From Japan's pro-North Korea organizations to a face-to-face meeting with Gorbachev in the Kremlin, a religious leader spent three decades going directly to the places where communism was spreading and fighting it in person.
A World Turning Red
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, communism spread across the globe at a stunning speed. Eastern Europe, China, Cuba, and then Southeast Asia. Two nuclear superpowers split the world in half, and Asia was caught in the middle.
In that era, one man chose to fight communism not from conference rooms or podiums at the United Nations, but on the ground, in the very places where communism had taken hold.
His name was Rev. Moon Sun-myung, founder of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (Unification Church).
In 1968, he and his wife, Dr. Hak-ja Han, established the International Federation for Victory over Communism (IFVOC).
The word he chose, "Victory over Communism," was deliberately different from the slogans of the time.
According to IFVOC's official website, Rev. Moon's idea of "Victory over Communism" meant "not simply opposing communism, but defeating it through ideas and action, offering an alternative, and even saving the communists themselves."
Not destroying the enemy, but overcoming them through a better idea. This philosophy drove everything he did for the next 30 years.
Japan: Taking On a 200,000-Strong Organization
His first stop was Japan. The General Association of Korean Residents in Japan, known as Chongryon, was a powerful pro-North Korea organization. According to testimony in a documentary about Rev. Moon's life, the group had up to 290,000 members at its peak. They treated North Korea as their homeland and held deep hostility toward South Korea.
One witness described the group: "They followed the radical model of communist revolutionaries. They were extremely ideological. That made them dangerous."
Rev. Moon traveled across Japan alone. A witness recalled: "He went everywhere, east to west, north to south, giving 129 lectures by himself, pouring out sweat and blood."
The content was direct: "Why is democracy better? Who are the Korean people? Why is communism wrong?"
The result: not one or two, but over a thousand people were moved to visit South Korea. In June 1974, the first-ever homeland visit by Chongryon-affiliated Koreans since the peninsula's division took place.
This was not just a trip. For nearly 30 years after Korea's liberation in 1945, these people had been considered enemies. Their crossing of the 38th parallel was a deeply symbolic moment. Rev. Moon called it "small unification leading to big unification."
South Korea: When Communism Was at the Doorstep
In 1975, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fell to communism one after another. For South Korea, with a communist state already sitting across the 38th parallel, the fear of being next was no longer abstract. It was real.
Rev. Moon held a national rally at Yeouido in Seoul and declared: "The fight to defeat communism is God's fight."
According to church records, representatives from 60 countries attended, and approximately 1.2 million people gathered from across the country.
The United States: A Superpower Losing Its Way
America in the 1970s was deeply shaken. The defeat in Vietnam had wounded the nation's spirit. Traditional values centered on God, country, and family were weakening.
The leader of the free world was losing confidence in its own mission.
The documentary's narrator described the mood: "The American spirit, which had always put God, nation, and family first, was growing weaker."
A witness put it more bluntly: "Almost nobody believed America could be saved. America's despair was becoming the world's despair. Who could set Washington's direction right and lead the world?"
Rev. Moon toured the entire country.
In September 1976, he gathered 300,000 people in front of the Washington Monument.
He told the crowd:
"The threat of communism, rooted in atheism, is the most serious danger of our time. It is eating away at every corner of the world. This is not just America's problem."
In 1982, he and Dr. Hak-ja Han founded The Washington Times, a conservative daily newspaper. It grew into one of the most influential conservative media outlets in the country and played a significant role in shaping public opinion during the final years of the Cold War. Rev. Moon was acting not only as a religious leader, but was working to strengthen the free world's line of defense through both ideas and media.
The Soviet Union: Sensing the Collapse and Going In
In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. The communist bloc was cracking from within, but nobody knew what would come next. The Soviet Union, where Gorbachev was pushing reform, was unstable. Hardliners were pushing back. South Korea did not even have diplomatic relations with the country.
In April 1990, Rev. Moon and Dr. Han traveled to Moscow and met President Gorbachev directly at the Kremlin.
During the meeting, he made a bold proposal: bring 3,000 Soviet university students to the United States and support their education. The proposal was accepted.
Why did he make this offer?
He wanted to support Gorbachev's reforms and give the next generation of Soviet citizens a direct experience of democracy and values centered on God. Rather than just opposing communism, he aimed to help people inside the communist system find their way out peacefully.
This was "Victory over Communism" in action.
The documentary claims that when a coup against Gorbachev took place in August 1991, these same students were at the forefront of the resistance that defeated the coup within three days.
Then Rev. Moon's focus shifted to the next crisis.
He explained his reasoning in his own words: "If the Soviet Union, the headquarters of communism, collapses, there is a real chance that war could suddenly break out on the Korean Peninsula. To prevent that, I need to meet Kim Il-sung and build a personal relationship with him."
In December 1991, he traveled to Pyongyang and did exactly that. The Victory over Communism movement had evolved from fighting communism to preventing the chaos that comes after communism falls.
One Method, Never Changed
Japan, South Korea, the United States, the Soviet Union.
Throughout 30 years of the Victory over Communism movement, Rev. Moon followed one consistent method. Together with Dr. Hak-ja Han, he went personally to the places where the communist threat was most serious, where the free world was most vulnerable, and where the danger of collapse was most acute.
Not "anti-communism." Not "destroying communism." Victory over communism. Not crushing the enemy, but overcoming them with a better idea and offering a way out.
The Cold War is over. But the question Moon spent his life asking, "How does the free world protect and spread its own values?", remains in front of us today, in new and different forms.
Sources
IFVOC Founding and Philosophy (1968)
Activities in Japan (Chongryon, Lecture Tours)
South Korea: Yeouido Rally (1975)
United States (Washington Monument Rally, The Washington Times)
Soviet Union: Meeting with Gorbachev (1990)
UPF and Overview
Source Documentary