The history of Communism is not over, it continues in North Korea, Cuba and--in a hybrid form, in China. It may be struggling to be born in Venezuela. But the chief international agency for Communism in the past 100 years was the Soviet Union. The full story has not yet been told.
Claire Berlinski describes some remarkable documents--scores of thousands of them--that Soviet dissidents managed to copy and distribute in the West as the Communist system was crumbling. They mostly are being ignored. Liberals don't want to be reminded of the true state of the system whose threat they underestimated for decades, while today's conservatives seem to want to move on to other topics.
But history must be served. Only now, after Moscow has owned up to Stalin's horrible massacres of Polish officers in World War II, are Russia and Poland able to seek a serious reconciliation. Within Russia, one could imagine that many ghosts could be laid to rest if a full accounting of the past regime were made. Likewise, the newly improved U.S-Russian relationship would benefit from the archives being opened.
The fall of the Soviet Union was both liberating and grim for the Russian people. Sadly, the great hopes that were raised about the future were not realized in the political realm as much as in economics.
Ms. Berlinksi, writing in City Journal, asks why publishers have been shy about publishing reports on the documents now available. We can join her in that question.
Leave a comment