Ukrainians topple statue of Lenin -- you know, the Bolshevik leader

A few years ago I had some fun with a younger colleague who had written a story about then-Sen. Rick Santorum drawing parallels between the “hubris” of Senate Democrats and that of “German dictator Adolf Hitler.”

“Oh, that Hitler?” I asked.

Surely, I thought, the qualification wasn’t necessary. I initially felt the same way the other day when I read in the Los Angeles Times about how protesters in Ukraine had toppled a monument to “Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin.”

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What’s next? “Jesus, a 1st century Jewish religious leader” or “George Washington, a general in the Continental Army who later served as president”?”

On reflection, however, I’m not sure I should fault reporters who add these seemingly unnecessary details.

In the version of “The Elements of Style” we studied in my high school English class, E.B. White instructed writers to spell out the names even of well-known organizations such as the NAACP — because every minute a baby is born who doesn’t know that it stands for the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People.

Likewise, a baby is born every minute who doesn’t know that Hitler was a German dictator or that Lenin was a Bolshevik leader — or that Lenin’s heirs erected the Berlin Wall. One of those babies grew up to be a writer for the Huffington Post, which recently ran this correction: “An earlier version of this story indicated that the Berlin Wall was built by Nazi Germany. In fact, it was built by the Communists during the Cold War.”

But wait (I hear someone saying): Shouldn’t those babies learn basic facts of history when they attend school, so that they don’t need newspaper reporters to fill in the blanks?

Of course they should, but apparently that isn’t happening. A couple of years ago the eminent historian David McCullough lamented: “We’re raising young people who are, by and large, historically illiterate.”

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, McCullough recalled his encounter with a sophomore at “a very good university in the Midwest.” She told him: “Until I heard your talk this morning, I never realized the original 13 Colonies were all on the East Coast.”

So the next time a newspaper article mentions the War of Independence, don’t be surprised to see a reference to “the 13 Colonies, established on what is now the East Coast.” But not by the Nazis or the Communists.

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