Socialism Promises A Lot but Ends in Misery, Says Socialism Survivor
To Bernie Sanders, “Democratic socialism means requiring and achieving political and economic freedom in every community in this country.” Survivor of Communist China, Helen Raleigh, would disagree.
Raleigh was born in Chairman Mao’s Communist China and grew up with a “shortage of everything: food, clothing, shoes, and medicine.” Raleigh is an author who immigrated from China and writes about what life was like in her home country and why Americans should stop glorifying ideas like socialism.
Her great-grandfather was a Chinese farmer and a landowner when the Communist Party came to power in 1949. The party deemed land owners to be “class enemies” and Raleigh’s great-grandfather was one of the landowners immediately targeted.
“The poor farmers didn’t come out ahead for long. In 1953 the Chinese government started a movement to collectivize agriculture. The land that had been handed to poor farmers was gradually returned to the state. By 1958 there was no private land ownership. Private farming was prohibited. Farmers were required to sell their produce to the government at fixed prices; no private sales were allowed. Farmers couldn’t choose which crops to grow. They had to follow the orders of local Communist leaders, many of whom didn’t know much about farming. Crops perished and millions of people starved.”
Raleigh knew of her great-grandfather’s struggles, but she also recounted her own struggle in Communist China.
“The government controlled the distribution of essentials such as rice and cooking oil to every citizen through a rigid ration system, maintained through coupons,” Raleigh wrote in an op-ed. “Those coupons were not for getting a discount – they were used to restrict the amount of essentials we were allowed to have on a monthly basis. Hunger was a constant feeling.”
Her parents considered themselves lucky after having lived through one of the worst famines in human history. The “Great Chinese Famine” from 1959 to 1961 was caused by Chairman Mao’s ruinous socialist policies and resulted in a death toll ranging between 30 million and 60 million, her uncle being among the casualties.
Raleigh was able to get out only to discover that ruinous socialistic ideas made their way to the West—as if history was destined to repeat itself. Hearing about the violence and the starvation in Venezuela was all too familiar for Raleigh.
Seeing the conversations happening in the country she fled to, Raleigh urges Americans to avoid the scam that is democratic socialism. “It all begins with a great promise and it will end with misery just like other socialisms practiced before.”
Watch her recent Fox News interview here: