Why aren't communists stigmatized just as much as Confederates and neo-Nazis are?
olence in Charlottesville, Va., where a car mowed through a crowd protesting against neo-Nazis and other "alt-right" demonstrators, has renewed focus on white supremacists and, more specifically, the role Confederate monuments play as rallying points. In the wake of the Charlottesville protests, Baltimore; Richmond, Va.; Dallas; and Lexington, Ky., are now debating removing their Confederate monuments. Simply put, the protesters argue that history matters and that the symbolism of the past has resonance today.
Make no mistake: The issue surrounding Confederate symbolism is different than efforts at Yale University and elsewhere to rename buildings and to remove statues, stained glass windows, and artwork. The issue at hand is not a refusal to judge historical figures by the standards of their time, but rather the symbolism driving or representing a political movement.
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How ironic it is, then, that the same stigma (rightly) attached to Confederate symbolism is strangely absent with regard to communist symbolism.
Communism, after all, is an ideology that has led to the deaths of almost 100 million people. While men like Ernesto "Che" Guevara may have become folk heroes for some on the political Left, they were in reality sociopathic mass murderers. The same holds true, of course, with Soviet dictator Josef Stalin and Chinese communist leader Mao Tse-tung (Mao Zedong).
Democratic National Committee Vice-Chairman Keith Ellison told progressive activists on Friday that North Korean communist leader Kim Jong Un was a more responsible leader than President Trump (he immediately regretted his wording). Kim, however, presides over a system of concentration and death camps that are reminiscent of Nazi Germany or Stalin's Gulag. The American Friends Service Committee describes itself as a progressive organization dedicated to non-violence, but they were among the chief cheerleaders for the Khmer Rouge, a communist and racist gang responsible for the deaths of over a million people in Cambodia.
That the New York Times seeks to glorify sex under communism is no different than had it complimented the matchmaking prowess of the Nazi-era Bund Deutscher Mädel.
In reality, white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and any adherents to a racist, segregationist ideology are scum; they should be condemned. So too should the Nation of Islam and the radical fringes of the Black Lives Matter movement who adhere to ideologies just as racist and supremacist.
But all of their legacies pale in comparison to that of communism. A communist should face the same disgrace as a Nazi, and a former communist should be stigmatized as much as a former member of the Ku Klux Klan. That they were products of society is not an excuse: After all, many southerners chose not to join the KKK even if it meant personal disadvantage in places where KKK members dominated business and many Russians chose not to join the Communist Party, even at the height of the Soviet era.
The progressive blind spot to communism reflects historical ignorance on the part of Americans and Europeans. It reflects a failure at the high school and university levels to truly confront the horrors of the last century and, in the case of China and North Korea, this century as well. While the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation does good work, the United States still does not commemorate the victims of communism on a scale commensurate with their numbers.
If protesters truly want to combat hate, they must recognize that the Nazi Swastika, Confederate iconography, and the hammer and sickle each represent ideologies of hatred. They need not be erased, but rather confined to historical museums. To march under or tolerate one while combatting the other represents not the pursuit of justice but rather hypocrisy and ignorance.
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