Overcoming the Totalitarian Past

Foreign Experience and Russian Problems

Author(s): Galina Mikhaleva
Editor(s): Stephen Aris, Matthias Neumann, Robert Orttung, Jeronim Perovic, Heiko Pleines, Hans-Henning Schröder
Series: Russian Analytical Digest (RAD)
Issue: 72
Pages: 16-19
Publisher(s): Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich; Research Centre for East European Studies, University of Bremen
Publication Year: 2010

Russia's leaders are looking to the country's history to find ways to justify renewed imperial ambitions. While a study of foreign experience shows that there are numerous ways for a country to deal with its totalitarian past, the problem is complicated in the post-Communist context because politicians seek to use history as a tool for their own purposes. The YABLOKO party recently adopted a resolution dealing with the uses of history to stimulate democratic transition, but it so far has had no impact on Russian society

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