BRD: Decommunization

Decommunization:

Decommunization is a process of dismantling the legacies of the Communist state establishments, culture, and psychology in the post-Communist states. It is sometimes referred to as political cleansing. The term is most commonly applied to the former countries of the Eastern Bloc and the post-Soviet states to describe a number of legal and social changes during their periods of post-Communism.

In some states Decommunization included bans on Communist symbols. While sharing common traits the processes of Decommunization have run differently in different states.

Investigators and prosecutors:

- Cambodia – The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia

- Czech Republic – The Office of the Documentation and the Investigation of the Crimes of Communism

- Slovakia – The Institute of National Memory – Ústav pamäti národa (Sk)

- Estonia – The Estonian International Commission for Investigation of Crimes Against Humanity

- Germany – The Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records (BStU)

- Hungary – The Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution

- Lithuania – The Lithuanian Center for the Research of Genocide and Resistance

- Poland – The Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation

- Romania – The Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes in Romania

- Moldova – The Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Moldova

- Ukraine – The Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance

Prosecution of Former Communists:

Lustration came to refer to government policies of limiting the participation of former Communists, and especially informants of the Communist secret police, in the successor political appointee positions or even in civil service positions.

- Afghanistan – Mohammad Najibullah was sentenced to death and hanged.

- Bulgaria – Todor Zhivkov was sentenced to 7 years in prison, but served only one day because he was freed for "health reasons".

- Cambodia – Kang Kek Iew is so far the only indicted Khmer Rouge leader, while Pol Pot and others lived free without charges.

- East Germany – Erich Honecker was arrested, but soon released due to ill health. Several people, such as Egon Krenz, were convicted.

- Ethiopia – Mengistu Haile Mariam sentenced to death in absentia

- Poland – Wojciech Jaruzelski avoided most court appearances citing poor health. He died in 2014.

- Romania – Nicolae Ceaușescu was sentenced to death and shot by a firing squad.

Results:

Communist parties outside the Baltic states were not outlawed and their members were not prosecuted. Just a few places attempted to exclude even members of communist secret services from decision-making. In a number of countries, the communist party simply changed its name and continued to function.

Stephen Holmes of the University of Chicago argued in 1996 that after a period of active Decommunization, it was met with a near-universal failure. After the introduction of lustration, demand for scapegoats has become relatively low, and former Communists have been elected for high governmental and other administrative positions. Holmes notes that the only real exception was former East Germany, where thousands of former Stasi informers have been fired from public positions.

Holmes suggests the following reasons for the turnoff of Decommunization:

-   - After 45–70 years of Communism, nearly every family has members associated with the state. After the initial desire "to root out the reds" came a realization that massive punishment is wrong and finding only some guilty is hardly justice.

- The urgency of the current economic problems of Post-Communism makes the crimes of the communist past "old news" for many citizens.

- Decommunization is believed to be a power game of elites.

- The difficulty of dislodging the social elite makes it require a totalitarian state to disenfranchise the "enemies of the people" quickly and efficiently and a desire for normalcy overcomes the desire for punitive justice.

-  Very few people have a perfectly clean slate and so are available to fill the positions that require significant expertise.

Lustration:

(Countries in Green did some form of Lustration. The countries in Purple were Communist but never used Lustration.)

In politics, Lustration refers to the purge of government officials in Central and Eastern Europe. Various forms of Lustration were employed in post-Communist Europe and, more recently, in Ukraine. Lustration in general is the process of making something clear or pure, usually by means of a propitiatory offering. The term is taken from the Roman lustratio purification rituals.

Policies and Laws:

After the fall of the various European Communist governments in 1989–1991, the term came to refer to government-sanctioned policies of "mass disqualification of those associated with the abuses under the prior regime".  Procedures excluded participation of former Communists, and especially of informants of the Communist secret police, in successor political positions, or even in civil service positions. This exclusion formed part of the wider Decommunization campaigns. In some countries, however, Lustration laws did not lead to exclusion and disqualification. Lustration law in Hungary (1994–2003) was based on the exposure of compromised state officials, while lustration law in Poland (1999–2005) depended on confession.

Lustration law "is a special public employment law that regulates the process of examining whether a person holding certain higher public positions worked or collaborated with the repressive apparatus of the Communist regime".  The "special" nature of Lustration law refers to its transitional character. As of 1996, various lustration laws of varying scope were implemented in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Macedonia, Albania, Bulgaria, the Baltic States (Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia), Germany, Poland, and Romania.  As of 2019 lustration laws had not been passed in Belarus, nor in former Yugoslavia or the former Soviet Central Asian Republics (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan).

Results:

Lustration can serve as a form of punishment by anti-Communist politicians who were dissidents under a Communist-led government. Lustration laws are usually passed right before elections, and become tightened when right-wing governments are in power, and loosened while social democratic parties are in power. It is claimed that Lustration systems based on dismissal or confession might be able to increase trust in government,  while those based on confession might be able to promote social reconciliation.

Examples:

In Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic:

Unlike many neighboring states, the new government in the Czech and Slovak Federative Republic did not adjudicate under court trials, but instead took a non-judicial approach to ensure changes would be implemented.  According to a law passed on 4 October 1991, all employees of the StB, the Communist-era secret police, were blacklisted from designated public offices, including the upper levels of the civil service, the judiciary, procuracy, Security Information Service (BIS), army positions, management of state owned enterprises, the central bank, the railways, senior academic positions and the public electronic media. This law remained in place in the Czech Republic after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia, and expired in 2000.  The Lustration laws in Czechoslovakia and the Czech Republic were not intended to serve as justice, but to ensure that events such as the Communist coup of February 1948 did not happen again.

In Germany:

Germany did not have a Lustration process, but it has a federal agency, known as the Stasi Records Agency, dedicated to preserving and protecting the archives and investigating the past actions of the former East German secret police, the Stasi. The agency is subordinate to the Representative of the Federal Government for Culture (Bernd Neumann, CDU). As of 2012, it had 1,708 employees.

In Poland:

The first Lustration bill was passed by the Polish Parliament in 1992, but it was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland. Several other projects were then submitted and reviewed by a dedicated commission, resulting in a new Lustration law passed in 1996.  From 1997 to 2007 Lustration was dealt with by the office of the Public Interest Spokesperson (Polish: Rzecznik Interesu Publicznego), who analyzed Lustration declarations and could initiate further proceedings. According to a new law which came into effect on 15 March 2007, Lustration in Poland is now administered by the Institute of National Remembrance (Polish: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej; IPN).

In Ukraine:

In Ukraine, the term Lustration refers to the exclusion from public office of civil servants who worked under Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych for more than a year "and did not resign of their own accord" between 25 February 2010 and 22 February 2014 and civil servants who were active in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. They may be excluded for five to ten years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decommunization
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lustration