By: dr. Tamara Griesser Pečar
In Slovenia, 3,450 murdered individuals from the cave under Macesnova gorica are awaiting burial, which the mayor of Ljubljana does not allow. Meanwhile, the ruling coalition has proposed an amendment to the law on public order and peace that is supposed to prohibit public glorification of Nazism and fascism, but not communism.
Of course, with rare exceptions, there are no advocates of Nazism and Fascism in Slovenia, but there are still defenders of Communism. In the National Assembly, left-wing party MPs have repeatedly blocked the adoption of the Resolution on European Conscience and Totalitarianism because condemning Communism presents considerable difficulties for them. With the proposed amendment, the coalition aims to long-term restrict the objective portrayal of non-Communist units and organisations that operated outside the Liberation Front and the Partisans during World War II in Slovenia, including those that operated illegally and were directed against the occupiers (legions, intelligence services, Chetniks, or the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland). They want to silence freedom of speech, which is a fundamental human right, and in the long term, historiography is also at risk if it operates according to professional principles.
Let us remember that after independence, the Communist Party renamed itself twice and suddenly became the Social Democratic Party. Its representatives, however, still bow before the monuments of those responsible for mass human rights violations. The minister attends the celebration of the founding of the Communist Party, the day of remembrance for the victims of Communism has been abolished, and the proponents of the law amendment claim that Communism, Nazism, and Fascism cannot be equated because Communism is something entirely different. This amounts to a relativisation of evil. If the arguments presented by coalition representatives were not deliberate misdirection of the uninformed, one thing is clear: most of those debating the concept of totalitarianism have an unclear understanding of it. A historian who presented the law in parliament demonstrated his ignorance in a television programme by claiming that a totalitarian regime ruled in Austria-Hungary. No one in parliament mentioned the fact that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union jointly started World War II. Two weeks after the signing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact on August 23rd, 1939 (and the subsequent “Boundary and Friendship Treaty” on September 28th, 1939, which divided parts of Europe between Germany and the Soviet Union), Germany attacked Poland on September 1st, 1939, and the Soviet Union attacked eastern Poland on September 17th, followed by the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states and Finland. The Soviet Union joined the Allies only after the German attack on June 22nd, 1941.
Every totalitarianism is a dictatorship, but not every dictatorship is totalitarian. Unlike an authoritarian dictatorship, which allows people private lives as long as they do not interfere in politics, a totalitarian state penetrates all aspects of social and personal life and demands active participation according to the dictates of a specific ideology. “An authoritarian regime limits freedom; a totalitarian regime abolishes freedom,” observes Hannah Arendt in her book The Origins of Totalitarianism. A key element of what we refer to in historiography and serious politics of established democracies as “totalitarianism” is intimidation and the use of physical violence. The characteristics of totalitarian regimes are: a dominant ideology (National Socialism is based on racial ideology, Fascism on nationalism, and Communism on the so-called classless society without private property), the unity of power (legislative, executive, and judicial), a one-party system, the cult of a dictator (Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Tito), the subjugation of individuals to the collective, mass violations of human and civil rights, lack of freedom of the press, science, and art, concentration and labour camps, secret prisons, privileges of the ruling elite, secret official documents, etc. Both Fascism and Nazism, as well as Communism, stem from socialist roots. It is therefore essential to evaluate totalitarian phenomena and regimes by the same criteria.
Slovenia experienced all three totalitarian regimes, and it is also a fact that Communism caused the most deaths. However, it is not only about deaths but also politically motivated trials, political prisoners without due process, population expulsions, property confiscations, refugees, and more. More than 100,000 people were directly affected in Slovenia, and over 100,000 members of other Yugoslav nations were killed on Slovenian soil. It should also be emphasised that the relatives of all these individuals were victims as well – they were neglected by the authorities, could not pursue the education they desired, or could not obtain jobs matching their abilities and aspirations.
