On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong led the Communist Party of China into power. Since then, anywhere between 35 to 65 million people have been killed in China by the communists.

The Great Leap Forward was the second five year plan implemented by Mao in 1959. It was intended to rapidly develop China’s industrial sector through collectivism. It resulted in the Great Chinese Famine. The official death toll is 14 million, but the general consensus among scholars puts the death toll anywhere from 20 to 43 million. In 1950, the Chinese Communist central committee ordered a “severe suppression” of “counter-revolutionary activities.” The shortened term for this order is “Zhen Fan.” Time magazine wrote:

In no previous war, revolution or human holocaust, either in the days of Tamerlane or in the time of Hitler, have so many people been destroyed in so short a period…. The Chinese Communists were so certain of their moral right to kill for the revolution that they attempted at every opportunity to make the people also a party to their act, e.g., enforced spectator participation in the mass trials.  By the end of 1951 and the beginning of 1952 the slaughter had reached such a pitch that the whole of China (as the Communists intended) was shaken to its roots with terror.

In 1955, the purge of counter-revolutionaries was on again, this time known as the Shu Fan movement. There were several targets to purge: Ex-Kuomintang personnel regardless of war captive or surrender, anyone with landlord or wealthy families, and students and literati.

The initial directive was “the absolute purge and cleansing of hidden counter-revolutionaries.” Mao issued an additional directive: “To be firm and absolute on the purge of counterrevolutionary, to solidify and fortify the proletariat dictatorship.” This purge ended in 1956, with over to 200,000 people arrested, more than 20,000 executed and another 25,000 plus dead of unnatural causes.

In 1966, Mao launched the Cultural Revolution, aimed at removing the “liberal bourgeois” who wanted to restore capitalism. He enlisted the youth of China, who in turn organized into groups called Red Guards. During this time, millions of Chinese lived with the luxury of their basic human rights. The young were forced from the city to the countryside for reeducation. Incidents of cannibalism were reported in Guangxi, where “‘counterrevolutionaries‘ were beaten to death and in the most beastly fashion had their flesh and liver consumed [by their killers].”

One recent scholarly account asserts that in rural China alone some 36 million people were persecuted, of whom between 750,000 and 1.5 million were killed, with roughly the same number permanently injured. In Mao: The Unknown Story, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday claim that as many as 3 million people died in the violence of the Cultural Revolution.

We have witnessed the oppression of the communist government on our nightly newscasts. Hundreds of civilian protestors were killed in Tiananmen Square in 1989. Religion continues to be oppressed in China. People are not free to worship as they choose.

As recently as the last Olympics, there were reports of people being rounded up and suffering “30 days of persecution and oppression.”

For 60 years, this country has aided our enemies, spied against the West and held over a billion people under the brutal thumb of Communism.

So at least Obama’s America is taking a moral stance on this awful anniversary isn’t it? Oh.

New York’s iconic Empire State Building will light up red and yellow Wednesday in honor of the 60th anniversary of communist China.

The Chinese consul, Peng Keyu, and other officials will take part in the lighting ceremony which will bathe the skyscraper in the colors of the People’s Republic until Thursday, Empire State Building representatives said in a statement.