One of the many Stalinist Very Big Lies still echoing on down the ages is that there can be no attempted equivalence between Nazism and Communism, since Nazism (as Extreme Rightism) was an explicitly racist ideology whereas Communism (as part of general Leftism generally) utterly repudiated racism.

This is not a dead issue.

The sort of Europe we are said to be building depends on our collective memories – especially when enormous efforts have been made – and are still being made – (a) to ensure that responsibility for certain vast crimes was not placed where it should be, and (b) to keep other memories well and truly suppressed.

This exchange between Anne Applebaum and Anatol Lieven is a forceful but gracious account of some of the issues at stake. See also Edward Lucas on the subject.

Communist anti-semitism is another complex dark subject. Here is a handy summary of Stalin’s crimes in this area.

One of the many great tragedies in Poland’s C20 history is that having taken over a country which had just seen most of Europe’s largest Jewish population deliberately annihilated by the Nazis, the Polish Communist regime itself played a vicious anti-semitic card when it needed to see off liberal student unrest in 1968.

So well done Polish President Kaczynski in commemorating the 40th anniversary of those shameful events perpetrated by the Communists. And offering to do something now to try to put things right.