The Black Book of Communism translated by Jonathan Murphy and Mark Kramer Now available from Harvard University Press

In late 1997 a leading French publishing house, Robert Laffont, published Le Livre Noir du Communisme (The Black Book of Communism), an 850-page book of scholarly essays that collectively provide a history of Communism in the 20th century. 

The contributors to the book include some of the finest scholars from both East and West, who have drawn extensively on new archival findings. 

Every country that lived (or is still living) under Communism--the Soviet Union, the East European countries, China, Vietnam, North Korea, Cambodia, Laos, Cuba, Mongolia, and so forth--is covered.

The book also features many crucial, previously unpublished documents from the former Communist archives.

Le livre noir du communisme begins with a 38-page introduction, "Les Crimes du Communisme," by the editor, Stephane Courtois. 

This introduction and the conclusion (also by Courtois) are what caused most of the controversy in France. 

Some prominent French intellectuals and politicians, especially those affiliated with or sympathetic to the Communist Party, argued that Courtois had gone too far in drawing a parallel between Stalinism and Nazism as systems that relied on violent terror. 

Some claimed that Courtois had overstated the intrinsic role of mass violence and repression in Communist systems. Courtois and numerous other scholars responded in a series of heated exchanges in the French press and academic journals. 

At times, these exchanges bore only a scant connection to the book itself.

The next 800 pages of the book are separated into five large parts.

The first part is a 250-page study by the distinguished French historian Nicolas Werth, "Un Etat contre son peuple: Violences, repressions, terreurs en Union sovietique" ("A State Against Its People: Violence, Repression, and Terror in the Soviet Union"), which draws extensively on new archival findings. 

The essay is divided into 15 sections, beginning with "Paradoxes et malentendus d'Octobre" ("Paradoxes and Misunderstandings About the October Revolution") and then covering the whole period of Bolshevik and Stalinist terror as well as some of the events that followed the death of Josif Stalin.

The second part is a 100-page study of the Comintern and the Soviet Union's role in the international Communist movement, 

"Rªvolution mondiale, guerre civile et terreur" ("World Revolution, Civil War, and Terror"), by Stephane Courtois, Jean-Louis Panne, and Remi Kauffer. 

This part is divided into three essays, "Le Komintern de l'action," by Courtois and Panne; "L'ombre portee du NKVD en Espagne" (" The Shadow of the NKVD in Spain") by Courtois and Panne; and "Communisme et terrorisme," by Kauffer.

The third part, "L'Autre Europe: Victime du Communisme," is a 100-page overview of Communism in East-Central Europe. 

The author of the first section, focusing on Poland, is the most eminent historian in Poland, Andrzej Paczkowski, who has been of great help to Western scholars in gaining access to archival materials in Poland. 

He also is a member of the HPCWS Editorial Board.

The other section, of roughly 70 pages, by the distinguished Czech historian, Karel BartoÔek, covers the rest of Central Europe and the Balkans. 

These two sections together provide a rich and nuanced reassessment of the Communization and Sovietization of Eastern Europe, drawing on a wealth of new archival material. 

The fourth part, "Communismes d'Asie: Entre 'reeducation' et Massacre," focuses on East Asia (China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia). 

It is divided into three sections. 

The first is a 100-page study by a distinguished French historian, Jean-Louis Margolin, of China under Mao Zedong. 

It covers the civil war in China as well as all major episodes in post-1949 Chinese history (the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, etc.) and China's occupation of Tibet. 

The 30-page second section, also by Margolin, focuses on North Korea, Vietam, and Laos. 

The third section, by one of the world's leading specialists on Cambodia, Pierre Rigoulot, looks at Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. 

This 80-page section is both riveting and profoundly disquieting.

The fifth part of the book, "Le Tiers-Monde" ("The Third World"), deals with Communist regimes in other parts of the Third World. 

This part is divided into three sections. 

The first section, by Pascal Fontaine, is a 35-page overview of Cuba, Nicaragua (under Sandinista rule), and the Sendero Luminoso in Peru. 

The second section is a 30-page overview of Marxist (or formerly Marxist) states in Africa--Ethiopia, Angola, and Mozambique--by the leading French expert on Africa, Yves Santamariabe. 

The third section, by Sylvain Boulouque, is a 25-page analysis of Afghanistan from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.

The book ends with a 30-page conclusion by Stephane Courtois, "Pourquois?," which tries to come to grips with the destruction and terror that have been extensively cataloged in the previous 800 pages. 

Courtois maintains that "[despite] the availability of rich new sources of information, which until recently had been completely off-limits [and which have led to] a better and more sophisticated understanding of events, . . . the fundamental question remains: 

Why? 

Why did modern Communism, when it appeared in 1917, turn almost immediately into a system of bloody dictatorship, and a criminal regime? Was it really the case that its aims could be attained only through extreme violence?"

In a dense analysis of how violent terror became a way of life under Lenin and Stalin, Courtois concludes that "the real motivation for the terror ultimately was Leninist ideology, and the perfectly utopian will to impose a doctrine that was completely at odds with reality." 

This totalizing ideology, Courtois argues, generated murderous intolerance toward all those who were perceived as obstacles to the new regime: "Terror involves a double sort of mutation. 

The adversary is first labeled an enemy, then a criminal, and is excluded from society. 

Exclusion very quickly turns into the idea of extermination." 

That basic outlook, he writes, has been present, "with differing degrees of intensity, in all regimes that claim to be Marxist in origin."

In addition to the introduction, the five main parts, and the conclusion, the book features several dozen full texts or excerpts of recently declassified (and, with a few exceptions, previously unpublished) documents as sidebars. 

These documents appear in the book in French translation, but the French publisher has supplied copies of all the original documents to permit direct translations into English. 

Among the items featured are orders for the ruthless suppression of the Tambov rebellion in 1921, correspondence between Stalin and the writer Mikhail Sholokhov, transcripts of interrogations from the Great Terror, reports from the show trials in both the USSR and Eastern Europe, the 1940 memorandum ordering the execution of Polish officers in Katyn Forest, decrees on the deportations of ethnic minorities, reports from the commandants of Siberian gulags, several items pertaining to activities of the French Communist Party, documents on the treatment of prisoners of war in the USSR, reports on the actions of Communist guerrillas during the Greek civil war, a memorandum outlining the East German state security ministry's ties to the terrorist Carlos, reports on forceful measures against religious believers, directives issued by the secret police in several East European countries, reports on political repression in Romania and China, documents on prison camps and forced labor in China, reports and directives from the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and many others.

Land of the Free?

US Has 25 Percent of the World’s Prisoners

By Joshua Holland

The United States has about five percent of the world’s population and houses around 25 percent of its prisoners.

In large part, that’s the result of the “war on drugs” and long mandatory minimum sentences, but it also reflects America’s tendency to criminalize acts that other countries view as civil violations.

In 2010, The Economist highlighted a case in which four Americans were arrested for importing lobster tails in plastic bags rather than in cardboard boxes.

That violated a Honduran law which that country no longer enforces, but because it’s still on the books there its enforced here.

“The lobstermen had no idea they were breaking the law.

Yet three of them got eight years apiece.”

When the article was published 10 years later, two of them were still behind bars.

A UN report noted that Alabama officials had arrested dozens of people who were too poor to repair septic systems that violated state health laws.

In one case, authorities took steps to arrest a 27-year-old single mother living in a mobile home with her autistic child for the same “crime.”

Replacing the system would have cost more than her $12,000 annual income, according to the report.

As The Economist put it:

America imprisons people for technical violations of immigration laws, environmental standards and arcane business rules.

So many federal rules carry criminal penalties that experts struggle to count them.

Many are incomprehensible.

Few are ever repealed, though the Supreme Court…pared back a law against depriving the public of “the intangible right of honest services,” which prosecutors loved because they could use it against almost anyone.

Still, they have plenty of other weapons.

By counting each e-mail sent by a white-collar wrongdoer as a separate case of wire fraud, prosecutors can threaten him with a gargantuan sentence unless he confesses, or informs on his boss.

The potential for injustice is obvious.

About 10 percent of America’s prisoners are housed in the federal corrections system.

Last week, the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General released its annual review of DOJ operations.

And couched in typically cautious bureaucratic language, the report details a growing crisis within the federal prison system that threatens to undermine the DOJ’s other vital functions, including the enforcement of civil rights legislation, counter-terrorism and crime-fighting.

According to the report:

The Department of Justice (Department) is facing two interrelated crises in the federal prison system.

The first is the continually increasing cost of incarceration, which, due to the current budget environment, is already having an impact on the Department’s other law enforcement priorities.

The second is the safety and security of the federal prison system, which has been overcrowded for years and, absent significant action, will face even greater overcrowding in the years ahead.

The report notes that Washington’s push for austerity is aggravating the problem.

The federal prison population has grown by almost 40 percent since 2001, but the budget for the Bureau of Prisons—after rising by about a third between 2001 and 2011—has fallen by nearly 12 percent since then.

And costs for services like pre-trial detentions have more than doubled over the past 12 years.

According to the White House budget, the cost of incarcerating federal prisoners is expected to continue to grow, and the Inspector General notes that there’s “no evidence that the cost curve will be broken anytime soon.”

Some of that cost growth is the result of an aging prison population.

According to the report, in just the past three years, the number of inmates over the age of 65 has grown by almost a third, while the population under 30 fell by 12 percent.

“Elderly inmates are roughly two to three times more expensive to incarcerate than their younger counterparts,” according to the review.

Several factors have contributed to the growing numbers held in federal facilities.

Primary among them is a longstanding trend of prosecuting more cases that had previously been handled by state and local courts in the federal system.

By one estimate, the number of federal criminal offenses grew by 30 percent between 1980 and 2004; indeed, there are now well over 4,000 offenses carrying criminal penalties in the United States Code.

In addition, an estimated 10,000 to 100,000 federal regulations can be enforced criminally.

Florida is reportedly dealing with the problem of climate change by having the state's environmental agency ban the words "climate change." So I guess the best way to deal with the problem of Gov. Rick Scott is to ban the word "moron."

Andy Borowitz 

Why Is Loretta Lynch Nomination Being Held Up? 

The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday delayed for two weeks a vote on whether to send President Obama’s nomination for attorney general to the full Senate.

Chairman Charles Grassley said that he and other Republican members of the committee still had questions of Loretta Lynch that they wanted answered.

Ms. Lynch testified during a day-long hearing on Jan. 28, fielding questions from the senators.

She has also responded to 220 pages of written follow-up questions.

Lynch is currently the US attorney for the Brooklyn-based Eastern District of New York.

If confirmed, as expected, she will become the first African-American woman to serve as the nation’s attorney general.

During the committee’s executive meeting on Thursday, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont and several other Democratic senators objected to what they said was an excessive delay in the Lynch nomination.

Senator Leahy said the committee should vote immediately to send Lynch’s nomination to the Senate floor.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California agreed.

“Clearly, she has been treated differently.

I have never seen a witness in my 26 years in the Senate do better in a hearing,” Senator Feinstein said.

She said that despite Lynch’s qualifications and exceptional performance in the hearing,

Republicans were seeking to delay the process.

Feinstein compared the amount of time that had passed since Lynch’s nomination to the time it took for other attorney general nominees to receive a committee vote.

For Janet Reno it took 26 days
John Ashcroft 42 days
Alberto Gonzales 46 days
Michael Mukasey 53 days
and Eric Holder 64 days

Feinstein said that so far the Lynch nomination has been pending for 96 days. 

She said if it is held over for another two weeks, it would be 107 days. 

Several Republicans disputed the number.

They noted that Lynch was first nominated last fall when Democrats controlled the Senate.

Her nomination was resubmitted by President Obama on Jan. 7 after Republicans took control of the chamber.

Counting from that date, the amount of time prior to a committee vote now stands at 36 days.

Among Republicans requesting a delay was Sen. David Vitter (R) of Louisiana, who said he wants additional information about why a bank accused of laundering money from Mexican drug traffickers was allowed to pay a fine rather than face criminal prosecution.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R) of North Carolina said he wants more information about how Lynch intends to tackle management issues at a Justice Department that he said has been mismanaged under Attorney General Eric Holder. 

“I am simply trying to do my job and do a thorough interview,” he said.

Sen. Charles Schumer (D) of New York said that some Republicans were opposed to Lynch’s nomination because she refused during her confirmation hearing to criticize President Obama’s executive action on immigration.

Senator Schumer said that Lynch would “never” say that the president’s actions were illegal or unconstitutional.

In a response to a written question from Sen. Ted Cruz (R) of Texas, Lynch said the administration’s legal analysis of the executive action “appears reasonable.”

“Let’s just vote,” Schumer said.

“I don’t believe there is an excuse to delay the nomination of such an exceptional nominee.”

In the debate over the president’s executive action on immigration, many Republicans say President Obama usurped the authority of the legislative branch by selectively enforcing some immigration statutes and ignoring others.

A legal challenge is pending in the courts.

In addition, Republicans in Congress are seeking to block President Obama’s immigration action through an amendment to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill.

The legislation is stalled in the Senate after being blocked three times by Democratic filibusters.

The department’s funding runs out at the end of the month, and Senator Cruz had suggested holding up the Lynch confirmation unless the Homeland Security funding bill–with its restrictive amendment–is passed by the Senate.

The Cruz suggestion to link the two issues was rejected.

How many vacations were taken during confirmation hearings? Are any planned before she is confirmed?