WHEREAS, the next generation of school children needs to be educated about the ideology, history, and horrors of communism so that our citizens understand why the United States is the freest nation in the world and that rejecting communist ideology will keep freedom alive; and

WHEREAS, for communism to flourish in a country, it requires taking away basic human rights which we hold so dear, including the rights to life, liberty, privacy, and freedom; and

WHEREAS, history has shown us that communist countries have attempted to maintain a totalitarian government using psychological approaches as implements of repression and social control to stay in power; and

WHEREAS, this year marks 106 years since the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, resulting in the world’s first communist regime under Vladimir Lenin; and 

WHEREAS, for decades, wherever communism has been adopted under the false pretense of liberation, it has delivered anguish, failure, and death while systematically robbing innocent people of their God-given rights of free worship, freedom of association, and countless other rights we hold sacrosanct; and 

WHEREAS, over the past century, communist totalitarian regimes around the world have killed millions of people and subjected countless more to exploitation, repression, violence, and untold devastation; and

WHEREAS, victims were shot to death in the Bolshevik Revolution; starved in the Ukrainian Holodomor and China’s Great Leap Forward; worked to death in the Soviet gulag; exiled to Siberia in the Baltic Deportations; executed on Cuba’s Isle of Pines; beaten to death in the Cultural Revolution; drowned fleeing Vietnam; strewn as litter on Cambodia’s desolate Killing Fields; and 

WHEREAS, citizens yearning for freedom were subjugated by communist regimes using coercion, violence, and fear while totalitarianism and its many injustices have wrought misery and held captive the dreams of generations, and the citizens of those nations that value liberty have prospered in pursuing their God-given potential to the fullest; and

WHEREAS, as a Commonwealth and as a Nation, we honor the memory of the millions who died and those still suffering under communism, the indomitable spirit of those who have fought courageously to spread freedom and opportunity around the world, and we reaffirm our steadfast resolve to shine the light of liberty for all who yearn for a brighter, freer future; 

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Glenn Youngkin, do hereby recognize November 7, 2023, as VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM MEMORIAL DAY in the COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA, and I call this observance to the attention of all our citizens.