1. Chapter One: The Specter’s Strategies for Destroying Humanity

You're listening to the audiobook of How the Specter of Communism is Ruling Our World. Written by the editorial team of the Epoch Times groundbreaking series, Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. Chapter 1. The Devil's Strategies for Destroying Humanity The devil's scheme to destroy humanity has been in the works for centuries. Its arrangements manifest in the labyrinth of social affairs, from mass movements to governing elites around the world and across history, working ceaselessly to ensnare and eliminate man. 1. Corrupting Human Thought The devil has reversed the criteria for discerning good and evil. It casts righteousness as wicked and vice as compassion. It disguises its sinister concepts with science and masks its gangster logic using social justice. It uses political correctness to impose thought control and spreads value neutrality to render people insensitive to brutal atrocities. A. The Deception of Atheism Man was created by the divine, and the faithful receive divine protection. Therefore, the first step in mankind's destruction is to cut off the connection between man and gods. The devil dispatched its agents in the human world to spread atheism and steadily distort human thought. In the 1850s, the German materialist philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach said that God is merely a projection of man's inner nature. The socialist anthem, the International, claims that there has never been any creator. In fact, human moral standards, culture, social structure, and rational thinking all come from the divine. In the tumultuous currents of history, faith in gods is like a strong anchor line, keeping humanity from being lost to the waves. Reflecting on the bloodshed of the French Revolution, which overturned the monarchy and clergy, British philosopher Edmund Burke said, When men play God, presently they behave like devils. Atheism lures the arrogant into playing God and attempting to control the fates of others in society. The most fanatical communists envision themselves as a god. Spreading atheism is the first step in all of the devil's schemes to ruin mankind. b. The Fallacy of Materialism Mind and matter exist simultaneously. The core tenet of Marxism is dialectical materialism, which denies the existence of the soul. Materialism took root during the Industrial Revolution, when rapid progress in science and production fueled a cult of empiricism and atheism. People lost faith in divine miracles and rejected the commandments of God. Created by the devil, materialism is not a philosophical concept, but a demonic weapon to overthrow man's spiritual faith. Materialism, the product of atheism, in turn established the basis for a whole host of intellectual pretensions. c. The Blasphemy of Evolution Taken by itself, Darwin's theory of evolution is a flawed hypothesis that has long been discredited. But the devil has turned its crude arguments into an instrument for severing the link between gods and man. It blasphemously equates humanity with animals, at once undermining man's self-respect and his reverence for God's creation. The 20th century saw the theory of evolution take over the spheres of research and education, and creationism was banned from the classroom. From Darwin's original theory came the harmful concept of social Darwinism. Natural selection and survival of the fittest reduced the international community to a jungle of barbaric struggle between nations. Armed with empiricism and scientism, the devil has promoted the cult of science to replace human reason with scientific rationality. People are led to believe in only what can be seen and felt tangibly, reinforcing the atheist worldview. The contemporary scientific community dismisses all phenomena it cannot explain or verify by its methods as superstition and pseudoscience, if not ignoring them entirely. Science has become a type of secular religion, used to repress faith and morality by dominating education and academic thought. E. Philosophy of Struggle The dialectical theory articulated by German philosopher Georg Hegel is a general set of principles for logical thought. Thinkers in ancient China had worked out these principles during the era prior to the Qin dynasty, 221 BC to 206 BC. Marxism absorbed select aspects of Hegel's work while exaggerating the nature of dialectical conflict. In the words of Chinese Republican leader Chiang Kai-shek, the goal of communism is not to resolve problems, but to expand global contradictions to the greatest extent possible and cause human struggle to continue forever. As seen countless times in practice, the evil specter of communism incites hatred among people, creates and escalates conflicts, and eventually seizes power through violent revolution or deceit to achieve a goal. F. Intellectual Redundancy Atheism and materialism spawned many philosophical and ideological trends, such as Marxism, Machiavellianism, Socialism, Nihilism, Anarchism, Aestheticism, Freudism, Modernism, Extensionalism, Existentialism, Postmodernism, and Deconstructivism. Their proponents and followers waddled through meaningless and verbose discourse over matters of genuine import. The intellectual class once comprised the wisest and most knowledgeable elites of society. Yet in the past century, intellectuals became a tool of the evil specter to promote its ideologies and misinterpret the world with its deviancy. G. Adulterated Language Like the language of newspeak created by the superstate of Oceania in George Orwell's novel, 1984, the devil's agent reshapes language to suit the devil's interests. In the devil's dictionary, freedom means an extreme state unrestrained by morality, law, or tradition. Phrases such as, all men are children of God, all men are equal before the law, and equal opportunity have been distorted into absolute egalitarianism. The benevolent man loves others and love thy neighbor as thyself have become an unprincipled sham called tolerance. Rational thinking has been made a tool of narrow-minded empirical science. In the pursuit of equality of outcome, justice became social justice. Language is the instrument of thought. By seizing control of the definitions and nuances of language, the devil restricts man's thoughts so that he reaches demonic conclusions. 2. Subverting Traditional Culture Mankind's orthodox culture was imparted by gods. While maintaining the normal operation of human society, the most important role of divinely inspired culture is to provide a means for humanity to understand the divine law taught in the final epoch and to be saved from elimination. Divinely inspired culture cautions people to guard against the devil's conspiracy. So the devil employs covert means of cutting people off from their traditions and destroying their cultures. To abolish the traditional outlook toward life and moral values, the devil invented many lofty goals, guiding people to spend their lives in struggle and to sacrifice themselves for these warped new ideals. a. Degraded Education For thousands of years, traditional education preserved and passed on mankind's exquisite culture. It assumed the guiding role for people to be compassionate, maintain their moral virtue, master professional skills, and be good people and citizens. Beginning in the 19th century, the nations of Europe and America established systems of free public education. However, at the start of the 20th century, public schools began indoctrinating students against tradition and morality. The theory of evolution became required learning. Textbooks were slowly filled with atheism, materialism, and class struggle as the devil expanded its control over their contents. Traditional culture, exemplified by the great literary classics, was at odds with the demonic ideological current and was incrementally marginalized. Intelligent and thoughtful students were lured into following the devil's ideology, which threw their brilliance into the pursuit of non-issues, leaving them unversed in the essentials of life and society. Prolonged class hours separated children from the care of their parents and the environment of their families, force-feeding them the devil's ideology from youth. Under the slogan of independent thinking, students were encouraged to break with tradition and despise their parents and teachers, bringing them up to be anti-tradition and anti-authority. Academic standards were gradually lowered, impacting students' mathematical and literary ability. They were fed politically correct narratives on history and social studies were immersed in vulgar entertainment. In countries ruled by the devil, students are brainwashed with its demonic ideology in a virtually secluded environment, from kindergarten through higher education. When they educate and enter society, their minds are full of twisted logic. b. Degenerate Art Upright traditional arts came from gods, first appearing in temples, churches, and other places of worship. True art presents truthfulness, kindness, beauty, and righteousness, helping maintain an orthodox moral culture. The devil uses degenerate art to destroy traditional culture. With the excuse of presenting reality, it introduced impressionism to visual arts and realism and naturalism to literature. Under the guise of innovation and criticizing reality, it introduced expressionism, abstract art, modernism, postmodernism, and so on. The sublime, noble, and pure are ridiculed while the vulgar and shameless are lauded. Garbage has occupied the halls of art. Harsh, unpleasant beats and obscene noise are now called music. Dark, sinister paintings depict things of the netherworld. Moral boundaries are broken under the guise of performance art. Many youths are diehard fans of degenerate celebrities. c. Media Control The devil deceives people by using all means to control their sources of information, principally the mass media. In countries where it has political power, the media are propaganda machines run by the Communist Party. Elsewhere, it uses freedom of expression to bury serious reporting and discussion in an avalanche of fake news, vulgar content, and trivial sensationalism. Financial incentives are used to control the media, thus allowing the devil to hijack public opinion. Most people, being occupied with personal business and their own interests, are unable to discern the relevant issues and facts from the overflow of information. The voices of the few who possess the wisdom and courage to identify the devil's conspiracy are drowned out and marginalized by the noise, allowing them to have no impact on the overall picture. d. Promoting Pornography, Gambling, and Drugs The devil promotes degenerate lifestyles, sexual freedom, and homosexuality. It encourages gambling and drugs, creating a population of addicts. Youth are glued to electronic devices and video games filled with violence, pornography, and abominations. e. Corrupting All Walks of Life Gods arranged the traditional professions in human society, allowing people to retain the memory of gods and maintain their connection to the divine through their work. The devil cannot tolerate this. The devil sent countless demons to infest and undermine traditional walks of life. In the name of innovation, those seeking fame and gain cooked up all kinds of deviant creations, filling the world with eccentric and degenerate trends. When people stray from the will of gods, they lose interest in the true purpose of being human. Eventually, they will fall to the devil and be destroyed. iii. Breaking Down Society Communism derives its organization and ideology from those of gangs and cults. In the East, communism is represented by party leaders such as Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Jiang Zemin, and their followers. The situation in the West is more complex, as the devil selected powerful elites in government, business, academia, religion, and other fields to carry out its schemes to undermine society. a. Eroding the Church Once upright religions have been infused with the secular religion of socialism. The devil's representatives within the church alter traditional teachings and even alter the holy scriptures. They created Liberation Theology to infuse an upright faith with Marxist ideology and class struggle and spread moral perversion among the clergy. Because of this, many believers have lost hope in the church and have given up faith in God's salvation. b. Disintegrating the Family Gods created the family, state, and church to be the cornerstones of human civilization. The family is an important bastion of morality and tradition and serves as a conduit for culture to be passed from one generation to the next. The devil attacks the traditional family and gender roles using feminism, anti-patriarchy, sexual liberation, and the legalization of homosexuality, encouraging cohabitation, adultery, divorce, and abortion. Destroying the family is a key part of the devil's plan to eradicate humankind. c. Totalitarianism in the East Seizing the opportunity of a weakened Russia after World War I, the devil incited revolution to force the Tsar to give up the throne, then launched the October Revolution to usurp power. Following that was the creation of the Soviet Union, the world's first socialist regime. The Communist International was also created to export revolution worldwide. In 1919 and 1921, Communist parties were established in the United States and China, with both taking their orders from Soviet Russia. Backed by the Soviet Union and taking advantage of the ravages of World War II, the Chinese Communist Party took over China with violence and treachery. Upon seizing power, both the Soviet and Chinese Communist Parties ruthlessly slaughtered tens of millions of their own people in times of peace. The Chinese Communist Party continued the course of revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat and launched the unprecedented Cultural Revolution, declaring a war on the achievements of human civilization and launching a savage assault on China's 5,000-year-old traditional culture. Since the 1980s, the party has introduced economic reforms to stave off collapse, but the political sphere has remained under strict totalitarian control. To this day, the party maintains its tight grip on power through campaigns of suppression, such as the crackdown on the democracy movement and the persecution of Falun Gong. d. Infiltrating the West China's imperial court, the Western divine right of kings, and the American system of checks and balances are forms of government established by gods for humans according to their unique cultures and environments. Unable to take power through revolution in the West, the devil used ideological subversion to establish and exert control. Apart from violent revolution, Western countries have broadly adopted various characteristics of the communist system. e. Perversion of the law Law originates from divine commandment and is founded on morality. Redefining the concepts of morality and freedom, the devil has influenced the creation and interpretation of laws. In communist countries of the East, the devil interprets laws as it pleases. In the West, it distorts laws through subversion and modifies them to redefine human actions and uproot moral concepts of good and evil. It shields vices such as murder, adultery, and homosexuality while punishing upstanding citizens. f. Financial manipulation Abolishing the gold standard and adopting a fluctuating fiat currency has caused long-lasting economic crises. Traditional wisdom governing sustainable finance has lost relevance, trapping governments and individuals alike in a culture of overconsumption and excessive spending. National sovereignty has been weakened by government debt and people are encouraged to borrow endless amounts of money from the banks and the state. g. Hyper-government The devil has manipulated globalization to help it establish a world government that infringes on individual countries' sovereign rights. On the one hand, it promoted the utopian prospects of organizations and catchphrases like the League of the Nations, United Nations, regional integration, and world government. On the other, it threatens leaders and nations into following its directives. It robs people of their peace and security by fabricating war and social upheaval. The aim is to bring the whole world under one totalitarian hyper-government and impose tight administrative, ideological, and population control. 4. Engineering social upheaval and fabricating unrest In order to topple traditional human society, the devil has driven mass immigration, social movements, and societal upheaval on a massive scale. This astounding process has been underway for at least several centuries. a. Warfare War is one of the devil's most effective tools as it can break the old international order, destroy bastions of tradition, and accelerate the development of its ideology. Many wars were waged under demonic influence. The devil took advantage of World War I to topple several European empires, chiefly Tsarist Russia, which paved the way for the Bolshevik Revolution. World War II provided the conditions for the Chinese Communist Party to seize power and for the Soviet Union to invade Eastern Europe, thereby establishing the post-war socialist camp. World War II also created the disorder of decolonization, which the Soviet and Chinese Communist regimes exploited to support the worldwide communist movement. National liberation movements placed many countries across Asia, Africa, and Latin America in the socialist camp. b. Revolution Seizing political power is the quickest way for the devil to destroy human beings and is thus its first choice whenever possible. Summarizing the lessons learned from the Paris Commune, Karl Marx wrote that the working class must overthrow the original government apparatus and replace it with its own state. Power is always the core issue of Marxist political theory. The instigation of revolution can be divided into the following steps. 1. Stir up hatred and discord among the people. 2. Deceive the public with lies and establish a revolutionary united front. 3. Defeat the forces of resistance one at a time. 4. Use violence to create an atmosphere of terror and chaos. 5. Launch a coup to seize power. 6. Suppress the reactionaries. 7. Build and maintain a new order using the terror of revolution. The communist countries attempted to launch a world revolution via the Communist International, exporting revolutionary activism and creating unrest in non-communist states by supporting local leftists. Economic crises can be created and utilized as means of encouraging revolution or casting socialist movements as saviors. When politicians in democratic countries find themselves desperate for solutions, they make Faustian bargains, gradually steering their countries toward big government and high-tax socialism. As Saul Alinsky wrote in Rules for Radicals, the real action is in the enemy's reaction. The Great Depression of the 1930s was the key juncture at which Europe and the United States embarked on the path to big government and widespread interventionism. The financial crisis of 2008 continued tipping the scales in favor of expanding leftist policies. d. Alienating man from his land and roots. Since antiquity, people have moved from one place to another. However, the massive domestic and international population movements seen in modern times are the result of the evil specter's willful manipulation. Mass immigration dissolves national identity, borders, sovereignty, cultural traditions, and social cohesion. As masses of people are removed from their traditional identities, they are more easily absorbed into the drift of modernity. It is difficult for immigrants living in an unfamiliar environment to secure their livelihood, let alone participate deeply in their host country's political process or cultural traditions. Newly arrived immigrants are easily recruited as free votes for leftist parties. Meanwhile, immigration creates ripe conditions for stirring up racial or religious animosities. e. Hijacking social movements. The communist evil specter makes use of social trends to inflame and agitate people, escalate conflicts, and mobilize colossal movements to destabilize society, repeatedly beating down its political opponents, dominate discourse, and seize the moral high ground. Examples of this include the anti-war movement, environmentalism, and other movements in Western society. f. Terrorism. Communist revolutions succeed through acts of terror, and communist regimes implement policies of state terrorism. The Soviet and Chinese communists supported terrorist groups as a kind of task force against the free world. Most terrorist movements take inspiration from the Leninist organizational model. The devil exploits divisions between people and channels the rage of individuals into collective hatred. The irrationality that drives terrorists to slaughter innocent people creates an atmosphere of absurd helplessness. Exposed to many incidents of deliberate and unprovoked violence, people become antisocial, depressed, paranoid, and cynical. All this damages public order and fragments society, making it easier for the devil to establish its power. 5. Dividing and conquering. The devil handles people according to their different characteristics and motivations. It may have them murdered or bribed or indoctrinate them to serve as the pawns of revolution and rebellion. a. Exterminating dissent. Some people are wiser and more perceptive than others. Some are closer to the divine, possess good enlightenment quality, and are not susceptible to the devil's ploys. Especially in countries like China, which has a long and rich history, it is difficult to get people to go along with the deception. The Chinese Communist Party had to launch a series of political campaigns that slaughtered tens of millions of people and broke down the cultural order by killing the elites who served as the custodians of traditional Chinese culture. Be it in China or the West, the devil does not hesitate to physically liquidate the discerning members of society who see through its conspiracy and are brave enough to stand out by resisting. To do this, the devil arranges political campaigns, religious persecution, show trials, and assassinations. b. Roping in the elites. The devil enlists elites across all nations and industries. To do this, it plays to their interests and endows them with power according to how closely they follow its agenda. For those who seek fame and influence, the devil gives them reputation and authority. For the greedy, it arranges profits. It inflates the egos of the arrogant and maintains the bliss of the ignorant. The gifted are seduced with science, materialism, and unrestricted freedom of expression. Individuals with lofty ambitions and good intentions have their ideals turned into self-glorification, making them feel the warm glow of being presidents, prime ministers, think-tank scholars, policy makers, administrators, big-shot bankers, professors, experts, noble laureates, and the like, with outstanding social status, political influence, and vast fortunes. Once established, these great personalities are co-opted, each according to his or her circumstances. In the devil's calculus, all of them are ignorant agents and useful idiots. c. Dumbing down. The devil manipulates public knowledge by employing fake narratives, deluding people with its warped educational system, and controlling the mass media. It deftly uses people's sense of security and shallow entertainment to make the public care only about their immediate interests, vulgar entertainment, competitive sports, social gossip, and indulgence in erotic and carnal desire. At the same time, the devil caters to the lowest common denominators to deprive voters of their vigilance and judgment and to capture the electorate. In totalitarian communist countries, the people are never allowed to have anything to do with politics. In democratic countries, those concerned with the public good have their attention diverted to trivial issues, such as transsexual rights, echoing the famous stratagem of advancing via a hidden route while repairing the plankways in the open from ancient Chinese military history. Viral news, social sensations, and even terrorist attacks and wars are arranged as cover for the devil's true intentions. The public is inculcated with a modern consciousness and mobilized to swallow up the minority of people who stubbornly hold to tradition. Intellectuals levy heavy criticism of folk cultures around the world, fostering narrow-minded prejudice among their uneducated audiences. The concepts of critical and creative thinking are abused to pit the younger generation against authority, preventing them from absorbing the knowledge and wisdom in traditional culture. D. Fabricating mobs In communist countries, after slaughtering the bearers of traditional culture, the devil indoctrinated the bulk of the population to participate in revolution. After the Communist Party took power in China, it took a generation to nurture a generation of, quote, wolf cubs. They were encouraged to fight, smash, rob, and burn indiscriminately. During the Cultural Revolution, teenage girls readily beat their teachers to death. The 50-cent army internet trolls, who actively work on different social media in China, constantly write about beating and killing, with typical posts reading, quote, recover the Dayu Islands even if China is rendered barren, and, quote, we would rather China be peppered with graves than fail to exterminate the last Japanese. Their murderous sentiment is actively cultivated by the Chinese Communist Party. In the West, the Communist Party proudly hearkens to the experience of the French Revolution and the Paris Commune. Every revolution and insurrection is introduced by a group of mobs who have no scruples, no shame, and no compassion. The devil has arranged to have the older generation marginalized and removed from society at an accelerated pace. As young people are endowed with ever more rights, political power, and privileges, the elderly lose their positions of authority and prestige, speeding up mankind's break with tradition. Contemporary literature, arts, and popular culture are all geared to the tastes and values of the young, who are under pressure to pursue the latest trends and fashion, lest they be ostracized by their peers. Rapid scientific and technological progress make the elderly unable to keep up and adapt to massive social changes that occur as a result. The transformation of urban and rural spheres, combined with mass immigration, work together to alienate the elderly and estrange them from the present. The torment and helplessness of their solitude are exacerbated by the reality of modern life. Where the young are in a constant state of competition and have little time to spare for their parents and elders. F. Fragmenting Society In traditional human society, people help each other. When there are conflicts, they have religion, morality, laws, and folk customs to facilitate resolution and cooperation. It is impossible for the devil to bring about the collapse of such an organic society in a short period of time. It has to first disintegrate society, into small atomized units, breaking down the traditional reliance between individuals and alienating them from each other. This gives the devil a convenient means of taking on humanity piece by piece. The devil uses every conceivable standard to divide the society into opposing groups and instigate hatred and struggle among them. Class, sex, race, ethnicity, and religious denomination can all serve as a basis for division. It magnifies the animosity between bourgeois and the proletarians, the rulers and the ruled, progressives and regressives, liberals and conservatives, all while the government is steadily expanding its powers. An atomized, isolated individual simply has no hope of resisting a totalitarian government that has access to all of society's resources. 6. Deception and Defense Just as a criminal tries to destroy evidence of his wrongdoing, the devil does everything it can do to conceal itself. The scale of its deception is difficult to fathom. A. Open Conspiracy The devil carries out its most diabolical schemes in broad daylight while presenting them as sensible, reasonable, and legal. A normal person cannot understand or imagine the existence of such a massive and wicked conspiracy. Even when one tries to expose the devil's plot, others cannot easily see it for what it is. In addition, the devil uses a variety of means to intentionally reveal parts of its agenda, sowing suspicion, fear, and confusion. B. Camouflaged Action During the Cold War, the world was divided between two military and political camps. Yet, while their social systems appeared to be diametrically opposed, the same demonic process was taking place on both sides in different forms. Many revisionist Western-style communists, socialists, Fabianists, liberals, and progressives publicly rejected the Soviet and Chinese models, but their efforts led society on a path toward a social structure no different from those of the Soviet Union and China. In plain terms, the devil used the totalitarian East as a diversion for the active infiltration of the West. C. Demonizing the Opposition Those who dare to expose the devil are labeled conspiracy theorists, extremists, far-right, alt-right, sexists, racists, warmongers, bigots, Nazis, fascists, and other terms of abuse meant to isolate and marginalize them from academia and the broader society. Being made into objects of segregation, ridicule, and fear, their ideas gain no audience, and their presence gains no influence. D. Deflecting Scrutiny The devil directs the people to despise and suspect certain ethnicities, groups, and individuals, which draws attention away from its own nefarious schemes. E. Capturing the Majority Not everyone can be deceived by the devil's ruses. There will always be those intelligent or perceptive enough to discover its schemes. But the devil has already managed to bring the majority of people under its influence and use them as its cover. The few who see the devil for what it is are like people stranded in the remote wilderness. Their cries go unanswered as they await their doom. The means by which the devil destroys people are endless and ever-changing. The general strategies listed above are more thoroughly examined in the following chapters.