Captive Nations Week is an annual official observance in theUnited States aimed at demonstrating solidarity with "captive nations" under the control of governments the United States deems 'authoritarian'.
Initially, the week was aimed at raising public awareness of theSoviet occupation of Eastern European countries and of Soviet support forCommunist governments in other regions of the world.
The week was first declared by a Congressional resolution in 1953 and signed into law (Public Law 86-90) by PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower in 1959. Every successive U.S. President, including PresidentBarack Obama, PresidentDonald Trump and PresidentJoe Biden, has declared the third week of July to be Captive Nations Week. During the Cold War, events of Captive Nations Week were sometimes attended by US Presidents, mayors and governors.[1][2][3]
After thecollapse of Communist governments inEastern Europe, the week is also dedicated to supporting the newly liberal democratic governments of these countries.[4]
Some diaspora groups from those countries deemed 'undemocratic' participate in events of the Captive Nations Week to draw public attention to problems with democracy and human rights in their respective home countries. Members of theBelarusian American community have been constituting a major part of the participants of Captive Nations Week marches in recent years.[5] In 2019, among the topics of the Captive Nations March has been solidarity withOleg Sentsov and other Ukrainians held captive byRussia at that time.[6]
In 2019 Marion Smith, Executive Director of theVictims of Communism Memorial Foundation, has called for a resurrection of the Captive Nations Week because of a number of countries likeChina,Vietnam,North Korea orLaos still living under what the group deems 'authoritarian and totalitarian' Communist regimes along withUkraine being the target ofRussian military aggression.[1]
In his 2022 proclamation, President Biden named several officially communist countries (Cuba,North Korea andChina) and a number of non-communist countries (Russia,Iran,Belarus,Syria,Venezuela andNicaragua) as captive nations but did not mention two officially communist countries,Laos andVietnam, Vietnam notably having trade ties and strategic partnerships with the US.[7]
The American foreign policy expertGeorge Kennan, serving at the time as ambassador toYugoslavia, sought unsuccessfully to dissuade PresidentJohn F. Kennedy from proclaiming the week on the grounds that the United States had no reason to make the resolution, which in effect called for the overthrow of all Communist governments inEastern Europe, whether it was the will of the people or not, a part of public policy.
Russian emigres to the United States (specifically representatives of theCongress of Russian Americans) argued that the Captive Nations Week wasanti-Russian rather than anti-Communist since the list of "captive nations" did not include Russians, thus implying that the blame for the oppression of nations lies on the Russian nation rather than on the Soviet government (Dobriansky's allegedlyUkrainian nationalist views were named as the reason for this).[8] Members of the Congress have campaigned for nullification of the Captive Nations law.[9]
The Soviet government reacted harshly to the establishment of Captive Nations Week withNikita Khrushchev referring to it as a "direct interference in the Soviet Union's internal affairs" and "the most unceremonious treatment of sovereign and independent countries which are members of theUnited Nations just as the United States".[10]
Nevertheless, in his official address on the Captive Nations Week in 1983, President Ronald Reagan quoted Russian dissident writersAlexander Solzhenitsyn andAlexander Herzen.[2]
A group of prominent American historians[who?] issued a statement claiming that PL 86-90 and the Captive Nations Week was largely based on misinformation and committed the United States to aiding ephemeral "nations" such asCossackia andIdel-Ural.[11]