Posted on 10/31/2009 2:47:19 AM PDT by kronos77
MOSCOW — Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, warned Friday that Russians had lost their sense of horror over Stalin’s purges, and called for the construction of museums and memorial centers devoted to the atrocities, as well as further efforts to unearth and identify the dead.
Mr. Medvedev made the comments on his video blog, on the occasion of a holiday devoted to the memory of victims of repression. He warned that revisionist historians risked glossing over the darker passages of the Soviet past, citing a poll that showed that 90 percent of young people could not name victims of the purges.
“Even now we can hear voices saying that these numerous deaths were justified by some supreme goals of the state,” Mr. Medvedev said. “Nothing can be valued above human life, and there is no excuse for repressions.”
Millions of people were killed under Stalin as a result of forced collectivization, deportation of ethnic groups, imprisonment in the Gulag and party purges, among other tactics.
Though he reiterated his worry that Russia was demonized in contemporary histories of World War II, Mr. Medvedev added, “It is just as important to prevent the justification, under the pretext of putting historical records straight, of those who killed their own people.”
Russia’s leaders have long sought to shape the teaching of Soviet-era history, but Mr. Medvedev did something unusual by focusing attention on its crimes.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
There’s plenty of Americans who admire Mao Tse Tung and Che Guevara. The deaths caused by them somehow seem unimportant.
While deployed to Uzbekistan, once known as Uzbekskaya S.S.R., I listened in horror as a lovely Uzbek girl (and KBR employee) said to me in perfect English, “I want you to know one thing: I admire Josef Stalin!”
I managed to reply, “Oh - because he killed seventy million people!?”
She didn’t even blink: “You need a strong leader to rule as large a country as the Soviet Union!”
(Russophilia is huge among urban Uzbeks. Still don’t know why.)
What choice Uzbeks have? Putin or Bin Laden.
Anyone would opt for Russia and Putin.
As for Stalin- he was murderer.
But people say:
“Hitler made Stalin great”
It’s always amazed me that “Progressives” can lambaste right wing/fascist dictators (rightfully so) and then instantly pivot and become teary eyed for Castro, etc.
Left or right isn’t the problem. Stateism, social engineering and collectivism and are the enemies of freedom and prosperity.
With cracks like that, I’m afraid Medvedev is going to have to look somewhere other than Obama’s cabinet for employment!
Anita Dunn is scheduled to give a speech next week. It will be titled “How history has given Uncle Joe Stalin a bad rap.”
Medvedev and KGB Putin are shadow-boxing.
“Progressive” is a liberal code word for communist, from what I’ve noticed. Castro calls himself a progressive when trying to empathize with the American left.
Wasn’t Medvedev the one who said Russia would hold Iran accountable with sanctions?
Talk comes cheap these days in Russia.
Krushchev tried a similar tack with his de-Stalinization plan.
Historians know how that worked out in Cuba. And some called Krushchev a puppet without a shoe.
Ask Medvedev if Stalin’s Russia is the same as Hitler’s Germany and see what he says in public.
This good cop Medvedev bad cop Putin stuff is getting old especially when you consider how cheap their talk is when it comes to sanctions against Iran.
Krushchev was the left’s darling in the U.S. and it is evident Medvedev is following Krushchev’s footsteps but doing it with both shoes on.
These centers will never go up because it will be blocked by the real power in Russia- Vladimir Putin.
PS. There is real love for Stalin in Russia and the former USSR.
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