Paraphrasing Mark Twain, there are lies, damned lies, and socialism.

The leader of the White opposition, the distinguished admiral Alexander Kolchak, was defeated on the battlefield, betrayed by the Allies and captured by the Bolsheviks.

During the interrogation, the Bolsheviks, astounded by their own victory, were trying to understand how they could defeat the well-supplied regular army, led by experienced military commanders.

“Admiral, why didn’t you promise land to peasants? You could have won this war,” the interrogators asked (Russia was an agrarian country and the ownership of land was one of the most compelling issues of the revolution). “I would not promise what I could not deliver” was the admiral’s response.   

The interrogators just smiled. They did promise the land and won.

Bolsheviks who had a propensity for fancy names called it “monopoly on the revolutionary truth.” In other words, the truth in the “decaying” world of capitalism does not mean what it does in the world of “triumphant” socialism. In practical terms, when Bolsheviks promised democracy, freedom, liberty, and inexorable “land to the peasants,” “bread to the hungry,” “peace to the people,” those zealous Bolshevik slogans sounded great but the Russian people found soon enough that “land to the peasants” meant forced collectivization; “bread to the hungry” – man-made famine; and “peace to the people” -- civil war.

A hundred years later the Russian socialist school of power politics (Bolsheviks were socialists and belonged to the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party) remains central to socialists’ vie for power. While successfully separating themselves from a grisly gang of Bolshevik terrorists, the progeny have preserved their doctrinal commitment, and methods of operation including the most effective of them – demagoguery and lies. In this context, the Orwellian observation that “The worst advertisement for socialism is its adherents” is the true embodiment of socialism.

A Democratic Socialist Hugo Chavez called socialism "a sea of happiness." As in the case with Bolsheviks’ “land to the peasants” etc., "a sea of happiness" resulted in a sea of human suffering and despair. Nevertheless, Chavez’s numerous Hollywood supporters remain unrepentant. Just as their precursors in the totalitarian movements -- the philosophers of the French Revolution and the intelligentsia of the Russian Revolution -- the U.S. cultural and intellectual elite has equated the evolution of history with egalitarianism and is holding aloft a banner of socialism.

There is also a wicked harvest of the House representatives who arrived after the 2018 midterm elections. Those untutored graduates of American universities are uninformed and poorly read, and some have earned notoriety for inconceivable stupidity. Being aware of self-worthlessness they can hardly contain their awe and envy at the American enterprise and question its moral validity.

The Democratic Party’s aspirants for the high office are not rated any better. The candidates are seeking a strategic advantage pandering shamelessly to those of limited abilities competing over who will offer them more doles to satisfy their unlimited needs.  To pay for all this generosity they plan to plunder and squander of other people’s wealth. The socialist Bernie Sanders competing against two dozen or so rivals and seeing history passing him by, offered a vision of a paradise on this side of the grave. "Choose a different path, a higher path, a path of compassion, justice and love, and that is the path I [Bernie Sanders] call Democratic Socialism."  

Those who are taking the proclamations of intent seriously and using historical records and numbers to demonstrate the unsustainability of the socialist programs do not fully appreciate the impetus of socialism. Socialism is a legend; facts, historical records, and common sense do not apply. “It is more important to be morally right than factually correct,” explained socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The century earlier comparable motivation underlaid the Russian Revolution, and later the Chinese Cultural Revolution and currently the Venezuelan regime. This is a socialist mindset; this is an ideological conception of truth that had sweeping implications of tens of millions being prosecuted and murdered.

Hopefully, sooner rather than later, even fierce skeptics may recognize that the socialists are like the Sirens, mythical birdlike creatures from Greek mythology whose beautiful voices lured men to their deaths. If American people will allow themselves to be lured to the promised land of universal happiness they may find themselves just like the Odysseus on the island littered with the bones of deceived victims and see this country receding into the darkness.

Alexander G. Markovsky is a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research, a conservative think tank that examines national security, energy, risk-analysis and other public policy issues. He is the author of Anatomy of a Bolshevik and Liberal Bolshevism: America Did Not Defeat Communism, She Adopted It. Mr. Markovsky is the owner and CEO of Litwin Management Services, LLC. He can be reached at info@litwinms.com