As we know, Stalin’s repressions, were condemned still in 1956 by the Communists. Of course, the condemnation was not consistent and profound, but still at that time it was reported that shooting millions of innocent people, and sending them to “Gulag” was not the right policy. Of course, there were and perhaps still are adamant stalinists who believe that the blood of millions of people is the price paid for the economic and military empowerment of the Soviet Union. At least, neither in 1956-1964, nor from 1985 until recently, anybody thought that talking about victims of communist repression contained an “anti-Russian” component.
Why “anti-Russian”, if the Russian people themselves suffered from Bolsheviks’ cannibalism both quantitatively and qualitatively, as the most industrious villagers, the most independent-minded intellectuals were annihilated. Putin’s propaganda, of course, tries to leave the bloody pages of the Bolshevik past out, to justify the totalitarian system, to pretend that the terrible crimes committed over 70 years, are in fact slanders of the West and generally of the enemies of Russia. According to that logic, the purpose of even a simple human compassion toward the people who suffered terribly (including the Russian people), is to weaken Russia. The current Russian leadership, so to say, takes any bitter word addressed to Stalinist totalitarianism on itself.
But all this is the problem of Russian citizens: if they are ready for their brains to be washed in that way, let them swallow these baits. What do we have to do with that? We believe that the Kremlin might be offended that Yerevan is hosting an exhibition, which commemorates the memory of victims of Bolshevik repression. I wonder, whether the Russian Embassy has called them and banned, or we have just figured out that it could cause dissatisfaction in Moscow, as it happened during street renaming discussions. But perhaps it is possible to explain the foreign “commissars” regulating the Armenian processes, that Armenians are our problem, Armenian national figures, who had become the screw of the cannibal system.
In general, the banning of the exhibition in the second decade of the 21st century is in line with our course of last 70 years in the 20th century.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
