On June 13, President Bush spoke at the dedication ceremony of a memorial based on lies. Standing in front of the new “Victims of Communism Memorial” in Washington, D.C., embodied by the bronze “Goddess of Democracy” statue, Bush squinted and said, “Evil is real and must be confronted.”
The statue is a replica of the one erected by the counterrevolutionaries who took the leadership of the anti-government protests at Tiananmen Square in China in 1989.
Bush cynically lamented the “100 million people killed under communist regimes.”
We agree, evil must be confronted. But the true evil is not communism; it is capitalism. There has never been, and will never be, a social system more murderous and bloody than capitalism.
History is still being rewritten by the capitalists to cover up this fact. As the executive in charge of the main imperialist power, Bush’s mischaracterization of history is expected. He stands at the head of a sophisticated bourgeois propaganda machine. Its aim is to perpetuate the system that feeds it, while suppressing any notion that an alternative to capitalism exists.
The capitalists are still working hard to discredit the many gains and victories of socialist ideas and practice in the 19th, 20th and now 21st centuries. They instead want to depict a mythological world of isolation and despair and falsely label it “communism.”
In reality, one-third of the planet lived in workers states, governments that were attempting to transition to socialism in the second half of the 20th century. Others lived in countries allied with existing workers’ states. Oppressed countries were liberated from the clutches of colonial domination and poverty by the leadership and sacrifice of communist revolutionaries—from the Soviet Union to China; Korea to Vietnam; Cuba to Angola and far beyond.
They were pulled from the predatory capitalist “free market” and integrated into relationships of cooperation and equality. Marxism was not only a material factor, but the leading ideology of the global class struggle.
Bush’s speech at the anti-communist memorial was not just for the sake of rewriting history. Some countries still enjoy socialist leadership and planning, and others aspire to achieve that goal.
The capitalists are keenly aware of this. Every move the capitalists make serves the interests of their parasitic class. The capitalists have directly opposed all socialist and national liberation movements. This was true in 1917 and remains true today.
Half the funds for the memorial came from the Czech Republic—once part of a larger socialist country; now split and ravaged by capitalist greed. Gone are the days of economic planning, free health care, education, development and full employment for all. Neoliberal capitalism and complete subservience to imperialism now dominate life in that country. This was a victory for the bourgeoisie, but a tragedy for workers.
Criminal capitalism
Karl Marx observed that capitalism came into the world “dripping from head to toe from every pore with blood and dirt.” The need for a tiny minority to accumulate ever-greater profits by subjugating the vast majority is a requirement of capitalist exploitation and expansion.
Capitalism was born by stealing labor and killing the laborers. It has survived for nearly 500 years on the backs of workers and oppressed people throughout the world.
The real question is, what about a memorial to the victims of capitalism?
What about the genocidal transatlantic slave trade—the kidnapping and murder of tens of millions of Africans; the brutal colonization, rape, plunder and economic underdevelopment of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas; the mass extermination of millions of Indigenous peoples; the thousands of lynchings and racist, bigoted killings; the tens of millions of workers sent to kill and be killed in imperialist World Wars I and II; the concentration and internment camps; the atomic bombs that massacred hundreds of thousands of Japanese civilians in an instant?
What about the wars, invasions, bombings and occupations of dozens of countries; the proxy wars, assassinations, executions, coups, destabilization campaigns and support for military dictatorships and colonial settler states; the massacres of strikers, immiseration of workers and destruction of all social programs; the refugee crises; the conscious injection of racism, sexism, anti-LGBT bigotry into society?
And what about the current U.S.-led occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan? Hundreds of thousands more victims of capitalism have been created. In Iraq alone, more than 2 million people have been killed by imperialism since 1991.
Capitalists—especially those in the United States—never worry about such “collateral damage.” Anything and everything is justifiable booty for the “Goddess of Democracy” and profit.
Yet, despite the unceasing vilification campaign, the struggle for socialism is far from over. It is being renewed worldwide in workplaces and on the streets.
This is true in socialist Cuba, in Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution and also in the United States. The leadership and the global balance of forces may be different today, but our goals are common and achievable—freedom from exploitation and wage slavery; revolutionary internationalism and workers’ solidarity; and victory over the true enemy—capitalism.
Let’s build a monument to the countless victims of capitalism through our struggle to overturn the system, through our struggle for a better world.
