I have no intention of going to see “Child 44,” based on Rob Smith’s novel of the same name. Reading the book is horrifying enough. “Child 44” is a good thriller – not a literary classic. But for those who can get through the descriptions of cannibalism, it is an important read, because it reminds us the depths Communism to which (or Communist Atheism) can drag a society that promotes it.
In the 1930s, Stalin starved tens of millions of farmers to death – resulting in widespread cannibalism – on his way to equality and social justice under the auspices of the state.
After the war, at the beginning of the 1950s, the esteemed “Sun of the Nations” (with the assistance of some of the Left in Israel) planned to destroy the five million Jews who remained in the Soviet Union. The initial stage was the “discovery” of the “Doctor’s Plot” to assassinate Soviet leaders, which is also mentioned in the book. On the threshold of a second Holocaust, a Purim miracle took place: Stalin died and the Jews were saved.
The plot of “Child 44” revolves around an interesting phenomenon in the Soviet regime. In Stalin’s Soviet Union, there was no crime except for crimes against the state. As a result, there was no real police force, except for a type of low ranking militia. Of course, there was the NKVD – a highly desirable place to work – whose job was to protect state security.
Does this sound confusing? Not when you begin to understand the warped logic of the communist regime. The social experiment for which millions of victims were sacrificed was supposed to give birth to a just society in which there were no social classes. According to communist theory, if there is no competition, there is no reason to commit a crime. So what happens when a child is brutally murdered (that is how the story begins)? They explain to the family that their child died in a train accident.
But the neighbor saw the murderer and she can describe him.
At that moment, the neighbor and the family turn into a threat to the state. They have two choices: either to cling to their sorrow and their demand for a just investigation – and to land in one of the gulags. Or to adopt the official version.
The plot thickens when there is not one murder, but a string of similar murders throughout the Soviet Union. After each murder, the local police blame a strange accident or a hapless mentally-ill person who is summarily removed from the mental institution and shot. Every explanation that does not undermine the communist theory is included in the official file. The police do nothing to really investigate and find the murderer because the motivation of the Ministry for Internal Security in the great dictatorship is not public safety or truth, but rather reaffirming public trust in the state and its policies.
When the 44th child is murdered, the state begins to lose control of the grand bluff.
You have to read “Child 44” to understand the warped logic that motivates Israel’s Police and security services to make every effort to hide every terror murder from the public and to try to camouflage it as something else.
It is not laziness. It is also not senseless cruelty. It is the concerted effort of Israel’s defense establishment to reaffirm the public’s trust in the state and its policies.
When will the grand bluff finally be revealed?