Victims of Communism Museum’s CEO talks about its first year in business, his boycott of China and how Putin is ‘Stalin Light’

VOC’s CEO Ken Pope spoke with MarketWatch about the first anniversary of the Victims of Communism Museum.

Does our nation’s capital need another museum?

One foundation thought so, and nearly a year ago opened its Victims of Communism Museum at McPherson Square, complementing a statue dedicated to those victims that has stood near Union Station since 2007.

It certainly feels like reading the room correctly, so to speak, to set up a new facility that’s highly skeptical of China and focused in part on Russia’s history of aggression toward its neighbors.

The CEO of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, which runs the museum that launched last June, spoke with MarketWatch last week about how he and his colleagues aim to help Americans respond to Beijing’s growing influence and Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

The CEO, Ken Pope, also talked about his personal attempts to avoid buying Chinese products and the foundation’s efforts to influence what’s taught in U.S. schools.

He said highlights from the museum’s first year have ranged from hosting the new House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party’s inaugural event to welcoming Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, who accepted a human-rights award on behalf of her country’s embattled people.