Russian Historians Announce Project To Shed Light On Soviet Dictator Stalin

Historian Nikita Petrov, one of the contributors to the project, says there has been no legal assessment of Stalin's terror or of the Soviet system's crimes. He says Russians must understand and condemn Stalin's crimes if they want to save the democratic processes begun since the 1991 Soviet collapse. President Vladimir Putin, a former K-G-B officer, has rolled back Russia's democratic achievements, restored Soviet-era symbols and tried to soften public perceptions of Stalin. In June, he told history teachers that although Stalin's political purges were one of the most notorious episodes of the Soviet era, Russia should not be made to feel guilty because worse things happened elsewhere. In a new book for history teachers commissioned by the Kremlin, Stalin is portrayed as an effective manager. "Political repression was used (by Stalin) to mobilize both ordinary citizens and the management elite," the book says. Also in the book, published earlier this year, the United States is cast as an evil power seeking world dominance. Under Stalin, who ruled from 1922 until his death in 1953, hundreds of thousands were branded enemies of state and executed. Millions more became inmates of the gulag, the system of slave labour camps. http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2007/12/05/4709127-ap.html

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