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Alla Glinchikova kam der Bitte nach, für unseren Blog eine Diskussion zu reflektieren, die über Wochen die zumeist sehr jungen Mitglieder eines neuen Netzwerkes im Europäischen Sozialforumsprozess erregte. Die jungen Menschen sind um die 20 und leben in Russland, in Nachfolgestaaten der UdSSR und in MOE-Ländern. Sie sind die Enkel von Opfern und Kämpfer/innen gegen grausame deutsche Okkupation und vielfach zugleich von Opfern des Stalinismus. Die einen erleben in Russland, dass die Leiden und Kämpfe ihrer Großeltern sowohl staatsoffiziell als auch von anderen politischen Kräften nationalistisch instrumentalisiert werden. Sie organisieren ihre alternativen Feiern zum 8. und 9. Mai, was nicht allen Großeltern gefällt. Die anderen erleben insbesondere im Baltikum, dass ihre Großeltern „Stalinisten“ geschimpft werden und wollen ein öffentliches Gedenken, das nicht alle emanzipativ und demokratisch prägen wollen. Ihre gleichaltrigen Netzwerker/innen in den ehemals „staatssozialistischen Staaten“ erleben ähnliche Konflikte, wenngleich nicht so krass. Dann kommen ESF-Ältere aus Ungarn und Westeuropa und sagen „Sowjetarmee – alles gut“ oder aus Schweden: „Sowjetunion – alles Stalinismus und Knechtschaft“. Alla Glinchikova sah sich (wie Mirek Prokes und ich) unentwegt zu Widerspruch herausgefordert …

What do we celebrate on the 8-9th of May?

The question could seem to be very simple. We celebrate the victory over fascism and defeat of fascism in the World War II.

But now there immediately come two other questions:

  1. Who defeated fascism?
  2. If it was really defeated, why racism, nationalism and fascism grow again?

Some people say – World War II was not the war just against fascism, it was a war between two totalitarian inhuman systems Stalinism and fascism. And one totalitarian system – Stalinism with the help of Western coalition defeated German totalitarian fascist system. So, on one hand it was the victory over fascist Germany, but on the other it could be understood as a date of beginning of occupation of Eastern Europe by also totalitarian Stalinist Soviet Union … And should we celebrate this?

My answer would be the following. Fascist Germany with it’s satellites was defeated in that war and it was a great victory of all those forces, who rejected inhuman fascist ideas of racism. That regime was dangerous for all people in the world including Germans who played with national catastrophe for that political choice and “cultural” experiment of their leaders, which they “launched out of the bottle” and then couldn’t stop themselves. It was and still is also a great warning for all those who now are eager to play again in “blue blood” games with people of other nationality or race.

We cannot deny that the resistance of Europe was not enough to stop the threat. The failure of Hitler Army started when he confronted the Soviet Union. We also know, that it was not easy for Soviet Union to meat the historical challenge. But all those who read “Mein Kampf” knows that for  peoples of the Soviet Union it was not just a question of fighting against totalitarianism, not even a question of fighting against their national sovereignty. For our fathers it was a question of survival of our peoples, but most of all for our right to be called people, to be accepted equal to all other humans. That was how the fight for survival of our people turned into a fight for human dignity of all peoples as a universal value against racism. That was the real secret of our strength and the main cause of support, which our resistance in battle against fascist Germany received all over the world. We were fighting for ourselves and for common interests of all ather people against fascism and racism and we all won. So, I think that 8-9th of May should be celebrated as a great victory of all people of good will all over the world against fascists and racists ideas and practices.

Now, about Stalinism. Unfortunately the computer insists on capital letter, but I would prefer to use and ordinary one. While even now, after all the atrocities of that regime were revealed there are still different attitudes to Stalinism not just in Russia, but among left all over Europe. So, I would express my personal vision. Stalinism was not “a nice thing”.  Even in spite of the fact that it utterly opposed itself to fascism stressing it’s internationalist character. I don’t think that atrocities on both sides could be used for mutual justification (whether Stalinism or fascism). I am also sure, that in spite of all similarities – these are different types of ideologies and systems; they also have different roots and aims. In spite of all my agreement and sympathy to socialist ideas, the way how Stalinism claimed for them and tried to introduce them cannot be accepted as human. And there are no and cannot be reasons to justify crimes of Stalinism against people of it’s own country and we also shouldn’t forget satellite regimes in other countries, developed after the World war II.  All the tremendous achievements of Soviet economy and even the victory in the War cannot justify the crimes of that regime.  Achievements are achievements, but crimes are crimes.

But … the crimes of Stalinism do not give indulgencies to fascists; they cannot justify and give the limb of heroes to racists previous or modern. Fascists were not fighting against Stalinist totalitarianism. They were fighting against people of other nation to make them slaves, they were fighting for the principle of their national superiority over other nations, for their rights to decide which culture should live and which should die.

When fascists were defeated, the antitotalitarian mood of great victory inspired the generation of 50 and 60s to start another battle against totalitarianism, that time in it’s Stalinist version. The great victory over fascism gave impulse to the renewing democratic wind in the left movements and parties in 60-70’s all over Europe and in Soviet Union. Many of those people who participated in that “purifying search” for democratic socialism were veterans of the last war. The fight was not easy. In Soviet Union it revealed itself with the explosion of the 20 Congress of the CPSU, which was pushed by the society. It gave hopes for transformations and gave impulse to the democratic activities of generation of soviet 60’s decedents ( “шестидесятники”), who started their heroic work in resisting totalitarians at home. Unfortunately the events in Hungary 56 and mainly in Prague 68 closed the opportunities for legal democratic opposition in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. But they moved on European left in their search of renewed democratic socialism. And again, I want to stress, that many of those, who participated in that real battle with Stalinist and post-Stalinist totalitarianism both in The USSR and Europe were those who came back from the battles with fascism.

That is how we come to the second question. Why fascism was not defeated forever in spite of all heroism and victims, why it still exists now and even raises it’s head in Western and mainly Eastern Europe?

Liberalism can be a nice thing, but only if it is opposed. Because liberalism is a very professional strategy to explain why prosperious people and nations should be prosperous and have a right ( are free!) to be prosperous in difference to those people and nations, who happened to be losers on this “holiday of life”.  The only one problem of liberalism their well equipped with economic analysis explanations can not be convincing for those who happen to be on the bottom of “paradise” and are sentenced to misery. These “losers” do not have enough “economic knowledge” to understand, why their lives and the lives of their nations use to be “economically ineffective and extra”, because of the very simple reason – they want to live and to be treated as humans. So, liberalism for them is not the ideology to justify their equal right to live.  In my understanding socialism could and should be such an ideology, if it suggests modern answers to four  initial questions of the moment:

  1. How to combine class will and democracy, parties and movement development, common, class and individual values?
  2. How to combine social welfare and effective flexible economic development?
  3. How to combine values of international democratic unity and interests of irregularly developing nations and variety of cultures?
  4. How to protect “common” and not to destroy “individual”?

Stalinist and post-Stalinist answers to these questions do not work anymore. Liberalism is not an answer for majority. Alternative left answers to these questions still didn’t acquire the form of real ideology and strategy, that could be suggested to people for discussion and action. Nationalism and racism grows on this soil of disappointed disadvantaged peoples and nations, who lost hopes for liberalism and do not see appropriate modern alternative in left

So, I would suggest – to celebrate the great victory over Nazi fascism in 1945 and to move further in developing and protecting social alternative of modern left.

One Response to “Alla Glinchikova zum 8./9. Mai 2010”

  1. […] Ein bemerkenswerter Beitrag von Alla Glinchikova aus Moskau zum Tag der Befreiung bzw. Tag des Sieges hat Judith Dellheim in den Blog des IfG „mehring1“ eingestellt. Einfach mal reinsehen. […]

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