Luciano Canfora: Soft-Pedaling Stalin's crimes?
... a major public, and publishers', row is raging in Europe -- the Canfora affair. A "distinguished" professor of classical philology at Bari University, Luciano Canfora, has produced a book in something like the worst of the neo-pro-Stalinist vein. "La Democrazia: Storia Di Un'Ideologia" is part of the series "The Making of Europe," put out by publishers in five countries under the direction of French Medievalist historian Jacques LeGoff. It somehow sneaked through publishers' offices into print in Italy, France, Spain and (note title change) as "Democracy in Europe: A History" in England last week, America next month.
But the German publisher, C. H. Beck, refused to publish it, returned the rights to the author, and offered "gladly" to make the translation available. In Italy, the Corriere Della Sera printed Mr. Canfora's angry charges of "censorship" -- a cry quickly taken up elsewhere. In an interview on the subject, Mr. Le Goff told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "It's not that I want to defend Canfora, I just think that a contract should be kept." Noting that the series on democracy was planned four years ago and "Canfora's political and academic positions were widely known," he went on to say that should publication be "banned" in Germany, "it would look very like censorship." But that comment has not stopped the detection and exposure of the flaws in such an argument.
Joachim Güntner, writing in the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, agrees with the accusations by C.H. Beck's chief editor Detlef Felken (that Mr. Canfora is "palliating communism"), noting that "the word 'gulag' does not make a single appearance in the German translation. But the USA is violently attacked for its support of 'fascist regimes worldwide' . . ." Asking "Is the author blind in his left eye?" Mr. Güntner takes Mr. Canfora to task for not breaking "with the communist idea of historical 'necessity', according to which Stalin was not simply blood-thirsty and power-crazed but someone who did what he had to do for the Soviet Union."
Some Italian voices are heard in some sort of defense of this book, a sad paradox when one remembers that the Italian left -- and even Italian communists -- were among the earliest exposers of Stalinism in the 1960s. One defense has been that a publisher is obliged to honor his contract. Yes, but does he not have a previous obligation to examine the material covered by the contract? Publishers cannot be expected to produce every manuscript they receive. Some are bound to be rejected. And those who work in publishing, especially among those at lower levels, may lack judgment, or taste. We must, of course, put up with this. But it cannot be presented as a reason to evade later criticism. It was the unanimous conclusion of five independent consultants that C. H. Beck would be well advised not to publish the book. Even the well-known left-wing historian Hans Ulrich Wehler criticized it, noting that "In its dogmatic stupidity he [Canfora] exceeds the products of the GDR in the sixties and seventies."
So, contrary to all civilized expectation, the lessons of the past three generations are rejected. Those of us who thought they had been learnt must, once again, face the non-facts. Thus we learn, from Mr. Canfora, of the negative role of Poland in failing to support Stalin. Katyn (like Gulag) does not figure in the index. We are treated to a Hungarian Revolution of 1956 in which the West is the main villain. And "hysterically anti-Soviet" opinion (particularly in Poland) is berated. (A useful guide to Stalinophilia is the use of "hysterical," "frenzied" and "rabid" to describe non-communists.)
To be called "distinguished" is not an adequate reply to the objections emerging from all sides of the political spectrum. Mr. Canfora's expertise as a classicist is in itself no qualification, or not one adequate to refute the facts of 20th-century Stalinism. But we get not merely a favorable, but an intellectually indefensibly favorable view of Gulag-denial in the form of Gulag-avoidance -- a lesson to all the David Irvings....
Read entire article at WSJ
But the German publisher, C. H. Beck, refused to publish it, returned the rights to the author, and offered "gladly" to make the translation available. In Italy, the Corriere Della Sera printed Mr. Canfora's angry charges of "censorship" -- a cry quickly taken up elsewhere. In an interview on the subject, Mr. Le Goff told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: "It's not that I want to defend Canfora, I just think that a contract should be kept." Noting that the series on democracy was planned four years ago and "Canfora's political and academic positions were widely known," he went on to say that should publication be "banned" in Germany, "it would look very like censorship." But that comment has not stopped the detection and exposure of the flaws in such an argument.
Joachim Güntner, writing in the Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, agrees with the accusations by C.H. Beck's chief editor Detlef Felken (that Mr. Canfora is "palliating communism"), noting that "the word 'gulag' does not make a single appearance in the German translation. But the USA is violently attacked for its support of 'fascist regimes worldwide' . . ." Asking "Is the author blind in his left eye?" Mr. Güntner takes Mr. Canfora to task for not breaking "with the communist idea of historical 'necessity', according to which Stalin was not simply blood-thirsty and power-crazed but someone who did what he had to do for the Soviet Union."
Some Italian voices are heard in some sort of defense of this book, a sad paradox when one remembers that the Italian left -- and even Italian communists -- were among the earliest exposers of Stalinism in the 1960s. One defense has been that a publisher is obliged to honor his contract. Yes, but does he not have a previous obligation to examine the material covered by the contract? Publishers cannot be expected to produce every manuscript they receive. Some are bound to be rejected. And those who work in publishing, especially among those at lower levels, may lack judgment, or taste. We must, of course, put up with this. But it cannot be presented as a reason to evade later criticism. It was the unanimous conclusion of five independent consultants that C. H. Beck would be well advised not to publish the book. Even the well-known left-wing historian Hans Ulrich Wehler criticized it, noting that "In its dogmatic stupidity he [Canfora] exceeds the products of the GDR in the sixties and seventies."
So, contrary to all civilized expectation, the lessons of the past three generations are rejected. Those of us who thought they had been learnt must, once again, face the non-facts. Thus we learn, from Mr. Canfora, of the negative role of Poland in failing to support Stalin. Katyn (like Gulag) does not figure in the index. We are treated to a Hungarian Revolution of 1956 in which the West is the main villain. And "hysterically anti-Soviet" opinion (particularly in Poland) is berated. (A useful guide to Stalinophilia is the use of "hysterical," "frenzied" and "rabid" to describe non-communists.)
To be called "distinguished" is not an adequate reply to the objections emerging from all sides of the political spectrum. Mr. Canfora's expertise as a classicist is in itself no qualification, or not one adequate to refute the facts of 20th-century Stalinism. But we get not merely a favorable, but an intellectually indefensibly favorable view of Gulag-denial in the form of Gulag-avoidance -- a lesson to all the David Irvings....