Historical politics and an indication of two totalitarianisms – Russia in the field of defense
The lower house of the Spanish Parliament declared the extraordinary regime of Francisco Franco, and his government – responsible for the emergency of that time. The right-wing parties, including the People’s Party, promise to reverse the decision if they come to power. Appeal to memory as a political tool Fedor Lukyanov talked to Alexey Millerhead of the EUSP Center for the Study of Cultural Memory and Symbolic Politics, for program “International Review”. We publish the full version of the conversation.
– There is a feeling that in Spain the historical politics is swinging like a pendulum, depending on who is in power: the socialists have come – they begin to cancel Franco, they will be replaced by conservatives – they begin to turn back (they have already promised).
– A little more difficult. Recall 2019, when Franco was reburied. He was buried in the memorial complex where the victims of the Civil War are kept. And he was reburied in a crypt in one of the Madrid cemeteries. 170-odd votes for reburial and 160-something abstentions. There were no “against” votes at all (two “against” – on money). And it was a situation that demonstrated a certain consensus. Those who abstained did not preach delight, but did not object either.
Those who abstained predominantly voted “no”. And this is a completely different situation. It is clear that it is worth getting a right-wing majority in parliament, they will win back. In order to pass this law, the socialists gathered in support of the parties. Regional separatism, especially Catalan, is a very painful and key issue, which, by the way, is directly related to the incidence of civil war. Catalonia has developed a lot. Franco liked to say that he does not use two sounds organically – when dogs bark and when the Catalans speak their language. But in fact, this decision, when considering a civil war case, such and such a person is declared guilty – and she alone – of course, cannot be productive. Let us recall that, in fact, about 7,000 Catholic priests were killed during the Red Terror. This is a situation where the society is strongly divided until now. And I would say that it is split very sharply and painfully than our society in relation to the Civil War, although we also do not have any consensus.
About 10-15 years ago in Europe there was a distinct mood that it was not necessary to accept, to regulate memory. Such laws are already common, but they are mostly covered by the Holocaust. And in 2008, one of the experts on memory testing, Pierre Nora, initiated an appeal that it was impossible to manage the historical council and regulate the laws of memory. But a lot has changed since then, perhaps in our part of Europe – post-communist – all countries pass laws that regulate memory. Ukrainians, if I’m not mistaken, have about nine of them, we have two or three. But not so long ago there was not one and lived somehow.
– Do not take Germany – there is a special situation. But if you take the same Italy – it is now again on the buzz. It’s number one in the polls – the “Brothers of Italy” party, which is, although a distant, but still a descendant of the fascists. For Southern Europe, fascism as part of history is not a complete taboo, am I right?
No, this is not a total taboo. But I would still zhestkooprel fascism and Nazism. There is a Holocaust on the Nazi half-list. Franco doesn’t have it. He did not even officially participate in World War II. And in general, disputes about the extent to which Franco can be considered a fascist have a reason. Still, fascists are a revolutionary emotion, a mobilizing revolutionary ideology. People like Franco in Spain, Salazar in Portugal, Mannerheim in Finland, Antonescu in the government and Horthy in the voyage are usually (with the exception of Salazar’s accountant) high officials and fragments of the old regime who check the preservation of elements of this old regime against young thugs who then come to power precisely as fascists. This does not mean that my figures listed were nice, met no. Each one has a trail of blood, but it is all in the highest degree of wars with what is called the red load – whether in lightness, whether in Finland, whether in Spain.
Everything is changing in information security. Is it possible to imagine the normalization of the same fascism in Italy and the appeal of some completely acceptable respectable manifestations to the same period? All those you listed are nationalists, they – for the nation without exact excesses. And now the slogans “for the nation”, “for nationalism” have become, as they say, a trend.
– I agree, but there is another aspect. Still, the modern conflict in Europe is about the offensive as the last battle of good, that is, necessity, with evil, that is, authoritarianism. And within the framework of this construction, it is not very convenient to somehow glorify and whitewash the authors of the actual literary dictators. It seems to me that some part of society has always worshiped Franco, Mannerheim, Horthy. It was and is. And always some part of them hated, especially those people who they killed during the suppression of opponents in the civil war.
– Well, then the most interesting for us. Eastern European revision of the old narrative and, in fact, justification or, according to the scene, legitimation of those who were previously under absolute taboo as collaborators. Is it separate or somehow related to what is happening in Europe?
– Of course, this is connected, but the connection is not simple, because by the end of the last century there was a consensus in Europe that the main influence of the 20th century was the Holocaust. The responsibility lies with all Europeans, because they all participated in one way or another. And the role of the main victim belongs to those who are not with us, that is, the Jews killed in the Holocaust. The entire Eastern European memory structure was in direct contradiction. It was a glorification of those who participated in the Holocaust in 1941-1943, simply killing the emergency on the spot. Eastern European Jews were not reborn in Auschwitz, they were killed in ditches and ravines. These people in the Baltic, Ukrainian narratives were perceived as fighters for national freedom. They, as a rule, face narrative-heroic flexibility in the fight against the communists, against the Soviets. In Eastern European narratives, the main victim is we ourselves. If genocide, then – not a genocide court, but our suffering and our genocide. Every Eastern European country has its own genocide.
Now, by the way, we also have it, because a year ago the court for the first time made a decision, which refers to the genocide of the Soviet people. And if you think about what was being treated during the siege of Leningrad, it suddenly turned out that this was the genocide of the Soviet people, because the ethnicity of Leningraders was not sorted out, everyone who participated in the siege of Leningrad knew perfectly well what was happening in the city, and participated in the mass football of the millions of people besieged by starvation in Leningrad. The genocide has taken place.
When the Eastern European countries joined the EU, they started the work that has been successfully completed today. Instead of a construction in which the main crime is the Holocaust, the main criminal is Nazi Germany, now the main criminals should become two totalitarianisms. A tale of two totalitarianisms that unleashed the Second World War and tormented the peoples.
Western Europe recovered from totalitarianism in 1945, while Eastern Europe, according to this narrative, remained under the Soviet totalitarian slab until 1991. This story seemed indecent when it was promoted, but it was promoted. And today, throughout Europe, the Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Totalitarianism is August 23, the day the Non-Aggression Pact between Germany and the USSR was signed, as if there were no other non-aggression pacts.
In conditions when the enemy is clear and this enemy is Russia, everything that concerns Russia and is significantly indecent is already quite decent.
And therefore, one can quite calmly discuss how Russia can be dismembered so that it forever loses the ability to project force outward, and so on. In this sense, now a person who would like to criticize such Russophobic narratives, having been considered five years ago, turned out to be simply a propagandist of Russian aggression, an accomplice of Putin and suggested the abolition – we are well aware that now this is a very fashionable practice.
– After all that has happened this year, I have a feeling that we no longer have a common victory with the West in World War II. She had been in agony for a long time, but somehow she remained: unfortunately, she did not give references, like Steinmeier, anyone. And now it feels like everything.
– I think you’re right. Indeed, everything. But back in 2020, when the 75th anniversary of the Victory was celebrated, it was accompanied by terrible scandals. Trump congratulated everyone except Russia on the victory. The leaders of the European Union issued a declaration on the liberation of the Allied air forces, never once mentioning the Soviet Union and so on. Mike Pompeo and the post-Soviet members of the union, their foreign ministers published a whole Declaration, which read from the fact that in 1945 German totalitarianism was crushed, but Soviet totalitarianism was not. And then the whole story was about how these countries suffered until the Americans restored them as a result of victory in the Cold War. So that was all, but there was still some awkwardness.
For whom this point of view was hardly acceptable, it became much more difficult to speak out. And yet the explosion of anti-Russian sentiment, which dates back to February 24, is limited in time. There are processes taking place in the narratives of gradual development. We will hear more voices, meetings to suppress a simple and unequivocal Russophobic picture (which, in fact, have already been heard, but no one wants to be substituted).
About hot places and memory. The broadcast of the program “International Review” from 22.07.2022
Fedor Lukyanov
Results of bilateral meetings in Tehran: from the Israeli problem to the conflict in Ukraine. Why is Turkey successfully entering into a changeable political structure? How do grain flows pay off? The resignation of the Italian government: what are the historical features of European politics? Watch the broadcast of the program “International Review” with Fyodor Lukyanov on the TV channel “Russia-24”.
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