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.
