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‘Useful idiots’ are behind damage

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker had a valid point in a speech delivered in Berlin last week, on the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth. Marx, Juncker said, “isn’t responsible for all the atrocity his alleged heirs have to answer for.”

Perhaps not. Marx, an icon among the many who still revere communist philosophy, thought more in terms of economic ideology than practical government.

But in practice, communism quickly became the bloodiest form of government in history, bar none.

And while Marx probably does not deserve all the blame for that, many apologists for 20th century communist leaders are richly deserving of condemnation. They include political leaders, entertainers and yes, some journalists.

For decades, horrific crimes committed by, among others, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and the Kim dynasty, to name just a few, were covered up or denied outright. The regimes listed above were — and in some cases are — responsible for millions, perhaps tens of millions of deaths of their own people.

If anything, apologists for modern-era communist regimes have more blood on their hands than does Marx. Sadly, the “useful idiots” still promote communist regimes that are repressive at best, and all too often murderous.

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