Most pundits and conservative talk show hosts are jubilant about a recent Gallup poll. The poll shows the country divided as approximately 42% conservative, 20% liberal and the rest, well, the rest are confused.
It is at the 20% that conservatives point to and jump for joy.
I am obliged to inject a little harsh and very scary reality into the argument. First, and most obvious, note that 40% of Americans are either too ignorant, too apathetic or too wishy-washy to be either conservative or liberal. (Someday I’ll post on that but not now).
Second and most dangerous is the 20% who call themselves liberals. Do you take solace in the relatively small number? WELL DON’T! You are not alone either. All the talk show hosts and conservative talking-heads (and one assumes thinking-heads) are too busy popping champagne corks to bother learning the truth. But alas that’s why you come to conunderground.com – to read what talk radio won’t talk about and FOX , well, you know…
HERE IS THE TRUTH: At their height, the communist party in the former Soviet Union ONLY HAD ABOUT 23% OF THE POPULATION AS COMMUNIST PARTY MEMBERS. Please let that sink in. That was at the height!
The communist takeover of Russia was accomplished with a minuscule percentage of the Russian population being members of the Communist party – in Russia the precursor of the communist party was the so called “majority-minority party” , aka, of course, as the “Bolsheviks”.
During the 1905 revolutions, the Bolsheviks admitted that they were only able to muster 200 members while the much larger Socialist party was forced to grossly exaggerate the claim that they came up with 10,000 – it probably wasn’t half that.
Even 12 years later during the first of the two 1917 revolutions, the February Revolution, the Bolsheviks numbered only 10,000 members. They did however organize “worker militias”. Yes, the unions, which then became the Red Guards and then, finally, the Red Army. Obama did say something about a civilian force to match the military didn’t he.
In no country were communists more that a minuscule minority of the population! In most countries subjugated by communists, the communist party never had more than about 19% of the support of the population at the height of their power and in the former Soviet Union they maxed out at about 23%.
Let’s look at some cases that I am familiar with, but I fully encourage you to do your own research and check out other countries.
Romania. Even with the full backing of the occupying Red Army, in 1947 – the year that the communists experienced exponential growth – the Communist party membership was at most 700,000 . They had been vying for power for the prior two years and in December of that year they took it. They represented only about 3% of the population! At their height in 1989 they numbered just 18% of the population of Romania.
Hungary In 1945 the communist party of Hungary received only 17% of the vote. Two years later they ran unopposed and took power.
China If, like me, you are a product of America’s left wing education system, you probably think that in China, a country of billions of people, hundreds of millions of people line up to get their little communist card. Far from it!
In 1945, the Chinese communist party numbered an estimated 40,000 members. Even in 1956 , at the height of the Cold War, the Chinese communist party numbered a paltry 60 million members and in 2009 the communist party measured a total of 78 million people , just 5.5% of the population!
I know this is news to many because our media and education systems would have you believe that the communists received overwhelming support from the populations. Bull sh*t! Then, like now, the vast majority of the people opposed them and then, like now, they couldn’t stop them. Then, like it may happen now, the communists killed their opposition en masse.
The 20% number is as scary as can be! If only half of those are dedicated liberal progressives or anarchists or ecoholics or whatever the hell they want to call themselves, then understand that that is a way, way higher percentage of the population than they had in Russia or China when the Communists enslaved those nations – and they have the White House. Be very, very afraid.
P.S.
One more thing, it’s worth noting that then, like now the communist party and its leadership was composed almost exclusively of minorities to the respective countries in which they took power. If there is enough demand, I’ll post on that also.
The factor that you leave out of your calculations is that all other places had disarmed the population. Even if the liberals were able to be armed by the government trying to impose some kind of communist takeover, of the 42% that are conservative, 90 million people are armed in the USA. Most who are armed are experienced shooters that either hunt or practice.