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

least collaborators. The extreme right in the whole of Europe is
rewriting history, which should clearly be called a modern form of
the colonization of history.
From his own experience, Józef Pinior testified that it was a working
class resistance supported by intellectual forces that decided
about the democratic future of Poland. For that reason he invited the
group of European social democrats, the political family with the
closest ties to the working classes, to come to Gdansk, the home
ground of the organised opposition against communist dictatorship.
This meeting, the first visit of a political group of the European
Parliament to the native soil of Solidarność, should be seen as a
symbol against the manipulation of the public opinion by partisan
history. History should be taken away from politicians and be given
back to the hands of historians and there should come an end to the
degradation of the public debate.
As there are again and again accusations against social democrats
as having been soft on communism and its suppression of
democracy, we should defend ourselves. First by making clear as
Bernd Faulenbach, professor in history at the Ruhr University in
Bochum and chairman of the Historical Committee of the SPD, did
during the debate by showing there is one essential and principal
difference between communism in all forms and social democracy:
the fight for democracy. That is why Hitler sent the German social
democrats to his concentration camps and why from the early
Soviet days on, the Bolshevists persecuted the social democratic
Mensheviks. Communism aims at people’s dictatorship whereas
social democracy’s highest priority is democracy.
Secondly, we should stress the role social democracy had in the
fight against fascism, Nazism and communism. It may be true, as
professor Pomian said, that Western European social democrats
with their Ostpolitik of detente and rapprochement tried to keep
good relations with Moscow where the key for the German question
was to be found. In consequence, one tried to have also reasonable
relations with the ruling communist parties of Eastern
Europe and for this reason they felt at unease in contacts with
dissidents movements. But at the same time their policy, professor
Faulenbach stressed, was really instrumental in weakening the ties
of the oppressive systems and in this way turned out to be a very
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