Free: Coming of Age at the End of History

by Lea Ypi

The counterprotests would last only a few more months. What had started as a series of reforms was increasingly labelled as revolution. In any other revolution, there would have been oppressed and oppressors, winners and losers, victims and perpetrators. Here, the chain of responsibility was so intricate that there could be only one camp. Executing leaders, imprisoning spies, or sanctioning former Party members would have fuelled the conflicts even further, sharpening the desire for revenge, spilling more blood. It seemed more sensible to erase responsibility altogether, to pretend everyone had been innocent all along. The only wrongdoers it was legitimate to name were those who had already died—those who could neither explain nor absolve themselves. All the rest turned into victims. All the survivors were winners. With no perpetrators, only ideas were left to blame. Communism was considered a vision so hopeless for some, so murderous for others, that the sole mention of the word would be met with either scorn or hatred. This revolution, the velvet one, was a revolution of people against concepts.