For the first time since 2005, Christmas and Hanukkah were celebrated on the same day. This holiday week was marked by another historic event: the anniversary of the former Soviet Union’s dissolution.
On Christmas Day 1991, Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev resigned from his post, and the hammer and sickle flag were promptly lowered from the Kremlin shortly afterward. The following day, the USSR was officially no more. Admittedly, I don’t have any recollection of events because I was an infant. But I know family members and other regime survivors were overjoyed to regain their independence again.
I, a first-generation American, can’t imagine what my family members experienced behind the Iron Curtain. Talk to younger Lithuanians born in the 1980s and they equally share a disdain for collectivism, too. For instance, a Millennial-aged businessman I know remembers the waning years of Soviet occupation and how bleak it was. Like his fellow Lithuanians, he is grateful Lithuania broke away from the USSR and chose a path of prosperity.
Sadly, some former USSR-occupied countries haven’t successfully followed Lithuania’s trajectory. Russia continues to meddle in Ukraine, Georgia, and Romania by unfairly influencing elections and deploying subversive tactics to “rescue” countries it illegally occupied. It also shouldn’t surprise Americans that modern-day Russia hasn’t abandoned its affinity for Sovietism.
In my 2013 Townhall debut, I documented rising neo-Sovietism in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Over a decade later, this sentiment still persists–perhaps even for the worst. Just ask dissidents like Vladimir Kara-Murza who’ve been unfairly detained and imprisoned by the Kremlin. At a recent Victims of Communism Museum event honoring him, Mr. Kara Murza told me appeasing dictators like Putin, who rules Russia with a Stalin-like grip, is a losing strategy for America.
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“We know pretty well what appeasement of dictators leads to,” he told Townhall.com in a statement. “We know this from the history of the 1930’s. We know this from the history of the West dealing with Putin for the past 25 years, because for most of this time, American administrations of both political parties - and many European leaders - basically engaged in a policy of enabling or appeasement.”
He also conveyed to our group of journalists this chilling fact: there are more dissidents in modern-day Russia today compared to the Soviet times. He also shared a warning to American Christians and conservatives who’ve been bamboozled by Mr. Putin’s supposed social conservatism: “He [Putin] only loves himself.”
Over the years, surging support for communism and socialism has dominated American academia and pop culture. Social media also, ironically, gives rise to champagne socialists profiting from anti-free market content on various platforms. That’s where increased efforts to educate Americans about global communism’s 100 million plus victims is a pressing matter.
States like Florida and Arizona have already adopted curriculum guidelines to teach students about the horrors of communism and socialism. Unfortunately, no federal equivalent has been successfully adopted yet. However, there’s a Congressional bill that can counter all attempts to whitewash 20th century totalitarianism.
Earlier this month, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL)’s Crucial Communism Teaching (CCT) Act passed the House of Representatives with strong bipartisan support on a 327-62 margin. Unfortunately, the Senate failed to pass their companion bill during this lame duck session.
Should it be reintroduced in the 119th Congress, the CCT Act will instruct the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation to create a civic education curriculum to be voluntarily adopted in U.S. high schools. More specifically, the bill will invite “comparative discussion of certain political ideologies, including communism and totalitarianism, that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy that are essential to the founding of the United States.” This would be a worthy complement to Holocaust education efforts under the Never Again Education Act that became law in 2020.
“By passing my Crucial Communism Teaching Act, the House of Representatives will ensure future generations will remember the pain and suffering caused by the brutal communist ideology,” Rep. Salazar said in a press release on the bill’s December 6th passage. “My community in Miami understands the evils of communism very well, and we must ensure all Americans are aware of the death and misery it has caused. Their stories and memories will now live on in the minds of our youth.”
Like the congresswoman, I can personally vouch for VOC’s invaluable work. My parents entrusted the museum with our family story for their the Witness Project series. They are doing yeoman’s work to educate America’s youth about the horrors of socialism and communism.
I was fortunate to travel to Lithuania again and visit Poland for the first time this year. Free markets and independence have left a positive mark on these two countries. Lithuania was recently dubbed the happiest nation for people under-30 and boasts a strong inclination to free enterprise, while Poland is seen as a rising major European player over its western European counterparts Germany and France.
For Americans removed from socialist and communist horrors, it’s easy to be enchanted by an ideology promising equality and equal outcomes. But it’s a false promise delivering the equitable sharing of misery, destitution, and ultimately death.
This holiday season and beyond, let’s not memory-hole Soviet horrors.
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