This October-November 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the launch of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia – the bloody communist state that would produce a political-ideological killing spree unlike any the world has ever seen.
And yet, communism continues to find supporters. Here are three personal anecdotes:
I did a conference this past week on the legacies of communism. One liberal professor complained that no pro-communist speakers were included. I wasn’t surprised.
Another case: a former student of mine this week told me of his professor (at a local college in Pittsburgh) who was hailing Karl Marx for his ‘brilliance.’ Again, no surprise.
One more: A student from the University of Wisconsin called in to a talk-show I did last week insisting that capitalism is just as lethal as communism.
That all happened just this past week, and it’s not unusual in my world.
Anecdotes aside, an October 2016 poll by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation generated a stunning finding: almost one-third of Millennials ‘believe more people were killed under George W. Bush than under Joseph Stalin.’ And it isn’t only those silly Millennials. More than one in four Americans generally believe Bush was the bigger killer.
This post was published at Ludwig von Mises Institute on November 24, 2017.
Follow on Twitter
Recent Comments