Opinion

We need to talk to communists because there is so much they need to learn

A farmers market encounter with a twentysomething reveals a generation untaught about the Gulag

By Eric Patterson Fox News

Published October 22, 2026 5:00am EDT

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She Escaped Communist Cuba. Now She’s Watching Her Classmates Romanticize It

Liz Marian Elias, a Cuban expat and college student living in Canada, details her firsthand experience of communism as she confronts the reality of her peers supporting the very ideology she fought to escape.

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A friend was recently startled to find a Soviet-style hammer and sickle prominently displayed at a farmers market just a block from a monument to those who sacrificed their lives fighting totalitarianism. It's particularly jarring for immigrants from former communist countries to see these hateful symbols cheerfully displayed alongside fresh greens, organic honey and homemade pies.

When my friend engaged the affable twentysomething about her advocacy for communism in America, the conversation quickly became absurd. "Don't you know about the Gulag, the torture chambers, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the murder of 100 million men, women and children?" to which she replied, "I'm not sure what you're talking about …"

The young woman then parried, "All I know is that America has a shameful past, and we should try to atone for the crimes of capitalism."

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"What ‘crimes of capitalism?’"

Protesters affiliated with the Revolutionary Communists of America hold a banner during a May Day march in Minneapolis, Minn. (Derek Shook/Fox News........

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