Regarding the Victims of Communism Memorial…

From the National Review: A Goddess for Victims: The Victims of Communism Memorial comes to fruition

A dozen years ago, Lev Dobriansky and Lee Edwards met with National Park Service official John Parsons to learn what it takes to build a public memorial in Washington, D.C. Parsons gave them a document that outlined a 24-step program – a long march that included congressional permission, site selection, design approval, financial commitments, and actual construction. The ordeal required the involvement of three federal panels and a D.C. neighborhood board. As if the point weren’t obvious, Parsons gave his visitors a crystal-clear warning as they headed for the door: “This is going to take longer than you think.”

Today, Dobriansky and Edwards are about to complete the 24th step: At a dedication ceremony on June 12, the Victims of Communism Memorial finally will become a reality. It intends to honor the more than 100 million people who died in a terrible ideology’s revolutions, wars, and purges – and it immediately will earn a spot on the must-see list of any conservative tourist who comes to the nation’s capital.

The idea for the project came to Edwards – once an aide to Barry Goldwater and now a fellow at the Heritage Foundation – two months after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. “I was having Sunday brunch with my wife and one of my daughters,” he says. “We were concerned that people didn’t seem interested in discussing the crimes of Communism, and that a general amnesia was settling in everywhere.” On a paper napkin, he jotted down “memorial – victims of communism” and stuffed it into his pocket. Before long, he was talking to his old friend Dobriansky, an ambassador during the Reagan administration, and together they approached allies in Congress. In 1993, President Clinton signed a bill authorizing a Victims of Communism Memorial in Washington.

The law stipulated that no federal dollars underwrite the project. The government merely would donate the land. Raising the cash would fall completely on the shoulders of Dobriansky and Edwards. Undaunted, they drew up grand plans for a $100 million museum, believing that the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum might serve as a model. Then they put out their shingle and waited for the money to roll in.

Except that it didn’t. “We kept thinking that a billionaire would arrive and write us a huge check,” says Edwards. By 1999, however, they were enjoying about as much success as one of the Soviet Union’s five-year plans: The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation had raised less than half a million dollars. “We realized that we had to change our priorities,” says Edwards.

They downsized their ambitions, setting aside the lofty goal of a big museum and choosing to focus almost exclusively on the construction of a $1 million memorial. Their board debated various designs, such as a replica of the Berlin Wall, a Gulag prison, or a boat used by Cuban or Vietnamese refugees. In the end, they decided to build a bronze statue inspired by the “Goddess of Democracy” erected by Chinese students at Tiananmen Square in 1989. It not only brought to mind a relatively recent example of Communist oppression – the massacre of pro-democracy protesters – but it also could serve as a useful reminder that even in the 21st century, the world’s most populous nation remains unfree. Chinese diplomats expressed concerns about the design of the memorial to Bush administration officials, but to no avail.

From its toe to the tip of an upraised torch, the statue measures about ten feet – the goddess figure itself is just a bit taller than Yao Ming, the Chinese native and Houston Rockets center who is the tallest player in the NBA. The sculptor, Thomas Marsh, agreed to work for free. “When I saw the courage of those students at Tiananmen Square, I made a vow that I would try to rebuild their statue,” he says. He produced a version that now stands in San Francisco’s Chinatown and has prepared castings of it for other sites. The version that will appear in the Victims of Communism Memorial is an armature, which means that it’s derived from his original but also contains unique qualities. “It’s the biggest of the bunch and the facial features look more like the one the students made,” says Marsh.

Despite agreement on the creative concept, Dobriansky, Edwards, and their supporters still needed to push through Washington’s memorial bureaucracy. This is no simple task. The District of Columbia may seem cluttered with monuments of presidents, soldiers, and statesmen, but nowadays they’re difficult to build because each one requires an act of Congress as well as approval from three different bodies, albeit with remarkably similar names: the Commission of Fine Arts, the National Capital Memorial Commission, and the National Capital Planning Commission. The process is so cumbersome that only the best-organized initiatives survive. The last to succeed was a statue of Tomas Masaryk…

The dedication of the Victims of Communism Memorial will be held Tuesday, June 12th, 2007.

The official dedication will take place in Washington, D.C., at the intersection of Massachusetts Ave., N.W., New Jersey Ave., N.W., and G St., N.W., two blocks from Union Station and within view of the U.S. Capitol.

To make reservations for the day’s events and for further information contact Anne Meesman at 703-525-4445. Due to security considerations, advance reservations are required.