Publication date:  28 February 2005

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Poltergeist

Strange things have been happening of late...

All of a sudden U.S. State Department published a report concerning anti-Semitism in Russia. The report worked as an instant incantation for raising the dead. It brought to life the ghost of "Judeophobia" of a domestic variety that had been sleeping in his grave for years. The picture painted by the media looked rather ominous. It included reports on the rabbi-bashing and the desecration of synagogues and cemeteries in Moscow, an inquiry filed by the Duma deputies with regard to the slaughter of the Christian infants, "the epistle to the Hebrews" by Belkovsky, and the evergreen general Makashov spitting venom on a live talk show about the "Jewish issue" on NTV. Good gracious! Keep away from me! Get thee gone! Where on earth have all of you come from? But it is too late to ward off the demons since the fat is in the fire.

While paying homage to the victims of Nazism in a ceremony held in Auschwitz, the Ukrainian president said in public that "the total number of victims of the Famine and the Holocaust amounts to 15 million people." With the universally recognized figures for the victims of the Holocaust standing at 6 million, the remaining 9 million people must have been killed by the Famine which is said to have been nothing else than outrageous genocide of the Ukrainian people committed by the Russian imperialists wearing the guise of commissars. They exterminated people under the pretext of collectivization. So forget Auschwitz and be advised that Stalin is a much more hideous monster than Hitler.

Then a heated discussion was launched by the Baltic states regarding the latest interpretation of the Soviet Army's victory over the Nazis in WWII as to its significance to the peoples of Eastern Europe. At the end of the day, was it liberation or occupation? The discussion aims to enlighten the rest of Europe. As for the Baltic states themselves, they have already figured it out a long time ago that the German armies of the group "North" were their real liberators in 1941 as opposed to the Russian invaders who came three years later. Given all his shortcomings, Hitler was nevertheless an embodiment of "European values", the ones that the barbarians from the East lacked completely.

And, finally, the European Parliament set up a censorship and history committee that not only called on European leaders to refrain from taking part in the V-Day 60th anniversary celebrations to be held in Moscow on May 9, but also banned hammer and sickle along with swastika. In other words, one might as well get an impression that some neocommunists in Eastern Europe suddenly reared their ugly heads to threaten stability and political order of European democracies. But all the messages mentioned above have been apparently sent to us and they say: "Stalin is worse than Hitler."

All those allegations could be easily called the paroxysms of hatred stemming from a certain pathological annoyance experienced by the "New Europeans" over the mere fact that Russia still exists. Well, I regret to disappoint the patriots and those who look for conspiracy theories. In reality, Russia has nothing to do with all that stir. It is all about European politicians resolving their own European problems.

These days we can actually witness a large-scale process unfolding right before our very eyes. The process is aimed at legitimizing Third Reich in terms of world history and culture.

What are the reasons behind this development? The thing is, the European Union in its present shape will look like a somewhat awkward historical case unless the above legitimization is done. Today's EU is a structure that is desperately searching for a myth of unity to hang on. Otherwise, the shift from "Euroeuphoria to Euroskepticism" will be irrevocable. It is simply impossible to pass over the "issue of Hitler" during the search i.e. the final dismantling of decisions reached in Potsdam and Nuremberg is a must.

The methods

How could they get the Fuhrer back? Watch closely for the words used. First the struggle against fascism or Nazism is replaced by the war against the totalitarian regime of Hitler therefore totalitarianism becomes the principal evil defeated as a result. Then parallels are made on a large scale between Hitler's totalitarianism and that of Stalin thus interpreting the war as struggle between the two varieties of totalitarianism. And the only positive result produced by that struggle is freedom for a half of Europe (the one lying on the West). Afterwards a large-scale discussion gets under way to determine which one of the two totalitarian regimes is worse. It does not matter how the discussion will end up. Finding parallels in the two regimes i.e. the discussion itself is good enough for turning the revisionist scenario into a success.

Then they highlight the results of the discussion: "different peoples have different points of view with regard to what kind of totalitarianism is worse." In other words, "a unified opinion on the subject is out the question." Some people believe Hitler is worse than Stalin, others stick to a different point of view. By and large, the both dictators are regarded as absolute evil. Only after delivering this statement they go on to the heart of the matter.

The heart of the matter

First and foremost, the main lie of the Potsdam and Nuremberg version of history is being dismantled. The whole myth of the postwar Europe was supported by that lie. The point is that there was no war whatsoever "fought by the peoples of Europe for their liberation from fascism", it just can't have happened. In actuality, the war was fought by a united continental Europe joining forces against the Soviet regime and the Anglo-Saxon colonial system. It was a fact that had to be concealed by the winners in 1945 when they dealt with those who lost the war. The winners should have told the defeated powers that they didn't get beaten, they were, in fact, some sort of minor allies to the winners. Nowadays this lie is no longer required.

Secondly, the proverbial "Jewish issue" is being spoken about once again. It holds the spotlight in a new context this time.

I was wondering where this terrible creature called "Russian anti-Semitism" had been hiding before leaping forth this time around. Generally speaking, the situation can be explained by the fact that Jews and the Jewish lobby are potentially one of Russia's most important allies as to its efforts to avert the revision of the results of WWII. Today the principal moral substantiation of Jewish exclusiveness and the right of Jews to be outside the worldwide taboos rest upon the Holocaust. It is the central pillar supporting both the state of Israel and the Jewish communities around the world.

Today this very value is under threat of destruction. As a matter of fact, the above mentioned statement by Yushchenko about the Famine being an ethnic cleansing (committed on a much larger scale than the Holocaust) is a heavy blow per se. It is a real challenge to the Jewish exclusiveness therefore it looks a lot scary than a bunch of morons dressed up like nationalists from the woods of Western Ukraine in the 1940s.

The Jewish issue will be no longer deemed a highly sensitive subject should the genocide of Jews by Nazis lose its exclusiveness and be likened to the genocide committed against Armenians in Turkey, or against Albanians in Yugoslavia (or Serbs in Kosovo) and so on up to some "act of infringement of the rights of Slovaks in Czechoslovakia". The comparison will also break the taboo on a pithy discussion of Hitlerism. Subsequently, Hitler will cease to be something out of reach and the Hitler regime will be put alongside the other ones that also dealt with similar objectives relating to a national state development. One more step and the legitimization will be firmly in place.

The central status of a problem of minorities and illegal immigration in the context of domestic European policies also plays an important role. It is understood that an active core of traditional European nations is being mobilized by growing diasporal communities. At times the mobilization takes quite radical forms e.g. Heiderr, Le Pen, Pim Fortein. An anti-diasporal, even a racist aspect of Hitlerism is becoming more and more clearer to a modern European whose mind is stuffed with national categories. The success of a discourse on radicalism and traditionalism even if it goes the mildest European ways makes the appreciation easier. Indeed, why does an Arab living in Marseilles refuse to absorb French and French culture? And what about a Turk in Berlin or a Russian in Riga?

For Stalin

There is nothing we can do to keep the Fuhrer from coming back. This is our problem.

The thing is, the idea to compare Stalin and Hitler originated in our own "discourse" dating back to perestroika times. It is Russia, nay, the Soviet Union that gave an original impetus to the process of revision of the results of WWII. It is us who pulled out the first bricks from the foundations on which the Yalta-Potsdam world order was built. All the others were merely driven by a gregarious instinct and joined the club. The developments that are now taking place in Europe (both in Eastern and Western parts of it) are, in fact, the repercussions of our perestroika that finally hit them. Those who doubt this opinion are welcome take a trip to today's Kiev.

The rejection of anything Soviet was used as a cornerstone while drawing a draft of the present Russian constitution. It is essentially anti-USSR by substance. No simulative or practical efforts taken by "the regime of Chekists" e.g. approval of the old Soviet national anthem or erection of a monument to Andropov are capable of changing this basic ontological feature of the system. Such efforts are likely to destroy the system completely.

That is say, everything is being decided and can be decided only in this country. Because the grave of Stalin, the chief demiurge in the 20th century history that is being remade these days, is not located in Riga or Warsaw. It is not even in Brussels. It is right here near the Kremlin wall. Nobody else but us should bear responsibility for its fate.

In other words, the return of Hitler that is being staged before our very eyes is a direct result of our own taboo enforced on Stalin. We lost our chance to resist the coming of the Fuhrer by declaring Stalin null and void, by ejecting him from the real history into the realm of marginal mythologies and tabloid rumors. We became the spectators who just sit and watch with indifference the revenge taking shape.

The 60th anniversary of V-Day is most likely to be a weird show. The show will involve the last of the few remaining WWII veterans standing aghast after witnessing Pandora's box open yet again to produce the ghost of Reich, this time the fourth one, arising out of the dark again. It is particularly strange because the situation is of our own making, as Churchill put it referring to the winners in 1918.

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