Arkady Ostrovsky: Flirting with Stalin
[Arkady Ostrovsky is a journalist who reported from Moscow.]
"Dear friends! The textbook you are holding in your hands is dedicated to the history of our Motherland… from the end of the Great Patriotic War to our days. We will trace the journey of the Soviet Union from its greatest historical triumph to its tragic disintegration."
This greeting is addressed to hundreds of thousands of Russian schoolchildren who will in September receive a new history textbook printed by the publishing house Enlightenment and approved by the ministry of education. "The Soviet Union," the new textbook explains, "was not a democracy, but it was an example for millions of people around the world of the best and fairest society." Furthermore, over the past 70 years, the USSR, "a gigantic superpower which managed a social revolution and won the most cruel of wars," effectively put pressure on western countries to give due regard to human rights. In the early part of the 21st century, continues the textbook, the west has been hostile to Russia and pursued a policy of double standards.
Had it not been for Vladimir Putin's involvement, this book would probably have never seen the light of day. In 2007, Putin, then Russian president, gathered a group of history teachers to talk about his vision of the past. "We can't allow anyone to impose a sense of guilt on us," was his message.
The 1990s were largely ideology-free in Russia. The country was too weary of grand designs and too preoccupied with economic survival. When Putin came to power in 2000, he said Russia's national idea was "to be competitive." But then, as the price of oil climbed and Russia started to feel important again, the need for ideology became more urgent. Unable to offer any vision or strategy for the future, the Kremlin looked, inevitably, to the past.
The textbook covers the period 1945-2006, a suggestive choice: from Stalin's victory in the "great patriotic war" to the "triumph" of Putinism. It celebrates all contributors to Russia's greatness, and denounces those responsible for the loss of empire, regardless of their politics. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 is seen not as a watershed from which a new history begins, but as an unfortunate and tragic diversion that has hindered Russia's progress.
The whole postwar period in Russian history is viewed through the prism of the cold war "initiated by the United States of America." The textbook does not deny Stalin's repressions; it justifies them. The concentration of power in Stalin's hands suited the country; indeed, conditions of the time "demanded" it. "The domestic politics of the Soviet Union after the war fulfilled the tasks of mobilisation which the government set. In the circumstances of the cold war… democratisation was not an option for Stalin."
But if Stalin mobilised the country and expanded the Soviet empire so that it reached parity in power-status with the US, Mikhail Gorbachev surrendered those hard-won positions. Stupidly, from the textbook's point of view, Gorbachev considered western partners to be his political allies. He gave up central and eastern Europe, which meant Russia lost its security. America and the west instigated revolutions in Ukraine and in Georgia, which turned the former Soviet territories into western military bases. These revolutions "set a task for Moscow to pursue a more ambitious foreign policy in the post-Soviet space," the textbook says.
Now we have seen this ambition realised in the recent war against Georgia....
Read entire article at Prospect
"Dear friends! The textbook you are holding in your hands is dedicated to the history of our Motherland… from the end of the Great Patriotic War to our days. We will trace the journey of the Soviet Union from its greatest historical triumph to its tragic disintegration."
This greeting is addressed to hundreds of thousands of Russian schoolchildren who will in September receive a new history textbook printed by the publishing house Enlightenment and approved by the ministry of education. "The Soviet Union," the new textbook explains, "was not a democracy, but it was an example for millions of people around the world of the best and fairest society." Furthermore, over the past 70 years, the USSR, "a gigantic superpower which managed a social revolution and won the most cruel of wars," effectively put pressure on western countries to give due regard to human rights. In the early part of the 21st century, continues the textbook, the west has been hostile to Russia and pursued a policy of double standards.
Had it not been for Vladimir Putin's involvement, this book would probably have never seen the light of day. In 2007, Putin, then Russian president, gathered a group of history teachers to talk about his vision of the past. "We can't allow anyone to impose a sense of guilt on us," was his message.
The 1990s were largely ideology-free in Russia. The country was too weary of grand designs and too preoccupied with economic survival. When Putin came to power in 2000, he said Russia's national idea was "to be competitive." But then, as the price of oil climbed and Russia started to feel important again, the need for ideology became more urgent. Unable to offer any vision or strategy for the future, the Kremlin looked, inevitably, to the past.
The textbook covers the period 1945-2006, a suggestive choice: from Stalin's victory in the "great patriotic war" to the "triumph" of Putinism. It celebrates all contributors to Russia's greatness, and denounces those responsible for the loss of empire, regardless of their politics. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 is seen not as a watershed from which a new history begins, but as an unfortunate and tragic diversion that has hindered Russia's progress.
The whole postwar period in Russian history is viewed through the prism of the cold war "initiated by the United States of America." The textbook does not deny Stalin's repressions; it justifies them. The concentration of power in Stalin's hands suited the country; indeed, conditions of the time "demanded" it. "The domestic politics of the Soviet Union after the war fulfilled the tasks of mobilisation which the government set. In the circumstances of the cold war… democratisation was not an option for Stalin."
But if Stalin mobilised the country and expanded the Soviet empire so that it reached parity in power-status with the US, Mikhail Gorbachev surrendered those hard-won positions. Stupidly, from the textbook's point of view, Gorbachev considered western partners to be his political allies. He gave up central and eastern Europe, which meant Russia lost its security. America and the west instigated revolutions in Ukraine and in Georgia, which turned the former Soviet territories into western military bases. These revolutions "set a task for Moscow to pursue a more ambitious foreign policy in the post-Soviet space," the textbook says.
Now we have seen this ambition realised in the recent war against Georgia....