Stephane Courtois, Communism, and the Black Book Project
Stephane Courtois is a French historian who specializes in the history of communist movements and regimes. Courtois changing political identity has deeply influenced his work. Stephane Courtois was an active member of the Communist party, but later became a renowned critique of Communism because of the way in which he experienced the harmful side effects of the regime type. Courtois successfully channeled his criticisms of the Communist Party in his essay’s in The Black Book of Communism, epitomizing the idea of using literature to resist communism.
About Stephane Courtois Life
As a student, from 1968 to 1971, Stephane Courtois was a Maoist[1]. Maoism is a form of communism developed by Mao Tse Tun. It is a doctrine to capture State power through a combination of armed insurgency, mass mobilization and strategic alliances. Maoists also use propaganda and disinformation against State institutions as other components of their insurgency doctrine[2]. Following his school years, Courtois became an outspoken anticommunist and a strong supporter of democracy, pluralism, human rights, and Rechtsstaat which is a doctrine in European legal thinking that translates to “state based on justice and integrity.”[3]
Courtois argues that Communism and National Socialism, Nazism, are only slightly different totalitarian systems and that communism is responsible for the murder of around 100 million people in the 20th century. He also argues that the Nazi’s adopted their repressive methods from Soviet methods.
In 1982, after having taken legal studies and history classes, he founded the journal Communisme in attempt to bring together anticommunist specialists on French communism. Once he was appointed Director of Research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, he became responsible for the group observations and studies of democracy. For the journal, this was a period of extremely rich research of all kinds[4].
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed in December of 1991, bringing down communist regimes. This opened an opportunity for Courtois to access unpublished sources to help rewrite the history of Communism. This was essential because up until that point, Communism was solely seen through the propaganda published by Soviet-style regimes. Courtois described this historiographical turning point as a true revolution in documentation.
In rewriting the history of Communism, Courtois spent a great deal of time studying Lenin. In turn he generated such a strong negative opinion of him. Channeling these opinions to writing, Courtois published works primarily focusing around exposing the awful, inhumane crimes committed by Communists. To best articulate this, Courtois was known for drawing comparisons between the acute awareness of the Jewish genocide and that of Communism, which is often clouded with falsehoods and approximations. While the Holocaust quickly became a highly researched historical event, the study of Communism still remains fairly uncharted.
The product of Courtois newfound research was the Black Book of Communism. This project that Courtois took on, which will be examined deeper further on in this paper, focused on shedding light on the criminal aspects of the Soviet regime. The Black Book of Communism also raised the issue of scholarly neglect of the crimes of Communism in contrast to the attention paid to the crimes of the Nazis.
Stephane Courtois’ Views on Lenin
Part of Courtois’ heavy criticism of Communism arose from the emblematic figure of the Bolshevik Revolution: Lenin. Very early on in Russian, around 1920, the myth of “Good Lenin” appeared[5]. Lenin was quickly described as a genius to most. It was hard to not obsess over this figure. He was determined to do everything on a large scale, making people become obsessed fairly fast. People worshiped Lenin and his ideologies in a way never before seen—it reached a point where each Soviet city or village, “had its Lenin street, avenue, or square…”[6].
All virtues were attributed to the “Great Lenin”: “a disinterested man living in an almost ascetic modesty, selfless to the point of putting his health on the line to serve the Revolution, physically brave, always exercising self-control in the most dangerous moments; but also a humane and generous leader, accessible to all, a great democrat, strict but fair…”[7]. While this was the reality to most, some, including Stephane Courtois, quickly picked up on the truth behind Lenin’s words.
Courtois refers to Lenin as the inventor of totalitarianism, attributing fast and widespread issues pertaining to the Communist Party to Lenin. For a while, Lenin was a radical thinker, fearful of sharing his ideologies. However, as soon as he discovered the works of Karl Marx, he was comforted by his alike radicalization of thought. Through Marx’s theory, Lenin found a plan for a Communist society in which, “private property would be eradicated”[8]. Further analysis of this logic resulted in the Communist Manifesto.
Using scientific claim and Marx’s ideologies, Lenin highlighted the harm of expansive capitalism through explaining that there is a key difference between knowledge and ignorance. He believed that individuals whom are a part of a capitalist system are ignorant, which in his mind was equivalent to evil. Lenin claimed that there must no longer be trust in bourgeois law[9]. Essentially, Lenin’s approach to Communism would result in, “full suppression of private property, profit, and the market”[10]. Above all, it would stand as a cultural revolution.
The Black Book Project
After many contributions and publications on various aspects of communism, Stephane Courtois participated in the Black Book of Communism, a project published in November 1997. He was the coordinator and wrote the preface. The book takes stock of the crimes committed by the various forms of power exercised by communism.
The introduction by Courtois is titled “The Crimes of Communism,” in which he writes that, “this [book] is one of the first attempts to study Communism with a focus on its criminal dimensions, in both the central regions of Communist rule and the farthest reaches of the globe,”[11]. Courtois starts with highlighting an estimate of around 100 million people killed due to Communist regimes. He explains the gravity of the crimes committed by fitting them categorically into the three clusters of major offenses as defined by Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal: crimes against peace, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.
While Communist regimes claim to act “in the name of a state practicing a policy of ideological hegemony,” Courtois argues that this indeed is the most dangerous part of Communism—Communist rulers will go to extreme ends to push their agenda. This is essentially where the main argument of crime against humanity comes in. Stephane Courtois is very quick to classify the crimes committed through Communism as a form of genocide, which in its essence, is a crime against humanity. To further this point, Courtois examines the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis. While people often consider the two historical events occurring on different scales, Courtois strongly believes they are extremely alike. However, he does admit that there is some complexity when considering this type of crime, especially in when it comes to Communism.
With that said, Courtois continuously comes back to the idea that the crimes committed by the Communist Party and the National Socialist Party are virtually the same. One comparison Courtois draws is between the organization of the two movements: they were both founded on scientific claims. Another similarity Courtois highlights is the number of victims attributed to Communism to the number of deaths from Nazism. Lastly, another parallel Courtois draws is between the differing types of genocide each regime committed: the Socialist Party was a race genocide while the Communist Party was a class genocide.
One of Stephane Courtois greatest frustrations comes from the differing way in which these two movements are studied. He points out the strong contrast between the study of Nazi crimes and that of Communist crimes, raising the issue of the scholarly neglect of the crimes of Communism in contrast to the attention paid to the crimes of the Nazis[12]. While he accepts the legitimacy of this difference in scholarly efforts, Courtois attempts to fight back. Stephane Courtois questions how exactly we must assess Communism’s crimes and what must be learned from them. He is disappointed by the lack of responsibly take by the Communist world, versus the extreme persecution of former members of the National Socialist Party. Courtois questions the notion that ex-Communists carry little to no stigma around the name, while those tied to a past with Nazism are practically shunned in society today.
Conclusion
Stephane Courtois, a former member of the Communist Party successfully channeled his frustrations with the Party through his many works of writing, specifically the Black Book of Communism. Had Stephane Courtois not been formerly involved in the Communist Party, he likely would not have invested his life to studying Communism and exposing the crimes committed by the regime type. Courtois’ works can easily be considered a form of resistance to totalitarianism. The literature he publishes exposes Lenin’s dictatorship, which today is also considered a form of totalitarianism. Courtois believes Lenin aimed to control not only political power, but also societies, including individuals and their thoughts. This form of rulership is the epitome of totalitarian efforts.
[1] PeoplePill, “Stephane Courtois: French Historian—Biography and Life,” PeoplePill, accessed February 26, 2020. https://peoplepill.com/people/stephane-courtois/
[2] The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, “Maoism,” Encyclopedia Britannica (Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., May 15, 2018), https://www.britannica.com/topic/Maoism
[3] PeoplePill, “Stephane Courtois: French Historian—Biography and Life,” PeoplePill, accessed February 26, 2020. https://peoplepill.com/people/stephane-courtois/
[4] Ibid
[5] Alexander Riley and Alfred Kentigern Siewers, The Totalitarian Legacy of the Bolshevik Revolution (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2019), Page 3.
[6] Ibid
[7] Ibid
[8] Ibid, page 7
[9] Stephane Courtois, Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression (Harvard University Press, 2015), Page 276.
[10] Ibid, page x
[11] Ibid, page 3
[12] F. Flagg Taylor, The Great Lie: Classic and Recent Appraisals of Ideology and Totalitariansm (Wilmington: ISI Books, 2011), Page xii.
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