Overcoming the Totalitarian Past
Sergei Averintsev
"Vergangenheitsbewaeltigung", "overcoming" the
totalitarian past, is the task that all nations that had to go through a totalitarian
experience, theoretically speaking, have to face. But actually not all of them realize the
necessity of this process.
One of the morals that can be drawn from the analysis of totalitarian
madness is that into utter madness does turn any reasoning system that is uncritical of
itself. Cold-eyed self-perception is the most important thing, especially when it comes to
criticism.
1. It should first be noted that the very idea of overcoming the past,
that is, the idea of systematic criticism of a nation as a whole, in contrast to criticism
of nation's high-rankers, is quite new and has had no parallel in the history of
humankind.
Karl
Jaspers in his work Die Shuldfrage (1946) defined the problem that had
never been discussed before - naturally, I don't mean the case of Germany but the problem
of the various grades of collective guilt.
In the previous centuries they didn't accept the idea that one who
executes a command, even if the command does not directly involve killing, is guilty
before the humankind and oneself if world public opinion and one's own conscience do not
consider this war just. The "usurper" Napoleon
could be guilty from the point of view of traditional monarchism, as well as from a more
liberal point of view, as an enslaver. But this blame could not really be laid on the
soldiers of La Grande Armee. And it was not for nothing that the Russian general Bagration
a minute before he was mortally wounded at Borodino shouted "Bravo, bravo!"
to the enemies - the French grenadiers who were fearlessly attacking the Russian army. The
First World War greatly promoted the development of a system that evoked a systematic
assault not only of enemy nation's ruling elite but also of the whole civilization related
to it. Among those who attacked the accused were the great minds of the countries involved
in the war - Thomas
Mann on the German part, Charles
Peguy on the French part. T.Mann and Chesterton,
who were so different in life, resembled each other greatly, proving that it was Germany
(or, just the contrary, England) that was playing in the conflict the honorable part of
keeping the cultural tradition while the opposite party was supporting the dead
technological civilization. Totalitarianism utilized this tendency and encouraged it
extremely. Nazis regarded all their adversaries as Untermenschen; the Soviets
actually considered morally guilty every foreigner who did not try hard to become a
"friend of the Soviet Union" and thus wash his guilt away. As for those who were
around, totalitarianism tried, by right or wrong, to saddle on each of them responsibility
for each of their actions. This was what distinguished it from archaic kinds of despotism,
which satisfied itself with blind obedience and didn't demand participation in faked
elections and demonstrations.
2. We will in no way discredit the moral principle that underlies the
idea of overcoming the past if we forebear mythicizing the circumstances under which this
idea became a political reality for the first time (i.e. the moment the Second World War
ended). That this mythicizing is possible, proves the famous question that some Russian
dissidents were asking in the times of the collapse of the Soviet ideology - why not to
commit those who are guilty of crimes of communist totalitarianism for a Nuremberg
trial? One can put such a question seriously only if one forgets the circumstances
under which the famous trial took place. The ground for the Nuremberg trial was prepared
by worldwide moral reflection, in which "the other Germany" (das andere
Deutschland), the Germany of emigration and resistance, also took part. The process of
reflection was an indispensable precondition. But it couldn't become a reality if it were
not for other factors. It was the victory of the Allied Powers (including the Stalinist
Soviet Union, in which totalitarianism reached its apogee) that made the Nuremberg trial
and the further program of denazification possible.
The case with the Soviet Union was different. The situation that in
German is called die Wende was caused by a complex set of internal reasons. But
anyway, the role of moral protests against totalitarianism can't be denied. The protests
were so strong that they couldn't be ignored without a new wave of rampant terrorism,
which Gorbachev was against. But they also were not strong enough to achieve an absolute
victory. The result was a compromise between the Soviet elite and the oppositional part of
the society, the terms of which were quite close to what Solzhenitsyn suggested in his
"Letter to the Soviet Leaders" - we get rid of totalitarian ideology and leave
the former leaders at their posts, as a pay for this peaceful and bloodless liberation. We
agreed to this compromise, and I still see no alternative to it but a series of bloody
catastrophes. But we have to admit that it was neither an external force nor an uprising
from below that defeated the former system but the party elite itself. An old moral and
juridical axiom says, pacta sunt servanda (treaties must be kept).
It is interesting to note that, while remorse of conscience and world
public opinion are demanding from Germany and Russia a still further discussion of their
own crimes, there are countries from which no one demands anything. Among these numerous
countries is Turkey, which has been persisting in denying the fact of the genocide of
1914-1915 and the next years - the massacre that swept off most part of Armenian
population. The recent recognition of this fact by France triggered a violent reaction on
the part of Ankara. But generally the world remains silent - everyone needs Turkey as an
ally; its admittance to the European Union is being considered. Inside Turkey everyone
remains silent as well...
Apparently, not every cultural tradition accepts the notion that a
nation should speculate on its collective responsibility for sins and crimes of the past
and confess these sins and crimes to the whole world. This idea is either supported by a
nation or not. If it is supported, it can be temporally subdued or suppressed but still it
continues living its secret life. It is evidently closely related to high appreciation of
penitence, which is associated with Christian tradition. In the famous classification that
dates back to Ruth Benedict
all this is called culture of conscience. Eastern civilizations pursue culture
of shame - for one thing, one must not lose one's honor and therefore should keep
unpleasant secrets to oneself. Modern liberalism now and then prefers culture of shame
as protecting against too negative emotions, but evidently enough, the future of Europe's
freedom tradition will be conditioned by culture of conscience.
Naturally, we also often prove ready to forget about conscience and
only care about not losing our honor. But we are not able to act like this bona fide,
as if nothing has happened, and this is what unites us, Russians, with Westerners. I
personally have no doubts that this is a manifestation of our common Christian heritage.
3. The program of Ueberwaeltigung is, inevitably and naturally,
thought of as a program of reeducation of the masses. But this draws it close to the
totalitarianism, which it aims to overcome and which itself presented a project of
out-and-out reeducation. Holding Karl Jaspers in respect, I still must say that I
understand (although do not approve) Ernst Robert Curtius's famous reaction against his
pedagogical claim to act as a "praeceptor Germaniae" (preceptor of
Germany), willing to educate everyone and set everything in their places. Totalitarian
experience is an antidote for any tactics incident to educators of the masses.
The distinguished scientist and thinker Karl Kerenyi once said that the
spirit of abstraction opened doors to national socialism when Jews as personalities were
substituted by the impersonal category of "Jewry" - "to kill Jews"
sounds dreadfully; "to liquidate Jewry" resembles a description of some logical
operation. I am afraid that some of this schematism, which played a fatal role in the past
we are trying to overcome, may penetrate into the practice of political education of new
generations.
I don't want to predict any gloomy prospects but I am sure that (heaven
forbid) if das radikal Boese, the power, shocking to morality, comes again, it
would not be hard for it to find a verbal mask that would formally differ from any kind of
totalitarianism we already know. Our thinking habit prompts us to await something that has
already happened, although it was a long while ago that Heraclitus said, "You cannot
step twice into the same river." (The fear of restoration of Tsarist absolutism once
prevented Russian liberals like Kerensky from seeing the much more fearful autocracy of
Lenin, which was approaching them.) One can hardly build a barrier to possible future
threats out of ready-made phrases repeated in chorus, out of the casuistic political
correctness and the like building material. Today's liberalism is insufficiently liberal;
it is deaf to anything that stays apart from media slogans. But there is only one antidote
for a new totalitarianism, and that is a sense of individual responsibility for every word
and action, and consequently, distrust of inculcation, of mass suggestion, and of the
spirit of abstraction, which Kerenyi spoke of.
4. There are two kinds of dispositions that I consider dangerous for
the cause of overcoming the past, and these are sentimentality and cynicism. The following
example will for a change refer neither to Russia nor to Germany. Consider the debates on
the extermination of
Jews in the Polish town of Jedwabne on July 10 1941. This massacre has been
thought to be the doing of Nazis but Professor Jan Tomasz Gross from New York now says the
Jews were killed by the locals. I am neither a Pole nor a specialist in Polish history,
and I don't have a judgement about Gross's thesis, which does not seem reasoned enough. It
just grieves me that this conclusion is being used as a disproof of the image of Poland as
a martyr country. How can one continue dividing nations into the "good" and the
"bad" and moreover claim that only the former deserve compassion after all the
attempts to overcome Nazism? If this is not racism, what is racism? How can one shift the
blame of those who are to blame to the whole "Polish society"? Were those
not Hitlerites who used to reason in this way?
5. What obstacles are there today to the process of overcoming the
totalitarian past and dissociation of nations? In my opinion, there are two contrary kinds
of them. On the one hand, these are relict but enduring and militant antiliberal
tendencies of nationalist and isolationist kind. On the other hand, this is the
disposition of modern liberalism, which has taken over the task of reeducating nations, to
reduce itself to a slogan, to a primitive gesture, and present these slogans and gestures
as our only chance. Gestures are often not only graceless but also silly, giving a chance
to those who are against any dialogue. In 1996 representatives of Greenpeace came to
Russia to agitate for Russia's nuclear disarmament - a serious problem in every respect.
In order to attract young people, they started some indecent dancing which verged on
pornography. Any Russian neo-Nazi or neo-Communist could say at that moment, "Look
what dirt they are trying to buy our youth for!"
There have been plenty of such occurrences, and not only in Russia.
This has nothing to do with permissiveness or tolerance; this is just intrusion of a
particular way of life upon the whole world. This way of life is presented as a symbol of
the democratic civilization. One cannot approve behavior of the Indian who burned himself
in protest against the beauty contest that somehow had to be organized in India at any
cost. But one can and should understand him. If it were not for these occasions,
neo-Communists, neo-Nazis, Islamic fanatics, and the others would not have any chance. A
democrat can't afford to merely demonstrate his contempt and indignation against a person
from the masses when he or she listens to most odious heralds of antiliberalism, votes for
them, etc. We must each time ask ourselves, "How could we permit the situation in
which they vote for Tom, Dick and Harry only to demonstrate to us the extent of their
dissatisfaction?"
6. It would be useful to keep in mind that each time totalitarianism
came to power it was not just a response to a subconscious wish. Totalitarianism was
possible insofar as it was an absolutely false answer to quite real questions. And the
only way to prevent totalitarianism from coming back today is to be open to questions, to
be completely honest and sober, as far as questions are concerned. Exercising in reacting
most "properly" to words cannot substitute engrafting intellectual
honesty in the minds.
Abridged translation by Olga Yurchenko
"Russian Magazine", 27 June, 2001
http://english.russ.ru/politics/20010608.html
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