The problem is that Russia’s “collective memory” is Stalinist, just as it was Ivan the Terrible-ist, Peter the Great-ist, Catherine the Great-ist, and Leninist before that.
I also don’t share the author’s optimism. Putin may very well succeed in killing the real history and replacing it with the state constructed one.
A lot of beaten-down people just find “stabbed-in-the-back” myths soothing and don’t care if they are lies. Brave ones who could tell them otherwise Putin silences.