Russian president says commemorate WWII, but don't venerate mass-murderer Stalin and his henchmen

(HeraldScotland) -- Kremlin chief Dmitry Medvedev has urged young Russians to remember the victims Josef Stalin’s purges and warned them against attempts to “rehabilitate those responsible for exterminating their own people.” Medvedev said the was concerned that the majority of younger Russians could not name a victim of Stalin’s brutal regime. His comments, on the day Russia honours the victims of Soviet repression, come amid what rights campaigners see as a creeping attempt by some politicians to whitewash the legacy of the Soviet Union’s most feared dictator...

Recent Russian teachers’ manuals have described Stalin as an effective manager who acted rationally in conducting a campaign of terror to modernise the Soviet Union. Historians say such a view of Stalin ignores the millions of innocent people who either perished or had their lives torn apart under his rule. In recent years, Russia has been especially angered by what it sees as attempts by foreign politicians to denigrate the Soviet Union’s massive sacrifices in defeating Nazi Germany in what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War. But Medvedev said that Russians should also beware of attempts to revise the history of repression. “We pay much attention to fighting the falsification of our history,” Medvedev said. “For some reason we often think that this is all about resisting attempts to review the results of the Great Patriotic War.”...Cont'd...LINK