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Most recently, the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin Announced Officially “revoking” the 1991 law to rehabilitate former victims of political dictatorship Beginning in the late 80s, the flourishing of truth under leaders Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin revealed the extent of the union’s horrific crimes. Soviet towards its own citizens Ultimately it’s more than 3.5 million defendants—People whom a now-extinct totalitarian regime captured, tortured, and jailed in terrible conditions deep in the jungle. or shot dead In many cases they were acquitted after their death.
The new move to reinstate the charges takes aim at “Traitors to the Fatherland and Nazi collaborators” during World War II or the Great Patriotic War As is known in Russia But the enormous scope of the operation almost certainly included other victims of Soviet “justice” during the reign of dictator Joseph Stalin. Putin’s Prosecutor General acted quickly. The charges have been reinstated. 4,000 people Part of two yearsinspection–
The cases against these defendants will be reviewed under criminal code sections that can be interpreted broadly. One punishes “treason against the state”; Another thing is “Secret cooperation” with enemies of the state The latter article was ratified only in 2022, which means that long-dead individuals who until now have been deemed guilty will once again be prosecuted under laws that did not exist at the time of their crimes. charge
For most people outside Russia that Putin The death penalty for a political prisoner would seem ludicrous. Why do you have to go through all this trouble? In fact, these cases reveal something important about the operation of his government. Since the year From 2000 to about 2010, rapid economic growth was a key contributor to Putin’s popularity and government legitimacy. But that distance faded away. Since then Instead, Putin is trying to mobilize the masses to defend a homeland besieged by a cunning and cunning West. with the hope of presenting a compelling vision of the future. He has declared his Kremlin the heir to the idealized version of the Soviet Union. which is a great and gentle power Nazi menace It is a moral and military counterweight to America. Putin, a former KGB officer, believes the Soviet era was glorious and wants his subjects to feel inspired by it. And if that means prosecuting decades-old cases to prove Stalin’s terror of his own people. Putin is happy to do so.
The process of canceling rehabilitation is deliberately murky, according to the British Broadcasting Corporation, which names defendants and Almost all case records are classified.– The court recognized the legality of Stalin’s judicial institutions, which included “special departments,” military courts, and the infamous “troika” of officials who effectively sentenced prisoners to exile or execution. and the original sentence will be confirmed without new corroborating evidence.
The most important goal is Accused of being a Ukrainian “Nazi”—that is, nationalists who opposed the Soviet occupation after World War II, the overthrow of its alleged “heirs” in The current “neo-Nazi Kyiv regime” is one of Putin’s stated reasons for invading Ukraine.
Indeed, the Kremlin’s systematic attack on historical memory is firmly tied to the war with Ukraine. in order to send Russians to their deaths or be killed on the battlefield. Putin urgently needs to get them to accept and even feel moved by it. The idea is that Russia’s bright future lies in its Soviet past. And they are fighting to regain the unchallenged power of the Soviet Union.
Putin has long sensed what the pro-democracy revolutionaries of the late 1980s and early 1990s tended to ignore: the deeply entrenched mass of Russians. injury from losing their country’s exalted place in the world asked in a 2011 national survey, “Russia must restore the status of a great empire.” 78 percent of Russia also agrees. Instead of considering further The same goes for Gorbachev and Yeltsin. on the true causes of the fall of the Soviet Union from superpower status. Putin wants to erase public memory of the millions of people arrested and tortured. which was shot after A five-minute “trial” in which he was exiled. They died of illness or starved to death in the deep forest.
In 2015, the Gulag Museum in the Perm region was “New design” in order not to emphasize political prisoners. It is part of a pattern that continues to this day. four years ago while amending Russia’s constitution to effectively grant himself the president for life. Putin then inserted an article delegating the government to “Protecting historical truth– in fact The measures give him more power to repress and rewrite history. In 2022, four days after Russia officially invaded Ukraine, Close group International MemorialIt was founded in the late 80s by former dissident Andrei Sakharov and others to pursue political imprisonment and preserve the memory of Stalin’s terrorism.
The war has accelerated, which Russian newspapers Commerson called “Epidemic of destruction of memorials to victims of Stalin’s repression” at least 22 monuments Disappeared between February 2022 and November 2023. In St. Petersburg there is a memorial board with lines from the world famous poem by Anna Akhmatova. Requiem Moved from the old prison walls where the great Russian poet recalled standing “for 300 hours” waiting for news about her son’s arrest. Last month, the Moscow authorities shut down Reliable and artistically beautiful Gulag history museum about alleged violations of fire safety rules.
At the same time there is a monument to the Soviet Union Stalin. is spreading– This summer Commerson count 110 obelisks and statues Remembering Stalin himself Nearly half were built in 10 years ago– It is said that these sculptures It is “privately funded,” usually by the local Communist Party. But they will not be accepted into public spaces without permission from the Kremlin.
The most influential Stalin memorial is being raised in the minds of young people. Since his birth, Putin has never known another leader before. 635,000 students—and potential future soldiers—those who graduate from high school this year. Learn about Soviet history from grade 11 textbook that prominent dissident Dmitry Savvin explained as “Stalin’s favorite object” on Russian soil since Stalin’s death in 1953 in the textbook narrative. Millions of butchers are never blamed. His heinous actions were uncritically ignored, explained away, or copied from the official Soviet narrative.
Take, for example, his great purge of 1936-38, which was little more than a death knell. is just the result of “Complicated international situation” and the threat of a new world war. In “such a situation” textbooks advised Stalin. “I think it’s necessary” to crack down. The “domestic opposition”, which in case of aggression could become the “fifth column”, stabbing the Soviet Union in the back, however, textbook eschews. Oppression seemed reasonable to most Soviet citizens. and Stalin’s popularity It “not only did not decline” but also “continued to grow” after the Nazi invasion began in 1941. There was no discussion. Stalin hid in a hut for 10 days before speaking to the public. Or how the execution of nearly all senior military commanders in a mass purge contributed to the military disaster that soon followed?
After Stalin died The Soviet government acknowledged that many of his victims had been falsely accused, others were officially rehabilitated starting in the final years of the Soviet Union. As a consensus emerged, if Russia failed to face the truth about Stalin and his regime, The future of democracy will be destroyed. Only an eternal, living, and continuously renewed memory of mass murder can prevent the restoration of a criminal and authoritarian regime.
Putin understands this too. That is why his government revived criminal charges against thousands of victims of the Soviet regime who had previously experienced systematic impunity. “Who controls the past? controls the future,” George Orwell wrote. 1984– “Who controls the present? Controller of the past” Putin’s revision of history has become an indispensable feature of his regime. And as long as he can control the present The war with his memories would only widen and deepen.
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