Communism and My Grandmother

My grandmother was a card-carrying member of the Soviet Communist Party; but she was nowhere close to being evil. She worked hard as a math teacher, and when she retired she continued working hard, cooking dinner, cleaning the apartment and helping me along with my education to result in me becoming a star student.

There are many people who see Communists as evil. Don't say that about my grandmother. She could be overbearing at times; but she was never malicious, cunning, deceitful, lazy or anything of that sort.

I am not a Communist. I think that Communism is very easy to refute. There is no such thing as historical inevitability; people's choices will take history into any number of directions for any number of reasons and in any number of ways. The businessman is not a thief; he is someone who gets things done. And the same problems that Communists see as being redressible through class struggle are redressed a lot better through social mobility.

That does not mean however that everyone who bought into Communism was a bad person. My grandmother is one person who bought into Communism who was not evil at all. She would be seen as having lived an exemplary life by many American conservatives; and she and people who've made similar choices should be respected for the good work that they have done.

All sorts of good people fall for all sorts of bad ideologies. Not everyone who bought into Nazism was a sociopath or a narcissist; not everyone who bought into European colonialism was a brute; and not everyone who bought into Communism was evil. It should be possible to work with the people who've bought into Communism and direct their capacity for dedication and hard work toward better causes. That way the world will benefit from these people's efforts and gain through their efforts instead of spending its energy grinding these people into dirt.