Laszlo Alexandru
HOW THE STEAL WAS TEMPERED
english version by Axel H. Lenn
I am quite certain that, in the years following the defeat of hitlerism, no German intellectual would have dared publish a book titled The Antifascism Illusion. However, in our Balkan country, where impudence is the main measure for individual feats, only a few years after communism collapsed, a group of Romanian intellectuals planned their shot for notoriety with a volume titled The Anticommunism Illusion.
The shallow pretext for writing this book is reduced to formulating certain disagreements with The Final Report issued by The Presidential Committee for Analyzing the Communist Dictatorship in Romania, coordinated by Vladimir Tismăneanu. In reality, however, a group of thinkers is aiming to discredit the research activity and the global condemnation of Romanian communism, achieved by a different group of thinkers. This very unusual situation should be examined with proper consideration. The contesting authors are presented in alphabetical order and, based on an ample range of motivations and strategies, are conducted by four young scribblers, namely: Vasile Ernu, Costi Rogozanu, Ciprian Şiulea and Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu.
Other writers, who favor The Report published by V. Tismăneanu, refused to take part in this “snow feast” occasioned by the rebellious booklet. Could this be due to the absurd premises these anti-anticommunists use to sustain their purpose right in the very first sentences? “This anthology was generated in response to the anemic and intellectually pathetic public debate on The Report for condemning Romanian communism and on the entire activity that accompanied the production and the promotion of this material. As public interest proved extremely low, many of the Report’s authors and of those involved in this project refused to justify their options and, generally speaking, to discuss concretely the significance and the consequences communism had in Romania…” (p. 5). Well, if public interest was indeed “extremely low”, why on earth should the Report’s authors further justify their options? The argument logic is obviously deficient in the very first lines written by the detractors.
As a famous saying goes, the four cooks in our case managed to spoil the broth completely. Since they intended to underline the inconsistencies in another collective research, this volume should have lacked and not abound in incongruities. Unfortunately, things are not as they should be. For example, Florin Abraham reproaches Tismăneanu’s Report for concealing an important present day political stake when discussing the communist past (“It was intended as an official outlook on Romania’s recent past”, p. 8). In opposition, Daniel Barbu reproaches the same Tismăneanu Report with the fact that, in an artificial manner, it separates communism from the present day political causality, with manipulating intentions (“a highly political strategy of orienting the present in relation with our recent history, of circumscribing communism in a revolute time and of denying the political value the recent past might still have as societal experience”, p. 72). Now, whether the communist society depicted in the presidential committee’s investigation is conditioning our present or if it floats completely separated in an indefinite void, the readers of this denigrating booklet won’t find out for certain in the end.
Florin Abraham admonishes Vladimir Tismăneanu for quoting passages from the anticommunist Timişoara Proclamation, thus getting involved, in a partial way, in political battles. And there goes Gabriel Andreescu, the next author in alphabetical order, eulogizing the exact same option, because “Timişoara Proclamation was assumed by a considerable number of citizens and organizations and, most probably, remains the most popular anticommunist declaration since 1989, with the greatest mobilizing impact” (p. 45). What can the reader make of these? Not to mention that Vl. Tismăneanu’s presidential sympathy is reprimanded, for the sake of… epistemological impartiality, by the “scientific director of the «Ovidiu Şincai» Institute” (obviously controlled by P.S.D. – the Social Democratic Party)! It would be rather funny, were it not too sad… The same Florin Abraham insists that a real trial on communism “should not incriminate collective guilt, moral or criminal penalties should match the seriousness of the actions incriminated” (p. 37), overlooking the fact that, most of the times, those who perpetrated political crimes during communism were actually constrained by the system, in spite of their personal conviction, and always invoke historical circumstances. In this perfidious manner, a marvelous vicious circle is drawn: in communism, guilt was not collective, but imputable to certain persons; however, guilt cannot be considered individual either, since the guilty blame the system. Still, when Tismăneanu’s Report tries to sanction this tendentious equivocation by elaborating a list of top Nomenklatura figures and thus by individualizing guilt, this action is rejected with sheer self-sufficiency because it lacks a clear differentiation of guilt. Restraining ourselves to euphemistic remarks, Florin Abraham proves inconsistent and contradictory.
What a piece of good luck that Daniel Barbu catches up and reproaches the Report coordinated by Vladimir Tismăneanu with the exactly opposite fault, namely the attempt to “exempt both the state and Romanian society as a whole from any political responsibility for the constitutive, repressive and productive actions of a regime” – the communist regime, to be more precise (p. 72). Summing things up, during communism, no collective guilt can be defined (according to Florin Abraham), whereas exempting Romanian society from the assumed collective guilt is a major drawback of Tismăneanu’s Report (according to Daniel Barbu). Figure it out if you can!
This booklet is even more interesting to read since there are contradictions not only among its twelve authors, but among the assertions of individual authors as well. In Daniel Barbu’s view, Tismăneanu’s Report constitutes a scientific work “intended to cover up a political deficit” (p. 73). Two sentences further, however, we discover the exact opposite, “the virtues of this Report are more political and less scientific” (p.74). How much politics and how much science the analyzed report actually contains is not at all clear in D. Barbu’s head.
The more we read, the more astonished we are at the nonchalance of these protesters when they tread upon the clearest reality in sight. Professor Daniel Barbu criticizes “politicians’ refusal to take a firm stand against the reposed regime…” (p. 73). We’d like to remind Mr. Barbu the thundering session of both parliament chambers reunited, when president Băsescu condemned the past communist regime quite firmly, calling it illegitimate and criminal. The same researcher considers that certain recommendations in Tismăneanu’s Report, specifically those regarding the need for international conferences, televised broadcasts, permanent exhibitions, textbooks and legislative amendments that might provide the means for a better understanding of the communist past, are nothing but an attempt to bury the past (“Thus, Romanian communism is considered a restrictive object, with limited access to it, controlled, organized and regulated firmly, having curators and guides specially authorized for it, an object that can be exhibited and admired; but, once immobilized in a museum, it is no longer part of the present”, p. 79). How come? An organized and institutionalized research on a phenomenon leads to its very destruction?! This logic is unfit for a scientist.
Ciprian Şiulea, another perseverant denigrator of any research or condemnation of the communist past, is not at all shy either when he contradicts the realities Romanians had experienced personally. Thus, Şiulea builds up three categories of citizens throughout communism: a minority of obvious victims (“the murdered, the jailed, the physically and psychologically tortured, the dispossessed, those kept on the run etc.”); a somewhat larger category of “soft victims” during communism (those deprived of the freedom to speak, travel, associate etc.); and the large majority of the rest (“a far greater number of people cannot be considered victims, since they did not consider themselves victims”, p. 227). From this postfabricated taxonomy, one might conclude that most Romanians benefited from all the generous freedoms imaginable, having been able to travel, to express themselves without restraint, to form political parties and free unions, and to enjoy serenely all the blessings the autochthonous communism offered. Still, how can Ciprian Şiulea perpetrate such outrageous lies?!
Anyhow, to clear the picture completely, I suggest a similarly exemplifying taxonomy, at an equally scary level of intelligence: there are three categories of people in this world – the green eyed, the hazel eyed, and the large majority of the rest, who wear tennis shoes…
A pathetic trick of the authors contesting Tismăneanu’s Report consists in the use of certain first rank personalities’ good reputation. Thus, professor Daniel Barbu, assuming a draft of conclusions in a Brussels publication, informs us that “the Weberian view on social sciences as experience sciences that do not aim to (and most probably could not) discover imperative norms that might later steer social practice; unlike natural sciences, social sciences do not explain and do not produce interpreting rules for the facts and events studied, but they aspire to understand the system of meanings following a certain experience of a certain society” (p. 78). Already having stated this preposterousness, that social sciences should not explain, but simply understand (as if understanding does not necessarily involve an explanation, and vice versa!), placed under Max Weber’s umbrella, it swells like a Balkan fib to the magical qualities of a passe-partout. And here are the actual effects, sarcastically recorded on paper by a journalist in Bucharest, who attended the official release of The Anticommunist Illusion: “I wanted to challenge their intellectual and revolutionary courage, so I asked them, on behalf of all of us, so that we might actually get a clear picture: «Was communism good or bad, should it be condemned or not?». Humanity’s greatest consciences proved quite eunuchal. They issued a 15 minutes’ answer concerning the «neo-Weberian» approach of the matter, from which I gathered not much other than what my friend the Tomcat used to say: «the underwater deal is still standing»” (George Scarlat, The Anti-anti-communist Glib Tongues, published in Ziua, 26.11.2008).
In reality, throughout his existence, Max Weber proved a perseverant involvement in the social-political realities of his time: as front volunteer during World War I, as peace negotiator, as German Constitution reformer (the famous 48th Article), as founding member of a political party etc. In Économie et société, the book he wrote, regarded as the most significant sociological work of the 20th century, Weber proclaims the interdependence between understanding through interpreting and causal explanation: “Nous appelons sociologie une science qui se propose de comprendre par interprétation l’action sociale et par là d’expliquer causalement son déroulement et ses effets”. In his work, instead of isolating each discipline in a separate, impervious receptacle, he contributed to an interdisciplinary approach to sociology, to history, to political economy, to political theory and to cultural philosophy. Explicitly addressing the relation between science and politics, in a conference later published in France and titled Le savant et le politique, Max Weber condemns political messages being brought within university walls and spread from the desk. The necessity for political neutrality in professors’ teaching activities does not prohibit them from going public about certain things, even if the German scientist doubts the efficiency of such gestures: “On dit, et j’y souscris, que la politique n’a pas sa place dans la salle de cours d’une université. (...) Si l’on me demandait maintenant pourquoi cette dernière série de questions doit être exclue d’un amphithéâtre, je répondrai que le prophète et le démagogue n’ont pas leur place dans une chaire universitaire. Il est dit au prophète aussi bien qu’au démagogue: «Va dans la rue et parle en public», ce qui veut dire là où l’on peut te critiquer. Dans un amphithéâtre au contraire on fait face à son auditoire d’une tout autre manière: le professeur y a la parole, mais les étudiants sont condamnés au silence. Les circonstances veulent que les étudiants soient obligés de suivre les cours d’un professeur en vue de leur future carrière et qu’aucune personne présente dans la salle de cours ne puisse critiquer le maître. Aussi un professeur est-il inexcusable de profiter de cette situation pour essayer de marquer ses élèves de ses propres conceptions politiques au lieu de leur être utile, comme il en a le devoir, par l’apport de ses connaissances et de son expérience scientifique.”
Adapting the acute Weberian observation to Romanian realities, it could be stated that Nae Ionescu’s attitude of pushing his students towards the Iron Guard, thus abusing his teaching position, is completely reprehensible. Contrariwise, the fact that Vladimir Tismăneanu stepped outside the university walls merely to investigate, for strictly educational purposes, the havoc generated by the communist regime, is in no way, (neo-)Weberian or otherwise, reprehensible, since the orator took the risk of speaking in front of an audience able to freely criticize his arguments.
The other efforts Daniel Barbu makes to contradict notorious facts remain equally embarrassing. Thus, The Final Report, which aims to bring forth the devastating effects communism has had in Romania, ending with a nominal list of Nomenklatura figures, is accused of transmitting a fake message, despite all evidence to the contrary: “Romanian communism existed, but beside the contemporary people, perhaps it had agents, but, in the end, it had no substance whatsoever” (p. 72). It’s pretty obvious that D. Barbu must have been anything but sober when he read the book he later commented.
The same university professor in Bucharest is fighting not only the past, but also the contemporary reality. For example, he is most upset on the sinister denunciation mania these days: “Romanian press today looks like American papers of the last century: politicians unmasked and denounced, with or without proof, is a good measure for civic commitment. The Ministry of National Education encourages students to denounce professors in an institutionalized way. Organized in civic associations, professors denounce their colleagues globally and preventively, both at C.N.S.A.S, as well as at those institutions responsible for checking wealth statements. Civil society coalitions inventory claims against parliamentary election candidates and spread them to the masses. The Government and the Parliament created a national integrity agency with the main attribute of collecting and verifying denunciations, claims and complaints made by private individuals against all those who occupy key roles in public offices, parties, churches, schools or free unions. The passion for complaint and the denunciation culture command those public conducts with the highest degree of moral acceptability” (pp. 86-87). This professor’s apocalyptical view is sheer ugly fantasy. As far as international documents reveal, Romania occupies one of the last positions in the European Union in sanctioning corruption. According to European statistics, our real problem, which perpetuates economic underdevelopment, is not the pathological denunciation of potential offenders, but the lack of convictions for the corrupted.
Equally phantasmagoric is another impression this researcher brings forth, frightened by a possible deconspiration of collaborationists: “in identifying, on behalf and on the expense of our country, informers in the Security archives, C.N.S.A.S. is actually investigating human nature and is called to morally evaluate certain private individuals’ conducts. Thus, investigating the very essence of communism as repressive political regime is not part of its legal attributes” (p. 85). C.N.S.A.S. is not interested in investigating all types of private conduct (eating, sleeping etc.), except for those personal activities with a degree of social impact (e.g. the people denounced at the political police, leading to career blockage, imprisonment etc.). A university professor who cannot distinguish between these two types of “private” acts would be a rather sad case.
Other tricks used by the contesting authors are rather naïve, facing the ridiculous. Concerning the legislative proposal put forward by the Presidential Committee to make the denial of communist crimes a criminal offense, Alex. Cistelecan is apparently scared that such a law might limit his right to criticize the Report: “either we completely agree with the authors of the Final Report, and then we simply double their discourse in a futile manner; or we don’t completely agree with them, and then we are liable to be declared negationists and punished as such” (p. 106). The previously mentioned sophism is consolidated through repetition: “Denying or criticizing the Report implies the denial of communist crimes and, as a consequence, this makes the offender subject to criminal law” (ibid.). From this point up to the suprajacent aberration – i.e. the obligation to contradict Tismăneanu is synonymous to fighting for the freedom of speech – there is only one step. In fact, reality is far simpler, although it does not match the aforementioned juvenile suspicions: Alex. Cistelecan assimilates a proposal put forward for debate with an actual law; he mistakes the Report for the actual crimes of communism (!). Since the scientific debate on Holocaust investigations has been flowing freely for the past couple of decades, but the denial of the actual crimes is obviously subject to criminal laws, the same pattern should be applied to the second largest horror of the 20th century – communism. Cistelecan jr. should remain calm: if such a law came into effect, he would go to jail not for his sarcastic comments on Tismăneanu’s Report, but for denying the realities that distorted his parents’ and grandparents’ biographies.
Adrian-Paul Iliescu, a fervent PCR propagandist before 1989, as far as the press write, admits that the communist regime should be firmly condemned. Well, this is definitely one step ahead… His reservedness addresses the obviously anticommunist contributors to this project, who lack legitimacy and impartiality in this research field, according to his views. Really? Perhaps communists might have the inborn talent to criticize communism? We are quick to fly over such an ordinary hypocrisy (after all, neither Hitler nor Goering performed academic researches on gas chambers, did they?) and we wait Adrian-Paul Iliescu, a good expert in this field (right?), from inside the system, to publish his own Final Report on condemning communism.
In C. Rogozanu’s case, we find a common sophism on chronological inadequacy: he laments over the corrupted present, in which context a critical analysis of the past would seem pointless anyway - “How can one devise an intransigent ethical scale in a Romanian democratic system within which past regime «values» triumphed (ex-security officers are still involved in Romanian economic affairs, banks, broadcasting corporations, insurance companies, estate agencies, all of which have political backup)?” (p. 178). His perspective might seem valid throughout the present, just as Tismăneanu’s views over the past. However, it’s really preposterous to comment a football game and reproach the players for not laying their hands on the ball according to handball rules.
In an incendiary speech, ostentating numerous logic and common sense deficiencies, Andrei State launches, among other absurdities, the well known “It’s not the right time!” refrain: “Had it occurred immediately following December 22, 1989, as part of the revolutionary process, the condemnation [of communism] would have made sense; nowadays, in this presentation, it seems suspicious and resentful” (p. 206). Unfortunately, I did not hear Andrei State condemning communism immediately following December 22, 1989 – back then, the front stage was taken by Ion Iliescu and the second echelon of remaining structures, who surely had a different agenda. The frantic pharisee can lay at ease. Fascist crimes are still being analyzed after 50 years. Thus, communist crimes can begin to be inventoried with a 20 years’ delay.
Ciprian Şiulea is bothered by the fact that Tismăneanu’s Report aims to serve some justice by allowing victims to speak up: “this document’s perspective, as a whole, should not have matched that of the victims of communism, since it is intended as an act representing the entire society of our time” (p. 228). That’s a though one! The humiliated and the persecuted had to be heard somehow, since their torturers’ voice is heard everywhere, all the time. Little worry though, the activists and security officers’ score is covered well by Şiulea’s persistent yodeling. Our analysts match our communists, no doubt ‘bout that! The ever disgusting diatribes he feels compelled to use in order to express his views on the Presidential Committee’s investigation (“From an intellectual point of view, it is a primitive act and an example at least unpleasant of demagogy and propaganda, that pushes grandiloquence and blatant tones up to indecency”, p. 241) define his entire conceptual and moral caliber.
Ovidiu Ţichindeleanu’s opinions, with his insolence in expressing “ethical doubts [sic!! – L.A.] over postcommmunist anticommunist intransigence” (p. 247), or those issued by Dan Ungureanu, so fond of depicting, in an frivolous, mocking and minimizing way, the events and characters of the past age, are worth no more than a scornful rictus. What might one reply to an individual who ridicules the horrible 1966 decree that banned abortion and ordered women to form columns in front of the gynecologist, easily comparing the situation with France, where abortion became legal in 1974? What might one reply to this lad who falls ecstatic for militiaman Eugen Barbu’s genius (“Is there a single line in The Pit (ro. Groapa) that could be called anything but pure literature?”, p. 274)? The reflex of saying things to his face is futile since his face is utterly brazen.
In this grandiloquent and stupefying slime, the very few interventions trying to keep up appearances are at serious risk of being agglutinated by the surrounding promiscuity. Michael Shafir is rightfully contesting the functionality of certain concepts utilized in Tismăneanu’s Report. Gabriel Andreescu underlines, in a perfectly justified manner, the arguable and heteroclite composition of the Presidential Committee, the terminological inadequacy and the stylistic improprieties in the analyzed text, the incomplete or inexistent juridical framework to define the criminal acts investigated.
What should I add? In the evening of December 21, 1989, when I came close to being shot dead in the streets in Cluj, I could not imagine that, less than twenty years later, I would see a volume titled The Anticommunist Illusion exhibited in bookstores. How come? The hundreds of people marching in the streets downtown shouting “Down with Ceausescu!”, “Down with communism!”, we were indulging in illusions? Or, the tracers biting the asphalt, only a few centimeters away from my head, while I was lying in the mud, were they illusions too? Or young Luminiţa Mişan, shot dead a few meters to my left, was she an illusion? Leafing over, from this perspective, a material aiming to draw public attention, in which certain intellectuals try to counterargument, with rather withered dexterity, not the crimes and abuses committed during communism, but those struggling to condemn these crimes, I suddenly felt the stench produced by this cocktail of gauchisme and balkanism. I could not remain indifferent thinking some of us went out to protest against communism, risking or sacrificing our lives, so that others might have the freedom to recriminate the very way in which this freedom was gained.
(January 2009)