# Opinion: Eric Patterson Says Young Americans Drawn to Communism Were Never Taught What It Did

The head of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation describes a farmers market exchange with a young communist who could not name a crime of capitalism or a crime of communism. His answer is to teach the history early.

- Section: [Opinion](https://rightnewsrightnow.com/opinion/)
- Published: 2026-10-22
- By: RightNewsRightNow Staff
- Canonical page: https://rightnewsrightnow.com/articles/opinion-eric-patterson-talk-to-communists-farmers-market-victims-of-communism-memorial-foundation/

This is a summary of an opinion column. The views belong to Eric Patterson, not to RightNewsRightNow.

The scene. Patterson, president and CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, opens with a friend's visit to a farmers market. A hammer and sickle was on display a block from a monument to those who died fighting totalitarianism. When the friend asked the young woman behind it about the Gulag, the Tiananmen Square massacre and the estimated 100 million deaths under communism, she replied that she was not sure what he was talking about. She said she knew only that America has "a shameful past" and should atone for "the crimes of capitalism," and could not name any.

His argument. Patterson cites a figure that 62 percent of Americans aged 18 to 29 think socialism or communism is a good idea. He says many were taught a simple neo-Marxist lens of oppressor versus oppressed, found in everything from "The 1619 Project" to the Democratic Socialists of America platform. He sees two problems: a difference in perspective, and a gap in plain facts. The crimes of communism, he writes, are "largely unknown" because they go untaught, and he adds that the evidence includes survivor testimony, government records and photographs of camps. He says the violence continues in places such as Belarus, Cuba, Eritrea and North Korea.

What he wants. First, return institutions, from schools and houses of worship to media and the family, to the basics of what America stands for, including the Declaration of Independence, representative government, free markets and personal responsibility. Second, teach the history, including the Berlin Airlift, NATO, the defense of Korea and Vietnam, and Cold War victory. He calls communism "a political fantasy rooted in envy and a political program rooted in brutality" and says the answer is to inoculate children early with accurate facts and the right perspective.

Note for readers: the claims and statistics are the author's, and we have not independently verified them, including the 62 percent figure and the 100 million death toll.

## Source

Original reporting: [Fox News (opinion by Eric Patterson)](https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/need-talk-communists-much-they-need-learn)