Final Report of the International Commission on the - Minority Rights ...

After deploring <strong>the</strong> sentence passed on Garaudy in France, Manolescu writes: “Is anyone afraid <strong>of</strong> losing
<strong>the</strong> monopoly over unveiling crimes against humanity? Well, it seems that <strong>the</strong> loss <strong>of</strong> such a monopoly is
<strong>of</strong> concern to some people. Yet it is unfair and immoral to gag those who deplore <strong>the</strong> millions <strong>of</strong> victims
<strong>of</strong> communism just out <strong>of</strong> fear that not enough people would be left to deplore <strong>the</strong> millions <strong>of</strong> victims <strong>of</strong>
Nazism.”
While Manolescu’s formulations are closer to those <strong>of</strong> Tudoran, Liiceanu’s are nearer to Courtois’s,
<strong>the</strong> Romanian philosopher is more explicit than <strong>the</strong> French historian is. In a 1997 speech delivered on
<strong>International</strong> Holocaust Remembrance Day at <strong>the</strong> Federation <strong>of</strong> Jewish Communities in Romania,
Liiceanu wondered: “How was it possible for one who, at a certain moment in history had to wear <strong>the</strong>
victim’s uniform, to later don <strong>the</strong> garment <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> executioner?” The concern was not novel with Liiceanu.
Back in 1995, in an editor’s note to <strong>the</strong> translation <strong>of</strong> a book on Romanian antisemitism published by
Humanitas, he had distanced himself from “those who are ever-ready to speak up as victims, but forget to
testify as executioners.” Later in his diary, published in 2002, Liiceanu elaborated: “Is it that difficult to
understand that one first settles accounts with <strong>the</strong> evil one has encountered, that uprooted one’s own life,
that highjacked one’s own history and whose effects one cannot rid oneself <strong>of</strong> even ten years after its
departure from <strong>the</strong> scene?…Whence <strong>the</strong> vain refusal <strong>of</strong> co-habitation in sufferance? Whence this claim,
admitting no counterclaim, to being a unique victim?”
Monica Lovinescu has, in turn, posed questions; yet she also has several firm answers. In <strong>the</strong>
foreword to Diagonale, a volume comprising articles she had published over <strong>the</strong> years in Romania
literara, she wrote <strong>the</strong> following: “Is it really necessary to wonder if <strong>the</strong> resurgence <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> antifascist
obsession is not in fact aimed at hiding <strong>the</strong> real murders <strong>of</strong> communism and <strong>the</strong>ir perpetrators? The
question is, <strong>of</strong> course, rhetorical, and <strong>the</strong> answer is yes. Right-wing negationism is now followed by, <strong>the</strong>
even more widely spread than, left-wing negationism.” The concept <strong>of</strong> “left-wing negationism” is
borrowed from J.F. Revel. In a laudatory review <strong>of</strong> Revel’s The Grand Parade, Lovinescu wrote that he
has managed to unmask <strong>the</strong> mechanism employed for transforming “<strong>the</strong> duty to commemorate <strong>the</strong> victims
<strong>of</strong> Nazism into an excuse to impose on us <strong>the</strong> obligation to forget <strong>the</strong> Gulag.” But Revel, in turn, relies on
several academic sources, including Ernst Nolte. If Nolte’s brand <strong>of</strong> “revisionism” has been discussed in
<strong>the</strong> first section <strong>of</strong> this study, it must be pointed out that Revel misquotes Besançon when he writes,
“according to <strong>the</strong> formula suggested by Besançon, <strong>the</strong> ‘hypermnesia <strong>of</strong> Nazism’ diverts attention from <strong>the</strong>
‘amnesia <strong>of</strong> communism.’” Indeed, Besançon authored <strong>the</strong> two phrases, yet he never argued in his Le
malheur du siècle that <strong>the</strong> “hypermnesia <strong>of</strong> Nazism” diverts attention from <strong>the</strong> “amnesia <strong>of</strong> communism.”
He just noted with regret that Nazism and Communism are being memorialized differently and provided
several reasons for <strong>the</strong> discrepancy, yet none <strong>of</strong> those reasons may legitimately constitute a basis for
Revel’s interpretation. Revel’s book ensured that Besançon’s opus was popularized with Revel’s
distortion in right-wing intellectual milieux in France (including those <strong>of</strong> <strong>the</strong> Romanian diaspora <strong>the</strong>re ).
It is worth noting that Revel’s reading <strong>of</strong> Besançon is quoted on <strong>the</strong> Internet sites <strong>of</strong> extreme-right groups
and publications.
It is important to point out at this stage that Besançon, Revel, and Courtois do not share <strong>the</strong> same
opinions. Thus, Besançon correctly pleads for comparing and commemorating Nazism and communism
with <strong>the</strong> same care, whereas Revel and Courtois blame <strong>the</strong> problems with <strong>the</strong> commemoration <strong>of</strong>
communism on <strong>the</strong> commemoration <strong>of</strong> Holocaust. This is <strong>the</strong> key difference between benign comparison
and comparative trivialization. Revel forces <strong>the</strong> comparison into an over-interpretation serving his
anticommunist discourse, while Courtois does <strong>the</strong> same by inserting an incriminating insinuation directed
at <strong>the</strong> Jews. In Romania, prestigious intellectuals such as Tudoran, Manolescu and Liiceanu preferred to
popularize <strong>the</strong> opinions <strong>of</strong> Revel and Courtois ra<strong>the</strong>r than that <strong>of</strong> Besançon, and <strong>the</strong>y did so by using
provocative concepts (Red Holocaust, monopoly on suffering, Judeocentrism) that are widely popular in