A proclamation for freedom

The third week of July is Captive Nations Week, a tradition since 1959. In that year, the U.S. Congress called on President Eisenhower and his successors to issue an annual proclamation “until such a time as freedom and independence shall have been achieved for all the captive nations of the world.”

President Trump issued his presidential proclamation on Monday, the first day of Captive Nations Week. In a moment we will take a look at the document, but what is meant by “captive nations” in the first place? Is this a Cold War relic or is the “captive nations concept” meaningful today?

The “captive nations concept,” as articulated by its founder, Lev Dobriansky, is the idea that culture, history, language, and religion are the hallmarks of social identity. Dobriansky argued that the secular, materialist worldview of communism could not overcome the reality of humanity’s social characteristics, and thus religious and cultural identity, such as Polish Catholicism during the Cold War, would ultimately overcome the unreality of communism.

Congress passed a captive nations resolution as Public Law 86-90 in 1959. It asserted, as motivations for the resolution:

“Whereas the greatness of the United States is in large part attributable to its having been able, through the democratic process, to achieve a harmonious national unity of its people, even though they stem from the most diverse of racial, religious, and ethnic backgrounds; and

Whereas this harmonious unification of the diverse elements of our free society has led the people of the United States to possess a warm understanding and sympathy for the aspirations of peoples everywhere…

Whereas the enslavement of a substantial part of the world’s population by Communist imperialism makes a mockery of the idea of peaceful coexistence… 

Whereas it is vital to the national security of the United States that the desire for liberty and independence on the part of the peoples of these conquered nations should be steadfastly kept alive … [and] that the people of the United States share with them their aspirations for the recovery of their freedom and independence…

It took 30 years, but nearly all of Eastern European communism fell in 1989.

Fast forward to today. Sadly, there are still numerous captive nations, from legacy communist regimes such as in Eritrea, to Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela in Latin America, to the forced labor and repression of North Korea and China’s “new socialism.”

This brings us to President Trump’s 2026 Captive Nations Proclamation, which eloquently and accurately diagnoses communism:

Communism has always been a doctrine of darkness, promising equality and prosperity while delivering misery and ruin. Centuries of bloodshed prove that communism has failed every society that has ever embraced it. This wicked creed scorns the individual and treats human beings as property of the state…

In the tradition of Truman, JFK, and Ronald Reagan, President Trump asserts that the United States will always be on the side of the men, women, and children who suffer at the hands of communist despots:

During Captive Nations Week, we stand in solidarity with all who suffer beneath communism and tyranny, and we renew our commitment to advancing the timeless cause of liberty around the world … we vow never to forget the oppressed suffering under communist regimes. … We stand with all who yearn to breathe free, are imprisoned for speaking truth, punished for their faith, and denied the abundance that liberty alone can bring.

The proclamation reminds us that our focus should not only be communism “over there,” but also the mutating variants of communism in our own back yard:

That same devotion must hold firm here at home as well, where the evil ideologies of socialism, communism, and totalitarianism will never be allowed to take root.

Is it possible that some mutation of communism could take root in America? Today’s so-called democratic socialists such as Zohran Mamdani, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the new crop of congressional candidates in Denver and New York pledge that if given power, they will destroy and remake America’s governing institutions, use the power of the state to choose economic winners and losers, and weaponize taxes against their political enemies.

Perhaps more than ever before, we need a dash of Captive Nations-style cold water in the face. The 1959 proclamation teaches us that our national greatness is “in large part attributable” to achieving “a harmonious national unity” through democratic processes, despite tremendous “racial, religious, and ethnic” diversity.

Pundits, politicians, and parties that decry American exceptionalism, attack rather than seek to strengthen our national unity, and undermine our governing institutions exhibit the spirit of violent revolutionary communism.

Americans, especially in the year of our 250th national birthday, must reject such destructive political agendas and, in the words of the 2026 Captive Nations proclamation, defend “the sacred rights at the heart of our Republic: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and the freedom to worship Almighty God without fear.”