George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin has been carrying on a campaign for years to make May 1 “Victims of Communism Day.”
I agree with his goal, and I’m doing my bit here to publicize it.
He writes:
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 [authority]. 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.
Our comparative neglect of communist crimes has serious costs. Victims of Communism Day can serve the dual purpose of appropriately commemorating the millions of victims, and diminishing the likelihood that such atrocities will recur. Just as Holocaust Memorial Day and other similar events promote awareness of the dangers of racism, anti-Semitism, and radical nationalism, so Victims of Communism Day can increase awareness of the dangers of left-wing forms of totalitarianism, and government domination of the economy and civil society.
While communism is most closely associated with Russia, where the first communist regime was established, it had comparably horrendous effects in other nations around the world. The highest death toll for a communist regime was not in Russia, but in China. Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward was likely the biggest episode of mass murder in the entire history of the world.
Just as Paris is well worth a mass, so victims of Communism deserve a day.
I lost my copy of the Black Book of Communism in my 2007 fire, but I do recommend at least paging through it to see the horror.
Even from an early age, when I learned what Stalin had done in Ukraine, I was inoculated against Communism. Although, truth be told, it actually happened earlier than that, in 1956, when the USSR’s government invaded Hungary. When people ask what was the first major historical event I remember happening in real time, the invasion of Hungary is the one that comes up. I was 5 years old and turned 6 later that month.
READER COMMENTS
David Seltzer
May 1 2025 at 7:16pm
David: Nice post. Mao’s Great Leap Forward was tragically, The Great Leap Backward. How destructive and murderous communism can continue as an ideal is mind boggling. April 29th was the fiftieth anniversary of the fall of Saigon. I remember being in country in the South China Sea and Southeast Asia. We were killing Charley at a rate of nearly 17:1. About one million North Vietnam and Viet Cong fighters were killed. We lost 58,000. How does communism command such commitment? A personal story. My best friend Served in the 7th cavalry. They fought in the Ia drang valley for seven days. They stacked Vietcong fighters like cordwood after killing 1000 of them. When it was over, he thought Ho Chi Minh would win the war. Later that battle was made into a movie; We were soldiers Once and Young.
steve
May 2 2025 at 11:03am
My sense is that few of the NV really knew that much about communism so it was a major reason for only a few of them. I think it was much more a long term hatred of foreign influences, specifically European (which included the US) and especially the French. AFAICT, Ho Chi Minh was a fairly charismatic leader who was pretty popular. He was the leader that helped expel the Japanese and the French. Soldiers were willing to fight for his cause. Also, IIRC, the land reforms were pretty popular with the peasants even if there were later some regrets about it. (I was a corpsman at the end of the war but never went in country. Anyway, this was a frequent topic of conversation on the night shift talking with guys who spent months in the hospital recovering.)
Steve
David Seltzer
May 2 2025 at 11:29am
Steve: Thanks. Your points are well made. Curious note. The Phoenix Program’s charter was to destroy Charley via assassination and enhanced interrogation. Part of Phoenix’s objective was crushing the political infrastructure of the Viet Cong. Uncle Ho used his charisma to indoctrinate many of the peasant fighters with the egalitarian blessings of communism. We know today, the program neutralized some 80,000 Vietnamese suspected of VC membership or collaboration. BTW. HM’s were revered in country. Truly bad ass. Marines called them “Doc” as a moniker of respect. The rest of us squids, not so much.
Herb
May 2 2025 at 1:00am
I am reading Frank Dikotter, China After Mao. A brutal, repressive regime even after the death of Mao. They are afraid of their shadows. A well-written book, with a lot of documentation.
I agree that the emphasis of May Day should be changed. It might change attitudes on our campuses, a little.
Somin’s book was also good.
Thanks.
David Henderson
May 2 2025 at 4:50pm
Thanks, Herb, and you’re welcome.
Andrew_FL
May 2 2025 at 10:28am
My maternal grandfather actually fled the Soviet invasion of Hungary. Oddly enough if it had not happened, I would not exist.
David Henderson
May 2 2025 at 4:50pm
So at least one good outcome. 🙂
Mike Burnson
May 3 2025 at 4:56am
Marx-Engels’s Siamese twins of socialism-communism have been the most terrifying of evil the Earth has ever spawned. Nothing in previous history compares with the bloodlust of the National Socialists of Germany, the USSocialistR (Hitler and Stalin were allies for the first years of WW II), Maoist China (he used socialist and communist interchangeably), the Khmer Rouge of Pol Pot, the Ba’athist Socialist Party of Saddam Hussein (murdered a million civilians in addition to starting two wars). This doesn’t even include multiple civil wars which, over the past century, are predominantly communist attempts to take over countries.
I have asked for 40 years: How many murders are free? How many murders do we tolerate from a dictator before the civilized world must act? Asking hundreds of people, never once have I received an answer.
When government becomes god, it decides who can live and who must die.
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