congress recently raised the federal government’s debt ceiling to accommodate a debt of more than $8 trillion.

Trade deficits set a record every year, indicating we are consistently producing less and less of what we consume.

Twenty-three percent of working age males are totally and completely unemployed. Record government debt, record trade deficits and widespread unemployment are inconsistent with a growing, productive economy.

So we should be more than sceptical as the federal government rhapsodises about impressive magnitude of our GDP. We should remember that Orwell’s Ministry of Plenty announced every year that the standard of living rose 20%. All the while, life in Oceania grew more miserable, as is citizens toiled to support their totalitarian government and its endless wars.

Currency decline; rising commodity prices

A decline in a nation’s economic production is normally accompanied by a decline in the value of its currency. Why hold a currency unless you are assured you can buy things with it?

In 1988, after decades of economic decline and three years before its dissolution, the USSR had grossly overvalued the ruble relative to the United States Dollar. As of 1988, the ruble’s official exchange rate was .6 ruble to 1$. The unofficial black market exchange rate was 4 to 6 rubles per $1. The market decided that dollars were much better than rubles for buying things.

Like the USSR, the United States faces an internal decline in economic production. But until recently, the United States Dollar has been shored up by its continuing status as the world’s “reserve currency” - a status conferred by foreign investment in the federal government’s dollar-denominated debt securities. The dollar’s “reserve currency” status has enabled federal government to accumulate its $8 trillion debt.

But lately the Dollar has come into unyielding downward pressure relative to the price of an indispensable commodity - oil. Demand for oil tends to be inelastic. Constant US demand for oil coupled with a steep spike in oil prices means a weakening US Dollar. If unchecked, this decline in the dollar will lead foreign investors away from the dollar and towards other currencies or commodities such as gold or oil itself.

Should the federal government’s military misadventures continue, yet another reason to short the dollar will present itself. To hold its value against more expensive commodities, a fiat currency needs plenty of fiat behind it. Like the ruble, the dollar fate’s is tied to the fortunes, or misfortunes, of its government’s Armed Forces.

Military Failures in Afghanistan and the Middle East

After a decade of economic stagnation and decline during the 1970s, the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The resulting Soviet occupation lasted eight years and cost 13,000 Soviet soldiers lives. Dubbed “Brezhnev’s biggest blunder”, the unpopular war set the stage for the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev, who allowed the the USSR to be dissolved.

The federal government’s current attempt to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq is going badly. The present casualty count for American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq is 13,000 dead or wounded.

Public opinion has turned against the Middle Eastern War; it is increasingly unpopular. Yet not one prominent federal Republicrat has called for an end to the war. According to one Congressional Republicrat, the subject is “taboo.”

How long until some start asking the question the Russians did: “Is putting an end to the federal government the only way to end this stupid war?”

The Soviet’s display of military weakness in Afghanistan stirred rebellion from other quarters. The USSR appeared reluctant, perhaps unable, to deal forcefully with other insurgencies and secessionists. After admitting defeat and withdrawing from Afghanistan in February, 1989, the Soviet government had to pivot and confront opposition along its Eastern European border. In January of 1990, various ethnic groups demanded sovereignty for their respective national republics and threatened secession. Chief among them were the Baltic republics, led by Lithuania. In April of 1990, Gorbachev admitted that secession was legally possible. In May, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia all declared their independence, and pronounced that Baltic conscripts were no longer required to serve in the Red Army. The USSR collapsed the following year.

The federal government is now questioning whether its own military strategies and capabilities are sufficient for it to carry out its purposes. Its politicians openly question where the federal government is going to get the troops necessary to carry out its missions. The Pentagon has admitted that its “two major regional conflict” strategy is inadequate and outmoded.

Will not this show of weakness embolden those who would oppose the federal government by insurgency or secession? Like the Soviet government of yesteryear, has not the federal government breached Machiavelli’s advice in two important respects, becoming neither loved nor feared?

Conclusion:

Totalitarian governments rule their citizens with power, not principle. Because they deny the existence of a higher authority or higher law, they wage atheistic campaigns against the Christian religion. They deal with falling birth rates by promoting multiculturalism and immigration. When they face a decline in economic production, they resort to currency manipulations and finally, military interventionism, e.g., the “Brezhnev doctrine” or the “Bush doctrine.”

The internal decline that is inevitably the fate of totalitarian states cannot be remedied by their external expansion. The necrosis of a State, or of its people, cannot be cured by allowing it to spread to other States and other peoples. In a futile attempt to outstrip the effects of internal decline, the totalitarian government’s expansionist ambitions will overtake the its military capabilities. The shortfall will result in its failing occupation of foreign States, and its inability to provide for the welfare of its domestic State and its own citizens.

The domestic failures of totalitarian States eventually cause widespread dissatisfaction in their citizens. Then, the political upheaval involved in dissolving their federal governments will appear to them no more threatening than what they already face - the collapse of public order or the disappearance of their nations’ borders.

What happened to the USSR can happen here, and for the sake of America’s citizens, and their forefathers, and their children, will happen here.

Tags: US, USSR, economy, collapse