© REUTERS/Alexander Nemenov/PoolRussian President Vladimir Putin with Patriarch Kirill, the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, and former Human Rights Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin attend a ceremony unveiling the country's first national memorial to victims of Soviet-era political repressions called "The Wall of Grief" in downtown Moscow, Russia October 30, 2017.
You might imagine that these strong signals of disapproval of communism would have some effect on how the media represents Putin and the state he leads. For instance, you might imagine headlines like 'Putin condemns Stalinism', or 'Russian state turns it back on communist past', combined with some analysis of how this connects to other similar official condemnations of the Soviet Union. Well, if so you'd be wrong. For the most part, Western media haven't bothered covering the story at all, but let's look at those which have.
Reuters sets the tone with the headline, 'Putin opens monument to Stalin's victims; dissidents cry foul,' and with an opening paragraph declaiming that, 'President Vladimir Putin inaugurated a monument to the victims of Stalinist purges on Monday, but Soviet-era dissidents accused him of cynicism at a time when they say authorities are riding roughshod over civil freedoms.' At the very end of its article, Reuters takes pains to tell us:
Monuments and memorial plaques honoring Stalin have sprung up in different Russian regions. State-approved textbooks have softened his image, and an opinion poll in June crowned him the country's most outstanding historical figure. By contrast, those who have helped document Stalin's crimes, from the Memorial human rights group to individual historians and journalists, have sometimes felt themselves under pressure from the authorities. A group of Soviet-era dissidents published a letter on Monday, accusing Putin of cynicism. 'We ... consider the opening in Moscow of a monument to victims of political repression untimely and cynical,' they said in the letter, published on the Kasparov.ru news portal. 'It's impossible to take part in memorial events organized by the authorities who say they are sorry about victims of the Soviet regime, but in practice continue political repression and crush civil freedoms.'
Comment: The western media will take every opportunity to demonize Putin and by extension, Russia, to maintain the public's perception that they are evil. For more: