Thirty Historical Events That Never Happened (or Didn't Happen the Way We Were Taught They Did)

     Many events that we were taught about in history class as children, have been distorted; by the rose-colored glasses through which the American, capitalist, imperialistic public school system chooses to see them, and wishes its servants to see them. This is done in order to elicit national pride, and to do away with the qualms we have about submitting to that system.
     Here is a list of thirty historical events - between 1916 and 2018 - that either never happened, or else happened in a completely different way from how we were told they unfolded.





     Myth #1:

     The evil sorcerer Grigory Rasputin cursed the Romanov family in December 1916.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Rasputin did not curse the family. Rather, he predicted his own death, and said that the Romanovs would die if Rasputin's death was caused by the Romanovs' kinsmen.

     Moreover, Rasputin was not evil, nor a sorcerer, but a monk, a medicine man and healer, a holy man, a horse whisperer, and a person intimately concerned with the struggles of poor and Jewish people in Russia, as well as with the bleeding disease hemophilia, from which Alexei Romanov suffered.

     The extent to which there was a falling-out between Rasputin and the Tsar has been greatly exaggerated. It's entirely possible that the Tsar only sent Rasputin away on a pilgrimage - temporarily, not permanently - due to the immense pressure he felt from his other advisors to do so.

     Source: http://russiapedia.rt.com/prominent-russians/history-and-mythology/grigory-rasputin/

     For more information, read my August 2019 article "Why Some Believe Anastasia Survived, and Other Strange Facts About the Romanovs and Rasputin":

     http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/08/why-some-believe-anastasia-survived-and.html

     Myth #2:

     Vladimir Lenin took over Russia for communism, 1917-1924.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Kaiser Wilhelm II, the first cousin of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, financed Lenin's move from Switzerland to St. Petersburg in early 1917. Furthermore, the Soviet Union never achieved full communism, but only significant collectivization of agriculture.

     Myth #3:

     The U.S.S.R. was established in 1917-1918.

     Why It's a Myth:

     The U.S.S.R. was not established until 1922. The entity that took over Russia in 1917-1918 was the R.S.F.S.R. (the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic).

     Myth #4:

     The Winter Palace in St. Petersburg was stormed in 1917.

     Why It's a Myth:

     The "storming of the winter palace" was not a real historical event, but rather a "mass spectacle" which was staged by Russians for propaganda purposes in 1920. Tsar Nicholas II was not removed through an overnight coup wherein huge masses of people stormed the palace; rather, he was forced to abdicate, and then Alexander Kerensky's Provisional Government was elected. The Romanovs were allowed to take many of their belongings with them when they left Tsarskoe Selo (the Tsar's palace); they were not rushed out and forced to flee overnight.

     Myth #5:

     Anastasia and Alexei Romanov were murdered with the rest of their family in July 1917.

     Why It's a Myth:

     The fact that Alexei's corpse, and the corpse of Anastasia or one of her sisters, weren't discovered until 2006, suggests that Anastasia and Alexei may not have been murdered along with the rest of their family in July 1917. The book The Myth of the Basement Massacre explains that all members of the family might not have even been shot in the same room.

     For more information, read my August 2019 article "Why Some Believe Anastasia Survived, and Other Strange Facts About the Romanovs and Rasputin":

     http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/08/why-some-believe-anastasia-survived-and.html

     Myth #6:

     Stalinists sabotaged the Spanish republican revolution from 1936 to 1939.

     Why It's a Myth:

     The idea that Stalinists sabotaged the Spanish revolution on purpose, was the opinion of Leon Trotsky and others. But this is not so.

     The Stalinists provided military aid to the Spanish republicans, in exchange for a set of conditions. These included allowing the Soviets to gain influence over military operations in Spain, and the imposition of labor discipline, and the provisions that soldiers may not become drunk (because it would lower their guards when they needed to be ready to fight). Another cause of the Spanish resistance wearing-down was that the republican soldiers had so much democratic power that they could vote their commanding officers out of power. To the Stalinists, who sent them military aid (albeit delayed and insufficient), this was intolerable. Another reason why the Stalinists cannot be blamed for sabotaging the republicans' efforts, is that the Soviets needed to save military equipment for themselves, having tens of millions more people to protect than the Spanish did.

     For more information, read my February 2018 article "Reflection Upon the Use of Forced Labor Camps by Anarchists and Communists":

     http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2018/02/reflection-upon-use-of-forced-labor.html

     Myth #7:

     Josef Stalin capitulated to Nazism in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Stalin did not allow the Nazis to gain control of Soviet territory, nor control of its soldiers. Stalin's U.S.S.R. was the last country to attempt a treaty with the Nazis, after nearly every single country in Europe had already capitulated, and handed territory over to Germany. Stalin knew that Hitler would eventually violate the treaty. Making a deal with Hitler allowed the Soviets to buy time, move industries eastward, and trade the Nazis the weapons and materiel they needed to eventually destroy each other. Stalin's regime could be described as a dictatorship, and perhaps even as anti-Semitic (especially in the last three years of Stalin's reign), but those facts alone do not mean that it was fascist; certainly not Nazi.

     For more information, read my April 2019 article "Stalin Killed Fewer People Than Hitler Did, and How Stalin Tricked Hitler with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact":

     http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/04/stalin-killed-fewer-people-than-hitler.html

     Myth #8:

     The Nazis and Soviets held a joint military parade in Brest-Litovsk in September 1939.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Brest and Litovsk are not now - and were not then - a single city called "Brest-Litovsk". Rather, they are two cities; the then German city of Brest, and the Soviet Russian city of Litovsk. The military "parade" was not a single joint military parade, but two different parades; one held in Brest, the other in Litovsk. The militaries did meet, but there was uneasy tension between them. Also, they did not collaborate, nor help train one another. The Soviet training of the German air force ended in 1933, the same year Hitler took power. The cities of Brest and Litovsk are now located in the country of Belarus.

     Myth #9:

     The Soviet Union invaded Poland in September 1939.

     Why It's a Myth:

     The Soviet Union's takeover of eastern Poland, in late September 1939, followed the Nazis' takeover of western Poland by a full two weeks. The Soviet Union arguably "invaded" eastern Poland in order to protect it from becoming occupied by the Nazis, and because the Nazis had recognized eastern Poland as within the Soviet sphere of influence in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Later, the Soviets salted the earth in eastern Poland as they retreated, but this was done in order to make the land less valuable to the Nazis, not as an act of war against the Polish people.

     For more information, read my April 2019 article "Stalin Killed Fewer People Than Hitler Did, and How Stalin Tricked Hitler with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact":

     http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/04/stalin-killed-fewer-people-than-hitler.html

     Myth #10:

     Poles were targeted for genocide in the Katyn Forest Massacre in March 1940.

     Why It's a Myth:

     The twenty-two thousand Poles killed in the Katyn Forest Massacre were not targeted due to their ethnicity; they were targeted specifically because they were military officers, who had been given opportunities to give up information about the locations of enemy Nazi troops, and refused to collaborate with the Soviets against the Nazis. Less than a thousand of those killed were civilian noncombatants.

     For more information, read my April 2019 article "Stalin Killed Fewer People Than Hitler Did, and How Stalin Tricked Hitler with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact":

     http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/04/stalin-killed-fewer-people-than-hitler.html

     Myth #11:

     The Japanese shot first in the Pearl Harbor attack on December 7th, 1941.

     Why It's a Myth:

     A Japanese submarine snuck into Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7th, 1941. When that submarine was discovered, a U.S. naval officer fired the first shot in the Pacific theater, killing the Japanese submariner inside. The wreckage of that sub was discovered decades later, and reported in the New York Times.

     Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/30/us/japanese-submarine-sunk-at-pearl-harbor-is-found.html

     Myth #12:

     Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Hawai'i was not one of the United States during the attack on Pearl Harbor; it was a territory of the United States, and was considered as "belonging" to the United States at the time. Hawai'i did not become a state until eighteen years later in 1959.

     Source: Daniel Immerwahr's "How to Hide an Empire"

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaKOOqXDnqA

     Myth #13:

     Pearl Harbor was the only Japanese attack on American targets during World War II, December 7th, 1941.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Japan also attacked Wake Island, Guam, and the Philippines on that day.

     Source: Daniel Immerwahr's "How to Hide an Empire"

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaKOOqXDnqA

     Myth #14:

     The Pearl Harbor attack of December 7th, 1941 was the only successful attack on U.S. military forces during World War II.

     Why It's a Myth:

     On April 8th, 1942, German U-Boats successfully sank three American ships, with torpedoes, off the coast of St. Simons Island, near Georgia. These ships included the oil tanker Oklahoma, and the Esso Baton Rouge. Twenty-three American crewmen were killed in these attacks.

     Source: htttp://www.todayingeorgiahistory.org/tih-georgia-day/world-war-ii-german-u-boat-attacks/

     Myth #15:

     The Soviets raised their flag over Berlin during the capture of Berlin in early 1945.

     Why It's a Myth:

     The Soviets did assist in the capture of Berlin, but the famous photo of Soviet troops raising their flag, high above the city of Berlin, was staged for propaganda purposes.

     Myth #16:

     Japan refused to surrender to all Allied Forces in August 1945.

     Why It's a Myth:

     The reason Japan refused to surrender, during its first opportunity to do so, was that the U.S.S.R. was not a signatory of the Allied Forces' invitation to surrender. The Soviet Union did not declare war on Japan until August 11th, 1945; two days after the American bombing of Nagasaki.

     Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-05/hiroshima-bombing-did-not-lead-japanese-surrender-anniversary/6672616

     Myth #17:

     Mao Tse Tung took over China for communism on October 1st, 1949.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Mao's "revolution" was backed by Western financial interests; he was funded by the "C.I.A. at Yale" (i.e., segments of Yale University which were involved with the Office of Strategic Services, which later morphed into the C.I.A.). This occurred after the U.S. backed the nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek, which Mao deposed. Additionally, there is debate over whether China ever achieved full communism, and debate over how in-control of China's revolutionary forces Mao was.

     Source: http://www.jstor.org/stable/44326232

     Myth #18:

     Capitalists formed the resistance to the Soviet invasion of Hungary in October 1956.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Hungarian socialist workers, whom were opposed to the Soviet system, formed the resistance to the Soviet invasion; not capitalists.

     Myth #19:

     John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a single bullet, fired by a single assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, on November 22nd, 1963.

     Why It's a Myth:

     John F. Kennedy was shot by at least two bullets that day. Oswald claimed that he was a "patsy" (that is, a pawn or "fall-guy") between his arrest and his own murder. Some theories assert that it took an entire team, of as many as eight people, to carry out the assassination. Also, the single-bullet theory (or "magic bullet theory") is impossible; for one, magic isn't real, and two, a bullet cannot take a turn in mid-air between penetrating the body of Texas Governor John Connally and entering J.F.K.'s body.

     Myth #20:

     "Tank Man" stopped a line of Chinese tanks with the intent of preventing them from continuing to oppress the Chinese people at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on June 5th, 1989.

     Why It's a Myth:

     "Tank Man" stood in front of a row of tanks because he wanted the tanks to stay in Tiananmen Square; not to prevent them from continuing to oppress the Chinese people.

     For more information, read my June 2019 article "Eight Things You Might Not Know About the Tiananmen Square Massacre", at the following link:

     http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2019/06/what-you-may-not-know-about-tiananmen.html

     Myth #21:

     Iraqi soldiers threw hundreds of babies out of incubators, and stole the incubators, in 1990, during Iraq's attack on Kuwait.

     Why It's a Myth:

     This claim was made by 15-year-old Nayirah al-Sabah, in what came to be known as the "Nayirah testimony", delivered to the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10th, 1990. In 1992, she was revealed to be the daughter of U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait, Saud al-Sabah. Premature babies did die during Iraq's attack on Kuwait, but Nayirah's claim that "hundreds" of babies were thrown out of incubators, which were stolen, could not be verified.

     Myth #22:

     The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were committed by Muslim members of the al-Qaeda terrorist group.

     Why It's a Myth:

     For one, al-Qaeda is a database of U.S.-backed Afghan militants, which America has kept as a bulwark against the Soviets since the late 1970s. Second, the first bombing of the World Trade Center (in 1993) was reportedly spearheaded by Ramzi Yousef, who had apparently been plied into committing the attacks with alcohol and strippers, hardly the behavior of a devout Muslim; therefore, the narrative about "radicalized Muslims committing 9/11" is dubious. Third, numerous evidence exists which supports the presence of Israeli footprints during and after 9/11, such as the "dancing Israelis" seen celebrating the attacks, and the numerous American Zionists who were in power beneath George W. Bush when the attacks occurred.

     Myth #23:

     The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were the first successful attacks on a U.S. military target since Pearl Harbor.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Although the Pentagon was targeted on 9/11, it was not the first successful attack on a U.S. military target since Pearl Harbor in 1941. As explained above, twenty-three U.S. sailors were killed by German U-Boats off the coast of the state of Georgia in 1942. Also, the U.S.S. Cole was bombed on October 12th, 2000, in an attack for which al Qaeda supposedly claimed responsibility. Other U.S. navy ships have been targeted as well, including the U.S.S. Stark incident in 1987 (carried out by Iraq), and the U.S.S. Liberty incident in 1967 (carried out by the State of Israel). The attacks of 9/11 could be described as the first successful attacks on a U.S. military target on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor, but not as the first successful attacks on a U.S. military target in general since Pearl Harbor.

     Myth #24:

     The attacks of September 11th, 2001 were the only attacks against U.S. military targets committed by a foreign country since the end of World War II. / Muslims or Afghanistan "declared war on the United States" on 9/11.

     Why It's a Myth:

     There is no evidence that any particular national government planned or carried out the 9/11 attacks (unless you count the State of Israel). In 2001, the Afghani Taliban hardly had the resources to carry out such an attack, and there is no concrete evidence that Afghanistan was harboring Osama bin Laden (despite its claims that it wished to turn bin Laden over to the United States). It's possible that the U.K., Saudi Arabia, Israel, and/or Pakistan had advanced knowledge of the attacks - or even participated in committing them - but they could have not done so without knowledge by, and help from, the United States. The 9/11 attacks were thus not an act of war, because no single foreign national government committed the attack without U.S. complicity (or at least foreknowledge).

     Myth #25:

     The Afghan Taliban sheltered Osama bin Laden in late 2001.

     Why It's a Myth:

     On October 3rd, 2001, the Chicago Tribune published an article titled "Taliban maintains refusal to turn over bin Laden".

     Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/sns-worldtrade-taliban-chi-story.html

     On October 14th, 2001, The Guardian published an article titled "Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand bin Laden over".

     Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5

     Well, which is it? Did the Taliban offer to turn bin Laden over to American authorities, or didn't they? If both articles above are correct, then if this did happen, then it must have happened between October 3rd and 14th.

     The Guardian article says that Haji Abdul Kabir, "the third most powerful figure" in the Taliban in Afghanistan, said that the Taliban "would be ready to hand him over to a third country" if they found evidence that bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks.

     It's possible that bin Laden was in Afghanistan in late 2001, as American authorities claimed. But the fact that bin Laden was reportedly killed in Pakistan (in a town called Abbottabad) in 2011, suggests the possibility that bin Laden was never in Afghanistan to begin with.

     The fact that opium production dropped the year before 9/11, and skyrocketed back up again after the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, suggests that opium poppies (as well as lithium deposits, and perhaps also the country's underage male sex trade) were the real reasons behind America's invasion of Afghanistan, rather than getting bin Laden.

     Moreover, bin Laden's father had business ties to the Bush family. It's probably more likely that bin Laden was an intelligence asset of the United States, than Afghanistan.

     Myth #26:

     The World Trade Center collapsed on September 11th, 2001 because its steel was melted by jet fuel.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Burning jet fuel is hot enough to melt steel beams in a manner that weakens them, but not hot enough to cause them to collapse on its own. Witnesses reported seeing construction crews enter the World Trade Center in the several weeks leading up to the attack. Physical evidence has confirmed that electric charges were placed on many of the steel beams near a 45-degree angle, allowing the top portions of the beams to slide off of the bottom portions. Numerous videos show that the towers fell nearly at free-fall speed, which is commensurate with what happens during a controlled demolition. Towers 1 and 2 may have been destroyed in a controlled demolition because Building 7 was indisputably demolished intentionally. We know this because World Trade Center owner Larry Silverstein admitted that he told firefighters, "pull it" after World Trade Center Building 7 underwent significant fire damage.

     Myth #27:

     The Pentagon was hit by a plane on September 11th, 2001.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Only five frames of film show an object hitting the Pentagon. None of those five frames show an object large enough to be a plane. All other video tapes were confiscated by the government from local convenience stores and gas stations. Numerous theories suggest that a missile hit the Pentagon rather than a plane. No airplane wreckage was ever recovered from the Pentagon. The hole in the Pentagon was too small and too neat to have been caused by an airplane with wings. For a plane to have hit the Pentagon, it would have had to fly over a highway, where it would have been seen by hundreds of people.

     Myth #28:

     Saddam Hussein's Iraq had W.M.D.s (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in 2003.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Despite the persistent claims of some supporters of the second Iraq War - years after that war ended - that Saddam Hussein allowed W.M.D.s to be smuggled out of Iraq, and into neighboring countries, before the U.S. was able to invade, no weapons of mass destruction were ever found in Iraq. Granted, Hussein gassed Kurds with mustard gas and nerve agents in Halabja in 1985, but that was the same year that America ceased arming Iran exclusively, and began arming both sides of the Iraqi-Iranian War (which lasted from 1981 to 1989). It's possible that the U.S. not only supplied Hussein with the gas, but in fact wanted him to commit those attacks against the Kurds in northern Iraq (whom were allied with Iran at the time). U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell famously held up a vial of anthrax to urge the world to support the war, but that vial was only a model vial, and did not contain real anthrax, much less anthrax from Iraq. Moreover, the documents which indicated that Hussein sought to purchase "yellowcake" uranium from Niger, were later shown to have been forgeries, obtained through officials in Italy, France, and the U.K..

     Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niger_uranium_forgeries#Origin_of_forged_documents

     Myth #29:

     Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro burned trucks loaded with aid on a bridge connecting Colombia and Venezuela in March 2019.

     Why It's a Myth:

     In March 2019, a top member of the opposition to Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro told The New York Times that Maduro's forces had intentionally set fire to a convoy full of humanitarian aid (consisting of food and medicine), on the Francisco de Paula Santander Bridge between Colombia and Venezuela. Critics of Maduro claimed that Maduro ordered the convoy to be set on fire. Shortly thereafter, The New York Times retracted this story, after video footage and eyewitness accounts emerged, which showed that the convoy caught fire when it was hit with a Molotov cocktail. That makeshift bomb was thrown by a member of the opposition to Maduro, not by one of Maduro's supporters.

     Source: http://www.dailysabah.com/americas/2019/03/11/us-backed-opposition-burned-aid-convoy-not-maduro-forces-footage

     Myth #30:

     A "migrant caravan", with Muslim jihadists hidden in its midst, sought to invade the United States in 2018.

     Why It's a Myth:

     Then-president Donald Trump claimed that "unidentified Middle Easterners" were among the Central American caravan of migrants which Fox News repeated was traveling through Mexico to the United States between March and October of 2018. Most of these migrants - about 80% - were from Honduras. No evidence exists to support the claim that "Middle Easterners", nor "jihadists", were taking refuge among the caravan. President Trump exaggerated the fact that many people in the caravan were "military-age males", leading people to believe that militant Muslims constituted a significant segment of the caravan's members. Trump likely did this in order to increase diplomatic tension between the U.S. and its close Central American neighbors, to pressure Mexico into supporting the continued construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and to justify the use of U.S. military forces against the caravan and against countries appearing to assist it.

Written and published on September 9th, 2021

Soap and Mirrors (A Short Story)

 “Soap and Mirrors"

(or "Espuma y Espejos ["Foam and Mirrors"])

or "Foam" or “The Eve of St. George”

by Joseph W. Kopsick

     A warm, lively wind swept across the plains. It was a lonely Thursday evening, in the middle of January in 1935 – before the Great Trouble – in the sleepy hamlet of Almohada. The Feast of St. Agnes was fast approaching.

     In the rectory of the local Catholic parish high school, Padre Salvatore Sábado sat preparing his plans for the remainder of his teaching semester. These included lessons on the liturgy, and the skills and values necessary to start a family.

     Naturally - with some of the students planning to join the priesthood, and others wishing to remain laymen and marry - their interest in the reading material often had to compete for attention against their interest in one another.

     Father Sábado needed to find a way to get his studying nuns and priests, and his overly talkative students aspiring to marry, to focus on both sets of material. He also needed to plan the class's field trip for St. George's Day, in April, just two weeks before the seniors would graduate and come into the adult world.

     He resolved to make it unforgettable.

_________________________

     The next morning, before his students began their weekend, Padre Sábado asked the class, “Who can tell me the significance of the Feast of St. Agnes, coming up this weekend?”

     The arm of Maria Elena, studying to become a nun, darted high into the air. He called on her. “It is a feast to honor the life and sacrifice of the martyr St. Agnes of Rome.” She adjusted her large, thick-rimmed glasses with a single forefinger.

     “Very good, Sister Maria. And can anyone tell me the meaning of the Eve of St. Agnes, celebrated on the previous evening?” No answer came. “Nobody?”

     Finally he explained. “St. Agnes of Rome is celebrated as a patron saint of women, and of children, and of their protection. She is also a 'Heavenly Match-Maker' of sorts!”

     He leaned in, towards where most of the girls sat, and began to whisper: “Young ladies who pray to God through St. Agnes, on the evening before her feast, will meet their soul mate. All you have to do is stand at your mirror and say his name, while reciting the rosary, and offering an oblation to St. Agnes.”

     The students, especially the girls, were astonished and enthralled. Each sought out immediately, prattling on with one another about for whom they would pray. The studying nuns, even, were scandalized, but fascinated! A heavenly matchmaker? And the Holy Mother Church approved? Who could have known!?

_________________________

     Father Sábado's plan worked perfectly.

     The girls returned from the Feast of St. Agnes weekend, better friends with one another than ever before. And the laiety and the studying priests began to socialize with one another more often, as all of the students had something to talk about.

     The subjects of love and religion were finally being taught in conjunction with one another, as Christ intended.

     This enabled the laymen to see a purpose for their religious studies, while the studying nuns and priests came to see the purpose for some students to refrain from entering the clergy. For if all men were priests, as Brother Francis noted, the human race could not continue.

_________________________

     “Who can tell me the significance of the Feast of St. George?”

     Maria Elena's hand shot upwards. “Someone else, this time”, said Father Sábado. “Come on!”

     Roberto hesitantly lifted his hand into the air. “Was he the dragon dude?” The class snickered.

     “Alright, none of that”, snipped the priest. He paused and began to pace the room. “St. George is a patron saint of the military, and one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers. He is also the patron saint of Catalonia and Aragon. And yes, Roberto, he is often depicted as slaying a dragon.”

     He took a long breath and sighed. “...Sister Maria, would you mind telling us the meaning of the Feast of St. George?”

     “Um... it's a holiday in April when men and women exchange gifts of books and flowers... to commemorate St. George?”

     “Good, good. And class, do you know how we celebrate the Eve of St. George?” A hush filled the room.

     “With a field trip to Barcelona!” The students cheered.

     “Now, now-”, he said, calming the class down, “This will be a studying field trip, almost a pilgrimage of sorts. By day we will be visiting cathedrals, learning history, and assisting local charities to give alms from the Church. At night you'll all be staying at a hotel.”

     The students were thrilled. Roberto lifted his hand and piped up: “But what about the Eve of St. George? Is there a ceremony? Do we have to give an offering?”

     “You'll all be filled-in when we get there. As for now, the priests and nuns are dismissed for lunch. Everyone else please stay for one extra minute; I just need one simple question answered. None of you are in trouble.”

     The students laughed. The priests and nuns chatted as they shuffled out.

     “Remember that this field trip is from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon. Please remember to save your Saturday!”

     The door slammed closed. The priest grabbed a pen and paper from off his desk.

     “And also, please, boys, remember to bring a rose for your love. Girls, again, you will bring the gift of a book for the one you admire.” Some of them took a note down, others merely nodded.

     “I know that some of you have already begun dating-” Some students gasped. “I repeat, you are not in trouble. Remember what I taught you about St. Agnes and St. Frances.” The class calmed down.

     “I need you to tell me - in confidence, as your teacher - whether any of you are planning to marry. Or, if you are not yet, I need to know if there is anyone in the class whom you like.” His students giggled.

     “Please write your name and theirs onto a small sheet of paper, and place it face-down on your desk. Ask me to be excused, individually, when you are done, and I will collect it and allow you go to lunch.”

     The students complied.

_________________________

     That Friday night, at his home, on the outskirts of town, Father Salvatore Sábado sat, smoking a pipe, laughing quietly to himself, as he planned the hotel accommodations and lodging arrangements for his students.

     “I'm going to need a lot more shaving cream.”

_________________________

     The Feast of St. George weekend finally arrived.

     After parting with their suitcases in the hotel lobby that Saturday afternoon, the students toured cathedrals and gave alms. They arrived back at the hotel that evening, tired, to a curious sight: the mirrors in their bathrooms were not only so large that they covered the entire walls; they were also covered with white foam!

     While setting up her beauty accessories at the bathroom vanity, Sister Maria Elena's hand came close to a corner of the mirror that had no lather upon it (which she supposed was shaving lather).
     When her pinky finger errantly touched upon the mirror, she noticed that there was no gap between her finger and its reflection. Maria Elena thought this quite strange; where there would usually be a pane of glass, between the reflective part of the mirror and its surface, there was nothing.
     And so, she mentioned it to the other nuns, who were all sleeping together in the same room. They thought nothing of it, however, and instead they flocked around the letter which Father Sábado had left for them on the bathroom counter (of which he had left a copy in each and every room):

     “Before midnight, stand at the mirror, and pray to God through St. George.

     Right before the stroke of midnight, make yourself as naked as the day God made you.

     Then light two candles, place them near the mirror, and then brush away the foam.

     Then - if you are pure of heart - the one who loves you the most will appear to you."

     As instructed, so each student did.

     And they were so excited, at the chance of meeting their soul mate (or their Creator) that, by the time Sunday arrived, some of them scarcely noticed - through the wall of thick foam - that what was in front of them was no mirror at all, but a simple pane of glass.

     And that is why, directly after the stroke of midnight, on the Feast of St. George, in April 1935, a thunderous, shattering applause was heard all throughout that hotel in Barcelona, although not a single cloud was in the sky.

     The sound was of crackling glass.

     For, to each student, the sight of their true lover through the mirror, was too overwhelming and heavenly, to greet with anything other than that thunder.

     And then, the sound that came next: “Oh, God! Oh, God!, Oh, God!”

_________________________

     And while all this was going on, Padre Salvatore Sábado reclined innocently on the sofa, in the room opposite Maria Elena and the other nuns.

     While he innocently chomped on his cigar and downed his whiskey, Father Sábado gazed upon Maria's beauty unespied.

     Standing there, with all the others, they shed their clothes, their faith in God, and their innocence, all at once.

     As a peace overcame Father Sábado, Father Sábado overcame himself. Finally, there was some foam on his side of the mirror.

     He bolted upwards, spilling some of his drink.

     “Oh fuck, parent-teacher conferences!”

The End

_________________________

Happy Eve of St. Agnes from Joe Kopsick

Inspired by the "Bloody Mary" ritual,

"The Eve of St. Agnes" by John Keats,

and also either an unknown Spanish folk tale, and/or a dream

Written on January 20^th and 21^st, 2021

Published on January 21^st, 2021

Edited on January 22nd, 2021,
and March 23rd and 25th, 2022

Cover added on February 10th, 2021

Regarding the Surviving Royal Families of Europe

     The Soviet Union and Germany didn't achieve socialism. But fortunately, what they did achieve was throw off their country's royal families:

     - The USSR in 1917-1918,

     - Germany in 1918 when social democrat Friedrich Ebert took over after Wilhelm II died,

     - (and also Greece in 1973).

     I wrote "families", but they were the same family (in both the previous three countries named, and the next seven countries named). Eleven European countries still have monarchies; 1) an absolutist monarchy in the Vatican; 2-4) constitutional monarchies in Monaco, Liechtenstein, and Sweden; and 5-11) seven other constitutional monarchies. Those seven constitutional monarchies are the primary focus of this article.

     Those seven European countries - the U.K./Wales/Scotland (Edinburgh), the Netherlands (through William of Orange, of Danish origin), Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, Denmark, and Norway - all still have royal families. Sure, they are monarchies which are "limited by a constitutional republic", but the fact that seven European countries' royal families are related ought to concern us. Is  a constitutional republic really enough limitation on a royal family that rules a third of the countries on the continent?

King George V of England (right) with his first cousin Czar Nicholas II of Russia (left).

Both men shared a grandmother, Queen Victoria of England.

     The Russian and English royal families, the German and English royal families, as well as the Spanish and Dutch royal families, have all been intertwined at times. The last German king, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Prussia, was the son of a German king, and Victoria, Princess Royal, the daughter of Queen Victoria of England. Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was married to Alexandra of Hesse, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria; this means Nicholas went to war with his own wife's first cousin. Nicholas and Alexandra married in 1894; thirty-one years after Nicholas's cousin George's parents, Albert and Alexandra, had already gotten married to each other. Nicholas's wife Alexandra's mother Alice, and Nicholas's aunt Alexandra's husband Albert, were both children of Queen Victoria.

     Have you ever heard of King Christian IX of Denmark (1818-1906), of the House of Glucksburg (Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg)? He was born in Denmark, but moved to Norway, and founded the branch of the Carlist monarchical dynasty that rules most of the surviving European constitutional monarchies.

     King Christian IX is known as the "father-in-law of Europe". His children and grandchildren of King Christian IX have included kings, queens, princes, and princesses of nine countries, six or seven of which still have the same royal family running them (Note: I say "six or seven" because I think the issue of whether the Netherlands should be included, should stay open for debate. That's because the Danish-Dutch-British ties (which the relations of King Wilhelm I of the Netherlands brought to the monarchy) were formed before King Christian was born).
     The countries in which King Christian's direct descendants remain in power today, are the U.K., Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, Denmark, and Norway.

     Below is a partial list of the most powerful of Christian's descendants, broken down by country. The first six countries still have Carlist kings descended from Charlemagne and Christian IX. Some names appear twice, in order to reflect the descendants' ties to multiple countries.

     The Netherlands do not appear here, because - to reiterate - the ties between the Danish, Dutch, and British monarchies which were brought to the Carlist royal family by the Dutch King Wilhelm I were formed before King Christian IX of Denmark lived. Wilhelm I of the Netherlands was neither a descendant nor an ancestor of King Christian IX.
     I have also included Greece, Russia, and Germany below. Although the Carlist monarchy has no official power in those countries anymore, I have decided to include them in order to show the full extent of the family's relations in the two countries mentioned at the beginning of the article (i.e., Russia and Germany) as well as Greece (because it abolished the monarchy so recently; in 1973).
     [Note: This is not intended to be a complete list of all descendants of King Christian IX of Denmark; additional research is needed, and may be added below in subsequent edits of this article.]

- United Kingdom:
     - King Christian's daughter Queen Alexandra of the U.K., Denmark, etc. (1844-1925)
     - Grandson King George V (1865-1936)
     - Great-grandson King George VI (1895-1952)
     - Great-great-granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II of England (1926-)

- Scotland / Edinburgh:
     - King Christian's great-grandson Philip Duke of Edinburgh and Prince of the United Kingdom (born in Greece to Greek and Danish royal families) (1921-)

- Belgium:
     - Phillippe

- Luxembourg:
     - Grand Duke Henri

- Spain:

     - King Felipe VI (1968-)
     - Queen Sofia of Greece and Denmark (mother of King Felipe VI of Spain) (1938-)

- Denmark:

     - Margarethe II

     - King Frederick VII

     - King Christian's daughter Queen Maria Feodorovna, princess of Denmark and Empress of Russia (1844-1925)

     - Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh (born into Greek and Danish royal families) (1921-)

     - Queen Sofia of Greece and Denmark (1938-)
- Norway:
     - King Harald V of Norway

- Germany:
     - King Christian's daughter Princess Thyra (had German ties)
     - King Christian's son Valdemar of Denmark (had German ties)

- Russia:
     - Nicholas II
     - King Christian's daughter Queen Maria Feodorovna, princess of Denmark and Empress of Russia (1844-1925)

- Greece:
     - King Christian's son King George I of Greece (1845-1913)
     - King Christian's grandson Prince Andrew of Greece  (1882-1944)
     - King Christian's great-grandson Philip Duke of Edinburgh and Prince of the United Kingdom (born in Greece to Greek and Danish royal families) (1921-)

     - Queen Sofia of Greece and Denmark (mother of King Felipe VI of Spain) (1938-)

     - Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh (born in Greece to Greek and Danish royal families) (1921-)     - Constantine II
     - Queen Anne-Marie

     By the way...

     All of those countries, in some way, attempted to appease Hitler. Many of those appeasement attempts would have had the effect of preserving their monarchies, and in many cases those attempts were done in order to preserve their monarchies. The King of Belgium even gave troops orders to stand down as the Nazis swept through his country.

     Limiting the monarchy is one thing, but abolishing it is another. One monarchy governing six or ten countries is not sovereignty, and it is certainly not populism, nor democracy, nor liberty. Conservative monarchism is fascism; it is the Divine Right of Kings. And it will not hesitate to feed populaces to fascists.
     Conservative monarchists - most notably Franco, Mussolini, and even Churchill - all attempted to appease and/or cooperate with powers that were more fascist, racist, and brutal than they were themselves. Each made the mistake of thinking that they could work with regimes much more brutal than they.

     It is true that nearly all monarchists are brutal and fascistic, but that does not mean that all fascist or fascistic regimes support monarchies. On the other hand, that doesn't necessarily mean that fascists, and the monarchies with whom they compete for power, won't collaborate when outside forces pressure them to choose sides.
     I hope I have not given the impression that I appreciate the regimes which abolished the monarchy in Germany and Russia, more than I appreciate the abolition of the monarchy in those countries in general. I believe that the U.S.S.R. was a milder replacement for the monarchy in Russia, than the Nazi regime was for the monarchy in Germany.
     Additionally, it was not Hitler who initially replaced the monarchy in Germany; Kaiser Wilhelm II of Prussia abdicated in 1918, leaving Germany devoid of any kings. The Nazi regime did not take power until 15 years later. If Wilhelm had not abdicated, Hitler may well have had more of an impetus to cooperate with the monarchy and rule in their favor. And in their mutual opposition of the Soviet Union, the Nazis had a natural ally in the countries that wanted to preserve their monarchies. All the Nazis had to do was convince those countries to accept Nazi occupation.
   

[Note:

     This article previously contained some inaccurate information regarding the family relationships between Nicholas II, Wilhelm II, George V, Alexandra of Hesse, Queen Victoria, and Christian IX. The author regrets the error.]

Originally Written and Published on April 12th, 2019

Edited and Expanded between April 30th and May 2nd, 2019

Images Added on April 27th and September 18th, 2019

Edited on April 16th, 2021

Reflection Upon the Use of Forced Labor Camps by Anarchists and Communists

     It is said, and accurately, that “people starved under Communism”.

     What is typically meant by “Communism”, of course, is the ideology of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), which was founded by Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia in 1917 and collapsed in 1991. [Note: soviet means “council”, and Bolshevik means “majority”].

     The ideology of the U.S.S.R. was predominantly influenced by Marxism-Leninism, Lenin having been instrumental in developing Marxist theory, and in leading and organizing the October Revolution. In Marxist theory, socializing control of the means of production (“socialism”, for short) can empower workers and associations between them sufficiently, such that the state is no longer needed, and withers away, giving way to moneyless, classless, stateless communism, while at the same time a new kind of “state”; a “dictatorship of the proletariat”.

     Marxism-Leninism combined the idea of a revolutionary vanguard party with democratic centralism and council communism; while Stalinism ran with vanguardism practically to the point of ignoring the risks of imperialism and of stifling international attempts at communism that did not wish to stay in communion with the U.S.S.R.. However, Russia and the other former members of the U.S.S.R. are not the only countries that have tried communism. Additionally, Bolshevik socialism, with communism as its stated end goal, is not the only form of communism that has ever been proposed.

     Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Luxemburgism, Juche, libertarian and anarcho-communism, the utopian communalism of Owen, Fourier, and Mill... Not only are there are many varieties of communism, but there are many kinds of socialism, and they don't all have communism as their end goal (whether we mean Bolshevism or anarcho-communism).

     Whomever makes such a broad statement as “people starved under communism” should be cautious as to which form of communism he means. Sometimes it ought to be enough to differentiate theorized stateless communism from Bolshevik Communism with a simple difference in capitalization, but that difference cannot be understood voice-to-voice without explanation. Using capitalization to make a distinction is just like capitalism: it only works on paper.

     Communism can and does work. Regimes that were communist in intent and/or name have made extraordinary achievements in fields such as agriculture, industry, literacy, social justice, and aeronautics. Communist militias have been formed. Anarchist communes have been founded, settled, and lived in. Nations have been formed out of the voluntary associations of communes with one another. Paris was a commune twice in the 19^th century. The autonomous republic of Transnistria is arguably still communist or Soviet. There are regional and national federations of anarchists and communists, that have associations with one another, all around the globe.

     Communism can exist, has existed, and does exist. Some people have starved under communism, and some people did not starve while under communism. When communism fails, and when people starve under communism, it is usually the result of attack, sabotage, or natural calamity. The Paris Commune ended when the French aristocracy took control back from the Communards. Communists' attempts to control Vietnam and South Korea - and socialists' attempts to control various Latin American and South American countries (even via democratic election) – were sabotaged by the capitalistic American Empire. The Ukraine suffered a famine in the 1930s, called the Holodomor.

     Other causes of the collapse of communist societies ought not be blamed solely on communism, but on those self-described communists who ignored the principle of autonomy in the organization of workers, and who chose centralization over decentralization as a way to ensure the needs of the populace were met (namely, Marxists). Nationalization and centralization of industries, over-bureaucratization of management, micro-management, strict discipline of workers; these practices neglect all impulses to guard against the bourgeoisie spirit, and against the treatment of the working class as a “reserve army of labor”, both of which workers should despise.

     But the Left is not prone to authoritarianism just because its members are sometimes hypocritical. Nor is collapsed communism the only system prone to hypocrisy. For instance, the modern-day Russian Federation criticizes Western imperialism while arguably acting just as imperialistic as either the United States or as the U.S.S.R. under Stalin. Readers also ought to note the irony of the fact that Stalinists and American imperialists both conspired to crush international attempts at communism during the 20^th century. Although they appeared to do that for different reasons, it makes one wonder whether the old rumor is true that American banking interests financed the October Revolution.

     It's entirely possible that Jacob Schiff and other Western banking interests helped finance the Vanguard of the October Revolution (which included Lenin and Trotsky) – and if they did, then British and German banking interests were likely involved as well. That the same three imperialist nations all later fought the U.S.S.R. and Soviet influence, should be no surprise. Western imperialist nations have profited off of the desperation of the second and third world in such a manner; America for at least two centuries now, the others for much longer. This will continue to happen as long as nations desirous of communism keep “trading” with capitalist enterprises and governments representing capitalist interests.

     What this is, is a scheme to undermine successive regimes, by sowing the seeds of discord and revolutionary activity in the public; the goal being to cause regime after regime to fall, no matter its ideology, intent, or goals. This is done in order to pressure fledgling regimes to sell their assets to the U.S. government and American businesses, to seize assets from their citizens in order to find more to sell, and to open up their countries' land and labor to foreign interests who want to export nearly everything of value out of the country in question.

     While it may seem hypocritical to help destroy the regime you just helped put into power - to bait all countries and governments against each other for your profit – it is actually a very consistent method of seizing power. Through differential interest rates on lending, and through cartelization and fixing of monetary exchange rates, the banking elite make bets on which nation will best be able to exploit its citizens and their property, and force them to join militaries to murder foreigners for their property, so they can give it to the banks to repay the debts which the government and/or public owe the banks.

     This system is innate to capitalism, mercantilism, fascism, and indeed any purported “free”-market system that tolerates any degree of state interference. This is so for the simple reason that militaries and banking monopolies do not behave like normal actors engaging in voluntary exchange. By their nature, their very presence in markets destroys the freedom of markets. True choice cannot take place under conditions of monopoly or coercion.

     If communism is defeated or sabotaged by an outside force, we should not blame the victims, nor encourage them to feel ashamed on account of it. Just as it is in the nature of militaristic, belligerent imperialist nations to crush attempts to live outside of their purview, it is in the nature of trading capitalist nations to legally exploit the natural resources and work-power of the countries agreeing (or reluctantly assenting) to trade with them.

     Trade itself poses a dangerous question, and threat, to communist regimes. That is, the danger is the issue of whether a communist nation is supposed to trade, or whether it should be entirely self-sufficient. What's so dangerous about trade is that the “freedom to trade” usually has force to back it up, rendering trade a “force” in and of itself (that is, at least in “market” economies that tolerate any degree of state influence). The “freedom” to pressure, leverage, manipulate, isolate, and intimidate a government into confiscate its people's lands and selling their jobs, futures, and homes out from underneath them, is not a freedom, because it destroys the liberties of others. Nor is it a natural “freedom”, because it requires coercion to enforce.

     That is why it is so unfortunate that spreading truly free-market systems has proven difficult, and has sometimes failed. Perhaps that's because proponents of this idea have always hoped that a central government, in whatever form, can ensure that trade stays free. Federations of council republics, and systems of common markets and free interstate commerce, are difficult to craft, because they require some level of military and managerial will-power to organize whole communities and nations of people, to try new systems of political and economic self-governance.

     When critics of Soviet “Communism” (if indeed it really was Communism; many Leftists will argue that it was not because it did not achieve statelessness) blame the economic ideology that led it, and also blame all other vaguely associated and vaguely similar ideologies, it usually seems to be motivated by the desires to find a scapegoat, and simplify things to fit their preconceived narrative and confirmation bias.

     Turning nationalist movements into territorial nation-states is not something that happens without some bloodshed, and people in uniforms telling other people what to do. Furthermore, if any society exists for long enough, anarchist or not, it will eventually suffer from some sort of famine or other natural disaster. Are we to blame communism for even the weather? Should we blame the Governor of California every time there is a wildfire in his state?

     Every time we pretend that more control and fire-power, or better government management, could have prevented a national tragedy or a natural calamity, we give in to the Statist idea that government is like a God, that it can stop evil at-will, that it can save people from natural disasters. It's true that government agencies have rescued people from natural disasters, and that government employees put fires out; but it's also true that government mismanagement has resulted in lots of people living in flood-prone areas, exposing them to the risk of natural disasters. It does liberty no service to attempt to criticize communism and statism while ascribing godlike powers to those who practice them.

     In Jamestown colony, John Smith echoed the words of Paul the Apostle: “If a man does not work, then neither shall he eat.” Yet the Jamestown settlers resorted to cannibalism. Lenin espoused the same idea, and some people starved under the U.S.S.R.. Why should we try to blame the failure of a colony in America, or the failure of the U.S.S.R., on either communism or Christianity, when we could blame the drought that afflicted the settlers, or the famines that afflicted the Communists?

     The Marxian material conception of history tells us that the material conditions of those community-building attempts determined their destiny much more than any political or economic system ever could have.

     In the early 20^th century, before fascism swept Europe - with its ultra-nationalism, nationalization of property under the pretense of privatization, and command-and-control economics measures such as rationing and price controls – tens of millions died of Spanish influenza following the conclusion of World War I. Between ten and twenty years after that, in the United States, agricultural mismanagement exacerbated the already severe financial conditions. Next, for Europe and America alike, it was that perfect storm - severe natural and material conditions, combined with the pressure to choose between the fascists and the communists - which caused liberal democracy after socialist republic to fall victim to the pressure to impose rigorous controls on the economy and society.

     The result was what some call “socialists acting like fascists”. Events like the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentropp treaty showed that the Stalinists were just as expansionist as the Nazis, and just as much without regard for the fate of Poles, Jews, and other people living in the giant World War II hot spot known as the Russian Pale. Socialists and Communists caved into military, natural, and economic pressure, and started focusing on centralizing control and consolidating power to guard against outside threats (namely, fascism). And anarchists and Communists alike built work camps, and worked people to death.

     The tactics employed by both the anarcho-communists and the fascists – namely, economic controls and coerced labor - were similar. However, to suggest that those facts alone makes them the same, is almost to say that a fascist militant, once captured, doesn't deserve to be treated with the torturous methods which his ilk invented. There is a time for justice, and a time for mercy; but mercy is by definition something which is undeserved.

     Even if anarcho-communists and fascists did share some of the same goals in maintaining their forced labor prisons (or justice and rehabilitation systems, whatever you want to call them), that does not mean that all anarcho-communists “become what they despised”, or “became authoritarian” or became Nazis. Whether they deprived anyone of liberty wrongfully or not, their actions should not discredit all anarchists, nor all socialists, communists, nor “Leftists” (however you wish to define that term).

     I could blame any crimes of the anarchists of the Spanish social republic on the U.S. Republican Party if I wanted to, but I wouldn't make such a ridiculous claim. It may take a little extra time to criticize different types of communist regimes for different activities, but it's worth it compared to the non-existent benefits of oversimplifying things by lumping-together everyone with a slightly similar philosophy or name.

     In the 1930s, as nationalism swept Europe and imperialism swept the world, the need to unify in a solid front against the fascists grew; specifically against the Francoists in Spain, the Mussolinian fascists in Italy, and Hitler's National Socialist Nazis in Germany.

     In 1936, to contain the spread of Franco's sphere of influence, mechanic and revolutionary Buenaventura Durruti erected the Durruti Column, a militant organization comprised of thousands of anarchists from all over the world. The Durruti Column worked in close coordination with the C.N.T. and F.A.I. to organize resistance to the Francoists. The C.N.T. (Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo) is an anarcho-syndicalist union, and the F.A.I. (Federacion Anarquista Iberica) is a group of militant anarcho-communists who are active within affinity groups inside the C.N.T..

     Solidarity between anarchists, syndicalists, communists, and other anti-fascists was essential, given the small numbers of radical anti-fascists, considered against the magnitude of the threat posed by Franco (and, later, the Axis Powers). [Note: At times throughout this essay, I may refer to the entire anti-fascist front as either “anarchist” or “communist”, or both.]

     Beginning in 1937, the leadership of the C.N.T.-F.A.I. began imprisoning people in coerced labor camps; including fascist sympathizers, clergymen, members of the bourgeoisie, and “reactionaries” and “subversives”, as well as thieves, drunkards, and delinquents, and even C.N.T.-F.A.I. officers who abused their power. According to the C.N.T.-F.A.I.'s defenders, these prisoners were not held in as brutal conditions as those in Stalin's gulags, as they still had contact with the outside world.

     Some of the anarcho-communists' decisions at this time – in particular, the decision to maintain work camps – were framed in the context that the only alternative was fascism. If one did not work hard enough, one was treated with suspicion of sabotage. It is said that this is because if military activities lag behind, and if the civilian work which gives the military its support structure lags behind, then the fascists will take advantage of the communists' vulnerability, and take over.

     The anarchists' treatment of their prisoners of war may seem cruel; however, they deemed it necessary to face the fascist threat. In order to fight against the fascists, one had to join forces with whomever was fighting them, in order to overcome overwhelming odds. If one wanted to fight with the anarchists, one had to tolerate fighting alongside communists, and obeying the officers of the military unit. If you had to fight fascists and Nazis, your willingness to tolerate a little “authoritarianism” within your own ranks might prove advantageous in the long term.

     Enemies at the gates breed desperation inside, and desperation and pressure breed coercion and control. And whomever puts in the most initiative to organize people, organize their labor, and organize the military and its support structure - and whomever is the best at directing resources, in a way that balances the needs of those needing protection and incapable of defending themselves, versus the militants doing the protecting – is going to look authoritarian by contrast to the people they are empowering.

     The fact that Spanish anarchism eventually lost-out to Franco, or that the U.S.S.R. eventually collapsed, should not be mistaken so as to prove that all political and economic systems will fail if they are to any extent “radical”, “extremist”, “Leftist”, or “collectivist”.

     Nor should they be construed to prove that only private property rights and market systems guard against starvation or authoritarianism. Nor should they be taken to prove that all of these systems require corruption into Statism, nor that they cannot survive without imposing extreme economic controls (such as rationing, or collectivization or nationalization of resources).

     Anarchism certainly seems to embrace liberty, and not all communism opposes liberty. If anarchism and communism do not succeed often, it is not necessarily because there is something intrinsically wrong with them, nor with their name, nor even because they did not embrace liberty enough. Actually, at times, some anarchists and libertarians have been too tolerant of people who are not willing to tolerate them, and their mercy and benefit of the doubt betrayed them.

     But the reasons that anarchists and communists didn't often succeed in the 20^th century, as I have hinted at already, are that there are military, commercial, and rhetorical forces mounted against them from secure places of power and influence. Additionally, because the inferior agricultural technology and medicinal science, coupled with poor agricultural conditions, compounded the already enormous politicoeconomic pressures of the time, which caused poverty conditions and starvation. Aside from that, it also came down to how efficient the distribution system was, whether it focused on government management or market-based pricing mechanisms, whether there were multiple supply lines, and how much the black market thrived.

     Wars, famines, droughts, natural disasters, health epidemics, deficiencies and inefficiencies in transportation and distribution infrastructure: any one of these things alone could bring a nation - even a whole continent - to its knees. The early 20^th century was fraught with those problems, and it had to solve them with early 20^th century technology, industry, and science.

     In light of all these difficulties, and the dire domestic material conditions of the time – alongside the extraordinary threat posed by authoritarian controls coming from outside the country – it should be easy to understand why the anti-authoritarian anarchists of the C.N.T.-F.A.I. were willing to tolerate these controls; seemingly authoritarian, though designed to keep communities safe from fascist military advances.

     It should be even easier when one considers that no particular political nor economic system ought to be blamed for imposing command-and-control measures upon the economy, such as rationing and price controls. Minimum wage laws are price floors on the value of labor, yet they continue to exist in nearly every country in the world, with hardly anyone calling them controls on price. More directly to the point, even the staunchly market-oriented liberal democracy of the United Kingdom nearly succumbed to fascism.

     That is to say, even if the British regime in London didn't fall due to continuous Nazi bombings, Chamberlain tried to appease Hitler several years prior, Churchill had admired Hitler early-on in his reign, and Churchill oversaw rationing, and made racist comments about the people of India. But then again, Gandhi wrote a letter to Hitler as well. It is true, as they say, “politics breed strange bedfellows”, and “desperate times call for desperate measures”. It's just too bad that “all our national heroes were psychopathic, murderous, racist sexual predators” isn't a snappy enough phrase to catch on. In the grand historical scheme of things, hopefully we've made it past the worst of that. Taking baggage with us from the 20^th century isn't going to help us; not anywhere nearly as much as making sure we're all on the same page.

     The way we can make sure we're all on the same page is by talking to each other - specifically, to people with different economic and political views from us, and different backgrounds - making sure we're understood when we use particularly loaded political terms, and making more questions fair and open.

     One particular question which it might help us to ask is whether people who make private property claims are depending on the state to enforce that claim, while putting minimal or no effort into protecting the property themselves. Additionally, whether this expectation predisposes propertarian market systems to value the protection property and control, instead of the protection people and their freedoms; by welcoming coercive governments to intrude upon the market for the protection of property, and then to seize and sell that property.

     For as we have seen throughout history, governments wielding a monopoly on protecting the people, all too often neglect their duties, fail to even assume those duties through any form of legal obligation, or simply confiscate and sell the land (and the people on it) which they were charged with the task of protecting.

     I don't know whether, nor how, any particular one of my readers might distinguish work camps, internment camps, concentration camps, and gulags from one another; nor whether they would differentiate slavery, involuntary servitude, or coerced or forced labor, from “mandatory volunteering”. But whatever you call the facility and the practice, it should be easy to see why, under any political or economic system suffering from production and distribution difficulties (and/or any number of other major problems), command-and-control measures are natural and predictable responses to dire military and economic circumstances.

     But that is not to suggest that we ought to tolerate authoritarian economic nor social controls, nor that command-and-control measures nor work camps are unavoidable whenever there is a major problem. Not only are those measures avoidable, the supposed solution to those problems (forced labor) does nothing to solve the problem, nor even to alleviate it. Imposing long hours of coerced labor for little or no compensation, - whether done by Nazis, Bolsheviks, anarchists, or even liberal democracies – causes the hoarding of labor-hours in the hands of the workers (really, in the hands of those who make them work).

     When the bulk of necessary tasks in a society are performed by people in chains - living in camps and ghettos and other densely populated centers - the distribution of labor-hours becomes uneven, and all areas outside of the most densely populated areas are drained of laborers. That is why the use of work camps - although they promised the destitute that they could “work themselves free” or “buy their freedom” - breeds concentration of wealth in the hands of the few. That's because it concentrates wealth into small areas (namely, urban areas, and densely-populated areas, where the most people are working), and it brings with it vast inequality of income and opportunity. And not just due to the poverty of unemployment, and depending on one's location; being employed was obviously no picnic either.

     Fortunately, today, the risks of natural disasters and bad farming weather have become easier to alleviate with modern technology, and extreme poverty is nowhere near as much of a problem now as it was in the early 20^th century. Today, though, we have new industrial and scientific technologies.

     We also have new developments in political and economic science; as technologies like improved protection of the rights to speak and communicate will help us guard against the risks of control and authoritarianism in the 21^st century. Hopefully, too, will the freedoms of, to, and from political association will become better protected; unfortunately, the issue of who we expect to do that protection is beyond the scope of this essay.

     Decentralizing power away from cities and central governments could help distribute wealth and power geographically in a more equitable way. Moreover, it could help reverse the flow of workers and jobs from rural communities to dense population centers, and undo a lot of the damage caused by the territorial enclosure of the Commons.

     Additionally, eliminating all subsidies and bailouts, reducing or eliminating unnecessary taxes on sales and imports, and drastically reducing the durations of the terms of patent protection (or else the complete abolition of government protection of intellectual property) could all help accelerate the process of making goods easier to afford. These measures would diminish most of the ill effects of the concentration of military and economic power, as well as the inordinate powers of governments - and the “innovators” and “developers” they protect – to determine prices, and to control production and distribution.

     With pirating and peer-to-peer file-sharing, the free and open collaborative commons, the “sharing economy” and “gift trade barter share” economies, and technological innovations such as the rise of automation and 3-D printing, obtaining resources (especially information) without going through governments and monopolists has gotten easier. With the rise of the internet, the black market of underground voluntary exchange has grown, and has been conducive to freedom, but so too has the red market (the market for violent exchange). The difference between them is the difference between “piracy” (sharing) and theft.

     The benefits of owning rather than sharing notwithstanding, the easier it becomes to share resources, and to use substitutes or unlicensed versions of those resources, the more affordable those resources become. Even if those counter-economic measures only succeed in increasing the affordability of the substitute, then there is, at least, still some pressure on the monopolist to lower his price, at least prospectively.

     The more affordable resources become, the easier and cheaper it becomes to transport and distribute them. That is why avoiding government and its beneficiaries in “private” industry like the plague - and crafting market-oriented liberal-democratic policies that respect the civil liberties and social freedoms of the people, as well as the autonomy of the citizen, worker, and governmental jurisdiction - are the best ways to ease the strains which result from inefficient and insufficient distribution infrastructure. Coincidentally, and conveniently, they are also the best ways to create equal justice under the law, and equality of opportunity, and to erect a unified front against fascism.

     Freedom-loving supporters of the markets can criticize “left-authoritarianism”, “social-authoritarianism”, or “feelings-fascism” as much as they please; but if libertarians, classical liberals, modern liberals, progressives - and, yes, even socialists or syndicalists, communists anarchists alike, do not fight against fascism together - then there might not be enough anti-fascists to save the people, their communities, and their property from being seized by authoritarian regimes. And if there is no respect of even the most basic property rights, then there can be no free market system, because you can't make a trade if you don't have anything to trade with.

     The “authoritarianism” that was characteristic of early 20^th century anarcho-communists and fascists alike, was motivated by a desire to provide for the needs of the most trustworthy members of the given communities (or nations, as the case may have been).

     Fascist or anti-fascist, the people who contributed the most to the cause reaped the most rewards, while those who could but didn't were treated as if they were aiding the enemy. But it's hard not to wonder, had the early twentieth century been a time of extraordinary sustained growth and prosperity for nearly all sectors of society, rather than the mess it was, would the Nazis and Bolsheviks have ever even resorted to economic controls?

     If they certainly still would have, then perhaps they would only have expected the political enemies they imprisoned to follow them? After all, nobody who runs a prison system should be expected to treat their prisoners better than civilians (save for a few modern Scandinavian countries that arguably come close). Naturally, such “equal treatment” does not happen without some public criticism, and any people would have every right to be concerned about such a policy. People like to think that the people who are in prison, are in there because they did something wrong, and they're there because they're being punished – not rewarded – for it.

     When you have to decide between killing large numbers of active, attacking, militant fascists, versus trying to put them all in prison - so you can give each of them a fair trial, letting them plead their cases in front of juries of their peers - you have to consider which choice conserves your effort, which choice is less likely to get you killed, and which is more realistic. And handcuffing people on the battlefield is hardly a realistic military strategy.

     Unfortunately, neither is allowing cronies, monopolists, usurers, racketeers, profiteering land hoarders, and hawkish and imperialist military generals, run amok, and try to control the flow of resources, controlling society and labor in the process.

     Anarchist, Communist, or fascist, they all did what they did, and imprisoned whom they imprisoned, because they wanted to wreak vengeance upon those they thought responsible for causing, or contributing to, the inequality of just rewards to those they considered “parasites”. Or, in the fascists' case, they at least said they did.

     Anarchists, Communists, and fascists all seem to agree on at least a few things, like that usury is bad, that getting defeated in a war is bad... and that's about as far as their agreements go. The difference, however, is that the anarchists and Communists prioritized ending inequality, while the fascists focused on scapegoating Jews and other minorities as such parasites.

     This is not to say that there have never been Judeophobic communists; of course there have been. The contributions of the U.S.S.R. to liberating Auschwitz and to helping win World War II notwithstanding, after the October Revolution, there were anti-Jewish pogroms in the Soviet Union, and Jewish revolutionaries were purged from Communist Party ranks.

     However, anarchists and communists in Spain, unlike the Soviets during the later years of Stalin's regime, did not arrest people solely for being foreigners, nor for being Jewish. Nor did they characterize parasitism as a character of a particular race or religion. On the contrary; their ideology was specifically anti-racist and internationalist, and as such, they accepted fighters from around the world.

     This is not to say that zero of the Spanish anarchists were Judeophobic; many of the anarcho-communists and anarcho-syndicalists who fought Franco indeed were atheists and agnostics (while atheism was considered the “state religion” of Communism), and many may have even hated all religions, Judaism not excepted. However, the anarchists' aversion towards religions is easier to understand in light of many Spanish Catholic priests sympathizing with the Franco regime and papism, and the Catholic Church's later complicity in aiding the Nazis (albeit while giving aid to Holocaust victims, while on the other hand, the Church has also apologized for not having done more to help the victims of Nazism).

     Ownership of private property (as Proudhon and Marx defined that term) arguably requires either unanimous public support, or else protection by a state. Bureaucratic controls on pricing and distribution, too, require a certain level of coercion and discipline in order to enforce. Whether it's private ownership or participatory democratic planning, any semblance of coercion or state influence, or diminution of choices, has only ever served to exacerbate any existing inefficiencies and insufficiencies in distribution.

     But, then, without enforcement, discipline, or strict management, how may we ensure a good distribution, which is both fair and free? The best response seems to be to simply allow people to take what is freely to given to them and shared with them, and allow them to freely give and share, without imposing any taxes upon them (which have sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally, punitive effects upon the behavior being taxed).

     Additionally, to allow each person to take their fair share of natural resources, including land, so that they may do on that land whatever they please with their own product and property. Also, that they may keep all they make on that land, and retain possession of the parcel, and trade properties with one another, and pool their properties together (whether contiguously or not). But if you did not make the land, then you may not destroy the land; the parcel's being in your possession does not give you the right to destroy nor burn down any part of it which you did not create.

     Although it could be argued that this might result in a distribution which is still uneven, it cannot be said that it would be insufficient to meet any particular person's needs. To declare the slightest inequality unacceptable is almost to argue that it is unacceptable to give something away without expecting anything in return. Ensuring reciprocity of voluntary exchange is one thing, but it should never excuse coercing a person into making a transaction they do not wish to make. Nor should it excuse taking away a person's right to be charitable, nor their right to do something that needs to be done, but which nobody is willing to pay for it to be done.

     If people are free to give, then they are free to have slightly less than others. If a person voluntarily renounced all possessions, and claims to rent and tenancy and property, then to continue to burden him with licensing agreements, rental contracts, furniture, and the material trappings of which he is trying to rid himself. Just as well as the need for reciprocity, the freedom to give away our things should also not be used to excuse intentionally putting people into a state of inequality.

     Having less currency, or a different or less numerous set of possessions, does not determine your wealth, nor does it determine your class. Your wealth is determined not by your riches, but by your subjective definition of what wealth means to you. And your class is determined by your relationship to the means of production (factories, assembly plants, large machines), and also your relationship to the land (i.e., whether and under what circumstances you may own and attend it).

     Whether ownership of land or factories is free or prohibited, if everyone with good standing in society at least has access to these things, then class conflict becomes less pronounced. But then again, access only guarantees the “freedom” to rent and borrow; while on the other hand, the risks of absolute domination in ownership risks exploitation and destruction.

     But whether with property - or whether with only access, use, and occupation – free and open common access (or anything better) should still be sufficient to ensure that a person be free to perform any task; without it being overly taxed and regulated, and without it necessarily being treated like work or like a profession; and these diverse life-sustaining labors would be sufficient to sustain any person with minimal physical effort. Technological achievements, in the way of automated production and distribution - along with economic and political liberalization reforms – will help ensure that this occurs.
     Equal access to land, and mass individual and collective ownership of automatons, will help ensure that anyone can own as much as he wishes - and as much as he can build, grow, and transform - using his share of land. That's because any kind of labor and any kind of capital can be combined upon any type of terrain. Land, not the pistol, is the true Great Equalizer. Indeed, land is freedom; free land breeds a free people. That's why the land issue is so important. And that's why autonomous communities, voluntarily associating in federations, should be free to decide what degree of private property rights in land they shall allow; additionally, in order to balance the needs of human beings with that of the ecosystem that sustains us.

     While it pains me to admit that sometimes a binary choice may be necessary, or even voluntary, the posing of choices between fascism and communism, fascism and chaos, and fascism and democracy in the 20^th century, happened so often because it was a reality. Twice in that century, the whole continent of Europe was framed by two long battle fronts, and in World War II the theaters of conflict spanned entire oceans.

     It's natural for anti-fascists, anti-authoritarians, and just plain freedom lovers to want to advocate maximizing choice when it comes to democracy (who we're voting for, or what we're running for) and markets (what we're buying and selling). But when you're caught near a war, and governments and anarchists and terrorists are coming from all over the world to fight each other, the “only choices” that nature and the circumstances “dictate” be given to you, are “fight or flight”.

     At that point, the only real choices you'll find, lie in your decisions concerning where to flee to, by what methods you wish to defend yourself, and whom else you wish to protect. Those may not be enough choices for you, but those are the choices you have left. We must also accept that some choices are irreversible; and that as such, making them constraints the future sets of choices we are able to make. Most importantly, as John F. Kennedy cautioned, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

     If only it were as easy to know when you are really consenting to what your peers goad you into doing (or if you are just going along to make them happy) as it is to know whether you are starving.

     Note: I would like to thank author and I.W.W. historian Peter Cole for bringing the history of the C.N.T.-F.A.I. to my attention.

To learn more about C.N.T.-F.A.I., please visit:

http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/scw/anarchist.htm

and

http://libcom.org/forums/theory/prison-labor-camps-during-spanish-revolution-your-opinions-05102011

To learn about Peter Cole, please visit:

http://www.wiu.edu/cas/history/cole.php

To learn about the communists' betrayal of anarchists in Catalonia in May 1937, please visit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_Days

or read "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell

Written on February 1^st and 2^nd, 2018

Based on a post written on January 30^th, 2018

Originally Published on February 2^nd, 2018

Additional source note added on February 28th, 2018

Edited on March 7th and April 26th, 2019