Russian MFA Information and Press Department Commentary in Connection with the Signing by the US President of the Proclamation on Captive Nations Week, 2008
1104-26-07-2008
Last week US President George Bush signed a regular proclamation on the theme of “captive nations,” with which he annually comes up on the basis of a law adopted way back in the Cold War era. Well, it’s business as usual, but this time around one “novelty” has appeared: quite unambiguously the equal sign is put between Nazi fascism and Soviet communism, which are now coupled as a “single evil” of the 20th century.
Whatever the US president’s attitude towards the period of the Soviet Union and communist ideology, which, by the way, have been given an objective assessment in contemporary democratic Russia, free of ideological stereotypes of the past, these American “parallels” don’t hold water, either from the viewpoint of history or in terms of universal human concepts. While condemning the abuse of power and unjustified severity of the Soviet regime's internal policies, we nevertheless can neither treat indifferently attempts to equate Communism and Nazism nor agree that they were inspired by the same ideas and aims.
Historical facts incontestably attest that the USSR contributed decisively to the victory over German fascism. It was thanks to the Soviet Union and the feat of arms and labor of the Soviet people that Europe was saved from the Nazi occupation and enslavement. The memory of this will always live in the hearts of grateful descendants.
The phrase under which the US president signed cannot but hurt the hearts of not only the Russian participants of that war, but also we think of the veterans of the other countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, including American, who shoulder to shoulder fought for the common victory and shed their blood on the battlefields in the name of freedom and the future.
By the way, one cannot but see that such assessments simply feed the efforts of those, who for political and selfish ends are striving to falsify the facts and rewrite history. All this takes place against the backdrop of the surprising tolerance being shown in the United States toward those who in a number of European countries are trying to whitewash “their own” Nazi accomplices.
It is sad that in the new realities of the 21st century the old Cold War for people’s minds is continuing, with the use of dubious methods at that. This is the wrong tack.
