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Courageous dissident Alexander Solzhenitsyn once stated, “For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while, for many people in the West, it is still a living lion.” This is truer today than when he wrote it in 1975.

Enter a timely new book calledThe Red New Deal, by Dmitri Dubograev, an American information technology and corporate attorney who grew up in the socialist environment of the USSR. The book is a comparison of current U.S. and world trends toward reconsidering socialism, and the realities of everyday life under socialism. It shares real-life accounts of the daily routines, shortages, cancel culture, and the restriction of freedom from one who lived through it. Dubograev’s analysis of the parallels between “socialist trends” of prior generations and events occurring in the U.S. today is eye-opening, to say the least.

I posed some questions to Mr. Dubograev about his life and the book.

Mark Tapson: Dmitri, please tell us briefly about your background: what it was like growing up in the USSR, how you came to the U.S., and what compelled you to write this book.

Dmitri Dubograev: I am an American information technology and corporate attorney of Belarusian descent. I grew up in the Soviet Union and witnessed and lived through the “advantages” of socialism. As various cooperation agreements were developed by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev by the end of the Cold War, I was presented with an opportunity to represent Belarus in one of the first USA-USSR student exchanges in 1988. Hungry for knowledge and all that the United States provides for ambition and perseverance, I was lucky to be later accepted to the Law School of Washington and Lee University, passed the bar and have been practicing law since then.

One of the things that I admired about the U.S. was how little the government interfered in the private life of its citizens as compared to the socialist state. Hence, I was not much interested in politics, probably due to my upbringing and aversion to the government in general, until the trend toward the socialism started to be more and more ominous for all of us. The “straw that broke the camel’s back” was Obama’s remarks about private business, in line with typical Soviet threatening propaganda, that “you did not build it.” Well, yes, I did, damn it! The painful realization that this country could turn onto a dangerous and harmful path was the inspiration that brought me to writing the book.

MT: You mention that socialism cannot survive in an atmosphere of free speech. Why is that, and do you see contemporary Western assaults on free speech like cancel culture or state attempts to control social media as laying the groundwork for a socialist government?

DD: The socialist system is extremely inefficient, denying virtually all of the civilization’s gains, laws of economics, and human nature, replacing it with empty promises and eventually devastation and violence. So, in the Soviet Union there were two lives – one that existed on the state television (and there was no other kind) and the other one was the “kitchen table” reality of life: shortages, oppression, misery, corruption, incompetence of the rulers, and violation of human rights.

With perestroika, while still studying in Belarus, I decided to write a thesis on the violation of human rights in the Soviet Union and got yelled at by the professors that I was a traitor and an American spy. Ironically, virtually any truth-telling or shedding a bright light on disastrous leftist policies gets a similar reaction from the Left-leaning media, replacing reality with empty declarations and losing the sight of causation in favor of wishful thinking.

So, socialism cannot survive any competition – in economy, progress, or wealth, and any doubt about its flaws labels you as a traitor or a person that needs to be cancelled. As such, the trend toward socialism means lying about facts, causation, and science, and finding scapegoats to blame for the socialist’s disastrous results. The target of the blame is not who caused it, i.e., the socialists, but typically the greedy capitalists and those who are smarter or more successful – a rhetoric echoed by Putin, Obama, and other Leftists alike. The leap from cancerous censorship to oppression and violence (well, labeling all non-socialists as Hitler – so no holds barred here) with its “mostly peaceful” burnings and looting is only a matter of time.

MT: How has the socialist Left misused the lessons of history to serve its agenda?

DD: The Left, when not ignoring history, indeed misuse and twist the lessons of history as it relates to socialistic achievement by overlooking the communist states’ inevitable failure and devastation. But more importantly, the Left use the same tools, propaganda and slogans as the failed socialist states employed to their advantage to obtain power and then reign by oppression.

The trick is old – you fool and entice the naïve with empty but virtue-signaling promises (that will never be achieved – look at inner cities in the U.S. as a primary example) and then suppress and vilify those who disagree or even doubt. “Are you against protecting the environment/equity/inclusion” sounds to my ear very much like “are you against socialism/communist party?”

The Left eagerly sacrifice meritocracy, facts, practicality and achievements for the ivory tower of nebulous slogans and the constant desire to achieve “fairness” while not forgetting to preside over that re-distribution. It matters little to them how ridiculous and impractical their attempts are at “rectifying the sins of the past” and punishing success and effort by “evening up the playing field.”  So, I fail to see much difference between Hitler’s and Putin’s concepts of “traitors of the nation” and the Left’s broad strokes describing the decent as a “basket of deplorables.”

MT: In your chapter on “Fundamentals of Society” you address the dangers of socialism for government. What is a significant way that socialism impacts the function of government?

DD: First, I would like to address the biggest lie of the past hundred years: the fact that fascism is somehow a “right-wing” phenomenon. It just cannot be further from the truth. The essence of the Marxist and fascist theories comes from the same principles – fascio, or communa, or community – in other words, the dominance of the community over individual liberties. Hence, the “dictatorship of the proletarians” – but you always have to be in search of those who are “oppressed.” Furthermore, both Goebbels and Hitler were socialists (other than Hitler, who was in favor of Darwinian economy – a private economy under the press of the national interest) and hence the movement and the party. “National Socialism,” or Nazi, should have been your first clue.

Second, in the socialist-fascist state merit and achievement are pushed to the side in favor of loyalty and the party line. Indeed, Marx declared the ownership of the means of production is the key to the ruling class. However, the control over such means in the contemporary world is clearly more effective than a nominal ownership. In that setting, there is not much difference in having Hitler force Porsche to produce engines for Nazi Tiger tanks and the government forcing Facebook to censor information – a clear new form of the “means of production,” relating to political opponents.

Third, the clear feature of a socialist ideology in the government is the pursuit of nebulous “good sounding” goals with unnecessary interference in the areas where the government should be absent (i.e., the disastrous Leftist economic policies are the best evidence). On the other hand, the Leftists are clearly responsible for the failures in the main functions of the government where the government should be agile and active – law enforcement, border protection, community security and world politics. So, anything the socialist government mindset touches turns into dust, due to incompetence and impracticality.

MT: You write that some people ask you if it is possible to get the “good” parts of socialism without getting its “bad’ parts”? At the risk of asking you to give away spoilers from the book, what do you tell those people?

DD: Due to my generation’s indoctrination in the Soviet schools, it took me a while to realize that there are no “good” parts of socialism, as most people viewed socialism as an “ivory tower” and a desired goal, albeit hardly achievable. However, socialism comes in a “package” – you cannot separate good from the bad. What is the difference between a bucket of manure with a spoonful of jam and the bucket of jam with a spoonful of manure? There is no difference – both are buckets of manure.

The socialist ideology is always based on violence forcing people to be deprived of the results of their labor and ingenuity as well as their property and freedoms, even when it pursues “equity.” The violence and suppression are an inevitable part of “redistribution” (robbery) and any perceived “good” is just incomparable to the level of violence and disaster that it brings. So, despite the common perception and the youth’s infatuation with the “virtuous” socialism idea – socialism is always based on suppression and violence and, hence, unethical even in theory not just in its practical ramifications.

MT: What are a couple of ways Americans can spot and say “no” to encroaching socialism?

DD: I have provided a test called “REDS” (anything that the Left proposes turns “red,” i.e., communist) – enabling people to identify communist-leaning trends:

• R – Ruling by oppression
• E – Enterprise (private) deterioration
• D – Denying the rule of law
• S – Speech restrictions

You can clearly see the “red” current trend in those vectors and you can read more about such applications of the test in the book.

However, there are a few anecdotal (though not necessarily funny) “tell signs.”  The Left inevitably fall into traps of repeating the same rhetoric and actions as were used throughout history by “other” communists simply because they are driven by the same theory and underpinnings. The biggest tell – the “neo-speak” terms and generalizations replacing or mocking fundamental American principles of freedom. The best examples are “disinformation” (i.e., the information or opinion one might disagree with), “racist roads and math,” “cheap fakes” or “threats to democracy” or all kinds of references and attempts to cancel “insensitive” or “hurtful” speech or content – in other words, a typical exercise of the freedom of speech.

Another example, whether it is Hitler, Putin or Biden weaponizing the Gestapo, KGB, or FBI with full power of censorship and lawfare – as they all blamed “foreign” forces, “traitors” and “collusion” regarding facts that otherwise would actually require a deeper objective analysis and unbiased judgment. Ironically, both Biden and Putin were afraid of “shamans” – one parading through Congress in the January 6 protest and the other trying to exorcise demons from the Kremlin. When no policy of the candidate for President, namely Ms. Harris, can be evaluated on its merits, the Left propaganda would resort to terms such as “Strength through Joy” – which is actually a name of the Nazi organization that was designed to spread Hitler’s propaganda. The clear indication of socialist inclinations – the Left promising “all of the good things” having no calculable way or foundation for achieving those (much like all Marxists’ works) other than through paternalistic government handouts (from infinite resources, of course!).

But, of course, the biggest “tell” is the promise of “free stuff,” in one way or another and finding “enemies” (typically rich and successful) within. Lenin took power pretty much by promising “Land to peasants, factories to workers!” which, of course, was a simple and clearly perceived message that turned out to be a total lie. Whether it is reparations for people that were never slaves paid by people that were never slave owners, cancelling student debt voluntarily taken by students or financing of illegals’ healthcare or home ownership, and other “free” handouts – one has to remember that there is no “free” money – this is the money someone else has earned. As Margaret Thatcher noted, “there is no government money, there is people’s money.” So, again, when “everything is free, you and your liberties and freedoms are the price”!

Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior.