Yet, according to Bishop E.W. Jackson, chairman of the new group Stand Against Communism, "Socialism and communism are exactly the same, and we will not allow euphemisms to lull us to sleep."
Who is right?
A set of experts assembled May 20 argued that America needs to beware of both.
They dedicated themselves to pushing back against the increasing prevalence in America of an ideology implicated in the extermination of an estimated 94,351,000 human lives, as of 1999.
The Soviet Union
Likewise, at a CNN town hall in New Hampshire, an attendee told Sanders that her father’s family had escaped the Soviet Union in 1979, "fleeing from some of the very socialist policies that you seem eager to implement in this country."
Sanders, however, attempted to distinguish Moscow’s murderous Marxism from his version of democratic socialism.
He began by arguing: "Is it your assumption that I supported or believe in authoritarian communism that existed in the Soviet Union? I don’t. I never have, and I opposed it. I believe in a vigorous democracy."
That might come as a surprise to those with whom he "honeymooned" in the USSR in 1988, a trip on which he sang "This Land Is Your Land" to his Russian hosts while shirtless after relaxing in a sauna.