Are we returning to a Soviet-like past?

Fifty-five years ago, John Frankenheimer directed a film entitled, "The Manchurian Candidate." The setting was the post-Korea War when communism was taking root in Europe, Asia, and with prodding by the USSR, here in America. It was a time when paranoia was evident, the fear that this democracy was under siege, and the concept of brain washing introduced in the aftermath of World War II.

Since 1989, the USSR has been reduced to a confederacy, state-run corporations privatized, the map of the former empire burned and smoldered to a fraction of its former size, and survivors of the demise of the union, opportunistic oligarchs arising from its ashes.

Are we witnessing a sequel of the 55-year old film with a revised name, "The Bolshevik Candidate"? Our newly elected president supporting a former member of the Communist Party, now premier, calculating that he may ride the wave of even greater prosperity alongside his new ally, who apparently seeks to regain Russia's place as the world's pre-eminent power in the Eastern hemisphere?

James D. Cook

Schaumburg