Posted on 06/08/2018 10:14:31 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Russian officials are reportedly destroying the records of gulag prisoners under a secret order passed in 2014, Russian media have reported.
An estimated 3-12 million victims of Soviet repression were imprisoned in the gulag network of prisons and forced labor camps in the former Soviet Union. Registration records kept by the Museum of the History of the Gulag, now threatened with destruction, include the permanent records of those killed, as well as archival files detailing those who survived the gulag and when they were released.
A 2014 inter-agency order labeled “for internal use” instructs files to be destroyed once the former prisoner reaches the age of 80, Russia’s Kommersant business daily cited a regional police official as saying Friday.
“This information is forgotten once it’s destroyed,” gulag historian Sergei Prudovsky, who revealed the practice, was quoted as saying.
The internal order was signed by 11 Russian state agencies, including the KGB’s successor agency, the FSB, the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), the Interior Ministry, Justice Ministry, and the General Prosecutor’s Office, Kommersant reported.
Gulag Museum director Roman Romanov asked presidential Human Rights Council head Mikhail Fedotov to prevent the destruction of records that he argues could curb research into the history of Soviet political repression.
Fedotov promised to “always defend keeping archive materials that contain highly important historical information” as a way to “counter the falsification of history.”
“But when there’s no document, you can make up anything you want,” he warned.
(Excerpt) Read more at themoscowtimes.com ...
A must read for everyone. Colleges should require it.
IIRC, Solzhenitsyn is actually now required reading in Russian schools.
Putin has to walk a fine line in that many in Russia supported the Bolsheviks, and probably just as many supported the Tsars. I think Putin tries to be as neutral towards Russian history as he can. And many of the institutions the Bolsheviks implemented really were just holdovers from the days of the Tsars. Stalin is venerated not as a Communist, but as an almost “Ivan the Terrible” character, who may have done some bad things, but made Russia stronger all the same.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like where men were free. ~ Ronald Reagan
I’m actually more concerned with the bloody and brutal social experiments of the 21st century and the people in the here and now affected by them. And I could not help noticing that the people conducting this reign of terror have a particular fetish for making up anti-Russia propaganda.
How exactly are Gulag historians conducting a reign of terror? Why is it so bad that future Russian generations may take an interest in the fate of their imprisoned ancestors? Please explain.
When did you stop beating your wife?
Be serious or GTFO. Everyone’s tired of the usual anti-Russian antics by the usual suspects.
For the left, the lie is the master.
So true. Leftist President Franklin D. Roosevelt enabled much of this during our fight against the Nazis in WWII. He famously referred to Stalin as "Uncle Joe" if I am not mistaken.
The shortsighted defense of our military tactics had some long range implications. I plan to view the propaganda film "Mission to Moscow" in the coming days. It was one of the narratives responsible for toning down Americans' understanding of the Soviet government during WWII. It defended Stalin's purges and terrors as justified in the effort to destroy Nazi spies, etc...
History repeats itself today when people defend Putin's Stalin-esque actions against Georiga and Ukraine. In Syria, both Mattis and Pompeo agree that Russia has "helped little" in the fight against ISIS and cares only for propping up Assad. And Putin regime silences (and murders) domestic critics and journalists they deem inconvenient.
An estimated 3-12 million victims of Soviet repression were imprisoned in the gulag network of prisons and forced labor camps in the former Soviet Union.
That number is already too small by tens of millions. Not all of the 40 or more millions slaughtered by order of Stalin died in the gulag; OTOH, the gulag was used to recruit "volunteers" during the early phases of WWII. Sergei Korolev, one of their great aerospace leaders in the postwar period, was in prison when the Third Reich invaded.
Thanks CondoleezzaProtege.
Modern history ping.
Happens in the US, too. Hillary’s Bleach Bit, Imran Awan’s server is missing.
“I was talking to a twenty three year-old nurse two days ago, and she had absolutely no idea what D-Day was and It’s importance in Our history. Sad to say the least.”
Around 25 years ago I was talking to 3 middle school teachers and asked them what the single most important event of the 20th century was.
Their answers were all very pc such as the civil rights movement and such.
One did mention the atomic bomb.
I asked them if they thought WWII should make the list. After all England lost it’s empire, Germany was divided, Japan was conquered and occupied for the first time in it’s history, most of the worlds major economies were in ruins, the US and USSR became the sole super powers, etc.
They looked at me with blank faces until one finally said “but that was so long ago”.
That was 25 years ago. I can’t imagine how ignorant the teachers are now.
Sad indeed.
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