"Victims of Communism Day"

Anti-Communist Group Urges DeSantis to Expand “Victims of Communism Day” into “Communism Education Week” for Florida Students

Contact: Cliff Kincaid,

​[email protected] 

The public policy group America’s Survival, Inc. (ASI) is commending Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for passage of “Victims of Communism Day” educational instruction in the state’s high schools but is now encouraging expansion of the material into a full-fledged “Communism Education Week” to benefit all students. “Such a move,” said ASI President Cliff Kincaid, “could serve as a model for other states and the nation.”

In a 6700-word letter to Mr. John Duebel, Social Studies Education Specialist at the State of Florida Department of Education, ASI President Cliff Kincaid outlines why the material could be expanded for the benefit of more students, leading to a national renaissance in American educational practices. Kincaid is the author of several books on communism, including Marxist Madrassas: The Hostile Takeover of Higher Education in America.

In his new book, The Courage to Be Free, on page 133, DeSantis talks about the legislation he signed that requires that students be taught about the horrors of communist regimes.  He says the lessons would contrast “Marxist-Leninist and totalitarian ideology with the American founding principles of freedom and the rule of law.” 

Kincaid’s letter suggests various films and books, some published by his own organization, to expand the discussion, leading to classroom debates on such topics as international tribunals to hold the communists responsible for crimes such as the invasion of Ukraine and the release of the China virus.

Kincaid says the governor’s initiative can help repair the long-term damage done by communist influence in the American educational system.

“As a young journalism student, I ‘learned’ from Curtis J. MacDougall’s textbook [Interpretative Reporting] that Walter Duranty of the New York Times was one of the great figures in the media. I later learned the truth -- that Duranty was a stooge of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and one of the greatest liars in the history of journalism. In fact, he helped Stalin cover up the deaths of as many as 10 million Ukrainians in a forced famine known as the Holodomor.”

ASI obtained MacDougall’s 319-page FBI file, showing his long association with a series of Communist Party front groups. That helped explain his praise of Fidel Castro and fear of Senator Joseph McCarthy’s anti-communist investigations.

ASI also obtained the FBI files of several prominent people, including Walter Cronkite, Bella Abzug, and Barack Obama’s mentor, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis.

ASI books include Dr. Paul Kengor’s All The Dupes Fit To Print: Journalists Who Have Served As Tools Of Communist Propaganda; Blood on His Hands: the True Story of Edward Snowden; Red Jihad: Moscow's Final Solution for America and Israel; and Back from the Dead: the Return of the Evil Empire.

Cliff Kincaid has personal knowledge of left-wing and communist activities in education. After initially being invited to speak during a campus debate, Kincaid was personally banned from the State University of New York at New Paltz in March of 2016, largely on the basis of attacks on his anti-communist journalism by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Thomas Jurgens, attorney at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), was among the 23 Antifa “domestic terrorists” recently arrested for allegedly burning down government property and assaulting police in Atlanta. The SPLC confirmed Jurgens’ employment but claimed he was at a protest of a police facility as a “legal observer” with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG).

The NLG was cited as a Communist Party front organization by the House Committee on Un-American Activities and is still an affiliate of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, officially designated a Soviet front during the Cold War. 

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