Leninism may be alive and well among the Western left, but it is rapidly dying in the old Communist countries. The story below—about a Chinese censor who was seduced by the pro-liberty tracts he was supposed to ban—is a nice example of why the old Communist regimes fell, and why China's Communist system won't be too far behind them.
"Chinese Censor Granted Asylum for Pro-Democracy Acts," Joseph Goldstein, New York Sun, September 6 A federal appeals court has granted asylum to a Chinese bureaucrat whose job was to confiscate pro-democracy books but who engaged in acts of private protest against the communist government.
Xu Sheng Gao, 45, once led a contingent of 36 inspectors tasked with scouring the bookstores of the Chinese seaport of Qingdao, formerly known as Tsingtao, for democratic texts…. By 1999, after seven years with the Cultural Management Bureau of Qingdao, Mr. Gao's resolve to enforce censorship had weakened, his lawyer, Gang Zhou, recounts in court papers.
Mr. Gao began to take an interest in books that "tell peoples the freedom of the Western Countries," according to his testimony in the court record. He brought the banned literature home and on several occasions loaned the books to friends, according to court documents.
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