I was scanning Twitter recently and saw conservative commentator John Cardillo tweet about a local Florida publication that physically printed a glowing profile of communism. It wasn’t your typical whitewashing of communism, mind you. It was a column geared towards kids.
I hunted down the digital column and traced it back to The Conversation- a self-described nonprofit with the motto “academic rigor, journalistic flair.” The Conversation’s U.S. division printed the disturbing piece entitled What is a communist, and what do communists believe?, as part of their Curious Kids series inspired by a question from a 10-year-old. The piece was written by Michigan State University Associate Professor of History Amanda Smith. Nowhere in her piece did she mention the horrors inflicted by communist regimes.
Unsurprisingly, this drivel was syndicated by major outlets like SFGate and the Houston Chronicle and posted on Michigan State University’s website.
Let’s carefully dissect the most egregious claims Professor Smith made in her column.
Lie #1 - “Communism has long been controversial, and in the U.S. today, reputable sources disagree about it.”
The truth: There is agreement among reputable historians that socialism, a derivative of communism, leads to untold misery, poverty, and death. The mass murder of over 100 million people globally is hard to refute and deny, unless you’re a denier of democide–the government-sanctioned murder of people witnessed under collectivist societies. Those who whitewash the crimes of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and other dictators are in the minority but have found refuge in academia. In 2012, I sat in on a debate featuring communist apologist Grover Furr at Montclair State University in New Jersey, where the professor proclaimed, “It’s bullshit” to acknowledge Joseph Stalin killed between 20 to 40 million people.
Lie #2 - “Communists believe that people should share wealth so that no one is too poor, no one is too rich, and everyone has enough to survive and have a good life.”
The truth: The notion of “sharing the wealth” is a beloved socialist trope resulting in confiscating the masses’ wealth to be controlled by a few politburo members. In the USSR, where my family escaped from, residents endured 90% taxation and weren’t rich unless they goose-stepped with the communists who oversaw them. Most citizens were poor. They stood in bread lines to get their subpar food rations. And life wasn’t grand in communal living - especially when worrying about your neighbors possibly snitching on you. The same was observed in China and Cambodia and is still seen in places like North Korea and Cuba today. This point by Professor Smith is comical if it weren’t so pathetic.
Lie #3: “Communists support some form of collective ownership. Ownership by everyone would ensure that all members of society have equal rights to the products from the factories and farms because they would all be part owners of the enterprises.”
The truth: There were no equal rights in socialist/communist societies. There was no part-ownership of businesses because the state - Moscow - owned all the means of production. You were not a part-owner in enterprises because private property rights were abolished. The only equality people had - per firsthand accounts of my family members and other survivors - was the equitable sharing of misery. When people like Professor Smith speak of communism affording people “equal rights,” understand it to mean equal (miserable) outcomes.
Lie #4: “In such a society, everyone would also have equal political rights and participate in governance together. Theoretically, communism should entail some form of democracy.”
What is Professor Smith smoking if she thinks communism is democratic? One-party rule is antithetical to democracy. Centrally-planned societies have fraudulent elections where dictators rig results in their favor and eliminate opposition leaders and parties. That’s why Stalin ruled with an iron grip for nearly three decades, and Mao terrorized China from 1949 to 1976. Contemporary dictators like Putin, Lukashenko, and Kim Jong Un pretend to host elections, then maintain their control for years on end or hand-select a successor to continue their tyrannical reign.
Professor Smith isn’t alone. University professors and schoolteachers are teaching revisionist history about communism and socialism.
A 2020 Victims of Communism report on U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism, Communism, and Collectivism found Generation Z supports socialism with great fervor, at 49%, over older Americans. The VOC poll also found 35% of Millennials and 31% of Gen Zers “support the gradual elimination of the capitalist system in favor of a more socialist system.”
A YouGov poll released last year asked American and British respondents what they’re more likely to select - communism or fascism— an update to a similar question posed in 1939. 28% of Americans in 2024 would choose communism, versus 26% in 1939. Yikes. But they were less likely to pick fascism today (17%) than in 1939 (26%).
YouGov continued, “American registered voters who support Kamala Harris in the 2024 election are more likely to choose communism (43%) than fascism (11%), while Americans who support Donald Trump are more likely to choose fascism (28%) than communism (16%).”
I wouldn’t choose between either ideology as both are harmful, antithetical to freedom, and lead to mass murder. I incomprehensible why the survey made respondents choose between these two extremes.
The only truthful thing Smith wrote was that real communism hasn’t been successful yet. But she sympathized with their efforts, writing, “At this time, no country has yet made the transition to full communism, but many people still hope that transition will happen somewhere. Those people are communists. Communists are optimistic that humans can one day create a more fair and equal society.”
There’s no positive case for communism, especially for kids. School-age children and young adults should visit the Victims of Communism Memorial or let survivors like my dad educate them about the deadly truth about communism.