http://autumnrain2110.com/blog Autumn Rain 2110 Wed, 05 May 2021 07:38:05 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.0.38 http://autumnrain2110.com/blog/2008/09/09/stalin-the-mass-murdering-rationalist/ http://autumnrain2110.com/blog/2008/09/09/stalin-the-mass-murdering-rationalist/#comments Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:36:22 +0000 http://autumnrain2110.com/blog/2008/09/09/stalin-the-mass-murdering-rationalist/ As the New Russia continues to take shape, the Old Russia’s getting a makeover. Case in point: the latest Russian school textbooks go a long way toward exonerating Stalin for all that pesky mass-murder stuff, emphasizing the work he did to save the Soviet state, and instructing teachers to emphasize that all Stalin’s actions were “entirely rational.” What makes this all the more fascinating is that Prosveshenije, the textbook company that’s released this magnum opus, is the same one that for years had a monopoly on Soviet textbooks: i.e., they’ve got a lot of practice in making the past whatever it is that the present needs it to be.

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