VOL. XVI (2010), NO 23 - The International Newsletter of Communist ...

The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online XVI (2010), no. 23 288
repression, President Medvedev held a new speech on his blog, calling for remembrance of
the victims of Stalin's terror. He explicitly condemned not only the "falsifications" of the
results of WWII, but also justifications of Stalinist terror, and repudiated the popular thesis of
the human losses by terror and repression being justified by the country's progress. 8 It is not
yet forseeable how this statement of the nominal head of state will affect Russian historical
policy, yet it already seemed to have brought Prime Minister Vladimir Putin under pressure to
act: during a question time on 3 December 2009, he considered Stalin's repressions
inacceptable, eventhough he explicitely abstained from passing a judgement on the dictator. 9
8 Dmitrii Medvedev: Pamiat' o natsional'nykh tragediiakh tak zhe sviashchenna, kak pamiat' o pobedakh",
blog.kremlin.ru, 30.10.2009, [last consulted: 5.12.2009].
9 "Putin otkazalsia odnoznachno otsenivat' Stalina", Lenta.ru, 3.12.2009,
[last consulted: 5.12.2009].