It is clear that with these words Kucan intended to justify the post-war police and communist party terror and the so-called extrajudicial executions of political opponents carried out by the communists after the war.

For domestic use, Kucan's cabinet released a statement that the "President-for-Life" had on several occasions condemned the extrajudicial mass executions. It is too bad that this was restricted for domestic use only and that he did not repudiate these acts before the world opinion in Stockholm.

The conclusions that follow from Kucan's statement are clear:

1. In Slovenia the civil war between the "reds" and the "whites" has not yet ended. Constant recall of these matters in public is obviously useful to someone because it clouds the cardinal question, viz., whither Slovenia? It is a fact that without reparation of the injustices committed during 50 years of communist dictatorship-- to the extent that they can be repaired -- burdens Slovenia's future with matters which cannot be ignored forever.
2. The Slovenian president sought to legalize the criminal acts of his country with the Potsdam declaration of 1945. But no party of the Potsdam declaration advocated summary extrajudicial executions. [It is true that Stalin -- Kucan's Teacher and Idol-- at Teheran proposed that all enemy (German) officers and intellectuals be executed but when Churchill, according to his memoirs, vigorously objected, Stalin withdrew his proposal saying that he only made it "in jest."]. In fact, the public no longer reacted in the manner Kucan has been used to and he had to make a partial retreat before the criticism of the Slovenian public and even the generally subservient media. There are thus two kinds of anti-fascism, according to Kucan: the western, democratic, anti-fascism and the eastern, Stalinist, anti-fascism. Therefore, Kucan's belated departure from the assertion that the communist terror and murders were carried out "in the spirit of Potsdam" represents an important victory of his critics. If the president will continue to consider his critics as his enemies he will only demonstrate how difficult is the path for the policy of reparations and correction of injustices in Slovenia.
3. From the moral point of view it is clear what the communists did after the war and continued to do for many years in its aftermath. In 1945 the communists demonstrated that they are no different than the Nazis. To the Nazi holocaust they responded with a holocaust of their own committed on the undesirable categories of their own population. The Jewish position versus the Nazis was entirely different in its essence not because the Jews were a priory better than all the rest but because the rule of law is at the core of the Jewish tradition and its religion. To the Nazi holocaust the Jews -- as well as the State of Israel -- responded in the only possible and democratic manner, that is, with legality and the rule of law.