There Is a Kind of AMNESIA Regarding the Communist Crimes, Just as there Is a HYPERMNESIA in Relation to the Shoah [Holocaust]

Again, comparing the two absolute disgraces of the twentieth century, the gulag and the Holocaust, often leads to misunderstandings and injured feelings among victims of one or another of these monstrosities. This is regrettable because, in all fairness, none of these experiences will ever be remembered enough. Yes, as Alain Besançon points out, there is a kind of amnesia regarding the Communist crimes, just as there is a hypermnesia in relation to the Shoah [Holocaust]. But as the French historian shows, this is not because there is an attempt by one group to monopolize the memory of suffering in the twentieth century. The origins of this phenomenon are to be sought after in the fact that Communism was often regarded as progressive, anti-imperialist, and, more important still, anti-Fascist. Communism knew how to pose as the heir to the Enlightenment, and many were duped by this rationalistic and humanistic pretense. So, in my view, the research agenda initially suggested by The Black Book presupposed a rethinking not only of Communism and Fascism but also of their opposites, anti-Fascism and anti-Communism. In other words, not all those who resisted Hitler were friends of democracy, and not all those who rebelled against Lenin, Stalin, Mao, or Castro were bona fide liberals. The Black Book forced many in France, Germany, the United States, and, if it need be recalled, East-Central Europe to admit that those “who told of the marvels of the Soviet Union served to legitimize the massacre of millions. . . . [They] fooled their own societies into seeing the millions of corpses as a great promise for a better future.” The uproar caused by The Black Book helped bring to the fore the need both for remembrance of Communism’s crimes and for reassessment of the massive killing and dying perpetrated by so many regimes in the name of this ideology with the endorsement of those who preferred to keep their eyes and ears firmly shut.

—Vladimir Tismaneanu, The Devil in History: Communism, Fascism, and Some Lessons of the Twentieth Century (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2012), 46.