House Members Could Be Asked If They Denounce Socialism

Rep. María Salazar (R-Fla.) speaks during a hearing in Washington, D.C., on March 10, 2021. Ting Shen/Pool/Getty Images

News Analysis

House GOP members will ask all of their colleagues to make their position publicly known on socialism.

On Jan. 26, Rep. Maria Salazar (R-Fla.) and House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) introduced House Concurrent Resolution 9, titled “Denouncing the horrors of socialism.”

Salazar and Scalise intend to bring the resolution to the House floor for a vote this week. It isn’t much of a stretch to imagine that the motion hopes to put any Republicans, Democrats, or Independents who identify either socially or economically with far-leftist ideals in an uncomfortable position with this legislative initiative.

What Say Ye Democrats?

And within the Democrats in the lower chamber of Congress, there is a subgroup that Republicans may be particularly keen on asking their opinion on socialism; and that is the nine members of the ultra-progressive “Squad”: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Summer Lee (D-Penn.), and Greg Casar (D-Texas).

It could get dicey.

Currently, every member of the Squad says they are liberal and progressive; only AOC and Tlaib openly call themselves socialists.

Resolution Outlines Horrific Lived Experiences of Socialism

Representatives Salazar and Scalise issued a joint press release announcing the resolution.

“The district I represent is one that knows the failures of socialism all too well,” said Rep. Salazar, whose constituency includes a large population of Cuban exiles. “My constituents understand firsthand the consequences [that] socialist ideology brought to our continent: misery, oppression, and exile. I am proud to introduce a resolution that makes it clear … socialism fails wherever it has been tried, and we don’t want it here.”

Rep. Scalise said, “The natural progression of socialist and communist policies is to a totalitarian state that deprives its citizens of basic freedoms and human rights. The American people know this—they’ve seen the horrors of communism and the tens of millions killed by regimes in China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, and elsewhere.

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) speaks during a House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis hearing in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on May 19, 2021. Susan Walsh/Pool/AFP via Getty Images

“Hundreds of thousands of Russians, Chinese, Cambodians, Koreans, Cubans, and Venezuelans have fled from murderous communist dictatorships and have legally resettled here in America. They are a living testament to the barbarity of these socialist regimes and the promise of the American dream.”

Presently, 75 House members, including Salazar and Scalise, have signed on as supporters of the resolution.

The resolution lays out and describes in stark language a litany of violence, repression, and killing imposed by socialist states and nations.

Communist Party cadres hang a placard on the neck of a Chinese man. The words on the placard states the man's name and accuse him of being a member of the "black class." Public Domain

Young Red Guards brandish copies of Chairman Mao's “Little Red Book” in Beijing during the Cultural Revolution in 1966. The Red Guards rampaged through Chinese towns, terrorizing people, particularly the elderly. Jean Vincent/AFP via Getty Images

“Whereas socialism has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 people worldwide,” reads one clause.

Socialism, the resolution declares, “has repeatedly led to famine and mass murders, and the killing of over 100,000,000 worldwide,” and that “many of the greatest crimes in history were committed by socialist ideologues, including Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Pol Pot, Kim Jong Il, Kim Jong Un, Daniel Ortega, Hugo Chavez, and Nicolás Maduro.”

The resolution also cites that “tens of millions died in the Bolshevik Revolution, at least 10,000,000 people were sent to the gulags in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and millions more starved in the Terror-Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine;” and “between 15,000,000 and 55,000,000 people starved to death in the wake of famine and devastation caused by the Great Leap Forward in China.”

Correction: A previous version of this article misspelt a Representative’s surname. The Epoch Times regrets the error.