Communist myths, before and after the system change

The international conference "Communist Myths, before and after the System Change" included dozens of scholars and participants interested in transitional justice and beyond. Session I opened with a greeting under the moderation of Mrs. Jonila Godole, Director of the Institute for Democracy, Media & Culture, along with the representatives of the OSCE Presence in Albania, Mr. Mauro Puzzo and Mr. Marek Mutor, President of PEMC.

Mrs. Godole stressed the importance of curriculum review as an unaddressed issue 31 years after the fall of the Communist regime. This process must be taken seriously in order to decommunize society in the 21st century, she noted. At the same time, Mrs. Godole asked for support for the new petition being addressed to the Albanian Parliament, for a complete legal package to do what hasn't been done in over three decades.

Mr. Puzzo added that "despite the structural progress, the mechanisms of transitional justice that deal with the past and dispel the myths of the Communist regime in Albania should be further strengthened."

The conference continued with the remarks of the keynote speaker, Prof. Stephanie Schwandner-Sievers, a social anthropologist at Bournemouth University.

Mr. Enis Sulstarova addressed the first panel with the political myth of resistance through Ismail Kadare's novels. Mrs. Anjeza Xhaferaj focused on the phenomenon of volunteer work and the myths created in Socialist realism literature. Mrs. Inis Shkreli referred to the co-authored work with Mrs. Zhaneta Gjyshja on the instrumentalization of archeology and ethnology under Communism. Mrs. Rovena Vata talked about Communist myths in songs, analyzing the volumes "For the Party of Mountain Eagle". The panel was moderated by Prof. Dr. Valentina Duke.

In the second panel Mr. Çelo Hoxha delivered a lecture on the issue of the existence of the Albanian Communist Party (PKSH) in theoretical and legal terms. He argued that in 1941 there weren't the necessary conditions for the establishment of a Communist Party, as envisaged by the principles of Marxist theory, because the proletariat was lacking. The absence of the proletariat meant the absence of the bourgeois class, which, by owning the means of production, created the working class. In the absence of both classes, class antagonism was lacking. Consequently, the PKSH, Hoxha argued, was a subsidiary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (administered through Yugoslavia). In legal terms, Mr. Hoxha argued that the PKSH was illegal from its inception until the fall of regime.

Following the panel was a paper by researchers Egin Ceka and Doan Dani on the myth of the parasite. Mrs. Mrika Limani presented her study on the perception of Communist Albania and Enver Hoxha by Marxist groups in Kosovo. While Mrs. Isabel Strohle brought in the analysis "Enver Hoxha's Albania as Imagined and in Policies of Socialist Yugoslavia". The panel was moderated by Dr. Klejd Këlliçi.

During the coffee break, researchers Ardit Metani, Ardita Dylgjeri and Irgen Xhyra, Aris Dougas Chavarria, Etleva Cani, Ines Stasa, Irena Gorica, Nuredin Nazarko and Vojsava Kumbulla exhibited their art works.

The third panel, which consisted of the myths of Communism after the fall of the regime, was moderated by Prof. Merita Poni. The three papers were by Mr. Artan Hoxha with his work on the demystification and reproduction of communist myths in post-Socialist Albania. Dr. Këlliçi spoke about the Martyrs' Cemetery and the moving of human skeletons of the heroes and non-heroes martyrs in post-Communism. The panel's final paper was by a group of scholars on the narrative of shared suffering, a psychological study of the role of communities in Communist crimes.

The conference continued with a speech by the second keynote speaker, Prof. Lavinia Stan. She explained the 5 main myths. The post-Communist transformation in Central and Eastern Europe sought to confront the horrors of the Communist past as much as to establish a sustainable democracy for the future, and to address social and economic issues. Regardless of the method chosen for the implementation of transitional justice, such as lustration, court trials, access to secret files, restitution or keeping properties as places of remembrance, Eastern European countries share a number of myths related to their policy of memory. Rather than being coherent systems that explain reality, these myths and beliefs have foundations that go beyond logic, and so it is unlikely that the evidence provided could break their pseudo-cognitive immunity. These myths touch on a range of simplistic assumptions, presuppositions and arguments, which have served as the basis of transitional justice policies, of the public debate on the usefulness, legitimacy and feasibility of the process, and as the framework for research papers on the subject.

• Myth 1: Political justice is political revenge
• Myth 2: Justice is unnecessary
• Myth 3: Justice is only about blame
• Myth 4: Guilt is collective
• Myth 5: Spies were more to blame than party officials
  

Central and Eastern European societies have tended to regard political secret police agents as more cruel and guilty than Communist officials, although evidence shows that the nomenclature acted as the brain orchestrating the torture, oppression, and intimidation exercised by the secret police muscle. Throughout the region there was considerable interest in opening the documentation collected by the political secret police, but not so much interest in the Communist Party archives, which were opened to the public only in specific cases. Some local analysts have focused their attention on the similarities between the intelligence activity undertaken by the Party and the secret police, and have argued that the Party gathered information on members and candidates through secret informants in operations similar to those of the secret police. According to these researchers, the secret police archives should be supplemented with party archives for a clearer picture of the espionage and denunciation activities, cooperation or patterns of resistance associated with them.

It is difficult to pinpoint the reasons leading to the conviction of undercover agents rather than communist party officials, but the secretive nature of their work may be an plausible explanation. Moreover, Eastern Europeans admit that even among spies there was a degree of guilt, where part-time collaborators taken from all walks of life were more punishable than full-time officers. In the command hierarchy party officials decided on the general framework within which the secret services operated, full-time officers implemented the party program and selected specific methods to translate it into reality, while part-time informants gathered the necessary information for blackmailed and intimidated dissidents. The smallest details, i.e. part-time informants, are those ingrained in the public mind. They were closer to the victims and did their secret work from undoubted positions as relatives, friends, co-workers, and neighbors. While in some cases officers were acquitted on the grounds that they were doing their job, part-time informants were unanimously denounced for their hypocrisy and willingness to betray those they trusted. The more the victims trusted the informants who secretly spied on them, the more surprised and disappointed they were when they learned the identities of the spies.