Russia Attacks European Call To Remember Victims of Stalinism

The Russian Parliament has protested against a European resolution calling for a day of remembrance for all victims of Stalinism and Nazism. Russian legislators say the resolution blames Stalin for starting WWII as much as it does Hitler.

This follows a resolution of the 385-member assembly of the Organisation for of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Parliamentary Assembly calling for the commemoration of: ”Victims of Stalinism and Nazism” on August 23 each year. There were eight votes against and four abstentions, Press TV said. On August 23. 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was signed between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia that divided Poland between the two great powers. The document, called the Vilnius Declaration, contains many resolutions including matters such as climate change and tax havens, also includes a ”Resolution on Divided Europe Reunited: Promoting Human Rights and Liberties in the 21st Century.” The resolution also called on member states to: ”Preserve the memory of the victims of mass deportations and exterminations.” Russia, however took exception to the resolution. Russia maintains it ”liberated” Baltic, Central and Eastern European countries, while the countries in question say they merely swapped Nazi oppression for Soviet oppression. Russia Today quoted deputy head of Russian Foreign Ministry’s information department Igor Lyakin-Frolov:

Russia’s parliament has already voiced its assessment of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact back in 1992, and any new measures would be redundant.

Russia’s chief OSCE delegate, Aleksandr Kozlovsky, said the resolution was an: “Insulting anti-Russian attack.” Kozlovsky added:

Those who put Stalinism on the same scale as Nazism are forgetting that the Soviet Union suffered the most casualties and made the biggest contribution to Europe’s liberation from Nazism.

The USSR lost about 10 percent of its population in the war, as did many other countries in the region. Poland, however, lost 25 percent of its population, including practically all its Jews. But not all Russians were in agreement with the official view. Member of the Public Chamber of Russia, TV and radio host Nikolay Svanidze said, comparing Nazi and Soviet crimes:

I don’t see any real differences from a humanitarian point of view. One destroyed people based on their ethnicity, the other – based on their social status. But those differences are, alas, minor. The only significant difference is that Nazism was condemned officially, while Stalinism wasn’t. Not that it makes the latter any better.

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In this drawing by a former GULAG inmate, frozen bodies of victims are thrown out of a train using meat hooks.

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Lithuania and Slovenia, the sponsors of the resolution, have ignored the Russian statements.