The Naked Communist by W. Cleon Skousen
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I had a most unusual experience with this book.
This book was assigned for an on-line reading group. I read it and I felt that it was dated and filled with information that was well-known. It was far better than I thought it would be. I thought it would be filed with stock Communist conspiracy fodder, but instead, it offered a pretty decent introduction into the lives and writings of Marx and Engels and the methods used by Communists to subvert countries prior to the book's publication in approximately 1961. On the whole, I thought it was fairly pedestrian and superficial for anyone who has any background into the history of the subject.
As a historical text, though, other parts of the book were chillingly relevant to current events. Skousen lists the subversion of the family as a Communist goal, and here we are near the end stage of that goal.
Of course, given the constant propaganda against the anti-anti-Communist position, my natural reflex is to believe that social forces rather than a cadre behind the scenese is responsible for where we are. On the other hand, why did transsexualism suddenly roll out three years ago? It seems reasonable to think that a very small group among the elites grabbed the subject as a way to make their enemies uncomfortable. Was it intentionally coordinated or was it opportunistic? Maybe a little of both. I can't imagine, though, that there was any kind of grassroots movement to take sex off of birth certificates or open women's restrooms to men who “identify” as women.
On the other hand, after shouting “Russia” for the last four years, we are suddenly learning how many of our elites have been bought off by Communist China. Major corporations don't dare object to the Communist genocide of the Uighurs lest they be denied the China market. There is good evidence that our President-elect at this time (December 2020) has been given millions by the Communist Chinese. We were not allowed to refer to the Coronavirus that locked down the economy during 2020 as the “China Flu” because, you know, “racism” and the fact that the Communist Chinese object. We have had revelations of Chinese spies tied to Eric Swalwell, a Congressman who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, and Senator Feinstein employed a Chinese spy for 20 years, and Britain revealed a long list of British Communist agents.
So, is there Communist infiltration of America? Yes, and it's not secret, although I'm sure that by saying this, I have just outed myself as a paranoid, conspiracy-monger who doesn't belong in polite society.
So, back to my unusual experience with the book group. Two of the members were immigrants from mainland China, who had been subjected to Communist education up to the time they immigrated. The third was an immigrant to Canada from Communist Yugoslavia.
The Chinese women could not speak highly enough about this book. They thought it should be required college reading. They thought it was fresh and interesting. It told them things about Communism that they had never heard before.
Most importantly, these Chinese women were very concerned about Communist China's influence on America. They didn't want to experience the poverty and repression that they had experienced in Communist China. They thought Americans were being duped. They feared that America was heading down the same road of Social Media Totalitarianism that China had created.
They may be right, which is one reason to go back to the roots, such as with this book, in order to remember what and why we have been fighting Communism for over one-hundred years.