Communists Aren’t Cool: Honor Victims of Communism This May Day

By Gabriella Hoffman

Thursday, May 01, 2014

Comrades of the world, unite!

Today is May Day, or International Workers Day. What better way to mark this occasion than calling for the destruction of free enterprise or pledging allegiance to Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Don’t you know? Capitalism is evil and has caused more deaths than communism, says self-appointed historian and Occupy miscreant Jesse A. Myerson.

According to the Chicago-based group International Workers of the World, May Day began in 1886 with the help of anarchists and radical leftists:

    On May 1, 1886, more than 300,000 workers in 13,000 businesses across the United States walked off their jobs in the first May Day celebration in history. In Chicago, the epicenter for the 8-hour day agitators, 40,000 went out on strike with the anarchists in the forefront of the public's eye. With their fiery speeches and revolutionary ideology of direct action, anarchists and anarchism became respected and embraced by the working people and despised by the capitalists.

Rather than giving credence to disgruntled Marxists and communists on May 1, why not use this day to highlight the ills of global communism by honoring its victims?

Back in 2007, The Volokh Conspiracy’s Ilya Somin called on readers to commemorate the 100+ million lives lost under communism:

    May Day began as a holiday for socialists and labor union activists, not just communists. But over time, the date was taken over by the Soviet Union and other communist regimes and used as a propaganda tool to prop up their regimes. I suggest that we instead use it as a day to commemorate those regimes’ millions of victims. The authoritative Black Book of Communism estimates the total at 80 to 100 million dead, greater than that caused by all other twentieth century tyrannies combined. We appropriately have a Holocaust Memorial Day. It is equally appropriate to commemorate the victims of the twentieth century’s other great totalitarian tyranny. And May Day is the most fitting day to do so. I suggest that May Day be turned into Victims of Communism Day…

Why hasn’t more attention been given to global communism? Most academics and figureheads skip over it or downplay its horrors. It’s truly sad.

To better put things into perspective about communism, here are some figures:

    · Historian R.J. Rummel says approximately 62 million people were killed in the former Soviet Union from 1917-1987 in his book, Lethal Politics: Soviet Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1917.

    · Roughly 45 million people were killed during Mao Zedong’s ‘Great Leap Forward’ from 1958-1962.

    · 35,000 to 141,000 people were killed in communist Cuba from 1959-1987. (It’s still a communist nation, so that number is subject to fluctuate.)

    · Over 100 million across the globe have died as a result of communism.

There are many of us with anti-Communist backgrounds speaking out against historical revisionism.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), son of a Cuban immigrant, often shares his family story to audiences. He’s inspired to fend off big government and moral relativism thanks to father Rafael Cruz’s influence. Like his father, Cruz speaks out against Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and stresses the importance of combating tyranny.

Congressional candidate Igor Birman, former chief of staff for Congressman Tom McClintock who’s running in California’s 7th District, escaped the former Soviet Union and came to America in 1994. Birman has amassed support for his campaign due to his story of fleeing tyranny for freedom. If he wins the June primary and later the general election in November, he’d be the first Soviet born representative in Congress.

Just like National Socialism, global communism deserves equal, if not more, condemnation. Fortunately, many Americans aren’t allowing its horrors to go unnoticed.

Radio Free Europe reports that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to prosecute former KGB officials residing here who’ve committed Soviet war crimes.

Additionally, the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation is planning to build a museum in Washington, D.C., by 2017 to properly honor communism’s victims and to educate Americans about its sordid history. (Please support the museum’s efforts here.)

I often write about communism at Townhall.com because my family escaped from the former Soviet Union. My maternal grandfather was imprisoned in one of Joseph Stalin’s gulags at the Belomor Canal on the Finnish-Russian border for 18 months because he was Catholic and owned property. My father and his family faced institutionalized anti-Semitism for being Jewish. As a result, I refuse to be silent on the issue.

Much to the chagrin of naysayers, communism doesn’t need to be retried and “perfected.” It’s an equal opportunity oppressor. Why? It tortures and kills people of all races, religions, genders, ages, or social strata for not subscribing to its doctrine.

Fellow freedom-loving Americans: don’t let communists hijack May 1. Instead, use this day to commemorate victims of communism and to educate our peers about its horrors.