© Sputnik / Eugene Odinokov
The order was signed in the final years of perestroika - a policy aimed at transforming the Soviet totalitarian system into a liberal market economy - which ended 16 months later, along with the country itself.
Still, the first (and only) Soviet president, Gorbachev, now 89, told TASS news agency that the achievements of perestroika must be protected from continuous attempts to find justification for the crimes of Stalinism and efforts to "portray criminals as 'efficient managers.'"
In modern Russia, the description of Joseph Stalin as an "efficient manager" has popped up from time to time since the early 2000s in various discussions online and offline.
Calling that approach "unacceptable," Gorbachev urged the Russian leaders of today to "take a firm stance" against such attempts, so no one may justify political repression by saying "that was required at that time."
Comment: Unfortunately, that's the path the weak-minded and heartless tend to take. "You've got to break a few eggs to make an omelet", right? But the omelet is never served. It's possible to be proud of your history without idolizing weak or evil men, and mass atrocities. Those on the far left and far right love doing so however. Maybe it has something to do with this.
Gorbachev, who came to power in 1985 and oversaw the demise of the USSR, signed the decree "On the rehabilitation of all victims of political repressions in the 1920-50s" on August 13, 1990.
The order was necessary because "thousands of cases had been waiting for revision," Gorbachev said. "The state had to, finally, call spade a spade. And it did," he said, pointing out that Soviet authorities during his presidency admitted that the repressions were unlawful, violated human rights, and that the people wrongfully convicted remained stigmatized for the rest of their lives.
In the words of Gorbachev's 1990 decree, "abuse of people's dignity and very life" had continued for decades since 1920s.
Even before Gorbachev's move, between 1987 and 1990 more than one million Soviet citizens had been cleared of accusations made during the Stalin era by courts and various quasi-judicial bodies, such as "troikas" or "special councils," established to convict so-called "enemies of the people," bypassing judicial formalities without delay.
According to the human rights group Memorial, more than 2.6 million people were imprisoned, executed, died in labor camps, were repressed in other ways for political dissent, or fell victim to falsified accusations during the 70 years of Soviet rule. The lion's share of the repression happened during the "Great Purge" from 1937 to 1938.
Though efforts to rehabilitate victims of political repression were undertaken soon after Stalin's death in 1953 by his successor Nikita Khrushchev, they were rolled back when Leonid Brezhnev replaced him in 1964.
Mikhail Gorbachev signed the document just one year before a failed coup by hardliners, which implicitly led to the uncontrolled disintegration of the Soviet Union four months later. He left the Kremlin in December 1991, after the recently-elected leaders of newly independent Russia, Ukraine and Belarus privately canceled the 1922 Union Treaty, thus collapsing the USSR.
Reader Comments
during the Stalin's time more improvements, innovation occurred in the USSR than any nation in history....Merleau-Ponty admired Stalin, so did Ho chi Minh, Mao, the Ostayaks, Evenki, Jews,, A. Harriman etc---as did the Melville scholar H Bruce Franklin (the only tenured professor to be terminated at Stanford)---even Zinoviev admired Stalin despite that he was exiled to Europe by Stalin---where he found everything to be worse than in the USA....Zinoviev wrote 20 years ago: "world domination manifests itself as an intellectual or if u prefer a cultural diktat. this is why the amerikans have so zealously tried to bring down the intellectual and cultural common denominator of the entire world down to their own level. try to convince an amerikan that their values will destroy Russia--u will not be able to"
obviously---amerikans have no values
"amerikans are farcical when it comes to money and force majeure---the 2 things they worship. my country has created 1 art form---the TV advertisement. u should not expect a democracy from a society like this". Gore Vidal
The rest of the book is a fascinating historical revelation also - things about WW2 which we were never taught in school.
Elsewhere in the book, you will discover that Russia's economic miracle was only possible because of help from Western capitalists, who built factories, dams, and much of the Soviet infrastructure for profit. Remember, the Bolshevik Revolution was financed by Jewish bankers from New York, particularly Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb & Company, who sent $22 million dollars, (an immense sum in 1919- equivalent to over $1 billion today,) via banks in Stockholm, to Lenin, to buy arms and feed and clothe his Red armies. That was not charity money - American banks and capitalists expected, and received, generous returns on their investments in the Soviet Union.
MOREOVER: This is even more important!! Czarist Russia, the largest country in the world, (it still is,) was an economic powerhouse. You MUST read this short article, "The Truth About Imperial Russia" which gives you all the facts and figures of how prosperous and wealthy Russia was before 1919:
The truth about imperial Russia
In early 1815, Nathan Rothschild approached Czar Alexander I (1801-25) at the Congress of Vienna with a proposal that he set up a central bank in Russia. Whether it was because he distrusted this...In fact, the Bolshevik Revolution, (which was not a revolution at all - it was a conquest of the ethnic Russian people by hostile foreign-paid armies,) destroyed most of Russia's economic infrastructure and prosperity, and plunged Russia into poverty, in which it was completely dependent on American capitalists and bankers for its survival. There is also a nice video at the bottom of that article which you should watch. History is not what you are told.
That said, the Bolsheviks (Jews who despised Christians, Christianity and White Russians with an incandescent hatred) destroyed 60,000 Russian churches, monasteries and cathedrals in 70 years and murdered their priests, nuns and monks. Stalin was fully supportive of this destruction in his time, and approved of the murders (according to Solzhenitsyn) of 65 million ethnic Russians who died in droves from 1919 to 1989. Since 1990, Russia is the most Christian nation on Earth and has rebuilt 30,000 churches, monasteries and cathedrals - three per day on average - which is why the Zionist media and Zionist-controlled politicians of the West hate Russia so much. They cannot stand that it has escaped their iron-fisted grip and become the last bastion of Western culture.
All of them - from Gorbachev to Putin - not to mention our own corrupt, self-serving, greedy politicians - are indeed idiots who do not understand who their real enemies are, the enemies of the Russian people and the White race in general. Those enemies have declared in writing their intent to utterly and mercilessly destroy White culture and White civilization, in writings spanning 2,500 years, and today they are succeeding brilliantly, but their writings are in Hebrew, which White people outside that evil tribe do not understand, and cannot believe anyone could be so foully hateful and vicious when those writings are translated for them. Stalin was merely a tool, a bit player in that 2,500 year-old effort.