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The USSR occupied eastern Europe, calling it ‘liberation’ – Russia is repeating the crime in Ukraine | Sergei Lebedev

In the post-Soviet states, statues can be removed and street names changed. But achieving sovereignty of memory is far harderWe often hear that it is Russia’s inability or unwillingness to deal with the crimes of its past that has led to the restoration of tyranny and the military aggression that we see now. Such a narrative usually focuses only on internal Soviet deeds: forced collectivisation, the Great Terror of the 1930s, the Gulag system and so on. Some of these things were nominally recognised as crimes, but no attempt was made to hold the perpetrators to account. Russia’s perestroika democrats were generally opposed to transitional justice.However, the most politically sensitive Soviet crime is nearly always left out of the discussion. And Russia’s failure to address this particular crime is far more dangerous and affects the fate of many nations. Continue reading...

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