George Soros, Anti-Communist?
Originally published at RealClearPolitics.com
It’s official: George Soros, billionaire Democratic donor and left-wing philanthropist, has received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He and his fans may not admit it, but Soros has capitalism to thank for America’s highest civilian honor.
Upon receiving the award, Soros described himself as “an immigrant who found freedom and prosperity in America,” while his son called him “an American hero” who has “long been a champion of freedom.”
Despite a complicated philanthropic legacy, Soros’ greatest contribution to the cause of freedom—namely, the free market that made possible his multibillion-dollar net worth and far-reaching philanthropy—is his own life story. A Jewish Holocaust survivor, Soros fled communism in Hungary and immigrated to the United States, finding success on Wall Street as a hedge fund magnate. In 1992, Soros famously shorted the British pound and earned a reported profit of $1 billion. Billions more followed, and Soros used his wealth to donate more than $21 billion to left-of-center campaigns and outside groups over the decades.
While Biden officials and other Democrats are quick to note Soros’ contributions to leftist causes, his story is inextricably linked to anti-communism. According to the White House’s formal comments earlier this month, Soros “escaped Nazi occupation to build a life of freedom for himself.”
Misleadingly, and perhaps deliberately so, there was no mention of “communism.” Yet Soros survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary, only leaving the country in 1947 as communists consolidated power after World War II. Soros reportedly felt “stifled” by the repressive policies of the Soviet-aligned communist regime.
In the 1980s, Soros helped promote the open exchange of ideas in Communist Hungary, funding academic visits to the West while supporting independent cultural initiatives. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, he created the Central European University as a space for classical liberal education—a rarity in the former Communist bloc.
Alas, the rewriting of history is nothing new. In 2020, then-Washington Post reporter Emily Tamkin claimed Soros was “trying to change the system that made him rich” by promoting policies like a wealth tax. Tamkin praised Soros for being ahead of his time in criticizing “nationalism” and “propagandistic right-wing news.” Not once did she mention the word “communism,” which Soros fled for a reason.
He was right to flee. If Soros is indeed an “American hero,” he became one because he intimately understood the repression of Hungarian communism. Following the Soviet occupation of Hungary during World War II, communists consolidated power by arresting tens of thousands of Hungarians on ideological grounds and executing hundreds of them, while detaining roughly 55,000 in concentration camps. This happened while Soros lived in the country.
During the 1956 revolution, when Hungarians fought back against their oppressors to restore democracy, Soviet forces brutally crushed the resistance. Thousands of Hungarians perished and about 200,000 fled the country in search of a brighter future, as Soros had done one decade earlier.
This, not the shorting of the British pound, was Soros’ most important bet. He anticipated that the tragedies of 1956 were inevitable under a communist dictatorship that preached equality but practiced brutality. Therein lies a reminder for all of us.
There are many reminders for those who care to look. Even I, whose parents lived under communism in Josip Tito’s Yugoslavia, seek them out to supplement the stories from my childhood.
In my hometown of Miami, Florida, the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora’s new permanent exhibit—titled “The Cuban Experience”—explores how a once-prosperous Cuba fell to communist dictatorship and forced Cuban exiles to seek freedom elsewhere. From its execution wall to a recreated prison cell, The Cuban immerses visitors in the brutality of the Castro regime and reflects on a Cuban immigrant community that found the American Dream only 90 miles north.
Cuban Americans, like Soros post-World War II, have the Western ideal of free enterprise to thank for their chance at a brighter future in cities like Miami. Just as Soros bought into hard work as a railway porter, night-club waiter, and eventual Wall Street investor, so too can millions of Americans embrace the free market and strive for upward mobility and financial security of their own. That work ethic may not lead to a 10-figure net worth, but it is the ability to strive—free from government oppression—that counts.
The dust is settled on communism’s legacy: 100 million deaths, and harsh reminders like The Cuban’s new exhibit for all to see. Unintended consequences like Soros—success stories against all odds—are feathers in the cap of capitalism.
While the dust is not settled on George Soros’ own legacy, let the record show his anti-communism too.
