Why is the “KGB Bar” possible? Binary morality and its consequences

Abstract

This article asks why a popular bar named after a criminal Soviet secret police organization has not provoked the outrage of the developed world's intellectual and artistic elites, who would surely condemn an SS Bar. It attributes this moral blindness to the Holocaust's centrality in Israeli, German, and American national discourse and the resultant binary morality that ascribes collective innocence to all Jews at all times and in all places and collective guilt to all Germans – and potentially to all non-Jews – at all times and in all places. The moral logic of the Holocaust thus transforms Jews into victims and non-Jews into victimizers; the moral logic and reality of the Gulag transform everybody into both victim and victimizer. The binary morality of the Holocaust insists that all human beings be heroes; the fuzzy morality of the Gulag recognizes that all humans are just humans constantly confronted by moral ambiguity. But because the Gulag's moral ambiguity concerns non-Jews and Jews, the Gulag undercuts binary morality. The Holocaust and the Gulag are not just incompatible moral tales; they are incompatible and intersecting moral tales. As a result, they cannot co-exist. We therefore fail to respond to the KGB Bar because to recognize the Gulag as a mass murder worthy of categorical moral condemnation would be to challenge the sacred status of the Holocaust. Ironically, the KGB Bar is possible precisely because an SS Bar is impossible.

Keywords:

• Holocaust
• Gulag
• national identity
• morality discourse

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Elizabeth Hull, Adrian Karatnycky, Nadieszda Kizenko, Sayres Rudy, Timothy Snyder, Bohdan Vitvitsky, and two anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments on earlier drafts of this article. A Ukrainian-language version of an early draft of this paper appeared as Oleksandr Motyl', “Chomu mozhlyvyy bar ‘KGB’?” Krytyka June 2008: 10–15. A German-language version of a much shorter draft appeared as Alexander J. Motyl, “Warum ist die KGB-Bar möglich? Binäre Moral und ihre Konsequenzen” Transit summer 2008: 104–22.

Notes

The owner clearly chose the name KGB intentionally (Woychuk): “But what do you call a place that's almost impossible to find without special knowledge or a guide, a place with a history of left wing radicalism, which I intended to establish as a legitimate counter-culture venue? KGB seemed my obvious choice. I called the Department of State in Albany and told them I wanted to register a new corporation. ‘KGB!’ the clerk on the line replied. ‘You can't call a corporation KGB, not in New York State. Not KGB, FBI, CIA, or even GAY. You can't just pick a name out of a hat. You have to justify, give a good reason for whatever name you choose.’ He was wrong as a matter of law but you don't argue with clerks at the Department of State. ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I want to call it Kraine Gallery Bar, after my gallery of the same name.’ ‘That you can do,’ he replied reluctantly. And so Kraine Gallery Bar, d/b/a KGB Bar, was legally born.”

Mr. Hong subsequently wrote (Lebow): “Dear foreign customers, I am the owner of ‘Adolph Hitler Bar’. I've been snubbed by some foreign customers ever since I opened a cocktail bar named ‘Hitler’. But I couldn't answer their questions nor explain my thoughts because of the difficulties of different languages. I'd like to say that I don't believe that Hitler was a good person either. I can totally understand why foreigners are upset. I've learned his brutalities against the peace of the world from books, TV and movies. As you know, Korea had a similar situation with Japan during World War II. I have upsetting feelings about what Japanese did to Korean as well. If I saw a bar name ‘HiroHitto’ in other countries, I should feel the same way. I am not a Nazi, the bar name came out at a meeting with interior designer. We just wanted a name that can be related to or represent Germany, easy to remember and easy to design the interior with. We couldn't think about the history point of view when picking the name. The name ‘Hitler’ was totally meaningless, it was nothing more than a material for the business. I feel shame and I'd like to make a sincere apology for using the name without being able to consider how foreigners might feel. I also thank to Mr. Lebow and his wife for letting me know my big mistake and giving me the chance to publish a written apology.”

One of my anonymous reviewers noted that there exists a “UDBa Bar” in central Belgrade and a “Goli otok” decoration in some Bosnian restaurant. UDBa was the Yugoslav secret police and “Goli otok”, or “Naked Island” was the site of, as the reviewer put it, the Yugoslav Gulag. I submit that the fact that both these establishments have escaped international criticism has something to do with the indifference with which we “see” Soviet and, thus, Communist crimes.

I emphasize that the overrepresentation of Jews in the NKVD does not mean that “the Jews” bear some special responsibility for the Gulag. It means only that some Jews were implicated in Soviet crimes. By the same token, it cannot be right to argue, as so many historians do, that Austrian overrepresentation among concentration-camp staff proves that “the Austrians” were especially prone to be Nazis. They may have been, but that particular statistic cannot and does not establish any such proclivity.

Consider Claus Leggewie's astounding claim (4) that “Those who mobilize the ‘GULag memory’ often overlook, again consciously or unconsciously, that victims of Stalinism were often former collaborators of National Socialism.” Since Leggewie cannot not know that the vast majority of Stalinism's victims were killed or sent to camps in the 1930s – before collaboration with National Socialism was possible – his statement can only mean that the possibility of future collaboration justifies present murder – a terrifying moral proposition to say the least.

The life of Ernst von Salomon, the morally tainted author of the remarkable Der Fragebogen, perfectly illustrates these complexities.