WALLS
International Conference on the Occasion of the 35th Anniversary of the
destruction of the Berlin Wall
11-13 November 2024,
Sofia University “St. Climent of Ohrid”
Sofia
Discourse by Latchezar Toshev,
Honorary Associate of
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
International Condemnation of the Crimes of Communist Regimes by European Institutions as a Means for Building a Europe without Dividing Lines
Abstract
The unification of Europe after the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain enabled European people to learn more about each other’s past. This was important in order to understand each other better, considering that we are living together in the same community. For this purpose, it is of paramount significance to promote remembrance of the crimes of totalitarian regimes – not only of Nazism and Fascism, but also of Totalitarian Communism.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, after a debate which lasted three years, adopted on the 25th of January 2006 its Resolution 1481/2006 on the Need for Condemnation of the Crimes of Totalitarian Communist Regimes, followed on 18 December 2006 by a Reply of the Committee of Ministers on Written Question No. 486, which stated that the Committee of Ministers firmly condemns crimes committed by totalitarian regimes in the name of communist ideology. It was followed by the Resolution of the European Parliament of the 2nd of April 2009 and of the Parliamentary Assembly of OSCE on the 3rd of July 2009, reaffirming the same position as this of PACE.
* * *
Thank you very much for the opportunity to express my point of view on the topic of this conference.
I do believe that in United Europe we need to share a common narrative about the past and the development of our states and societies – both in Eastern and Western Europe. We should know each other better in order to create Europe as a community with state borders, but without dividing lines. These dividing lines are invisible walls, but absolutely real ones. And they have to be destroyed!
The exception of this principle has to be implemented when we need to preserve our values from aggressive hybrid attacks against our society and to combat strongly the spreading of fake-news. I meant Russian Federation today and all states with like-minded politicians as those in today’s Russia.
But within our United Europe we have to build mutual understanding and trust. In this way, the knowledge about our past would help us understand each other much better and build our common future. Especially about the painful periods of our past.
The lack of knowledge in this respect was obvious to me. I shall give you an example with France.
The first clash was about the Victor Kravchenko case back in 1949, after the publication of Kravchenko’s book I Choose Freedom, which denounced the Soviet concentration camps notoriously known as GULAG. The magazine Les Lettres Françaises had accused Kravchenko of being an agent of the United States writing false allegations against the Soviet Union. The well-known French Writer Louis Aragon had joined the campaign against Kravchenko. On the 4th of April 1949, the Court issued a judgment in favor of Kravchenko. The magazine was sentenced to pay 500.000 French francs to the author and another 150.000 francs as interest and expenses for the trial.
(https://www.museedubarreaudeparis.com/victor-kravchenko-contre-les-lettres-francaises-1949/)
After an appeal by Les Lettres Françaises the sum was reduced by the Court, taking into account the high publicity about the book of Kravchenko due to this trial.
This was the first victory of the truth about communist regimes and their crimes, and the people of Western Europe started to understand the suffering of the people in Eastern Europe.
The same is valid for the book The Last Secret: The Delivery to Stalin of over Two Million Russians by Britain & the United States, published in 1970 by Lord Nicholas William Bethell, 4th Baron Bethell.
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/814721.The_Last_Secret)
In Eastern Europe during the totalitarian communist regime there were many publications about the crimes committed by National Socialists and Fascists mainly in Eastern Europe. But nothing is known even now by ordinary people about the massacre on the 10th of June 1944, for example, in the village of Ouradur-sur-Glane in France, where the German SS-troupes killed cruelly 643 civilians, including non-combatant men, women, and children.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oradour-sur-Glane_massacre)
Only after the destruction of Iron Curtain we learned about the mass killing of tens of thousands of Polish officers in Katyn and Vinnitsa by Soviet special services following the direct command by Stalin and his Soviet Polit-Bureau. The same was valid also for Holodomor in Ukraine. Etc.etc.etc.
It is time to spread the knowledge about the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes and to share this knowledge with society at large, so that the majority of people could distinguish between good and evil, between democracy and dictatorship, when evaluating Communism, particularly in regards of the so-called “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
How is it possible to achieve this goal?
Some people say that we should leave all this to scholars. But my point is that we should involve the whole society in Eastern and Western Europe in this debate. This cannot be achieved in close scholarly circles. Of course, this information should be included in textbooks, but this is not sufficient.
The media also should be involved, as well as public groups and political parties.
And the place where we could achieve this goal are the Parliaments and the forums of Parliamentary Assemblies and the European Parliament.
I was in a position to contribute to this purpose. And I did so!
As a longstanding member of Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe since 1992, I decided in 2003 to initiate a Motion for a Resolution for the need for International condemnation of the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes. The first who signed my draft-motion was Rene van der Linden, a senator from Netherlands and the Chairperson of EPP Group in the Assembly. Soon after he became a President of PACE which gave additional strength to the document, especially during the challenging moments of its adoption.
(https://pace.coe.int/en/files/10232
https://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2H-Xref-ViewHTML.asp?FileID=10232&lang=EN)
After the sharp debates which lasted during the next three years a lot of media reported about the Motion. The communist parties all over the world opposed severely the adoption of the document, lobbied for its rejection, and in this way made widely public its existence and the reasons for it. As an irony of fate with their opposition they contributed a lot to the adoption of this historic document.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDQrjJWdHYg
https://luchezar-toshev.blogspot.com/2015/04/14812006.html)
Finally, on the 25th of January 2006, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, at that time a body which represented over 41 national parliaments, adopted its Resolution 1481/2006 on the Need for International Condemnation of the Crimes of Totalitarian Communist Regimes. (https://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/Xref-XML2HTML-en.asp?fileid=17403&lang=EN)
This was a Resolution which strongly condemned the crimes of communist regimes but also the concepts of class-struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat. And this act become widely known in Europe and all over the world. It was followed on 18 December 2006 by a Reply of the Committee of Ministers representing the Foreign Ministers of member-states on Written Question No. 486, which stated that the Committee of Ministers firmly condemns crimes committed by totalitarian regimes in the name of communist ideology. (https://assembly.coe.int/nw/xml/XRef/X2H-Xref-ViewHTML.asp?FileID=11369&lang=EN) A long-lasting debate in the European parliament resulted in the adoption by a huge majority of the Resolution titled European Consciousness and Totalitarianism of the 2nd of April 2009 ( https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-6-2009-0213_EN.html?redirect) and then was followed by the Resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of OSCE on the 3rd of July 2009, reaffirming the same position as this of PACE. National Parliaments of many member-states had adopted resolutions of a similar nature.
The precise description of this campaign you could find in the book of Ass. Prof. Laure Neumayer from French University Sorbonne - Pantheon 1, “The Criminalization of Communism in the European political space after the Cold war” published in 2018, and translated and published in Bulgarian in 2022 which still is in bookshops in Bulgaria. (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328615377_The_Criminalization_of_Communism_in_the_European_Political_Space_after_the_Cold_War)
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoykHN98YF8)
For example, the Bulgarian Parliament adopted in April 2000 a Law on declaring the communist regime in Bulgaria criminal. (https://melaproject.org/sites/default/files/2019-06/Bulgaria%20-%20Law%205%20May%202000.pdf)
It was promulgated on the 5th of May 2000. Then on the 19th of November 2009, the Bulgarian Parliament adopted a Resolution in which it associated itself with the adopted above -mentioned Resolutions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the European Parliament, and the Parliamentary Assembly of OSCE, and declared the 23rd of August as a Remembrance Day for the crimes of National -Socialist, Communist, and other Totalitarian regimes and for commemoration of their victims.
Since that resolution of Bulgarian National Assembly, this Day of commemoration has been observed each year. In Sofia, the usual place is the Memorial of the Victims of Communism. Such commemoration is taking place not only in Sofia, but also in several other towns in Bulgaria, with involvement of Associations of people who suffered repressions during the Communist regime.
However, such a narrative about our past in the Eastern part of Europe have to become widely known in Europe. And not only to be known, but the crimes committed by all kind of oppressive regimes have to be condemned clearly and without ambiguity.
And herewith I would like to recall what I have said in the beginning of my presentation. Such a result is achievable only if the debates about the past will involve society as a whole. Both the National Society and the European Society. In this way we could build our common future without dividing lines and without walls.
Addendum :
REPUBLIC OF BULGARIA
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
FORTY-FIRST LEGISLATURE
DECISION
ON THE SUPPORT FOR THE EUROPEAN ACTS FOR DENOUNCING THE CRIMES OF THE COMMUNIST
AND NATIONAL-SOCIALIST REGIMES
The National Assembly, pursuant to Article 86, Paragraph 2, of the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria,
Referring to its Decision of 18 September 2008 on the support for the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism of 3 June 2008 and the need to make the truth about the crimes of the communist regimes known to the general public, as well as referring to the Law proclaiming the Communist Regime in Bulgaria criminal,
DECIDED:
The National Assembly:
1. supports Resolution 1481/2006 of 25 January 2006, adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, on the need for international condemnation of crimes of totalitarian communist regimes;
2. supports the Resolution of the European Parliament of 2 April 2009 on European conscience and totalitarianism;
3. supports the resolution of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe of 3 July 2009 on reunification of divided Europe;
4. proclaims 23 August as the day of remembrance of the crimes of the national-socialist, communist and other totalitarian regimes, and as a day for commemorating the victims of these regimes.
The Decision was adopted by the 41st National Assembly on 19 November 2009 and has been affixed with the official seal of the National Assembly.
/sg./ Tsetska Tsacheva
Speaker of the National Assembly
True to the original:
/sg. illeg./ Hrizantema Nikolova
Head of the General Chancellery Department
Promulgated in State Gazette issue 94/2009
https://www.parliament.bg/bg/desision/ID/13326
