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Historical Justice
// United Russia sides with the CPRF against the PACE
The Communist Counterresolution
The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly is to pass a resolution on “The Need for International Condemnation of the Crimes of Totalitarian Communist Regimes” today. Goran Lindblad, author of the resolution, intends it to establish historical justice by condemning the crimes of communist regimes just as Nazi crimes were condemned at Nuremburg. Lindblad's initiative has caused a furor among Russian politicians, who perceived it as an insult to Russia and an attempt to rewrite history. Kommersant correspondent Nargiz Asadova has the details from anticommunist Strasbourg.
Communist Picket
The most ardent opponents of Joran Lindblad's resolution are the Russian communists. Yesterday they showed Europe the unity of the world proletariat. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation brought about 100 supporters out onto the streets of Strasbourg. Demonstrators marched under the red flag of Zyuganov from Republic Square to the CE headquarters. Most of them proudly wore orange polyethylene vest with portraits of Karl Marx on them and carried signs with Che Guevara's portrait. Some of the younger communists wore Che-style berets.
“The Greek Communist Party filed the application for the demonstration,” Zyuganov told this Kommersant correspondent proudly. “We made our effort, too. We brought a whole carful of flag and signs.”
It couldn't be called a mass demonstration, but its organizers were not disappointed with it.
“The main thing is there are representatives from all countries! From Russia, Greece, The Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium…,” Zyuganov's aides said gleefully.
The demonstrators chanted in quite varied languages. The sense was the same in all of them and it was written on a sign pinned to Zyuganov's jacket: “Let's say no to fascism!”
When they reached the Council of Europe, the Russian communist leader separated from the demonstrators and joined the journalists who were waiting there for him.
“Why did you decide to hold the demonstration today?” reporters asked.
“A preventive measure!” Zyuganov replied. “Tomorrow is the vote on the anticommunist resolution. The Lindblad report is the biggest provocation since Goebbels and McCarthyism.”
The communists started preparing for this day last year. On the initiative of the Russian communist party, a gathering of 73 communist and workers' parties from Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia took place in Athens on November 18. Zyuganov delivered an impassioned speech there with the painfully familiar title “The Left Turn in the World Is Apparent.” All 73 communist representatives signed an open letter to PACE President Rene van der Linden. “We appeal to you to stop the political provocation and cancel the discussion of the resolution On the Need for International Condemnation of the Crimes of Totalitarian Communist Regimes,'” the letter reads.
On the eve of the PACE vote, Zyuganov assures the Kommersant correspondent that the authors of the resolution have a long-range goal. “They want to show that the USSR is not the country that defeated fascism, but a criminal country,” he says. “By doing that, they will untie the hands of fascism. If you live in a criminal country, what is there for you to do on the UN Security Council? That means that those who fought against the USSR, Hitler, for instance, were doing the right thing.”
The Sunset of Communism
The idea of condemning the crimes of totalitarian regimes on an international level arose in the CE in 2003. Van der Linden, now the PACE president, but then a simple representative from The Netherlands, voiced the idea at the political commission in Paris. At the time, the proposal was seen as the latest pretty words on the need to observe human rights and correct the mistakes of the past. The Russian delegation did not attribute any meaning to it then, and left the meeting before it ended. “Taking advantage of our absence, the Swiss socialist Andreas Gross developed van der Linden's idea. He suggested condemning not just totalitarian regimes, but communist totalitarian regimes,” a member of the Russian delegation told Kommersant bitterly.
A special group headed by Portuguese Manuela Aguiar was set up to prepare a report on the topic. The reporter took a basic approach to the question. She invited Russian scholars specializing in Stalin's repressions to Paris. They were Alexander Shubin of the Institute of General History and Sergey Lavrov of the Institute of Russian History. They helped her write the report. She was unable to complete the report, however. Several months later, she was not reelected to the Portuguese parliament, thus losing her status as a PACE member as well. Her task was taken up by Swede Joran Lindblad. He presented the finished report “The Need for the International Community to Condemn the Crimes of Communism” to the political commission in September 2005. Both the name of the report and its contents upset the Russian delegation. “It was an attempt to mix condemnation of crimes, ideology and states in one document,” State Duma member and head of the Russian delegation Konstantin Kosachev complained to Kommersant. And, even though the title of the resolution mentions condemning all totalitarian communist regimes, he Russian delegation thought that the resolution was aimed directly against the USSR. The communists said that the supporters of the resolution were trying to rewrite history and declare the communist regime of the USSR illegitimate. That, in turn, would lead to a reconsideration of all decisions on an international level, right to the signature of the USSR on the charter of the UN. “What right do you have to condemn communism, if Russia won the Great Patriotic War [World War Two] under the banner of the communist party?” Zyuganov asked the political commission indignantly. The Russian delegation called Lindblad's report unprofessional and historically illiterate. “He's a dentist! What does he know about communism?” Russian delegates asked.
The report was changed at the next session of the political commission. Or instance, the point was removed that called for “the removal, where it has not been done already, of monuments, street names and other external symbols that might recall the crimes committed in the name of the communist idea.” The name of the resolution was changed as well and the formula “crimes of totalitarian communist regimes” was substituted for “crimes of communism” to exclude condemnation of ideology and concentrate on crimes of a regime.
The Stronghold of Communism
The politically varied Russian delegation has already announced that it will present a united front against the offending resolution. The desire to rebuff the Europeans has brought together such political opponents as the communists, United Russia and the Fatherland Party. “We will all vote against the resolution, even if for different reasons,” Kosachev said.
United Russia has become the man defender of the ideology of its political opponent the communist party. “We principally disagree with the comparison of communism to Nazism. There are obvious differences in those ideologies. Nazism's goal was the happiness of one nation, the Aryan nation, at the expense of all the others. Communism tried to make all of humanity happy,” Kosachev explained to Kommersant. Kosachev, the head of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs, is dissatisfied with the resolution condemns the crimes of communism just as those of Nazism. The only member of the delegation who intends to support the resolution is leader of the LDPR Vladimir Zhirinovsky. I will vote yes,'” he said. “Communism is a crime! I demand the arrest of Zyuganov right at the PACE session.”
The resolution that the former and current ruling parties of Russia find so unacceptable will nonetheless be passed at tomorrow's session. Russian delegation members admit that, after the removal of references to the Soviet Union and modern Russia, the resolution began to gather support. There is no doubt that it will be unanimously supported by the countries of the Baltic region and Eastern Europe. “The resolution is not Russia or the Russians, it's about the crimes of communist regimes,” head of the Latvian delegation Andris Berzins told Kommersant. “How can you calmly look into the eyes of people who spent long years in concentration camps? What will you tell them? That it was a mistake? The Moscow Canal was built on bones! The goal of the resolution is to prevent that from happening again. To lay it to rest. Confession doesn't make a person weaker. On the contrary, it is an evaluation of a historical period that, let's be honest, didn't bring anything good.”
by
Nargiz Asadov
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 25, 2006
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