Why Johnny’s Not Anti-Communist

With Communism everywhere in inglorious retreat, Mikhail Gorbachev has warned the West against the impulse to “gloat” over the socialist world’s time of troubles. As far as American high-school students are concerned, Gorbachev needn’t have bothered. It seems, in fact, that young Americans don’t even know there’s anything to gloat about.

A survey conducted by the Washington Post revealed high-school students reacting with bewilderment and apathy to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The heart of the matter appears to be rank ignorance of the nature of the Communist system. Students, according to a teacher in Pasadena, California, “don’t understand what Communism is in the first place. So when you say it’s the death of Communism, they don’t know what you’re talking about.” One student in an honors government class in Austin, Texas, displayed total confusion over the term “satellite,” asking: “Are we talking about satellite dishes or what?”

AP

About the Author

Arch Puddington

Featured Tags

With Communism everywhere in inglorious retreat, Mikhail Gorbachev has warned the West against the impulse to “gloat” over the socialist world’s time of troubles. As far as American high-school students are concerned, Gorbachev needn’t have bothered. It seems, in fact, that young Americans don’t even know there’s anything to gloat about.

A survey conducted by the Washington Post revealed high-school students reacting with bewilderment and apathy to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The heart of the matter appears to be rank ignorance of the nature of the Communist system. Students, according to a teacher in Pasadena, California, “don’t understand what Communism is in the first place. So when you say it’s the death of Communism, they don’t know what you’re talking about.” One student in an honors government class in Austin, Texas, displayed total confusion over the term “satellite,” asking: “Are we talking about satellite dishes or what?”