# Memorials to Victims of Communism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 24, 2013, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115 "2013-10-24T14:55:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/21 "2013-10-24T21:31:49Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Are there any memorials to the victims of slavery? [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade#Atlantic_shipment) says that 2.2 million died during passage from Africa alone. > It would be interesting to see the reaction to a proposal for such a museum. Isn’t the UN building or planning to build just such a memorial? I thought I remembered reading about a competition for one a while ago. ETA: [The Ark of the Return](http://www.unmultimedia.org/radio/english/2013/09/winning-design-announced-for-the-permanent-memorial-in-honour-of-the-victims-of-slavery-and-the-transatlantic-slave-trade/) ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/22 "2013-10-24T21:38:09Z")
Honestly, the memorial that the United States really needs is to the victims of slavery. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/23 "2013-10-24T22:08:42Z")
> [@Peremensoe](#): > > Honestly, the memorial that the United States really needs is to the victims of slavery. Oh, well, good thing we have several memorials and museums to slavery then. What this has to do with whether or not there should be memorials (presumably in other countries) to Communism (and the fact that there are several, as noted by posters up thread) is beyond me, however. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/24 "2013-10-24T22:28:56Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Oh, well, good thing we have several memorials and museums to slavery then. Do we? Serious, full-fledged, nationally recognized? Please to link us. > [@](#): > > What this has to do with whether or not there should be memorials (presumably in other countries) to Communism (and the fact that there are several, as noted by posters up thread) is beyond me, however. I don’t know why you presume in other countries. For this one, what is has to do with is a question of relevance and priority. The United States was built on slavery. Every American citizen owns part of that heritage, in a way that we do not for communism, or the Holocaust. I think we have an obligation to recognize its victims, and not as objects in the historic struggle _about_ slavery, but in their own right. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/25 "2013-10-24T23:03:43Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > There are sizable groups of immigrants from China, Vietnam, and Korea. However, the impression I get is that the culture of East Asia puts much less emphasis on memorials or any other organized remembrance of great tragedies. I’ve heard that for some Japanese-American families who were placed in internment camps during WWII, those who actually went to the camps never even told their children about it. The cultural tendency apparently leans towards trying to erase such things from memory. The difference, though, is that Jews were persecuted for being Jews. Chinese, Vietnamese, and Korean immigrants are in a different boat, they may or may not have been persecuted by Communist regimes. > [@ITR champion](#): > > There is, of course, one well known group of victims of communism in America: Cuban immigrants who fled from Castro. But they haven’t created any memorials that I know of. That is mildly surprising, the exile community is exactly the sort of victim group that I’d expect to erect a monument. > [@ITR champion](#): > > I am glad to hear that there are some monuments to the victims of communism in Eastern Europe, even if I’ll probably never see them. And one, soon to be two, in Washington D.C. ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/26 "2013-10-24T23:11:17Z")
The reason there are so many Holocaust memorials is that there is a well-organized group of people who have an interest in maintaining the Holocaust in the public minds. There have been many other such barbaric acts in history but the victims are not as well organized and America is not as interested in those atrocities. Let’s face it, history is a continuous string of atrocities and each culture demonizes their enemies and makes themselves be the good guys. And America is no exception. If the other guys do it then it is terrible. If my side does it then it was just a necessary “collateral damage” for the “greater good”. > [@elucidator](#): > > Well, OK, how many people in Viet Nam were killed by capitalism? Chile? Nicaragua, El Salvador, Iran? I would add Argentina, Iraq and other countries but I disagree it was caused by capitalism. I would say it was imperialism and militarism. Capitalism can be peaceful and civilized and imperialism can be of any political color. What is wrong with America is not that it is capitalist. What is wrong is that it is imperialist and militaristic and has a long history of aggression towards other countries. How many monuments and memorials are there in America to the many millions of victims of America’s aggressions? Just Vietnam is right up there with the worst. Napalm, agent orange, millions killed and wounded… these are things that if any other country had done them America would point them out and shame, but they are swept under the rug because they were done by America. And many will even defend them and say “we could have won if we had done more of the same”. In America you won’t see monuments and memorials to the victims of American imperialism but you can find them in other countries where America went to “confer civilization to the peoples sitting in the darkness”. I have seen a few such monuments myself. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/27 "2013-10-24T23:11:42Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > The European exception seems to be Poland, [while they plan to remove all Soviet statues](http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/tension-over-communist-monuments-poland-on-collision-course-with-russia-over-plans-to-remove-soviet-statues-a-481797.html), I can find no reference to any memorials of victims of Communism there. Poland has monuments to the Polish officers murdered by the Soviets in WWII at Katyn and other places. There’s one in Wroclaw (Breslau), one in Zakopane, one in Glwice, and I think a few others. There’s also a monument at Giby to the victims of the Augustow roundup (Where the Soviets, after the war ended, rounded up Home Army soldiers and members of the non-Communist Polish resistance and killed them). Gdansk also has the Solidarity Monument, a monument to the 28 strikers killed by the Polish government at the shipyards…the strike that started the Solidarity movement. There’s also a monument in Zawiercie dedicated to “the victims of Hitler and Stalin”. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/28 "2013-10-24T23:23:24Z")
There’s plenty of memorial fodder out there. The Armenian genocide. The Indian-Pakistan partition. East Timor. The Congo Wars. Darfur. Rwanda. Iraq. Afghanistan. The Latin America Dirty War. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/29 "2013-10-24T23:24:43Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > There is, of course, one well known group of victims of communism in America: Cuban immigrants who fled from Castro. But they haven’t created any memorials that I know of. There’s building the Cuban Memorial in Tamiami Park in Miami. It’s existed before that, but as a temporary structure. As far as other countries outside Europe, there’s the Red Terror Martyrs Memorial Museum in Addis Abiba, Ethiopia, and there’s a monument dedicated to victims of repression in Ulanbaatar, Mongolia. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/30 "2013-10-24T23:34:35Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > Also, many South Vietnamese refugees would probably not appreciate a nice memorial after, in their eyes, we just decided we were tired of prolonging the inevitable and bailed out. There was actually some controversy. There’s a Vietnam War memorial in Olympia, Washington, and members of the local Vietnamese community wanted to get a memorial plaque dedicated to the ARVN, and ARVN soldiers who had died during the war, added to the memorial, but it fell apart after some US veterans objected. I’m not sure why they objected. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/31 "2013-10-24T23:37:32Z")
I agree that it’s better to create memorials to the victims of specific acts rather than condemn entire ideologies. It’s better to condemn the Holodomor rather than condemn all of communism and it’s better to condemn slavery rather than condemn all of capitalism. Except for Nazism. Fuck those guys. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 24, 2013, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/32 "2013-10-24T23:48:47Z")
[QUOTE=Peremensoe] Do we? Serious, full-fledged, nationally recognized? Please to link us. [/QUOTE] Well, I’m fairly sure that most of ‘us’ can do a quick google search, where you fill find several such museums (what the hell is ‘nationally recognized’?), but [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Slavery_Museum) is one from the top of the extremely quick google search I did and that you could have done. There are a number of others. > [@](#): > > I don’t know why you presume in other countries. For this one, what is has to do with is a question of relevance and priority. The United States was built on slavery. Every American citizen owns part of that heritage, in a way that we do not for communism, or the Holocaust. I think we have an obligation to recognize its victims, and not as objects in the historic struggle about slavery, but in their own right. Um…you really need to go back and re-read what you quoted from me. I was talking about Communist memorials…you know, the subject of this thread as opposed to the hijack several folks seem to want to go down about slavery. Wouldn’t make a lot of sense to have Communist memorials in THIS country, since, you know, we weren’t ever Communist, nor did the various horrific Communist atrocities happen here. As for the hijack, while it’s true that the US was built on slavery, you might want to look up the history of slavery in the Americas and the European slave trade, which went on for over 400 years…the US only having been an independent nation for substantially less than that, and the slavery issue having been resolved over 150 years ago. So, while it’s quite reasonable to expect the US to take blame for the slave trade (and a hijack of this thread), it’s unreasonable to believe that the US should take ALL of the blame, or even the lions share, considering the fact that our Euro buddies were the ones who built it and structured the early nation here around it. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/33 "2013-10-25T00:00:25Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > The European exception seems to be Poland, [while they plan to remove all Soviet statues](http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/tension-over-communist-monuments-poland-on-collision-course-with-russia-over-plans-to-remove-soviet-statues-a-481797.html), I can find no reference to any memorials of victims of Communism there. I mentioned Estonia. A cool thing about the museum I linked to is that they took the statues and busts of Communist leaders and put them in the basement on the way to the bathroom, not exactly displayed nicely or in a place of honor. Quite appropriate. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/34 "2013-10-25T00:18:28Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, OK, how many people in Viet Nam were killed by capitalism? Chile? Nicaragua, El Salvador, Iran? In Vietnam you’d have to count all those killed by the US and France, in the name of capitalism. In Chile, Nicaraqua and El Salvador you’d have to consider the countless deaths of the native population committed by Spain, Portugal, the US, and others. In Iran you’d have to count all the people who disappeared during the Shah’s reign. But the people getting killed probably don’t care that much which political philosophy is being used to murder them, it’s really all the same motive in the end, greed, and the lust for power. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/35 "2013-10-25T00:33:19Z")
> [@XT](#): > > Well, I’m fairly sure that most of ‘us’ can do a quick google search, where you fill find several such museums (what the hell is ‘nationally recognized’?), but [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_National_Slavery_Museum) is one from the top of the extremely quick google search I did and that you could have done. Read your own link! That’s not an existing thing, it is a defunct campaign to establish one, i.e., a group that agrees with me that one is called for, and the need unmet. > [@](#): > > As for the hijack… It’s not a hijack, it’s a direct response. I don’t see a memorial to victims of communism as a priority in this/my country _because_, as we have both said, communism doesn’t have the central relevance in American history that slavery does. And therefore the cultural recognition isn’t as important. The role of slavery in other countries’ history is also not especially relevant to the priorities for memorials in mine. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/36 "2013-10-25T01:08:31Z")
I’ve been to the Victims of Political Persecution in Ulanbataar. It is run by a woman whose father was the victim of political violence out of his former home. Further research shows there is also a monument. The museum is both informative and sobering, and includes a display of skulls from victims of Soviet oppression. It’s very personal, and very intense. Anyway, the narrative you are going to find in most former Communist countries is of triumph over Communism, and memorials are more likely to celebrate “liberation” or the establishment of the new government. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/37 "2013-10-25T01:23:27Z")
[QUOTE=Peremensoe] Read your own link! That’s not an existing thing, it is a defunct campaign to establish one, i.e., a group that agrees with me that one is called for, and the need unmet. [/QUOTE] Ugh, sorry…that wasn’t the link I meant to put in. But [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emancipation_Memorial) [are](http://www.mountvernon.org/visit-his-estate/plan-your-visit/slave-memorial) [a](http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/news/inq090605.htm) [few](http://www.ushistory.org/presidentshouse/news/sc121710.htm). Or, you could just do what I did, which is a quick google search on [slave memorials in America](https://www.google.com/#q=slave+memorials+in+america). [Here](http://fredericksburg.com/topics/us-national-slavery-museum) is the link that I meant to put in the first time, btw…or, again, [slave museums in America](https://www.google.com/#q=slave+museums+in+america). There are quite a few. I’ve been to several myself. I think there is even something in DC, but I can’t find it on a quick search using my phone. > [@](#): > > It’s not a hijack, it’s a direct response. I don’t see a memorial to victims of communism as a priority in this/my country because, as we have both said, communism doesn’t have the central relevance in American history that slavery does. And therefore the cultural recognition isn’t as important. The role of slavery in other countries’ history is also not especially relevant to the priorities for memorials in mine. It is a hijack, since you will note that the OP doesn’t mention anything to do with slavery. I’m not even certain the OP meant Communism memorials in the US, though if he did then I agree as I said…putting such a memorial here doesn’t make any sense. The Holocaust does, since there are Jewish folks in the country AND the US was involved in WWII and in freeing many Jews from the death camps. Communism, however, has not got much to do with us, since mainly our role was in competing against it or fighting it, not in the atrocities it committed in various parts of the world. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/38 "2013-10-25T03:24:16Z")
I have failed to be sufficiently sarcastic. Got to work on that. I don’t think “capitalism” killed anybody other than coal miners and labor activists. I made the analogy specifically because it is empty. Human savagery and cruelty is neither enhanced nor justified by ideology, one is a decent human being or one is not. A craving for power over others is the single most damning characteristic a human can possess, or be possessed by. I am saddened and heartsick at the cruelty inflicted by others. I am enraged about the cruelty inflicted by men who claim to act on my behalf, who drape my flag over their crimes like it were the Shroud of Perfect Innocence. My pledge of allegiance is very specific, it does not extend to men like Batista, Uguarte, Pinochet, and others too numerous to mention. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/39 "2013-10-25T11:04:46Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > Equating the two is dubious at best, and offensive at worst. Do you truly mean to equate the life of a survivor of a Nazi death camp with say, the life of a typical East German who lived his life under communism in the 1980s who immigrated to the US after the fall of communism? While that’s probably a bad comparison, there are and were immigrants to America who survived things like the Cambodian killing fields, or the Cultural Revolution, or the Holdomor, or the Stalinist ethnic cleanings, etc, all of which can probably be compared, in their impact, to the Holocaust. ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [October 25, 2013, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115/40 "2013-10-25T14:12:28Z")
I think we should totally build a giant Tiananmen square memorial right across the street from the Chinese embassy. It should be festooned with extended middle fingers and poorly disguised listening devices. That would be awesome. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/memorials-to-victims-of-communism/672115.md?page=3)