Український незалежний центр політичних досліджень
UkrainianCenter for Independent Political Research
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Research Update. Vol. 15, № 15/575, 13 May 2009
History as a Political Weapon
By Diana Dutsyk, UCIPR political observer
"The main common feature of communism and Nazism is that they both believe they have the right and even the duty to kill and kill in similar manners and on the scales unheard-of in history,” said French historian Alain Besancon, who visited Ukraine last year to present his book "The Trouble of the Century: about Communism, Nazism and Uniqueness of the Holocaust”in the Ukrainian translation. The author guesses despite A. Besancon is not a citizen of any post-Soviet state, he risks to become a persona non grata in Russia (like many other sovietologists) and his book may be prohibited, if the State Duma passes the recently presented bill “On Counteracting the Rehabilitation of Nazism, Nazi Criminals and Their Accomplices in New Independent States on the Territory of the Former USSR”. This may happen just because comparing Nazism and communism, A. Besancon reconsidered the role of the Soviet Union in the WWII.
The Bill, Its Ideologists and Ideological Grounds
The draft federal law “On Counteracting the Rehabilitation of Nazism, Nazi Criminals and Their Accomplices in New Independent States on the Territory of the Former USSR” was suggested by the United Russia Party.The document is dedicated not to the fight against extreme groups (like neo Nazis and others) or other practices of Nazism. It deals with the history and its interpretation.
The Task Force on its drafting was set up on 11 December, 2008 in the State Duma Committee for the CIS Affairs and Contacts with Compatriots and was headed by no one else but Konstantin Zatulin.
Tough, the public attention to this issue was drawn only after statements by Russian Emergency Situations Minister Sergey Shoigu disseminated by the Russian media. Specifically, at the meeting with veterans in the Stalingrad Battle museum in February 2009, he put forward an initiative to pass a law on criminal responsibility for the denial of the role of the USSR in the victory over fascism. S. Shoigu said, “Since the results of the Great Patriotic War, services and feats of the whole Soviet people are denied on the post-Soviet space”, the adoption of this law will allow “to defend our history, heroic deeds of our fathers and grand fathers.” "Then presidents of some states that deny this would not be able to arrive in our country with impunity. And mayors of some cities would think twice before demolishing monuments,” the Minister added. A hint at Ukraine and the Baltic States was obvious for all.
The respective bill was submitted at a specially organized roundtable in late April 2009. One can (and even must) find it on . One must read it because the bill concerns not only Russian citizens but also (even first of all) citizens of other countries. According to Section 1, its main goal, except for counteracting attempts to revise verdicts of the Nuremberg Tribunal, is “to counteract the rehabilitation of Nazism, Nazi criminals and their accomplices in new independent states on the territory of the former USSR” and “to resist the desecration of memory about victims suffered during the Great patriotic War.”On the eve of 9 May, Russian politicians often appeal to such expressions as “to defile memory”, “to defend the history” etc. Even delivering a greeting address to President of Ukraine Victor Yushchenko on the occasion of the Victory Day, President of the RF Dmitry Medvedev believed it necessary to stress this problem once again and said, "I am sure the Ukrainian and Russian peoples will always keep memory about the Great Victory and resist any efforts to rewrite and distort our shared history.” One can read between the lines of the bill or the above numerous statements that Ukraine’s efforts to know better its own history, inclusive that of such organizations as the OUN-UPAand such figures as Stepan Bandera and Roman Shukhevych, will clash with an aggressive response of Russia.
Yet, if the bill is passed, Russia might not restrict itself to political statements. The document provides that while arriving in Russia, citizens, who violate this law (in simple words, those, who will think members of the OUN-UPA fought for Ukraine’s liberation from both fascist and Soviet occupants – and this is just one of the examples), will be deprived of liberty for the period from 3 to 5 years; some politicians may be declared personas non grata. And if a country supports its citizen violators, Russia reserves the right to call a policy of such a country “unfriendly towards the Russian Federation” and, as a result, to decrease the level of diplomatic relations or to completely break them down, "to fully or partly cease rail, maritime, air, postal, telegraphic, radio and other means of communication” followed by the use of economic sanctions, applications to the UN and others.
To learn who from foreign citizens think differently than Russia, the latter is going to carry out monitoring and to take preventive actions, which will help it detect facts of “the rehabilitation of Nazism, Nazi criminals and their accomplices”. Under the bill, monitoring means the collection, analysis and evaluation of information on such facts, research activity, preventive measures, education and information means. Monitoring and preventive actions shall be carried out not only on Russia’s territory but also on the territory of the former USSR countries, including Ukraine, which implies more intensive work of various existing Russian centers and public organizations as well as the establishment of new ones.The bill contains restrictions concerning the media and even scientific institutions – they could be liquidated if they violate this law.
At first, the bill was supposed to be approved at the first reading before 9 May but then its formulators changed their plans. Konstantin Zatulin stated "though the issue of counteracting the rehabilitation of Nazism and its accomplices is very acute on the eve of 9 May”, the Task Force will not be in a hurry and is going to complete the work over the document until the end of the Duma session, i.e. till June. This apparently may be timed to the other not less significant date, 22 June.Conversely, on 6 May, another bill was submitted to the State Duma for consideration, which introduced an additional article to the international Section of the Criminal Code of the RF providing for criminal responsibility for the denial of merits of the Soviet people in the victory in the WWII. Authors of the first and second bills did not care about arguments of some experts concerning the availability of the national and international legislation prohibiting Nazism. They cared about something else. K. Zatulin clearly explained what exactly mattered,"In Ukraine, Latvia and Estonia and in Russia, there are tricks we cannot accept.” Though, K. Zatulin deems unlike in Russia, in the countries of the former USSR, the rehabilitation of Nazism and heroization of Nazi accomplices represent “an element of government policy”. The politician says this is the reason why Russia as a successor of the USSR has to create respective tools for adequate response. K. Zatulin does not view it as an encroachment on the sovereignty and independence of states. He is certain, "There are things more important than the official recognition of someone’s sovereignty.” Of course, there are. And Russia’s interests always were these “more important things”.
Russians Support the Bill
Russian sociologists point out that Russians see nothing wrong with the adoption of the above bills.According to results of the opinion poll conducted by the RussianPublicOpinionResearchCenter in April 2009, 60% of Russians support the idea to institute criminal responsibility for the denial of the USSR’s victory in the WWII. Also, Russians are unanimous enough about the results of the Great War of 1941-45: 77% of pollsters believe the Soviet Army liberated Eastern European countries from fascist occupation and gave them an opportunity to live and prosper. Only 11% (as a rule, these are young and highly educated respondents, who live in Moscow and St. Petersburg) are convinced the USSR imposed a pro-communist regime there, having actually deprived these countries of independence.
Some Russian Experts Are against It
Unlike common Russian citizens, some Russian experts rather critically evaluate the bill on counteracting the rehabilitation of Nazism. Aleksandr Verkhovsky, who represents the Sova Information and Analytical Center (the Center monitors radical nationalistic actions, combats them, holds public discussionson these issues and pays intention to illegitimate steps in the framework of counteracting extremism), is convinced this is a “dubious anti-Nazi bill”.Comments posted on the Center’s web site ( read, "This bill is geared mostly against activities of other post-Soviet states or individual organizations and citizens of these states that can be interpreted as the rehabilitation of Nazism.” Aleksandr Verkhovsky also stresses this document is not unambiguously positive for Russia as “the bill suggest to restrict the freedom of speech motivating this by anti-Nazi emotions but in reality it creates prohibitions, including those on expressions, which even under the law in force are not interpreted as such that incite hatred towards this or that group of people."This poses a threat to some media and NGOs to be simply liquidated.
In his article “The Law without Boundaries” (28.04.2009, editor-in-chief of the Apology journal, observer of the Mayak radio station and the grani.ru site and Candidate of History Dmitry Shusharin also writes about “internal” risks for Russia. He thinks the entering of the law in force will entail a danger "to posthumously condemn many writers and historians” and given the existing legal practice in the country “the law can do anything”. D. Shusharin calls such the law not legal but propagandisticsince"its objective is to make Nazism equal to national self-determination in the countries of the former USSR and to implant this thesis in the mass consciousness.And with regard to the fact that processes on the post-Soviet space are suppressed by the Russian media and are not studied by our expert environment, this bill is a part of the picture of the world, which serves as a basis for Russia’s foreign and domestic policy.”
Russian historian Yuriy Afanasiev attempted to explain motives of Russian power. In an interview to the Russian Service of the Svoboda Radio ( emphasized all former republics of the USSR form their national history, which is somewhat different from Russia’s vision. “Though this is very terrible because this another vision of our shared history allegedly casts doubt on the most essential and important interpretations, evaluations and stories of the history of Russia, the history of the Soviet Union,” the Professor says.In his viewpoint, that is why Russian authorities want to say with the above law, “This is what efforts to live another, not Russian, way mean. These efforts will trigger respective responses and sanctions and not only economic and political but also military ones, if necessary, up to the breakdown of this very hostile environment.”
Yuriy Afanasiev draws attention to the fact that the concept of the Great Patriotic War actively supported and applied by Russian authorities at a variety of levels is the one developed as long ago as under Stalin. This is why Russian politicians get so irritated, when someone tries to compare Hitler and Stalin.
About Servility and Ukrainian Politics
Servility of some Ukrainian politicians towards the “older brother” is manifested not only in political statements. In mid-January 2009, MP from the Party of Regions Vadym Kolesnychenko presented the Verkhovna Rada with the bill No. 3618 “On the Rehabilitation and Heroization of Fascist Collaborationists of 1933-1945". The author of the bill attributed members of the OUN, UPA, Poliska Sich Ukrainian Rebellious Army (of Taras Bulba-Borovets), Ukrainian People’s Revolutionary Army, Ukrainian Main Liberation Council, Nachtigall and Roland battalions, SS Halychyna (Galizien) Division, UNA, Ukrainian Liberation Army and others to fascist collaborationists. The document provides for responsibility for the rehabilitation, heroization and propaganda of the above formations in the form of the deprivation of liberty from 5 years to life imprisonment.
Furthermore, just in mid-April when Russians started actively propagate their bill, the Verkhovna Rada Justice Committee decided to forward Kolesnychenko’s bill to the Council of Europe and the Venice Commission to study it and to make conclusions. This clearly coincides with the concept of Russian foreign policy because only in late 2008, in the UN Security Council, Russia prioritized for 2009 the adoption of a resolution condemning any forms of heroization of former Nazis (see are Nazis for Russia has been mentioned above. Though, it is unclear whether Europe will reconsider its attitude to this issue (because the Nuremberg trial has seeminglydoted one's i's and crossed one's t's). At the voting in the Committee of the UN General Assembly, the USA was against the draft resolution and 57 countries abstained, inclusive of 27 EU Member States. Official Kyiv would rather develop serious arguments on this irritating issue, which it lacks now. In this case, silence is not the best way out of the situation.
How One Can Manipulate the Terms “Nazism”, “Fascism” and “Nationalism”
The author would like to start with the latest fact. Leader of the LDPR in the State Duma of the RF Igor Lebedev voiced concern over the legitimacy of the jury’s decision to nominate a Ukrainian citizen for the Eurovision-2009 as a representative of Russia. The Regnum News Agency quoted him as saying (11.03.2009), "The point is not that she is a citizen of another country though even this very fact is offensive for our voters. The point is that she is famous for her extreme right-wing views, which she repeatedly stated in the media.” Moreover, I. Lebedev instructed the Duma Committee for Cultural Affairs to inquire information on the legitimacy of the above decision, which, according to him "directly erodes Russia’s prestige”.
There is another latest fact. On the night of 24-25 April, two Moscow bookshops from the Book Supermarket network were set on fire. Their owner Konstantin Klimashenko said this was done to make him to refuse the sale of Russian-language literature, especially books by Oles Buzyna. O. Buzyna immediately replied the arson of bookshops is the manifestation of Nazism. Director of the Ukrainian branch of the Institute of CIS Countries Vladimir Kornilov shared the above opinion and the Russian media immediately picked it up. I can only agree with the position of Sergey Rudenko voiced in him column in the Left Bank newspaper, "The story with the Book Supermarket evidenced law-enforcement agencies unfortunately cannot quickly respond to such incidents. And this means political speculators have a lot of tricks for provocations.”
And, finally, the author would like to remind some recent facts. Once, manipulations with the terms “Nazism” and “fascism” in Ukraine ended with political repressions for participants in the action “Ukraine without Kuchma!”. They were officially compared with fascists (by the way, a notorious statement was signed not only by Leonid Kuchma and Ivan Plushch but also by then PM Victor Yushchenko, for which he constantly made excuses). The Ukrainian media also actively disseminated information that participants in the action “Ukraine without Kuchma!” are fascists. Specifically, on 21 April, 2001, the Facts newspaper published the large article titled “The More Terrible the Lie Is, the Sooner It Is Believed” and subtitled “A War Is Waged in Ukraine According to Goebbels’s Recipes”.The article read,"Bow-legged devil’s lawyer Goebbels rises from the coffin to orchestrate actions of contemporary fighters for “Ukraine without Kuchma.” It started as follows, "Crazy crowd under red-black flags with crosses resembling swastika, whistling sharpened rods, thrown stones, split blood, and aggression that captured the crowd that threateningly presses.” The most cynical in this article was the comparison of Heorgiy Gongadze with Horst Wessel, a hero of the Nazi movement.
As a matter of fact, these are not all examples. Also, there was a provocation with the “Hitler’s doll” and others. Yet, such provocations would be impossible if the Ukrainian society attempted to find consensus, by means of discussion, on its own vision of these evidently tragic historical events. Objective rethinking of their history will give Ukrainians more confidence and make external manipulations impossible.