Word: stalinizing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Thus the discrediting of Stalin and his policies is virtually a precondition for any sort of reform. Vladimir Lakshin, deputy editor of the monthly Znamya, explains, "History concerns what is going on today and not just the past. We are not simply talking about Stalin but of a form of Stalinism that is so much a part of the flesh and blood that people are incapable of thinking in any but a Stalinist way. We have to get that out of our system...
...Soviet tradition of unity among all leaders still forbids any direct criticism of Gorbachev's policies. Such debate as does occur is carried on in Aesopian language, and history is currently the favored supplier of code words. Thus when Yegor Ligachev and other conservatives cry that denunciations of Stalin are shaking people's faith in the Soviet system, they are really saying that perestroika and glasnost are going too far. Gorbachev's partisans get the point, and respond with redoubled attacks on Stalin and his admirers today...
More than political expediency seems to be involved, however, in the present re-examination of Stalin. Journalists and scholars seem genuinely eager to drop their traditional roles as perpetuators of useful historical myths and instead tell the painful truth. Gorbachev gave the signal in a February 1987 speech inviting them to fill in the "blank spots" in Soviet history, and writers have responded with everything from weighty historical tomes to popular entertainments...
...movie, Mirror for Heroes, a modern time traveler finds himself condemned to relive endlessly one day in the Stalinist past. Such periodicals as Ogonyok and Moscow News churn out article after article attacking Stalin or rehabilitating his victims; even Leon Trotsky, Stalin's archenemy, can be portrayed with some sympathy. Excerpts from Let History Judge, a scathing work that historian Roy Medvedev published in the West in 1971, have begun appearing in the Soviet press, and the entire book is scheduled for publication late this year. The book argues that the Gulag's supposed labor camps were often really death...
...least two institutions are dedicated to examining the bitter truth about the past. A Politburo commission formed by Gorbachev has rehabilitated such figures as Nikolai Bukharin, shot after a frame-up show trial in 1938. A rapidly growing group called Memorial aims to build a monument to Stalin's victims and establish an archive and research center to document his crimes...