Authors

Discussion

During the period of Perestroika in the USSR, along with the policy of Glasnost, which encompassed and promoted freedom of speech and opinion, a massive revision of the Soviet historical past was launched. The main problem discussed here centers around critical debates over the legacy of Stalinism and Leninism.

At its ideological core, Perestroika was based on Leninism and the figure of V. Lenin as some "romantic" concept of “original” socialism to which it was necessary to revert. But, starting in 1988, critical journalism had been increasingly starting to concentrate on exposing and unmasking the figure of the leader of the world revolution—Vladimir Lenin himself. In general, under the criticism of Glasnost, the key ideals of Soviet propaganda had been crumbling to the point of irreparable collapse and no return. 

The surprising thing was a huge number of letters of defense were written precisely in favor of Stalin. But, while protecting him, people did not justify the Stalinist crimes.  On the contrary, they demanded that the crimes of Stalinism had to be recognized but refused to view the whole Stalin era in its entirety as a black streak in Soviet history, belonging to the “erroneous past.”

One of the reasons for the preference of Stalin was grounded in the simple fact that there were, of course, many more people who actually lived under Stalin and were still alive and active in the 1980s. Moreover, the criticism of Lenin, starting later, was planted in the soil of very receptive mass consciousness, which had already been well prepared by a fertile stream of critical publications.

No less important was the question of what the figure of Stalin represented for national identity. While Lenin was still associated with the leadership of the world revolution, which was designed to become global, Stalin formed a specific national and, in many ways, Russian national project of a socialist state.

This work examines how, during the Perestroika reforms, including policies of Glasnost, a struggle arose between the desire to protect Soviet values and commonly shared (official, as a matter of fact) history and reconcile them with the continued reforms. 

Such a departure from reflection, among other things, points at a complex mechanism for protecting self-awareness and identity. According to the theory of cultural memory (including the works of Jan Assmann), such memory forms identity based on a certain interpretation of historical events, which can be either emphasized or ignored depending on current socio-political needs.

Under the conditions of Perestroika, such mechanisms became especially evident when many Soviet citizens sought to preserve their identity, relying on traditional values while simultaneously experiencing pressure from new ideas and reforms. 

The original primary sources used in the research are the letters sent to the CPSU Central Committee.