When we hear the word “terrorism,” we automatically think of the Islamic variety. Lesser known is the long and intimate relationship between terrorism and Communism. The word “terrorism” was first recorded in 1795, as a reference to the French Revolution’s “Reign of Terror,” and the bloody “Jacobins” of Maximilien Robespierre. The French Revolution laid the foundation for the Communist movement. Lenin’s Bolsheviks, were said, to had inherited the terrorist characteristics of the Jacobins, and they, at the very least, lived up to it. Lenin’s secret police, the CHEKA, sought to inflict maximum fear and pain on their enemies. Victims were randomly selected. Men, women, children, the elderly, the clergy, no matter the age, were taken at night and butchered. The lucky ones were shot. Hundreds of bodies left on the streets bore evidence of gruesome deaths, sadistic abuse, mutilation, burning, skinning, rape, decapitation, and worse. The Marxist revolutionaries weren’t just content with victory. They wanted retribution in the form of human flesh. They wanted to purge the country of known and unknown enemies, those who could not be re-educated or those that would not conform. It’s been the same in every country taken by Communists. China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Cuba. If you don’t think it can happen here, I still have that bridge in Brooklyn.