Bernie's Soviet Fixation

Bernie Sanders often tells audiences he is a Democratic Socialist. This distinction is made to distance himself from the Soviet philosophy, the antithesis of the American free market. However, if Sen. Sanders is consistently adamant about not being a Soviet Socialist, why exactly did he go to the U.S.S.R. on his honeymoon?

 When Sen. Sanders was Mayor Sanders, he presided over the small city of Burlington, Vermont in 1988. Not surprisingly, Burlington formed a sister-city pact with the then Soviet city of Yaroslavl, 160 miles north-east of Moscow.

According to Burlington, Vermont’s website, “exchanges between the two cities have involved mayors, business people, firefighters, jazz musicians, youth orchestras, mural painters, high school students, medical students, nurses, librarians, and the Yaroslavl Torpedoes ice-hockey team.” In the midst of the Cold War, Bernie Sanders was introducing the youth of this small time to the Soviet philosophy, all the while using his pulpit to criticize American foreign policy at every chance.

Once again, the year was 1988, a life-time away from the Bolshevik success in the 1917 October revolution. The promises of a “worker’s paradise,” the idealism of Lev Trotsky’s Internationalism, and the pragmatic alliance forged by FDR were all long dead. All that remained was a brutal Soviet regime focused on spreading an oppressive, anti-humanistic philosophy abroad. Bernie Sanders, however, embraced this influence and brought it to his small town.

The U.S.S.R. visit was by no means the start of Bernie’s Communist tour. He visited Cuba, even meeting Havana’s mayor. In 1985 Sanders went to the 6th anniversary of the bloody Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua. Appropriately, the presidential candidate would choose the heart of the Communist world as the location of his honeymoon.

Bernie can call himself a Denmark type Socialist all he likes – which is absurd for a number of other reasons we’ve previously reported – but please don’t let him fool you. This man has romanticized Soviet Socialism for his entire career, and we should not expect a change if he makes it to the oval office. Personally, a candidate who was on America’s side during the Cold War would be my preference for the next president.