The House of Representatives just passed the Crucial Communism Teaching Act (H.R. 5349), which mandates public school instruction about the totalitarian dangers of communism. Given the history of McCarthyism, the passage of such boldly worded legislation condemning communist ideology would seem anachronistic if not for the growing popularity of Marxism among American youth. Yet the far-left swing of most American universities, the National Education Association, many social justice NGOs, and most government institutions warrants this overdue response.
Just the Facts
Leftist extremism at many American universities has promoted race-based “multiculturalism” above diversity of ideas, avoiding a critical assessment of errant Marxist ideology. This has rightly blemished the reputation of academia, which has openly spread disinformation about race relations, constitutional law, and the perils of communist thought. More than 100 million people were killed under communist regimes in the 20th century. H.R. 5349 says so in plain language and insists that schoolchildren be properly instructed in these indisputable but often sidestepped facts.
Many young Americans idolize Marx and embrace communism as a superior economic system to capitalism. This is essentially a result of the strong left-leaning bias of American public schools and colleges. As Liberty Nation News reported last month, 60% of college campuses lack a Republican faculty member in their history, journalism, or communications departments. The left-leaning bias of America’s schools violates the very idea of a balanced education as even many grade schools have become indoctrination facilities regarding gun rights, transgenderism, critical race theory, abortion, sexual preferences, and anti-capitalist rhetoric that embraces communism without addressing its totalitarian history.
The Crucial Communism Teaching Act is a government effort to restore academic balance to US education. The strong bipartisan support for its passage (327 to 62) included such staunch liberals as Vermont’s Becca Balint and California’s Nancy Pelosi. Democrats in Massachusetts and California overwhelmed their peers in support for the bill, and the entire Democratic slate of Maryland House members voted affirmatively.
Bipartisan Opposition to Communist Doctrine
Americans may find hope in this bill’s passage for affirmation of shared values and mutual respect. House Speaker Mike Johnson praised the bill in words that many Democrats can and do agree with:
“Communism has a long, dark history of political suppression, persecution, and violence. Unfortunately, the realities of communism are often overlooked or downplayed in our educational system, allowing malign foreign actors to push their agendas and influence American institutions … It is more important than ever that our students are taught the true dangers of communism and the importance of safeguarding our freedoms.”
American leftists often point to modern European socialist democracies as examples of benign communism, ignoring the horrifying historical record of its more glaring failures in Stalinist Russia and Maoist China. The National Association of Scholars strongly endorses the Crucial Communism Teaching Act, proclaiming that it “will ensure that students know about the tyrannical nature of Communist thought, the blood-stained history of Communist regimes, and the influence of Communist ideology on American politics.” The goal of the legislation is not a McCarthyite witch hunt against communist professors and teachers but an effort to ensure accurate, balanced teaching of historical truths.
The bill is designed to instruct students about the dangers of communism and to help them understand what most modern college professors appear never to have learned: Totalitarianism can arise from the left and not solely from the fascist right. The bill gives high school educators access to materials from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation that educate young people about the hazards of communism and totalitarianism. The legislation requires that curricula include “a comparative discussion of certain political ideologies, including communism and totalitarianism, that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy that are essential to the founding of the United States.”
In the context of a nation increasingly torn by political ideologies, the passage of the Crucial Communism Teaching Act is a sensible educational initiative to ensure students learn about the bad and the ugly of communist regimes and not just the supposed “good.” Polls show American youth increasingly view communism favorably, a testament to a failed education system that requires bipartisan government regulatory intervention to prevent the indoctrination of false historical narratives into impressionable young minds. Only by learning the truth about communist history can American citizens hope to combat dangerous falsehoods that threaten their most cherished liberties.
