Politics of the past: the use and abuse of history - Socialists ...

a threat to freedom and democracy, whereas in the revisionist interpretation
that same Soviet Union is presented as a country desperately
defending itself from the aggressive imperialism of the
United States. The post-revisionist paradigm is more balanced. It is
no longer trying to categorically label players in the Cold War as heroes
or villains and is more interested in delving into the concrete
circumstances.
Of course this variety of interpretations does not mean that unrestricted
relativism is acceptable when judging the USSR. That the
Soviet Union was a closed, economically ineffective, undemocratic
state, which produced much corruption and violence, is indisputable.
We should, nevertheless, use research undertaken
throughout the lifetime of the Soviet system and all the information
gathered afterwards to consider the Soviet Union carefully, not onesidedly,
but like a rather complicated phenomenon conditioned not
just by very brutal social, political and geopolitical circumstances,
but also by very individual psychological and moral motives. The
Soviet epoch leaves us with many enigmas and sufficient room for
new research and interpretation.
Some time after the collapse of the Soviet Union, public references
to the past began to change noticeably. The academic reflex was
gradually supplanted by contrasting one-sided a priori standpoints
that the Soviet Union was either an evil empire or that its demise
was the greatest tragedy of the 20 th century. This arouses the suspicion
that interpretations of the Soviet Union‘s history are connected
less with academic research and more with colliding
political interests.
Rather than trying to comprehend all the problems associated with
that political collision, I will concentrate more on those aspects affecting
relations between the Baltic States and the Soviet Union.
This is a sensitive issue that is becoming the subject of most heated
debates.
Confrontation over the Baltic dimension
I will begin with different interpretations of the origins of the Baltic
States between 1918 and 1920. According to the version of events
promulgated by the people of the Baltic region, independence was
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