Paul Goble
Staunton,
June 2 – Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it, the philosopher
said, while those who remember it can perhaps draw lessons from it and avoid tragedies
in the future; and thus it is indicative of the future of Russia and Ukraine
that the former has gutted a museum devoted to the GULAG while the latter is
getting ready to open one on totalitarianism.
The
travails of the Perm-36 museum, the only museum in Russia devoted to the GULAG
organized by society but taken over by the state two years ago and transformed
from a memorial to Stalin’s victims into a celebration of him and their jailors
has a long history. (See windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2015/03/moscow-closed-gulag-museum-because-it.html.)
But
now things have taken a turn for the worse there. Many of the museum staff have
resigned, and at the end of May, one of their number, Grigory Sarancha, the
former deputy director, gave an interview about their reasons, an interview Boris
Sokolov summarizes (zwezda.perm.ru/newspaper/?pub=17767
and day.kyiv.ua/ru/article/mirovye-diskussii/sideli-pravilno).
One
of the events which pushed them to resign, Sarancha says, was “the publication
on the museum’s website on the Day of Cosmonautics, April 12, or an article about
the effectiveness of Soviet ‘sharashkas’ where [scientists] condemned for
political reasons worked” on projects for the state.
The
moving force behind this approach, he continues, was the Stalinist movement, “The
Essence of Times,” which is headed by the notorious political commentator
Sergey Kurginyan. But the situation is now even worse: the museum’s site not
notes the birthday of “’the great government worker of the Soviet Union,
Comrade Abakumov.’”
It is
thus likely that other Soviet secret police chiefs like Yagoda, Yezhov and
Beria will be given the same treatment.
One can
only imagine, Sokolov observes, how the world would react “if something similar
took place at the museum in Auschwitz! And what would happen with the
leadership of the museum! But in Russia not only did no one think about
removing him but rather praised him for good work.”
“In
general,” he continues, the current attitude of the Russian powers that be to
the theme of Stalinist repressions somehow recalls the attitude toward them in
the times of Khrushchev … Then Soviet publicists widely discussed the theme of
illegally repressed communists who in the camps organized underground party
organizations, conducted secret party meetings, and even paid their party dues.”
According
to Sokolov, “Putin and his comrades in arms are even prepared to condemn
Stalinist repressions, but not Stalin himself who was the builder of the
empire.” But they go even further, they profess to see in the Soviet dictator’s
punitive system “something positive,” which they define as anything that worked
to the benefit of the Russian state.
Thus,
“from Putin’s point of view, “it is completely possible top raise the main
heads of the GULAG even while not denying their crimes.” Thus, Abakumov is
presented not only as someone who brutalized and killed inmates but also
established SMERSH, something the Putin regime celebrates as “one of the most
effective special services in the world.”
And
for the Kremlin leader, Sokolov suggests, Beria will be treated not only as the
man who executed Polish officers at Katyn but who was “a very effective manager
[who] created the atomic and hydrogen bombs.”
The notorious Yezhov can expect to get the same treatment and be praised
for his work in setting up the communist party’s internal control system.
The
situation in Ukraine is very different as a Kyiv press conference yesterday
showed. There officials and activists shared
their plans for creating a museum of totalitarianism on the lines of those in
Hungary, Bulgaria, and Lithuania in which all the Soviet statues now being
taken down could be placed (qha.com.ua/ru/kultura-iskusstvo/gde-v-kieve-budet-muzei-totalitarizma/160378/).
Vladimir
Kadygrov, an art manager and activist, said that such a museum will serve three
purposes: to support patriotic Ukrainians who want to know about their past, to
mollify “retrogrades” by saving the statues rather than simply destroying them,
and everyone by providing a new park in which Kyivans can relax.
Vladimir
Vyatrovich, the head of the Ukrainian National Institute of Memory, stressed,
however, that he would not want to see the future museum of totalitarianism
become simply a place for “stone idols.”
It must be a base for research and education so that the lessons of
totalitarianism will be learned and transmitted to new generations.
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