Taipei, July 25 (CNA) Former Bulgarian President Zhelyu Zhelev, who is visiting Taiwan for the launch of a Chinese translation of his book, said Wednesday that fascism and communism are "uterine but not identical twins" and that people's indulgence toward communism was beyond his imagination.
"It has always struck me that our attitude toward communism has been more indulgent and benign than that toward fascism. In the past fascism was condemned morally, legally and politically... However, no such thing happened to communism, " he said in a speech at the book launch ceremony.
The Chinese edition of Fascism, which was written by Zhelev in 1967 and has been translated into various languages, was published by Taiwan Foundation for Democracy in June. The book is a comparative analysis of three classic fascist states -- Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy and Franco's Spain.
Fascism and communism are two varieties of totalitarianism, as the former is the less complete and less perfect form of totalitarianism, said Zhelev, who served as the first democratically elected president of Bulgaria from 1992 until 1997.
During communism the monopoly of the party-state was spread out over the economy and civic society was completely eliminated, he said, adding that it was for this reason that communism survived much longer than fascism, which allowed private ownership.
Communism should be condemned because it elevated terror against its own people, Zhelev said. Because of the younger generation's lack of personal impressions and experience of either fascism or communism and the memory of the tens of millions of victims that perished for political reasons, it should be condemned, he added.
In his speech, Zhelev also said that Taiwan should be accepted as a member of the United Nations (U.N.) and be recognized by other countries.
"Taiwan should be a U.N. member and it should be recognized by many countries, " Zhelev said, offering his opinion on the fact that many countries have severed ties with Taiwan in recent years and established relations with China to exchange for economic welfare.
"Good politics should adhere to a set of strict principles rather than being guided solely by national interests... And there's no logic allowing countries to deprive Taiwan of its rightful position in the international community, " Zhelev said in a speech titled "Fascism and Communism: Fraternal but Not Identical Twins."
Zhele also offered his observations on China, saying that "Communism in China is undergoing a revolution in a way that resembles the development of the former Soviet Union."
China's economic reforms have reduced domestic tensions, he said, but the difference between its economic and political status may lead to an explosion.
"China so far has been a unique case of communism and an exception in history, " he said, adding that it's possible for China to develop "an alternative way" forward.
Zhelev, 72, was Bulgaria's first democratically elected president after winning the 1992 presidential election. He served his full five-year term and left office in 1997. He gained a reputation as a dissident before entering politics.
Speaking on the same occasion, Wu Yu-shan, director of Academia Sinica's Institute of Political Science, said that if the current Chinese regime can be described as fascists, so was the Kuomintang (KMT) regime in Taiwan up to the end of the 1980s.
China has moved into a historical phase from which Taiwan has moved out, Wu went on. The KMT regime was able to lead Taiwan to economic prosperity, like the fascists did, while the logic of democratic competition eventually led to the transfer of power in 2000, he said.
The question of whether the current party-state developmental regime in China can evolve into multi-party democracy remains, Wu added.