Gorbachev warns Russians against rise of Stalinism
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Gorbachev warns Russians against rise of Stalinism*
26 Sep 2007 17:13:15 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Dmitry Solovyov
MOSCOW, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev
warned Russians on Wednesday of the risk of a rebirth of Stalinism,
saying their country was in danger of forgetting its tragic past.
"We should remember those who suffered, because this a lesson for all of
us," Gorbachev told a conference marking 70 years since the start of
Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's Great Terror.
"We must squeeze Stalinism out of ourselves, not in single drops but by
the glass or bucket," Gorbachev added. "There are those saying Stalin's
rule was the Golden Age, while (Nikita) Khrushchev's thaw was sheer
utopia and (Leonid) Brezhnev's neo-Stalinism was the continuation of the
Golden Age."
During the Great Terror, 1.7 million Soviet citizens were arrested
between August 1937 and November 1938, of whom 818,000 were executed,
the human rights group Memorial said.
Historians estimate that up to 13 million people were killed or sent to
labour camps in the former Soviet Union between 1921 and 1953, the year
Stalin died.
Despite Stalin's record, recent polls have shown many young Russians
have a positive view of the former Soviet leader and there have been
attempts this year to play down his excesses, which have found an echo
among the country's youth.
Fifty-four percent of Russian youth believe that Stalin did more good
than bad and half said he was a wise leader, according to a poll
conducted in July by the Yuri Levada Centre.
TELEVISION DOCUMENTARY
A prime-time television documentary drama series at the start of this
year drew critical fire by attempting to portray Stalin in a new light,
as a man with a conscience who sought a relationship with God in his
final days.
President Vladimir Putin has never praised Stalin. However, he stirred
controversy at a meeting with teachers when he appeared to play down the
Great Terror, saying Russia "must not allow others to impose a feeling
of guilt on us" and adding that the country had "not had such bleak
pages (in history) as was the case with Nazism".
A new history teaching manual partly authored by Putin's chief political
strategist Vladislav Surkov and unveiled in June described Stalin as
brutal but also "the most successful leader of the USSR".
It gave few details of the Great Terror, instead emphasising Stalin's
achievements in rebuilding the Soviet economy after World War Two and
industrialising the country.
"It was namely during his leadership that the country's area was
expanded to the borders of the former Russian empire (and sometimes
beyond them), victory was gained in the greatest war -- the Great
Patriotic War, industrialisation was achieved and cultural revolution
accomplished," the textbook says.
Gorbachev, praised in the West as a man who ended the Cold War but
vilified by many Russians for presiding over the Soviet Union's chaotic
collapse, triggered a heated discussion at the conference about the new
history manual.
"A massive campaign to revise the collective memory is under way," said
Irina Shcherbakova, a Memorial project coordinator. "We plunge them
(Russia's younger generation) into half-lies, half-truth, and in the end
we get ready-made cynics."