He is thinking: “See how God writes straight on crooked lines.” —Machado de Assis What realistic form can a manifesto of Neo-Romanticism take in a positivistic age? How many people will even recognize it as such? In a time when life has been cheapened by the talons of radical ideology, those who cultivate a sense [...]
Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus have long held the reputation of proto-Communists. However, it is time we re-examine this label and determine for ourselves the inadequacy of this nomenclature, and the false impression that it gives to men whose reputation has been sullied by false accusations of Revolution. Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus are known as the [...]
Ryszard Legutko gained fame this spring when he was informed by Middlebury College’s president that his lecture was canceled. Though 40 brave students gathered to hear Prof. Legutko speak in a classroom, the irony was that the episode confirmed his very point that liberal democratic societies have become in many ways just as barbarous and oppressive [...]
Barbara J. Elliott remembers the fall of the Berlin Wall, and draws attention to the individuals who, through faith and love, made this momentous event possible. Having interviewed many of those who were imprisoned, beaten, ostracized, and forced underground during the rule of the communist regime, Professor Elliott tells with passion the stories of the [...]
Marxism can only be forced into a marriage with Christianity if it is misinterpreted. Christians and conservatives can and should read Karl Marx carefully, and even develop an appreciation for his genius. But there is no Christian case to be made for Marxism. […]
Today, China has entered a period of general crisis. It was brought about not merely by slow economic growth and its attendant problems, but by a total upheaval touching every aspect of life in the Middle Kingdom: economic and political, intellectual and religious. Mark this date on your calendar: November 19, 2023. This date would [...]
Fr. Jerzy Popiełuszko preached faith and freedom to the people of Poland. The communists hated him, and someone ordered his murder. But we have this enduring commandment from Fr. Jerzy: “Defeat evil with goodness!” It remains valid even as communism has morphed into post-communism in the former Soviet zone, and reemerged as radical secular and [...]
Somehow Joseph Stalin cannot be reduced merely to just another Russian autocrat or just another communist dictator. Not for him the “banality of evil.”… Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 By Stephen Kotkin (Penguin Press, 2014) Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator By Oleg Khlevniuk, translated by Nora Seligman Favorov (Yale University Press, 2015) The Last [...]
We should not confuse or conflate Russian President Vladimir Putin with Soviet leaders, such as Josef Stalin. They are as different as the proverbial chalk and cheese. Nowhere is this more evident than the way in which Mr. Putin has shown himself to be a great admirer of the anti-Soviet dissident, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The Special [...]
We study history to learn from it. If we can discover what worked and what didn’t work, we can use this knowledge wisely to create a better future. But when propaganda is the goal, accuracy is the victim. Cornelius Vanderbilt Capitalism Worked, But We Were Told It Didn’t We study history to learn [...]
Paul Kengor’s A Pope and a President is unusual in that it is also a theo-history, taking seriously the religious events of the 20th century. Written with academic rigor and in a brisk, readable style, it is a God’s-eye view of the hidden events of the 20th century and the actions of Ronald Reagan and [...]
Vatican diplomats are on the verge of a new relationship with China, and, moreover, about to make a deal with the communist state. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that Rome is capitulating to an avowed atheistic enemy of religion… Taking advice from his boss, who encouraged everyone to “go out and make a [...]
Dear President Putin: It is no use trying any further to accommodate the United States or cooperate with it. We cannot afford any more concessions. It is clear that the United States only respects force and firmness. Dear Mr. President: The below memorandum regarding Russian-American bilateral relations was drafted by my Ministry’s Department of North [...]
Robert Conquest, a historian whose landmark studies of the Stalinist purges and the Ukraine famine of the 1930s documented the horrors perpetrated by the Soviet regime against its own citizens, has died at 98, having outlived the Soviet Union—which came into being in the year of his birth, 1917—and which he helped to bring down [...]