Originally published in the Winter 2020 edition of the Virginia Defender, issue 61, printed February 17. Reproduced here in for accessibility and archival purposes. To find other stories in the Winter 2020 issue or to download the full PDF, see this post. For the full web catalog, see our Full Issues page.

According to the fourth annual report “U.S. Attitudes Toward Socialism, Communism, and Collectivism” released last October by the fiercely anti-socialist organization Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, young people are increasingly open to socialism, and even communism.

The data show that 64 percent of Gen Z (the generation born between the mid-1990s and early to mid-2010s) and 70 percent of millennials (those born from 1981 to 1996) say they’re likely to vote for a socialist.

And, in findings that must have establishment figures quaking in their wingtips, 15 percent of millennials think the world would be better off if the Soviet Union still existed; 20 percent think the Communist Manifesto “better guarantees freedom and equality” than the Declaration of Independence; 22 percent think “society would be better if all private property was abolished;” 35 percent view Marxism favorably; and 36 percent more millennials viewed communism favorably in 2019 as opposed to a year before.

Meanwhile, according to the report, about a quarter of U.S. Americans of all ages view Donald Trump as a bigger threat to world peace than the leaders of Russia, China, North Korea or Venezuela.

The survey was conducted by YouGov, a British international Internet-based market research and data analytics firm, which surveyed 2,100 U.S. Americans.