Communist General Mircho Spasov and the Rise of Lawlessness. Psychoanalysis, Language and History

Abstract

Using the linguistic turn in psychoanalysis (J. Lakan, J. Kristeva), the author analyzed the unpublished autobiographical memories of State Security General Mircho Spasov, a mass murderer responsible for the eitsblishing of communist concentration camps. His memories are compared with his personnel file in the State Security. The lack of a father, the suicidal mother who abandoned him, the alienation from kinship, religious and institutional symbolic networks lead to a rethinking of the punishing in a rewarding social situation with the help of communist anti-language, conspiratorial publicity and the grandiose utopia for an all-powerful, self-sufficient, phallic "Mother Communist Party". Sado-masochic pre-Oedipal regression is associated with early narcissistic trauma and the problem of the Other – eroticizing the power over Others and the power of the Others. The analysis is supported by the similar biographical profiles of the Head of State Todor Zhivkov, a friend of Mircho Spasov, and his col-league from the State Security – the terrorist Mitka Grubcheva.