Decommunization

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One of the manifestations of decommunization has been renaming streets. Before 2017, ulica Anny German in Poznań (Anna German Street) was named in honor of Julian Leński.[1]

Decommunization is the process of dismantling the legacies of communist state establishments, culture, and psychology in the post-communist countries. It is sometimes referred to as political cleansing.[2] Although the term has been occasionally used during the Cold War,[3] it is most commonly applied to the former countries of the Eastern Bloc and the Soviet Union to describe a number of legal and social changes during their periods of postcommunism after the Cold War.

In some states, decommunization includes bans on communist symbols. While sharing common traits, the processes of decommunization have run differently in different states.[4][5]

Decommunization organizations

Investigators and prosecutors

Prosecution of former communists

Main article: Lustration

Lustration came to refer to government policies of limiting the participation of former communists, and especially informants of the communist secret police, in the successor political appointee positions or even in civil service positions.

Persecutions and prosecutions of communist state leaders

Getting rid of Soviet era memorials

Ukraine

Main article: Decommunization in Ukraine

The process of decommunization and de-Sovietization in Ukraine started soon after dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, led by President Leonid Kravchuk, a former high-ranking party official.[10] In April 2015, a formal decommunization process started in Ukraine after laws were approved which outlawed communist symbols, among other things.[11] On 15 May 2015, President Petro Poroshenko signed a set of laws that started a six-month period for the removal of communist monuments (excluding World War II monuments) and renaming of public places named after communist-related themes.[12][13] At the time, this meant that 22 cities and 44 villages would need to be renamed.[14][15] In 2016, 51,493 streets and 987 cities and villages were renamed, and 1,320 Lenin monuments and 1,069 monuments to other communist figures were removed.[16]

Poland

Since 1989, Poland has taken down hundreds of Soviet monuments due to the negative reputation the Soviet Union has in Poland.[17] Although some Poles see the memorials as justified in honouring those who died fighting against Nazi Germany, others seek the removal of Soviet memorials because of the decades of totalitarianism that resulted from Soviet occupation, and also because of the 1939 Nazi-Soviet pact and the Katyn massacre.[18] Historian Lukasz Kaminski of the Institute of National Remembrance said, "Memorials in city centers and villages can send the wrong historical signal... What do you think we got, when the Soviets liberated Poland from Hitler, if not a new yoke?"[17]

In the 2010s, Poland continued to demolish remaining Soviet monuments, some of which have been relocated to museums.[19] The removals have attracted criticism from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who has lashed out at Warsaw officials for opposing the monuments,[19] as has Maria Zakharova, a spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry.[18]

Czech Republic

In April 2020, a statue of Soviet Marshal Ivan Konev was removed from Prague, which prompted criminal investigation by Russian authorities who considered it an insult. The Mayor of Prague's sixth municipal district, Ondřej Kolář, announced on Prima televize that he would be under police protection after a Russian man made attempts on his life. Prime Minister Andrej Babiš condemned that as foreign interference, while Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov dismissed allegations of Russian involvement as "another hoax".[20]

Results

Communist parties outside the Baltic states were not outlawed and their members were not prosecuted. Just a few places attempted to exclude even members of communist secret services from decision-making. In a number of countries, the communist party simply changed its name and continued to function.[21]

Stephen Holmes of the University of Chicago argued in 1996 that after a period of active decommunization, it was met with a near-universal failure. After the introduction of lustration, demand for scapegoats has become relatively low, and former communists have been elected for high governmental and other administrative positions. Holmes notes that the only real exception was former East Germany, where thousands of former Stasi informers have been fired from public positions.[22]

Holmes suggests the following reasons for the turnoff of decommunization:[22]

  • After 45–70 years of Communist state rule, nearly every family has members associated with the state. After the initial desire "to root out the reds" came a realization that massive punishment is wrong and finding only some guilty is hardly justice.
  • The urgency of the current economic problems of postcommunism makes the crimes of the communist past "old news" for many citizens.
  • Decommunization is believed to be a power game of elites.
  • The difficulty of dislodging the social elite makes it require a totalitarian state to disenfranchise the "enemies of the people" quickly and efficiently and a desire for normalcy overcomes the desire for punitive justice.
  • Very few people have a perfectly clean slate and so are available to fill the positions that require significant expertise.

See also

References

Look up decommunization in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
  1. ^ "German zastąpi działacza komunistycznego". radiopoznan.fm (in Polish). Retrieved 18 May 2018.
  2. ^ Jennifer A. Yoder (1999) "From East Germans to Germans?: The New Postcommunist Elites", ISBN 0-8223-2372-9,, pp. 95–97
  3. ^ The Current Digest of the Soviet Press. American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. 1968.
  4. ^ "Lithuanian ban on Soviet symbols", BBC News, 17 June 2008, retrieved 3 June 2016
  5. ^ Shevchenko, Vitaly (14 April 2015). "Goodbye, Lenin: Ukraine moves to ban communist symbols". BBC News. Retrieved 3 June 2016.
  6. ^ "Greetings". The Committee of National Remembrance. Retrieved 27 March 2020.
  7. ^ "Flashback: When the Taleban took Kabul". 15 October 2001. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
  8. ^ "BBC News | Europe | Bulgaria's ex-communist leader dies". news.bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
  9. ^ "Three presidents to attend Jaruzelski funeral". Polskie Radio dla Zagranicy. Retrieved 16 October 2019.
  10. ^ Khotin, Rostyslav (26 November 2009). "Ukraine tears down controversial statue". BBC Ukrainian Service. BBC News. Retrieved 6 February 2020.
  11. ^ Motyl, Alexander J. (28 April 2015). "Decommunizing Ukraine". Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  12. ^ Poroshenko signed the laws about decomunization. Ukrayinska Pravda. 15 May 2015
    Poroshenko signs laws on denouncing Communist, Nazi regimes, Interfax-Ukraine. 15 May 2015
  13. ^ Shevchenko, Vitaly (14 April 2015). "Goodbye, Lenin: Ukraine moves to ban communist symbols". BBC News. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
  14. ^ (in Ukrainian) In Ukraine rename 22 cities and 44 villages, Ukrayinska Pravda (4 June 2015)
  15. ^ (in Ukrainian) Komsomolsk in any case be renamed, depo.ua (1 October 2015)
  16. ^ Decommunization reform: 25 districts and 987 populated areas in Ukraine renamed in 2016, Ukrinform (27 December 2016)
  17. ^ a b Welle (www.dw.com), Deutsche. "Poland plans to tear down hundreds of Soviet memorials | DW | 13 April 2016". DW.COM. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  18. ^ a b "Poles apart: the bitter conflict over a nation's communist history". the Guardian. 13 July 2018. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  19. ^ a b "Poland Set to Demolish 500 Soviet Monuments". The Moscow Times. 31 March 2016. Retrieved 19 March 2021.
  20. ^ "Prague district mayor says he is under police protection against Russian threat". Reuters. 29 April 2020.
  21. ^ After socialism: where hope for individual liberty lies. Svetozar Pejovich.
  22. ^ a b Michael Mandelbaum (Ed., 1996) "Post-Communism: Four Perspectives", Council on Foreign Relations ISBN 0876091869
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