Vytautas Sinica (1990) is a political scientist, publisher and politician of Lithuania. He has co-founded the National Alliance political party and is now a member of council of Vilnius, capital of Lithuania. In 2022, he defended his dissertation on political philosophy „Theoretical Foundations of European Unification” at the Faculty of Philosophy of Vilnius University. In 2019 he published a book „Do We Still Need a State of Lithuania?”
On August 23rd, 2018, Archbishop Sigitas Tamkevičius showed Pope Francis, who was visiting Lithuania, around his old prison cell in the former KGB prison. It is now a Museum of occupations and freedom fights. It was a very meaningful visit for a Latin American Pope who does not shy away from flirting with left-wing ideas.

The Catholic Church in Lithuania was particularly persecuted during the Soviet period. A large number of Lithuanian clergy were imprisoned in the former KGB prison. In 1947, of the five remaining Lithuanian bishops, four were repressed and imprisoned in the eleventh cell of that prison. Of these, one died in prison, one was executed, and two received 10 and 16 years respectively in Gulag camps. The Church was not broken by this, quite the contrary. In the 1970s, priests began to publish the Chronicle of the Catholic Church in Lithuania from which the West learned of Soviet crimes. Of the 5 leaders of this movement, one was killed by the KGB in mysterious circumstamces, the other three were imprisoned and exiled. Sigitas Tamkevičius was one of the exiled.

During the last decade, Lithuania has been uncovering more and more remains of partisans who fought against the Bolshevik occupation in the post-war period. In 1944, at the end of World War II, Lithuania was occupied by the USSR. The Yalta Conference left the USSR-occupied Baltic States to the Soviets. Tens of thousands of partisans in Lithuania went into the forests and resisted the occupation and collaborators for an entire decade. In Lithuania, they are known as „forest brothers”, and the resistance itself as „war after the war”. Stalin brutally suppressed this resistance, but from historical sources we know that because of this, Moscow considered giving Lithuania the satellite status of the Central European countries. The guerrilla’s struggle prevented the massive colonization and russification of Lithuania. To this day, Russia proclaims to the world that they were either Nazi collaborators or simple bandits, a criminal element. The Pope’s visit on 23 August is a symbol of this entire history for Lithuania. On this day in 1939, the Nazis and the Soviets divided the countries between them in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact for future occupation; in 1987, the first rally denouncing the pact and the occupation itself took place in Lithuania; in 1989, all the Baltic countries lined up holding hands on the Baltic Way to demand independence from the USSR.

The history of the different countries is different, but all the countries of the region have their own memory of Bolshevik violence. For half a century, some were occupied, like Lithuania, while others were controlled through satellite regimes. Half of Europe was raped by communism, which it never wanted or chose. Whole generations of university students were obliged to study Marxism-Leninism, scientific communism, the history of the Communist Party and other ideological disciplines. Entire generations had to celebrate communist festivals, serve in the USSR army, and live under conditions of censorship, ratting out and propaganda. Each country in the region has its own unique history, its own traitors, and heroes. But they all share 50 years of practical Marxist experience. Experience that no nation west of the Iron Curtain has.

With the growing ideas of new or cultural Marxism in the free world today, this Central Eastern European experience is more relevant than ever. That which the West has discovered, neatly wrapped in the paper of the liberation of the oppressed, tolerance and diversity, has been force-fed to the post-Soviet countries since the end of World War II. Except for the collaborators who sold their consciences, and the children of those collaborators, it has not been palatable for many.

Today, the memory of communism is alive in the region in a way that is unlike anything else in Europe. People are increasingly speaking publicly about the similarities between the old and the new Marxism, recognizing the same phenomena. Not everyone is talking, however. Some of them flatly deny any connection. But the equation is simple: those who resisted the Bolshevik occupation during the Soviet period recognize Marxism now.

The aforementioned (and now already a cardinal Cardinal Sigitas Tamkevičius), a publisher of the anti-Soviet press and a prisoner of the Siberian camps, made a comparison on Lithuania’s largest news portal two years ago: 'Back then, the Marxist ideology went through people’s minds like a bulldozer, and they were forced to adapt to that ideology. People were not allowed to declare some of their beliefs in public, they had to keep them in their hearts. Silence. It is the same today. You can believe what you want, but outwardly you must adapt to the new ideology, which is actually a Marxist ideology and does not even smell of liberalism. Because liberalism allows everyone – including people of faith – to express themselves freely. The things that we are now seeing in the Western world are truly frightening. People have to think before they say something out loud, to make sure that they are not accused of hate speech. It is an unfortunate phenomenon, but it is the reality of our day. Just as the Soviet government-imposed regulations in the past, so now the governments that are imbued with this genderist ideology prescribe what can and cannot be said.

Another resistant priest, Robert Grigas, adds, „we see a cultural Marxism that is quite clearly recognizable, in which we, the faithful, are once again thrown into the same cramped cage.”

It is not only the clergy who can make the comparison. In Lithuania, sex education which sexualizes childhood and teaches respect for „gender identity choice” was introduced this year. Professor Vytautas Radžvilas, one of the founders of the Sąjūdis movement that won Lithuania saw independence from the USSR, commented on the origins of this:
„The communist revolution was conceived as a leap into a post-human condition, which was perceived as a realm of absolute freedom. The Bolshevik coup in Russia was the first large-scale experiment in Marxist revolution. It included the first communist sexual revolution in the history of the world, which was to fundamentally change the concepts of marriage and the family, and to revolutionize gender relations themselves. It has been extended and radicalized in the West and is now being exported to all regions of the world. This includes Lithuania, which has only recently thrown off the yoke of communist slavery. It has come in the form of the neo-Marxist ideology of genderism. The Western neo-Marxists who created this ideology criticized Karl Marx’s theory and the Russian Bolsheviks who tried to implement it for not being radical enough. The reason for their failure was considered to be the inability to appreciate the attachment of the proletariat to be liberated to two reactionary and historically obsolete human communities – the nation and, in particular, the natural family. Even the most advanced and revolutionary liberated proletarians have not been able to break the bonds of familial attachment and imagine a familyless society based only on „situational bonds of affection”. It was the proletarian’s inability to rid himself of the enslaving image of the traditional family „attachment” and „stereotype” that limited and undermined his revolutionary potential, and ultimately ruined the USSR’s own attempt to realize the project of a communist society and the creation of a new man. […] The new Marxists proclaimed the marginal layers of society – ethnic and especially sexual minorities – as the flag-bearers of the liberation of mankind, the permanent war of the sexes as the driving force of the revolution and the liberation of the individual’s repressed sexual instincts and desires that had been repressed by the bourgeoisie as the aim.”

Unlike in Poland or Hungary, in Lithuania no one in the ruling class or the media „elite” would say this. The fight over the national media by the now-former Polish government, which has turned into a major scandal in Europe, has been explained by the rulers themselves precisely by the threat of neo-Marxist propaganda.

Jacek Kurski, CEO of TV Polonia, explained: „Back then there was a Bolshevik onslaught that wanted to enslave people all over Europe,” he said. „Today we have a different version of the neo-Bolshevik onslaught that tries to question values. [This is] an onslaught and cornucopia of anti-values, cultural and moral re-education, which must also be fought, probably not with arms, but with the help of mass media, and here TVP has Polish obligations.” That goes in line with a stance of President Duda: „This [neo-Marxist propaganda] is an insanely complicated problem. The exposition and decisive offensive of basically neo-Marxist content is powerful. This is being pushed by influential media outlets. This is a challenge for years to come. We must focus on it heavily, and we don’t have much time left.”

There is no doubt, that under this rhetoric Polish government also hid content that was simply favorable of their job. Modern politics are, after all, a power play. And yet it makes the statement no less accurate. Neo-Marxism is roaming at large in today’s Europe, much like the infamous ghost of its father in the mid of XIXth century.

Let’s look at a few things in turn. The world, both having lived through Marxism and having read about it, knows best, and reflects first on the economic side of Marxism. The planned economy, the banning of private enterprise and the nationalization of property are classic features of the Marxist system. It is no coincidence that the post-Soviet countries had to undergo a simultaneous triple transformation: from occupation to independence, from dictatorship to democracy and from central planning to a market economy. However, occupation and central planning do not convey the essential features of the new Marxism that are relevant today. New Marxism is democratic and at the same time it leads to radical dictatorship. It preaches the same basic slogans as the old Marxism.

First, internationalism. The nation and the nation-state are obsolete, the progress of mankind is leading to a cosmopolitan tomorrow of a world without borders. The respect for borders and their separated national communities with their language and norms is appalling to Marxists for several reasons. It places the norms of some cultures above others. It prevents people from migrating freely to countries of greater prosperity. It prevents the mixing of peoples and cultures. All this is unforgivable. The future of humanity for Marxists should be borderless. It is motivated mainly by slogans against war and for peace. Few things could be more bizarre. A Europe in which nobody is at war is called upon to reject nation states and borders. No one is proposing this to the permanently warring countries of the Third World. On the other hand, when war breaks out, as in Ukraine, it becomes clearer than ever that democracy, rights, and freedoms are protected from barbarism and dictatorship only by national borders and the cultural boundaries of nations. All what is most precious in Western civilization was created, functions and can only be sustained within states and nations.

Second, secularism. Religion is obsolete, secularism is progress. The old Marxism bluntly tried to suppress faith and the Church. This had the opposite effect, the oppressed people rallied around the Church as a bastion of truth, vocations, attendance at services and faith in general grew. The new Marxism is incomparably more subtle. It does not (almost) proscribe priests, it does not prohibit faith. New Marxism radically privatizes faith, banning it from any role in public life. Believers can believe, but just not act on it outside the doors of their homes and churches. This is especially true for politicians. Secular arguments can be used, but not religious ones. Thanks to Rawls. This is not liberal in any sense – citizens are not free to choose what they want to be guided by, and it is considered to be the duty of the state to „educate” society and promote secularization.
Third, sexual freedom. The least known aspect of Marxism is Lenin’s sexual revolution from 1918 onwards. Sodomy, abortion, divorce was legalized in Soviet Russia, adultery and public nudity were normalized, the education of children was made state-controlled („only the state will raise good communists”), and sexual freedom parades were held in Leningrad. Why is this little known? The negative social consequences, in particular children not knowing their parents and widespread venereal diseases, were so great that Stalin called off the revolution. But only partly. Divorce and abortion remained. In Lithuania, for example, divorce and abortion were legalized only after the Soviet occupation. Today’s Marxist sexual revolution is well known, and its essence is the normalization of all sexual behavior and the encouragement of experimentation with one’s sexuality. Cultural and medical changes have made it possible to go beyond the rejection of fidelity and monogamy into the realms of different orientations and transgenderism. The entire sexual liberation movement is bound together by the common principle of nirvana as formulated by Herbert Marcuse.
Fourthly, equality of outcome. Communism has comprehensively limited any competition in society. The abolition of market relations, the abolition of business and private capital accumulation took away pragmatic incentives. The introduction of ideological censorship, indoctrination in science and requirements of party loyalty have also removed the incentives for self-fulfillment. The only competition allowed under communism was based on initiative, acquaintanceship, and patronage within the Communist Party. The new Marxism, especially in the USA, moved from the principle of fair equality of opportunity to the demand for equality of results. Irrespective of natural differences, abilities and efforts, equality is again the goal. The most striking expression of this thinking is the articles in the mainstream media that justify the destruction of property during the Black Lives Matter riots on the grounds that the rioters (especially black people) do not and cannot even own property, and therefore by destroying other people’s property they are only fighting injustice.

Fifth, ideological censorship. Marxism’s tactics here are most similar to its treatment of religion. The old Marxism, because it was implemented in dictatorships and even totalitarianism, openly applied state censorship, had the institutions to do so, and punished violations of censorship. The new Marxism is guided by Marcuse’s view that tolerance which allows all views to be heard is repressive and that it is necessary to silence views representing traditional norms so that new norms which are alien to society can emerge. In practice, this has translated into political correctness and informal censorship – the so-called „cancel culture”. People who speak ideologically „wrong” risk losing the airwaves, their jobs and business relationships. A person who does not know how to shut up becomes an example to everyone else, helped by ideologically „correct” influencers and the media. In workplaces, editorial offices and in the heads of specific people, internal self-censorship begins to operate. Those who do not work become white crows, even if they are telling the truth, and is increasingly difficult for society to take seriously. The final stage is a return to official legal censorship, embodied in increasingly radical „hate speech” laws that single out specific groups in society who cannot be spoken about as freely as everyone else.

In summary, Marxism proclaimed that the aim of philosophy is not to explain but to change reality. Reality will not change slowly and there is no point in waiting. What is needed is a revolution, with the old Marxists raising the world proletariat and the new Marxists raising the minorities oppressed by cultural norms. To liberate man from the norms and the state, to allow him to create himself, is the real task of politics. This creation of the new man presupposes his being denationalized, secularized, sexually liberated, accustomed to equality, and educated not to have an opinion. It is natural that the liberation of instincts and desires requires the imprisonment of thought and conscience. Either one or the other can be truly free in man.

The Western world of the 20th and 21st centuries is seemingly as different as night and day. On deeper examination, they are almost the same ideologically. Ideas that held Eastern Europe captive in the 20th century have now taken a new form throughout the Western world. It is true that in the West, especially in the US, many people recognize them and talk about them. But theoretical knowledge is not practical experience. Without experience, there is no existential horror. That experience and horror is shared by the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, who lived under Marxism in the Evil Empire or its satellites, and who are now inevitably recognizing the same manifestations in a free and democratic Europe. As Jordan Peterson says, Eastern Europe therefore has a special mission. A mission to explain to the Western world what it has not experienced and would rather not do.