On April 9th, after a 24-year delay, the Ukrainian parliament (Rada) passed legislation banning communist propaganda along with its symbols, from street names and flags, to monuments and plaques.
The new legislation, passed by 56% of parliamentarians, declares the communist government that ruled Ukraine during the Soviet era a criminal regime that conducted policies of state terror. The ban similarly extends to Nazi propaganda and symbols, though unlike communism, Nazism hardly has a following in a country that was hit hard during WWII and the Nazi occupation.
On the surface, bundling together these two anti-human, totalitarian ideologies may seem like a symbolic gesture, but in reality each was banned for a very different practical reason, both of them of an existential nature.
Read more at: PJMedia