In Miami, a Timely Reminder About the Threat of Communism

Originally published at Sun-Sentinel.com

This weekend, hundreds of visitors will flock to the American Museum of the Cuban Diaspora, an icon of freedom in Miami. Floridians and tourists alike will explore a new permanent exhibit called “The Cuban Experience,” honoring the Cuban exiles who fled to South Florida to escape communism and live freely.

Museums like The Cuban do more than just honor the American city on a hill, which Cuban-Americans are now fortunate to call home while the millions left on the island struggle under an oppressive dictatorship. By celebrating those who fled communism, we are also reminded of the very real dangers to our freedom today—whether you are Cuban by origin or not. My own family came to the United States from what was once known as Yugoslavia—a communist dictatorship under Josip Broz Tito—and I am acutely aware that freedom cannot be taken for granted.

After all, Yugoslavia was a communist dictatorship until the early 1990s. In a single generation, Cuba went from a nascent republic to a nightmare under Fidel Castro. Freedom can be fleeting, and meeting Cuban exiles firsthand is the only reminder you need.

Forget the perils of communism, and we risk ceding ground to those who whitewash its horrors. We risk sanitizing an ideology that is no better than right-wing fascism, despite the cries of “fascism” dominating the 2024 election cycle. Around the world, Karl Marx’s repressive ideology has led to more than 100 million deaths—from Cuba to Yugoslavia and beyond.

For its champions, communism’s death toll may simply suggest communism gone awry—a good idea executed badly. But communism’s critics know that there is no other way to implement communism than to stifle, suppress and subjugate. Extreme redistribution is not done willingly. The eradication of free speech and religious expression are not mere guidelines. Communism is executed by the state with violent force—there are no exceptions.

Through “The Cuban Experience,” visitors will come to understand how communism “in theory” actually plays out in practice with an interactive experience featuring hundreds of artifacts, pictures and videos. What is promised as an end to income inequality and enduring class harmony very quickly becomes a dark, cold and miserable jail cell for innocent civilians who dare to speak out (or even those who don’t).

Communism leaves no other way, and it will not go away unless those who understand it—in theory and in practice—continue to speak up.

After the 2024 election, Marxists at the Communist Party USA vowed to launch a “Resistance 2.0 movement,” including “militant labor organizing.” Believe them. Believe America’s Communist Party when they call the free market evil and blame it for “fracturing our society.” Believe them, and push back.

Pay a visit to The Cuban and see what the Communist Party actually means when their leaders propose a “new stage of struggle.” Pay attention to what that actually means for the wealthy or working-class people or whoever else dares to oppose them. If you need further proof, visit the Victims of Communism Museum in Washington, D.C., where the light of liberty burns for the tens of millions of people killed by communism since Marx put pen to paper.

Young Americans are especially in need of a history lesson. Last year, nearly 30% of respondents between the ages of 18 and 26 claimed to somewhat or strongly prefer socialism over capitalism—the most of any generation. Disillusioned with “corporate greed,” many Gen Zers are now open to “radical” socialist policies—the Socialist Party USA’s words, not mine—like the government-led mass redistribution of wealth (in the words of the Socialist Party, “public ownership”). Over in the United Kingdom, as many as two-thirds of young Britons wish to live under a socialist economic system in which they live according to the whims of government and not their own individual liberties.

I, for one, am grateful for my own liberty to succeed, to fail, to live—and to sip cortaditos as a free American.