Best 37th

This could well be the result of a survey about the most outstanding year in Russian history.

In the mid-sixties, the need to expose the father of nations and his accomplices was challenged: is it advisable, asked the comrades who came to their senses after the initial shock, to reveal the truth, even if the crimes took place? Doesn't it cost too much, doesn't it harm the unity of the Party and the cohesion of the world revolutionary movement? By inertia, the thaw continued for some time, but the authorities tried not to give a clear assessment of what Iosif Dzhugashvili did to the Russians, Ukrainians, Chechens, Tatars, Jews, Georgians and other peoples of the empire. Those who were interested in how to relate to Stalin, strict uncles, who had appropriate instructions (from the "instance"), answered that this question was complex, ambiguous.

The publication in the early seventies in the west of The Gulag Archipelago produced the effect of an exploding bomb. And what? In the Brezhnev-Chernenkov-Andropov times, the authorities continued to inspire the population that it was not appropriate for them to pray for the "Western" truth, but for their native "truth" they should stand up, lay down their heads and give their souls. From which it followed that the fact of mass repressions should be considered insufficiently proven, and the leaked information about them is nothing more than anti-Soviet propaganda.

In the era of perestroika, the truth was briefly revealed again, but, as in twenty-five years before, the removal of ambiguous relics led to the appearance on the political scene of people who once again declared the inexpediency and harmfulness of revelations. And closer to the mid-nineties, the topic of mass repressions was completely put under an unspoken semi-ban. They said: don't rock the boat.

The policy of silence and concealment of crimes continues today. And, in order to finally powder people's brains, deportations, starvation, extrajudicial executions and many other evidence of massacres are justified, depicting operations to identify and destroy enemies of the people, traitors, saboteurs and spies. Kinks? Yes. Mistakes? Yes. But in general, the decisions were made right, right?

Chaadaev once wrote about the lesson that Russia would have to teach the world. This lesson could indeed have taken place in those wonderful years when fear receded and truth began to emerge. A complete, as far as possible, and honest history of the Stalinist repressions, confirmed by documents and testimonies of still living eyewitnesses, could become a unique and invaluable contribution to the treasury of human knowledge, to what could be called a mournful experience that cannot be repeated anywhere and never. But this lesson has been cancelled.

Why? Because, in the opinion of its saviors, a nation can be saved only by a complete ban on regret and repentance.

By the way, if someone believes that “active measures” in archiving were started not so long ago, then he is mistaken. The beginning, I suppose, was laid when, in the late eighties, the smell of fried and court loomed on the horizon. And in the first months after the putsch, panic reigned in the archives and the work on clearing was carried out in a rush mode. But after a few years, optimization began to be carried out systematically and in a planned manner. Why - it is not clear: after all, for reasons of safety of citizens, access to most of the relevant documents was closed.

The next step, probably, will be the "discovery" of new documents, very similar to authentic ones, but made in a unit that, I suspect, existed under all regimes. Suddenly, some volunteers will dig up some bunker, and in it there will be a secret vault that no one knew about before. Access will be given to everyone, and first of all to Russophobes and falsifiers.

And it turns out that, according to the newly found evidence, there have never been mass repressions:

indeed, as the senior comrades rightly said, they were invented by external and internal enemies to denigrate the glorious history of achievements and victories.