Last week’s opening of the Victims of Communism Museum resulted from a 35-year effort spearheaded by NR’s old and dear friend, Lee Edwards (fun fact: His first piece for this magazine, “The Way of All France,” was published in the February 1, 1958, issue). Yours Truly corresponded with Lee prior to the ribbon-cutting, asking a few questions, getting a few answers in return. It would be a shame to not share them, and so we do:
Jack Fowler: Why will the world be a better place for there being this museum?
Lee Edwards: Because the museum will serve as the cornerstone of our global educational campaign about the manifold victims and crimes of communism.
Fowler: The Nazis have been rightly denigrated, their leaders executed for crimes against humanity, the name made synonymous with evil — but there was no such justice for East Europe’s and Asia’s communist henchmen. They are not the stuff of vilification by Western media, by Western culture, at least in no way comparable to the Nazis. Is this a driving force in part behind the creation of the Victims of Communism Memorial and the museum, this sense of a lack of justice or righteous admission of just how dastardly communism is?
Edwards: Nazism was exposed and convicted at the Nuremburg trials. VOC intends to put communism on trial in Washington, D.C. We will feature witnesses from the nearly 40 nations that suffered under communism — some 1.5 billion still do so in China, Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, and Laos.
Fowler: On the memorial, 100 million are recognized — are they the murdered? What is the greater number of true victims of communism?
Edwards: According to The Black Book of Communism, published by Harvard University Press, more than 100 million died through firing squads, the Gulag, forced famines, collectives, civil wars, and wars of liberation.
Fowler: What is one of the aspects of the museum you like the most?
Edwards: We tell the story of communist revolution, repression, and anti-communist resistance in just three permanent galleries, from Marx to Mao and the present.
Fowler: The foundation and museum offer a range of programs. What is a particular program of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation that you find most meaningful?
Edwards: Our high-school teacher program, where we teach the teachers the truth about communism. It does not produce a utopia but breadlines and famines, the KGB and the Gulag, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and Fidel Castro.