On December 13, 1981, at 9 a.m. on a Sunday morning, Grzegorz Pawlik, a child at that time, found himself in his concrete apartment building in Łódź, Poland. As he eagerly awaited his favorite children’s show, “Teleranek,” to start, he stared at a blank television screen, unaware of the historic events that were unfolding around him.
Neighboring homes were quiet as well; radios and televisions were eerily silent. People congregated in the stairwell, exchanging hushed speculation about the unusual stillness of their environment. An elderly teacher reported that she had been unable to sleep the night before due to strange sounds echoing from the streets, but her concerns had gone largely ignored. Some joked, suggesting that the much-hated Leonid Brezhnev, the leader of the Soviet Union, had finally met his end. “We were almost ready to celebrate,” Pawlik recalled during a recent interview.
Before long, the television flickered to life, displaying a stern figure — the First Secretary of the Polish Communist Party — in his military uniform and dark sunglasses, announcing a nationwide state of martial law. It was then that the populace grasped the truth: the sounds the teacher had heard were the rumbling tanks entering the city.
Fast forward 45 years to November 6, 2026, and Pawlik stood once again before an audience, this time in the rotunda of the Utah State Capitol. Before him were American citizens, including a number of teenagers, and he began to recount his experiences growing up in a country governed by communism. Now residing in Vineyard, Utah, and working for a company that produces scented wax, Pawlik leads a life typical of suburban America.
However, observing some young people’s fascination with socialism today fills him with dread.
The gathering he attended marked Utah’s annual “Communism Victims Memorial Day.” In 2019, the state legislated H.B. 116, introduced by Representative Kay Christofferson, to commemorate November 7 as a day to remember victims of communism.
Lisa Fifield, a Chinese language teacher, has spearheaded the annual memorial events at the state capitol since 2022, and this year’s theme centered around Poland.
The timing of this year’s event was particularly significant. In December of the preceding year, Poland’s Constitutional Tribunal unanimously ruled that the Polish Communist Party was unconstitutional and ordered its disbandment, citing that organizations based on totalitarian ideologies such as Nazism, fascism, and communism are prohibited by the Constitution. In response to this ruling, dozens of communist parties from across the globe released joint statements urging demonstrations outside Polish embassies.
As protests erupted in France last fall, a Fox News investigation revealed that organizations coordinating the European protests encompassed 101 groups from nine countries, many of which were communist or socialist in nature.
For those who have lived under communist rule, these scenes evoke a sense of déjà vu.
To many Chinese readers, Poland may seem unfamiliar. After World War II, Poland established a communist regime with Soviet support, becoming the “People’s Republic of Poland” and remaining under single-party communist rule for over four decades. Like the Chinese Communist Party, Poland operated under a planned economy, controlled media, and monitored its citizens. However, unlike China, Poles consistently had a formidable Catholic Church, which later became a pillar of resistance.
Grzegorz Pawlik grew up in a “new community” in Łódź. This area consisted of hundreds of concrete buildings erected in the 1970s to accommodate the influx of factory workers. Americans might refer to such places as “Soviet-style communities.” His family lived in apartment 118 of building 333, a small unit very much like the others.
“Each apartment was almost indistinguishable from the rest,” he recounted. Visiting a friend, he would find the same sofas, the same tables, and even the same inexpensive reproductions hanging on the walls. People watched the same programs and knew only the version of news provided by state media.
The quality of everyday items like televisions, radios, washing machines, clothing, and cars — for those fortunate enough to own one — was dismal. Toilet paper, if it could even be found, was rough and dark gray. When things broke, they were repaired, only to break again. The walls of buildings were cracked and stained with soot from nearby factories, never repainted; lawns were neglected, stairwells were littered with graffiti, and even ancient historical buildings were left to decay.
For Pawlik, this was not merely poverty; it represented a mindset. With almost all things owned by the state, the prevailing thought among people was that the government had taken everything from them, and thus they owed it nothing. Workers performed only the bare minimum required by their bosses, and often only when being watched.
“There was no motivation for people to work hard or to do their jobs well,” he said, “because no matter how hard we worked, we would always remain poor. Unless one had connections within the party or the management, there was absolutely no hope for advancement.”
From a young age, Pawlik felt torn by “two conflicting religions”: his parents and parish priest taught him Christian values, while school and state television disseminated Marxist ideology. The official narrative always claimed that prolonged shortages, inflation, environmental disasters, and corruption were merely temporary challenges, with the culprits lurking outside — in the black market, American imperialism, or the Catholic Church.
“At the same time, every night, American movies were broadcasted on television,” Pawlik noted. “Most of these films contained violence and inappropriate content, yet they also depicted families (the Americans) living in homes with garages, driving expensive cars, shopping in stores filled with all varieties of goods, or flying planes.” He continued, “We knew what it was like to live in capitalist countries.”
“Essentially, we lived in a sorrowful place,” said Pawlik. “By the time I was born, everyone was already aware: we were living in a world markedly worse than that on the other side of the Iron Curtain.”
Hope flickered briefly during the late 1970s. A Polish cardinal was elected as pope; the solidarity strikes at the Gdańsk Lenin Shipyard sparked a wave of strikes and protests nationwide. The government was compelled to improve working conditions, lower food prices, and relax restrictions on free speech.
However, that cold morning of December 13, 1981, brought these aspirations to a crashing halt. Hundreds of Solidarity activists were arrested, and the organization was declared illegal. A curfew prohibited people from being outside after 11 p.m., and children were barred from being out after 8 p.m. Telephones were tapped, and all concerts, theatrical performances, and films were cancelled.
“If you ask anyone who lived through that era in Poland, they could tell you exactly where they were and how they heard about the declaration of martial law,” Pawlik said. “On that day, the communist government lost the last remnant of sympathy in the hearts of the Polish people forever.”
From that point forward, the words “communism” and “socialism” became synonymous with revulsion. A few years later, the collapse of the regime became inevitable, as the communists negotiated with Solidarity to hold the first competitive elections after the war in exchange for their leaders avoiding prosecution.
That election took place on June 4, 1989, and Solidarity achieved a landslide victory.
On the same day, thousands of kilometers away in Beijing, the democratic movement on Tiananmen Square was brutally suppressed. Two communist nations faced entirely different fates on the same day.
For Pawlik, that world is over thirty years in the past. Yet in the audience that day, there were individuals who had only recently emerged from such a world.
Victor arrived in Utah to pursue his postgraduate studies on a student visa in 2023. He described his educational pursuits as a façade; the real reason for his departure was that, as a Christian attending an underground church in China, he had been arrested by police.
“They say you have religious freedom as a Christian, but with a condition: you have to participate in activities at a legally registered church,” he explained. “So who defines what is legal and illegal? That power is not vested in the Constitution; it is determined by the Communist Party, who is legal and who is not.”
After his arrest, he had initially wished to keep a low profile and quietly practice his faith. However, witnessing the Chinese media’s overwhelming support of Russia during the lead-up to the invasion of Ukraine was the tipping point for him. He saw them portraying Ukraine as a puppet of America.
“China is a country that has been invaded, and while the entire state system was defending the invaders, I realized I could no longer stay in this country.” Upon his arrival in Utah, he applied for political and religious asylum.
Seeing young people in the West brandishing communist flags at protests, Victor believes that most do not truly comprehend the ideology; they primarily seek symbols to express their discontent. “In a sense, young people treat communism like a trendy accessory,” he said, “but they have no idea how dangerous this ideology is.”
After graduating and working within the American educational system, Victor observed that many American children grow up in materially abundant environments, having never experienced scarcity, making it difficult for them to imagine the eventual outcomes of a system that promises equality through communism.
He noted an ironic adage circulating online in China: “If you love communism so much, why don’t we switch nationalities? We’ll take what we need.”
Another listener, Alexander Hill, whose Polish family emigrated from a lack of opportunities in Poland during the 1970s and 80s, recounted their pursuit of the “American Dream.” Hill, who was raised in England and moved to the United States in 2018, explained that his family experienced systemic dehumanization under the communist regime, forcing them to leave their homeland and struggle for survival in subzero temperatures and hunger.
Such traumatic experiences have found a place in the literature shared during this year’s event. “A Polish Girl in Siberia,” published in March, was penned by a survivor of communism who wrote in Polish about her childhood experiences being relocated to Siberia; her granddaughter, an American citizen, translated the book into English, adding historical context. The organizers choose a different book each year to gift attendees, signed by the author.
Hill understands the discontent many people feel regarding the current state of affairs but He insists that communism is not the solution.
“It began with a beautiful idea: can we share? Yes, that’s wonderful,” he said. “But once you start saying, ‘Your property now needs to be given to me,’ it brings out the ugliest side of human nature and leads to the deaths of millions.”
“We’re currently experiencing corruption and difficulties that make people very dissatisfied,” he continued, “but time and again we’ve seen that these issues won’t improve under communism; they will only worsen.”
He articulated that both extreme communism and extreme capitalism harbor fatal flaws; however, society has grown intolerant of symbols associated with other forms of extremism. “Yet, for some reason, the communist flag always seems to get a pass,” he observed. “I think history has demonstrated that flag should perhaps be retired.”
On either side of the hall’s corridors, educational posters crafted by the organizers were displayed: photographs, timelines, promotional materials, and testimonies from survivors, some equipped with QR codes that allow attendees to listen to survivors’ voices.
Nathan, a part-time history teacher who grew up on a farm in Idaho, was initially unaware of this event until his granddaughter informed him that she would be speaking. He expressed that the most striking poster among them compared the death tolls attributed to Hitler with those of Mao and Stalin. “Most people think of Hitler as the butcher,” he said, “but compared to the other two, he seems almost like a child.”
Nathan is concerned that young people’s understanding of communism is shaped by biased media and platforms like TikTok.
“It will self-perpetuate, spreading rapidly,” he warned, “like an all-consuming fire, and they remain oblivious to what is truly happening.”
Whenever someone counters socialism, Nathan noted, the typical response tends to be, “If we just do it the right way… socialism and communism aren’t bad; they just haven’t been executed properly.” “That’s incorrect,” he asserted. He believes that many middle and high school students have a far greater understanding of collectivism than they do of the American constitutional republic.
Lisa Fifield echoed this sentiment, stating that in her experience, students in Utah are almost entirely unaware of what communism is. “This regrettable fact hasn’t changed in the past thirty years.”
Schools have never taught what communism is; she recalled seeing a picture of Mao Zedong, asking friends whether he was a good or bad person, only to receive mixed responses. It wasn’t until she personally read the truth that she decided to speak out on behalf of the victims of Chinese communism.
However, she has also witnessed a change. Over the past two years, young people have started approaching her to express their gratitude. One girl shared with her, “The teacher brought a book from China that had been edited, and the most important parts had been deleted. She could hardly imagine a world that allowed only one ‘truth.'”
Ninth grader Grace Poulsen is one of the exceptions. Her school offers a course on the history of communism, and it was her history class that provided speakers that day. “Before taking this class, I didn’t even know what communism was,” she confessed.
Now, she and most of her friends do not find communism appealing. If any of her friends do, she makes it a point to share stories of the victims of communism to reveal its true nature.
Just three days before the event, in the November 3 midterm elections, the Democratic Party won majorities in both the House and Senate. Candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) made history, with six winning federal congressional seats. An NPR voter survey indicated that 17% of voters identified as “democratic socialists.” While democratic socialists advocate for policies through elections — unlike the one-party dictatorship under communism — many who have experienced communist regimes find this trend troubling.
Representative Kay Christofferson, who sponsored H.B. 116, has supported this initiative for years and was present at the memorial. He noted that in the recently concluded elections, he observed people abandoning conservative values and increasingly embracing socialist ideals, a trend he characterized as nationwide. “I don’t know if it’s because they are dissatisfied with the status quo and want to express protest or if they truly believe socialism can solve problems,” he pondered.
He believes the answer lies in education. “Sometimes we live so comfortably in America that everyone assumes they should get everything for free,” he explained. “When people realize they must work for what they have rather than forcing others to give up their own in order to have more, they will come to understand that communism and socialism lead to dead ends.”
Pawlik’s life did not end in that concrete building. He mingled with hippies during his youth, hiked, swam in lakes, and worked seasonal jobs. In 1991, he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, receiving a mission call to Chicago the following year, which marked his first visit to the United States. He later studied at Brigham Young University, where he met his wife.
In 2000, they moved back to Poland, where they remained for 23 years. He worked for an American company there and engaged in politics, supporting organizations that taught basic economics to high school students, stressing the advantages of a free market over central planning. After Russia invaded Ukraine, he grew concerned about Poland getting drawn into the conflict. In the summer of 2023, he obtained a green card and relocated with his family to Utah. He recently completed a novel based on his teenage years in communist Poland.
Pawlik was not surprised by Poland’s disbandment of the Communist Party. Article 13 of the Polish Constitution prohibits parties that promote totalitarian means, hatred, and violence. He understands this is difficult for some Americans to grasp, but believes that not everything is permissible in promoting ideas. “People should be free to discuss any thought,” he remarked, “but promoting them is another matter.”
He hopes to take those young people who view communism favorably back several decades, allowing them to experience a day of life in the Polish People’s Republic.
He wants them to see the fear and sorrow on people’s faces, to witness parents having no hope for their children’s future. He wants them to smell the stench from the rivers and inhale the polluted air from state-owned factories. He wants them to meet a party official explaining why a song had to have three verses removed before being performed at a concert — simply because the lyrics contained words like “freedom,” “solidarity,” or “God.”
Or he would have them sit through an hour of history taught by a teacher who flushed red in embarrassment when asked why the Red Army invaded from the east following the Nazis’ invasion of Poland from the west. Two weeks later, they could watch the father come home to announce he just lost his engineering job simply because his child asked a “stupid” question in class.
“The first lesson is that regaining freedom is far more difficult than keeping it,” Pawlik concluded.
After World War II, young Poles persisted for many years in forests in attempts to resist the Soviet Union. He noted that many of them were inspired by the stories of the American War of Independence. “If anyone told them that one day, some American teenagers would be fooled by the cheap lies about a socialist paradise, they would never believe it.”
Most of them did not survive. The survivors endured the horrors of Stalinism, and their children and grandchildren grew up in an oppressive environment until brave leaders emerged to say “no.” Those early voices were often met with peer pressure to conform, with warnings that resistance would ruin their lives. Yet they refused to lose their dignity and refused to be manipulated, ultimately becoming the “coolest” individuals in their neighborhoods and schools.
“It takes only one brave person to challenge their peers to end the trend of conformity,” Pawlik remarked. In present-day Poland, the names of those brave individuals have been immortalized with street names, and statues have been erected in their honor.
That afternoon, Grace Poulsen and her classmates took turns at the podium to share their understanding of the First Amendment. Grace chose to speak about “freedom of speech.”
“It represents my rights and liberties, allowing me to speak out about things, express who I am and my beliefs,” she declared. “I am immensely grateful to be able to speak my mind without fearing the government.”
Forty-five years ago, a Polish child approximately her age turned on the television to find only a blank screen.
Pawlik sat in the audience, reflecting on the speeches of those high school students. They rekindled a flicker of hope within him: perhaps some young people genuinely wish to understand the past.
“Let us open our eyes,” he urged, “and pray that America never loses its freedom.”