Decommunization
Encyclopedia
Decommunization is a process of overcoming the legacies of the communist state
Communist state
A communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule or dominant-party rule of a communist party and a professed allegiance to a Leninist or Marxist-Leninist communist ideology as the guiding principle of the state...

 establishments, culture, and psychology in the post-Communist states. It is similar to denazification
Denazification
Denazification was an Allied initiative to rid German and Austrian society, culture, press, economy, judiciary, and politics of any remnants of the National Socialist ideology. It was carried out specifically by removing those involved from positions of influence and by disbanding or rendering...

 after Nazism fell. It is sometimes referred to as political cleansing.

The term is most commonly applied to the former countries of the Eastern Bloc
Eastern bloc
The term Eastern Bloc or Communist Bloc refers to the former communist states of Eastern and Central Europe, generally the Soviet Union and the countries of the Warsaw Pact...

 and the post-Soviet states
Post-Soviet states
The post-Soviet states, also commonly known as the Former Soviet Union or former Soviet republics, are the 15 independent states that split off from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in its dissolution in December 1991...

 to describe a number of legal and social during their periods of postcommunism.

While sharing common traits the processes of decommunization have run differently in different states.

Comparison to denazification

Denazification was enforced by foreign powers, whereas decommunization was not. The communist elites were able to resist decommunization.

Investigators and prosecutors

  • Cambodia - The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
    Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
    The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, commonly known as the "Khmer Rouge Tribunal", is a national court established pursuant to an agreement between the Royal Government of Cambodia and the United Nations to try senior members of the Khmer Rouge for serious violations of Cambodian...

  • Czech Republic - The Office of the Documentation and the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism
  • Slovakia - The Institute of National Memory - Ústav pamäti národa (Sk)
  • Estonia - The Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity
    Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity
    The Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity is the commission established by President of Estonia Lennart Meri in October 1998 to investigate crimes against humanity committed in Estonia or against its citizens during the Soviet and German occupation, such as...

  • Germany - The Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives (BStU)
  • Hungary - The Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution
  • Lithuania - The Lithuanian Center for the Research of Genocide and Resistance
  • Poland - The Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation
    Institute of National Remembrance
    Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation is a Polish government-affiliated research institute with lustration prerogatives and prosecution powers founded by specific legislation. It specialises in the legal and historical sciences and...

  • Romania - The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania
    Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania
    The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania is a government-sponsored organization whose mission is to investigate the crimes and abuses conducted while Romania was under communist rule prior to December 1989...


Trials

  • Bulgaria - Todor Zhivkov
    Todor Zhivkov
    Todor Khristov Zhivkov was a communist politician and leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from March 4, 1954 until November 10, 1989....

     was sentenced to 7 years in prison, but served only one day because he was freed for "health reasons".
  • Cambodia - Kang Kek Iew is so far the only indicted Khmer Rouge leader, while Pol Pot
    Pol Pot
    Saloth Sar , better known as Pol Pot, , was a Cambodian Maoist revolutionary who led the Khmer Rouge from 1963 until his death in 1998. From 1976 to 1979, he served as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea....

     and others lived free without charges.
  • East Germany - Eric Honecker was arrested, but soon released due to ill health. Several people, such as Egon Krenz
    Egon Krenz
    Egon Krenz is a former politician from East Germany , and that country's last Communist leader...

    , were convicted.
  • Poland - Wojciech Jaruzelski
    Wojciech Jaruzelski
    Wojciech Witold Jaruzelski is a retired Polish military officer and Communist politician. He was the last Communist leader of Poland from 1981 to 1989, Prime Minister from 1981 to 1985 and the country's head of state from 1985 to 1990. He was also the last commander-in-chief of the Polish People's...

     has avoided most court appearances citing poor health.
  • Romania - Nicolae Ceauşescu
    Nicolae Ceausescu
    Nicolae Ceaușescu was a Romanian Communist politician. He was General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party from 1965 to 1989, and as such was the country's second and last Communist leader...

     was sentenced to death and executed.

Dealing with communists

Lustration
Lustration
Lustration is the government process regulating the participation of former communists, especially informants of the communist secret police, in the successor political appointee positions or in civil service positions in the period after the fall of the various European Communist states in 1989 –...

 came to refer to government policies of limiting the participation of former communists, and especially informants of the communist secret police
Secret police
Secret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy and beyond the law to protect the political power of an individual dictator or an authoritarian political regime....

, in the successor political appointee positions or even in civil service
Civil service
The term civil service has two distinct meanings:* A branch of governmental service in which individuals are employed on the basis of professional merit as proven by competitive examinations....

 positions.

Failure

Decommunization was largely limited or non-existent. Communist parties outside the Baltic states were not outlawed and their members were not prosecuted. Just a few places even attempted to exclude members of communist secret services from decision-making. In a number of countries the communist party simply changed its name and continued to function.

Stephen Holmes of the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 in 1996 argued that after a period active decommunization, it was met with a near-universal failure. After the introduction of lustration, demand for scapegoats has become relatively low and former communists have been elected for high governmental and other administrative positions. Holmes notes that the only real exception was former East Germany, where thousands of former STASI
Stasi
The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security The Ministry for State Security (German: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (MfS), commonly known as the Stasi (abbreviation , literally State Security), was the official state security service of East Germany. The MfS was headquartered...

 informers have been fired from public positions.

Holmes suggests the following reasons for the burn-off of the decommunization:
  • Sense of collective complicity: after 45–70 years of state communism nearly every family has members associated with the state. After the initial desire "to root out the reds" came a realization that massive retroactive punishment is wrong, and putting the guilt of many onto several singled out scapegoats is hardly a justice.
  • The urgency of the current economical problems of postcommunism makes the crimes of the communist past "old news" for common citizens.
  • Realization that decommunization has actually become a power game of elites.
  • Realization of the difficulty of dislodging the social elite. It would require a totalitarian state to disenfranchise the "enemies of the people" quickly and efficiently, and a desire for normalcy overcomes the desire for punitive justice.
  • Realization that very few people with perfectly clean slate are available to fill the positions that require significant expertise. People begin remembering that Lenin's idea that "every cookwoman may govern the state" failed.

Return of former Communists to power

Former communists regained power in nearly all post-Soviet states, including Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, most of them denouncing their Communist past. The same had happened in some East European states as well.

See also

  • Communist crimes in Polish legal system
  • Decommunization in Russia
    Decommunization in Russia
    Decommunization in Russia is the process of dealing with the communist legacies in terms of institutions and personnel that tends towards breaking with the Soviet past...

  • Golaniad
    Golaniad
    The Golaniad was a protest in Romania in the University Square, Bucharest. It was initiated by students and professors at the University of Bucharest....

  • Lustration in Poland
    Lustration in Poland
    Lustration in Poland refers to the policy of limiting the participation of former communists, and especially informants of the communist secret police , in the successor governments or even in civil service positions.-1992–1997:...

  • Proclamation of Timişoara
    Proclamation of Timisoara
    The Proclamation of Timişoara was a thirteen-point written document, drafted on March 11, 1990 by the Timişoara participants in Romania's 1989 Revolution, and partly issued in reaction to the first Mineriad...

  • Vergangenheitsbewältigung
    Vergangenheitsbewältigung
    Vergangenheitsbewältigung is a composite German word that describes processes of dealing with the past , which is perhaps best rendered in English as "struggle to come to terms with the past"...

  • Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity
    Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity
    The Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity is the commission established by President of Estonia Lennart Meri in October 1998 to investigate crimes against humanity committed in Estonia or against its citizens during the Soviet and German occupation, such as...

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