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Historical Memory and Communism Agnieszka Mrozik, Stanislav Holubec, eds.. Historical Memory of Central and East European Communism. Routledge Studies in Cultural History Series. New York: Routledge, 2018. 294 pp. $49.95, e- book, ISBN 978-1-351-00928-7. Reviewed by Kristen Ghodsee Published on H-Socialisms (July, 2018) Commissioned by Gary Roth (Rutgers University - Newark) Back in the fall of 2014, I visited the House of the historical memory of the Cold War, Pinochet Terror museum in Budapest. On the way out, I lives on as a heroic defender of capitalism, and flipped through the pages of the guest book, curi‐ the continued demonization of twentieth-century ous to read the reactions of other visitors after East European communism aids in his beatifica‐ they had perused the exhibits. One comment in tion. particular caught my eye because it took up an Agnieszka Mrozik and Stanislav Holubec’s ex‐ entire page. A Chilean man used the book to ex‐ cellent edited volume, Historical Memory of Cen‐ press his deep gratitude to Augusto Pinochet for tral and East European Communism, is a wonder‐ saving Chile from the supposed horrors of social‐ ful addition to the growing scholarship about how ism with his September 11, 1973, coup d’état this past is being constructed and reconstructed against the democratically elected president Sal‐ in the era after the global fnancial crisis and the vador Allende. The high crimes and human rights Great Recession. The book is divided into three abuses of General Pinochet—the brutal, US- parts. The frst, “Memory of the Left in Post-social‐ backed dictator—were apparently excused by his ist Europe,” consists of three superb chapters by stalwart anti-communism. Csilla Kiss, Thorsten Holzhauser and Antony Although he died in 2006, Pinochet has expe‐ Kalashnikov, and Walter Baier, which examine rienced a recent revival among the denizens of the landscape of contemporary leftist parties and the American alt-right. Memes and T-shirts featur‐ how they have dealt with the collapse of commu‐ ing “Pinochet’s Free Helicopter Tours” or “Free nism since 1989. Kiss’s chapter deals with the fail‐ Helicopter Rides” refer to the extrajudicial killings ure of the Hungarian Left to create a narrative of leftists in Argentina and Chile in the 1970s that counters the power and increasing influence wherein dictators few their political opponents of the Far Right. Perhaps most ironically, Kiss over rivers or oceans and pushed them out.[1] To shows how Viktor Orban and his followers have the young men of the alt-right, posting images or embraced the old communist party line that 1956 GIFS of Pinochet and helicopters on Twitter, Red‐ was a right-wing, bourgeois uprising, thus co-opt‐ dit, and 4chan is their preferred way of threaten‐ ing a key historical event that could have provid‐ ing those they perceive as a danger to their “God ed a base of legitimacy for a revived vision of given rights.”[2] In the ongoing global battle for Hungarian democratic socialism. Holzhauser and H-Net Reviews Kalashnikov investigate the identity politics of the The fnal section of the book, “Communist Pol‐ Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS) in Germany itics of Memory before 1989,” brings the reader and the Communist Party of the Russian Federa‐ back in time and the various historical battles tion (CPRF) in Russia. Finally, Baier’s chapter gives played out in Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, a much-needed overview of the status of the Euro‐ and the USSR. Jakub Szumski explores the travails pean Left (EL), with specific attention to the mem‐ of the Polish United Workers’ Party as they at‐ ory politics of communist parties in France, Italy, tempted to produce an official story about the im‐ Spain, and Greece. position of martial law in 1980. Monica Ciobanu In the second section, “Memorial Landscapes writes a fascinating chapter about the memory in Central and Eastern Europe,” Alexandra politics of Romania’s frst communist regime be‐ Kuczynska-Zonik, Holubec, and Ekaterina Kli‐ tween 1945 and 1965. In Czechoslovakia, Darina menko discuss the fate of monuments, memorials, Volf does a close reading of national historiogra‐ plaques, street names, and other physical vestiges phy after the communist takeover, with an astute of the communist past. Kuczynska-Zonik’s chapter discussion of the roles of pan-Slavicism and local on the afterlives of Soviet monuments and statues fears of Western imperialism. Of particular inter‐ of Vladimir Lenin is a particularly useful over‐ est are the two chapters dealing with the produc‐ view of how different former Soviet republics tion of historical memory through the writing of have dealt with the materiality of the past. I have memoirs. Mrozik provides careful readings of the vivid memories of the demolition of the Georgi post-1956 memoirs of Polish communist women Dimitrov mausoleum in the center of Sofa in 1999 in an attempt to create a gendered history of the over the opposition of about two-thirds of the Polish Left. Oksana Klymenko reveals the “memo‐ population, an act that was supposed to represent ry project” of the October Revolution in the Soviet Bulgaria’s definitive break with its immediate Union and the attempt to create an official narra‐ past.[3] The chapters in this middle section pro‐ tive in the 1920s, the frst such project of the new vide valuable theoretical background as to why Bolshevik leaders. different political decisions were taken to “decom‐ Taken together, all of the chapters elucidate munize” the landscape across Eastern Europe, the complex and ever-shifting terrain of history and how the public has reacted to these erasures and public memory and the various rhetorical over time. In particular, the authors suggest that strategies used and abused to make events in the official anti-communism is a rhetorical tool for past serve a legitimizing function for the political upholding the status quo. Local elites who benefit‐ realities of the present. As is the case with most ed from restitution policies are particularly keen edited volumes, the book sometimes feels a bit to discredit the memory of a system that chal‐ disjointed, and would have benefited from a con‐ lenges their right to their grandparents’ private cluding chapter that pulled together all of the var‐ property, and oligarchs support anti-communist ious threads of the arguments contained between projects to protect their hard-stolen fortunes. As the book’s covers. Overall, however, the quality of Kuczynska-Zonik writes: “visiting communist the scholarship is superb and individual chapters monuments in dilapidated states today, collected could easily be used in both undergraduate and as they are in museums of communism, placing graduate courses in history, anthropology, politi‐ them in ironic, demonized or even nostalgic con‐ cal science, or Russian and East European studies. text, leads the visitor to accept the current world In his “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis order rather than question it” (p. 114). Bonaparte,” Karl Marx explained that social revo‐ lution could not “take its poetry from the past but 2 H-Net Reviews only from the future. It cannot begin with itself before it has stripped away all superstition about the past.”[4] In putting together this edited vol‐ ume, Mrozik and Holubec have taken some im‐ portant steps in beginning to strip away the su‐ perstition about the past. I applaud their desire to challenge the totalitarian thesis about twentieth- century state socialism in Eastern Europe. This critical nuancing of the recent past, undertaken by young scholars in the region, is essential if we are to have more open and honest debates about the relationship of the communist past to the fu‐ ture of the contemporary Left. In collecting these thoughtful essays and publishing this book, Mrozik and Holubec have done the feld a great service—despite the inevitable offers of “free heli‐ copter rides” to come. Notes [1]. Justin Caffier, “Get to Know the Memes of the Alt-Right and Never Miss a Dog-Whistle Again,” Vice.com, January 25, 2017, https:// www.vice.com/en_us/article/ezagwm/get-to-know- the-memes-of-the-alt-right-and-never-miss-a-dog- whistle-again. [2]. The White House, “National Day for the Victims of Communism,” November 7, 2017, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/ national-day-victims-communism/. [3]. “Communist Bastion Finally Crumbles,” BBC News, August 27, 1999, http://news.bbc.co.uk/ 2/hi/europe/431854.stm. [4]. Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” 1852, https://www.marxists.org/ archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/ ch01.htm. If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-socialisms Citation: Kristen Ghodsee. Review of Mrozik, Agnieszka; Holubec, Stanislav, eds. Historical Memory of Central and East European Communism. H-Socialisms, H-Net Reviews. July, 2018. 3 H-Net Reviews URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=52553 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 4.
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