Are All Communists Evil?

For a long time, in America, the worst thing that one could be called was a Communist. I spent the first 12 years of my life in the Soviet Union; and I think that not everyone who was a Communist was evil.

My grandmother was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party of Soviet Union. She was nowhere close to being evil. She was a responsible, hard-working and ethical person who worked hard as a math teacher; and when she retired she continued to work hard, cooking dinner, cleaning the house and helping me along in my education to result in me becoing a star student.

Were there atrocities under Communism? Of course there were. Absolutely nothing justifies Stalin. But let us not be blinded by our anger against these wrongdoings to the point that we paint all Communists as though they were Stalin. There were evil people under Communism, and there were good people such as my grandmother under Communism; and it is wrong that the good people who bought into Communism be conflated with the people who ran labor camps and torture chambers.

In fact, a lot of people who bought into Communism could make exemplary citizens. Their ideology taught them to work hard and benefit the next person. If these people are given a purpose, other than Communism, to work as hard as they did under Communism, then they will be able to do a great deal of good

I am not a Communist; but neither am I a bigot, and I apply on social matters the supremely American thinking of looking for opportunities. The people who honestly believed in Communism and who worked hard under Communism can work just as hard, and be as good citizens, under other systems. My advice to Americans is to reach out to these people and convince them to benefit America rather than the Soviet Union. That way, what's right about these people will be allowed constructive expression; and instead of benefiting Stalin they will be benefiting the West.