US: New Museum dedicated to Victims of Communism opens in Washington DC

At the Victims of Communism Museum recently inaugurated in Washington, D.C., it was revealed that an estimated 100 million people were slaughtered or died because of Marxist and communist regimes in the last 100 years across the world. This tragedy occurred across the Soviet Union, Vietnam, some African countries, China and Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Notably another 1.5 billion, according to the museum still suffer from ‘oppressive, tyrannical communist regimes’ even today.

The Victims of Communism Museum is the result of 30 years of struggle which originated with an idea from Anne Edwards, wife of renowned historian and biographer Lee Edwards, who was the driving force behind the creation of the museum. Founded by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), the site is a new vital addition to understanding the role of communism and the dangers it holds.

On June 13, when the Museum first opened its doors to the public, it was visited not only by leaders and historians but also by several families of victims affected by communism all over the world. On the occasion of the opening day, the museum was full of individuals and families who not only fought against murderous regimes but also either participated in or helped lead the Opposition against such governments, said US Ambassador Andrew Bremberg, who is also the President of the Victims of the Communism Museum at the inaugural address.

Notably, Wang Dan and Jianli Yang, who were student activists during the Tiananmen Square riots in 1989 were also in attendance at the event. It is worth mentioning that the Chinese Army brutally killed by some conservative estimates-as many as 2,000 peaceful protestors who were marching for democracy and freedom in China. According to Museum’s official Twitter account, there are several artefacts from the protest in the museum, including handmade flags used by the students in the protests.

Lee Edwards stated point-blank that VOC has a clear political agenda: ‘We feel that once we educate young Americans about the history, legacy and ideology of communism, we will make them understand that voting for socialist and communist regimes is not bad but also evil.’

The Museum reportedly has three galleries with distinct purposes. The first gallery explains Mao Zedong’s Communist Manifesto, the Bolshevik Revolution and Vladimir Lenin’s rise to power in Russia.

The theme of the second gallery is repression and covers the era of Joseph Stalin, from the 1920s through World War II, with real pictures of victims shown on large displays. Visitors are confronted with victims of Holodomor-Stalin’s genocide in Ukraine, where nearly 4 million people starved to death during his reign of terror. Several clips and images from gulags (forced labour camps) where prisoners were worked to death were also attached. Notably, Gulag-style prisons are still operational in China and North Korea. Survivors and families of victims who visited the museum have stated that the difference between the gulag in the Soviet communist era and Hitler’s concentration camps was that the USSR never got around to using gas to kill their prisoners-they resorted to bullets, beatings, starvation and working them to death.

The theme for the third and final gallery in the museum is resistance. It goes past the World Wars and takes visitors to the present era. From Mao’s murderous campaigns, the Prague Spring, the Killing Fields of Cambodia and countless other exhibits, museumgoers will learn about the lives of those who are living under communism, today. Interactive screens can be seen guiding visitors through day-to-day choices that people living in these countries today are forced to make as well as the outcomes of their choices.

What is communism?

Communism is both a political system and an economic one. In politics, communist parties have absolute power over governance, and elections are single-party affairs. In economics, the party controls the country's economic system, and private ownership is illegal, although this facet of communist rule has changed in some countries like China over time, private entities are governed with an iron grip by the State.

Examples of Communist States in history

During the time of the Soviet Union (1922–1991), communist countries could be found in Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa. Some of these nations, like the People's Republic of China, were (and still are) communist. Other prominent communist countries such as East Germany, were essentially satellites of the USSR that played a significant role during the Cold War but no longer exist.

Communist countries still surviving today

China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam