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

After Stalin’s death, most of the deported were allowed to return
and were officially rehabilitated. Stalin’s crimes were partly acknowledged,
but not entirely. Rehabilitation was more of an
amnesty, implying at least some wrongdoing on the part of the innocent
victims. Whilst some of Stalin’s crimes were acknowledged
in the East, many representatives of the 1968 generation in the
West failed to recognise that the twentieth century had seen not
one but two inhuman tyrants divide what is now the European Union
– a division that is felt to this day.
It should not be forgotten that the Stalinist atrocities carried out in
the countries that now constitute the European Union’s new member
states were the extension of purges conducted in Russia and
Ukraine, where around twenty million people are estimated to have
been killed or starved. It should not be forgotten that Stalin was the
initiator of the Cold War which tore Europe apart for over sixty years.
The significance of the secret protocols of the Hitler-Stalin Pact is
practically unrecognised. Yet August 23, 1939 was the moment
when the crimes of these two dictators converged. The Nazi invasion
of Poland and the first Stalinist mass deportations in the
occupied territories followed closely on the heels of this pact.
In the protocols, Stalin and Hitler divided Europe into zones of influence.
Stalin gave Hitler free reign over Western Europe and most
of Poland. In return, he got the Baltic States. Europe was divided
for sixty-five years. Only the European Union accessions of 2004
and 2007 really created the conditions necessary for the healing
process to begin.
The Cold War was preceded by World War II and that in turn was
preceded by Stalin’s purges in Russia and his pact with Hitler. It is
for us to shape what is to follow the Cold War. Cold peace between
the European Union and Russia is what most people predict
yet it is not in Russia’s real interests to be on unfriendly terms
with its biggest customer and potentially greatest friend.
It is up to us not to give those who want to split the continent again
the chance to do so. We can only really unite East and West when
we understand them and their histories. This means that we must
face and deal with this unexplored part of our common history.
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