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Understanding Radical Evil: Communism and Fascism as Open Wounds. — Transcript

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0:09hello
0:10everyone welcome to today's cre cre noon
0:14lecture before introducing our speaker I
0:18would like to draw your attention to two
0:20upcoming events on Tuesday march9 at 400
0:25p.m. the Wisa Center for emerging
0:27democracies and creas will Co sponsor a
0:30lecture by Thomas deal senior associate
0:34with the Russian and Eurasian program at
0:37the carnegi Endowment for International
0:40Peace uh he will lecture on getting
0:43Georgia right uh the former Soviet
0:46Union's most unexpected country please
0:49also join us for the next gree noon
0:52lecture on March 20th our speaker will
0:56be Patrick Patterson associate professor
0:58of history at the University of
1:01California San Diego his talk is
1:04entitled bought and sold living and
1:07losing the good life in socialist
1:10Yugoslavia and now I'm delighted to
1:13introduce our today's speaker Vladimir t
1:16minano uh Professor T minano is a
1:20professor of politics at the University
1:22of Maryland College Park in 2006 he
1:26served as a chairman of the presidential
1:29commit mission for the analysis of the
1:32Communist dictatorship in Romania from
1:361998 to 2004 he was editor of East
1:40European politics and societies and
1:43continues to serve on the journal's
1:46editorial committee his books include
1:50Reinventing politics Eastern Europe from
1:54Stalin to H Free Press
1:571992 fantasies of Salvation PR
2:00University press
2:021998 Stalin stalinism For All Seasons a
2:07a political history of Romanian
2:09communism published in 2003 by
2:12University of California press and the
2:16devil in
2:18history uh communism Fascism and some
2:21lessons of the 20th century University
2:24of California press 2012 it's Professor
2:28Tano's most recent book book he is also
2:31the editor of numerous volumes including
2:35Stalin Stalin stalinism
2:38Revisited uh the pro uh the promises of
2:421968 uh the end of the beginning uh um
2:47co-published with Bogdan yakob all
2:51published by Central European University
2:54press um his current project a book
2:57under contract with Cambridge University
3:00press deals with democracy and memory in
3:04postcommunist Romania and is based on uh
3:09the author's experience as head of the
3:12presidential commission please join me
3:15in welcoming Professor T
3:19[Applause]
3:22minano thank you Professor mayorova for
3:25this uh kind introduction thanks the
3:29center and thank you for coming uh
3:31thanks Nicole for organizing the event
3:34and thank you for coming here and uh and
3:38uh be ready to share with me some of the
3:41uh topics in the book uh it's good that
3:44you mentioned thank you the series of
3:46volumes edited by me and then in
3:49collaboration with my former grad
3:51student bdan Christian yakob uh at
3:54central European University press three
3:56volumes have come out and uh two or
3:59three more are coming out and basically
4:01the ambition of this huge project has
4:04been to cover the second half of the
4:0620th century and at the beginning of the
4:0921st century uh in a um um cross country
4:16uh internationalized version of
4:18political science history and other
4:20disciplines diplomatic history and so on
4:22uh of the humanities the first volume
4:25indeed is stalinism Revisited the second
4:27volume is the promises of 1968 chist
4:29illusion Utopia uh the third volume uh
4:33is the end at the beginning the
4:35Revolutions of 1989 and the Resurgence
4:38of History uh the fourth volume coming
4:40out this year and will'll launch it at
4:43the AA a s whatever the new name is a I
4:46cannot say it I'm oldfashioned okay so
4:49Tria a WS in Boston and it's going to be
4:52on coming to terms with the past in
4:54post-traumatic societies uh the fifth
4:57volume will come out next year it's
4:59about um the seduction the totalitarian
5:02Temptation and the seduction of
5:04intellectuals by uh grandio um let's say
5:08radical
5:09theories uh and six will be based on a
5:13symposium that takes place at Boston
5:15College next week and the title is
5:17dreams of total power dictators and
5:20dictatorships in our times so six
5:23volumes basically covering uh the most
5:25important experiences of the second half
5:28of the 20th century it's not uh
5:31eurocentric we cover Latin America the
5:33Middle East and so on so forth so
5:35definitely linked to uh the topic today
5:38because obviously uh one of the things
5:41that can be said about a number of
5:44recent books is the uh let's start with
5:46this is the return uh of a revised
5:49version of the totalitarian Paradigm uh
5:52some of you are uh clearly aware that uh
5:55the concept of totalitarianism uh has
5:58been extremely controversial and uh
6:00there has been lot of criticism of the
6:03concept of totalitarianism and a lot of
6:05Praise uh history to some extent in
6:08political science and in other fields of
6:11the humanities uh we have a number of
6:13books that have come out and uh I'll
6:16leave mine at the end uh that are
6:19addressing this issue based on new
6:22archival material and uh bring back uh
6:26the discussion of uh how totalit and
6:30those societies were in exposed or uh
6:34yes exposed to the uh type of social
6:37engineering associated with stalinism
6:39and if we can even use the concept of
6:41totalitarianism what are the meanings
6:43Etc and the first book that comes to
6:45mind which I strongly recommend I
6:47reviewed it in TLS it's an apple bomb's
6:50uh book um it's um um the Iron Curtain
6:55the crushing of Eastern Europe 1944 1956
6:59that came out uh several months ago the
7:02second book that I again reviewed in
7:04Times Higher Education last week is
7:07Robert gala's book uh which is widely
7:10discussed and it's called Stalin's curse
7:12it was published by Random House on
7:15March 5ifth precisely on the 60th
7:17anniversary of uh uh the greatest Genius
7:21of Humanity's blessed uh passing away uh
7:25okay so uh and it's called Stalin's
7:27curse battling for com fism in uh World
7:31War II and in the Cold War Robert
7:34gelatti is known for his previous work
7:36on the Holocaust especially Nazi Germany
7:39obviously and also his book published a
7:42few years ago which is called um uh the
7:46age of social catastrophe Lenin Stalin
7:49Hitler the age of social catastrophe
7:51which is one of the uh books that in a
7:53way inspired my own uh my own Demar my
7:56own project okay so uh um I would give
8:01you a few quotations you didn't
8:02distribute my list of quotations so I
8:04can go into my quotations easily I uh I
8:07should give credit to one of the readers
8:09of the books I found it on Amazon uh
8:12okay and one reader find a number of
8:13quotations the book that I had
8:15completely forgotten about because once
8:17you finish a project then you move into
8:18the next project and uh then you
8:21discover this with a sense of what
8:23probably psychology and uh early you
8:26know the uh he let's say alian Marxism
8:30would called the effect of alienation
8:32okay so it is you find your own products
8:35looking to you as something alien okay
8:38so this is when people ask me what is
8:40alienation or reification this is
8:42exactly what alienation is okay so let
8:45me uh give you some quotations uh from
8:48the book and then I think a uh very uh
8:51two very uh or three very appropriate uh
8:55remarks linked to the book and then a
8:57presentation on the General approach
9:00that I promote so uh as I said it's the
9:04main discussion that we can have is to
9:06what extent a revised concept of
9:08totalitarism I emphasize revised this is
9:11not a return to the 1950s this is not a
9:14return to the Cold War mentality or
9:16anything like that this is the result of
9:18a lot of research in the archives that
9:21even some quote unquote uh revisionist
9:24historians would admit that are
9:27important to be taken into account after
9:29all I think with all due respect that
9:31the publication of Everyday stalinism by
9:33Professor Sheila Fitzpatrick is a
9:36response to the archival challenge the
9:39archives have shown how um ubiquitous
9:43the Communist part's domination was in
9:45the in the communist countries Was Not
9:47Just an Illusion of the uh totalitarian
9:52school that the party was in absolute
9:54control over the society in uh we speak
9:58about I want to emphasize we don't speak
10:01here about the Der deradicalized
10:03communist regimes I don't speak here
10:06about you know Tito titoism in the 1960s
10:09or karism in the 1970s that would of
10:12course kill my Approach we speak the
10:15comparison between the totalitarian
10:18regime in Nazi Germany and the Soviet
10:20regime or the ma regime is basically
10:23during the most radical times of those
10:25regimes this is the starting point for
10:28any kind of of good face discussion
10:30otherwise of course uh with the pro the
10:33difference is a major difference we
10:35don't know basically and I'll engage a
10:37little bit in counterfactual history
10:40because it's necessary for my own
10:42demonstration uh we don't know how the
10:45radicalized Nazi regime would have
10:46looked like we have seen just the
10:50radicalization read for instance uh
10:53Richard evans's uh wonderful review in
10:56London Review of Books last week it's
10:58online find it uh Richard Evans reviews
11:01these two books about one is letters to
11:03musolini okay we have seen and he goes
11:06into the musolini experience we seen
11:07we've seen the transformation of
11:09musolini from a less radical dictator
11:12into a radical dictator basically a
11:15totalitarian dictator okay so we have
11:17seen the totalitarian isation of the
11:20Nazi regime but or the fascist regime in
11:22Italy we have not seen the uh other uh
11:25side we have not seen a
11:28deified uh like we've seen a desalinized
11:31Soviet regime we have not seen DEH
11:33Hitler isation in Nazi Germany this is
11:36the counterfactual okay so uh I always
11:39to anticipate the counterfactual it's in
11:41my book actually can one imagine and
11:43since the book is dedicated the memory
11:45of Tony Jud among other people can one
11:48imagine for instance a 20th nsdap
11:51Congress that would take place following
11:53a victory of Nazi Germany in World War
11:55II in which paganos let's say Borman
11:58would deliver a secret speech uh
12:01deploring the excesses and the
12:03atrocities associated with the cult of
12:06personality of Adolf Hitler try to make
12:09it I mean I know people who engage in
12:11this after I provoked that at the remark
12:13Institute when I gave my talk and they
12:15said I can't imagine I personally cannot
12:18okay and for many reasons the most
12:20important reasons and that's uh the late
12:23Albert hman one of the greatest scholars
12:25in the field of humanities uh wrote a
12:28wonderful article about self subversion
12:30so to engage in self subversion of my
12:32own argument I would say that the main I
12:34will not start with the similarities but
12:36I would start with the main distinction
12:38there was
12:39no previous point to go back to in the
12:43Nazi experience as you had in the Soviet
12:47experience there was in the Soviet
12:49experience the possibility of a return
12:50to Lenin and if the return to Lenin
12:52turned out to be a false return because
12:54Lenin himself could be demonstrated as
12:55Gela does in his book uh the age of
12:58social catastrophe or pipes or whoever
13:01else at this moment it's a you know it's
13:03a consensus that the totalitarian
13:05experiment started under Lenin okay then
13:08you go to Marx and if Marx is not
13:10sufficient then you go to bakun or you
13:12go to whoever want you can find some
13:14place if you turn the clock back and you
13:16want to go back what do you go to you go
13:18to Wagner's anti-Semitism you go to
13:21racism you go you don't have any
13:23humanist tradition to refer to and to
13:26rehabilitate okay
13:29we'll talk about bukharin okay uh
13:32bukharin signed I mean it's very simple
13:34bukharan is easily uh it's is an easy
13:37target in the story uh bharan signed
13:39like all the members of the poit bureau
13:41in March 1921 the decision to repress
13:44konad so basically for me this is
13:46finished okay so D troski okay once you
13:49sign the first anti-bolshevik Uprising
13:52is repressed in a most vicious and
13:54bloody way and you sign this that means
13:57okay that means bhari is already
13:59involved in the story and very strongly
14:01so so that's not but that's true you are
14:04you you came with a very very good
14:05question thank you very much because I
14:06think that that was the first illusion
14:08of Gorbachev ISM to go back to bharin I
14:11mean remember the clubs for return to
14:13bharin and so on and including some
14:15people whom I respect deeply uh in the
14:17field of Soviet studies and Russian
14:19studies including a well-known
14:20biographer of bukharin uh okay I not I'm
14:23not going to give names probably most of
14:25the people know whom I have in mind uh
14:28okay so they are still convinced that
14:30that that would have been the
14:32alternative okay the book is dedicated
14:34by the way uh to the memory of Tony J
14:36but also the memory of Robert C Tucker
14:39uh and uh you know I lock i i i t a lot
14:42to Tucker about that so I uh Tucker's
14:46position I think it's a very important
14:48position that as a matter of fact at
14:50Lenin's death there was a multiplicity
14:52of Lenin okay so I I agree with that so
14:55one of the things that I want to
14:56emphasize in this book I tried very hard
14:59uh to uh oppose monoc causality and
15:03determinism to quote uh one of the
15:05greatest minds of Eastern Europe and one
15:07of the most important dissidents of
15:09Eastern Europe Adam mnik I think he was
15:12right when he said if I learned
15:13something in the 20th century is that
15:15determinism doesn't exist okay so uh you
15:19know who would have thought in
15:211983 that solidarity would win the
15:24elections in 1989 and all the rest that
15:26would happen it you know not let's say
15:29post communism was a Utopia truly Utopia
15:32in the real sense in the eological sense
15:34of Utopia a non possibility and even
15:36more than that it was a
15:42non-thinking Andrea malri uh nobody
15:45thought about the postcommunist Soviet
15:48Union or you had it in the forms of
15:50literary Utopias like Vladimir vovi and
15:53things like that but you didn't have
15:55people because it was you know how could
15:57one imagine the unimaginable okay so uh
16:01a few quotations from the book then a
16:02short presentation on the book and uh
16:05and the ideas and then uh questions and
16:07if possible for me answers okay uh the
16:10main lessons of the 20th century that I
16:13try I've tried to highlight are that no
16:15ideological commitment no matter how
16:18frantically absorbing should ever
16:20Prevail over the sanctity of human life
16:23and then no Party Movement or leader
16:25holds the right to dictate the follow
16:28that followers ounc their critical
16:29faculties to embrace a pseudo miraculous
16:31in fact mystically self-centered
16:33delusional vision of mandatory happiness
16:36that's a key element people ask me what
16:38lesson okay this is a lesson perhaps too
16:41to to to too Jaron Laden here but I I
16:45try to make it clear the main difficulty
16:47with the marxan project is its lack of
16:50sensit sensitivity to the psychological
16:52makeup of mankind these obsessional
16:55social classes or what French
16:57sociologist Lucian Goldman referred to
16:59as the Viewpoint of trans individual
17:01historical subject a luaan formulation
17:03to be sure the failure to take into
17:06account the infinite diversity of human
17:08nature the eagerness to reduce history
17:10to a conflict between polar social
17:12categories bisi and proletariat etc etc
17:16this is indeed the substratum of an
17:18ideology de wed to a searan fanatic
17:21political movements has generated many
17:23Illusions and much grief throughout the
17:2620th century and second thesis
17:29where is Lenin coming so far it was Marx
17:32Lenin was not only the founder of
17:34political propaganda this is fact okay
17:37the Supreme priest of a new ecclesiology
17:39of the omniscient infallible party but
17:42also the demur of a concentration camp
17:44system base system and the Apostle of
17:47universal Terror I'm now reviewing a
17:48book by guy called whatever Neil Ryan I
17:51think is his name and it's uh Lenin's
17:53Terror it's a uh perfect analysis of
17:56this uh uh of how it happened and uh its
18:01consequences if you want more in the
18:02book there's a lot of discussion about
18:04Lenin and leninism this is relatively
18:07benign and known uh what is less benign
18:10and less known and is provoked a uh you
18:14know an interesting discussion is how
18:17you know obviously leninism you know is
18:18a famous line when we say Len what is
18:21Lenin very important I said the new
18:22ecclesiology is the concept of the party
18:25the key element in leninism so you can
18:27live uh you know uh there's a famous
18:29line in uh one of the most important
18:32books of of the Marxist tradition uh
18:351923 published G lukach history and
18:38class Consciousness in history and class
18:40Consciousness G lukach um there's one
18:44essay the subtitle of the book is essays
18:46in Marxist dialectics uh and uh it
18:50became one of the cursed books of the of
18:52the Marxist tradition it's a very
18:53important book in in which he said the
18:56following it's an essay which is called
18:58uh what is orthodox Marxism Orthodox
19:01meant in a positive way not as a
19:03pejorative term okay not dogmatic
19:06Marxism Orthodox means faithful Marxism
19:09or uh authentic Marxism or Genuine
19:12Marxism okay so he said a a good Marxist
19:15an orthodox Marxist is someone who can
19:18leave aside all the Practical
19:20conclusions of K Marxist philosophy
19:23every single sentence that KL Marx wrote
19:26can be thrown jettison thrown away as as
19:28long as the person remains faithful to
19:31the method some people call it the pan
19:34methodism okay of lukach I
19:37would not discuss now the meaning of
19:40Luka's uh Axiom I would simple postulate
19:45the pan methodological postulate so to
19:47speak okay I'll simply say that in
19:50Lenin's case one can leave aside every
19:53single sentence that Lenin produced in
19:56his life as long and one still remains
19:59faithful to Lenin and leninism as long
20:01and one recognizes the sanctity the
20:04centrality the sacredness of the
20:07Communist Party in the leninist
20:09Revolutionary cosmology okay this is the
20:12key element this is not I'm not original
20:14I quote in this a very important book
20:17which is translated into English you can
20:18find it in published by Colombia
20:20University press by one of the greatest
20:22political thinkers of the 20th century
20:23French political philosopher Claude
20:25lefor which is called La complication in
20:28French L young communist the
20:30complication an essay on the Communist
20:32question it came out in Fr in English
20:34translation from Columbia University
20:35press some of you are famili leforce
20:37work on mavelli and uh on bureaucratic
20:40institutions and so and he emphasized
20:43okay uh to bring since we this is a
20:46center for Russian is European studies I
20:48will am I right okay so uh the I would
20:52emphasize also the importance in Lenin
20:54centralism the party is the most Central
20:58Point
20:59and there's a superb analysis of the
21:01meaning of centrality in the Communist
21:04cosmology by Yan plumper in his
21:05wonderful book about the cult of
21:07personality of Stalin's Cult of the cult
21:09of personality in Russian in Soviet
21:11culture where he said the central means
21:13in the Soviet cosmology means
21:16sacred uh how Stalin appears his
21:19analysis iconological analysis of
21:21different paintings in the Stalin scult
21:24the book was published last year by y
21:26University press and it's called it has
21:28wonderful title that doesn't come to
21:30mind exactly the Alchemy of power okay
21:32Stalin's cult the Alchemy of power it's
21:34a superb book Yan plumper it's also
21:37superbly published I mean it has
21:39fantastic reproductions it's it's a
21:41beautiful book in addition to being a
21:43great book okay so if you look for gifts
21:45for I don't know birthday Christmas and
21:48so on I promote it okay so tellan I
21:51reviewed it in international Affairs and
21:52gave you a glowing glowing review okay
21:55so was Lenin and Lenin is was relatively
21:57so Yan plumper
21:59uh the Alchemy of power The Cult of
22:02Stalin okay so um with Lenin leninism is
22:06relatively simple the problem is when
22:08you go into the comparison and here we
22:11enter a uh
22:13Minefield uh because of course this can
22:15be very easily the discussion about or
22:18the analogy between communism and and
22:20fascism can be very easily
22:23politicized and it is it has been very
22:26politicized and it has been used for
22:28political purposes and I'll try to
22:30discuss a little bit later so what I say
22:33here fascism and communism as political
22:35movements were resolutions to a
22:37painfully and universally universally
22:40felt sense making crisis throughout
22:44Europe born out of the cataclysmic
22:46barbarism I want to emphasize that the
22:49concept of barbarism Barb or yeah
22:51barbarism uh in explaining the rise of
22:54fasc of Communism and fascism although
22:56we know some people here of of political
23:00ideas and history no of course the roots
23:02of fascism are in the 19th century so
23:05the approach that fascism says that
23:07fascism was a response to communist the
23:08noran approach is ignoring to some
23:11extent uh the fact that they were for
23:13instance the Z stels work on the French
23:17roots of fascism for instance which are
23:1919th century okay or the Russian roots
23:21of fascism which existed in the 19th
23:24century needless to speak about the
23:25German roots of fascism and so so that's
23:28before Lenin's Gulag that appears very
23:31much in the N explanation in his famous
23:33theory of the causal Nexus okay uh in at
23:38the European Civil War okay it's even
23:41before so it's so I have a problem with
23:43the causal Nexus because not because of
23:46some of the discussions but because I
23:47think it's ignoring a previous tradition
23:50that fascism was very much coming from
23:53in Comm so uh born out of the
23:55cataclysmic barbaris the concept of
23:57barbarism is extremely important
23:59uh I participated in in 2005 at uh a
24:02conference organized by Susan nean who
24:05worked extensively on radical evil and
24:07she's running the Einstein Forum in in
24:09in poam and by Tony jut and the
24:12conference took place in poam it was the
24:14100th anniversary of the theory of
24:16relativity I think or something like
24:17that so it was link to Einstein okay so
24:20uh and uh the con you know I discussed
24:23speaking of the of Relativity my paper
24:25there was about moral relativism
24:27communist fascism moral relativism it
24:29was a very interesting experience
24:31because among the people who were there
24:32was Eric hobom uh which was a quite
24:35interesting conversation that follow Tim
24:37Snider uh we I still have on my you know
24:40wall there picture with Tim Snider
24:42myself and Eric hobom okay Eric hobom
24:44Tim Snider myself to be more more uh you
24:47know to engage in comrade Stalin's
24:48immodest modesty that's the that's the
24:51concept that plumper comes with uh
24:54that's my favorite line when Stalin adds
24:56to his short biography with by by hand
24:59and said and comrade Stalin is known for
25:01his boundless
25:03modesty written by him and plumber has a
25:06superb term for that Stalin's immodest
25:08modesty okay so okay so uh okay and I
25:13took from hsom with whom I disagree on
25:16many many issues especially when the way
25:19he saw Marxism and so but he was right
25:21in order to understand the coming of the
25:23Advent of the bevic Revolution one needs
25:25to understand the barbarization of the
25:27world in World War I
25:28one things that were Unsinkable or
25:31definitely unacceptable until 1914 hos
25:34argued in his book of age of extremes
25:37but I this during this long conversation
25:39I had with him in poam remained very
25:40important and I used it in my own
25:42approach so this I don't have an
25:44ideological approach so I can quote
25:46without any problem Eric okay so the
25:49apocalyptical movement proclaimed the
25:51Advent of the Millennium in this world
25:52or to use political philosopher Eric
25:54felin's formulation they tried sorry for
25:57the jar to imman immanentize the escaton
26:01or basically to this is the essence of
26:04any fundamentalism and I see political
26:07uh theologist like the ones that I
26:09discuss in this in this book I see them
26:11as attempts to
26:14um sorry it's political philosophy uh
26:17the uh to abolish the distinction
26:20between the city of God and the City of
26:22man or that's to immanent immanentize
26:25the escaton escaton being the sacred and
26:28the world beyond the world Beyond and to
26:31make it this worldly okay this is the
26:34story okay that I'm trying and it's
26:36Faline in his uh book on political
26:38religions when he speaks about when he
26:40analyzed fascism as a political religion
26:43and he used exactly this term the
26:54immanentizing what is the devil in the
26:57story The Devil is in in all the story
26:59and it's a concept that I borrowed
27:01basically the title is borrowed from Lea
27:03kovski it's a very famous interview that
27:05kovski gave in the 1970s to George Urban
27:08it's including the volume stalinism and
27:11its impact on the world edited by George
27:13Urban and it's also in kovski collection
27:15of essays including in the my correct
27:18views on everything uh it's the title
27:20being exactly the devil in history uh
27:23You' ask me if I had permission yes I
27:24did okay so uh I was in touch with
27:27professor kovski before his death as a
27:29matter of fact I was one of the
27:31interesting three persons who wrote the
27:33obituaries for kovski and Gazeta via
27:35when he passed passed away and uh it was
27:38very interesting because the other obit
27:40was by somebody whom I deeply disagree
27:42with and he's mentioned quite frequently
27:44in the book although I appreciate his
27:46early writings very much obviously I
27:48have in mind or less obviously the slov
27:50philosopher slavo xek okay so I always
27:54have a problem that you know wi wrote a
27:56beautiful obit of kovski never mentions
27:58kovski in his
28:00writings uh knowing very well what
28:02kovski wrote Because it's very hard to
28:05engage in the type of return to leninist
28:07that zek is presenting these days uh if
28:09you take kovski seriously okay so there
28:12are two zeks writes the obit for Gaza
28:16and polish okay and of the whatever it's
28:20called Uh the latest book uh less than
28:24nothing okay so um
28:28the de the devil of course uh when asked
28:31when asked if he meant uh the devil uh
28:34in a metaphorical way or he meant the
28:37devil as a reality kovski responded who
28:40has a great those read kovski know that
28:42the man had an extraordinary sense of
28:44humor and uh his answer was uh without
28:47any joke whatsoever he said I mean it as
28:49literally as you can take it okay
28:51because anybody who has read and as a
28:53matter of fact this is very important
28:55anybody who has read probably the most
28:56important book about the great Terror
28:59which is obviously uh historical
29:02speaking I can give you three books
29:04about the great Terror the most recent
29:06one the superb book by Carl schluger
29:07Moscow 1937 then you have the great
29:10Terror by Robert conquest and probably I
29:12don't know other books that I can come
29:14with but the greatest book about the
29:16great Terror in Moscow Kina Clark's
29:18about Moscow Capital whatever the
29:21fourth the fal fourth throme and so but
29:24the greatest book about that and I think
29:26that uh this Lugal starts his book is of
29:30course Master
29:31Margarita okay so you know the best book
29:34ever written about Moscow in 1936 37 and
29:38it starts with who is visiting Moscow in
29:401937 that's the starting point how many
29:43people read here I'm sure all okay
29:46Master Margarita starts with the visit
29:47of the devil in Moscow in 1936 37 and my
29:51friend christinis and he has a recent
29:53book which is a wonderful book that I
29:54recommend uh here police Aesthetics
29:57start with this you know this what what
29:59is amazing is that bulgakov's wife was
30:02keeping a diary that makes for me this
30:04that's the challenging thing how could
30:06people keep Diaries in Moscow in 1937
30:09and several other people kept Diaries an
30:11interesting story okay so this is a book
30:14about the Incarnation of diabolical
30:15nihilistic principles of human
30:17subjugation and conditioning in the name
30:19of presumably pure and purifying goals I
30:22didn't ask you for nothing about
30:23Vladimir soloio because my whole concept
30:26of interpreting this is is VI was a
30:29Russian Christian existentialist if you
30:31want writer philosopher and some people
30:35argue I'm not sure where I read it but I
30:37may be wrong that actually Doki met him
30:39and it was a source of inspiration for
30:41alosa karamazov okay so in Kazo brothers
30:45so okay uh there is a book that brought
30:47you know I read his Antichrist and I
30:49read a lot of solv but then I read
30:51French political philosopher and
30:53historian alans and he has a wonderful
30:55little book which is translated into
30:57English which which is called La fific
30:59so the falsification of the good so the
31:02answer that I found is a comparison
31:04between Sol and Orwell it's a great
31:06little book 140 pages and I love it okay
31:12soif and in that book I think I found
31:15because all the time I said like most of
31:17my fellow thinkers on this topic of
31:19Communism and fascism I said communism
31:22basically or fascism abolish traditional
31:25distinctions between good and evil
31:27that's the classic line and then the
31:29more I thought about that and this book
31:31is basically a testimony to my own
31:33process of understanding what I was
31:34writing about and I think that I've read
31:36most most of what one could read about
31:39that uh is that the issue is not simply
31:42abolishing the distinctions but
31:45basically uh substituting the concept of
31:49good and by Consequence the subst that's
31:52what the work of devil in history is to
31:55introduce a falsified concept of good
31:58and I give a number of examples you have
32:01examples you know when for instance one
32:03of my examples is himler speech in 1943
32:07in posan or pen when he speaks about
32:10things that we cannot utter things that
32:12we cannot say we know that they are good
32:15but humanity is not prepared to uh
32:19receive our message will act knowing
32:23that this is good that means the final
32:25solution will purify Humanity will get
32:28rid of the Vermin and one day will come
32:32maybe will not experience that moment
32:35but our HS will experience it and they
32:38will be thanked by Humanity for what
32:40we've done this is not simply abolishing
32:43the distinction be good and evil it has
32:45a vision of good uh this is uh the other
32:49day I saw uh one of the most disturbing
32:53films um it's called enemy enemies of
32:56the people uh it's a film about a rou
33:00regime uh got the best documentary from
33:04Sundance Festival and so on I saw it you
33:07can find it it's online and enemies of
33:10the people and I talked a lot to shabbat
33:12with the sabat okay so is the director
33:16and the main character in the film it's
33:18a long discussion between him who lost
33:21his mother father and brother in The
33:25Killing
33:26Fields and the number two of the K rou
33:29regime so that happened last week so
33:31it's not in my book but uh whenever I
33:34give this presentation I'm not on the
33:35lecture circuit so I give my
33:36presentations every week so I add things
33:39because I saw this film and he came to
33:40one of my presentations and he really
33:43I'm going to bring him to my class I
33:44teach a uh class on revolutions
33:46authoritarianism and film and I want my
33:49students to to see it it's the
33:51discussion was this guy um his name was
33:55uh ran no Nan cha the number two he was
34:01a deputy General to
34:03paulp uh who accepted to speak I'm not
34:05going to do I'm a great uh film spoiler
34:08my students tell me I tell them from the
34:09beginning what's going on and they said
34:11this is the most interesting class but
34:12you should not tell us the beginning
34:14what the film how the film concludes and
34:16so do it after the class okay so I'm not
34:19going to tell you more but enter you
34:21know Google and just put enemies of the
34:22people and uh his name is Sabbat say I
34:27think whatever not like a sabat I'm
34:29don't have the oh you'll find it it's
34:31very so rou and you'll find the
34:33including fragments of the conversation
34:35was the was the Executioner a man who is
34:39now uh indicted he's in prison and so on
34:43uh who's basically responsible for the
34:45assassination of uh 1.8 million
34:48people okay
34:52uh so the book that you're going we can
34:55discuss here is not a historical Tres
34:57although history is present on every
34:58page but rather political philosophical
35:00it's a book of history of ideas and one
35:01of the things that I emphasize a lot is
35:03that without understanding the RO
35:05ideology we don't understand this two
35:07experiences this is I think the key
35:09element that Professor Richard ay who
35:11reviewed this book in Times Higher
35:12Education emphasized that ideology is
35:15and he's the author of one of the most
35:17admired and respected books on Hitler
35:19and Stalin okay so I was extremely and
35:21you know it's one of the best thing that
35:23can happen to an author is to have your
35:26book reviewed by admire enormously whom
35:29you've never met in your life you know
35:31I've never had anything but admiration
35:33for Professor a so to suddenly get this
35:36okay so that's for me a great thing okay
35:38so um it is a political philosophical
35:41interpretation of how maximalist utopian
35:43aspirations can lead to the nightmares
35:46of Soviet and Nazi camps epitomized by
35:48kumma and aitz uh basically the main
35:52questions I will not be able to go into
35:53too many details but the main questions
35:55here for me and we can disc discuss it
35:58if we have time is how was it possible
36:00that two systems based on two very very
36:03different
36:05ideologies uh extremely different in
36:07terms of their own Origins and
36:10presumably of their intentions or
36:12intentionalities if you want presented
36:15striking similarities in terms of
36:18structure and results the all the party
36:21and other elements that I emphasize as
36:23being structurally similar but most
36:26important in terms of their result
36:28mass murder that's the question that's
36:31the big puzzle for me how was it
36:33possible and why do I approach this
36:35topic I approached this topic because I
36:37became increasingly
36:39aware by a paradox that Tony jot once
36:43formulated very well and I think you
36:45find it in his conversation with Timothy
36:47Snider the book that came out last year
36:50and uh which is
36:53why in the west comparing communism and
36:56fascism usually creates a sense of
37:00uneasiness to put it this way while in
37:03the
37:04East this uneasiness creates an
37:09uneasiness okay what is happening and
37:14why can't we somehow go in the direction
37:17of let's call it unifying European
37:21memory and show the same type of
37:25compassion or allow for the the presence
37:28in the moral imagination of humanity of
37:30both Mass Horrors or mass crimes to be
37:35present without one overshadowing
37:37presumably the other one this is a key
37:40element what is the problem here uh and
37:45then we have the problem so again
37:48counterfactually or less
37:50counterfactually because now I just
37:52mentioned yesterday I finished reading a
37:55book I'm reviewing it by and
37:58nagorski one of the most brilliant
38:00American journalists the book is called
38:02uh Hitler land and it's about American
38:05journalists and diplomats in Nazi
38:07Germany between n in the 1930s it's a
38:10very interesting book I'm not going to
38:12say more because I don't don't to spoil
38:14I recommend the book uh okay H it is
38:18quite
38:19interesting that you had much
38:22less Readiness to engage in myth making
38:26making
38:27about the Nazi regime from that moment
38:29on among the Americans there there's a
38:32lot of open-mindedness and lucidity and
38:34clear mindedness yes there are some
38:37naives and some idiots and so but in
38:40general the approach is very lucid they
38:43know what's going on well you have a
38:46very different approach to the Soviet
38:48Union at the same moment at the same
38:50time while we know for sure I don't know
38:53if Tim Snider lectured here but most of
38:54the people read his book bloodlands we
38:57know for sure that in let's say
38:591936 there is no comparison whatsoever
39:02in terms of number of victims between
39:04the Soviet regime and the Nazi regime no
39:07comparison we cannot compare simply the
39:09Soviet regimes had already during the
39:12hore and whatever happened millions of
39:15victims in the early
39:181930s this is not to excuse the Nazi
39:22regime but after
39:241939 when it becomes basically a
39:27genocidal regime it is not actively
39:31engag in genocide before 1939 it's engag
39:34in lots of reprehensible activities but
39:37it is not genocidal we can go into if it
39:39was intentionally or non-intentionally
39:41genocidal what it was there but it's not
39:43the purpose of of my talk here so I see
39:46a paradox why is it possible for a
39:48political project called communist meant
39:51to lead to Universal emancipation to
39:53have as its outcome as the last lines of
39:56koski's Trilogy on Marxism says the
40:00uh climax of human bondage and abysmal
40:04atrocities that's something that one
40:07needs to understand how therefore for
40:11instance
40:13uh part of the answer is propaganda it
40:17played a very important role but
40:19propaganda Nazi propaganda was also very
40:22powerful and never achieved the same
40:25type of extraordinary accomplishment
40:27in the uh public awareness in the west
40:30as uh the Soviet propaganda uh mental
40:34counterfactual exercise in
40:371937 uh one of the most famous at that
40:40moment German igr writers novelists and
40:43very influential figure Leon fanger goes
40:46to
40:47Moscow he's invited to uh attend in the
40:51audience um the second Moscow show trial
40:55the trial of pyatakov
40:58rakovski and so we are in March 19 if
41:01I'm not wrong March
41:031937 uh he Witnesses then he goes and
41:07has a conversation with
41:09Stalin uh that result of the
41:12conversation was Stalin the result of
41:14his trip to Moscow the result of his
41:15trip to the Soviet Union is a book
41:17called Moscow 1937 which came out in
41:20Russian translation and became an
41:21important part of the Soviet
41:25propaganda in which he basically
41:27endorsed the Soviet official line on the
41:29show trials s on I repeat German Jewish
41:34writer member of not a communist not
41:36member of the Communist Party member of
41:38the anti-fascist Exile German Exile
41:41imagine now this is the
41:44counterfactual that uh in
41:481939 after no that in November
41:52193
41:54uh 8
41:57a writer goes to
42:01Berlin a week after or during the
42:05Krystal
42:06KN has a conversation with Hitler after
42:10that publishes a book was the titled
42:12Berlin
42:141938 in which basically he shows how the
42:16Jews were uh destroying the German
42:19economy and deserved what happened to
42:21them that probably there were some
42:22excesses but definitely the furer had no
42:24idea about them and when he heard about
42:26them he stopped everything
42:27thing uh and so so he would have been
42:31forever the
42:34um beneficiary of universal disgrace
42:39forever not the case so here again a
42:41paradox why so this is very much the
42:44book that I bring to your attention is
42:47very much an attempt to uh overcome what
42:51I find to be extremely disturbing the
42:54double standards in dealing with this uh
42:57two systems uh some people may not be
43:00happy you know it's not my I i' i' I've
43:03lived 30 years of my life under the
43:05mandatory happiness so I don't want
43:07everybody to be happy it's not my
43:09purpose uh I know some people who say
43:12that the
43:13comparison uh is
43:15illegitimate uh let me say very clearly
43:18that I agree with Timo Snider those who
43:20say that the compar comparison is
43:21illegitimate have already made a
43:23comparison and decided in one particular
43:26direction okay so that's not uh a
43:30necessarily A disingenuous
43:33position uh or an honest position better
43:36said okay uh so uh the power of the
43:41Communist propaganda is something that
43:43of course deserves to be discussed here
43:46the Communist International uh
43:48propaganda machine which was never
43:49reached by anything similar from the
43:51other side for one simple reason because
43:55communism was International and
43:56International National Socialist could
43:58be International but never
44:01internationalist that's the starting
44:02point Aron does a very good job in
44:05discussing that in the origins when she
44:08says that a any movement which is based
44:10on race is ma is based on a
44:14limitation it's basically impossible to
44:17become a planetary movement to attract
44:20the kind of global appeals or to exert
44:24the the the type of global appeals that
44:27communism could exert and for such a
44:29long period of time it was simply uh
44:33doomed to be limited uh a great
44:37historian Fran fur some of you read of
44:40course the passing of an illusion or his
44:43writings on Marx and the French
44:44Revolution and his book on of course
44:46rethinking the French Revolution Fran
44:49furz said that both and as a matter of
44:51fact this is a starting point in my own
44:53analysis is that two the two projects
44:56where or are to be seen as
45:01um failed I don't like the translation
45:05failed derailed that's the real
45:07translation because in French is
45:09de de okay derailed so he said communism
45:14is a derailed project derailed offspring
45:18of the
45:19Enlightenment and fascism is a derailed
45:22offspring of the counter Enlightenment
45:25if you take or also from
45:27communism is a pathology of
45:30universalism fascism is a pathology of
45:34particularism because leave pathology
45:37aside okay uh particularism cannot be is
45:40by definition particular it cannot be
45:42Universal it's its very definition it
45:45emphasizes a certain group as being the
45:48beneficiary of all the great
45:49achievements of humanity and so so forth
45:52the nobility and so on in this case the
45:54Arian Nation the Germanic nation and so
45:56on communism is ecumenical it's uh in
46:01the eological sense Catholic okay
46:05Universal uh so since we are coming
46:08getting closer to 1:00 I'll finish with
46:11there are many things that I could have
46:13uh said I took only point one of this
46:15list of discussions but I'll uh finish
46:18with um uh some lines from the book or
46:22about the book or about the topics of
46:24the book The Communist Internationals
46:25propaganda machine defended human rights
46:27against the Abominable atrocities
46:29perpetrated by the Nazis obscuring the
46:31fact that I mentioned before that until
46:331939 most Mass crimes in Europe were in
46:36fact committed by the stalinists in the
46:40USSR so therefore I tried to discuss to
46:44explore to examine uh political passions
46:47radicalism utopian ideals and their
46:49catastrophic consequences in the 20th
46:51century experiments in massive social
46:54engineering both regimes were involved
46:56in in
46:57in the case of the Soviet Union things
46:58are not surprised they defined
47:01themselves quote the great experiment
47:03they that was the experimental notion
47:06was at the heart of the Soviet if you
47:08want to understand sovietism and this is
47:09exactly what Steve ckin does in his book
47:12about Soviet civilization what is you
47:13know magnetic Mountain uh basically it
47:16was an experiment in creating a uh new
47:19civilization uh some of you are familiar
47:21with the one of my favorite uh let's say
47:26uh situations intellectual situations
47:28the webs the webs were Sydney and
47:30beatric web very well-known
47:31intellectuals Britain Fabian Society etc
47:34etc uh progressives with all the good
47:36things about the progressives uh the
47:38webs went to the Soviet Union in the
47:401920s published their first book which
47:42was called the USSR a new civilization
47:44question mark uh in the
47:471930s they Revisited the Soviet Union
47:50and they um uh they published a book the
47:54USSR a new civilization and they deleted
47:57the question
47:58mark uh were the webs aware of what was
48:02going on or not that's a key element in
48:06the uh please those who have not read I
48:08recommend very strongly a book by
48:10Michael David Fox the recent book by
48:12Michael David Fox who teaches was my
48:14colleague at Melon now he's at
48:15Georgetown the book is called showcasing
48:18the great experiment it's about Soviet
48:21cultural diplomacy in the 1930s it's a
48:25fabulous book based on AR The Archives
48:27of the whatever Soviet Association for
48:31links with the what was the V Vox right
48:34vo the v k s okay uh which was I had no
48:39idea that the first president of V was
48:41kamf sister no so Kam's wife and try's
48:44sister Olga Kam and so very interesting
48:47stuff okay so uh betri web was more
48:51aware of what was going on and as a
48:53matter of fact but they were completely
48:55controlled mentally control by the
48:57Soviet Ambassador Ian myi to to a great
48:59extent their information and they were
49:01shocked by The Pact in 1939 but they
49:04decided classic case for fellow
49:05Travelers they decided not to speak up
49:07because that would bring gree to the
49:09mill of the reactionaries and so so they
49:12kept their disappointment very private
49:15okay so they allowed for the Illusions
49:18to go on so uh it is important therefore
49:22to to try to map and explain what
49:24hanahand called the idey ological storms
49:27of a century second to none in violence
49:30huis ruthlessness and human
49:33sacrifices now uh three final quotes and
49:37then we can have any questions uh you
49:40have
49:43uh kovski the devil invented ideological
49:47states that is to say States whose
49:49legitimacy is grounded in the fact that
49:51their owners are owners of truth if you
49:55oppose such a state or its system you
49:58are not simply an anti-state person like
50:02in other type of dictatorship you are or
50:04you become Cote from kovski an enemy of
50:07truth that explains the um how do I call
50:12it uh almost
50:15um the sectarian but it more there
50:18should be another term if you want quasi
50:20talmudist type of struggles that take
50:23place around a particular sentence in
50:25Lenin in the 1920s or a particular how
50:28Lenin discusses when he wants to smash
50:31the Renegade kutski in his famous
50:33pamphlet The proletarian Revolution
50:34Renegade kski the interpretation of the
50:37meaning of the war dictatorship of the
50:39proletarian there are pages and Pages
50:41there that he goes on and on what it
50:43means the dictatorship of the
50:45proletariat okay so that for any lay
50:49person's ear sounds absolutely lunacy I
50:52mean why would people engage in this
50:54type of debate because this were ocratic
50:57systems if you don't see the role of
51:00ideology as defining the truth then we
51:02miss the point but basically what kind
51:04of systems uh we talk about uh
51:09second uh it's a very interesting uh
51:13quotation I found it from one of my
51:15favorite writers he's a um British
51:18Australian whatever uh cultural critic
51:20Clive James those who read you
51:23know TLS and so on I mean his very very
51:27smart guy so he says a measure of our
51:29slowness to face up to the real history
51:31of the Soviet Union is that the
51:32expression kirov ballet does not strike
51:35us as obscene the expression himler used
51:38Orchestra
51:39Would Imagine a trip to Washington DC at
51:43the Kennedy Center of the himler Youth
51:45Orchestra nobody has a problem with the
51:47kirov balet while we know for sure that
51:50kirov was one of the top Bolsheviks
51:53involved in most of the bolik at
51:56citizens on and far from being the great
51:59guy described by a certain type of
52:01historiography okay and the last one
52:03it's from uh uh a review in TLS of my
52:07book by one of my favorite political
52:10thinkers John Gray uh who wrote The
52:12Following blindness to the true nature
52:14of Communism is an inability to accept
52:17that radical evil can come from the
52:19pursuit of
52:21progress uh this is the problem and uh
52:24I'll end up with one of my favorite
52:27lines which I sent after that to John
52:29gra after he published this great review
52:32in TLS and I said you know that really
52:35uh struck a very responsive cord with me
52:37because I always had a problem with the
52:40concept of progress especially the
52:42mechanical deterministic vision of
52:43progress and in one of my favorite books
52:46that I quote in in uh the devil in
52:48history and probably one of the two or
52:51three most devastatingly important
52:54analysis of what communist meant in the
52:57Soviet Union I have in mind the two
52:58volumes of Memoirs by nadda
53:01mandelstam uh nadda mandam quotes o
53:04mandam who tells her they talk about
53:07progress at a certain moment and she
53:09said I was five and I was in Kiev when I
53:11first were heard the word progress and I
53:15started to
53:16cry uh read it in
53:20nirs it's very interesting uh we know
53:23that poets have a uh even at the age of
53:25five have a very very different uh
53:28relationship with with reality they see
53:31things before you know poets are seers
53:34as they say and at the age of five I
53:36think that mandam had premonitions that
53:38other people could not have had

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