Preliminary Programme

As in many other European countries, the post-war purge in Belgium has not been the final chapter in the national history of the second world war. On the contrary, as long as sixty years ago, two camps formed, which developed diametrically opposed views on the punishment of collaborators. The camp that identified with the victims of the collaboration – which comprised members of the resistance and patriotic organisations – took the view that collaboration called for very severe punishment. The opponents, who were against what they called the ‘repression’, saw the people involved as victims of a cruel and unjust social purge. Unsurprisingly, historians kept well away from this politically charged subject for a long time. Since the 1980s, therefore, quite a few studies have appeared that look both at aspects of the collaboration and at the post-war purge. However, the history of the purge of the apparatus of the Belgian government after World War II has remained unexplored territory so far. Nevertheless, a large number of civil servants were laid off or punished in other ways for their collaborationist behaviour. It is estimated that at least 11,000 civil servants were sanctioned for ‘incivism’ in one way or another. This paper will first outline a brief history of the policy making process of the professional purge during and after the war, its interaction with other aspects of the repression and the way this subject dominated the public discourse on collaboration and repression.
Using the individual 'epuration'-files of the State Telegraph and Telephone Company (RTT), we will explain how the professional purge has been put into practice on the workfloor. One of the objectives are to reconstruct and analyze 'profiles' of suspects of collaboration and to analyze the discourse about collaboration. Special attention will be paid to the possible impact of the organizational and work culture of the RTT on accusations of collaboration and the presence and influence of former resistance members within the company on its purge policy.
One of our conclusions reveals that the professional purge has enlarged significantly the number of people who got involved in the post-war purge process in general. As other domains of the post-war repression, the purge of the government administration has been clearly gendered. Between the culprits of ‘crimes’ who could legally seen not be considered for persecution by the military courts, such as the ‘horizontal collaborators’ or ‘opinion offenders’, we find a high number of women who were punished for crossing the borders of ‘descent female behaviour’ and who had violated the collective conventions of ‘good citizenship’. (Show less)

The Greek national resistance against Nazi occupation during World War II was ardent and well organized predominantly by the Left between 1941 and 1944. However, the civil strife between leftist former resistance fighters and the right wing Greek government forces and their foreign allies within the international context of the Cold War that followed the end of the occupation period in Greece, ruled out the likelihood of any official state recognition of the massive and systematic efforts to resist the Nazis in Greece unlike most European countries. During the years that followed the end of the civil war and the victory of the governmental forces, the younger generation was denied comprehensive knowledge of the resistance and the civil war period. The imposition of a military dictatorship between 1967 and 1974 further marginalized similar demands through the designation of anti-communist battalions as ‘resistance fighters’ and the enforcement by police measures for ideological conformity. The right wing government of New Democracy (ND) that succeeded the military junta after 1974 attempted to democratize political institutions in principal but certain authoritative control practices were sustained.

The present paper investigates the case study of police repression against a group of leftist former resistance fighters who, in October 1980, attempted to make themselves visible and march in the city of Thessaloniki during the national celebrations commemorating Greece’s participation in World War II. Brutal police intervention resulted in injured citizens, one of which died in the hospital few days later. The paper reviews local and national press for reactions to the event which is cited as a culmination of such demands and explores the viewpoint that a claim for an official recognition of national resistance was at that time quite mature; nevertheless, state control mechanisms defied such a demand. Growing dissatisfaction with the enduring traditions of conservative governance was soon to be confirmed when ND lost the elections of October 1981 to PASOK, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement. The latter, in the process of broadening its social and electoral base, employed a populist, anti-right discourse against successive right wing governments and prioritized the aforementioned concern; as a result, the recognition of national leftist resistance was amongst the first laws to be approved by the new government. (Show less)

On 15 April 1986 the leadership of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) dedicated one of its largest and most important political memorials. Surrounded by hundreds of brand new apartment units, not to mention one of the largest green spaced in the East German capital, Berlin’s Ernst Thälmann National Monument was supposed to show the link between the glorious antifascist past and the accomplishments of the new, consumer-oriented, “real-existing socialism.” The massive, fifty-ton, bronze likeness of Ernst Thälmann giving the antifascist salute commemorated the life, death and legacy of the former leader of the German Communist Party (KPD), whom the Nazis murdered in 1944. SED (Socialist Unity Party) chief Erich Honecker and the rest of the party officials who oversaw the design and dedication of the monument hoped it would contribute to the supposed link between the antifascist heritage of the KPD and the alleged accomplishments of the GDR. This “antifascism myth” was a central motif in the legitimizing narrative of the East German state from its inception.
In my proposed paper, I hope to show how Honecker and the SED, in the final years of the GDR, sought to legitimize their policies by appeals to the past. What role did this neo-Stalinist monstrosity and what it represented play in the “master narrative” of the East German state? Can, as anthropologist Katherine Verdery claims, one view such dedications as substitutes for funerals? Did the monument serve as an ersatz corpse, something to be venerated by the communist faithful in light of the fact that Thälmann’s lifeless body had been cremated at Buchenwald? If this was the case, what effects did it have upon the legitimizing narrative of the GDR? In short, I plan to use the methods of anthropology to analyze this last major event in the propagation of East Germany’s legitimizing narrative. My sources will consist of documents found in German archives on the construction and dedication of the monument, newspaper accounts and published works (books, pamphlets, magazines, etc.) My paper will be based largely upon primary sources. (Show less)

Elites have been considered one of the key variables in the process of regime transition
(Higley e Burton, 1989), impacting not only it’s consequences but also if a transition
happens or not (Case, 1996). However, the bulk of the theoretical and empirical
analysis of the “new elite studies” have tended to focus almost exclusively in the
“double transition” (political and economic) of Central and Eastern Europe (Bozóki,
2003), disregarding comparisons with the previous wave of democratizations. Our goal
is to utilize the new innovations of study of elites during transitions in the case that
inaugurated the Third Wave of Democratizations (Portugal in 1974).

We plan on applying the most recent interpretations on elite theory, using the
“new class” paradigm (Szelényi e Martin, 1988), as well as the debate on “circulation
versus reproduction” of elites (Szelényi & Szelényi, 1995), in order to understand their
importance in explaining (or not) the Portuguese elites after the regime change. For this purpose we will present a comparative study between the parliamentary assembly of the Portuguese authoritarian regime (1973-74), the constitutional assembly elected in the transition to democracy (1975-76) and the legislative assembly of the new democratic regime (1976-onwards). The idea is to stress continuities and ruptures within the parliamentary elites in this three institutional moments.

The wider theoretical implications, depending upon the results of the study, will tend
either to confirm the universality of these new paradigms, or to raise some questions
about their applicability outside specific contexts, such as “double transitions” or Fourth
versus Third Wave of Democratization.

Bibliography:

Bozóki, Andreas (2003), “Theoretical Interpretations of Elite Change in East Central Europe” in
Comparative Sociology, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 215-247.

Case, William F. (1996), “Can the "Halfway House" Stand? Semidemocracy and Elite Theory in Three
Southeast Asian Countries” in Comparative Politics, Vol. 28, No. 4, pp. 437-464

Higley, John and Michael G. Burton, (1989), “The Elite Variable in Democratic Transitions and
Breakdowns” in American Sociological Review, Vol. 54, No. 1, pp.17-32.

Szelényi Iván & Szonja Szelényi, (1995), “Circulation or Reproduction of Elites During the
Postcommunist Transformation of Eastern Europe.” in Theory and Society 24(5), pp. 615-638.

Szelényi Iván & Bill Martin, (1988), “Three Waves of New Class Theories.” in Theory and Society
17(5), pp. 645-667. (Show less)

Until its rise to power the Romanian Communist Party had never been in an enviable position but in World War II the situation became particularly dire. Under the regime of Marshal Antonescu communists became the target of a severe repression. The security forces were deeply involved in the anti-communist and anti-Jewish policies of the military dictator. As the Soviet army entered Romania and the RCP began its ascension to power, control of the security apparatus was a clear priority. Inevitably, the question arose what to do with the old personnel of the hostile institutions comprising the security apparatus.
As the communists still occupied a marginal position in the coalition government, the party was unambiguous in its understanding of transitional justice: war criminals should be tried and all ‘profascist elements appointed or created by the old regime’ should be removed from the state apparatus and from public life. The whole state needed to be thoroughly purified. As the PCR increasingly strenthened its position and could pursue its own policies, the questions ‘whom to try, sanction, and compensate; and how to try, sanction and compensate them’ (Jon Elster) needed more specific answers than the PCR had thus far given. Who were – in the perception of the PCR - those responsible for the miserable situation Romania found itself in at the end of the war and how should they be punished?
This paper will try to find an answer to these questions. First, the development of the legislative framework, both that of criminal law (prosecution of war criminals) and administrative law (purge of state officials), which served as the basis of the practice of transitional justice, will be sketched and, then, the subsequent implementation of these laws will be addressed. Both aspects will show that the PCR, like other Communist Parties in Eastern Europe, was able to turn the practice of transitional justice into one of its primary instruments to win control over the security apparatus. (Show less)