Some of you may remember Mr McShane from the Union’s Middle East debate in Michaelmas term. If his appearance has slipped your mind, he was the one who accused a floor speaker of being a member of Hamas, and constructed his ‘argument’ around the principle that anyone who criticised Israel was a supporter of the Holocaust. Impeccable logic, no?
In today’s Guardian he has turned his attention to the more controversial allies of the Conservatives in the European Parliament, in particular the Polish Law and Justice Party and Latvian For Fatherland and Freedom. He may have some valid points, but it this position which has riled me so much. It is his interesting take on ‘rightwing revisionism’ which has made my blood boil. Expounding a view which can at best be described as muddle-headed, he declares:
‘Stalin’s crimes are being elevated to a par with the exterminations of Jews by those who want to banalise or relativise the Holocaust and reduce its historical centrality to just another example of wartime mass murders.’
The ignorance showcased here is just astounding. First, the idea that Stalin’s crimes need to be ‘elevated’ is just baffling. There are few reliable estimates for how many people died under the Stalinist regime – demographic analysis suggests the population in 1940 was perhaps 30 million lower than could be expected. Up to 10 million of those were killed by man made famines during collectivisation. Millions more were shot in the purges or deported to GULAG camps. Many of these were subjected to horrendous acts of torture, some had their hands boiled in water and the skin peeled off, others were forced to watch their own wives and daughters raped. As the Red Army moved westwards at the end of the Second World War, so too did the crimes of Stalinism. McShane refers to the rapes committed in Lithuania by such soldiers, I do not know what the figures for that nation are, but in Hungary 1/3 of the female population were subjected to such assaults. In short, Stalinism was a vile and evil system and to suggest that comparing them to those of Hitler is somehow ‘elevation’ is simply wrong.
Similarly, by comparing the Holocaust to Stalinism in no way belittles the former. The crimes of the Nazi regime were undoubtably abhorrent – but then so too were those of Stalin. There are many comparisons made with Nazi Germany everyday which do belittle the evil of that regime; Hitler’s name is invoked in countless internet debates, every political hate figure will be compared to him (just pick a politician and google ‘name + Hitler’). Equating Bush, Blair, Obama or any other mainstream politician with a genocidal maniac is offensive and undermines the severity of the Nazi regime. But Stalin? A man responsible for countless murders and repressions. Hardly. To compare Bush to Hitler is like comparing ‘flu with the plague. Stalin is more like ebola.
Finally, I must take issue with the ‘historical centrality’ of the Holocaust. Anyone who is familiar with The History Boys will have seen a snapshot of this argument, and in many quarters the Nazi programme of extermination has a strange mysticism attached to it which make it ‘above’ historical investigation, because contextualisation and explanation may somehow (to quote McShane) ‘banalise’ it. Again, McShane is talking outdated nonsense. As horrendous as it was, the Holocaust was just one act of genocide within the 20th century. That is not a moral judgement, or an analytical verdict, it is just a fact. From its opening to its end, the 20th century was marked by waves of extermination and murder – from Armenia to the Balkans. Accept this does not belittle the Holocaust, but it does reject the false belief that Hitler’s murderous regime was some sort of anomaly, and this is a belief which must rightfully be dispelled. By believing that the Holocaust was somehow unique, a one-off mars not just our understanding of that tragedy, but also that of other crimes against humanity.
Thus what Mr McShane may see as ‘rightwing revisionism’ is not some attempt to belittle the murder of 6 million Jews (I’ll save my rant about how the Holocaust should not be seen as an exclusively Jewish tragedy for another time, as well as any discussion of whether Nazism was ‘rightwing’). It is an attempt to analyse history in a sensible way, and seeks to understand, not ‘absolve’, ‘belittle’, ‘relativise’ or anything else Mr McShane accuses it of. Indeed, the only person who seems to be belittling suffering for political ends in this particular piece is McShane himself, as he seeks to raise the suffering of one group of people above those of other victims of tyranny.
To conclude, I would suggest that McShane and all others restrain from comparing dictators – it is a pointless and offensive parlour game. For if one tyrant is worse, be it Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot some have to be ‘better’ and such a label denigrates the suffering that they caused. Furthermore, ignorant grandstanding politicians should probably keep their historiographical perspectives to themselves.
Anyway, I have now vented my anger. If you have bothered to read this and wish to disagree/comment, I do welcome your thoughts.
