"In addition to the desire for historical exculpation, however, I argue that the current push for commemorations of the victims of communism must be viewed in the context of regional fears of a re-emergent left. In the face of growing economic instability in the Eurozone, as well as massive antiausterity protests on the peripheries of Europe, the “victims of communism” narrative may be linked to a public relations effort to link all leftist political ideals to the horrors of Stalinism. Such a rhetorical move seems all the more potent when discursively combined with the idea that there is a moral equivalence between Jewish victims of the Holocaust and East European victims of Stalinism. This third coming of the German Historikerstreit is related to the of global capitalism, and perhaps the elite desire to discredit all political ideologies that threaten the primacy of private property and free markets."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Non-fiction authors from the United StatesWomen academics from the United StatesSocialists from the United StatesAnthropologists from the United StatesUniversity of California, Berkeley alumni
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
"A Tale of "Two Totalitarianisms": The Crisis of Capitalism and the Historical Memory of Communism", History of the Present (2014)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Kristen_Ghodsee
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Kristen Ghodsee
10 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Kristen Ghodsee →
Related Quotes
"Finally, to prevent the ascendance of a resurgent far right, we need to get past our red hangover and recognize the p…"
"But the problem for the is that their general premise can be used as the basis for an equally good argument against c…"
"Without an accompanying welfare state in which social programs funded by a progressive income tax redistribute from t…"
"Many former socialist citizens, as well as political leaders like Vladimir Putin, believe that the chaos and pain of …"
"In the mortality belt of the European former Soviet Union, an aggressive health policy intervention might have preven…"
"Stubborn and perhaps a bit naive, I persisted and spent the late 1990s living and dong research in Eastern Europe, wa…"
"Throughout much of the twentieth century, state socialism presented an existential challenge to the worst excesses of…"
"Older citizens of Eastern Europe fondly recall the small comforts and predictability of their life before 1989: free …"
"Since the will attempt to construe any move toward serious as a return of the great mustachioed Soviet monster, it is…"
"Aye, think! Since time and life began, Your mind has only feared and slept; Of all the beasts they called you man Onl…"