Has your state formally recognized November 7 as Victims of Communism Memorial Day? Five US states (Alabama, Florida, Texas, Utah, and Virginia) have done so, and eight more (Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina) have plans to join them.
Why should we remember victims of communism on November 7? May 1—the day of the year on which communist governments have traditionally celebrated their ideology—might seem a better choice. However, to avoid competition with their well-known May Day celebrations, the general consensus has moved toward the anniversary of the date when the first communist regime was established.
On November 7, 1917, Red Guards took over the Winter Palace and ousted the Russian Provisional Government, giving Vladimir Lenin and his Bolsheviks control of Russia. Communism subsequently spread to other countries throughout the twentieth century, from Eastern European nations such as Poland after World War II, to Asian nations such as Cambodia, and to African nations such as Angola.
Since the collapse of communist governments in many countries in the late twentieth century, there has been a movement to recognize the human damage done by the bloody political ideology. The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, for example, is promoting this memorial date to encourage us to remember annually the men, women, and children who lived and died under communism. That foundation publicizes the stories of the real suffering endured by those who have lived under communism, and it seeks justice for those who are still living under communism. This is clearly not a problem of the past; as their website points out, “one-fifth of the world’s population still lives under single-party communist regimes in China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam.”
According to The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Harvard University Press, 1999), the number of people who died under communism is truly staggering. Based on unofficial totals, communism caused:
- 20 million deaths in the USSR
- 65 million deaths in China
- 1 million deaths in Vietnam
- 2 million deaths in North Korea
- 2 million deaths in Cambodia
- 1 million deaths in Eastern Europe
- 150,000 deaths in Latin America
- 1.7 million deaths in Africa
- 1.5 million deaths in Afghanistan
- 10,000 deaths internationally through the communist movement
These estimated deaths come from secular sources. It is not always possible to be certain about such totals, due to communist governments’ predilection for the use of massacres, killing fields, and prison camps. But it is widely believed that 100 million human beings have died under communism from that fateful day of November 7, 1917, to the present.
The secular world may keep track of communism’s victims; the Catholic Church keeps track of her martyrs. There is, in the month of November, no shortage of either.
The conflict known as the Spanish Civil War is not included in the grand tally of communism’s victims above, probably because that number generally doesn’t include victims of wars. The 286 Spanish men and women who were executed by communist sympathizers in the single month of November in 1936 are considered martyrs by the Church because they were killed out of hatred for their Catholic faith. This is easy to prove since most of these martyrs were priests, religious brothers, and religious sisters. However, this number also includes seven laymen who are remembered on November 6. Why were these seven men—two of whom were teenagers—targeted for their faith? Apparently, membership in the Association of the Miraculous Medal, a pious association of the laity which promotes devotion to the Blessed Mother and the wearing of her famous medal, was considered a crime worthy of death.
On November 5, 1950, Blessed Hryhoriy Lakota died a martyr in Russia. He was born in Ukraine and became a priest, as well as an auxiliary bishop of Przemyśl in Poland. When the USSR took control of Poland after World War II, communist leaders simply sent many Catholic leaders to prison camps to try to destroy the practice of the faith. Hryhoriy was one of those leaders. He died in Vorkuta Corrective Labor Camp, a major gulag in the USSR, which housed common criminals, POWs, and other “enemies of the state”. Survivors of the camp later remembered Hryhoriy’s virtuous behavior, despite its brutal conditions. When Morris West wrote his novel The Shoes of the Fisherman, he modeled his main character, Kiril Pavlovich Lakota, after two men: Blessed Hryhoriy and Ukrainian bishop Josyf Slipyi.
On November 5, the Church remembers thirty-eight Catholics who were martyred in Albania during the many years that Christians endured repression under communists. Almost all of these martyrs, who died between 1945 and 1974, were Albanian priests. Many endured months of torture in prison before they were executed. Blessed Maria Tuci, the only woman in the group, was a schoolteacher and was twenty-two years old at the time of her death. After she refused the sexual advances of a member of the secret police, she was arrested and accused of the crime of teaching the catechism to her students. She refused to divulge information about other Catholics, even after being brutally tortured for over a year. The hospital workers who cared for Maria before her death remembered that she forgave her torturers and died holding her rosary.
November also marks the dates of the martyrdoms of three priests and two bishops from Eastern Europe. Blessed Vincent Eugene Bossilkov was a Passionist priest of Bulgaria and titular bishop who died a martyr on November 11, 1952. Blessed Peter (Kamen) Vitchev and two other priests of the Congregation of Augustinians of the Assumption were executed by firing squad and died as martyrs on November 13, 1952. Blessed Josaphat Kotsylovsky was a Basilian monk and bishop of Przemyśl, Poland, when he was subjected to a mock trial and sent to a prison camp near Kiev, Ukraine. Josaphat died on November 17, 1947, as a result of the conditions of the prison. All five of these men suffered imprisonment and death because communist leaders saw Catholic priests as their enemies in their efforts to control and inspire terror in their civilian populace.
The truth about life under communism is painful and often brutal. It is also virtually absent from most educational curricula. Why are we surprised that young people—and many college-educated adults—are unaware of the dangers of life under communism when they are never taught about those dangers? That’s why the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has developed an educational program about the ideology and history of communism, a program which includes both workshops for teachers and curriculum for middle school and high school students.
Whether your state formally recognizes the victims of communism on November 7 or not, think of these blesseds during the month of November. And ask them to help us find ways to teach our children the truth about the errors of communism, a truth which starts with an understanding of the dignity of every human life.
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A wonderful piece – wonderful in a perverse sort of way.
I would encourage more discussion of Communism’s crimes on this site, as well as presentations on this topic on Catholic campuses and Newman centers around the country.
Lastly,we need more preaching on the topic of totalitarianism as the fruit of subscribing to a culture of lies. And God knows we have seen much lying on the part of governments in the US as elsewhere, as well as coming from the ranks of some prelates in our own Catholic Church. The only antidote to this culture of lies is unblemished Truth. That takes virtue and might well mean our personal death and attempts to silence us.
I always appreciate Dawn Beutner’s stories of the saints. They are inspiring.
I just finished reading Witness by Whitaker Chambers. Mr. Chambers was an American journalist (Editor of Time Magazine) who became a Communist in the 1930s and worked in the underground in the U.S. He came to realize that the party was pure evil, and left, but years later decided to become a “witness” to the U.S. Justice Dept. about the underground Communist activities at the highest levels of U.S. government and the high-ranking U.S. officials who were secretly working for the Communist Party. Mr. Chambers was attacked on all sides for his “witness,” but eventually his witness was accepted in the court, and the Communists were rooted out and imprisoned. This book reminded me of growing up in a world with an “Iron Curtain” over much of Europe, and of course, the Viet Nam War that thankfully ended before any of my friends were old enough to be drafted. The book provided a great deal of evidence of the pure evil of Communism, which is still around in the U.S.
The XX century was the Century of Martyrs due to Marxism, Communism, Fascism, and other forms of totalitarianism. Those threats continue albeit under the same and different names. CRT, Wokism, BLM, Neo-Nazis, White Supremacy, Nationalism, all share a single trait—hatred and denial of Truth. We must be tireless in our pursuit of Truth and proclamation of Truth, even and especially when it means joining the ranks of White Robed Martyrs. May we find strength in the example of those who have gone before us and in Christ, the ultimate Martyr to Truth.
We should also remember the many mass murders done by evil fascists. Both extremes on left and right are evil and must be avoided. The Church too is divided with supporters on both extremes. We, as Christians, are “of the world but not in the world”. We must avoid voting for an evil man even if he does some good and moral things. The end does NOT EVER, justify the means.Its time we, as Christians, ban together and demand or form a party which presents moral candidates who will represent our convictions in a fair and democratic way. Perhaps it is better to “throw away a vote” as our statement of our disgust rather than cast half a vote for the devil. Just a thought still allowed in our crumbling democracy. 😥
Living in a commune because you are persecuted by the government and being a communist are different things.
Communist governments have always been socially conservative and try to make the culture match the leader. They need their ideology to be reflected everywhere. Maybe that’s why I have perceived Catholic countries being slightly more vulnerable. They often make big promises about being socially progressive in order to trick people. But they don’t actually act on those promises.
Jewish people are always expelled from these communist uprisings. Gays and disabled are always targeted. Women are repressed especially sexually. Either they ban abortion, or they force abortion. Both of these are bad.
I will always be an anti-communist. I will always be anti-fascist. Down with totalitarianism. Pluralistic society is better. Diverse society is better. Inclusive society is better. Democratic society is better.
Thank you for this excellent series. The magnitude of Communist butchery has always been under-appreciated in the West. Now, the CCP and it many allies here are conducting well-funded campaigns to excuse, minimize or deny the crimes perpetrated by these ghastly regimes. We must never forget.
In reference to the statement in the article of the
public ignorance of the atrocious record is the following statement of Alexandr Solzhenitzyn:
“You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism committed the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators.”