The Bigger Lies: From Wilson to Reagan and Beyond followed by my final Medium truth dump to the USA

Emma Goldman warned the world that the USSR was neither soviet nor communist (and certainly not socialist), but the world (the rich people who mattered) wanted an anti-capitalist big bad to threaten Western workers.

Emma Goldman was an American immigrant anarchist who engaged in political activity against WWI and was deported for her efforts in 1919 after a stint in prison. She was taken to post-October Russia, and while she wasn't happy to be deported, she was hopeful that she could find meaningful work and happiness in the workers' state. She was wrong, and unlike most activists and leaders, she immediately recognized and admitted her folly.

Immediately upon debarking the ship in Petrograd, she saw starvation all around her. She wanted to help. She made protests. She bought food and tried to distribute it. She wrote articles and letters. Turned out that distributing food to the hungry was illegal, deemed counterrevolutionary. None of her writings reached their intended audience. She was hampered and silenced. Communist Party leaders stalled the search for a situation from which she could help. They finally allowed her to travel around parts of the country and parts of what is now Ukraine to collect artifacts and papers for a museum that never opened and never was going to open. Goldman used the sanctioned travel as an opportunity to survey the results of the Revolution, and what she found was no revolution at all. She saw her anarchist comrades and others who merely pointed out troubles and inconsistencies, attacked and imprisoned. Some went into hiding, and she tried to help them survive and get out, usually unsuccessfully. She saw friends, associates, and strangers rounded up and then got word they were murdered in prison. By the time Goldman got to Russia, Lenins' dictatorship o̶f̶ t̶h̶e̶ w̶o̶r̶k̶e̶r̶s̶ had an iron hold on everyone. He had replaced the monarchy and aristocracy, not with the promised local soviets — local governing committees run by workers, but with a new brand of bureaucrats loyal only to the central party in Moscow and there to enforce on anyone who complained.

The last straw for Goldman was the massacre of workers and sailors in Kronstadt. The workers wanted increased food rations and better working conditions. Sailors working under equally bad conditions — starvation — joined the workers. Lenin and Trotsky made some empty promises and then answered the protests with a massacre. According to Goldman, the sad irony of Kronstadt was that the workers and sailors accused of being counterrevolutionary and fighting Lenin's forces agreed with the stated purpose of the revolution. They wanted the promised workers' revolution, but Lenin and his cronies created what they called the New Economic Policy, implemented free trade policies, and gave concessions to capitalists, private farm and factory labor.

Of Lenin, Goldman wrote in her autobiography**, after crediting him with clarity of vision, concentration of will, and unflagging determination, she went on to describe why none of that ended up being good for Russia. Lenin used his skill and political knowhow to perpetrate a fraud:

But as to the effect of his purposes and methods upon the Revolution, I considered him the greatest menace, more pernicious than the combined interventionists, because his objective was more elusive, his methods more deceptive.

After Kronstadt, Goldman left Russia. Her route was circuitous as several countries refused her entry. She traveled through Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, Germany (a country that would have allowed her to stay, but she saw the antisemitic handwriting on the wall), England (another country that would have allowed her to stay, but she found it gray and inhospitable to workers with a vision), and eventually Canada.

Ironically, her anarchist, socialist, and communist friends in the West were the least hospitable toward her and her message. They didn't want to hear the truth about Russia — their glorious October. Goldman wrote in her autobiography:

Soviet Russia had become the modern socialist Lourdes, to which the blind and the lame, the deaf and the dumb were looking for miraculous cures. I was filled with pity for these deluded ones, but I felt only contempt for those others who had come, had seen with open eyes and understood and had yet been conquered.

Also disinterested in her message were Western leaders. They wanted their big bad communist state to argue in favor of viper capitalism.

So, Goldman wrote a book. She wanted to title her book My Two Years in Russia, but the publisher changed it to My Disillusionment in Russia. The publisher also deleted her final 12 chapters and the Afterward— her conclusions. She self-published the rest, but the publisher eventually got on board with it and published it, titling it, My Further Disillusionment in Russia. But, the story that Communist Russia was bad became the whole story, and US politicians from then until now still refer to Communist Russia, not now communist, never communist.

Russia was communist in name, and there was no soviet rule. It was all a hoax perpetrated against Russian workers and the world. Lenin's revolution was not a lesson in big bad communism but a lesson in big bad dictatorship. Lenin’s Communist Party managed to turn the collectivized farms and factories to the benefit of the new party-loyal aristocracy. In the West, pro-communist and anti-communist leaders got together to spread Lenin's lie, each for their own separate purpose.

These remain important facts and lessons:

1. the Soviet Union wasn't a union of soviets and wasn't communist, and the world knew but wouldn't admit it.
2. world leaders continued to spread Lenin's hoax to silence calls for better working conditions, food, health care, etc.
3. the left wanted a Marxist standard bearer, and the right wanted an imposing threat to hold over workers who saw their conditions were not sustainable or necessary.
4. Presidents from Wilson to Reagan, and especially Reagan, fought non-existent communism, and the USA spent the balance of the 20th century fighting proxy wars against non-existent communism. Had they, at the very least, fought against the reality of the USSR, the brutal dictatorship, and not the non-existent economic system, maybe those wars might have had some meaning — but they didn't, people died on a lie, and the victims of the dictatorship were not rescued — all to protect the rich's ability to squeeze more money out of workers and the poor.

Goldman predicted the results of Lenin’s fake workers' revolution. She wrote in her autobiography:

In reality, their experiment upon Russia must retard social changes abroad for a long period. What better excuse needs the European bourgeoisie for its reactionary methods than the ferocious dictatorship in Russia?

Still, leaders from both US parties point to the evils of “communism” to deny us health care, education, food, and housing. The Trump Republicans love the new Russia not because it threw off Lenin's dictatorship but because Putin embraced it, made it worse, and they still sell their nonsense as anti-communist.

In reality, the only state that seriously experimented with communism in the 20th century was Israel. The kibbutz system in Israel was localized communism. It failed, less because of failures in the system itself and more because of the wars — fear and unlimited arms turned the kibbutzim on themselves — and war economics as the kibbutzim grew rich on land seized from Palestinians. The same capitalists who lied about Russia lie about Israel.

In the USA, lies have damaged our political and economic systems for d̶e̶c̶a̶d̶e̶s̶, c̶e̶n̶t̶u̶r̶i̶e̶s̶, since the beginning. We lie about humanity, slavery, disease, health care, economics, technology, work, and the environment. And lying is one of the most legally protected institutions in our country. But, while you can lie and get people to believe the lies, you can’t make the lies true, so nothing done based on lies works.

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Sorry, USA, but here’s a truth dump as my last act on Medium (The big one is at the end):

Communism doesn’t exist, and socialism barely exists. All our economic problems come from capitalism, something that does exist.

Covid is not the flu and is not a hoax. It’s getting worse again, and those of you who beg people not to mask and not get vaccinated to “not let Covid win” are the people who let Covid win. It’s an open and unanswered question whether the Trump administration denied Covid and Covid amelioration methods as part of its martial law plan for the 2020 election. I wonder why no one is asking that question.

Religion is likely not true and very likely to damage those who practice and those who are harmed by those who practice it. It is, however, a huge moneymaker, and that’s why different religions fight with each other — they’re not fighting over how to worship a god or how to be good. They’re fighting over the cash.

Americans do not like their health insurance, and with insurance companies in all parts of the insurance industry raising premiums and denying claims, and pulling out of less profitable areas, the entire concept of insurance doesn’t work anymore. It’s become the very poster child for the old saying throwing good money after bad.

Trump didn’t win 2020 and probably didn’t win 2016, and none of our elections are clean and fair because there is too much money and there are too many lies in American politics. Voter fraud is a small problem. Fraud on the voters is a huge problem. And Bernie should have won.

The USA is falling behind for not educating young people and giving corporations free reign over universities.

Technology appears but isn’t clean, and Teslas and other electric and hybrid cars aren’t as green as you’d like them to be if they are green at all. Oh, and by the way, Elon Musk invented nothing.

AI probably doesn’t really exist or exists in a much smaller way than advertised. Many, many people are doing the work behind so-called AI systems.

The anti-vaxxers are wrong about vaccinations, but they aren’t wrong that the FDA isn’t working and has become a booster club for the companies it’s supposed to regulate. In fact, most of the regulatory agencies in our governments, federal and state, have become booster clubs for the companies they’re supposed to regulate. No one is protecting the consumer.

Just because the administration puts out a webpage about battling monopolies and trusts doesn’t mean they’re really battling monopolies and trusts. It’s likely performative.

No one owns culture. It’s meant to be spread and appreciated by all. That doesn’t mean that pushing people out of their culture is okay. There’s a difference between appreciating and appropriating culture, but we shouldn’t prevent appreciation out of fear of appropriation. Sharing cultures is the best way to end racism and bigotry.

Americans threw away their political power. Reagan and the politicians and media that turned him into a prophet happy-talked them into doing it, promising individuality, no rules, and free racism. They got the free racism, but the individuality and no rules parts didn’t work out. Americans are crushed under corporate rules on which they have no say. Corporations rule over Americans at work and also through monopolies and frauds that leave little choice but to buy expensive bad products from insufficient health care to e coli and listeria-laced food to high-interest predatory credit to unrecyclable plastics to rarely recycled lithium batteries to outright poisons. Rather than individuality, Americans got individualization — things that appear made for an individual because a computer can throw your name into a mass mailing, but it’s all mass marketing, and nothing is specifically for you. Now Americans are busy throwing away education, turning schools into high tithing, big box churches, and banning and burning books. Having little but long-hour, low-paying, micromanaged, dismal jobs for companies that produce little that’s worthwhile, Americans seek out comfort and freedom through the only means left, frauds — get rich in {fill in the blank} influencers, buy our stuff to open your own business, MLMs, religion, or they hide in fantasy media — treating every expensive streaming series into their reality, cosplaying at convention halls, at work and at home where they can imagine being the hero. If you want to be the real hero of your life, take back your political power for yourself and not for the rich people the media tells you to admire.

Bye, all. Best wishes in your writing.

**Living My Life, Emma Goldman, Alfred Knopf, Inc, New York, 1931, Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 74–105452, later editions by Dover and Penguin.