The weakness of the region's political parties is primarily determined by the general crisis of values and authority. There is an absence of social glue, and the existing formations have failed to foster the consensus needed in order to generate constitutional patriotism. The Leninist “misdevelopment” left the region's societies with the difficult task of reconstituting normal communitarian bounds that allow for overt and unmitigated social interaction. The unmastered past of the totalitarian experience of the twentieth century in Central and Eastern Europe prevents these countries from institutionalizing the logical connection between democracy, memory, and militancy. Joachim Gauck argued that “reconciliation with the traumatic past can only be achieved not simply through grief, but also through discussion and dialogue. ”74 In this sense, Charles Villa-Vicencio, the former director for research of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, defined reconciliation as “the operation whereby individuals and the community create for themselves a space in which they can communicate with one another, in which they can begin the arduous labour of understanding” painful history. Hence justice becomes a process of enabling the nation with the aid of a culture of responsibility.75 A new identity can be based upon negative contrasts, “on the one hand, with the past that is being repudiated; on the other, with anti-democratic political actors in the present (and/or potentially in the future).”76 This process of putting into question the “actual intersubjective liabilities of particular collectives” can lead to a redefinition of “anamnestic solidarity.” The latter would be based upon an ethical framework circumscribed by both the knowledge of the truth and the official acknowledgement of its history. The destructive power of silence and of unassumed guilt would in this way be preempted. To paraphrase political scientist Gesine Schwan, the fundamental abilities and values of individuals are nourished so as to sustain their well-being, social behavior, and trust in communal life. The moral consensus over a shared experience of reality is preserved, making possible the democratic life of the specific society.77 Though some have argued along these lines, I don't believe that some sort of collective communicative silence (kommunikatives Beschweigen) about the past can enable post-Communist countries to evolve into functioning democracies.78 I agree with Tony Judt that radical evil can never be satisfactorily remembered, but, as proved by the German experience, a consistent appeal to history can function simultaneously as exorcism and therapy.79
The transition from an illegitimate and criminal regime to democracy and a culture of human rights is indeed a process dependent on the specific conditions of each postauthoritarian society. It implies a series of compromises and negotiations, but the act of healing a community must not be confused with moral consensus about a traumatic past. The history of violence must not legitimize transition. There is a need for unfettered transparency and total truth. After 1989, the present and the future must “stand up to the scrutiny of a gaze educated by the moral catastrophe”80 produced by the totalitarian experience of the twentieth century. Otherwise, the web of lies becomes oppressive and the imperturbable fog extends infinitely into a state of moral perplexity. Political radicalization in the guise of historical retribution (“righting the wrongs of the past”) is often used to achieve mass mobilization and delegitimize adversaries. This is not to say that the politics of amnesia, deliberately pursued by former or successor Communists, has resulted in any needed catharsis. On the contrary, as demonstrated by the furious reactions in Romania to President Băsescu's condemnation of the Communist regime as “illegitimate and criminal,”81 the past does not fade away and often strikes back with a vengeance. There prevails a feeling of having been betrayed by the politicians, as well as a quest for a new purity. This is the rationale both for the “radical revolutionism” of the Kaczyński brothers in Poland and Viktor Orbán in Hungary (at the right end of the spectrum) and for the political resurrection of Communist parties in Lithuania, Romania, and Bulgaria. It also explains the power of Putin's neo-authoritarian politics of “managed democracy” in a memory regime of institutionalized amnesia and historical falsification. As for Putin himself, he has abandoned the Yeltsin era's adamant anti-Leninism and has become, especially since 2006, the proponent of an increasingly aggressive version of neo-Stalinist and neo-i mperialist restoration. The high school history textbook (dealing with the period 1945 to 1991) commissioned by the Kremlin and published in 2008 symbolizes the return to some of the most egregious Stalinist falsifications and a radical break with the legacies of glasnost. Putinism is an ideological conglomerate bringing together Great Russian nationalism, imperial authoritarianism, and a drive to restore the lost grandeur of the Stalin era.82 The narrative about the past offered by the Putin administration is the quintessential formula of “reconciliation without truth.”83 In other words, we are dealing with an apocryphal reconciliation.
The ideological syncretism of Stalino-Fascism capitalizes on delayed political justice. Think of Russia, where much ado about the trial of the old party has not resulted in anything significant. Demagogy, overblown rhetoric, and continual scapegoating undermine the legitimacy of the existing institutions and pave the way for the rise of ethnocentric crackpots. The harmful effects of long-maintained forms of amnesia cannot be overestimated. The lack of serious public discussions and lucid analyses of the past, including an acknowledgment by the highest state authorities of the crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Communist dictatorships, fuels discontent, outrage, and frustration and encourages the rise of demagogues, leading to vindictive references to the need for purification through retribution. Thus we see the creation of new mythologies to explain the current predicament: “Judeo-Masonic conspiracies” that endanger “national interests.”84 Nations are presented almost universally as victims of foreigners, and the Communist regimes are described as engineered by aliens to serve foreign interests. Russian nationalists, including some of the most gifted fiction writers belonging to the Siberian School, have not tired of blaming the Jews for the Bolshevik destruction of traditional values and structures. Some of the most frantic propagandists for such dark visions are former Communists, including a number of former Communist intellectuals. Writing primarily about the tragic events in his native Yugoslavia, American poet Charles Simic touched a depressing and unfortunately accurate note when he observed, “The terrifying thing about modern intellectuals everywhere is that they are always changing idols. At least religious fanatics stick mostly to what they believe in. All the rabid nationalists in Eastern Europe were Marxists yesterday and Stalinists last week.”85