Florida's Fight Against Communism

'The most important battle is in the classroom'

A GOP governor is pushing back against the Marxist takeover of public education.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis, a Catholic, recently signed legislation that mandates public schools teach about the gruesome realities of communism — past and present.

'... we will ensure students in Florida are taught the truth about the evils and dangers of Communism.'

"We will not allow our students to live in ignorance, nor be indoctrinated by Communist apologists in schools. To the contrary, we will ensure students in Florida are taught the truth about the evils and dangers of Communism," DeSantis said in a press release.

Under the bill (SB 1264), the Florida Department of Education will provide age-appropriate instruction for K-12 students on the history of Communism.

Students will be taught about communism’s “atrocities” and its “increasing threat,” according to the new law. They will also learn about the economic upheaval and restrictions of personal freedom seen in many communist nations.

 "The increasing threat of communism in the United States and to our allies through the 20th century" is one of the mandated topics, as well as "the economic, industrial and political events that have preceded ... communist revolutions."

DeSantis signed the bill on the 63rd anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion, a failed attempt by an estimated 1,400 Cuban exiles to wrest control of Cuba from communist dictator Fidel Castro.

"We know that the Bay of Pigs was launched because the island of Cuba had succumbed to communist tyranny," the governor said at a press conference at the Hialeah Gardens Museum, which honors the efforts of the Bay of Pigs' Assault Brigade 2506. "We're going to tell the truth about communism in the state of Florida. We're going to tell the truth about the evils of communism."

In attendance were surviving Miami-area members of the brigade who made the invasion attempt in 1961.

'The most important fight against communism is the one that's done in the school rooms.'

"The most important fight against communism is the one that's done in the school rooms," said Rafael Montalvo, president of the Bay of Pigs Veterans Association. "That's where the battle is happening right now, and this is going to be a tool that's going to give us a victory in that area."

Florida Education Secretary Manny Diaz, a Cuban-American, praised the bill, which he said, " ... gives us the opportunity to ensure that we learn history so that our students in Florida are not apt to repeat the history and really understand the evils of communism.”

Florida's measure also sets the stage for a new communism history museum in the Sunshine State, in addition to a new partnership between Miami Dade College and Florida International University.

The partnership — known as the Institute for Freedom in the Americas — will promote individual and economic freedom in Latin America and the Caribbean.

DeSantis' legislation is aligned with what the Catholic Church has been teaching about communism for more than a century.

Pope Pius XI in 1937 issued an encyclical on atheistic communism, Divini Redemptoris (The Divine Redeemer), on March 19, the feast of St. Joseph, patron of the universal Church and patron of workers.

In it, the pontiff spoke of the "imminent danger" of "atheistic Communism" that aims at "upsetting the social order and at undermining the very foundations of Christian civilization."

In the face of such a threat, the Catholic Church must not remain silent, the pope said.

Throughout his reign, Pope Pius XII regularly denounced both communist ideology and its persecution of the Church in encyclicals, speeches and radio messages.

In a 1949 decree, he forbade the reception of Holy Sacraments [i.e., excommunication] to anyone who joined communist parties or published material supporting communist doctrine.

'Curtailment of religious freedom is, above all, an attack on man’s very dignity.'

Pope Saint John Paul II has been credited with being instrumental in bringing down communism in Eastern Europe by way of spiritual and diplomatic means.

In his first papal encyclical, Redemptor Hominis (The Redeemer of Man), issued in 1979, the sainted pope emphasized the dignity of each human person and how human nature is not merely material, but endowed with spiritual and moral aspects.

By emphasizing these tenets of the Catholic faith, the Pope attacked communism in the Soviet Union, and elsewhere, in its heart.

"Curtailment of the religious freedom of individuals and communities is not only a painful experience but is, above all, an attack on man’s very dignity. … [It is] a radical injustice with regard to what is particularly deep in man, what is authentically human. … It is therefore difficult … to accept a position that gives only atheism the right of citizenship in public and social life while believers are barely tolerated … or are even entirely deprived of the rights of citizenship," he wrote.

Pope Benedict XVI likewise saw the dangers of communism. When he viewed a film in 2005 about John Paul II’s early life under the totalitarian regimes of Nazism and Communism, the then-pope remarked that the film provided a "strict lesson for our own and future generations."

"We have the duty to remind ourselves and others, especially the young, what forms of unprecedented violence can be reached by scorn for human beings and violation of their rights," he added.

DeSantis' education bill for school children goes into effect July 1. The new curriculum will begin being taught during the 2026-27 school year.

Dr. Barbara Toth has a doctorate in rhetoric and composition from Bowling Green State University. She has taught at universities in the US, China and Saudi Arabia. Her work in setting up a writing center at Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahmen University, an all-women's university in Riyadh, has been cited in American journals. Toth has published academic and non-academic articles and poems internationally.

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