The Russian defense ministry said today that an article which was put on its site a few days ago and which has sparked outrage among some Russian commentators with its suggestion that Poland was to blame for the start of World War II “must not be considered the official point of view of the Ministry of Defense.”
In a statement to journalists, the ministry’s press service said that the article, “Inventions and Falsifications in the Assessment of the Role of the USSR on the Eve and at the Start of World War II” by Col. Sergey Kovalev of the ministry’s Institute of Military History, was only for discussion (http://www.mil.ru/info/1069/details/...shtml?id=63460).
Indeed, Sukhov says, Kovalev’s argument fits in with the pattern of “hysteria” in certain Russian quarters about the removal of the Soviet war memorial from the center of Tallinn, even as Russian companies move similar monuments in Russia itself in order to make “selfish” profits from the real estate beneath them.
And the military writer’s argument also fits with the notion, now enshrined in a Russian history textbook “according to which Joseph Stalin was ‘an effective manager.’” According to Sukhov, texts like Kovalev’s suggest that the time may come when some in Russia will decide to describe Adolf Hitler as “’an effective manager’” too.
http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/...distances.html