The Russian school manuals are being rewritten in order to fit the Putin doctrine of a strong Russia, unashamed of its past, bluntly distorting facts and bullying the US. Even scarier is the glorification of Stalin. The Times reports from Moscow:
One [manual], for social studies teachers, presents as fact Mr Putin’s view that the Soviet collapse was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”. It describes the United States as bent on creating a global empire and determined to isolate Russia from its neighbours.
The book describes Josef Stalin as “the most successful Soviet leader ever” and dismisses the prison labour camps and mass purges as a necessary part of his drive to make the country great. The manuals are intended to serve as the basis for developing new textbooks in schools next year, though Education Ministry officials insisted that they would not be compulsory. Mr Putin gave them his seal of approval at a conference he hosted for teachers at his presidential dacha last month. He described Stalin’s Great Purge of 1937, in which 1.5 million people were imprisoned and 700,000 killed, as terrible “but in other countries even worse things happened”. Discounting the Soviet Union’s long history of oppression, he said: “We had no other black pages, such as Nazism, for instance.”
Pavel Danilin, who wrote the chapter on Sovereign Democracy, told The Times that it explained the “core transformation” of Russia under Mr Putin.
“We understand that the only guarantee for our democracy is our sovereignty, our strong state, our strong army, our strong economy and our strong nation,” he said. “It is not an ideology. It is just common sense. And my intention was to explain that common sense to teachers.”
The new history manuals also explain Putin's support for Viktor Yanukovich in Ukraine during the "Orange Revolution":
Mr Putin’s support for Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine’s rigged presidential election of 2004 is also defended. Mass protests in the Orange revolution eventually brought his pro-Western rival, Viktor Yushchenko, to power, but the manual states: “Yanukovych was the only candidate capable of truly resisting Yushchenko. So Russia’s choice was clear.”
Some more on the Stalinist era revival here. Le Figaro also writes about the "rehabilitation of the Communist past". And the Daily Mail about a freakish revival of "youth camps", a la Hilter: "Sex for the Motherland".
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Aug 1st, 2007
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How does that saying go again? “He who forgets history is doomed to repeat it.”
“We understand that the only guarantee for our democracy is our sovereignty, our strong state, our strong army, our strong economy and our strong nation, he said. It is not an ideology.”
Ummm, yes it is. Read some Mussolini… it orthodox fascism. They’d say the proletarian nations require industrialization to maintain their independence from the plutocracies (re: more developed western nations)… Change out a few of their catch terms and the gist is the same….
Like the other person said, history repeating…
The old chekist should be retired.
Russia has been little trouble to the world for the last fifteen years, compared to the previous seventy, and Russians should be proud of their nation’s return to civility.
Contrary to the textbook’s whine, a return to that tyrannous meddling would be the geopolitical catastrophe.
I, for one, welcome back our old friends, the USSR
Didn’t many intellectuals say they were better than us, morally, technologically and socially superior?
Intellectuals like former PM Pierre Trudeau, actresses like Jane Fonda and activists like the Rosenbergs?
We, with our traditions of Rule of Law, restrictions on government power and meritocracy are relics of the past
We certainly have a choice!
We can adopt the new revivwed socialism or dhimmi status in an new Islamic Caliphate
Choices! Freedom!
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