The Moral Obligation to Remember the Crimes of Communism

Aug. 24 2022

In June, the Victims of Communism Museum opened in Washington, DC, just a few blocks from the White House—but with none of the attention that greeted other recent additions to the city’s cultural landscape. Yet its mission, Gary Dreyer argues, is more important than ever, with the horrors of Communist rule little known, especially by the young, while the Russian and Chinese governments, along with a number of Western leftists, wish to cover them up. Dreyer discusses the moral imperative of ensuring that this history is remembered correctly, and its special importance for Jews:

My grandparents, having survived the twin evils of Stalinism and Nazism as children, spent their adulthoods grappling with the corrupt, economically backward, and authoritarian police state of the post-Stalinist USSR, trying to bring up families in a climate of ratcheting anti-Semitism that deprived them and their children of work, education, and housing opportunities.

[Yet] discussing the history of the victims of Communism is hard. It takes intellectual honesty, empathy, and courage to do it right. And it is also controversial, not least because of the inevitable comparisons and contrasts between Soviet Stalinism and German National Socialism. Historians and Shoah survivors and their families and advocates have been loath even to discuss the notion of Communism having “victims” who can be analogized to those of the Nazis.

For many, the notion that these Soviet crimes can be described as “genocide” is deeply suspect and rooted in a desire, on the part of non-Germans in Europe, to evade responsibility for their participation in the murder of Jews during the Shoah. At worst, it is seen as a racist cudgel and perpetuation of the widespread myth of “Judeo-Bolshevism,” which was central to Nazi propaganda and far-right conspiracy theorists both before and after World War II.

But in its quest to prevent the distortion of the historical record and preserve the distinctiveness of the Nazis’ crimes against humanity and the Jewish people, this approach not only gives short shrift to victims of Communism as a whole; it also erases the history of Soviet anti-Semitism and xenophobia, all while stilling the voices of Jewish victims of Communism from the former Soviet Union and eastern bloc. Public education and commemoration of the victims of Communism and National Socialism is not a one-or-the-other choice. Rather, both are essential for a healthy society that can proceed into the future with sufficient awareness of the errors and horrors of the past, whatever extreme end of the political spectrum those violent ideologies come from.

Read more at Commentary

More about: Anti-Semitism, Communism, Museums, Soviet Jewry

Israel Is Stepping Up Its Campaign against Hizballah

Sept. 17 2024

As we mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter, Israeli special forces carried out a daring boots-on-the-ground raid on September 8 targeting the Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in northwestern Syria. The site was used for producing and storing missiles which are then transferred to Hizballah in Lebanon. Jonathan Spyer notes that the raid was accompanied by extensive airstrikes in Syira,and followed a few days later by extensive attacks on Hizballah in Lebanon, one of which killed Mohammad Qassem al-Shaer, a senior officer in the terrorist group’s Radwan force, an elite infantry group. And yesterday, the IDF destroyed a weapons depot, an observation post, and other Hizballah positions. Spyer puts these attacks in context:

The direct purpose of the raid, of course, was the destruction of the facilities and materials targeted. But Israel also appeared to be delivering a message to the Syrian regime that it should not imagine itself to be immune should it choose to continue its involvement with the Iran-led axis’s current campaign against Israel.

Similarly, the killing of al-Shaer indicated that Israel is no longer limiting its response to Hizballah attacks to the border area. Rather, Hizballah operatives in Israel’s crosshairs are now considered fair game wherever they may be located in Lebanon.

The SSRC raid and the killing of al-Shaer are unlikely to have been one-off events. Rather, they represent the systematic broadening of the parameters of the conflict in the north. Hizballah commenced the current round of fighting on October 8, in support of Hamas in Gaza. It has vowed to stop firing only when a ceasefire is reached in the south—a prospect which currently seems distant.

Read more at Spectator

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hizballah, Israeli Security, Syria