Letters: Can there be an 'After Socialism'?

To the Editor:

Thank you Alan Kors [for "Can There Be an 'After Socialism'?" Navigator, September 2003].

I have lived in Eastern Europe since shortly after the fall of communism. My wife grew up under communism. After I came here, I thought that the simple truth of communism would be revealed to all: that everything bad ever said about communism was true; that everything good ever said about communism was a lie.

I even hoped that there would be an accounting; that the murderers of millions might face justice, and the intellectuals in the West who denied, excused, or actively justified their crimes would be exposed to the scorn that is the least they deserve.

But it did not happen, and I fear it is driving me mad.

Not long ago, I was a speaker at an American Studies Conference in Minsk, Belarus—the last remnant of the old Soviet Union, where the red star and the hammer and sickle still adorn all public buildings. There is still a giant statue of Lenin in front of parliament and they still call their secret police the KGB.

At the conference, there was a young, lady professor from a Midwestern university, who claimed in her presentation that the only good writers were on the Left, and spoke of the "bearded, Christ-like figures of Castro and Che."

I was appropriately civil. But some time later I realized, to my shock and horror, that what was emerging from the deepest depths of my being was a desire to knock her down. How many times does one have to deny or actively excuse mass murder before being considered an accomplice?

This was not the first nor the last time I have heard this drivel. The smug self-assurance of moral superiority that excuses the most monstrous crimes without end, as long as the motive is claimed to be benevolent. The imperviousness to all the evidence of experience won at a terrible cost.

Thank you, Alan Kors, for being at least one living voice to speak for the multitudes of the dead.

Stephen W. Browne