Poland's equality minister, Elzbieta Radziszewska, wants to expand a Polish law prohibiting the production of fascist and totalitarian propaganda so that it includes clothing and anything else that could carry an image related to an authoritarian system..The proposal, which could see the faces of some of the leading lights of communist history such as Lenin and Trotsky [along with Che and Mao] removed from t-shirts and flags, reflects a Polish view on communism far different from the rose-tinted and romantic images often found in the West.
After experiencing 40 hard years of communism, as well as the horrors of Nazi occupation, few Poles have qualms equating under law the inequities of Nazism and communism.
"Communism was a terrible, murderous system that claimed millions of lives," said Professor Wojciech Roszkowski, a leading Polish historian and member of the European parliament. "It was very similar to National Socialism, and there is no reason to treat those two systems, and their symbols, differently. Their glorification should be prohibited." He added communism had accounted for the slaughter of thousands of Poles in the Katyn Massacre while its gulags had consumed countless millions of victims.
The proposed changes, which have already reached the committee stage in the Polish parliament, also testify to Polish determination to ensure that with the passing of time nobody starts to view the country's communist past with nostalgia...
(The above photo did not accompany the story. It came rather from an old Michelle Malkin page highlighting the photos of Byron Dazey taken at an Illegal Alien Strike in Seattle in the spring of '06. I dropped it in here because of the glaring irony -- for anyone who knows history -- of this guy flashing a peace sign while wearing a shirt with Che Guevera's murderous mug on it.)
