Abstract
This article explores how ideas and beliefs shaped the development of programs of retrospective justice. By focusing on lustration, property restitution, and the declassification of secret service files in four central European countries, this article investigates the role of formalized anti-communist programs in the founding of the new political and economic order. After reviewing the development of anti-communist programs in East Germany, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Hungary, the article examines the motivation behind these programs and the variation in approaches across countries. It then analyzes the implications of anti-communist programs for the creation of a post-communist national identity, and concludes with a discussion of the weak anti-communist programs in post-Soviet Russia.
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