Communism's Revival

[Charles Ehin]

John,

 

In case you're interested what's taking place in Russia today I thought I would share the Wall Street article below. Also don't forget the recent vicious cyber attacks on Estonia.

 

Cheers,

Charlie

 

Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2007

A Do-Over for Russian History?
Andrew Osborn
A new manual for Russia's history teachers succinctly distills President
Vladimir Putin's drive to rekindle patriotism, retelling events of the past
six decades according to the Kremlin's preferred storyline: Russia is a
great power that shouldn't be ashamed of its past.

Backed by support from the president himself, the book, which rails against
U.S. hegemony, is raising fears among some historians that the Kremlin is --
quite literally -- trying to rewrite history in a way that risks breeding
ultranationalism and whitewashing the darkest chapters of Russia's past.

Mr. Putin gave the manual a presidential boost last month, inviting its
author along with a number of historians and teachers to his residence to
talk history. Though he said students should be allowed to draw their own
conclusions, he made clear that events should be portrayed in a way that
fuels national pride.

The manual's publication comes as the Kremlin is trying to restore Russians'
sense of pride after the anarchic 1990s. In recent years, celebrations
marking the Red Army's victory over Nazi Germany have been cranked up, the
authority of the Czarist-era Orthodox Church has been boosted and patriotic
youth groups have become increasingly vocal about Russia's resurgence.

The moves have complemented an increasingly assertive Kremlin foreign policy
and a flat rejection of Western criticism that Moscow is moving to undermine
democratic institutions. The new teachers' manual is the clearest sign yet
that the drive to inculcate the Kremlin's view of the world is reaching
Russia's millions of schoolchildren.

"We are forming...the worldview of a nation, of how Russians see themselves
and the outside world," Leonid Polyakov, editor of the new manual, told Mr.
Putin at last month's meeting, according to a transcript released by the
Kremlin.

The book, aimed at teachers of students who are in their final year of high
school, reads like a hymn to the Putin era, echoing the president's own
rhetoric. Far from offering contrasting interpretations, it toes the Kremlin
line: Mr. Putin's statement that the demise of the U.S.S.R. was "the
greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century" is stated as
historical truth rather than opinion.

The book claims that the U.S. and Britain's obsession with fighting
terrorism risks turning them into totalitarian states, and accuses
Washington of trying to build "a global empire" under the guise of spreading
democracy.

It also offers a point-by-point defense of the policies that have earned Mr.
Putin criticism in the West, such as clamping down on nongovernmental
organizations and abolishing direct regional elections.

Another teachers' guide getting Kremlin support, meanwhile, recasts key
elements of Soviet history. Dictator Josef Stalin is described as "the most
successful Soviet leader ever," for building industry and leading the
country to victory in World War II. The guide explains his purges and the
system of camps for political prisoners as a function of his desire to make
the Soviet Union strong.

Mr. Putin himself echoed that view at the meeting with teachers, saying
Stalin's "Great Terror" of 1937 -- during which at least 700,000 people were
executed -- wasn't as bad as atrocities other nations had perpetrated, such
as the U.S. use of the atomic bomb.

"What is happening now is historical revisionism," said Irina Scherbakova, a
historian and expert at Memorial, a human-rights group here. "It's dangerous
and it's harmful."

Aleksander Tsipko, a senior academic at Russia's Academy of Sciences,
agrees. "If you deprive someone of a complete account of history," he told
Russian radio, "it means you don't trust them."

The Kremlin insists it isn't trying to rewrite history, just correcting the
overly negative tone of many of the texts of the 1990s -- a time when Russia
was weak and criticizing the Soviet era was fashionable among the ruling
elite.

"Views on history that engender self-respect...are very popular in any
country that respects itself," Vladislav Surkov, deputy chief of staff of
Mr. Putin's administration, told a teachers' conference last month. He would
know; the term he concocted to describe Russia's brand of democracy --
"Sovereign Democracy" -- is given pride of place in Mr. Polyakov's manual.

Mr. Polyakov, a professor, who didn't respond to interview requests, told
Mr. Putin at their meeting that 1990s textbooks were outdated. "In 1990-91,
we disarmed ourselves ideologically," he said. "In return we only got a
certain abstract recipe: become democrats and capitalists...and we'll
control you."

For now, the Kremlin doesn't mandate which textbooks are used in Russia's
decentralized system, identifying recommended texts but leaving local
schools latitude to choose. But the new manuals clearly enjoy high-level
support, having been explicitly requested by Mr. Putin's entourage. Their
state-owned publisher says a "serious" percentage of the country's teachers
will have the books by the end of this year, and that they will form the
basis of a new text for students.

At his meeting with Mr. Polyakov and the teachers, Mr. Putin criticized
textbooks funded by foreign foundations, most of which were written in the
1990s, saying they distort history.

"Many textbooks are written by people who are working for foreign grants,"
Mr. Putin said. "So they're dancing a polka ordered by whoever is paying."

One of the manuals' co-authors, Pavel Danilin, said there is nothing
sinister about the project: "Imagine in the U.S. you were told that all your
history was awful and nightmarish. I'm sure you'd change the way history was
taught, too."

That view is shared by Education Minister Andrei Fursenko, who told the
daily Izvestia newspaper that he is "absolutely convinced" there won't be a
return to the Soviet practice of having just one mandated text book. But he
argued that some degree of standardization is legitimate.

[Benoit Couture]

Charles,

 

Russia and China are demonstrating to the corporate world that the agenda with no respect for the past and for history itself is a denial of who and what people are about and that if, it is not worth pursuing any further.  It is up to those who claim to know better to demonstrate the path to get on and to go for.

Here is an article I wrote shortly after the Nigeria's recent fiasco of democratic exercise, in which I seek to point to a possible approach to the people's local identity crisis, when confronted by the forces of globalization:

http://benoit17.tigblog.org/post/198251

 

Thanks for the opportunity,

Benoit

Charles Ehin <kal...@msn.com> wrote:

---

Need a vacation? Get great deals to amazing places on Yahoo! Travel.

[Charles Ehin]

Thanks Benoit for pointing out your blog article.

 

Charlie