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Negaționismul de stânga
„Negaționismul înseamnă negarea faptelor istorice dovedite sau deformarea lor. Termenul se referă în general la cei care contestă existența camerelor de gazare naziste ori care minimalizează amploarea fenomenului de exterminare a evreilor în timpul celui de-al Doilea Război Mondial. Dar cum rămâne cu cei care neagă bilanțul comunismului, care-i trec sub tăcere morții și îi ascund cauzele? Se poate vorbi în acest caz de un negaționism de stânga, diferit, așadar, de un negaționism de dreapta? Distincția e arbitrară, ne-ajută doar să nu confundăm tipurile de negare, și trebuie înțeleasă fără nici o conotație politică... Adevărata diferență ține de percepția asupra acestor negaționisme: unul este unanim condamnat în numele adevărului, al istoriei, al moralei, pe când celălalt este în cel mai bun caz ignorat, dacă nu chiar aprobat în ciuda tuturor evidențelor, în pofida realității istorice și a eticii. Cartea de față are drept subiect tocmai acest negaționism de stânga, care nu-și găsește nici o justificare și despre care se vorbește atât de puțin ori deloc.“ – THIERRY WOLTON
- GenresNonfictionHistoryFrance
192 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2019
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91 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 25, 2019
Un eseu foarte interesant al lui Thierry Wolton, profesor la École Supérieure de Commerce din Paris, despre negationismul ororilor comunismului, care nu trezeste atata repulsie in mediile intelectuale occidentale, precum negationismul extremei drepte. El isi are originea imediat dupa revolutia bolsevica, se continua intens in perioada Holdomor, pana la comunismul de epoca de piatra din Cambodgia si dupa, iar TW trece in revista intr-un mod studiat toata istoria lui. Un aspect interesant sesizat in carte, ar fi ca cele doua extreme, pe masura ce se radicalizeaza, au tendinta de a se suprapune, mai ales in ceea ce inseamna negarea Holocaustului. TW prezinta ziceri a mai multor intelectuali francezi comunisti, negationisti ai Holocaustului, care pot fi cu greu diferentiate de articole din der Sturmer, sau alta revista de extrema dreapta. Concluzia destul de trista a cartii, ar fi ca negationismul extremei stangi, are toate sansele sa ramana alaturi de noi, multi ani si sa ne deformeze in continuare perceptia unei bune bucati de istorie, care ar merita poate mai multa atentie.
February 11, 2023
I was waiting for a book like this as it's a very important topic. I am also annoyed that Nazi/fascist crimes are still not to be touched and denied (good), while those committed by communists are just an afterthought, always up for discussion and denial. The symbols of one are anathema, while the symbols of the other are free speech. The left gets away with a lot when it comes to denialism. Would Chomsky still have a career had he denied the Holocaust rather than the Cambodian massacres?
Now I do not approve of this comparative martirology as one of my professors used to call it. It's not productive at all to compare these dead millions with these other dead millions. Human suffering is not something you can put on a scale.
Having said this, this book did not exactly do it for me. While it does have some interesting examples and ideas, it also feels at times like someone's rant on a blog post. I fully agree with the author and despise communism as much as he does, but a more structured approach would have worked much better. Some parts are just opinions that twist the facts. As an example, the author complains that you can mock Stalin, but Hitler is still a scarecrow. One page later he provides the example of the book Look who's back to show that people still fear Hitler. But he definitely did not read it, as it is a scalding mockery of Hitler, in a very similar vein to mockery directed at Stalin.
While some of the ideas regarding Israel do make a lot of sense, presenting the country as this shining beam of democracy and openness is also not the way to go. They are responsible for some messed up things, it is what it is.
And the connection between Islamist terrorism and communism... not sure the chapter was enough to build a strong case of it.
Overall I appreciate the idea behind the book, hopefully other people join in as well with more detailed works.
Now I do not approve of this comparative martirology as one of my professors used to call it. It's not productive at all to compare these dead millions with these other dead millions. Human suffering is not something you can put on a scale.
Having said this, this book did not exactly do it for me. While it does have some interesting examples and ideas, it also feels at times like someone's rant on a blog post. I fully agree with the author and despise communism as much as he does, but a more structured approach would have worked much better. Some parts are just opinions that twist the facts. As an example, the author complains that you can mock Stalin, but Hitler is still a scarecrow. One page later he provides the example of the book Look who's back to show that people still fear Hitler. But he definitely did not read it, as it is a scalding mockery of Hitler, in a very similar vein to mockery directed at Stalin.
While some of the ideas regarding Israel do make a lot of sense, presenting the country as this shining beam of democracy and openness is also not the way to go. They are responsible for some messed up things, it is what it is.
And the connection between Islamist terrorism and communism... not sure the chapter was enough to build a strong case of it.
Overall I appreciate the idea behind the book, hopefully other people join in as well with more detailed works.
May 23, 2022
The subject is the double standard of intellectuals (the book focuses mostly on the french ones) when it comes to the 2 great crimes of the last century: the nazi genocide and the communist genocides; and the practice of denial when it comes to this genocides.
From the first chapter the author starts with the holocaust deniers/revisionist/minimalists (call them how you want). THis first chapter can have a very impact on the reader depending on the reader's interest in this subject. The author goes into presenting holocaust denial with a brave statement that "they are not third Reich nostalgics" and starts throwing names, backgrounds and books (Rassinier and Faurission) and gives a quick mention to some of the main arguments of the deniers.
Here if you are someone who never touched this subject, this part would sock you to find out that the spiritual father of holocaust denier is a french commuist resistance fighters who survived a nazi camp (Rassinier). Or that there is a supposedly lack of documentation from nazi archives on this operation, or the tehnical aspects that are brought up. If you are someone who knows about this subject you may be dissapointed by how fast and superficial he went through holocaust denial (admiralty he did not set up to disprove it); and how he enumerates denial strategies (forgets the lechter report )but dose not elaborate on them, only to impute them on the communist deniers.
In the next chapters he gives us a lot of examples of communist deniers of stalin, pol pot and so on. But the most fascinating type is how some of the people he mentioned transitionated from communist pro-jews to anti semit holocaust deniers and even converted to islam. He makes a good argument that holocaust denial is the same as communism denial. I personally somewhat disagree on this equality, and I will elaborate later why. It was good to read how famous artists and philosophers (Noam Chomsky and Picasso from the more well known) were clear deniers of red crimes and how that carries no impact to their image.
He describes how some french comminists went from red denial to also holocaust denial; holocaust being just another capitalist conspiracy; I see no such transition on the original holocaust revisionists. He attacks often booth type of deniers of hyper- criticism of documents and reports; this could be a fair point but I think it fails because every regim who commited genicide had its own way and culture of keeping track of stuff and writing reports. We clearly can not have a papertrail of the cambodian genocide because they went stone age; we know of arrests and deportation to siberia, but once in siberia no one cared anymore. But it is stupid how when it comes to the holocaust hyper criticism is wrong yet it is excused when communist apply it to red genocides.
From the first chapter the author starts with the holocaust deniers/revisionist/minimalists (call them how you want). THis first chapter can have a very impact on the reader depending on the reader's interest in this subject. The author goes into presenting holocaust denial with a brave statement that "they are not third Reich nostalgics" and starts throwing names, backgrounds and books (Rassinier and Faurission) and gives a quick mention to some of the main arguments of the deniers.
Here if you are someone who never touched this subject, this part would sock you to find out that the spiritual father of holocaust denier is a french commuist resistance fighters who survived a nazi camp (Rassinier). Or that there is a supposedly lack of documentation from nazi archives on this operation, or the tehnical aspects that are brought up. If you are someone who knows about this subject you may be dissapointed by how fast and superficial he went through holocaust denial (admiralty he did not set up to disprove it); and how he enumerates denial strategies (forgets the lechter report )but dose not elaborate on them, only to impute them on the communist deniers.
In the next chapters he gives us a lot of examples of communist deniers of stalin, pol pot and so on. But the most fascinating type is how some of the people he mentioned transitionated from communist pro-jews to anti semit holocaust deniers and even converted to islam. He makes a good argument that holocaust denial is the same as communism denial. I personally somewhat disagree on this equality, and I will elaborate later why. It was good to read how famous artists and philosophers (Noam Chomsky and Picasso from the more well known) were clear deniers of red crimes and how that carries no impact to their image.
He describes how some french comminists went from red denial to also holocaust denial; holocaust being just another capitalist conspiracy; I see no such transition on the original holocaust revisionists. He attacks often booth type of deniers of hyper- criticism of documents and reports; this could be a fair point but I think it fails because every regim who commited genicide had its own way and culture of keeping track of stuff and writing reports. We clearly can not have a papertrail of the cambodian genocide because they went stone age; we know of arrests and deportation to siberia, but once in siberia no one cared anymore. But it is stupid how when it comes to the holocaust hyper criticism is wrong yet it is excused when communist apply it to red genocides.
January 9, 2020
This would have gotten a one star, but it managed to stay mostly on track and I do agree that leftist denial of regime crimes does fall into its own particular brand. However - however! - socialism is NOT communism. At some point he managed to confuse the two, which irks me. Read at your own risk.
July 26, 2021
Negationismul inseamna negarea faptelor istorice dovedite sau deformarea lor. Termenul se refera in general la cei care contesta existenta camerelor de gazare naziste or care minimalizeaza amploarea fenomenului de exterminare a evreilor in timpul celui de-al Doilea Razboi Mondial. Dar cum ramane cu cei care neaga bilantul comunismului, care-i trec sub tacere mortii si ii ascund cauzele? Se poate vorbi in acest caz de un negationism de stanga, diferit, asadar, de un negationism de dreapta? Distinctia e arbitrara, ne-ajuta doar sa nu confudam tipurile de negare, si trebuie inteleasa fara nici o conotatie politica.
May 18, 2023
O introducere solida in ceea ce inseamna negationismul priving atrocitatiile comise the regimurile totalitare si modul in care fanii acestor curente (regimuri) reusesc sa se sustraga responsabilitatii sustinerilor lor. Ce este socant, si Thierry reuseste sa prezinte cu gratie, este modul in care atat extremistii de dreapta si cei de stanga merg mana in mana ca sa se apere unii pe ceilalti. Negationismul crimelor comunismului merge mana in mana cu negationismul holocaustului.
Dupa cum Thierry descrie: secolul 20 nu a fost unul sfasiat de comunism si national socialism, ci de national comunism.
Big thumbs up!
Dupa cum Thierry descrie: secolul 20 nu a fost unul sfasiat de comunism si national socialism, ci de national comunism.
Big thumbs up!
December 27, 2020
o radiografie a anomaliilor care au condus la exacerbarea negațiosnimului de stânga
August 3, 2025
Am ajuns pana la pagina 100.Sunt de acord cu mesajul, pericolele extremismului fie de stanga fie de dreapta sunt, repet, pericole.Cu toate acestea prin cartile de genul se pastreaza status quo, care asa cum vedem nu duce la nimic.
Am decis sa o citesc la gandul ca e important sa vedem pareri si de la oameni care nu sunt neaparat de acord cu ce credem noi, dar m-a plictisit teribil modul de a veni cu o problema si a nu da si solutii.
Am decis sa o citesc la gandul ca e important sa vedem pareri si de la oameni care nu sunt neaparat de acord cu ce credem noi, dar m-a plictisit teribil modul de a veni cu o problema si a nu da si solutii.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews