The Crime that Never Was (On Communist Crimes Denial)

Tens of millions were murdered in its name through forced famine, murder and expulsion. Hundreds of millions more were subject to impoverishment and mass abuse of their human rights, on a scale never known in the democratic world. Life for all but the self-appointed leaders was one of hardship and repression.

No, I am not talking of fascism or even hard nationalism. I am referring to the victims of those who lived and those who are still living in states with a professed communist ideology. I do so because no-one in Israel, especially on the left or in academia seems willing or able to do so.

We have scholars and intellectuals calling for recognition of the Armenian genocide. We even have those who lehavdil claim Israel should stop its alleged "Nakba denial" and commemorate the Paletinians. However, I have yet to hear of anyone suggesting we should dedicate time and effort to commemorating the many people and peoples who were victims of communist atrocities.

This has been building up in me a long time. It started when a teacher of mine dismissed communist crimes with the excuse "I wouldn;t want to live there, but at least they narrowed the [socioeconomic] gaps" and at least "the leaders didn't live that well". Prying a little deeper, all the usual excuses came out: Lenin wanted something else. Stalin was nuts, Mao was nuts and so forth. Look how "good" Cuba is. Pitiful stuff that would be laughed out of court when it comes to Nazis is apparently acceptable when it comes to Communists. In another instance, a teacher of mine went on and on about the dangers of nationalism. When I mentioned communism, he gave me a blank stare and then excused it as simply "a dictator" who rose up, as if there was no underlying ideology.

Apparently intelligent people are meant to believe that all the communist leaders, subordinates, soldiers and carriers-out were all, at different times and in different places, seized by a mass psychosis. None of them was driven by ideology or capable of making moral choices. Forget the evidence. Forget the facts. They "meant well". They "really believe in what they do". They "dream of a better world", so to hell with all the people who need to be destroyed to get there. If all the excuses fail? Pretend it never happened.

Words can not describe how much I detest people willing to defend the crimes of genocide, democide and mass repression committed in the name of the "well-meaning ideology", all while condemning every supposed crime of democracies.

No-one who is genuinely serious about human rights in Israel can avoid the challenge of making "communist crimes denial" as illegitamite as Holoaust denial. We can start by translating "The Black Book of Communism", but to avoid the issue is, for me, tantamount to justifying it.

We screamed "never again". It's time we proved we meant it.