Most Russians agree.  According to a survey by the VTSIOM pollster, 60 percent of Russians believe that denying the Soviet Victory in World War II is an act deserving of criminal proceedings.  Communist Party supporters and respondents over 60 were most likely to back the idea, while younger Russians and self-described democrats were more likely to hold the opposite view.  The poll was conducted during April in 42 regions.

In his video blog, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev spoke against the “distortion of history” and decried whitewashing the tragedy and significance of the war.

“We are all the more often encountering what are called historical falsehoods,” he said. “Also such attempts are becoming tougher, more malicious and aggressive.”

As the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reported earlier, legislators were planning to introduce draft legislation to counteract historical whitewashing, both in Russia and the former Soviet Republics.  Russian officials have been angered by attempts to remove Soviet-era monuments and honor anti-Soviet resistance movements in Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine and other former Soviet states.

The bill is titled “On countering the rehabilitation of nazism, nazi criminals and their supporters on the territory of independent states– the former Republics of the USSR.”  Both Russians and foreigners could be charged under the draft law, and would face sentences of three to five years and fines up to 500 thousand rubles ($15,500 or €11,400).

The law would also give Russia the power to create a special tribunal to monitor the development of pro-nazi policies in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).  The tribunal would hand down evaluations on foreign politicians, parties and civic organizations suspected of revisionism.

A foreign national found by the tribunal to have taken part in rehabilitating nazism would be barred from entering Russia, and tried under Russian laws if they were discovered on Russian soil.  Russian organizations and media outlets would be issued a warning from the Prosecutor-General’s office.  After several warnings, the organization could be closed by a court order.

The bill proposes several means of responding to former Soviet Republics that allow themselves to question the outcomes of the Second World War.  Russia may expel ambassadors, launch a partial of full blockade of transport and information communication, sever diplomatic ties, and make recommendations to the Russian business community and public organization on cutting ties with the offending country.

Foreign organizations found guilty by the tribunal would be banned on Russian soil.

The idea for such a comprehensive law was first proposed by Sergey Shoigu, the head of Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, in February.  Shoigu’s suggestion has had a wide resonance with the public, and has been backed by Yury Chaika, the Russian Prosecutor General, and other public figures.

Two of Russia’s liberal democratic parties, Yabloko and Right Cause, have called for expanding the legislation to include rehabilitating Stalinism and whitewashing Stalin’s repressions as a criminal act.  The idea is ironically fitting as Russia’s government has itself been criticized for downplaying Stalin-era terrors, and reconstructing a public image of a “glorious Soviet past.”

Figes asserts that the Kremlin is pushing to control history and rehabilitate Stalin’s image.  The historian describes his experience, and tactics used against the Memorial human rights group in the British Guardian newspaper:

On 4 December a group of masked men from the investigative committee of the Russian general prosecutor’s office forced their way into the St Petersburg offices of Memorial. After a search the men confiscated hard drives containing the entire archive of Memorial in St Petersburg: databases with biographical information on victims of repression; details about burial sites in the St Petersburg area; family archives; sound recordings and transcripts of interviews.

All the materials I collected with Memorial in St Petersburg (about one third of the sources used in The Whisperers) were also confiscated. The raid was part of a broader ideological struggle over the control of history publications and teaching in Russia that may have influenced the decision of Atticus to cancel my contract.

The Kremlin has been actively for the rehabilitation of Stalin. Its aim is not to deny Stalin’s crimes but to emphasise his achievements as the builder of the country’s “glorious Soviet past”. It wants Russians to take pride in their Soviet past and not to be burdened with a paralysing sense of guilt about the repressions of the Stalin period.

The latest word on the topic, coming from the New York Times, chronicles the growing difficulties historians face in documenting the county’s past. Historian Archives, particularly those with damning information concerning the KGB and the country’s other secret services, have now become closed or redacted to the point of uselessness.

Russia has still largely not dealt with the violence inflicted by Soviet authorities, instead voicing an official stance that apologies should not be made for the past.

“Russia positions itself as a completely different democratic country with democratic values, but at the same time, it does not reject, it does not disassociate itself and does not condemn the regime that preceded it,” said Vasily Khanevich, a historian interviewed by the Times. “On the contrary, it defends it.”

Attitudes at Russian schools have also changed. Authors of controversial new history textbooks, which have been accused of justifying Stalin’s repressions, openly admit that the texts seek to teach a “modern ideology.” The intent, they say, is to “foster a civic and patriotic viewpoint in the young person.”

Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov has written his own book, titled “Stalin and the Modern Age,” which jumps on this resurgent image of Stalin and the Soviet Union, especially among younger Russians.

“It is no secret,” a press-release about the book writes, “that now, during a growing rift in society, people tired of hoping for positive changes in the country are more than ever remembering Stalin with kind words.”

“Time,” the release continues, “is sweeping away the trash thrown by detractors on Stalin’s grave.”

At issue was the chapter on the conquest of what would later become Russia by the Tataro-Mongol Golden Horde, and the description of the famed 14th century Battle of Kulikovo, where unified Russian forces defeated a Tataro-Mongol army. A historic drawing featured prominently in the text shows the invaders roasting, dismembering and eating Russian soldiers.

“The insult of our national dignity doesn’t just appear in this drawing, but also directly in the text,” Mukhamed Minachev, a representative of the claimants, told the court. “In part, the incredible valor of the Russian warriors is described on pages 87-91 of the textbook, while the Tataro-Mongols are presented as monsters!”

Minachev believes that such a rendition of the battle offends the honor and dignity of present-day Tatars, a primarily Muslim ethnic group that numbers around 6 million across Russia. Furthermore, it may fan the flames of ethnic strife in schools. The claimants had asked that the text be banned, and had asked for compensation for the moral damage they suffered. They promised to appeal and continue their battle in the courts.

The contested schoolbook was first published in 1997. The Moskovsky Komsomolets reached the book’s graphic designer, Nikita Ordinsky. In his words, there was no electronic database of illustrations 11 years ago, as there is now. Images were literally taken from wherever was necessary. Ordinsky could not remember the drawing in question, bus said that it most likely came from a West-European source. He added that is wasn’t a fact that the picture depicts Tataro-Mongols, because Russians were also called Tatars by Western Europeans.

On December 26th, Ekho Moskvy radio reported the board of Russia’s Department of Education and Science met and approved the catalog of textbooks that will be used in the coming two school years. Since Filippov’s text was approved, the books will now be sent to at least five regions for classroom evaluation. At the end of a one-year term, the texts will be officially recommended to schools.

Filippov is the deputy director of the National Center for Foreign Policy, a think tank that has been linked to the Fund for Effective Politics, a political consulting group that lists the President Vladimir Putin as one of its clients. His book has been accused of justifying Stalin’s repressions, and with presenting the events of the last eight years from the position of Kremlin propaganda.

Defenders of the new version have responded that the book has been edited from the original, which is a teacher’s edition and includes conclusions specifically meant for instructors. The publishing house wrote that a controversial chapter titled “Debates about Stalin’s role in history” was removed from the student edition. That chapter listed one of the reasons for mass-repressions as “an ambition to achieve a maximally effective administrative apparatus.” It listed the results of the purges that killed millions of Russians as “the formulation of a new managerial class, up to the task of modernization under conditions of resource shortage.”

The last chapter of the textbook – “Russia’s fresh departure” – represents a shortened and more robust version of a chapter titled “Sovereign democracy,” in the original. This phrase is frequently used by the Putin administration to justify the increasingly strong and authoritarian model of Russian government. The chapter says that Putin’s move to cancel the direct elections of governors was based on “the unpreparedness of the executive branch to deal effectively with crises,” including the terrorist takeover of the Beslan School. The book’s authors explain that the “Yukos affair,” “finally buried the oligarch’s hopes to preserve their control over the Russian government.” The authors underscore the instructional nature of the example set by the oil company’s victimization: “In 2004, after the Yukos affair, federal tax revenues and collections increased at once by 133.8 percent in comparison with 2003.”

Several key agencies took part in the decision to create Russian history and social studies schoolbooks based on the works of Alexander Filippov and another author, Leonid Polyakov. Representatives of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow State University, the Ministry of Education, and the President’s executive council on science, technology and education met to charter the project.

As Polyakov announced, the new textbooks offer a “modern ideology,” and teach how to “foster a civic and patriotic viewpoint in the young person.”

With two new manuals for high school history and social studies teachers, written in part by Kremlin political consultants, Russian authorities are attempting to imbue classroom debate with a nationalist outlook.

The history guide contains a laudatory review of President Vladimir Putin’s years in power. “We see that practically every significant deed is connected with the name and activity of President V.V. Putin,” declares its last chapter. The social studies guide is marked by intense hostility to the United States. . . .

But the United States may be near “final collapse,” according to the manual, because “America can no longer integrate into a single unit or unite into a nation of ‘whites,’ ‘blacks,’ (they are called African-Americans in the language of political correctness) ‘Latinos’ (Latin Americans) and others.” . . .

To historian Nikita Sokolov, the manual is so equivocal on Stalin’s terror that “his crimes are being taken into the shadows.”

“A very dangerous thing is happening,” said Sokolov, co-author of the book “Choosing Your Own History.” They want to take us back to unified thinking. The president and the presidential administration believe we lack the national self-confidence to confront and debate the past.”

We can only wish that the Putin regime would spend its efforts on improving the future of our country instead of trying to alter its past. Rehabilitating Stalin to make Putin’s authoritarian rule look more palatable is reprehensible. Using our nation’s textbooks as just another propaganda tool is another illustration of how Russia’s system of education is being dismantled along with the rest of the country. We await Putin-friendly physics and mathematics books.