One presidential proclamation in particular infuriates the communists because it tells the truth about communism: Moscow was the center of an empire responsible for the deaths of more than 100 million victims since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
Every U. S. president from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Joe Biden has proclaimed the third week of July to be National Captive Nations Week. In the first proclamation, President Eisenhower condemned "the imperialistic and aggressive policies of Soviet communism" and urged the American people to recommit their support of the "just aspirations" of the captive nations for freedom and national independence.
Eisenhower did not mince words, declaring that communism had created "a vast empire" that posed "a dire threat" to America’s security and all the free peoples of the world. The word "empire" anticipated President Ronald Reagan’s reference to the Soviets’ "evil empire" in a 1983 address.
President Ronald Reagan acknowledges the applause after delivering what is known as the "Tear Down This Wall" speech in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, June 12, 1987. (AP Photo/Ira Schwartz, File)
Attesting to the bipartisan nature of the proclamation, President John F. Kennedy declared that "this country must never recognize the situation behind the Iron Curtain as a permanent one but must… keep alive the hopes of freedom of the peoples of the captive nations."
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One president who understood full well the importance of Captive Nations Week was Reagan, who said in 1988: "On behalf of Vice President Bush and myself, this pledge we make to… all the peoples of the captive nations around the world: America will never forget your plight, and we will never cease to speak the truth [about communism]."
A little more than one year later, the Berlin Wall fell and the 100 million captive peoples behind the Iron Curtain were at last free after over four decades of communist captivity.
Besides signing the Captive Nations Week proclamation, Donald Trump was the first president to meet with the victims of communism and dissidents in the Oval Office and to declare Nov. 7, "Victims of Communism Memorial Day." "Today," Trump said, "we renew our commitment to helping secure for all people a future of peace and prosperity founded in the core tenets of democracy – liberty, justice and a deep respect for the value of every human life."
The man behind Captive Nations Week was Georgetown University Professor Lev Dobriansky, who in 1959 persuaded Congress and the Eisenhower administration to adopt the Captive Nations Proclamation. Dobriansky had a remarkable ability to see the future.
In the 1950s, Dobriansky said the fall of Soviet Russia was inevitable because of its fundamental economic weakness and the innate desire of the captive nations for freedom. When others wondered whether America and the Free World would prevail in the Cold War, Dobriansky insisted that "the Russians are not 10 feet tall." President Reagan used much the same language in his campaign to end the Cold War by winning it, saying that Marxism-Leninism was headed for the ash heap of history.
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When we conceived the idea of a Victims of Communism Memorial, the first person we consulted was Professor Dobriansky, who became the first chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. He is, we believe, the only American to play a major role in the construction of two Washington monuments – the statue of the 19th-century Ukrainian poet and national hero, Taras Shevchenko, and the Victims of Communism Memorial, which features a bronze replica of the Goddess of Democracy erected by freedom-seeking Chinese students in June 1989 in Tiananmen Square.
Lev Dobriansky lived a full life centered on one powerful idea: "Let us constantly strive to bring about the freedom and independence of all captive nations and peoples."
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For more than 60 years and as proclaimed by 13 presidents, Captive Nations Week has afforded Americans and free peoples everywhere the opportunity to reassert our determination to keep alive the hopes of freedom of all captive peoples and nations. It enables us to say with the great Czech leader Václav Havel that we believe in the power of words to change history – words like "liberty" and "freedom" and "Tear down this wall!"
Reliance on the pen rather than the sword may seem starry-eyed to some, but we must remember that tyrants have always seemed invincible until they suddenly fall, as happened with the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet "evil empire" without a shot being fired.