(Scholars' support for calling Stalin's actions genocide) raise some troubling questions. After all, if Stalin committed genocide, then the individuals who executed, supported, and condoned it must be considered his collaborators. Russians need to ask whether the Russian Federation’s status as successor state to the Soviet Union entails moral responsibility for Stalin’s crimes. Is a formal apology necessary? Might reparations be in order? They also need to ask why and how Russians, and their language, culture, and identity, came to be so deeply implicated in, and supportive of, Soviet institutions of oppression.
Both Russians and non-Russians need to ask who among them pulled the triggers, ran the concentration camps, and starved the peasants. Most post-Soviet states have avoided “lustration” — exposing crimes and barring perpetrators from office — on the grounds that it would be destabilizing. The case for not rocking the boat was plausible when the crime wasn’t genocide. If it is, can silence still be justified?
Communists, Soviet sympathizers, and fellow travelers in Western Europe and the United States need to ask whether they bear some moral responsibility for Stalin’s genocides. They knew of dekulakization, the Holodomor, and the murderous campaigns — and did nothing. Worse, they defended Stalin and the Soviet Union. Are mere mea culpas enough?
Finally, Western policymakers need to explain just how they can justify turning a blind eye to the Kremlin’s rehabilitation of Stalin. Reset buttons and cheap gas are important, of course, but perhaps mass murder masquerading as Armageddon matters, too.
Or should one just forget? Too bad President Peres didn’t say how.
The whole article is well worth reading.
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