Memorial Day of the Victims of Communism
February 27th, 2019In their comments on the annual remembrance day for the victims of communist dictatorship, pro-government commentators accuse the western mainstream of using double standards in judging Nazism and Communism.
The Memorial Day of the Victims of Communism was introduced by the first Orbán government in 2001. It is celebrated annually on February 25, the day when Béla Kovács MP, secretary general of the Smallholders’ Party was abducted by Soviet secret service officers from his Budapest home in 1947.
In Magyar Nemzet, György Pilhál complains that by totalitarian dictatorships, the west almost exclusively means Nazi and fascist regimes, perhaps because Communism couldn’t set foot there. He also mentions that in defiance of a law adopted in 2013, there are still about 100 streets in Hungary named after communist personalities.
In the printed version of her speech at the official ceremony in front of the House of Terror Museum on her Látószög blog, historian Mária Schmidt, the Museum director lambasts those in Western Europe who accept the heirs of the erstwhile communists as presentable partners, while they accuse Hungary of infringing on European values.
On Mozgástér blog, historian Áron Máthé finds it incomprehensible that Marxism is still not considered in the West as what it is: ‘inhuman in all its forms’. Does the West need further victims to realise that ‘the communist promise is a lie?’ He asks.