Leadership of Vladimir Putin
"The Soviet regime has been swept away and the survivors of Stalinism are dying off, but Russia has only begun to experiment with ways to break with its totalitarian past."
-Kathleen E. Smith, author of Remembering Stalin's Victims: Popular Memory and the End of the USSR
Upon assuming leadership in 2000, Vladimir Putin, the current president of Russia, modified the national school curriculum to teach students that Joseph Stalin's actions were entirely rational and necessary, leading many to believe that he is fueling a Stalin resurgence.
"In the new history textbooks, Stalinism is presented as an institutional phenomenon, even an achievement. But the terror is portrayed as a historically determined and unavoidable tool for solving state tasks. This concept does not rule out sympathy for the victims of history. But it makes it absolutely impossible to consider the criminal nature of the terror, and the perpetrator of this crime."
-Arseny Roginsky, Russian historian
"...what sort of textbooks are they giving children in school these days? It’s as if you aren’t allowed to tell them anything that might convince them that our country wasn’t always right and didn’t always achieve victory. And so we are heading backward and rearing a generation of Red Guards." "We should only give one version of history. We shouldn’t give alternative versions. Schoolchildren should get one version, and that should be a happy one." -Author of a Russian school textbook |
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Personal Interview with Alexis PogorelskinHow is the Putin regime managing the still-prevalent legacy of Joseph Stalin? Does the current Russian government view Stalin’s actions as positive or negative?
"Putin tries to portray himself as a latter day Stalin-tough, strong, will not be pushed around by the West. Stalin's image is being white-washed in the following ways. He put Russia on the world stage-to be respected and feared. He was a strong leader-not a tyrant. Putin would like to be compared favorably to Stalin. In general, Stalin is viewed more favorably than he would be under a liberal leadership."
Navigate to: Alexis Pogorelskin
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