Kõne: The Role Of The Democratic Left – Lessons For The European Debate

Thursday, 15.05.2008, 12:29 / SEISUKOHAD / RSS

Speech by Marianne Mikko MEP in panel: “From cold war to cold peace?”

40th Anniversary of the Prague Spring
“THE ROLE OF THE DEMOCRATIC LEFT – LESSONS FOR THE
EUROPEAN DEBATE”
Prague, 15-16 May, 2008

When the Prague spring was in full bloom, I was 6 years old. My world was of
any sort unpleasantness. My summer was spent in idyllical surroundings of the
countryside.
The focus of my particular attention was an extraordinarily big bag of sugar
kept in the pantry. As my interest I found myself in a serious conversation with the
grownups. From this encounter I carried away a distinct sense of uneasiness.
It was not only because I was given no valid reason why 50 kilograms of sugar
should remain untouched. It was because of something in the way the grownups
talked. It was because of stockpile of matches, salt and candles sitting next to the
infamous bag of sugar.
It was many years before I realised that these were the supplies, which people
put aside for the case of war or disaster. In 1968, many people in Estonia expected the
war to break out. We knew that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union would not
leave the “Prague Spring” without consequences.
Less than a 13 years ago, the Budapest revolution had resulted in death
sentences for the revolutionary leaders, 2500 deaths of freedom fighters and 200 000
refugees.
In connection with the uprising of 1953, over 100 Germans were executed in
the Eastern part of the country.
Of course, the Stalinist apparatus was doing everything possible to prevent this
sort of information spreading. The CPSU tried to avoid sending conscripts from the
occupied territories to suppress the Budapest uprising or the Prague Spring, but the
information spread nevertheless.
These were issues we were dealing with at the time when the German
Wirtschaftswunder was in its full bloom. On the one side of the Iron Curtain there was
abundance, on the other side scarcity. In the west there was confidence, in the east
fear.
In Paris, the students were demonstrating against capitalism, whereas their
contemporaries in the occupied Baltic states had seen with their own eyes how 10% of
our population was deported to Siberian labour camps and Arctic settlements in
unheated the cattle carriages.
After Stalin’s death, the most of the deported were allowed to return and were
officially “rehabilitated”. Thus, Stalin’s crimes were partly acknowledged, but not
entirely. The rehabilitation was more of an amnesty, which implied at least some sort
of wrongdoing on the part of the innocent victims.
However, this was more than the Western opinion leaders ever did. The
inability of the “1968” generation to recognise that the XX century saw not one but
two inhuman tyrants divides the EU to this day.
It should not be forgotten that the Stalinist atrocities in the present Member
States were the extension of the purges conducted in Russia and Ukraine, where
around 20 million people are estimated to have been killed or starved.
It should not be forgotten, that Stalin was the initiator of the Cold War, which
tore Europe apart for six and a half decades.
The significance of the secret protocols of the Hitler-Stalin Pact is practically
unrecognised. Yet the 23 August 1939 is the point where all crimes committed by the
two dictators converge. The invasion of Poland and the first Stalinist mass
deportations in the occupied territories followed closely on the heels of this pact.
In the protocols, Stalin and Hitler divided Europe into the zones of influence.
Stalin gave Hitler free reign over Western Europe and most of Poland. In return he got
a free rule over the Baltic States. Europe was torn apart for 65 years. Only the
accessions of 2004 and 2007 really created the preconditions for starting the healing
process.
Dear friends,
The cold war was preceded by the world war, which in turn was preceded by
the Stalinist purges in Russia and his pact with Hitler.
It is for us to decide and to shape what is to follow the cold war. Cold peace
with Russia has been repeatedly announced and discussed. It is not in the true
interests of Russia to be on unfriendly terms with its biggest customer and potentially
greatest friend.
It is the legacy of the cold war which rules EU-Russia relations. With the
professional “cold warriors” in charge of Kremlin it is the conditioned reflex of the
Russian foreign policy to try to divide and conquer Europe.
It is up to us to not to give any chances to those wanting to split the continent
again. The effects of the accessions of 2004 and 2007 for the European Union have
been thoroughly discussed in administrative, legal and financial terms.
Only having understood both the East and the West, we can sustainably unite
them. Taking account of the respective historical circumstances, we must synthesize
the results. This means that we must face an unexplored part of our common history
and deal with it.
The European dimension of the Nazi and Stalinist crimes is not addressed
properly. But mass murders are the facts our history exactly as the great achievements
of culture and trade are. And there should be no special treatment for one murderer
compared to another.
The need to prevent the repetition of the horrors of the XX century was among
the main motives of the founding fathers of the European Communities. Common
European vision should be solid base for common goals and the will to pursue them.
For this to exist, it is unavoidable to heal the traumas of the past. We must recognise
and analyse not only the history of the western part of the EU but also this of the
eastern member states.
By acknowledging the significance of this date, 23rd of August, the EU will
acknowledge the equal standing of the “new member states” in our common history. It
concerns both East and West, the “post-communist” states and long-established
democracies. It involves both kinds of extreme dictatorship. That’s why I would like
to include into dates which are important to us Remembrance Day to commemorate
victims of Nazism and Stalinism on the 23rd of August.
One of these dictatorships has been properly dealt with, the other has been
glossed over. Until everyone understands that, the mental unity of the EU might be
unreachable. Until we learn the lessons of the cold war and its root causes, we are
vulnerable to cold peace.