Purge: the removal of elements or members regarded as undesirable and especially as treacherous or disloyal.

This article will discuss two of the most infamous purges in recent history, the purge of China by Mao Zedong and the purge of Russia by Joseph Stalin. Next week, I will show how these two horrific events are influencing the current purge of patriotic Americans.

From The Christian Militant, David Nussman:

“In the West, the 1960’s marked the “sexual revolution,” proliferating sins of the flesh on a massive scale. But in China, it was the Cultural Revolution, a violent Marxist purge of society.

Out with the old, in with the new – that was the message Mae Zedong had for young people in 1966. The dictator called on Chinese youth to dismantle the “four old things” – old customs, old culture, old habits and old ideas. Traditional Chinese culture and traces of Western capitalism were to be PURGED from communist society.

In 1966, zealous gangs of students – called the “Red Guard”–began humiliating and assaulting teachers they perceived as lacking devotion to communism. That summer, Red Guard members went on to vandalize ancient temples and Christian churches. They destroyed cultural heritage. They entered people’s homes, gathered up books and other items, and lit bonfires in the streets. They attacked and even killed those they felt were too sympathetic to capitalism or to the imperial past.

They distributed copies of Mao’s “Little Red Book” – a collection of more than 200 short sayings by the chairman. It became a new communist Bible, with huge crowds of party members all holding up their copy at rallies. This era featured the “struggle session,” in which an accused enemy of socialism would be taken out in public to be humiliated and abused.

Mao…used the massive demonstrations of young people to condemn high-ranking rivals in the party, accusing them of disloyalty and sending them away for reeducation….

As Mao’s purge continued on and off, young radicals clashed with more moderate personnel in the party establishment. Chaos and violence reigned. A huge number of people died, especially in the big cities. Estimates range from hundreds of thousands to as high as 20 million.

In 1968 Mao cracked down on violence and infighting among youth. He forced many students to the countryside for re-education. The Red Guard had transformed the party. The agenda of the Cultural Revolution as Mao grew older, and the movement finally came to an end with his death in 1976.

But communist rule continued unabated in China—as did the bloodshed.”

The Purges of Joseph Stalin from history.com/news, Motives for the Great Purge:

“The exact motives for the Great Purge are debated among historians. Some claim the actions of Stalin were prompted by his desire to maintain authority as dictator. Others see it as his way to preserve, enhance and unify the Soviet Communist Party.

The first event of the Great Purge took place in 1934 with the assassination of Sergei Kirov, a prominent Bolshevik leader…. He was murdered at the communist Party headquarters…ordered by Stalin himself. After his death, Stalin launched his purge, claiming that he had uncovered a dangerous conspiracy of anti-Stalinist Communists.

The dictator began killing or imprisoning any suspected dissenters, eventually eliminating all the original Bolsheviks that participated in the Russian Revolution of 1917. Among those purged were opposing members of the Communist Party, government officials, army officers and any accomplices.

Stalin used terms, such as “fifth column,” “enemy of the people,” and “saboteurs” to describe those who were sought out during the Great Purge. The killing and imprisonment started with members of the Bolshevik party, political officials, and military members. Then the purge expanded to include peasants, ethnic minorities, artists, scientists, intellectuals, writers, foreigners and ordinary citizens. Essentially, no one was safe from danger.

Convinced they were plotting a coup, Stalin had 30,000 members of the Red Army executed. Experts estimate that 81 of 103 generals and admirals were executed. Stalin also signed a decree that made families liable for the crimes committed by the husband or father. This meant that children as young as 12 could be executed. In all, about one-third of the Communist Party’s 3 million members were purged.

One of the most cruel and infamous aspects of the Great Purge was the Holodomor, the Ukrainian Famine, that claimed the lives of 3.9 million people, about 13 percent of the population of the Ukraine in 1932-33. The Ukrainian Famine was a clear case of a man-made famine, …a famine caused by calamitous social-economic policies and one aimed at a particular population for repression or punishment.

At that time, the Ukraine was ruled by Russia; in 1929, Stalin had imposed collectivization, which replaced individually owned and operated farms with big state-run collectives. Ukraine’s small, mostly subsistence farmers resisted giving up their land and livelihoods.

Collectivization in Ukraine didn’t go very well. By the fall of 1932, ….it became apparent that Ukraine’s grain harvest was going to miss Soviet planners’ target by 60 percent. There still might have been enough food for Ukrainian peasants to get by, but Stalin then ordered what little they had be confiscated as punishment for not meeting quotas.

The policies adopted by Stalin and his deputies in response to the famine after it had begun to grip the Ukrainian countryside constituted the most significant evidence that the famine was intentional. Local citizens and officials pleaded for relief from the state. Waves of refugees fled the villages in search of food in the cities and beyond the borders of Ukrainian Soviet Republic. The regime’s response was to take measures that worsened their plight.

By the summer of 1933, some of the collective farms had only a third of their households left, and prisons and labor camps were jammed to capacity. With hardly anyone left to raise crops, Stalin’s regime resettled Russian peasants from other parts of the Soviet Union in Ukraine, to cope with the labor shortage.

A second great atrocity was the Gulag Labor Camps that were instituted to punish the Soviet dissenters, anyone who disagreed with the party line in any way. The brutal tactics of Stalin, with these labor camps in particular, paralyzed the country and promoted a widespread terror.

Some victims claimed they would rather have been killed than sent to endure the torturous conditions of the infamous Gulag labor camps. Many who were sent to the Gulag camps were ultimately executed.

Because many people simply vanished, and killings were often covered up, an exact death toll is impossible to determine. To further complicate the matter, prisoners in the labor camps commonly died of exhaustion, disease, or starvation.

The Great Purge officially ended around 1938….Stalin’s acts of terror and torture broke the Soviet people’s spirits and effectively eliminated certain groups of citizens, such as intellectuals and artists. His reign as dictator also made his people completely dependent on the state.”

These are the two great communist purges in the recent history of the world. They are starting another Great Purge, and this time, the target is America and Western Civilization. The question is this: will America fold or fight that which is coming?