MOSCOW – Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said yesterday he was concerned that the majority of young Russians were unaware of the scope of Josef Stalin’s purges and said the crimes of the past should not be forgiven.
Mr Medvedev’s comments, on the day Russia honours the victims of Soviet repression, come amid what rights campaigners see as a creeping attempt by some politicians to whitewash the legacy of the Soviet Union’s most feared dictator.
Speaking in a video blog posted on the www.kremlin.ru website, Mr Medvedev warned against attempts to “rehabilitate those responsible for exterminating their own people”.
“Two years ago sociologists conducted a poll and nearly 90 per cent of our citizens, young people aged 18-24, could not even name prominent people who suffered or died in the years of the repressions,” Mr Medvedev said. “This cannot but cause concern.”
The day of remembrance for the victims of repression was introduced 18 years ago by the first post-Soviet Kremlin leader, Boris Yeltsin, who believed that facing up to the horrors of the past was essential to build democracy after years of repression.
Stalin is still the subject of heated debate in Russia. For some, he was a cruel tyrant who sent millions to their deaths. Others consider him to have been a tough war leader who defended the motherland from attack and built the Soviet Union into a mighty superpower.
Rights campaigners have been alarmed by what they see as an attempt by officials – especially strong during the 2000-2008 presidency of Vladimir Putin – to justify the atrocities of Stalin’s rule by focusing on his achievements.
Recent Russian teachers’ manuals have described Stalin as an effective manager who acted rationally in conducting a campaign of terror to modernise the Soviet Union. Historians say such a view ignores the millions of innocent people who either perished or had their lives torn apart under his rule.
In recent years, Russia has been angered by what it sees as attempts by foreign politicians to denigrate the Soviet Union’s massive sacrifices in defeating Nazi Germany in what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War. But Mr Medvedev said that Russians should also beware of attempts to revise the history of repression.
“We pay much attention to fighting the falsification of our history, Mr Medvedev said.
“For some reason we often think that this is all about resisting attempts to review the results of the Great Patriotic War. But it is also important not to allow the restoration of historical truth to be used as a pretext to rehabilitate those responsible for exterminating their own people,” he added. – (Reuters)