Silence as a Memory Strategy

AI opinion

In the résumés of the citizens of the Polish People's Republic, and frequently the 3rd Polish Republic, information about belonging to the PZPR occurs seldom or at all. This is simply a common fact, though seldom called direct. The paradox is that this silence concerns the mass phenomenon – the organization counted millions of members and was a real mechanics of promotion, influence and participation in public life. If “everyone knows” that many of them belonged to her, why do we pretend so frequently in authoritative biography that there was no specified thing?

We most frequently hear the explanation that “these were the times.” That without organization cards it was hard to work, promote, prosecute professional or technological ambitions. That many joined the PZPR not from ideological conviction, but from pragmatism – and sometimes even from the desire to do something good for Poland, even as part of a strategy which was imposed from outside. This argument can be actual and cannot be completely rejected.

However, it is even more amazing that present it is so seldom utilized directly. If belonging to the PZPR was a rational choice in inhuman realities, if it allowed to defend institutions, people or values, why can't we afford to name it? Why is there a gap in the biography that makes you guess alternatively of understanding? Silence does not purify – on the contrary, it gives emergence to suspicion and strengthens simplified courts.

One might get the impression that we are dealing with a peculiar form of shame without guilt or guilt without the courage to describe it. erstwhile members of the organization apparatus, even those who played a affirmative function in public life after 1989, like to skip this passage of their résumé. As if belonging to the PZPR was just a burden, never an experience from which 1 can draw conclusions and give a evidence of the era.

It is besides amazing that researchers and chroniclers of that time stay silent. They frequently take biographical abbreviations without comment, as if the full fact would be uncomfortable or besides complicated for the recipient. This complexity is the key to knowing the Polish People's Republic – a strategy that was not just made up of torturers and victims, but besides of millions of people active in regular compromises.

History does not become clearer by silence. It becomes clearer erstwhile we can describe it without fear of nuances. If individual as a associate of the PZPR did good, acted honestly, mitigated systemic evil – it is worth showing and documenting. Not to whitewash the system, but to realize people. Without it The memory of the PRL will stay black and white, and so false.

Silence is not neutral. It is simply a strategy – comfortable but harmful. And as long as it dominates, we will not learn to talk of our own past maturely, without fear and without simplification.