Eastern Europe's communist past
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History lessons, passed and failed
Aug 25th 2005
From The Economist print edition
Source
Remembering, and rewriting, the past
AUGUST, in eastern Europe, means anniversaries: the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939 that divided the region into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence; the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961; the Soviet-led invasion of 1968 that crushed Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring; the birth in 1980 of Solidarity, the Polish trade union which dealt a death-blow to communism; and the Soviet coup of 1991, where hardliners locked up Mikhail Gorbachev to preserve the Soviet Union, but ended up giving Boris Yeltsin the power to destroy it.
Anniversaries matter in this part of the world, partly because the events they commemorate shaped so dramatically the way countries are today, partly because for so many years discussing those events honestly was illegal and dangerous. In today's post-communist era, myth and truth are tussling as history is again being shaped by politics. Some anniversaries are being recast to multiply the heroes and reduce the villains; others, because of disappointment or embarrassment, are being downplayed or whitewashed. The history of eastern Europe is messy, and even seemingly joyous events leave a bitter aftertaste.
That is particularly true in Russia, where nostalgia is growing not just for the Soviet Union but for some of its least attractive defenders. A new opinion poll shows for the first time that significantly more Russians sympathise with the hardliners who plotted the August coup than with the self-professed democrats who foiled it. That might seem surprising, given that the coup leaders were a dreary lot, visibly drunk on their only public appearance, and with only the haziest idea of how to keep the Soviet Union together. But the lead from the top makes it more understandable: Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, described the Soviet Union's demise as the “geopolitical catastrophe of the century”. The collapse of the coup is still a public holiday—the anodyne-sounding “Flag Day”—but it is marked in only the most low-key way.
In Poland too, polls show public disillusion with the champions of the struggle for democracy, in this case Solidarity. That reflects a general national pessimism (see article). But among politicians, the union enjoys a remarkable, almost universal popularity. That is in sharp contrast to its heyday, when it was bitterly resisted by Poland's then communist leaders, and finally suppressed by the imposition of martial law. At celebrations to mark the movement's 25th anniversary in Naklo, an unremarkable but typical small town in northern Poland, the day kicked off with a mass, featuring a rousing anti-communist sermon on the theme of trust, followed by a parade to lay wreaths at the war memorial. Among the wreathlayers were representatives of the former communist party, the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD).
This marks a striking shift. In past years the ex-communists have reviled politicians associated with Solidarity, such as Lech Walesa, Poland's president from 1990-95. With some justice, the ex-communists portrayed them as incompetent and squabbling, and attacked their record, particularly on social policy. Now the SLD has made a clever switch, claiming that it is the real heir to Solidarity, on the grounds that the movement's still unfulfilled social demands, on pensions, housing and workers' rights, are best pursued by leftists.
That leaves Solidarity activists spluttering at the ex-communists' cheek. Didn't the communist party once endorse the foulest means to smother Solidarity at birth? The SLD's smooth young leader, Wojciech Olejniczak, brushes that aside. He was only six years old then, he says.
In the Czech Republic, the standard version of the 1968 events is under increasing scrutiny. Although the idea of a wonderful political experiment—“socialism with a human face”—being crushed by tanks was glorified by writers such as Milan Kundera, other Czechs, including the former president, Vaclav Havel, are more sceptical. One newspaper this week said 1968 had not been a “star moment” but a “blind alley”. It is not just that it failed. Some of the leading reform-communist figures in the Prague Spring had a most unsavoury history as enthusiastic Stalinists. And it was hardly a triumph of bravery. After some brief heroics during the invasion, Czechs showed little appetite for Polish-style resistance in the years that followed.
Some Czechs now want attention turned to the even more divisive question of the communist seizure of power in 1948. The “normalisation” after 1968, says Jiri Hanak, who writes for the (former communist) daily, Pravo, resulted in the “breaking of people's character, intimidation, humiliation and spiritual disgrace”. But the events of 1948 were far worse: “hundreds of political executions, the extermination of private farmers and of entrepreneurial spirit, an attack against culture and Czechoslovakia's complete transformation into a satellite of the Soviet Union.” Although the communist putsch of 1948 was illegal, the party enjoyed widespread support, and there was no shortage of collaborators in the subsequent decades.
Tweaking myths to make them more appealing creates results that do not fit together. Inside the European Union, such differences can be finessed. Germany still regards the expulsion of 10m people from the former Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, East Prussia and Silesia in the years following the second world war as an unjust and brutal act. The central European countries mostly see it differently. The argument fizzles, and occasionally flares, but does not spoil relations. As Germany has long since stopped expecting compensation or apology, it doesn't matter that only a handful of east European politicians think the matter worth discussing.
Outside the EU, particularly with Russia, the rows are worse—and set to get bigger. A foretaste came during the recent celebrations in Moscow to mark the defeat of the Nazis. Many east Europeans felt these were hijacked by a triumphalist Soviet version of history that airbrushed Stalin's crimes from the picture. Russians saw that as quibbling. The coming years will provide many opportunities for more such exchanges (see table above), but over events where Russia's position will be harder to justify. The Kremlin line is that there have already been quite enough apologies for the misdeeds of the Soviet Union. The rest of the former empire thinks they have hardly started.
Copyright © 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.
Aug 25th 2005
From The Economist print edition
Source
Remembering, and rewriting, the past
AUGUST, in eastern Europe, means anniversaries: the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939 that divided the region into Nazi and Soviet spheres of influence; the building of the Berlin Wall in 1961; the Soviet-led invasion of 1968 that crushed Czechoslovakia's Prague Spring; the birth in 1980 of Solidarity, the Polish trade union which dealt a death-blow to communism; and the Soviet coup of 1991, where hardliners locked up Mikhail Gorbachev to preserve the Soviet Union, but ended up giving Boris Yeltsin the power to destroy it.
Anniversaries matter in this part of the world, partly because the events they commemorate shaped so dramatically the way countries are today, partly because for so many years discussing those events honestly was illegal and dangerous. In today's post-communist era, myth and truth are tussling as history is again being shaped by politics. Some anniversaries are being recast to multiply the heroes and reduce the villains; others, because of disappointment or embarrassment, are being downplayed or whitewashed. The history of eastern Europe is messy, and even seemingly joyous events leave a bitter aftertaste.
That is particularly true in Russia, where nostalgia is growing not just for the Soviet Union but for some of its least attractive defenders. A new opinion poll shows for the first time that significantly more Russians sympathise with the hardliners who plotted the August coup than with the self-professed democrats who foiled it. That might seem surprising, given that the coup leaders were a dreary lot, visibly drunk on their only public appearance, and with only the haziest idea of how to keep the Soviet Union together. But the lead from the top makes it more understandable: Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, described the Soviet Union's demise as the “geopolitical catastrophe of the century”. The collapse of the coup is still a public holiday—the anodyne-sounding “Flag Day”—but it is marked in only the most low-key way.
In Poland too, polls show public disillusion with the champions of the struggle for democracy, in this case Solidarity. That reflects a general national pessimism (see article). But among politicians, the union enjoys a remarkable, almost universal popularity. That is in sharp contrast to its heyday, when it was bitterly resisted by Poland's then communist leaders, and finally suppressed by the imposition of martial law. At celebrations to mark the movement's 25th anniversary in Naklo, an unremarkable but typical small town in northern Poland, the day kicked off with a mass, featuring a rousing anti-communist sermon on the theme of trust, followed by a parade to lay wreaths at the war memorial. Among the wreathlayers were representatives of the former communist party, the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD).
This marks a striking shift. In past years the ex-communists have reviled politicians associated with Solidarity, such as Lech Walesa, Poland's president from 1990-95. With some justice, the ex-communists portrayed them as incompetent and squabbling, and attacked their record, particularly on social policy. Now the SLD has made a clever switch, claiming that it is the real heir to Solidarity, on the grounds that the movement's still unfulfilled social demands, on pensions, housing and workers' rights, are best pursued by leftists.
That leaves Solidarity activists spluttering at the ex-communists' cheek. Didn't the communist party once endorse the foulest means to smother Solidarity at birth? The SLD's smooth young leader, Wojciech Olejniczak, brushes that aside. He was only six years old then, he says.
In the Czech Republic, the standard version of the 1968 events is under increasing scrutiny. Although the idea of a wonderful political experiment—“socialism with a human face”—being crushed by tanks was glorified by writers such as Milan Kundera, other Czechs, including the former president, Vaclav Havel, are more sceptical. One newspaper this week said 1968 had not been a “star moment” but a “blind alley”. It is not just that it failed. Some of the leading reform-communist figures in the Prague Spring had a most unsavoury history as enthusiastic Stalinists. And it was hardly a triumph of bravery. After some brief heroics during the invasion, Czechs showed little appetite for Polish-style resistance in the years that followed.
Some Czechs now want attention turned to the even more divisive question of the communist seizure of power in 1948. The “normalisation” after 1968, says Jiri Hanak, who writes for the (former communist) daily, Pravo, resulted in the “breaking of people's character, intimidation, humiliation and spiritual disgrace”. But the events of 1948 were far worse: “hundreds of political executions, the extermination of private farmers and of entrepreneurial spirit, an attack against culture and Czechoslovakia's complete transformation into a satellite of the Soviet Union.” Although the communist putsch of 1948 was illegal, the party enjoyed widespread support, and there was no shortage of collaborators in the subsequent decades.
Tweaking myths to make them more appealing creates results that do not fit together. Inside the European Union, such differences can be finessed. Germany still regards the expulsion of 10m people from the former Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia, East Prussia and Silesia in the years following the second world war as an unjust and brutal act. The central European countries mostly see it differently. The argument fizzles, and occasionally flares, but does not spoil relations. As Germany has long since stopped expecting compensation or apology, it doesn't matter that only a handful of east European politicians think the matter worth discussing.
Outside the EU, particularly with Russia, the rows are worse—and set to get bigger. A foretaste came during the recent celebrations in Moscow to mark the defeat of the Nazis. Many east Europeans felt these were hijacked by a triumphalist Soviet version of history that airbrushed Stalin's crimes from the picture. Russians saw that as quibbling. The coming years will provide many opportunities for more such exchanges (see table above), but over events where Russia's position will be harder to justify. The Kremlin line is that there have already been quite enough apologies for the misdeeds of the Soviet Union. The rest of the former empire thinks they have hardly started.
Copyright © 2005 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.