Rehabilitating Repression: Why the Russian authorities closed the Gulag History Museum and are engaged in mass de-rehabilitation of the repressed

The closure of the Gulag History Museum just two weeks after Russia's 30 October Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repressions marks a symbolic and expected step in the ongoing revision of attitudes toward the repressions of the communist regime. This shift has been accelerating in recent years, particularly following the outbreak of war.

In the 2010s, the Kremlin devoted considerable attention to the topic of repression, adopting a Concept for the Perpetuation of Their Memory and supporting the unveiling of a monument in Moscow to victims of repression – a ceremony attended by Vladimir Putin. This approach served as a sort of state-sanctioned alternative to the strategy pursued by the ‘Memorial’ society, which combined research and commemoration of repressions with human rights advocacy. It also appeared to mask early moves by the Kremlin to tighten its political regime.

A new turn in the interpretation of repressions emerged in the early 2020s, when Putin publicly questioned the principle of rehabilitating collaborators from the Great Patriotic War. Around the same time, prosecutors began revisiting cases of individuals who had been rehabilitated for alleged collaboration with occupying forces. After the war began, this activity escalated dramatically: more than 4000 rehabilitations were annulled by the prosecutor's office, and about 300 more were overturned by the courts. Both the courts and prosecutors have adopted practices of classifying these reviewed cases. This campaign aims to signal to society that, alongside unjustified repressions, a significant portion of them were legitimate and represented punishment for 'traitors to the Motherland' and 'enemies of the people/Russia'.

This interpretation of Stalinist repression has been codified in the latest version of the State Policy Concept for Commemorating Victims of Repression, adopted in June 2024. This document emphasises themes of 'betrayal', 'treason', and resistance to harmful and hostile influences, thereby echoing Stalinist ideological frameworks. It explicitly categorises as justly convicted all those who opposed Soviet occupation in the Baltics and western Ukraine – aligning with the wartime ethos. This revision of the concept is effectively aimed at legitimising modern repressive practices.

Just two weeks after Russia's 30 October Day of Remembrance for Victims of Political Repressions, the Moscow Gulag History Museum was closed under the pretext of ‘fire safety violations’. According to Re: Russia, rumours about the museum’s impending closure had long circulated within Moscow’s cultural circles, making the shutdown seem inevitable. Sources from The Moscow Times indicate that the decision was orchestrated by high-ranking Kremlin officials and security services. Although it was officially announced that the museum’s operations are ‘suspended’, it is likely that, if it reopens, its exhibits will be radically altered. The closure marks a logical and symbolic step in the Kremlin’s evolving stance on Soviet-era repressions, a process that has gained momentum in recent years, especially since the onset of war.

The history of the museum mirrors the evolution of Vladimir Putin’s regime – and likely Putin’s personal views – toward political repressions. Unlike Memorial, which combined research and commemoration of repression victims with human rights advocacy, the Gulag History Museum was designed as an exclusively historical institution. Its first director, Anton Antonov-Ovseyenko, was the son of an executed Bolshevik and had fallen out with Memorial’s founders in the 1990s. The museum initially enjoyed robust support from Moscow authorities. In 2014, the museum moved into a large, state-of-the-art building reopened after extensive renovations by Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.

From 2012 to 2017, during Putin’s third presidential term, the Kremlin devoted significant – if surprising – attention to Soviet political repressions. In 2015, the Concept of State Policy to Commemorate the Victims of Repression was developed, and in 2017, Putin himself unveiled the Wall of Grief – a monument to repression victims in Moscow. At the ceremony, Putin called the political repressions of the USSR a 'brutal blow to our people', whose effects are still felt today, stating unequivocally that 'there can be no justification for these crimes' and stressing the importance of remembering the victims.

At this stage, repression was portrayed strictly as a historical phenomenon, carefully distanced from the present. The state’s commemorative policy appeared to serve as a counterweight to independent human rights and memorial initiatives, such as Memorial and the Sakharov Center, established in the 1990s. However, this approach also created ambiguity about the Kremlin’s early steps toward tightening political control. For example, in 2012, the term 'foreign agent' was introduced into Russian legislation, and in 2013, the Ministry of Justice sought to designate Memorial’s human rights wing as such. Throughout the 2010s, pressure on the organisation steadily increased alongside the Kremlin’s efforts to 'commemorate memory'. The contrast between 'human rights' and purely 'memorial' interpretations of repression was evident in the fact that, while many human rights organisations were forcibly closed around the start of the war, the Gulag Museum was left untouched – until now.

The museum's closure reflects a new phase in the Kremlin's evolving views on the role of political terror in Russian and Soviet history. The first public sign of this shift came when Putin criticised errors in Memorial’s database, where collaborators from Nazi-occupied Latvia were listed as repression victims. Two years later, the prosecutor's office even brought a case against Memorial employees under a law banning the 'rehabilitation of Nazism'. While this move justified law enforcement actions against Memorial, its implications were far broader.

In reality, the review of cases involving 'collaborators' began as early as 2020. Previous rehabilitation efforts were based on the understanding that Stalin’s definition of collaboration was excessively broad and that convictions were often secured through extrajudicial processes. Revisiting this approach has led to significant changes: over the past five years, the prosecutor's office succeeded in overturning or denying rehabilitation for more than 250 individuals through Russia's sole military cassation court in Novosibirsk. According to a BBC investigation this process peaked in 2023, with 120 cases resulting in annulled or denied rehabilitations. Most of these cases pertained to charges of 'treason against the Motherland' under Soviet law. However, journalists also uncovered instances where court records cited modern Criminal Code articles, such as 'state treason' and 'confidential cooperation', the latter introduced only in 2022. Notably, decisions on revisiting the rehabilitation status of individuals remain unpublished, and in half of the cases, even the names of the accused – some of whom were executed – are classified.

Moreover, the review of the cases of the rehabilitated is also handled by ordinary courts of cassation, which control the decisions of non-military courts. The BBC managed to find at least 40 cases of the repressed on the websites of five of the nine such courts. However, the most extensive reviews have occurred extrajudicially. When rehabilitation is processed extrajudicially, the prosecutor’s office is empowered to independently revoke it. According to department officials, since mid-2022, prosecutors have annulled over 4000 rehabilitation decisions.

The scale of this campaign, involving numerous prosecutors, suggests that the directive comes from the highest levels of government, likely directly from President Putin. The secrecy surrounding these decisions indicates that the campaign is less about uncovering historical truths and more about promoting a new narrative of Soviet repressions. This narrative seeks to portray some repressions as 'blows to the people' while framing others as necessary state actions – just punishments for 'traitors' and 'collaborators'. Such an interpretation aligns with the wartime rhetoric and the current campaign against 'traitors to the Motherland', saboteurs, and internal enemies.

This revised interpretation of Stalinist repressions is clearly reflected in the new version of the State Policy Concept for the Commemoration of Repression Victims, adopted in June 2024. The previous concept, introduced in 2015, was initially set to last until 2024. However, Russian authorities extended its scope, transforming it into a tool for revising perspectives on repressions.

The differences between the text of the old and new concepts were analysed in detail by Boris Vishnevsky, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg, who has since been stripped of his powers, in an article for Novaya Gazeta. According to Vishnevsky, the preamble of the updated document systematically removes specifics and clarity, omitting many key aspects of Soviet-era terror. For example, the new version eliminates the phrase from the original preamble stating that 'Russia cannot fully become a rule-of-law state... without commemorating the many millions of its citizens who became victims of political repressions'. Mentions of the scale and mass nature of repressions have also disappeared from other sections of the document. The updated text no longer references repressions against religious groups, forced collectivisation, or the resulting famine. Similarly, it omits mention of legislative acts that expanded the definition of repressions to cover the entire Soviet period.

The new version of the State Policy Concept for Commemoration of Repression Victims explicitly states that the September 17, 1955 decree by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, 'On Amnesty for Soviet Citizens Who Collaborated with the Occupiers During the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945', declared a general amnesty. This decree, according to the document, 'subsequently led to the rehabilitation based on formal criteria and the exoneration of Nazi collaborators and traitors to the Motherland, including those who served in punitive Baltic, Ukrainian, and other units formed on ethnic grounds, as well as participants in nationalist underground and bandit formations'. By this logic, the grounds for de-rehabilitating individuals extend to those who resisted Soviet occupation in the Baltic states and Western Ukraine – a stance that aligns seamlessly with the current campaign against ‘Banderites’.

In addition, the preamble now includes references to 'the national interests of the Russian Federation', mentions of 'developing a secure information space', 'protecting Russian society from destructive informational and psychological influences', and 'strengthening traditional Russian spiritual and moral values'. This language mirrors the ideological justifications currently employed by the authorities to legitimise ongoing repressions.

This reinterpretation of Stalinist repressions partially echoes the Brezhnev-era concept of repressions as 'excesses.' However, the new narrative places far greater emphasis on themes of 'treason,' 'betrayal of the Motherland,' hidden 'hostile elements,' collaboration with foreign adversaries, and countering threats to 'territorial integrity' – the latter encompassing the integration of occupied territories. As a result, the conceptual framework of Stalinism is being revived, transforming the State Policy Concept into a tool for legitimising contemporary repression rather than commemorating their victims.