What Are Your Thoughts on Communism?

            The liberty principle for today is the simple fact that communism is a dangerous philosophy and should be eradicated instead of supported. During the 20^th century approximately 100 million people were killed by communists by 40 different governments spread across Europe, Asia, and Latin America. More than 100 years have passed since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the first country to fall to communism.  


             I did not know it until today, but in 2017 President Donald Trump designated November 7 as National Day for the Victims of Communism. Today he met in the Roosevelt Room at the White House with five survivors of communist regimes. The survivors tell some horrible stories.


            A girl named Grace Jo and her mother escaped from North Korea to China after her father was killed and her two brothers were starved to death. China sent them back, and now she is in the United States and vice president of North Korean Refugees in the USA. This is what she said about life in the United States.

After I cam to America, I learned how we can live as a human being, and I learned – Wow! – this freedom is amazing.

We all are equal, and we are God’s creation. We deserve to be treated as human beings, and I would like to ask the United States to enforce the sanctions against the North Korean regime, because that is the only way North Korea and their regime will change their policy.

            Another survivor of communism is Aldona Wos who lived under communist rule in Poland and now is vice chairman of the President’s Commission on White House Fellowships. Under George W. Bush Wos was U.S. ambassador to Estonia. This is what she had to say about living under communism.

I want to express our “thank you” to President Trump for honoring the memory of 100 million people who died and were persecuted under the communist regimes, under the failed ideology of communism….

My entire family, as well as millions of other people of Poland, suffered tremendously under communism…. I am extremely grateful and blessed to be an American and live in the United States, in a country that offers us the opportunity to live in dignity, in freedom, and to fulfill our full potential.

            A third survivor is Sirley Avila Leon of Cuba. She admitted that she had once supported Castro’s communist regime and worked in the municipal government. Her son served in the military. She was targeted by the Cuban government after she started questioning the “regime’s bureaucracy, corruption, and brutality.”


            Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh was a “political prisoner in Vietnam for two years before being sent into exile in the U.S. in October 2018. Daniel Di Martino left Venezuela in 2016 to attend Purdue University in Indianapolis. The government seized his family’s gas station. He understands the difference between communism and capitalism.

When I left, we were making $2 per day because of hyperinflation and price controls and nationalization…. So, it is very important that Americans know that socialism doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because it goes against human nature, and against our incentives to work for our own benefits, for our families benefit. I want to keep America a country that is free and a country where everybody is able to prosper.

            There are far too many Americans who do not know or do not understand how dangerous communism is. Otherwise, they would run as fast they can run away from Bernie Sanders and others who are praising socialism. 


            Socialism is an economic system in which the people in a society equally own the means of production. A democratically elected government acquires the property for the joint use of everyone. Another way that socialism starts is a cooperative or public corporation where everyone has ownership. The problem is that the elites get rich while the poor people starve.


            Communism is a step further down the road from socialism. It is known as a command system, and the government owns most or all the means of production. The government decides where the resources will be allocated and what products and services will be offered or provided to the people. It is the total opposite of capitalism and much worse for the people.


            Americans need to hear from more survivors of communism because too many of the younger generations are seeing socialism through rose-colored glasses. If they could hear from more people like Daniel Di Martino, they may take off the glasses and see things more clearly.