This week, the Daily Bruin ran an interesting series of
advertisements that scream in huge, all-capital letters,
“Socialism is much better than capitalism, and communism will
be a far better world.”
The purpose of the ad? To plug a lecture by Raymond Lotta, a
leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party.
The ad declares that “Socialist revolutions in the Soviet
Union (1917-56) and China (1949-76) and Mao’s Cultural
Revolution accomplished great and unprecedented things.”
It is unlikely that the ad refers to the brutal murders of
millions of people ““ a conservative estimate puts the number
murdered by the brutal regimes in the Soviet Union and China at 20
million and 40 million, respectively.
In addition, the ad misrepresents the historical record.
Russians suffered communist oppression until the fall of the Soviet
Union in 1991, not 1956.
But of far greater concern, the bottom of the ad proclaims that
the event is sponsored by the César E. Chávez Center and
the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies.
This is no typo ““ two of UCLA’s academic departments
have cosigned this Marxist (and Maoist) lecture that seems to tout
the supremacy of communism over capitalism and tyranny over
freedom.
Few people outside of academia view communism as anything other
than a failed theory that led to the murder of countless
innocents.
These centers nevertheless imply that murder on an appalling
scale ““ in every country in which communism was introduced
““ cannot serve as an example of its failure in practice.
The original rationale for the creation of these two centers was
for academia to truly represent a diverse population.
But this advertisement suggests that this was merely a sham and
we’ve all been had. Rather than accurately represent the
larger population, the rhetoric regarding representative
responsibility vanishes and is replaced by Marxist dogma as these
groups seize power.
Anyone not yet convinced about the absurd state of centers may
look no further than its members’ single-minded devotion to
naming the department after César E. Chávez.
This dedication to commemorating a union leader through an
academic department reveals a profound flavor of partisanship at
the core of the effort. Imagine the uproar if faculty members
sought to dedicate the political science department to George W.
Bush.
The main pretense for the department’s creation was seen
as a civil rights struggle; massive protests, including hunger
strikes and vandalism totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars,
characterized the demands for recognition as a viable field of
study.
But the calls for consensus end at the department’s
creation: Over 40 percent of Hispanics voted for Bush in the 2004
election, yet this substantial percentage finds no voice in these
departments.
Their opinions have been essentially hijacked by a campus
discipline purporting to speak on their behalf.
Academic freedom will not be served until these two centers
either regain a sense of legitimacy, or risk being replaced by
departments that do not dedicate themselves to historical
revisionism and ideological hegemony.
Lazar is the vice chairman of Bruin Republicans.