"When it comes to ostentatious displays of grandeur, there ain’t no party like a Communist Party.
"The festivities in Tiananmen Square commemorating the Chinese Communist Party’s 100th birthday on July 1st were a sight to behold. Donning a Mao suit and standing behind a podium adorned with a hammer and sickle, Xi Jinping, General-Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, spoke of a “national rejuvenation” through the continuing implementation of “Socialism with Chinese characteristics,” threatened the Party’s enemies, and pledged to thwart any attempts to avoid China’s desired anschluss with Taiwan.
"Xi did everything to invoke the ghosts of Communist dictators past short of taking his shoe off and banging it on the podium. But under the Communist pageantry lies a less obvious similarity between the Chinese Dragon of today and the Russian Bear of yesteryear. That is the way in which Chinese Communism, like its Soviet cousin, is tinged by historic cultural aspirations.
“ 'Communism is not an Asiatic or Russian growth, as some maintain. In its Soviet form, it has been shaped and colored by Russian peculiarities.” So observed Whittaker Chambers who died 60 years ago this month, an anniversary that aside from this column will go as unnoticed as Chambers’ 120th birthday last April." . . .
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