Victims of Communism Day

Source- Reason- Vladimir Lenin Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong - the three biggest Communist mass-murderers. Today is May Day. Since 2007 I have advocated using this date as an international Victims of Communism Day. I outlined the rationale for this proposal (which was not my original idea) in my very first post on the subject: 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 centurys 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 equally horrendous effects in other nations around the world. The highest death toll for a communist regime was not in Russia but in China. Mao Zedongs Great Leap Forward was likely the biggest episode of mass murder in the entire history of the world. In terms of comprehensive state control over society and suppression of civil liberties Soviet communism fell short of the even more thoroughgoing totalitarianism of Cambodias Khmer Rouge and North Korea.