Victims of Communism Memorial

I mentioned a few days ago that there’s a group trying to put up a Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, D.C., but that they need another $23,000 by October to dedicate their monument.

I think this is a very worthy cause. As Alan Kors eloquently puts it,

No cause in the history of mankind has produced more cold-blooded tyrants, more slaughtered innocents, and more orphans than communism. It surpassed, exponentially, all other systems of production in turning out the dead. No one honors those dead. No one does penance for them. No one pays for them. No one is hunted down to account for them. It is exactly what Solzhenitsyn foresaw in The Gulag: “No, no one would have to answer.” Communism was not a “god that failed.” Rather, it was an intellectually organized slaughter and slavery that succeeded, but that could not sustain itself against the productivity and resistance of free men and women.

Accordingly, I have today sent the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation a check for $500. I hope that this will encourage readers to send in a contribution. The hundreds of millions of ghosts of the people murdered by the state deserve a memorial. Their greatest memorial is the freedom that we enjoy today. But for that freedom to mean something, we ought to take a moment to remember those who were not as fortunate as we, and who were denied—and who are still denied—the freedom to which all human beings are entitled. I made my contribution in honor of Ayn Rand, a refugee from communism herself, who helped to teach me the meaning and the importance of freedom. Perhaps you would honor the memory of other refugees from communism—friends, or teachers, perhaps, or even yourself.

In the coming days, I’ll blog a lot about communism and its victims, and perhaps you’ll hear a story that will move you to contribute. But in any case, I hope you will join me to help build a lasting monument to those who suffered from The Greatest Horror.

Update: Thanks to the Volokh Conspiracy, Pejmanesque, and Jonathan Rowe and Michael Duff for the links. If anyone chooses to contribute, please drop me a line and let me know!