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1989 and the ‘end’ of Communism History is an interesting thing, often said to be “written by the winners”… but is it? Certainly in much of Eastern Europe, the end of Communism did not necessarily means the political end of the communists behind the system.
James Mark is a senior lecturer in History at the University of Exeter and he has written a very insightful article on the subject that I commend to all Samizdata.net readers.
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On my last visit to Berlin, a couple of years ago, the journalist friend I was staying with took me to see a memorial near Checkpoint Charlie to the people murdered whilst trying to leave East Berlin. This is being bulldozed tonight, she told me – on the orders of a city government whose mayor is a former minister in the East German government.
Alan
How depressing. This should be talked up, and turned into news, if it isn’t news already. Link, anyone?
Is this the story?
this assertion, `history is written by the winners’, is the biggest load of horsecrap that was ever uttered (and who did come up with this garbage in the first place?).
To cite a very ancient example, the history of the Pelop. War (sorry, I always mispell that word – the Athenian-Spartan war of 434-404 BC) was written by an Athenian: Thucydides.
In the last century, the losers in all of the wars have written their own histories of the conflicts, completely distinct from those of the victors: Germany following World War I, Japan following World War II, the Arab countries following all the war that they lost to Israel, etc. etc.
Like the term `you can’t yell fire in a crowded theatre’, it’s time to put this `history is written by the winners’ crap where it belongs: in the loo, as you Brits say.
It is true that individual Communists are in high positions whereever one cares to look, and (even worse) that Marxist doctrines dominate much of the humanities and social sciences (and even subjects like medicine – with the real-cause-of-ill-health-is-inequalty stuff that young medics are now taught).
However, at least the WORDS “Marxist” or “Communist” are rejected (due to their association with the dictatorships of Eastern Europe and elsewhere).
This is no small thing – for if one can get people to see that certain people (or certain doctrines and principles) are really Marxist then one can make progress.
“So this person is a Maxist – but Marxists are not good people, so this person may not be a good person”.
Or.
“So the Marxists wanted to do X (or believed in X) – the Marxists are not good people, so perhaps X is not good after all”.
Of course the danger is that the enemy will suddenly change the terms of debate.
For example, after years of denying that a certain person is a Marxist they may suddenly say “yes he is a Marxist – and there is nothing wrong with that, Marxists are nice people who want everyone to be happy and have free candy”.
Remember the mental level of the average voter. It is not that most people are retarded – it is that most people (quite sensibly) only devote a tiny fraction of their minds to politics (even at election time). So one has to deal with them as if they were retarded.
So one can not just assume that people will always make the connection “Communist = bad” and “Marxist = bad” , one has to keep maintaining it.
That is why such “stunts” as Mr B. in Italy (in spite of all his faults) handing out free copies of the “Black Book of Communism” are vital.
Otherwise people forget that Marxist = bad. And attacks on someone on the basis “he was a member of X Y Z – Communist front groups” lose their force.
Only thing is that the article is wrong in one important respect. There is one country that has a public holiday to mark the end of the communist regime.
In the Czech Republic, the 17th November is a public holiday – it marks the day when a student demonstration ran foul of the police in one of Prague’s main streets, Narodni trida. Blood, riots and the fall of the communist regime quickly followed.
Packaging. The same spirit rides on stronger than before. Different label on the box. Same people, different people?
Yes Brian, that was the story. But as you can see, it was four years ago and it would be a bit late to start trying to make a kerfuffle about it now. I did blog it at the time, but the world clearly wasn’t paying attention.
I haven’t followed Herr Flierl’s political career since, although I do note a general encouraging trend in German politics, since the left’s recent electoral trouncing, of more people being willing to more loudly denounce left politicians’ former Stasi connections.
(I also note approvingly that our new Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, in addition to being the head of the only German political party whose platform I regard as even vaguely sane, is openly gay. Although I wasn’t aware of this until my wife told me last night, then laughed when I didn’t already know.)
>> “written by the winners”
Of course history is written by the winners. It’s a tautology. The winners get to write history.
History is written by the people who win power in academia.
That article goes to reaffirm the maxim:@ never negotiate with statists. They will talk you into a compromise where you concede everthing and they concede nothing.
History is (re-)written by those winning today, not necessarily those who won at the time.
And the ‘communists’ in Eastern Europe (at least in the part I’m from) have no connection with communist idealogy, they are only ‘communist’ in the sense that they are as corrupt and as greedy and manipulative of the common people as they were pre-1989. People like them were so before the commies ever came to power and are thus so after their departure. It’s about humanity (and the lack thereof), not about the idealogy.
Couldn’t agree more Myk. Statists are basically always the same everywhere, no matter what fancy names and rationalizations they adopt. True collectivists willing to starve and even die for their beliefs are very rare, as far as I can tell.