by Lil Tuttle
Anna Smith Lacey, who was born and raised in Budapest, Hungary, spoke recently about her family’s life under socialism and communism. Her personal experience stands in stark contrast to the pretty face of socialism that is presented on American campuses today.
“The stories that I would like to share with you,” Ms. Lacey said, “are personal stories and will, hopefully, serve as narratives that could be indicators of where America is, where America doesn’t want to be, and where America shouldn’t be heading.”
She began in 1945 with her great-grandfather – one of 30,000 people in Hungary who were rounded up by the Soviet Union and sent to gulags for forced labor in coal mines. They were told they were going for a three-day work project. Four years later, some returned but many did not.
It was the beginning of five decades of Soviet socialist/communist occupation of Hungary marked by widespread political, social and economic deprivation – the polar opposite of socialism’s claim of equality and justice. Around the world, socialist/communist regimes have killed over 100 million people – another fact that few seem to know.
Yet visit a college campus in America today and the dream of a socialist utopia is alive and well. In fact, so well that the first time I ever met a hard-core true-believer Marxist, I was on a college campus in upstate New York. It was in 2007.
Ms. Lacey recalls conversations with American students who extolled the virtues of socialism – conversations that are instructive for those engaged in debate with their peers on their own campuses.
She notes how easily indoctrination of school children’s minds can create an obedient socialist populace. Deprived of the historical teaching and knowledge to recognize what has been and could be, people become pawns of evil regimes. Without diligence to repudiate it, the socialist evil of the last century could rear its ugly head again in the 21st century.