December 12, 2005, 8:46 a.m.
Memorial Day
Honoring the victims of Communism.

"How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin," said Ronald Reagan. "And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."

In the future, understanding Communism may not require dusting off an old copy of Das Kapital, but instead merely visiting the Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington, D.C. That's because this memorial, in the works for more than a decade, is on the verge of being built a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol.

"We hope to have it dedicated in the fall of 2006," says Lee Edwards, chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which was established by an act of Congress in 1993. "But there's still a little more work to do."

It has been a long march. Building a memorial on federal land in D.C. involves a mind-boggling journey through a wilderness of government bureaucracy: various approvals must be gained from the National Capital Memorial Commission, the Commission of Fine Arts, and the National Capital Planning Commission. Authorization for the memorial's site and design are normally separate procedures.

Suffice it to say, the experience demands forests of paperwork and mountains of patience. "It's all on behalf of the 100 million people who were killed in Communism's wars, revolutions, and purges," says Edwards.

Edwards, who doubles as a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, has shepherded the project through various incarnations and locations. The current plan calls for a 10-foot-tall bronze statue based on the "Goddess of Liberty" figure erected by the martyred Chinese students of Tiananmen Square. After years of getting moved from potential site to potential site, everyone finally has agreed that the replica should stand at the intersection of Massachusetts and New Jersey Avenues, N.W., on a little triangle of property near Union Station and within view of the Capitol's dome. When it is done, the Victims of Communism Memorial will become a must-see stop on the conservative tour of Washington.

Although the memorial has not yet broken ground, a sculptor is already at work and Edwards is scrambling to raise the last few dollars his organization needs. "Our total budget is for about $650,000," he says. "We've received $500,000 so far and now we're galloping down the last lap. I'd love to collect the rest in the next 90 days." If the money arrives by March, Edwards foresees a dedication ceremony next November, around the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Every penny for the memorial has come from private sources; the government's only gift is the land. Major donors to the project so far have included Thomas L. Phillips, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Earhart Foundation. Edwards also credits Vietnamese Americans in northern Virginia for contributing heavily, as well as associations of Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians. "And make sure you mention the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy," he added when we talked last week. "They've helped out, too, and if you mention them it will irritate the ChiComs."

The final fundraising push begins this week. In the title of one of his most famous essays, Vladimir Lenin asked "What Is To Be Done?" You can help build the Victims of Communism Memorial by making a donation. You can also attend the foundation's annual Truman-Reagan Freedom Awards ceremony, which will be held on Tuesday night at the Polish Embassy in Washington. This year, the winners are retired general Edward Rowny, a Polish-American arms negotiator during the Reagan-Bush era; Pope John Paul II, whose award will be accepted by Archbishop Gabriel Montalvo of the Apostolic Nuncio; and the Solidarity Free Trade Union of 1980, which is Lech Walesa's old group. The event is open to the public, but a donation of $100 is requested. You know what it will go toward.

"The Communists," wrote Marx and Engels, "disdain to conceal their views and aims." It is now time to lay bare their sins and crimes, in a memorial that stands in the political capital of the free world.

— John J. Miller is national political reporter for National Review and the co-author, most recently, of Our Oldest Enemy: A History of America's Disastrous Relationship with France He is author of the upcoming A Gift of Freedom: How the John M. Olin Foundation Changed America..

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