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

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parts;” the result was “an encyclopaedia of totalitarian politics” rather than a theory of totalitarianism. 16 Other scholars doubted that politics can be visualized in terms of a static “model,” arguing that such an analytical construct fails to capture the dynamic nature and evolution of totalitarian regimes. Finally, others argued that this political science model of totalitarian regimes placed too much stress on the nature of the political regime, its official ideology and leader, at the expense of deeper economic and social structures in fascist and communist societies. 17 In more recent decades, there have been efforts to overcome Friedrich and Brzezinski’s “classical” theory of totalitarianism. To this end, political scientists made concerted efforts to put forward a more comprehensive definition of totalitarian regimes; to account not only for the similarities but also for the marked differences between the outlook and main features of fascist and communist regimes; and to insert them into a more sophisticated taxonomy of political regimes. The transition from the unitotalitarian model of fascism to the more elaborated field of comparative politics is best exemplified by the work of the leading political scientists Juan J. Linz, spanning several decades. 18 In his most recent work on the topic, suggestively titled Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, Linz departed from the simplistic dichotomy between democratic versus totalitarian regimes to also include various forms of authoritarian and dictatorial regimes and thus arrive at a complex taxonomy of political regimes. Comparing Historical Case Studies: Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia The totalitarian approach has stimulated comparative historical analyses of dictatorial regimes of the twentieth century, in an effort to identify in concrete details their common characteristics but also 17 Groth, “The ‘isms’ in Totalitarianism,” 888-901. 18 See Juan J. Linz: “Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes,” in F.I. Greenstein and N.W. Polsby, (eds.), Handbook of Political Science. Macropolitical Theory, Vol. 3 (Reading, Mass., 1975), 175-411; “Totalitarianism and Authoritarianism: My recollections on the Development of comparative politics,” in Alfons Söllner, Ralf Walkenhaus, Karin Wieland, (eds.), Totalitarismus, eine Ideengeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts: Eine Ideengeschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Academie Verlag, 1997), 141-157; and Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes (Boulder, CO: L. Rienner, 2000). 135 Constantin Iordachi
their differences. Most comparative works on the history of totalitarian regimes have routinely focused on the case studies of Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, the two regimes considered the closed historical incarnations of an ideal-typical totalitarian regime. The main aspects under scrutiny have been the biographies and leader cult of Adolf Hitler and Joseph V. Stalin, the history of the official ruling parties in the two countries, the main features of their “party-state” systems, methods of economic control, the building of military-industrial complexes and their relation to the political decision-making process, political propaganda, rites and rituals associated with the official doctrines of the two systems, political repression, the organization of terror and the history of labour and concentration camps. 19 How useful is the concept of totalitarianism for the comparative historical study of fascist and communist regimes? Some comparativists fully insert their historical analysis into the conceptual framework of the totalitarian paradigm. As Viktor Zaslavsky argued: “It is undoubtedly possible to compare Nazism and Stalinism while completely rejecting the category of ‘totalitarianism’ but … the results of such research are too often shallow and banal.” 20 Other comparative historians reject the totalitarian approach as ideologically-charged, searching instead for more politically-neutral and methodologically-viable alternatives. In their introduction to a comparative volume on Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, Ian Kershaw and Moshe Lewin, two prominent students of Nazism and Stalinism, 19 For the lives of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin in comparison, see Alan Bullock, Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (London, 1991); Richard Overy, The Dictators: Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia (London, 2004). For wider comparisons, including Mussolini, see Frank Owen, The three dictators: Mussolini, Stalin, Hitler (London, G. Allen & Unwin, 1940); Bruce F. Pauley, Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the twentieth century (Wheeling, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1997). For comparisons between Stalinism and Nazism, see Henry Rousso (ed.), Stalinisme et nazisme: Histoire et mémoire comparées (Brussels, 1999); Jean Hurtin, “Retour sur le totalitarisme: Le Nazisme et stalinisme dans une perspective comparative,” Esprit, (1996), 101–121. For a larger comparison, including Italian Fascism, see M. Flores, Nazismo, fascismo, communismo. Totalitarismi a confronto (Milano: Bruno Mandadori, 1998). Andreas Wirsching, Vom Weltkrieg zum Bürgerkrieg? Politischer Extremismus in Deutschland und Frankreich 1918–1933/39. Berlin und Paris im Vergleich (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1999). 20 Zaslavsky, “The Post-Soviet Stage in the Study of Totalitarianism,” 11. 136
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Twenty years after the end of the C
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Dedicated to Bronisław Geremek Bro
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Table of contents Preface: Never Ag
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Preface Never again 7 Martin Schulz
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Preface The Past Does Not Go Away A
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Introduction by the Editors In 2008
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about the tense and ambivalent rela
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another debate formulated by Richar
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theoretical and practical impossibi
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History and national identity Histo
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the subject of much controversy, th
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everything on Stalin and communism:
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Prague Spring: “In the mid-1950s,
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Literature Arendt, Hannah (1951) Th
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Common Memory and European Identity
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cried the Ossies as the Berlin Wall
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the first phase of negotiations aft
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eference to a common destiny, and t
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The ‘enlargement fatigue’ obser
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on each other. The only way of chan
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“The Word Concentration Camp mean
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I think history is essential to thi
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denying it is like saying evil does
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Soviet camp, not because he had don
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Q: In Germany there is a strong fee
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the 17 th century so that the South
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forests near Minsk. I was taken the
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harmonious and prosperous, with the
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were doing and why they were doing
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an explanation. I told him that I e
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This movement once had a big meetin
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guests of Imre Pozsgay, minister of
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HISTORICAL DILEMMAS
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National myths Every society has a
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confessions. The culmination of thi
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First, few countries undertake a th
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Finally, confronted with the experi
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no better placed than governments t
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compartments, and that one must som
Page 85 and 86: Such an approach certainly has its
Page 88 and 89: History and Politics: Recommendatio
Page 90 and 91: The tension between academic histor
Page 92 and 93: oth a collective and individual exo
Page 94 and 95: Europe’s responsibilities It is c
Page 96: egimes provides a deeper understand
Page 99 and 100: and accounts for professionals deal
Page 101 and 102: This shift later inspired the devel
Page 103 and 104: In Germany, public historical cultu
Page 106 and 107: Historical Bias in Poland: Lustrati
Page 108 and 109: The Polish United Workers’ Party
Page 110 and 111: The right’s criticism of the meth
Page 112 and 113: epresents one more step in the broa
Page 114 and 115: European Social Democracy and 20 th
Page 116 and 117: the KPD - even now - is not about p
Page 118 and 119: esisted them in many cases. The ove
Page 120 and 121: turned some of them against the SPD
Page 122 and 123: The Interpretation of the Soviet Un
Page 124 and 125: the result of a war of liberation a
Page 126 and 127: Molotov-Ribbentrop protocol? How di
Page 128: pen in Lithuania. The idea was adva
Page 131 and 132: and politician Giovanni Amendola to
Page 133 and 134: The most influential analytical mod
Page 135: 2. A single mass party consisting o
Page 139 and 140: communism are legal heirs of the En
Page 141 and 142: the world war and to exculpate the
Page 143 and 144: They also criticized “revisionist
Page 145 and 146: seen above, after careful scrutiny
Page 148 and 149: The Real Problem Latvians Have with
Page 150 and 151: not see it as something important e
Page 152 and 153: structures Latvian domestic politic
Page 154 and 155: the language of instruction in scho
Page 156 and 157: Diversity in Historical Education:
Page 158 and 159: and sometimes in adjustment and ada
Page 160 and 161: For the Record: PSE MEPs react 159
Page 162 and 163: F. especially the Nazi- and the Sta
Page 164 and 165: having always been victims, trying
Page 166: SPECIAL REPORT: SLOVAKS AND HUNGARI
Page 169 and 170: Much has happened in the last two y
Page 171 and 172: The conference concentrated, as the
Page 173 and 174: aristocratic, Estates-based ‘nati
Page 175 and 176: A person’s identification with a
Page 177 and 178: ians to evaluate the extent to whic
Page 179 and 180: more intensive part in forming the
Page 182 and 183: A Common Past, a Divided History 18
Page 184 and 185: nearly seven hundred kilometres of
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It is extremely important to note,
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historical public opinion and self-
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thousands of Hungarian and Slovak c
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enewed historiography will also be
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we shall turn our attention to two
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In response to these questions, two
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While more than 80% of the oldest a
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Table 2 Opinions of respondents of
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6,0 5,5 5,0 4,5 4,0 3,5 3,0 2,5 ▼
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we consider the trends suggested be
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Resistance and Exile Miguel Angel M
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it was necessary to formulate socia
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degree of generosity, activism and
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the ICFTU. There my work focused on
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After Stalin’s death, most of the
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Moscow versus Prague 219 Boris Orlo
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Of all the problems that my country
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Social Democracy and the Prague Spr
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comprehend the overwhelming contrad
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Renaissance of Socialism Observatio
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My Personal Encounters with History
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Over a decade later, political chan
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monument, its location and particul
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Minister, Dimitri Rupel, I founded
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people exactly know what actually w
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tablished democracies. What was the
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Memory is a Loaded Gun An Epilogue
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Post office, Gdansk
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Solidarność Memorial
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Krzysztof Pomian, a well known Poli
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effective and positive factor in gi
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Martin Schulz, leader of the PSE Gr
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