Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

The Black Book of Communism, by Stephanie Courtois (ed.) 1999

Double Genocide. Red=Brown. How Holocaust Preeminence Marginalizes the Crimes of Communism and Makes Its Victims Almost Invisible. Holocaust Supremacism Debunked

Though some of the groups targeted by the Soviets were in accordance with their ethnicity, and so qualify as Communist genocide, most of the groups targeted were according to class–hence classicide.

The Communist subjugation of Poles, beginning with those of the Soviet Union and ending with those of post-WWII, Poland, is examined in detail by Andrzej Paczkowski. (pp. 363-393).

This volume is full of information, and I now focus on the near-silence on the crimes of Communism compared with those of Nazis (against Jews, that is).

NO HOLOCAUST PREEMINENCE: REMEMBER BLACK RIBBON DAY. THE COMMUNISTS MURDERED FAR MORE HUMAN BEINGS THAN DID THE NAZIS

In the Foreword, the editors put the number of victims of Communism at 85-100 million dead. (p. x).

Stephane Courtois, a director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), supports a total of about 100 million dead at the hands of Communism, and apportions them as follows: USSR (20 million), China (65 million), North Korea (2 million), Cambodia (2 million), etc. (p. 4).

THE CONTRIVED DISTINCTION BETWEEN “EXTERMINATION FOR A POLITICAL OBJECTIVE” AND “EXTERMINATION AS AN END IN ITSELF”

Consider one Holocaust supremacist talking point. In the Foreword, the editors provide this stinging rebuke, “The plausible distinction, however, can easily be turned on its head. In particular, Eastern European dissidents have argued that mass murder in the name of a noble idea is MORE perverse than it is in the name of a base one. The Nazis, after all, never pretended to be virtuous. The Communists, by contrast, trumpeting their humanism, hoodwinked millions around the globe for decades, and so got away with murder on the ultimate scale. The Nazis, moreover, killed off their victims without ideological ceremony; the Communists, by contrast, usually compelled their prey to confess their ‘guilt’ in signed depositions thereby acknowledging the Party line’s political ‘correctness’.” (p. xv).

THE NAZIS TARGETED PEOPLES NOT FOR WHAT THEY DID BUT FOR WHO THEY WERE. BUT SO DID THE COMMUNISTS!

Stephane Courtois writes, “Critics have often tried to make a distinction between Nazism and Communism by arguing that the Nazi project had a particular aim, which was nationalist and racist in the extreme, whereas Lenin’s project was universal. This is entirely wrong. In both theory and practice, Lenin and his successors excluded from humanity all capitalists, bourgeoisie, counterrevolutionaries, and others, turning them into absolute enemies in their sociological and political discourse.” (p. 753).

THE PRIMACY OF THE HOLOCAUST PREVENTS AN OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE CRIMES OF COMMUNISM

Stephane Courtois comments, “More recently, a single-minded focus on the Jewish genocide in an attempt to characterize the Holocaust as a unique atrocity has also prevented an assessment of other episodes of comparable magnitude in the Communist world.” (p. 23). Well said!

REVERSE HOLOCAUST OBFUSCATION: THE HOLOCAUST EFFECTIVELY MAKES THE VICTIMS OF COMMUNISM INVISIBLE

Courtois points out that, “In contrast to the Jewish Holocaust, which the international Jewish community has actively commemorated, it has been impossible for victims of Communism and their legal advocates to keep the memory of the tragedy alive, and any requests for commemoration or demands for reparation are brushed aside.” (p. 19).

And there are those who would have us believe that over-attention to the Holocaust, and attention to other genocidal crimes, is not a zero sum game. It may not be exactly, but it is close enough.