The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC) is a

non-profit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

anti-communist organization in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, authorized by a unanimous Act of Congress in 1993 for the purpose of "educating Americans about the ideology, history and legacy of communism." The organization was responsible for building the

Victims of Communism Memorial The Victims of Communism Memorial is a memorial in Washington, D.C. located at the intersection of Massachusetts and New Jersey Avenues and G Street, NW, two blocks from Union Station and within view of the U.S. Capitol. The memorial is dedica ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

It is a member of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

Platform of European Memory and Conscience Platform may refer to: Technology * Computing platform, a framework on which applications may be run * Platform game, a genre of video games * Car platform, a set of components shared by several vehicle models * Weapons platform, a system or ...

History

In 1991, Republican Senator

Steve Symms Steven Douglas Symms (born April 23, 1938) is an American politician and lobbyist who served as a four-term congressman (1973–81) and two-term U.S. Senator (1981–93), representing Idaho. He is a partner at Parry, Romani, DeConcini & Symms, a ...

and Representative

Dana Rohrabacher Dana Tyrone Rohrabacher (; born June 21, 1947) is a former American politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1989 to 2019. A Republican, he represented for the last three terms of his House tenure. Rohrabacher ran for r ...

introduced concurrent resolutions in the

United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, composed of a lower body, the House of Representatives, and an upper body, the Senate. It meets in the U.S. Capitol in Washing ...

urging the construction of "an International Memorial to the Victims of Communism at an appropriate location within the boundaries of the District of Columbia and for the appointment of a commission to oversee the design, construction and all other pertinent details of the memorial." In 1993, Rohrabacher and fellow Republican Senator Jesse Helms sponsored

amendments An amendment is a formal or official change made to a law, contract, constitution, or other legal document. It is based on the verb to amend, which means to change for better. Amendments can add, remove, or update parts of these agreements. The ...

to the

FRIENDSHIP Act of 1993 The FRIENDSHIP Act of 1993 was enacted as a law of the United States enhancing prior statutory provisions which govern international relations between the former Republics of the Soviet Union and United States during the Cold War. The Act of Con ...

which authorized such construction. The act was signed into law by Democratic President

Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...

on December 17, 1993. It cited "the deaths of over 100,000,000 victims in an unprecedented imperial holocaust" and resolved that "the sacrifices of these victims should be permanently memorialized so that never again will nations and peoples allow so evil a tyranny to terrorize the world." Goddess of Democracy DC defy censorship

According to Title IX, Section 905 of Public Law 103–199, an independent organization was to be established to construct, maintain, and operate the

in Washington, D.C., as well as to collect the contributions for the establishment of the memorial and to encourage the participation of all groups suffered under

Communist regime A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state that is administered and governed by a communist party guided by Marxism–Leninism. Marxism–Leninism was the state ideology of the Soviet Union, the Cominte ...

s. In 2007, the foundation completed the Victims of Communism Memorial, which was dedicated by Republican President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...

. In 2016, the foundation released a list of 51 prisoners of conscience in Cuba just before Democratic President

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

visit and meeting with Cuban leader Raúl Castro. In 2020, the organization released a report alleging organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and

Uyghurs The Uyghurs; ; ; ; zh, s=, t=, p=Wéiwú'ěr, IPA: ( ), alternatively spelled Uighurs, Uygurs or Uigurs, are a Turkic ethnic group originating from and culturally affiliated with the general region of Central and East Asia. The Uyghur ...

in China.

Programs

Victims of Communism Memorial

The memorial was dedicated on June 12, 2007, the 20th anniversary of Republican President Ronald Reagan's " Tear down this wall" speech in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. The unveiling of the statue in Washington DC earned international press attention. The land was a gift of the

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propert ...

, and the remaining cost, over $1 million, was raised from private sources. Sculpted by Thomas Marsh, it is a 10-foot bronze replica of the

Papier-mâché upright=1.3, Mardi Gras papier-mâché masks, Haiti upright=1.3, Papier-mâché Catrinas, traditional figures for day of the dead celebrations in Mexico Papier-mâché (, ; , literally "chewed paper") is a composite material consisting of p ...

Goddess of Democracy The ''Goddess of Democracy'', also known as the ''Goddess of Democracy and Freedom'', the ''Spirit of Democracy'', and the ''Goddess of Liberty'' (; ''zìyóu nǚshén''), was a statue created during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. The sta ...

statue made by student democracy protesters leading up to the

Tiananmen Square massacre The Tiananmen Square protests, known in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident (), were student-led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989. In what is known as the Tiananmen Square Massacre, or in Chinese the June Fourth ...

in 1989.

Museum

The foundation aims to build a museum in Washington, D.C. The foundation is working on a proposed budget for a museum near the National Mall, and has received a $1 million grant toward the museum from the government of

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the ...

. Plans for the museum include exhibit space, an auditorium, archives, and resident scholars. The museum opened on June 13, 2022.

Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom

The foundation annually presents its Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom at an event which honors opponents of communism and has been used to raise funds for the construction of the memorial. Past recipients include Myroslav Marynovych,

Chen Guangcheng Chen Guangcheng (born November 12, 1971) is a Chinese civil rights activist who has worked on human rights issues in rural areas of the People's Republic of China. Blind from an early age and self-taught in the law, Chen is frequently descr ...

Tom Lantos Thomas Peter Lantos (born Tamás Péter Lantos; February 1, 1928 – February 11, 2008) was a Holocaust survivor and American politician who served as a U.S. representative from California from 1981 until his death in 2008. A member of the Demo ...

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

, Vaclav Havel, Yang Jianli, Thadeus Nguyễn Văn Lý,

Yelena Bonner Yelena Georgiyevna Bonner (russian: link=no, Елена Георгиевна Боннэр; 15 February 1923 – 18 June 2011) ...

William F. Buckley Jr. William Frank Buckley Jr. (born William Francis Buckley; November 24, 1925 – February 27, 2008) was an American public intellectual, conservative author and political commentator. In 1955, he founded ''National Review'', the magazine that stim ...

, Richard Pipes, Guillermo Fariñas,

Lane Kirkland Joseph Lane Kirkland (March 12, 1922 – August 14, 1999) was an American labor union leader who served as President of the AFL–CIO from 1979 to 1995. Life and career Kirkland was born in Camden, South Carolina, the son of Louise Beardsley ( ...

Armando Valladares Armando Valladares Perez (born May 30, 1937) is a Cuban-American poet, diplomat and former political prisoner for his involvement in the Cuban dissident movement. In 1960, he was arrested by the Cuban government for conflicting reasons; the C ...

, János Horváth,

Lech Wałęsa Lech Wałęsa (; ; born 29 September 1943) is a Polish statesman, dissident, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, who served as the President of Poland between 1990 and 1995. After winning the 1990 election, Wałęsa became the first democrati ...

Anna Walentynowicz Anna Walentynowicz (; ; 15 August 1929 – 10 April 2010) was a Polish free trade union activist and co-founder of Solidarity, the first non-communist trade union in the Eastern Bloc. Her firing from her job at the Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk in Aug ...

National Endowment for Democracy The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is an organization in the United States that was founded in 1983 for promoting democracy in other countries by promoting political and economic institutions such as political groups, trade unions, ...

, and

Henry M. Jackson Henry Martin "Scoop" Jackson (May 31, 1912 – September 1, 1983) was an American lawyer and politician who served as a U.S. representative (1941–1953) and U.S. senator (1953–1983) from the state of Washington. A Cold War liberal and a ...

Projects

In 2015, the foundation released a biopic video series called Witness Project, featuring interviews with witnesses of communism. Other projects include national seminars for high-school teachers and for college campuses.

Lobbying

The foundation opposed the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act on the grounds that it would protect unlawfully acquired artwork held by Russian museums.

People

VOC's chairman is

Edwin Feulner Edwin John Feulner Jr. (born August 12, 1941) is a former think tank executive who founded the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation and served as its president from 1977 to 2013 and again from 2017 to 2018. Feulner's positions have in ...

, founder and former president of the American

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

think tank

The Heritage Foundation The Heritage Foundation (abbreviated to Heritage) is an American conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. that is primarily geared toward public policy. The foundation took a leading role in the conservative movement during the presiden ...

. Its chairman emeritus and co-founder is scholar

Lee Edwards Lee Willard Edwards (born 1932) is an American academic and author, currently a fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He is a historian of the conservative movement in America. Background Edwards was born in Chicago in 1932. Edwards says he was in ...

, a founding member of the conservative youth activism organization

Young Americans for Freedom Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) is a conservative youth activism organization that was founded in 1960 as a coalition between traditional conservatives and libertarians on American college campuses. It is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizati ...

and distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation.

Lev Dobriansky Lev Eugene Dobriansky (November 9, 1918 – January 30, 2008) was an American diplomat and professor of economics at Georgetown University. He served as U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, and was also an anti-communist advocate. He is known for his ...

, economics professor and chairman of the anti-communist

National Captive Nations Committee The National Captive Nations Committee (NCNC) is an anti-Communism advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1959 according to by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, which introduced the Captive Nations Week, with the purpose t ...

, previously served as chairman emeritus. Jay K. Katzen, former

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

member of the

Virginia House of Delegates The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two parts of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-number ...

, was the foundation's president from June 2003 until his death in April 2020. Andrew Bremberg, former department manager for federally funded not-for-profit defence research contractor

MITRE The mitre (Commonwealth English) (; Greek: μίτρα, "headband" or "turban") or miter (American English; see spelling differences), is a type of headgear now known as the traditional, ceremonial headdress of bishops and certain abbots in ...

and former director of the

Domestic Policy Council The Domestic Policy Council (DPC) is the principal forum used by the president of the United States for the consideration of domestic policy matters and senior policymaking, Cabinet, and White House officials. The Council is part of the Office ...

for U.S. President Donald Trump, was appointed as president and CEO on 30 Mar 2021. The national advisory council includes Dennis DeConcini,

John Earl Haynes John Earl Haynes (born 1944) is an American historian who worked as a specialist in 20th-century political history in the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress. He is known for his books on the subject of the American Communist and anti- ...

, and

George Weigel George Weigel (born 1951) is a Catholic neoconservative American author, political analyst, and social activist. He currently serves as a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Weigel was the Founding President of the ...

. Former or deceased members include

Robert Conquest George Robert Acworth Conquest (15 July 1917 – 3 August 2015) was a British historian and poet. A long-time research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Conquest was most notable for his work on the Soviet Union. His books ...

, Richard Pipes,

Rudolph Rummel Rudolph Joseph Rummel (October 21, 1932 – March 2, 2014) was an American political scientist and professor at the Indiana University, Yale University, and University of Hawaiʻi. He spent his career studying data on collective violence and war w ...

, Jack Kemp, Paul Hollander, and John K. Singlaub. The international advisory council includes

Sali Berisha Sali Ram Berisha (; born 15 October 1944) is an Albanian conservative politician and former cardiologist who served as the second President of Albania from 1992 to 1997 and Prime Minister from 2005 to 2013. He is also the current chairman of ...

Emil Constantinescu Emil Constantinescu () (born 19 November 1939) is a Romanian professor and politician, who served as the President of Romania, from 1996 to 2000. After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, Constantinescu became a founding member and vice president ...

Mart Laar Mart Laar (born 22 April 1960) is an Estonian politician and historian. He served as the Prime Minister of Estonia from 1992 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2002. Laar is credited with having helped bring about Estonia's rapid economic development dur ...

Vytautas Landsbergis Vytautas Landsbergis (born 18 October 1932) is a Lithuanian politician and former Member of the European Parliament. He was the first Speaker of Reconstituent Seimas of Lithuania after its independence declaration from the Soviet Union. He has ...

Guntis Ulmanis Guntis Ulmanis (born September 13, 1939), also known as Guntis Rumpītis from 1949 to 1989, is a Latvian politician and the fifth President of Latvia from 1993 to 1999. Biography Early life Guntis Ulmanis was born in Riga on September 13, 1939. ...

, and

Lech Walesa Lech may refer to: People * Lech (name), a name of Polish origin * Lech, the legendary founder of Poland * Lech (Bohemian prince) Products and organizations * Lech (beer), Polish beer produced by Kompania Piwowarska, in Poznań * Lech Pozna� ...

. Former members include

Yelena Bonner Yelena Georgiyevna Bonner (russian: link=no, Елена Георгиевна Боннэр; 15 February 1923 – 18 June 2011) ...

Vladimir Bukovsky Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky (russian: link=no, Влади́мир Константи́нович Буко́вский; 30 December 1942 – 27 October 2019) was a Russian-born British human rights activist and writer. From the late 195 ...

, Brian Crozier,

Árpád Göncz Árpád Göncz (; 10 February 1922 – 6 October 2015) was a Hungarian writer, translator, agronomist, and liberal politician who served as President of Hungary from 2 May 1990 to 4 August 2000. Göncz played a role in the Hungarian Revolution ...

, and

Václav Havel Václav Havel (; 5 October 193618 December 2011) was a Czech statesman, author, poet, playwright, and former dissident. Havel served as the last president of Czechoslovakia from 1989 until the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1992 and then ...

Reception

According to

Kristen Ghodsee Kristen Rogheh Ghodsee (born April 26, 1970) is an American ethnographer and Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. She is primarily known for her ethnographic work on post-Communist Bulgaria as well as ...

and

Scott Sehon Scott Robert Sehon (born 1963) is an American philosopher and a professor of philosophy at Bowdoin College. His primary work is in the fields of philosophy of mind, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of action, and the free will debate. He is ...

, the estimate of 100 million dead favored by the organization is dubious, as their source for this is the introduction to ''

The Black Book of Communism ''The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression'' is a 1997 book by Stéphane Courtois, Andrzej Paczkowski, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Margolin, and several other European academics documenting a history of political repression by co ...

'' by

Stéphane Courtois Stéphane Courtois (born 25 November 1947) is a French historian and university professor, a director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), professor at the Catholic Institute of Higher Studies (ICES) in La Ro ...

which has attracted praise but also criticism from historians. Ghodsee and Sehon write that while "quibbling about numbers is unseemly. What matters is that many, many people were killed by communist regimes." Ghodsee posits that the foundation, along with counterpart

and anti-communist organizations in Eastern Europe, seeks to institutionalize the "Victims of Communism" narrative as a

double genocide theory The double genocide theory is the idea that two genocides of equal severity occurred in Eastern Europe, that of the Holocaust against Jews perpetrated by the Nazis and a second genocide that the Soviet Union committed against the local population. ...

, or the moral equivalence between the

Nazi Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ar ...

(race murder) and those killed by Communist regimes (class murder).Ghodsee, Kristen; Sehon, Scott; Dresser, Sam, ed. (March 22, 2018)
"The merits of taking an anti-anti-communism stance"
. ''

Aeon The word aeon , also spelled eon (in American and Australian English), originally meant "life", "vital force" or "being", "generation" or "a period of time", though it tended to be translated as "age" in the sense of "ages", "forever", "timele ...

''. Retrieved February 11, 2020.Ghodsee, Kristen (Fall 2014)
"A Tale of 'Two Totalitarianisms': The Crisis of Capitalism and the Historical Memory of Communism"
. ''History of the Present: A Journal of Critical History''. 4 (2): 116–117, 136. . .

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Victims Of Communism Memorial Foundation 1994 establishments in Washington, D.C. Anti-communist organizations in the United States Civic and political organizations of the United States Commemoration of communist crimes Educational foundations in the United States Foundations based in Washington, D.C. Organizations established in 1994

History

Programs

Victims of Communism Memorial

Museum

Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom

Projects

Lobbying

People

Reception

See also

References

Further reading

External links