A Brief Translator’s Introduction
By birth, I’m Bulgarian; by training, I’m a philosopher. These are two elements of my identity that are likely to remain with me for the rest of my life–the latter, because I’ve gotten used to living that way, and the former, because it’s something that I can’t quite get rid of regardless of how thick my American accent gets and regardless of how little any Bulgarians actually care to claim me. In any case, these two aspects of my identity aren’t that hard to keep together, and, in fact, most of the time, they remain perfectly compartmentalized.
However, there are times when I want the two to meet. Unfortunately, and probably entirely because of sociological circumstances about how the profession works, Bulgarian philosophers are hard to come by. That’s not to say that there aren’t any. In fact, I was lucky enough to meet a Bulgarian colleague at my current institution who is one of the smartest philosophers I’ve ever met. Nevertheless, she works in America as a philosopher who does American philosophy. As do I. We are both Bulgarian, but I can’t say that either of us is a Bulgarian philosopher.
Maybe there’s no such thing. In fact, in most circumstances, I’m inclined to think that trying to find someone like that is a fool’s errand. After all, what do I expect to find? A philosopher who does philosophy in the Bulgarian way? Give me a break! I’m much too foreign, much too jaded, and much too old to believe an any nationalistic bullshit like that. I’m sure there are people who would be willing to argue about this (god knows I’ve been in conversations with people who claim that Bulgaria is an underappreciated historical jewel! Did you know, dear reader, that a Bulgarian invented the computer? Well, no, someone with Bulgarian parents did. And, no, he didn’t invent the computer, but he helped! Okay, he worked in the building where a microchip was developed. But he was there! And he was Bulgarian!). I don’t buy it.
Still, some part of me wants to find something worthwhile in Bulgarian thought that I can say “yes, this is good. It came from here and it speaks of here.”
I think there’s plenty of that in Bulgaria as a whole. I know there’s excellent poetry, excellent art, excellent music, etc. I don’t mean to shit on my birth country too much. However, one area where we haven’t made too much of a splash historically is philosophy. Go ahead, take a look at the Wikipedia page for Bulgarian philosophers–it wont’ take long, it’s a short list.
Yet, I think there may be perhaps be something worthwhile there…
This side project is an attempt to see if there is indeed something worthwhile in Bulgarian philosophy. I’m going into this entirely blind. What you’re about to read is a completely unauthorized translation of Zhelyu Zhelev’s Fascism, translated by me using what remains of my Bulgarian language skills (a nice side benefit is that in taking on this project, I’m also practicing a skill that I’ve almost entirely lost).
It goes without saying that I’m not a professional translator, and that anyone expecting that level of professionalism is in the wrong place. I’m also not a Bulgarian historian and, in fact, know very little about Zhelyu Zhelev. I know that he was a dissident during before 1989 and that he was the first democratically elected president of Bulgaria after the fall of the Berlin Wall. I have some vague memories of him on television as a child, but nothing more than that. I don’t know his politics and I don’t know the significance of the book, or its legacy. I do know, however, that he was a philosopher, that he wrote in Bulgaria, about things that were important to Bulgarians, and about issues that are still of interest to me. It remains to be seen whether he was any good as a philosopher, but that’s another matter…
I also know that I can’t easily find any translation of the text in English. So, in the spirit of samizdat, I provide this translation to the best of my abilities for others to read and analyze. I claim no credit for the original work and expect no money.
I should also make a slight note on the translation. I’ve tried to stick as closely as possible to what I take to be the original text. However, as mentioned before, I’m not a professional translator and don’t feel bound to the rules that other, more capable translators abide by. The biggest difficulty arises in the difference in syntax between Bulgarian and English–Bulgarian syntax has become bizarre to my Americanized eyes. The second biggest difficulty, which is partially the result of the syntax difficulty, is the length of sentences. This may also be a feature of Zhelev’s writing style as well. Again, I’ve tried to stick as closely to the original sentence structure, but where I thought things got ridiculous I’ve broken up super-long sentences in two.
Finally, what you’re seeing here is, of course, only part of the full work. Specifically, it’s only the preface. My hope is that over the next year I’ll be able to translate the full book, but you’ll only see it in pieces.
Fascism
by Zhelyu Zhelev
A Documented Study of German, Italian, and Spanish Fascism
(An Unauthorized Translation by Pavel Nitchovski)
In Lieu of a Prologue
Fascism or the
political biography of a book
I am not a fatalist and I don’t
like exaggerating, but it seems to me that things didn’t work out with this
book. It could have had a much better fate. The book was written in 1967 and
published in 1982. For an entire fifteen years it lingered in the publishing
houses of Sofia. And it was always returned either because of the overloaded
publishing plans, set in advance many years into the future, or because of the
notorious “lack of paper.” Only the military was honest enough to tell me the
real reason. I remember, when I went to talk to the military publishing house
to see what was happening with the book, all the editors came around to see me.
To see and to laugh. The laughter was congenial. So I asked them:
“Are you going to publish the
book?”
“No, we can’t…”
“Why? Didn’t you like it?”
“On the contrary, we liked it a
lot…”
“Well?”
“It’s too good to be published by
us. This kind of thing can’t come out in Bulgaria.” One of them told me.
The only comforting thing was that
the manuscript was constantly being passed around and read through by way of
samizdat, both in the capital and in the county.
Credit for the rapid and widespread
distribution of the manuscript goes to Radoi Ralin, who was also the book’s
first reader. For years he personally distributed the text in different
intellectual and political circles, giving it to certain people who, according
to him, urgently needed to read it.
It’s also because of him that
credit goes for the book’s speedy legalization. For that (and not only for
that, of course) I dedicated it to him, even though it’s not listed in the
title page for publishing reasons.
In 1968 I began negotiations with a
Czechoslovakian communist party “Liberty.” At the end of July I went to Prague
to arrange for the translation and other minor details. That was during the
indescribable atmosphere of the “Prague Spring”, and joyous and worrisome were
the “Two-Thousand Words…”
Twenty days later the Warsaw pact
troops invaded Czechoslovakia and everything fell apart. In 1982 ten-thousand
copies of the book were published in Bulgaria by the publishing house “Narodna
Mladezh.” Three weeks after its release in bookstores it was banned and pulled
from libraries. In reality, it was only the third batch of books, the last
batch, that was pulled so that at least six thousand copies remained in public
hands – these, the police were powerless to collect…
Shortly before the book was banned,
representatives of various publishers came to me to ask permission to publish
another 30 thousand copy batch. I, of course, agreed, but by the time they went
to the printing department of the Communist Party headquarters to ask for an
extension on the paper limit, “the infection” had already started and they were
summarily kicked out.
In June of 1982 an international
book fair was held in Sofia. Publishers from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and
Poland wanted to secure a contract to publish Fascism. But our ever-vigilant, ideological police had no desire to
discuss this question and simply said that no such book existed. Of course,
there was indeed no such book in the “Festival” halls…
In 1986 during the second Congress
of Bulgarian Studies a large group of Chinese translators went to Radoi Ralin
and asked him for something new to translate. With his inherent generosity and
selflessness—which only those of great talent possess—Radoi told them: “Since I
don’t have anything better to give you, I’m gifting you a copy of my friend’s
book Fascism and recommend that you
translate it in Chinese.” The large Chinese group split up the text among
themselves and translated the whole book in a month. It’s now offered for
publishing in the Academy for Western Philosophy and Sociological Literature in
Peking. I’m purposefully withholding the name of the Chinese Bulgarianist who
kept communications with us and who informed us of how the work was going. The
last thing we heard before that line of communication was severed was that the
book had received four positive receptions with high marks regarding the
quality of the text, and that the book was already printed and bound with only
the attachment of the cover remaining. Unfortunately, it was precisely at that
time that the next anti-intellectual campaign started, which, in turn, caused
the liberally friendly Chinese intellectuals to lose their posts, and,
consequently, their political appointments as well.
The director of the Academy for
Western Literature must have been among them, too, because he was also removed
from his post. This fact proved to be fatal for the fate of the book’s Chinese
publication.
After 1982, lots of Russians
requested copies of the book. Some of them aimed to translate and publish it in
Russian, while others were more modest and only wanted to introduce it in their
samizdat. The brutal limitations on publishing agreements binding “brotherly
nations” excluded and continues to exclude the possibility of an official
publication in the Soviet Union. But it appears to be a fact that the book did
circulate in their system of samizdat since so many Soviet citizens know about
the book or have read it.
At one point, Poles, too, wanted to
publish different parts in various magazines and periodicals. I don’t know what
happened with those attempts.
The last group of people who came
and requested a copy during June of this year were members of the committee of
the Ukrainian National Front with the intention of translating and publishing
the book in Ukrainian. I’m not aware what happened with that or even if
anything happened at all.
In general, the fate of Fascism began to remind me of the girl
who’s liked by everyone, but, who, for one reason or another, never manages to
get married. Let’s hope that this isn’t happening because the girl is getting
old… Actually, as the author, I would be happy if it turned out that the themes
of the book have become politically dated and passé with time because it would
mean that the last totalitarian regime has disappeared from the face of the
planet.
But as long as totalitarianism
exists, the book won’t lose its actual meaning since it initially represents an
attempt, in good faith, with the help of documentary evidence, as in
paleontology, to reconstruct the massive political skeleton of the totalitarian
mammoth. And those who seriously want to fight against totalitarianism need to
know its anatomy and physiology, without knowledge of which success cannot be
guaranteed.
Personally, I see no other way to
explain why even now in the era of Gorbachev’s perestroika, when the soviet
press continues to bring up such massive amounts of crucially vital political
information for our society, interest in the book has not waned. People look
for it, they re-sell it for high sometimes extravagant prices to the tune of
one or two months’ salary. Two years ago, I needed to send two copies abroad,
the booksellers offered me a special author’s discounted price of $43 a copy![1]
Before perestroika, what primarily
attracted the public to the book was the full overlap between the two variants
of totalitarianism—the fascist variant, and, our very own communist one.
Despite the analogy between the two never being made explicitly, the nature of
the documented material and the way it is organized, the reader himself could
discover the horrifying truth that not only is there no substantial difference
between the Nazi and Communist political systems, but that to the extent that
there is, the difference is of not benefit to communism.
Now, when the organs of mass
information speak openly about such analogies and bring in more than a little
factual material to support their claims it looks like the book continues to
attract attention primarily because of its prognosis regarding the death of
totalitarian regimes. The schemata through which the collapse of the fascist
totalitarian is elevated to the status of law (a totalitarian system—military
dictatorship—a multiparty democratic system) raises the question: will the same
schema prove valid for our regime; will this law be preserved, or will it
happen a different way? Because if events in Poland confirm this schemata—and
this is quite so—then Gorbachev’s perestroika, in the way that it’s been
conceived and realized, consists in an attempt to correct it.
Perestroika represents precisely
the alternative to a military dictatorship. It has the ambition to do that
which must be done by a military dictatorship, but to do so in a peaceful way,
humanely, bloodlessly, democratically; i.e. to actualize the social transition
from totalitarianism to democracy.
It must be said that, in principle,
this alternative is not groundless. The simple fact that Hungary is
implementing it before our very eyes and that the Baltic states are attempting
to do so as well serves as one confirmation. But this doesn’t happen
everywhere, and it’s not easy to do in the beginning.
Of great significance is the
nation’s political culture, its moral character, and its cultural-historical
traditions. In that sense, the more elevated a nation’s political culture is,
the greater its chances of success are to correct the schemata and to replacing
a military dictatorship with perestroika.
I worry that for the Soviet Union
as a whole this is not an open option. To the circumstances that could lead to
a similar development, I note: the multinational character of the country; the
different cultural levels of the separate nations; the huge nomenclature; the
colossal military machine which, in the most critical phases would have a hard
time resisting the temptation to take power from the helpless civilians; the
ingrained imperial habits, traditions, and relations, etc.
But the military dictatorship,
however hard it tries to preserve the old totalitarian structures, or to save
them (as is happening in Poland), cannot alter the process from totalitarianism
to democracy but, to the contrary, will speed it up. By radicalizing its
contradictions, the dictatorship speeds up the disintegration of the regime.
Unfortunately, in this case everything happens with blood, it’s paid for with
the lives of more than a few people.
In other words, even through
perestroika, even with the help of a military dictatorship, the path through
which our communist system will necessarily collapse is singular: from
totalitarianism towards a multi-party democracy. This is absolute, nomological,
and unavoidable. Everything else is trivial.
But life, which has always been richer than any schemas and for that reason resents being stuffed with them, will probably surprise us with new, many more wondrous and unbelievable combinations from the elements of political reality that we cannot even think of now. Who of us, for example, would have thought—despite the fact that this is so simple and close to the mind—that in the dismantling of our communist variant of the totalitarian system, the system will have to, for a certain period of time, degrade to the level of fascism—to the level of the less-developed and imperfect totalitarian fascist regime, and that in that sense, for us fascism would be one giant step towards democracy! It sounds shocking and paradoxical, but political illusions, emotions, and prejudices are one thing—another are the political realities and iron laws to which they submit.
Today it is precisely this
prejudice or ideologically prejudiced way of thinking that prevents the
majority from understanding the reason and meaning behind the processes that
have happened and are happening in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, the GDR, China,
and even part of the Soviet Union. Now you can hear the majority at home
complain about the regime and say “This is horrifying! It’s Fascism!” by which
they mean to imply that things have gotten worse than before and that the
country is less democratic. If you try to disagree, they’ll point you
constantly to the ever-expanding repressive measures being taken. However, they
forget that the democratic movement is expanding even faster in the country and
that there already exist about a dozen independent groups and movements, that
civil society is re-awakening in the country, etc. –things which earlier were
completely unthinkable.
This is why it would be better if
we told them: yes, it’s true that on the one hand, countries like Bulgaria,
GDR, Czechoslovakia, China, etc. face political repression, demagoguery,
cynicism, general corruption, chauvinism, patriotism, faithlessness, etc. as
well as experiencing unformed movements, open warfare for democracy, changes,
and so on. On the other hand, they look more like fascist countries than
communist ones, but this fact shows only that they’ve gone through a particular
democratic evolution, that they’ve reached a particular phase of decomposition
of the totalitarian structure. Because no other path exists in the transition
from totalitarianism to democracy except the path that destroys its own
political system. Whoever promises to make democracy through the perfection of
the totalitarian system is working with the most profound demagoguery.
But because this question is a
principled one—that is, it has not only a theoretical but also a direct
practical meaning for the current moment, it deserves a closer look so that we
can try to see it in historical context.
We, Marxists, were the first in
history to create a totalitarian regime, a totalitarian country—the
single-party system, built through the violent destruction of the other
political parties or through their degradation to ordinary state organizations,
completely subservient to the communist party. This absolute monopoly of the
communist party in the political sphere necessarily had to lead to the complete
fusion of party and state, and most of all with the state apparatus with the
party apparatus, as a consequence of which the head of state and the had of the
party turn out to be the same entity, possessing limitless and uncontrollable
power that runs through all the lower levels of the national and economic
hierarchy—the members of the party.
And so that this system could be
stable and unshakeable, the absolute monopoly on the state and party, the
party’s monopoly of the state, or more accurately, of the party-state, had to
spread from the superstructure to the economic base of society. It was
necessary that it be turned into state property—big private property by way of
expropriation, the small through violent, bloody, Stalinist collectivization.
When this process of privatization
of property was complete, the totalitarian regime was completed. That’s how the
communist variant of totalitarianism, which even to the present day remains the
most perfect model of totalitarianism throughout history. The fascist model
which has been often presented as an antidote to the communist one in reality
differs only from it insofar as it is unfinished and imperfect with respect to
the economic base, and is consequently less perfect and more unstable. This can
be investigated even in the inner architecture of Nazism and the Nazi system
which nevertheless represents the most complete fascist regime. Here, the
absolute monopoly of the party does not spread over the economic base, or, at
least over the whole economic base. The latter is constituted in part by
private property, different kinds of private property, which naturally doesn’t
give rise towards impulses of cohesion, unity, or monolithicity. Quite the
opposite, it creates plurality, heterogeneity, and differences which in a
crisis easily transform into contradictions. A monolithic superstructure and a
diverse base—this is the incompatibility between the political superstructure
and the economic base in the fascist totalitarian regime. That’s what makes it
unstable and short-lived. This is why ever fascist regime perished much quicker
than our communist ones—some like the Nazi German and fascist Italian ones in
the flames of the second world war, and others, like Franco’s Spain and
Salazar’s Portugal after the war, in a matter of speaking, in peaceful
conditions.
The fascist regimes not only died
earlier, but they also showed up later, which shows that in this respect they
are a poor imitation, a plagiarism of the original that represents the real,
authentic, refined and perfected totalitarianism. My friend, professor Nicolai
Genchev, with his usual sense of humor, defines fascism any time it’s brought
up as “an early, un-systematized, bon-vivant variant of communism” and Hitler
himself as “a pathetic imitator and operatic hero.” We must say that contained
in this joke is a brutal truth. Without in any sense justifying Hitler the
executioner and cannibal, we must admit that he is a veritable dwarf in
comparison to Stalin the Executioner—even this comparison is a weak one. Stalin
the Executioner could carry his colleague in his pocket.
I’ll mention only two figures which
speak more eloquently than any arguments and deliberations of the fundamental
differences between the two kinds of totalitarianism. Until the beginning of
the second world war—September 1st, 1939—Hitler killed fewer than
10,000 people. As the reader recalls, this includes the victims of the “Night
of Long Knives” (June 30th, 1934), when the opposition leaders of
the SA were murdered, as well as the entire existing liberal opposition, and
those of “Kristallnacht” (April 2938), the night of the antisemitic pogroms
about which there is so much literature… By the same date of September 1st
1939, Stalin had murdered no fewer than 10 million. Some authors claim that
this figure is closer to 15 million, but we won’t argue about that since this
isn’t that important in this case. The important thing is that this is a
difference that isn’t measured in percentages (one killed such-and-such percent
more than the other), is not measured in multiplicities (this many times more
than the other), but is a matter of a difference that is expressed in orders of
mathematical magnitude; i.e. in quantities used in cosmology, astronomy, and
modern physics…
The other figure concerns the
victims of the war. Germany, which is at war with a couple of dozen countries
in Europe and Africca, and which suffered a full military defeat at the hands
of the Allies, suffers between 7.5 and 8 million casualties, and which
includes, of course, civilian victims. In contrast, the Soviet Union, which
enters the war nearly two years later suffers 30 million casualties. To hide
their own incompetence and failure as leaders, Stalin only admitted to 7
million casualties, Khrushchev to 20 million, and currently the Soviet press
reports casualties up to 32 million. There are authors who claim that the
figure might be as high as 40 million.
Indeed, the difference here isn’t
calculated in mathematical terms, but are four or five times greater given that
one enters the war much later and doesn’t go to war with as many countries as
the aggressor state. This indirectly speaks to the far greater scope of the completed
and more perfected totalitarian regime.
But maybe nothing else speaks as
eloquently on this topic as the absence of any attempts of a military coup
against the Soviet leadership for the fact that it sent the population into a
military catastrophe during the years of 1941 and 1942. The history of the 20th
century has never known such a horrific betrayal towards one’s own nation and
country as the one perpetrated by Stalin and his Politburo. The destruction of
the commanding army staff, the full abandonment of the material-technical
supply, the dismantlement of defensive structures on the western border, the
criminal neglect of the numerous threats by the intelligent services regarding
the immanent threat towards the Soviet Union, the massing of German divisions
conspicuously close to the Soviet border, the lightning-fast invasion of the
Soviet Union and the capture of nearly four and a half million Soviet
soldiers—all this by the end of 1941 and the beginning of 1942 set up the
Soviet Union for a complete military catastrophe, and forced Stalin, through
Beria’s channels, to sue for peace with Hitler through the mediation of Tsar
Boris.
The fact that even under these
nationally catastrophic conditions the Soviet generals didn’t make even one
attempt to take down Stalin’s team shows precisely the depth of the political
and ideological collapse that was to be found in the social consciousness of
the totalitarian regime at is existed in the Soviet Union.
In similar circumstances, despite
the fact that they were unsuccessful, German generals did attempt a coup
against Hitler and his regime on July 20, 1944. In Italy, the year before (on
July 25, 2943) the military leadership of Marshall Badolio managed to arrest
Mussolini and to remove the Fascist party from power. In both cases this was
possible because the German and Italian generals came from the propertied
classes, which means that they had ground under their feet in the civilian
sector and in the most important sphere of civil life—the economic sphere. They
had property. In practice this meant that if the conspiracy failed, if the
worst happened, their families wouldn’t die of hunger, wouldn’t perish, and his
brood would be wiped out.
As it relates to the current
problem it’s interesting to remember Mussolini’s ideological evolution during
the last stage of his life after he was freed from captivity by Otto Scorceni’s
squad.
As a result of continuous
deliberation (and how much time he had to think while being held captive in
that fortress in the Alps!) he came to the conclusion that he has to create a
different fascist country where the path to nationalization leads to everything
becoming state property. Mussolini understood that only a state monopoly over
property could create a monolithic and unshakeable totalitarian regime, capable
of guaranteeing the fascist leader and fascist party against any surprises from
the military. He put these ideas into his plan for the creation of the
notorious Republic of Salo, the creation of which was only frustrated by the
military actions of the Allies in Italy.
However, the first practical steps
were already made. The creation of the “Neofascist Republic of Salo” was
announced in the beginning of October 1943, naturally with close ties to SS
General Karl Wolf and his German attaché Rudolf Ran. At the arranged congress
in Verona in November 1943 an appeal was made to the north-Italian workers in
which they were promised control of the industrial enterprises and a partial
nationalization of the land…
But let’s return to the topic at
hand. When we talk about the passage through the “fascist” phase in the
dismantling of our communist totalitarian regime and when we present this
transition as a step towards democracy, this shouldn’t be understood literally
in the sense that we’re aiming towards fascism as if towards some kind of idea,
that we’ll embrace its ideology, etc. We will pass through it as inevitability,
as an unavoidable state of affairs, through necessity and, therefore, the
faster we go through it, the better. But we pay special attention to the
internal pressures in our totalitarian system in the era of
perestroika—pressures which exist because the dismantling of one or another
element of the base or superstructure. It is precisely the dismantling that
makes the perfect totalitarian regime imperfect, and, because of that,
unstable. This circumstance, in turn, becomes a reason to resort to repression
as a means of compensation through which stability is restored to the system.
It’s possible, of course, for perestroika in different countries to focus the
dismantling processes on the base (as is the case in China), or on the
superstructure (as is the case in the Soviet Union).
In either case, the totalitarian
system enters a phase of instability, as it were, a structural weakness, and to
strengthen itself it can’t compensate itself with anything other than the naked
use of force, repression, and terror.
The most recent events in China are
evidence of this. The economic reforms that the Chinese leadership has been
pushing through the last ten years, which dissolved the communes, distributed
the land to the peasants under 10, 15, 20, 30, and 50 year leases, which
created a freer market, “special economic zones”, etc. one way or another had
to lead to contradictions between those in power and the intelligentsia. The
economic reforms created conditions under which different groups grew richer,
more independent, and more autonomous from the state. At the same time as these
groups gained this new social status and position, they demanded to be freer
politically as well, which couldn’t happen under the current communist regime
without overthrowing the single-party system. So they dared to. The
intelligentsia and the youth, which have always been the most sensitive towards
the question of freedom and democracy, reacted first against the Communist
Party’s monopoly when they called for its removal.
Therefore, even before it came to
the return of private property in one or another sphere of civil life, even
before it came down to the typical fascist overlap between the base and
superstructure (private property and the economic base of society and absolute
party-state monopoly of the political structure), the characteristics of the
fascist phenomenon have begun to appear.
Of course, it’s very possible that
the transition through the fascist phase will not be confirmed everywhere. The
instability effect that occurs during the dismantling can occur in the other
direction. In the Soviet Union, for example, the economic base is still untouched
and an absolute monopoly on the state over the national property continues to
be complete, while the dismantling processes in the superstructure have gone so
far that political pluralism has become a fact: practical steps for the
separation of state and party; unformed groups, movements, and national fronts
which challenge the Communist party’s monopoly of power; strikes and national
liberation movements; publicity. This consistently exposes the defects and
failures of the totalitarian system. In a sense, fascism is created backwards
(a monopoly in the base, pluralism in the superstructure!) which, of course,
continues to destabilize the system as a whole.
If reform is actualized in Bulgaria
as has been planned by the nomenclature—beginning first with the economy, and
ending with the political sphere—we’ll see precisely the Chinese variant of
dismantlement, and the process of fascistization will be apparent. Indeed, to
the extent that economic reforms have been attempted within certain parameters
and certain groups in the population have begun to develop a sense of
independence and self-confidence, the tension between the base and the
superstructure is already more or less palpable. What matters here is not so
much the subjective side of this phenomenon, as much as a number of its
objective manifestations.
All these reflections on the
transition through a kind of fascist stage on the path towards a full
dismantlement of our communist model of totalitarianism which, I repeat,
represents the perfected form of totalitarianism, don’t change the general
course of the disintegration: a totalitarian system, followed by a military
dictatorship (or, respectively, perestroika), and a multi-party democracy. The
general formula is valid for both types of totalitarianism, and practically for
all totalitarian regimes, with the exception that before the more perfected
communist variety reaches the second stage it frequently descends to the more
imperfect one of fascism. This moment of degradation can sometimes be very easy
to spot as an erosion of the first stage, while other times, of course, its
expression can be so vague that it is hardly noticeable.
As can be seen, the latest developments
on the topic of fascism come from the least expected place – from perestroika –
which once again points to the tight link between the two varieties of
totalitarianism. Earlier, this connection was either denied, or was primarily
seen in terms of a historical or historico-genetic plan (how, for example,
communism birthed or stimulated the development of fascism, and following that,
how fascism has enriched the political arsenal of communism, etc.), but now, it
is seen in actual political terms.
These circumstances bring us back
again and again to the foundational problems of studying fascism.
The most recent data confirms that
the deepest foundations of fascism cannot be understood if it is not examined
as a totalitarian regime, as a type of totalitarian system. Without the
totalitarian model in place it’s impossible to see how fascism fits into the
political frame of the twentieth century. Even less possible is it to
understand its connection to the other kind of totalitarianism—communism—and to
establish precisely how the two differ and what they have in common. It’s a bad
science which, a priori and necessarily, and due to clearly ideological
consideration denies such a connection, emphasizes an imaginary opposition
between the two, and at the same time presents itself as most basic and
foundational. It’s also bad science when communism is decried as a kind of
fascism, the worst kind of fascism, and so on. This attempt amounts to reducing
the uncompromised or less-than compromised form of totalitarianism to the
other, fully compromised form as judged by the Nuremberg process. And today this
hardly makes any sense.
From what has been said so far it
should be obvious that for us, the Bulgarian society and the Bulgarian
intelligentsia, all the problems of perestroika are not new. We’ve literally
been discussing them since the second half of the 60’s, though not at the level
of a political empire as in the Soviet Union, but on a significantly higher,
theoretical level where the processes in question have the status of laws and
from which follow specific consequences for all totalitarian regimes.
Of course, under those
circumstances this could only be done openly and comprehensively only on the
basis of examining one kind of totalitarianism—fascism—the other was taboo. The
public, too, was much more prepared to understand it this way since it already
knew the much of the critical material regarding fascism, but retained many
illusions about communism.
I remember when the young military
officers in Portugal staged a revolution in April of 1974, established a
military dictatorship for two years which was followed by a parliamentary
multi-party democracy. At the time many friends and acquaintances who had a
manuscript of Fascism said that the
formula for the collapse of totalitarian regime was working quite well, or, as
one especially enthusiastic person said: “it’s working flawlessly.”
The same thing happened in 1981
when martial law was declared in Poland. Of course, this time they didn’t call
me on the phone because things were happening in a ‘brotherly country’ and such
conversations weren’t safe.
It’s no coincidence that when the
book arrived on the scene the authorities reacted with such single-minded and
massive repressive measures against anyone connected to its publication. Based
on the reaction from the public, and based on the breathless enthusiasm with
which parts of the intelligentsia reacted, they instinctively realized that
people were openly discussing the biggest problems of our time, and, in that
respect, discussing the fate of our “order.”
However unpleasant it must have
been for them—and they understood beautifully that they were uncovering themselves
by chasing an anti-fascist book—they still understood that they had to repress
it since they couldn’t oppose its ideas.
They fired three editors who were
closely connected to the book: the poet Cyril Gonchev who served as the
internal editor of the book; Violeta Paneva, the editor who ran the “Maver”
library (where the book actually came out); and Stefan Landzhev, the head
executive of political literature in the publishing house.
The external editor, Professor Ivan
Slavov, was censured by the party and “reprimanded.” The question of an
administrative punishment was also discussed, but the sharp reaction from the
party organization in the philosophy department prevented it from going through.
Two reviewers also received party punishments: Professor Cyril Vasilev and Professor
Nicolai Genchev. Because of his overly positive review of the book, Genchev
received a different punishment. It was ordered “from above” that he resign as
the dean of the History department and all of his programs were dropped from TV
in the course of three or four years. Because of his positive review in the
Plovdiv newspaper “Domestic Voice” Asen Kartalov was punished with a “strong
censure and final warning” regarding expulsion from the party, and as removed
as OK lecturer of the BCP. The journalist Slavejko Mandev was also removed from
his post as head ideological editor in the same newspaper, which seems to have
caused him significant stress since he passed away soon after.
As far as I know one of the main
reasons for the removal of the then Central Committee’s Comsomol secretary was
for ideological reasons; namely, Belcho Ivanov had allowed Fascism to be printed despite the fact that, as was confirmed
later, he didn’t even know about the text and was on vacation at the time. I’ve
also heard it said many times that the publication of Fascism was used against Alexander Lilov by his enemies in the
Politburo but I can’t confirm whether that’s true. In any case, after the
publication of the book one of his ‘aides’ attacked me on just those grounds
soon after the publication of the book. He told me that with Fascism I had “stabbed Dr. Lilov in the
back.”
I, too, of course, had to be
punished, but since I had been long kicked out the party, I only received
administrative punishments. I was released from leading my section, and was
removed from the Scientific Council of History and Culture. And so as to avoid
a scandal, they did it in the Jesuit way: they called for a reorganization of
the Institute, as a result of which my section on “Culture and Personality”
turned out to be closed, and so I couldn’t complain and as a bit of camouflage,
they also closed down the neighboring section on “Regional Cultural Problems.”
At the same time, the “newly rebuilt” Science Council was announced with only
one name missing—mine.
I could have protested and created
a scandal, but I didn’t. I was uncomfortable trying to defend myself when,
because of my book, other people whom I couldn’t help suffered much more than
me. It would have been terrible.
The expectations of the powers that
be that these repressive measures would have scared the cultured population,
force it to refrain from commenting about the book in public, that those who
had a copy would refrain from spreading it around, didn’t come to fruition. The
general interest in the book was already so big that the repressive measures
only served to add fuel to the fire. People who had never read any political
literature were trying to get their hands on it.
At that point the authorities
decided to act in a more indirect and flexible way. They organized a massive,
lightening fast publication of two foreign studies of fascism: Fascism: Terror and Practice from the
French Burderon, and Myth and Reality
from the Soviet authors D. Melinkov and L. Chornaya. Both of these were
documentary studies. However…
Aside from that, the various
Central Committee departments organized a brutal review of the book, which,
after a lot of mottling came out in the 12th edition of
“Philosophical Thought” (from 1982) under the title of “Towards a Scientific,
Marxist-Leninist Analysis of Facsims” by Mitryo Yankov. The main argument
against the book was that it didn’t do a class-party analysis of fascism, and
that, consequently, it wasn’t written from a Marxist-Leninist position. Other
than that, it made the absurd claim that it was copied—that it was
plagiarized—from Karl Popper’s The Open
Society and Its Enemies, despite the fact that that book came out ten years
later in 1981 and my manuscript was registered with the central publishing
authorities between 1967 and 1970. This was a nasty and naïve claim to which I
was forced to respond with an open letter to the editorial board and in which I
insisted that the plagiarism either be proven, as is done everywhere else in
the world, or else, for the editorial board to publicly apologize or be taken
to court. I had the full intention to sue the members of the editorial board
but my wiser friends convinced me not to waste my time. All the more because a
group of active anti-fascist fighters whose names include Boris Delchev, Braiko
Kofardjiev, Boris Spasov, Dacho Marinov, Ducho Mundrov, Iskra Panova, Nevena
Mechkova, Radoi Ralin, as well as younger colleagues like Ana Serafimova,
Evgenia Ivanovna, and Ilia Ivanov, wrote protest letters to the head editor of
“Philosophical Thought” in which they express their indignation that the
publication reserves a place for 50’s style defamatory articles without the
opportunity to respond to those defamations.
The authorities, apparently, did
not expect these protests because in response they took a very unpopular step:
they began to call in the authors of the letters for “comradely” conversations
during which they tried to convince them to reject their defense of Fascism. Of course, that didn’t work. In
every conversation one side attempted to convince the other to change their
mind. Radoi Ralin, who was invited to discuss the matter with the philosophy
department in the presence of the academic Sava Ganovski, professor Ivan
Kalaikov, professor, Todor Soichev, and others tried to convince the commission
that Fascism must be introduced as a
textbook in the Party Building course in the Upper Party Academy. If the
commission thought that this was just Radoi’s latest political joke must have
found it a hilarious one, but when they realized that his recommendation was
completely serious, they became completely discouraged and changed the topic to
other subjects…
All of the events not only kept the
book in the public’s attention, but also consistently popularized it. As a
literary fact, they turned it into a political event. A spontaneous movement
developed in defense of the sacked editors and reviewers. People constantly
came to me to express support and solidarity, as well as, of course, threats of
punishment such as expulsion from Sofia, interrogations, and liquidation.
Interest became so large that a
genuine political folklore developed around the book. Suddenly, there were
comic situations, rumors and legends that became grounds for political jokes.
I’ll allow myself to tell you a few of these:[2]
Since she’s heard it be said in
certain intellectual groups that a certain book has received a significant
level of prestige, a young woman decides to get a copy. She goes to the
bookstore and asks: “Excuse me, do you have Z. Zhelev’s Communism?” Surprised, the bookseller asks, “Did you mean to say
‘Z. Zhelev’s Fascism?’” “Yeah, yeah,
whatever.”
Professor Ivan Slavov’s friend
meets him on the street immediately after the party’s punishment has been
passed and asks him: “Hey, Ivan, how are you? What are you up to?” To which he
responds, “I’m marking myself as yet another victim of Fascism”
Every party functionary has
threatened prof. Nicolai Genchev that because of his positive review of the
book, he’ll be kicked out of the party. To which he replies: “By kicking me out
you’ve only registered me as an active fighter against fascism!”
They asked the director of the
publishing house “Naroden Mladezh”: “what’s the newest thing in the publishing
game?” To which he replied: “Other than Fascism…nothing
new…”
According to another joke, I sent an extensive article to
the “People’s Culture” newspaper. The editorial board, overjoyed that I’d once
again taken the party position decides to call me: “We’re very pleased with
your article. We agree with everything. We’re publishing it without any
changes. But why didn’t you sign the sign your name to it?” “Well, because it’s
not mine.” “Well, what do you mean?” “It’s written by Goebbels…”
There was apparently another one
that managed to compare incomparable things:u
What did the people of Eastern
Europe do after the second world war? The Hungarians had an uprising in 1956,
the Czechs had the “Prague Spring” in 1968, the Polish had “Solidarity” in
1980, and the Bulgarians published Fascism
in 1982…
To compare the publication of one
book with the uprising of a nation, or with a whole national movement, is, of
course, unfounded, but it’s interesting as a certain way of thinking even if
the joke is understood as a bit of self-deprecation which is the most probable
case.
In connection with the
contradictory and tragicomic situation in which the persecutors of the book
found themselves, even the old famous joke about the “mustachioed dictator” has
been updated:
A drunk finds himself, sloshed, in
front of Lenin’s Mausoleum in Red Square at midnight and begins to scream
“Death to the mustachioed dictator! Death to the mustachioed dictator!” The
guard in front the mausoleum pretends not to hear him and waits impatiently for
the drunk to leave. But, stubbornly, he remains and, from time to time, turns
to the Kremlin, wagging his clenched fist and chanting his slogan. Finally, the
guard is forced to call the officer on duty. When the colonel sees what’s
happening, he arrests the drunk and reports to Stalin that he’s captured a
dangerous enemy who’s been yelling “Death to the mustachioed dictator!” Stalin
says that he’s busy at the moment and can’t deal with the matter right now but
to bring the enemy to him in three hours. These three hours turn out to save
the drunk and he manages to sober up. And when he’s brought before Stalin and
asked “Comrade, who were you referring to when you were yelling ‘Death to the
mustachioed dictator?” he answers: “Hitler, of course. He treacherously invaded
our country, destroyed thousands of cities and villages, and killed millions of
Soviet citiz…” “Enough!” says Stalin, “Carry on, comrade!” then turns to the
colonel: “And you, comrade colonel, who were you referring to?!”
I tell this clever Soviet joke not only because it was revived
by popular opinion and was always related to the fate of the book, but also
because, above all, it accurately describes the tragicomic situation in which
those who organized and pursued repressive measures against it necessarily
found themselves in. On the one hand, they had
to punish because of the supposed analogy with socialism; but on the other
hand, when those punished demanded that it be pointed out to them precisely
where the comparison was made, they had to admit that, despite the fact that
there were no explicit textual comparisons in the book, it was written in such
a way that anyone reading it would naturally make that comparison—something which
the opposing side, by taking the Jesuit position, obstinately denied by proving
that such a comparison could only be made by a politically perverted mind.
Consequently, those who make the comparisons—the party apparatus itself—are the
ones who much be punished. And since this was the direct political accusation
against the persecutors, the arguments exploded over and over…
What was happening
was precisely that which the authorities most feared: that the punishments
wouldn’t remain secret and the interest towards the book would become even more
pronounced.
Of the
many comic situations that developed, I’ll tell only two.
One day my
friend from Pazardzhik, a poet who knew the text of the book well before it was
published, saw the book on display he bought fifteen copies. The same day, he
was set to meet with one of the village priest with whom he’s good friends and
in order to interest him in buying the book himself, he tells him that a new
book on fascism has come out and the must absolutely own it at any price. The
priest tried, but couldn’t make it to the bookshop in time. A week later, he
went back to find it, but by that time it was already gone. At that point, my
friend gave him a copy to read and the two agreed that when the two met again
in two weeks, the priest would return it. Yet, 15, 20, 30 days pass, then a
month and a half, then two and not a peep from the priest. One night, my
friend, worried, takes the bus to the village to see what’s going on with the
priest. He finds him in the company of the village mayor, the party secretary, the
leader of the local friendship league, the head of the union, and two teachers who
are meeting to drink and discuss something important. He asks him why he hasn’t
returned the book and the priest says “We decided that this book should stay
here in the village. We started a reading group and are studying it. We’re
reading each chapter and discussing it.”
“What kind of reading group is this”
asks my friend. “The party secretary and the mayor are communists, you’re a Christian,
the leader of the friendship league is a farmer, the teachers most likely atheists
and non-party members…what do you have in common?”
“Ah, true,” said the priest, “when
it’s a matter of discussing fascism and drinking, we’re a united front. Here,
ideologies don’t matter…”
The other
story happened in a town outside of Plovdiv. Apparently, the local union organization
decided to reward its most prominent members at the citywide assembly. Along
with monetary and material rewards, they also decided to gift them books. They
turned to the bookseller and told her that they preferred broadly political literature,
with hard covers, and thick enough to catch the eye. The bookseller told them
that she had on hand a batch of about ten books on fascism that match their
desired requirements—hard covers, thick, etc. The union leaders, who were also
apparently the epicenter of the local political life, signed the books and
handed them out at the meeting. However, after a couple of days rumor around
town spread that they’d handed out an ideologically dangerous and forbidden
book. The book became an object of unexpected discussion and commentary. Most
likely, these murmurs made their way to that state institution which is most concerned
with the ideological health of the country and, on its instruction, they went
from person to person to collect the inappropriate book.
However,
along with the comic situations, there were also tragic ones. I’ll tell only
the most recent one. Last year, a young man from Pazardzhik called me and
insisted that we meet.
At first,
I thought that that it was someone from the human rights movement seeking to make
contact. However, it turned out he was interested in something entirely
different. “My fate is very tightly connected to yours” he told me. I expressed
my surprise and told him that I couldn’t understand what he meant—we didn’t even
know each other. “I was in prison for
four years because of you book on fascism,” he continued, “I read it to the
soldiers in my company and they put me on trial. They court martialed me and sentenced
me to six years in prison, but because I worked, I came out in four. Now, I
have to go be conscripted again in the fall to finish my military service. The
most insulting thing was that I was tried for…spreading fascist ideas in the
military.”
I was
shaken—I simply couldn’t believe my ears. Actually, I had heard at one time
about a case like this but I didn’t believe it. I thought that it was one of
the many rumors and legends that were being spread at the time. But now this
young man was standing in front of me and there was no room for doubt. Four of
the best year of his young, intelligent man were lost…
“Don’t you have parents?” I asked
him, “Why didn’t you run away? Why didn’t you make a scene? Why didn’t you rouse
the local population? How could you suffer such a political sham?”
The young man told me that his
parents tried to find help here and there but that they were threatened and
told that it’s in their best interest to keep quiet, or else things could get
much worse.
They truly were scared for their
son and made peace with their ‘fate’.
In conclusion, I would like to
apologize to the reader for the deluge of facts which have filled this preface—this
is something that isn’t normally acceptable. On the other hand, however, I
think, because of the strange fate of this book, it shouldn’t be considered a fault.
The facts of the book’s political biography clarify and show the importance of
the its contents, they decipher and further develop it. The publishers,
readers, and the repressive organs, through their attitudes toward it, through
the action they took, or through the suffering they endured around its
publication and distribution, continued and completed its text. They continue to
do so even now…
Sofia,
August 1989
From the Author
[1]
[Translator’s note]: roughly adjusting 120 leva in 1989 value to dollar value
in 2019
[2]
[Translator’s note: jokes are hard to translate. Even more so political jokes
from 40 years ago.]
The Crumb Dungeon 